EU Catch-All |German Election

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Teddy Roosevelt helped start the basis for much of what we now call liberalism. Read the Progressive platform of 1912 - it called for a national health service to include all existing government medical agencies, social insurance (security) for the elderly, the unemployed, and disabled, a minimum wage law for women, an eight-hour workday, government relief for farmers, a federal securities commission, an inheritance tax, workers compensation, and an eight-hour workday. Those are all things that liberals have pushed for and then tried to protect for the past 120 or so years. And Roosevelt promoted all of those things in his 1912 campaign, and was ostracized by conservatives because of it. Of course he was viewed at the time as a liberal and even radical, unless you're conflating "liberalism" with classical liberalism.

And of course Roosevelt was responding to the populist movement, and so were Democrats and other Progressive Republicans. That doesn't mean that he wasn't liberal. Roosevelt helped to initiate liberalism in terms of having a more aggressive and active federal government that helped to regulate corporations and played a larger role in providing at least minimal social services for working people. It was hardly the welfare state we have today, but it was definitely a start. And the entire South didn't vote for Catholic Al Smith in 1928 - North Carolina voted for Hoover, as did Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.

Also, I'm curious as to how you would separate liberal and progressive, especially at the time he served as president.


Classical liberalism is the literal foundational philosophy of America and its entire basis of law so these ideas and principles are fundamentally different to progressivism, which was more or less a reactionary movement to the economic and social trends of the turn of the century. America is itself devoted to classical liberalism, we can't untangle that, even though its interpretation of what this means does get twisted and turned over time. Progressivism fundamentally changed this country though away from its previous idealism. I think these things are complex though because America was responding to many things around the turn of the 20th century. Enormous technological changes, global instability (the British Empire was firmly in decline while it appeared Germany, America and Russia would rule the future of the world). Plus there were massive waves of immigrants coming in, many of whom were Catholic and Jewish, which was just totally at odds to the far more Anglo Protestant origins of the country.

Perhaps Progressivism as a reactionary movement by the American elite (and a containment to the more mob like threat coming from the populist Democrats) was liberalism in the sense of preserving things against the challenges that came from also managing to integrate all these new immigrants (who were not steeped in American idealism at all). Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt too would have been a bit more "Bismarckian" lets call it to contain a more imperial and darker streak in America had he won in 1912, but what Progressivism turned into (or if you want to call it co-opted) under Woodrow Wilson essentially was political fascism. Mussolini and later Hitler adopted much of what Wilson himself implemented, who was a proud "liberal", I mean he literally created the "liberal international order", although I may also argue that Wilson was a captured pawn of British imperial interests who were infiltrating America during this time.

I mentioned it before but TR was basically the exact same as LBJ, both basically were manics to one extent or another, LBJ obviously much more of a manic depressive and TR maybe just more pure manic a lot of the time. Another strange thing about TR and LBJ is that the two presidents they worked for died in their home state. McKinley gets shot in Buffalo, NY (Roosevelt was governor of New York and born there) while JFK gets killed in Dallas, LBJ's state. Another strange thing, McKinley's killer was a Polish anarchist, JFK's killer (as the story goes) was a communist with his Soviet sympathis, both also supposively acted alone. Both VPs were radically different to their predecessors too, TR launched the Progressive Era and early stage American imperial aims, LBJ aggressively pursues civil rights, welfare expansion and Vietnam escalation. So both replacements took the country in radically different directions. Which is why its hard to parse out these liberal vs. progressive type of things. There are different versions of history depending on how you look at it, let's say McKinley doesn't get shot, how might history have been different? If you also see the comparisons between the two as I do, would you consider LBJ a liberal just because he did some liberal things, whilst also many not-so-liberal things?
 
Classical liberalism is the literal foundational philosophy of America and its entire basis of law so these ideas and principles are fundamentally different to progressivism, which was more or less a reactionary movement to the economic and social trends of the turn of the century. America is itself devoted to classical liberalism, we can't untangle that, even though its interpretation of what this means does get twisted and turned over time. Progressivism fundamentally changed this country though away from its previous idealism. I think these things are complex though because America was responding to many things around the turn of the 20th century. Enormous technological changes, global instability (the British Empire was firmly in decline while it appeared Germany, America and Russia would rule the future of the world). Plus there were massive waves of immigrants coming in, many of whom were Catholic and Jewish, which was just totally at odds to the far more Anglo Protestant origins of the country.

Perhaps Progressivism as a reactionary movement by the American elite (and a containment to the more mob like threat coming from the populist Democrats) was liberalism in the sense of preserving things against the challenges that came from also managing to integrate all these new immigrants (who were not steeped in American idealism at all). Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt too would have been a bit more "Bismarckian" lets call it to contain a more imperial and darker streak in America had he won in 1912, but what Progressivism turned into (or if you want to call it co-opted) under Woodrow Wilson essentially was political fascism. Mussolini and later Hitler adopted much of what Wilson himself implemented, who was a proud "liberal", I mean he literally created the "liberal international order", although I may also argue that Wilson was a captured pawn of British imperial interests who were infiltrating America during this time.

I mentioned it before but TR was basically the exact same as LBJ, both basically were manics to one extent or another, LBJ obviously much more of a manic depressive and TR maybe just more pure manic a lot of the time. Another strange thing about TR and LBJ is that the two presidents they worked for died in their home state. McKinley gets shot in Buffalo, NY (Roosevelt was governor of New York and born there) while JFK gets killed in Dallas, LBJ's state. Another strange thing, McKinley's killer was a Polish anarchist, JFK's killer (as the story goes) was a communist with his Soviet sympathis, both also supposively acted alone. Both VPs were radically different to their predecessors too, TR launched the Progressive Era and early stage American imperial aims, LBJ aggressively pursues civil rights, welfare expansion and Vietnam escalation. So both replacements took the country in radically different directions. Which is why its hard to parse out these liberal vs. progressive type of things. There are different versions of history depending on how you look at it, let's say McKinley doesn't get shot, how might history have been different? If you also see the comparisons between the two as I do, would you consider LBJ a liberal just because he did some liberal things, whilst also many not-so-liberal things?
Of course LBJ was a liberal, and of course he did some not-so-liberal things. So did FDR, so did Truman, so did JFK. There is no "perfectly pure" liberal president, and the same might be said for many conservatives. And TR was a liberal too, at least in the economic sense. Your take on progressivism and liberalism aren't exactly mainstream and certainly don't fit with nearly everything I've read about TR or LBJ. I'll say it again - if you look at the 1912 Progressive Party platform that TR supported and ran on it provided the foundation for much of what became accepted as mainstream economic, mixed economy liberalism in the twentieth century. It's obvious that your take on progressivism and especially liberalism is outside that mainstream view, which is fine, but I still don't agree with it. And I'll leave it at that.
 
Here are some classic liberals for our time.

, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, George Stigler, Larry Arnhart, Ronald Coase and James M. Buchanan

It's worth noting that Teddy, while he was the first to invite a black person to the White House, was also a strong proponent of white supremacy, male superiority, the assimilation of native Americans and the elimination of their culture and, imo worst of all strongly supported the eugenics movement and the involuntary sterilization of women. Fuck that noise.

Btw, is it coincidental that AlbionAmerican could almost literally be translated as white American?
 
I've still got close friends all over Europe, and several in Germany. This is from a colleague who now resides in Halberstadt (in the former GDR; East Germany):

"Merz had several runs at leading the conservatives and got rejected. But now, there was no one left in the way of Söder, the longtime leader of the conservative CSU in Bavaria. So, they made Merz their frontrunner. He projects a lot of anger and has sympathies with ultra conservatives, particularly in western Germany. In the east, where we live, people are not afraid to vote for extremes to get things done, I voted Green Party. The AFD is the strongest party in most states, but, alas, with no majority, yet.
The traditional parties, SPD, CDU, FDP, Greens are correct in saying: this is their last chance to get things in order. If they fail, again, the right wing will take over. And Trump is not helping with his tariffs and his lacking support of Ukraine and Nato."


So all of this seems to say what folks on this board are saying: Germany may need to wait and see how bad Trump fucks up everything here before they cast their lot with their own version of Trump. According to my colleague above, it doesn't seem as if most Germans are big fans of Trump... at least in terms of tariffs, Ukraine and NATO.
 
Not surprised to see that Mertz came out with strong rhetoric about Europe needing to take beef up their defense.

Have been saying it for months. The Euros are going to tell Trump to fuck off at some point (thought it would take longer) and that they will handle their own defense. It will make the world a much more dangerous place.
 
Here are some classic liberals for our time.

, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, George Stigler, Larry Arnhart, Ronald Coase and James M. Buchanan

It's worth noting that Teddy, while he was the first to invite a black person to the White House, was also a strong proponent of white supremacy, male superiority, the assimilation of native Americans and the elimination of their culture and, imo worst of all strongly supported the eugenics movement and the involuntary sterilization of women. Fuck that noise.

Btw, is it coincidental that AlbionAmerican could almost literally be translated as white American?
Yeah, that's why I have emphasized that TR provided the foundations for modern economic liberalism, not cultural or social liberalism. And it's not a defense of TR, but Woodrow Wilson was even worse in many respects. Unfortunately many progressives of the progressive era could be quite progressive for their time in the economic sense, but still very white supremacist and bigoted in other areas.
 
I've still got close friends all over Europe, and several in Germany. This is from a colleague who now resides in Halberstadt (in the former GDR; East Germany):

"Merz had several runs at leading the conservatives and got rejected. But now, there was no one left in the way of Söder, the longtime leader of the conservative CSU in Bavaria. So, they made Merz their frontrunner. He projects a lot of anger and has sympathies with ultra conservatives, particularly in western Germany. In the east, where we live, people are not afraid to vote for extremes to get things done, I voted Green Party. The AFD is the strongest party in most states, but, alas, with no majority, yet.
The traditional parties, SPD, CDU, FDP, Greens are correct in saying: this is their last chance to get things in order. If they fail, again, the right wing will take over. And Trump is not helping with his tariffs and his lacking support of Ukraine and Nato."


So all of this seems to say what folks on this board are saying: Germany may need to wait and see how bad Trump fucks up everything here before they cast their lot with their own version of Trump. According to my colleague above, it doesn't seem as if most Germans are big fans of Trump... at least in terms of tariffs, Ukraine and NATO.
Outside of Russia and Hungary and maybe a few other authoritarian states, or nations that are enemies of the USA, I don't think very many nations like Trump at all. In fact, I suspect they either hate him or laugh at him and regard him as a stupid clown (or both).
 
I've still got close friends all over Europe, and several in Germany. This is from a colleague who now resides in Halberstadt (in the former GDR; East Germany):

"Merz had several runs at leading the conservatives and got rejected. But now, there was no one left in the way of Söder, the longtime leader of the conservative CSU in Bavaria. So, they made Merz their frontrunner. He projects a lot of anger and has sympathies with ultra conservatives, particularly in western Germany. In the east, where we live, people are not afraid to vote for extremes to get things done, I voted Green Party. The AFD is the strongest party in most states, but, alas, with no majority, yet.
The traditional parties, SPD, CDU, FDP, Greens are correct in saying: this is their last chance to get things in order. If they fail, again, the right wing will take over. And Trump is not helping with his tariffs and his lacking support of Ukraine and Nato."


So all of this seems to say what folks on this board are saying: Germany may need to wait and see how bad Trump fucks up everything here before they cast their lot with their own version of Trump. According to my colleague above, it doesn't seem as if most Germans are big fans of Trump... at least in terms of tariffs, Ukraine and NATO.
You would think the Germans would take the lesson they should have already learned from the UK about where conservative economic policies will lead them. But oh well.

It seems that the German center and left parties will face the same calculus (but in the context of a coalition government) that Dems face here: they likely will have to accept conservative positions on immigration to large extent and try to hold the line on economic issues as well as possible.
 
You would think the Germans would take the lesson they should have already learned from the UK about where conservative economic policies will lead them. But oh well.

It seems that the German center and left parties will face the same calculus (but in the context of a coalition government) that Dems face here: they likely will have to accept conservative positions on immigration to large extent and try to hold the line on economic issues as well as possible.
It does seem as if immigration is currently the main driving force behind a lot of GOP support. I think much of it has to do with the fact that even in many small towns and rural areas there has been a steady growth in the numbers of Hispanics settling in these places, and given that many of them were previously nearly all-white counties or towns it has unsettled the white natives. That's definitely true across much of rural central and western NC. And in some rural and small-town places you have other immigrants, like the Haitians in Ohio who Trump attacked during the campaign as dog eaters and other crap. Of course I don't think they can stop the growth of the Hispanic population, but far too many people do seem dead set on trying.
 

Greenland’s leader wants independence from Denmark as Trump hovers over Arctic island​

“It is now time to take the next step for our country,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede says in hinting at 2025 referendum.


“… Greenland, the world’s largest island with a population of around 60,000, was a Danish colony until it became self-ruling with its own parliament in 1979. It remains a territory of Denmark, with Copenhagen exercising control over its foreign and defense policy.

… Egede, who has led Greenland since 2021 and hails from the pro-independence Community of the People (IA) party, said Denmark’s relations with Greenland had not created “full equality,” and that the island deserves to represent itself on the world stage.

“Our cooperation with other countries, and our trade relations, cannot continue to take place solely through Denmark,” he said.

Under a 2009 agreement with Denmark, Greenland can declare independence only after a successful referendum — which Egede appeared to hint at holding in tandem with the island’s upcoming parliamentary election in April. …”
60,000 people. That’s like Burlington, Kannapolis, or Chapel Hill demanding full equality and deserve to represent themselves in the world stage.

60,000 people.
 
Here are some classic liberals for our time.

, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, George Stigler, Larry Arnhart, Ronald Coase and James M. Buchanan

It's worth noting that Teddy, while he was the first to invite a black person to the White House, was also a strong proponent of white supremacy, male superiority, the assimilation of native Americans and the elimination of their culture and, imo worst of all strongly supported the eugenics movement and the involuntary sterilization of women. Fuck that noise.

Btw, is it coincidental that AlbionAmerican could almost literally be translated as white American?

It doesn't translate to "white American", Albion is a name for Britain. I am of English and Scottish heritage, thus I am paying homage to that. Why do you have such a problem with my heritage?
 
It doesn't translate to "white American", Albion is a name for Britain. I am of English and Scottish heritage, thus I am paying homage to that. Why do you have such a problem with my heritage?
I know that Albion refers to Britain and likely comes from albus, Latin for white and referring to the cliffs of Dover.

I don't have a problem with your heritage although the British may have fucked up the world more than any other single country.
 
It doesn't translate to "white American", Albion is a name for Britain. I am of English and Scottish heritage, thus I am paying homage to that. Why do you have such a problem with my heritage?
LOL. It must just be a coincidence that white supremacist groups like to refer to Albion. Or even name themselves that way. Just like it's a coincidence that those groups love them some Beowulf (same time period). And why on Earth would you pick a name that is obviously grammatically illiterate? You're claiming to try for "English American" but you've got "England American," which makes no sense. Probably because you don't know the adjective form of Albion, because you're not actually interested in your history or your heritage.

Also, since you're lordquest, a virulently racist poster, your deniability is weak. Remember, I outed you as the white supremacist on the other board. I have a nose for these things.
 
It does seem as if immigration is currently the main driving force behind a lot of GOP support. I think much of it has to do with the fact that even in many small towns and rural areas there has been a steady growth in the numbers of Hispanics settling in these places, and given that many of them were previously nearly all-white counties or towns it has unsettled the white natives. That's definitely true across much of rural central and western NC. And in some rural and small-town places you have other immigrants, like the Haitians in Ohio who Trump attacked during the campaign as dog eaters and other crap. Of course I don't think they can stop the growth of the Hispanic population, but far too many people do seem dead set on trying.
Immigration is an issue world wide because Putin has spent decades destabilizing the world to create mass-migrations with the hope of destroying democracy.

And it's working because globally white people are fucking terrified of brown people.
 
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