Elections in Germany

[KDR_11k]

Bleh, a conservative-liberal victory. Probably still an improvement over having the two major parties govern together, they tend to hate freedom while all the smaller parties frown on security fanaticism so the smaller parties need to be part of the governing coalition to rule that shit in somewhat.

[Master-Athmos]

Or in other words:

- The same procedure as last year?
- The same procedure as the 4 last years James!

[Caydr]

Conservative.... liberal.

Liberal... conservative.

[Neddie]

Liberals and conservatives in the US are merely analogous to left and right wing classic liberals from the European tradition, it isn't hard to imagine a coalition party with their shared shortcomings.

[Caydr]

They have the same problem CA does: they need to come up with a name that isn't a paradox.

[Spawn_Retard]

really, who ever gets to power, your still going to have filtered internet, banned movies and games, and just general laughing stock :D

[KDR_11k]

Conservative.... liberal.

Liberal... conservative.

I don't know why Americans consider those so different. Liberals are pro-big-business and conservatives are pro-big-business.

[Neddie]

He's Canadian. In the United States, the business aspect is entirely ignored - there is no coherent tradition of anti-big business present, though there are some regions of resistance - see the Dakotas. Since business isn't part of the equation it becomes a distinction based on social policy and levels of government intervention/government functionality. If these are the primary distinctions between visible parties, then they become, de facto, "serious" differences to the public eye.

[SeanHeron]

I agree with KDR, the elected constellation is not what I was hoping for...

But on the original tangent, I have a quiz question for you: The percentage of votes for "other parties" (ie those that didn't win a seat) went up by 2 percent (from ~4% to 6%). Now guess how many percent the pirate party got :D ?!

@Bob: Ich kann auch auf deutsch schreiben - das lehne ich ├╝berhaupt nicht ab . Ich dachte nur es ist vielleicht f├╝r die anderen auch interessant - schlie├ƒlich h├Âre ich selbst gern mal etwas ├╝ber die Politik eines anderen Landes. Vorallem h├ñt ichs unh├Âflich gefunden hier einfach auf deutsch zu posten...

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the US Democratic party (ie the liberals, yes ?) are probably a good bit closer to for example the Social democrats party in Germany - or the labour party in England - than they are to the conservatives in any of those countries. That's my impression from afar anyway.
So I wouldn't equate "liberals" as in the German Free Democratic party (FDP) or the UK liberal democrats to the American "liberals".

[Neddie]

I didn't mean to imply the "liberals" and "conservatives" of the United States were politically analogous to particular European parties, I was referring to their common grounds in the European liberal philosophical tradition from whence most modern economic and political perspectives derive. True conservatism derives from philosophical traditionalism... royalists appealing to natural order, Luddite structuralists, any Catholic or Orthodox political party. American conservatism is just accelerated right-wing liberalism, with the twist that it advocates a structurally infeasible and impotent government.

[tombom]

True conservatism derives from philosophical traditionalism... royalists appealing to natural order, Luddite structuralists, any Catholic or Orthodox political party. American conservatism is just accelerated right-wing liberalism, with the twist that it advocates a structurally infeasible and impotent government.

I think most Western conservative parties are like this, actually.

[HectorMeyer]

Or in other words:

- The same procedure as last year?
- The same procedure as the 4 last years James!

That's true. In Germany nothing ever really changes. It's not that the two "Volksparteien" stand for fundamentally different concepts - or any concepts at all for that matter, nowadays it's all about "Sachzwänge".

[Neddie]

True conservatism derives from philosophical traditionalism... royalists appealing to natural order, Luddite structuralists, any Catholic or Orthodox political party. American conservatism is just accelerated right-wing liberalism, with the twist that it advocates a structurally infeasible and impotent government.

I think most Western conservative parties are like this, actually.

Perhaps, but I won't argue one way or the other due to a lack of information.