Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
I did LOL a bit at the political compass in Carl's post above, which seems to suggest that Greenism is on the libertarian left. There is absolutely no way it can be, when its key tenets would inevitably require banning a lot of things in order to achieve widespread adoption of Greenie practices. They may have nice warm libertarian feelings towards their fellow person, but as soon as they're confronted with an opportunity to put their ideas into practice, they get as authoritarian as every proper left wing government in history.
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I guess it depends on your political perspective as to what "authoritarian" means. For example, I think that, in relation to the neocon free marketeers, it means being told you can no longer ruthlessly exploit people for your own profit.
I am also not sure the Green's Brighton canteen policy can be extrapolated to macro social and economic policy.
The bottom line is this: are you happy for your children to grow up in a society where the poor are exploited by the privileged minority, where the innate cultural prejudices are pandered to and exploited by bigots wearing empire-tinted spectacles, where large multinationals dictate employment and taxation policy, where the elite financial sector hold the country to ransom because of their self-appointed "value" to the country and where the electorate get the government & policies they did not vote for.
The current political process just sucks: some think YUKIP will fix it. I'd like to think there is another way, one that involves Europe working together: standing to to the US and the global multinationals. Yes, a lot of the current systems need fixing: sensible and sustainable immigration policies, consistent europe-wide healthcare and welfare benefits, europe-wide financial regulation, etc.
The UK is schizophrenic with respect to Europe: we are in Europe but we think we're not. I am not surprised that the rest of the EU think we're just weird.