France General Discussion IV: Yellow Fever

[Kingpoleon]

Lechasseur, could you please use the URL /URL links so these pages aren’t distorted in width?

[Kingpoleon]

So what? I'm not convinced that there's any value to the head of the executive staying in power for a long time. Hell, I f**king wish FBM would be gone after 2 years in office. A democracy doesn't need Strong Men who rule it with an iron fist for a decade, it needs dedicate public servants who are willing to do their job when called upon and willing to leave when they're no longer needed.

Trashy, classless language aside? You wouldn’t wish your own leader only got two years in the office. A mandate is a mandate.

[Kingpoleon]

...do you know how parliamentary systems work??

I was specifically referring to the implication that leaders lasting two years could remotely be a good thing.

[Kingpoleon]

Because it can and often is.

Yes, most famously the flawless short terms of the Roman Republic. I don’t know a lot of systems with a two year term that works.

[Kingpoleon]

NOT HOW PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS WORK. There is no define "terms"

Again?

I was specifically addressing. Two. Year. Terms.

[Kingpoleon]

Yup. The """term""" of a chief executive is zero years. They serve at the pleasure of parliament, who can fire whenever they so desire (well, some countries have limits on how often you can introduce a no-confidence motion, but even then a parliament has informal means to oust a PM aside from a NCM).

That's the thing Kingpoleon just refuses to understand. I don't believe that the executive should be an independent branch of government. The executive, properly understood, is an employee of parliament that parliament hires and fires at will, for the sake of streamlining policy and enforcing the laws it makes. That's in the name, "executive". Executors only get to keep their job if the people whose will they are executing trust them to execute it, and not a second longer.

I completely understand that. It’s just that there is no guarantee that he would only last two years, and your implied argument - to me - there was that magically people you don’t like would lose power sooner in a parliamentary system. Macron is capable enough to whip the left and right like horses - there’s little reason to believe any such thing would magically happen.

I understand what you mean; I know how parliamentary systems work; I’m not an idiot, contrary to the claims and personal attacks from you and Intell. Please be more respectful to me in the future, Tony - I’m not the bad guy for questioning or even disagreeing with you, which you seem to say when you attack me for doing so.

[Kingpoleon]

Windjammer was making the argument that the shorter lifespan of governments under parliamentary systems (regardless of whether that is in fact true or not, which wasn't the point of the argument) is a bad thing. I countered that there's nothing inherently bad about it, and that actually, I can think of at least one specific case (the current government of France) where that would be a good thing.

The only way for you to construct my argument is such a ludicrously bizarre way is either by ignoring its context or by being deliberately disingenuous about it. Whichever it is, you are in no position to complain about the tenor of my answer.

But this underlined my point: at the heart of all this is essentially: we want people we agree with in power longer than those we disagree with. It seems to me you two are just quibbling over whether you prefer your side in power for a long time or the other side in power for a short time. That’s not a discussion of how free and fair we want elections and governments to be: it’s a discussion of ideological strategy.

[Kingpoleon]

I can understand being sceptical of what Macaroon's proposal is likely to be and getting the ball rolling on protesting, but striking even before a proposal is released seems stupid as it's more likely to get people mad at you rather than with you.

Undeniably, many French people are perhaps... overly in love with the idea of protests/activism being a vital function of democracy.

[Kingpoleon]

Ideological strikes, designed to damage your political opponents, until your side seizes power. Surely you can understand why I’m not completely comfortable with that, right?

[Kingpoleon]

...what in the world is that even supposed to mean

Every strike is "ideological" in the sense that it's about achieving or preventing a given policy outcome that maps onto the ideological spectrum. The fact that you can't seem to understand that I care about substantive outcomes for real human beings, not about benefiting "my side" politically (wtf is even "my side"? I dislike every major French party at this point) suggests to me that your brain has been poisoned by excessive exposure to toxic US politics.

What’s the point? To make Macron resign? You don’t even know what his proposal is yet, so it’s not really about changing the proposal. French strikes are hurting its GDP growth and its economic stability, and the more they happen? The less investor confidence there will be in France, and that will hurt your country.

[Kingpoleon]

So what shift has resulted in these changes? Has the dominant societal forces shifted to more prudishness?

France has two very clashing ideals: a sort of collectivist thought, pretty common to Europe, brought on by monarchies, welfare states, and state churches; and a pretty individualistic liberalism, tracing its roots directly from the French Revolution. Some elements of the former mindset, having found that the law can do whatever is morally necessary for the common good and public decency, have begun looking for social aspects of this.

[Kingpoleon]

Does France have laws about this (I imagine things like libel laws might apply, as might any anti-racism laws France might have)? Forcibly shutting down the magazine or forcing the sacking of person involved would probably be the right outcome here.

What kind of American thinks magazines should be shut down for being racist?

[Kingpoleon]

They cite the refusal of some Muslim men to shake women’s hands, swimming pools that impose alternate time slots for men and women, girls of as young as four being told to wear full-face veils, and a proliferation of ‘madrassa’ religious schools.

France is really showing off its proud secularist history of over the top attacks on religions if they’re “too foreign.”

[Kingpoleon]

In the case where the above doesn't seem especially woke to you... well, I refer you to Zinneke's earlier post. We're not talking about burqas or full face covering or anything like that, we're talking about the level of hysteria that merely appearing in public wearing a hijab generates in France at the moment.

It’s absolutely shocking that some of the most pro abortion people in the world don’t have an ounce of respect for what women do with their bodies.

[Kingpoleon]

It is unwise to write off Macron too soon. He is the first person in almost a hundred years to take on major parties in a large Western democracy and throw them out of office - his electoral capabilities have far outpaced his governing capabilities, ironically similar to Trump.

[Kingpoleon]

De Gaulle and Berlusconi would like to have a word.

I don’t mean to be rude, but to pretend that Italy or France in the 1950s had some history of super dominant parties - like the UK, Canada, America, etc. - is really not the case. To be maximally generous to your position, Macron’s electoral feat is at least slightly more impressive than De Gaulle.

[Kingpoleon]

Is fish not considered meat nowadays?