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Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » Right-wingers worldwide are Moving On Up to the bigtime. They take what belongs to others and get away with it. You like/no like/why?

Right-wingers worldwide are Moving On Up to the bigtime. They take what belongs to others and get away with it. You like/no like/why?

Posted - February 7, 2017

Responses


  • 22891
    dont sound right to me
      February 7, 2017 4:46 PM MST
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  • 113301
    I am terrified ot it pearl. Thank you for your reply! :)
      February 8, 2017 4:22 AM MST
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  • 3680
    I'm not sure how true it really is. Right-wing parties are doing better in many countries than they did a few decades ago, when the Left-wing was more fashionable. Such people - hard-Left and hard-Right - like to make a lot of noise to be noticeable, but I suspect support for them is less than they like us to think. Interestingly, although the Right have done well in France, recently the Left (Socialist) parties have gained a lot of support too.
      February 7, 2017 4:54 PM MST
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  • 113301
    America is drowning in the right-wing movement. Russia is taking advantage of it.  As you mentioned France is going that way. Slowly by slowly other countries will fall to the disease of right-wing extremism. The world is swinging hard right everywhere. It is not a good sign. Thank you for your thoughtful reply Durdle. 
      February 8, 2017 4:21 AM MST
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  • 32527
    I am right wing. I take nothing from no one. What right winger is taking things? 

      February 8, 2017 4:32 AM MST
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  • 3680
    The problem in France was that Socialist governments could not stop the loss of the industries hence work-forces traditionally supporting them.

    I don't think Right-wingers do "take", unless they are exploitative business people.

    On the harder wings of politics there is really very little to choose between Right and Left, though the lines are by no means the same from one country to another. Both demand more and more control and less and less freedom, but the Right tend to be more narrow-minded and rigid in areas of society, such as religion, that should be very much to individual's choice.

    I don't know how Americans see them, but the US Bible-belt hard-liners are often referred to elsewhere as the "Christian Right", and portrayed as mean, miserable types of dubious Christianity.

    In the UK now it's hard to distinguish between the two main parties (Conservative on the right, Labour socialist) in policies and aims.

    On the fringes though, the British hard-Right was never really interested in religion, though it is far more so now, mainly very frightened of Islam. This is understandable when you consider that large areas of cities like Bradford are populated predominantly now by Muslims, although most of them are fine, and overall are still a tiny fraction of the population. Generally the Western European hard-Right has stuck to politics, especially a narrow nationalist view-point, but memories of WW2 largely kept them in check. Now though, the massive immigration to the EU from Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East has encouraged them, especially in Britain, France, Sweden and Germany. The UK's hard-right were always, and still are, a small minority though - people like the National Front and the British National Party were regarded by everyone else as boring and boorish louts and they have largely disappeared from the scene.

    Left-wing politicians sometimes lump the United Kingdom Independence Party with the right-wing, and more nastily as "racist", but it is neither - such slurs are its opponents' propaganda in a country whose political debates are rumbustious but luckily, very rarely spills over into personal attack.. Quite a number of its leading members are former Labour Party members, some represent immigrant races. In any case, the EU to which UKIP was set up in resistance, has a very nebulous left-right mix anyway, enhanced by its 'Parliament' being a monolithic, single-chamber forum albeit the MEPS themselves aligning with their own Left- or Right-wing groups.

    The Left in Britain (and other European countries) was much more popular, though associated with heavy State control and welfare systems which whilst generally applauded do need a lot of support by tax. British socialists (the Labour Party) tend to be tarred by their opponents with the epithet "the politics of envy", through wanting to tax anyone even half-way wealthy as highly as possible with little or no tangible benefit to anyone.  As far as I know the British Communist Party still exists in its out-moded ideology, and I recall a police officer telling me the authorities were more concerned about left than right extremism: at the height of the Cold War the UK's hard-Left and some trade-unions were being discreetly groomed by the Kremlin. Even so, the UK never went as far as trying to make left-wing party membership illegal, as the US did under Senator MacArthy. (We saw the Communist Party as insidious but otherwise, like the National Front, as more irritating than really harmful; but banned out-and-out criminal gangs like the IRA.) 

    To highlight the difference, I gather that many Americans would be horrified by the idea of a UK-style National Health Service, seeing it as Socialist with a capital S so totally at odds with American social values. After all, it was established by a Labour government, though with tentative predecessor initiatives by politicians of both sides, and the medical profession. Yet most UK citizens whether Labour or Conservative would be equally horrified by any attempt to dismantle or privatise the service, and many have serious misgivings about the creeping advance of contractors - some from America - into it. 

    The UK has a third party, the Liberals: vaguely left-wing, avidly pro-EU federalists; but whose more detailed policies tend to be a bit wooly, and don't win them many seats in Parliament. 

    (Interesting that the US has always wanted Britain to be firmly in the EU but would not dream of joining any such centralist federation herself... I wonder why?)

    About the only other party of note in Britain, apart from the Scots Nationalists, are the Greens, with many European counterparts. Slightly left-wing, they are enthusiastic environmentalists but their publicity suggests many of them have yet to learn the slang meaning of "Green" when they come over as appearing barely to know "fuel" from "energy"! They attract a loyal following in the UK but are still really only on the fringe.

    So if there is one country where the Hard-Right less popularity than the noise they make suggests, it is the UK - because frankly, whilst no nation  or national system is perfect, we rather like our blend of our own Socialist ideals with individual freedom, and can be no more bothered with the hard-Right National Front types than with their hard-Left opposite-twins, the Communists.
      February 8, 2017 5:32 AM MST
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