US Politics Have No Left Wing?

19 Responses to “US Politics Have No Left Wing?”

1. Roman Kalik on February 4th, 2008 5:45 am

   America through the eyes of a left-wing Swede, you mean. And it can be just as easily argued, from the American perspective, that Sweden has no right-wing, if we go about actively using stereotypes and ignoring specific political realities and policies, in relation to the current norm in each country.

   Dr. Rundkvist also has little claim over speaking for “Europe”, in my opinion.

2. Andrew Brehm on February 4th, 2008 9:29 am

   Roman is right. I just wanted to say something to that effect.

   That article is the view of a _left-wing_ European. Most Europeans are not that left-wing.

   The Democrats consistently support positions that are seen as ridiculously left-wing by European standards. This includes abortion, political correctness and affirmative action laws, certain pacifist positions (European pacifists are less “militant” about it than the American left), gun control (many European countries have more liberal gun control laws than some Democrats demand), and even their social welfare platform.

   Also take note that most Europeans do not support the very liberal laws in the US regarding establishment of religions. Germans, for example, accept among Christian churches mostly the established churches (Roman Catholic and German Lutheran), not most other churches or sects.

   “US politics often look absurd from a European perspective”

   Yes, they do; but the more reasonable positions of US politicians look absurd to European idiots while the more fanatical left-wing positions of US politicians look absurd to normal middle-of-the-road Europeans.

   We constantly make jokes about the American attitude towards political correctness, for example.

3. Drima on February 4th, 2008 9:47 am

   “The Democrats consistently support positions that are seen as ridiculously left-wing by European standards. This includes abortion,”

   This surprises me. I’ve always viewed Europeans as more liberal the Americans. Religion is more dominant in American politics than it is in European.

   Plus, most (if not all) Scandinavian friends of mine aren’t fans of America (except for aspects concerning economic freedom). In fact all Europeans I come across (especially the French) dislike the United States.

4. Andrew Brehm on February 4th, 2008 11:43 am

   “This surprises me. I’ve always viewed Europeans as more liberal the Americans. Religion is more dominant in American politics than it is in European.”

   Religion is more dominant in American politics because they have more religions.

   European countries are usually 90% Lutheran/Anglican or 90% Catholic (or 90% Muslim in Albania’s and Turkey’s case). If not so, two or three major state-supported established religions still make up 90% of the population.

   How could anybody make religion a point in politics in that situation?

   Abortion is totally legal in the US. In some European countries it is illegal, in most others it is legal under certain conditions some of which involve getting advice from a minister of the established church. German voters would not rubberstamp American abortion laws and indeed regard them as legalised murder when it comes to abortions after the first trimester.

   “Plus, most (if not all) Scandinavian friends of mine aren’t fans of America (except for aspects concerning economic freedom). In fact all Europeans I come across (especially the French) dislike the United States.”

   Europeans feel superior to the US but can see in daily life that America dominates EVERYTHING. Europeans believe they are more sophisticated yet cannot even get an Italian government to sit for longer than two years. Europeans regard the US government system as similar to a third-world country yet are confronted with a US government that has pretty much been in the same four-year rhythm for 200 years.

   Europe doesn’t even manage not to have major wars in its own territory for a few decades yet Europeans look at the American gun culture and regard it as primitive and violent. (Yet considering the Bosnia war and WW2 and WW1 I bet Europe is _FAR_ ahead in violence when seen over several decades.)

   How can anybody be a fan of America if being so means admitting one’s own failure?

   We Europeans WANT to be more sophisticated than those colonials. We have EARNED it.

5. Andrew Brehm on February 4th, 2008 11:53 am

   Drima, the more successful one of the two big parties in Germany is the _Christian Democratic Union_.

   They do not make religion a part of politics, they ARE religion.

   And then there is the previous president of Germany, a Social Democrat. Wikipedia correctly describes his thus:

   “Rau was known as a practising Christian (and sometimes titled Bruder Johannes, “Brother John”, to ridicule his intense Christian position; however, he sometimes used this term himself). He has held lay positions in, and was a member of the Synod of, the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.”

   In Europe religion is not an issue in elections because there is simply no doubt about it.

   Did I mention that stem cell research is illegal in Germany when human embryos might be created or destroyed?

   On the plus side, Ireland made divorce legal recently.

6. Roman Kalik on February 4th, 2008 1:48 pm

   In Europe religion is not an issue in elections because there is simply no doubt about it.

   Did I mention that stem cell research is illegal in Germany when human embryos might be created or destroyed?

   On the plus side, Ireland made divorce legal recently.

   This makes me realize all the more that what really makes it to the public debate arena are issues that are under heavy internal argument.

   The mix of religion and politics are always in conflict in the US, both because the country tries very hard to separate church and state, and because it has a myriad of religious groups vying for attention.

   Whereas Europe is largely (and with the exception of England and maybe France) homogeneous on a per-country basis.

   But hey, why pay attention to European politics (or the fact that Sweden had an official state church until 2000, for that matter, to which over three-quarters of the country belongs today), when it’s so much easier to bash a country (the United States) where people actually *debate* matters?

7. Roman Kalik on February 4th, 2008 2:09 pm

   “Rau was known as a practising Christian (and sometimes titled Bruder Johannes, “Brother John”, to ridicule his intense Christian position; however, he sometimes used this term himself). He has held lay positions in, and was a member of the Synod of, the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.”

   In Europe religion is not an issue in elections because there is simply no doubt about it.

   Drima, you realize that the equivalent political nominee in the current US elections is Mike Huckabee?

8. Andrew Brehm on February 4th, 2008 3:14 pm

   “They’re [Democrats] pretty bad, but the alternative [Republicans] would be unspeakably dreadful.”

   I wonder what he would say if Sweden was under German rule because the unspeakable dreadful pro-war president who was in power in the 1940s hadn’t been elected.

   It’s extremely easy to look down on people when they have already rescued you. It’s impolite, but extremely easy.

   But I agree with his opinion if not his attitude. The Democrats are pretty bad, and the Republican candidates would indeed be unspeakably dreadful for all European lefties and neo-Nazis.

9. Not Your Mama on February 4th, 2008 11:39 pm

   This surprises me. I’ve always viewed Europeans as more liberal the Americans. Religion is more dominant in American politics than it is in European.

   See, you DO get it ;). There are/is a small minority who could be considered “true lefties” but um….how many votes do they ever get…not enough to make them viable.

   The extremists (on both sides) just make for better media fodder so they get heard more. The typical democrat is about as centrist as you’d find anywhere. A large percentage would be better described as “libertarian” than “liberal”, we simply don’t care what personal choices people make in their lives nor do we feel government has any place in dictating peoples’ private lives.

   The republican party used to have room for centrists but got hijacked to the far right courtesy of peeing their pants in fear. Operating from a position of fear has never been a winning strategy.

10. halalhippie on February 4th, 2008 11:42 pm

    “there you have it, America through the eyes of a Scandinavian!” yup, that about sums it up.

11. Drima on February 5th, 2008 4:48 am

    Well, at least Halalhippie seems to agree.

12. A on February 5th, 2008 6:21 am

    I didn’t really get that impression when I went to Europe. Admittedly, my western European experience is limited to a day in London and three days in Holland, but I did a trip around eastern Europe and I found it was pretty religiously diverse. For example, in Latvia, half the population is atheist and the other half is divided almost equally between Catholics, Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox and a sizeable amount of the Eastern Orthodox seem to be old believers. Orthodoxy seems to have had a big resurgence in Russia, but there still seem to be hard core atheists. The Czechs seem to be very secular, where the Slovaks are very religious and they used to be in the same country fairly recently. Russia and the baltic countries seem to have religious issues (on top of the linguistic/ethnic issues that they already have in the baltic with the Russians and in Russia with the people from the Caucasus mountains area) and I think it would be better if Europe adopted the American separation of church and state idea. Canada doesn’t have a constitutional separation of church and state and it’s not bad, but I still think things like fighting over school funding by different religious groups could have been avoided if we had adopted that aspect of the American constitution.

13. Drima on February 5th, 2008 7:32 am

    I’ve only been to Europe once when I was a kid. To Czechoslovakia (back when they were one country). Can’t remember it much but it was very open compared to the United States. We accidentally passed by a nude beach, an experience I found weird and amusing at the same time.

    Also, from my experiences with the Europeans I know and I’m friends with, hardly any are religious. Most are atheist or agnostic. But then again those are my experiences.

    Plus admittedly, I know more about America than I know about Europe. But that’s basically the perception I’ve always had.

    Interesting discussion people.

14. Andrew Brehm on February 5th, 2008 9:10 am

    “The republican party used to have room for centrists but got hijacked to the far right courtesy of peeing their pants in fear.”

    The “far right” would be the majority of Americans who voted Republican plus all the Democrats who supported their policies.

    The “centre” are the small group left of that.

    And the “left” are those that disagree with the centre and the far right.

    Note that there is no “far left”.

    “Operating from a position of fear has never been a winning strategy.”

    Except in Spain where you can win elections on a platform of doing what Al-Qaeda want.

15. Andrew Brehm on February 5th, 2008 9:19 am

    “I didn’t really get that impression when I went to Europe. Admittedly, my western European experience is limited to a day in London and three days in Holland, but I did a trip around eastern Europe and I found it was pretty religiously diverse.”

    I don’t know about eastern Europe. They are a bit weird due to communism and all. For example East Germany is almost 100% atheist.

    London is a melting pot and might not be a good example for a typical European city (especially since it’s not European).

    The Netherlands are very liberal but they do have a state church and everything.

    I find it interesting that it was apparently so noticeable which particular religion a given European belonged to.

16. Andrew Brehm on February 5th, 2008 10:25 am

    “The republican party used to have room for centrists”

    I keep hearing this but never know what people refer to.

    When exactly did the Republican party have room for what you call “centrists” and how did those centrists influence policy?

17. A on February 5th, 2008 5:19 pm

    It wasn’t immediately noticeable what religion someone was, but in Russia for example, the growth of the Orthodox church was pretty noticeable from looking at the pictures in the newspapers or people keeping icons in their taxis or the reopening of churches (I don’t think this represents liberalisation, I just think that Putin decided that he would rather have growth in a religious movement he could put a lot of pressure on than one he couldn’t.) As for the baltic, I spent most of my time there in Latvia, and the Latvians and Russians seem to have this fight over everything. Issues from the 18th, 19th century keep coming up. When I was there I was reading the english language paper and there was this whole fight over a statue of Peter the great and it started involving religious disagreements like the Latvians saying that the czars had tried to force Orthodoxy on the Latvians and the Russians saying that the Latvians were trying to destroy all aspects of Russian culture in Latvia, including religion. You can tell where there is growth and where there isn’t by looking at the buildings. The Lutheran churches were fixed up, but the only synagogue that survived World War II was in pretty bad shape. I find it pretty easy to tell secular and religious areas apart. Usually, the atmosphere is completely different.

18. Burton on February 12th, 2008 9:21 pm

    Public affairs are complicated. There are always exceptions to any rule. I was born and grew up in the States, but I also spent a good deal of time in Europe and have British nationality through my mother. Europe and America share a good deal of things in common: strong democratic traditions, freedom and individual liberty.

    I think Eastern Europe is a different situation. They are still trying to emerge from Communism. Western Europe, I think is a better barometer of European attitudes.

    The first guy was right. There isn’t really a left in American politics anymore and there hasn’t been since the 70s. The differences between the US Democrats and Republicans are not that significant. For example, there is a lot more significance between say the Spanish Socialists and the Popular Party, especially on the role of the church in society.

    The differences between the US and Europe weren’t as pronounced when we were allied against the Soviets in the Cold War, but now the common enemy is gone we can get a better understanding of how different the two societies are. Western Europe has been without a major war for over 60 years. Europe has also become much more secular. America has been involved in numerous conflicts around the world and religion has become more prominent in US society.

    Overall, I think we’ve got more in common than not. US laws are largeley borrowed from British common law and English(a European language) is America’s de facto language. I think Europe and America have more in common with each other than either have with, say, China. It will be interesting to see how both Europe and America will deal with China as it will probably be the dominant world economic power by mid-century.

19. Andrew Brehm on February 13th, 2008 10:59 am

    “Western Europe has been without a major war for over 60 years.”

    Excuse me? What about the Yugoslav wars? What about Bosnia, Kosovo? Those were major wars, perhaps not by European standards.

    Quite in contrast the US have indeed been without a major war on their soil in over 140 years. They somehow manage to get along, we (Europeans) don’t.

    It’s easy to say that Europe doesn’t fight wars any more now that the US do it for Europe. But it isn’t even correct. French and British troops were heavily involved in most of those “American” conflicts.

    Ironically, most of “America’s wars” can easily be blamed on Europe. It was Britain who made Iraq and France who made Vietnam. It was Germany who made the Soviet Union. And it was Nazi Germany who co-created Arab nationalism.

    It is Europe where synagogues burn, not America. So perhaps America doesn’t have a left. Maybe that is why they are better off? What’s so important about having a left when the left of today sees their duties primarily in shouting anti-Semitic slogans and defending fascist tyrants? Yes, one can claim that opposing the Jews in Palestine and pacifism are very important, but how does it help anyone?

    Western Europe without a major war… yes, ever since the Americans invaded and kept bases we have been pretty peaceful. But those parts of Europe not under heavy American influence are happily fighting still.

    Perhaps we should not worry about whether or not America has a left but about how Europe can get rid of that cancer.

    It seems to me that where it counts, according to the left, when it comes to pacifism and tolerance, the people in North-America, who do not fight wars among themselves and do not burn synagogues, should be seen as teachers, not students unwilling to learn.

    America has homeless and children without health care? Well, so has much of Europe, especially those countries that were not under American influence and occupation during the last 60 years.

    The wealth required for Europe to do all the things we now think make us so sophisticated has been created because America forced us to stop fighting and because America kept the communists out.

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