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Up until now the conversation within Germany and Europe at large concerning what to do concerning the ever-preeminent rise of populistic parties, largely directed and funded by Russian money while deriving their support from a sensationalist media which amplifies any individual instances of so-called immigrant violence, hasn’t really amounted to much meaningful policy changes to actually suppress these unconstitutional and antagonistic groups.
In Germany specifically this is in spite of the fact that the AFD has already been declared an anti-democratic tendency by the German federal office for the preservation of the constitution, who is supposed to be the go-to authority to defer to on matters such as this. Even so, politicians are today afraid of actually pursuing this declaration to it’s logical conclusion by actually enforcing a ban on the party in question, with people today saying that doing so would be an “anti-democratic” action supposedly (and of course when the AFD wasn’t popular, it wasn’t appropriate to ban them either given their low popularity, with the implication being that banning these antagonistic parties is never appropriate until they are within the halls of power?).
In Britain a similar story has been repeated, wherein government hesitation to pursue an outlawing of unconstitutional parties like Reform and Restore in spite of their unconstitutionality necessarily depriving them of the protections of assembly, since there is no democracy outside the nation state which is the guarantor of freedoms and rights for people, and necessarily that seeking it’s abolition are (morally but not necessarily legally) outside it’s protections.
The problem today is simply put that democracies are still based on antiquated ideas, inherited from the enlightenment, that haven’t been able to keep up with modern technological and sociological changes which now threaten to upturn the rules based international order which was created following the second world war. As such, for any humanitarian concerned about this matter, I think it is imperative for us to find potential solutions going forward which might help democracy develop in a healthy fashion and oppose those tendencies contrary to it.
One very promising idea among others would be to clearly restrict and define what constitutes a political party, supposing (for the sake of argument in this instance) that there should be three primary political tendencies which every legal party must adhere to.
The first of these is the Third Way position of Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, in Social Democrat fashion, which we already know can be trusted to uphold sensible economic and societal policy. The second is the more centrist “liberal” tendency (of course, all of these are liberal in some sense or another), being generally pro individual freedoms, freedom of expression and congregation (so long as no anti-democratic tendencies or hate speech is spread, as hate speech is not free speech), following a humanist policy position. The third is the “conservative” right-wing position, in the vein of Reagan and George H. W. Bush, believing in individual freedoms, little market intervention and a certain support for religious institutions (within limits). The traditional right has unfortunately been infiltrated to a certain extent by this populist tendency, but hopefully a more reasonable path is still reachable for those politicians seeking the best for their country.
In this system I’m suggesting all parties as stated will adhere to some extent to one of these three positions, and those who are opposed to it will have to be disbanded or reformed to be eligible to participate in elections. Similarly, the creation of new parties must require the approval of an office capable of judging the conformity of these new groups, and former leaders within disbanded organisations must be monitored to ascertain that they pose no threat to the state or the people it’s sworn to protect. Thankfully the need to have a permit in order to protest is already a well-established norm within many western countries, so riots and disorder can be kept to a minimum, and perpetrators punished accordingly should they break the law.
In this sense I feel such an improvement would drastically help shore up the defence of these western states, which have largely been ineffective at opposing the rising trend of misinformation and disorder.
Ahh, yes. Using anti-democratic means to defeat (supposedly) anti-democratic parties. You have to see how this is hypocritical, right? Is this not the same behavior you would be hating the big bad fascist for? If people are electing populist-far right parties, how about you take a look at why thats happening and try to appeal to voters on things they care about, instead of betraying your beloved liberal principles?
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