On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 12:47, David B. Shemano <[email protected]> wrote: > > Let's take the article on its face. The party of Fortuyn, who is identifeid > as gay , is representative of the "liberal, secular society" concerned about > a growing religious minority, but is also identifed as a supporter of the > choice of the muslim Aboutaleb for mayor. > > So, what exactly makes "Livable Rotterdam" a "right-wing" party? What are > the ideological components of Livable Rotterdan that make it right wing as > opposed to left-wing? It apparently is a member of the "liberal, secular" > right-wing. I am laughing as I type this. Apparently, left-right labels > have no connection with secular/religious, sexual liberation/traditional > values, attitudes toward social democracy, etc. Instead, it all comes down > to openess to unrestricted muslim immigration. I cannot make this stuff up. >
David: are you aware that the real world is often contradictory? Maybe what you are witnessing is the grim reality of a beautiful theory being murdered by a gang of brutal facts. On the other hand, I'm with Louis and Raghu that the prototypical right wing position is one of xenophobia and racism. It is the ultimate position of socially conservative politics: we must preserve the national culture against the teeming Other. Other than that, it is unclear from your smattering of quotes which side is representative of which of your dichotomies--or why having a culture that is otherwise more fiscally liberal wouldn't necessarily preclude it's being socially conservative. In fact, it is what Milton Friedman stated was the key political problem with the US welfare state: in his opinion it couldn't exist with relatively open immigration (and Joe Wilson agrees!) It seems, however, that there is a sort of "michael steel" project in the works: if you're having a lot of problems with the darker nationals, and rampant bigotry has done little to keep them in check, why not get one of them to act as your spokesman and see if having him parrot your loving openness will do anything to help you gain more votes. s _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
