Left and Right Abroad
Mark Steyn writes:
If Obama is elected in November, at G7 meetings, for the first time since time they began, America will have a more left-wing leader than any other member of the group – Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Britain (and that’s before Gordon Brown loses to David Cameron). Right-of-center government throughout the western world – except Washington.
This is all well and good if you don’t actually know anything about foreign political parties. In the real world, here was France’s Nicholas Sarkozy on March 24:
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, called on world leaders yesterday to hold a summit this year aimed at rebuilding a “regulated capitalism” to replace a world financial system that had become unhinged. [...]
Mr Sarkozy gave no new formula, but said it should be one where “whole swaths of financial activity are not left to the sole judgment of markets operators”.
Banks, he said, should finance development, and not engage in speculation. Executive pay should not drive them towards unreasonable risks and those who jeopardised people’s savings should be punished.
And of course leaders like Sarkozy, Merkel, and Cameron are all supportive of health care systems far more socialistic than anything Barack Obama would dare propose. Within the community of Anglophone nations, it makes some sense to think of the Democrats as analogous to Canada’s Liberals or British Labour while the GOP is like the Canadian or UK Conservatives. But even here the Conservatives are more like the marginalized moderate Republicans and the parties of the center-left generally put forward much more ambitious plans than the Democrats. Once you shift to the continent, things look completely different. I would probably find myself “on the right” of a lot of political issues in France or Germany, but that’s simply because they’re debating very different issues from the ones we’re looking at in the United States.
39 Responses to “Left and Right Abroad”
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October 13th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Matt, are you SO bored that you having nothing better to do than attend to the clinically insane rantings of idiot Steyn? Reading the telephone book would be better use of one’s time.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Mark Steyn is an outright racist who cloaks his racism in cultural supremacism. But in this day and age, racism=cultural supremacism.
And he’s a witty but silly guy. What’s wrong with North-American intellegentsia that allows jokers, and intellectually unserious people like Steyn and Kristol to propagate ideas?
Surely, Steyn would know that Sarkozy and Merkel are well to Obama’s left. And they might like to delude themselves that Obama is left wing, but unfortunately the left wing people I know just don’t see what is particularly left wing about Obama.
Obama is fairly liberal, but he really is more post-ideological than he is left or right wing.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Yeah, well Republicans think comparative politics is a form of high treason. I once had an enterprising and otherwise brilliant young Republican in one of my classes who suggested that France was not a democracy. Since in every other aspect of my class he had excelled, I thought he would start making some points about the fourth Republic and unrestrained executive power, but instead he was honestly surprised to learn that elections occur in France on a regular basis.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Does “silly guy” really mean “mendacious”?
October 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Steyn does not know what he is talking about and needs to do some reading.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am
This seems to be a case when self-delusion rules. For Steyn to lie for political purposes is not unusual or surprising, but I can’t see any political purpose in this. It’s just demented raving by someone who would know better if he weren’t mental.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Matt, I wonder if it is true that you find yourselve to the right to a lot of issues in Europe, at least in the Netherlands. My ideas are quite left of centre in the Dutch context, and still I find myself in agreement with what you write most of the time.
I even think that Obama is more progressive than you describe, precisely because of how his ideas relate to the situation in America. Progressive ideas are under pressure in Europe; an Obama win would have tremendous influence in setting the terms of the debate in Europe as well. It is less important if the Obama health-care plan would be to the left or the right of what exists in Europe than that this plan would almost certainly constitue sharp left-ward turn in american politics.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Steyn and Krikorian do their narrow causes some harm when they broaden into general wingnuttery and reflexive partisanship, and I say that as someone who’s not devoid of sympathy for their causes–as a county we’re entitled to interrogate Islam for its compatibility with our values, and we’re entitled to restrict immigration if that’s what we want to do. But how can anyone who’s even slightly progressive make common cause with Steyn or Krikorian when they say stuff like you’ve excerpted above?
October 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Palin + dictionary + English grammar = Steyn
October 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am
though you’ve said it far better than i could, i second your statement that context is king. i’m considered a rabid commie in the US but in paris, where i live now, i’m a sober centrist. when sarkozy was elected, many french friends threw up their hands in despair, worrying that he was “just like bush.” people, i would tell them, you have no idea.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:45 am
but in paris, where i live now
Please, never post here again. I’m too old for the envy I carry around already.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I’m pretty convinced that Matt would hold at least some center right positions in Europe (generally speaking, it’s kinda hard to nail right vs. left down in Europe). The selftitled progressives can be quite inane on economic issues in Europe, more than Matt could stomach I think. And the right wing, in Northern Europe at least, is totally devoid of wingnuttery on the social wedge issues, like abortion, gay equality, etc.
You could say that in Europe we have center right wing parties that are both socially liberal and economically liberalist, without being dogmatic because they are forced into various fluid coalitions. They have nothing in common with your hideous Republican party.
/Limagolf
October 13th, 2008 at 9:51 am
In comparing with the Canadian system, it would probably be more accurate to compare the Democrats with the Conservatives, and the GOP with, …, the fringe Christian Heritage Party? Canadian Conservatives (at least out loud) wouldn’t dare talk about repealing abortion rights or reinstating capital punishment. The Liberals, on the other hand, instituted same-sex marriage, which is hardly a majority opinion in the Democratic party.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:03 am
O, noez, I guess this means Old Europe was right again.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Re: And the right wing, in Northern Europe at least, is totally devoid of wingnuttery on the social wedge issues, like abortion, gay equality, etc.
Don’t be utterly dumb. The protection of innocent life is a wedge issue? I understand that people like you appear to think that your right to use women for sex is more important than a baby’s right to life. But most decent people don’t share that feeling, thank God.
Poland and Ireland are both in northern Europe, last I checked, and both have very draconican laws about abortion. Russia has recently been making efforts to crack down on second trimester abortions. Abortions are highly restricted in Portugal. The time limit on abortions in Spain and Sweden is much more restrictive than in the United States. As Mary Ann Glendon has pointed out, America has among the most liberal abortion laws in the world, leaving aside countries like China.
As for gay marriage, I suppose you think a man should be able to marry a horse, or his cousin, or a whole harem of women if he chooses. You people are busy handing over Europe to creeping Islamization, so no doubt you will have your wish (at least as regards polygamous harems and cousin marriage) in due time.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Fetuses aren’t babies. Some people think so. But no.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Steyn makes me embarrassed to be Canadian. At least Frum has started to show some of the native intelligence he got from his mother.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I understand that people like you appear to think that your right to use women for sex is more important than a baby’s right to life.
I know that this will be tricky for you to comprehend, but liberals support a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body, including, should SHE CHOOSE, to have sex.
The only way that every woman who has sex counts as being “used for sex” is if women are non-autonomous objects that exist for the gratification of men. And that’s what you think, not what liberals think.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am
The new American ruling majority – represented by those that voted “yes” on the rescue/bailout – and thus the government Barack Obama will head, would be considered the “conservative” party in any current European country. Even conservatives overseas have long made their peace with government’s role in regulating markets, providing health care and basic economic security, equal rights for gays, and managing a fiscally “responsible”, if not a fiscally “conservative” taxation and expenditure policy.
The notion that the American government would suddenly be “out left” on these issues is laughable.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:03 am
The Economic Problem
“This problem is basically far less difficult of solution. Sound common sense can solve it. There are adequate resources for the sustenance of human life, and these science can increase and develop. The mineral wealth of the world, the oil, the produce of the fields, the contribution of the animal kingdom, the riches of the sea, and the fruits and the flowers are all offering themselves to humanity. Man is the controller of it all, and they belong to everyone and are the property of no one group, nation or race. It is solely due to man’s selfishness that (in these days of rapid transportation) thousands are starving whilst food is rotting or destroyed; it is solely due to the grasping schemes and the financial injustices of man’s making that the resources of the planet are not universally available under some wise system of distribution. There is no justifiable excuse for the lack of the essentials of life in any part of the world. Such a state of lack argues short-sighted policy and the blocking of the free circulation of necessities for some reason or other. All these deplorable conditions are based on some national or group selfishness and on the failure to work out some wise impartial scheme for the supplying of human need throughout the world.
What then must be done, apart from the education of the coming generations in the need for sharing, for a free circulation of all the essential commodities? The cause of this evil way of living is very simple. It is a product of past wrong educational methods, of competition and the facility with which the helpless and weak can be exploited. [197] No one group is responsible as certain fanatical ideologists might lead the ignorant to suppose. Our period is simply one in which human selfishness has come to its climax and must either destroy humanity or be brought intelligently to an end.
Three things will end this condition of great luxury and extreme poverty, of gross over-feeding of the few and the starvation of the many, plus the centralization of the world’s produce under the control of a handful of people in each country. These are: first, the recognition that there is enough food, fuel, oil and minerals in the world to meet the need of the entire population. The problem, therefore, is basically one of distribution. Secondly, this premise of adequate supply handled through right distribution must be accepted, and the supplies which are essential to the health, security and happiness of mankind must be made available. Third, that the entire economic problem and the institution of the needed rules and distributing agencies should be handled by an economic league of nations. In this league, all the nations will have their place; they will know their national requirements (based on population and internal resources, etc.) and will know also what they can contribute to the family of nations; all will be animated by the will to the general good – a will-to-good that will probably at first be based on expediency and national need but which will be constructive in its working out.
Certain facts are obvious. The old order has failed. The resources of the world have fallen into the hands of the selfish, and there has been no just distribution. Some nations have had too much, and have exploited their surplus; other nations have had too little, and their national life and their financial situation have been crippled thereby. At the close of this war all the nations will be in financial difficulties. All nations will require rebuilding; all will have to attend actively to the settlement of the future economic life of the planet and its adjustment upon sounder lines.
This period of adjustment offers the opportunity to effect drastic and deeply needed changes and the establishing [198] of a new economic order, based on the contribution of each nation to the whole, the sharing of the fundamental necessities of life and the wise pooling of all resources for the benefit of everybody, plus a wise system of distribution. Such a plan is feasible.
The solution here offered is so simple that, for that very reason, it may fail to make an appeal. The quality required by those engineering this change of economic focus is so simple also – the will-to-good – that again it may be overlooked, but without simplicity and goodwill little can be effected after the world war. The great need will be for men of vision, of wide sympathy, technical knowledge and cosmopolitan interest. They must possess also the confidence of the people. They must meet together and lay down the rules whereby the world can be adequately fed; they must determine the nature and extent of the contribution which any one nation must make; they must settle the nature and extent of the supplies which should be given to any nation, and so bring about those conditions which will keep the resources of the world circulating justly and engineer those preventive measures which will offset human selfishness and greed.
The new era of simplicity must come in. The new world order will inaugurate this simpler life based on adequate food, right thought, creative activity and happiness. These essentials are only possible under a right economic rule. This simplification and this wise distribution of the world’s resources must embrace the high and the low, the rich and the poor, thus serving all men alike.”
Alice Bailey, The Externatlization of the Hiearchy
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/externalisation/exte1085.html
October 13th, 2008 at 11:04 am
LittleMac,
Oh, don’t give me that BS. What about the rights of the unborn human life to its own body?
In any case, all this nonsense about rights and freedom is misplaced. it makes sense only if you adhere to a post-Enlightenment, liberal, modernist view of human nature, and I emphatically reject that view. We would do much better if we restructured our ways of thinking around obligations rather than so-called “rights” and the first such obligation is not to murder innocent human life. But I suppose that would get in the way of your hipster player lifestyle a bit too much.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Actually many European governments have liberalized parts of their markets, lowered taxes, tightened unemployment benefits, etc., over the last couple of decades. They have just done it in a pragmatic, incremental, dare I say sensible, way; I.E. far removed from Republican wingnuttery.
This has led to many good things. There is no doubt that Europe veered to far left during the 60’s and 70’s, implementing economic cures that were worse than the illnesses they were meant to cure.
hat you lack in the US are sensible economic centre right and left parties, that are not tied to the culture wars. Your damned culture has ruined much for you!
Get proportional representation and become happier.
/Liamagolf
October 13th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Most of you are responding to Steyn’s comment as if he was wrong about the facts. His statement is not about the factual difference or lack thereof between European and American left. This was another post in which we see how Steyn is convincing himself that Obama is some wild-eyed leftist. He has to convince himself and the right of Obama’s radicalism, because if he didn’t he would have to do some major ideological soul searching about the last eight years of the Bush presidency, and the six years in which conservatives were in power in all three branches of government.
Ladies and gentlemen this is what repression looks like in real time.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am
A big part of it, I think, is that the US doesn’t really have parties of the left and right at the moment. We have a crazy party and a non-crazy party. In a sane world, we wouldn’t have Barney Frank’s fealty to the financial services industry sharing a party with Jim McDermott sharing a party with Harry Reid. They are all good men and Democrats in good standing. But that they share a party is the result of the party divide in this country being mostly about crazy vs. non-crazy; people who would otherwise disagree about public policy and form parties with like-minded people are instead forced into coalition against batshit crazy people like Hector.
This is one of the reasons that rump Republicans like Olympia Snowe drive us Democrats crazy. They insist on pretending that they have some role in a Republican party that clearly has nothing to offer someone of their professed political and policy priorities. Snowe wouldn’t even be the most conservative Democrat from the northeast, but she’s still willing to vote for schizophrenics like Mitch McConnell for majority/minority leader?
October 13th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
NBarnes,
I vote Democratic, idiot.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Although if I had the choice I’d vote neither Democrat nor Republican. I’d like to be able to vote for a party that was moderately socialistic on economics, non-interventionist on foreign policy, environmentally conservationist, and fairly conservative on social/cultural issues.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Mark @ 13
As a Brit, I think your Candadian analogy applies equally to Britain. A left-right spectrum would look something like: Labour – Tory – Democrat – Republican. The Republicans are viewed in Britain as so far off the political spectrum that they have no (mainstream) European equivalent – witness Cameron doing his best to milk to Obama photo-op in July. Most Tories I speak to overwhelmingly back Obama (and this seems to apply globally if the Economist’s ‘global electoral college’ is anything to go by). This is as true in the culture wars (which aren’t an issue here) as it is in economic issues like health care as Matt saliently writes.
Labour, after all are theoretically a ‘democratic socialist’ party (that’s what it says on my membership card), whereas I imagine if a US Democrat called him/herself a Socialist outside of Vermont, it would be pretty much game over politically…
October 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
First, I wouldn’t underestimate how far right Berlusconi is. The allied parties of Forza Italia regularly create openly and wildly racist political ads, for instance. Berlo’s partisans routinely call all their opponents communists (which, in the Italian context, some are indeed communists, but most aren’t). I don’t think Berlo would have much trouble integrating himself into even the right wing of the Republicans if he was an American.
I also wouldn’t underestimate how conservative Sarko is either. Of course, he’s a French conservative, which is quite different from any Anglo-Australo-American conservative.
“And of course leaders like Sarkozy, Merkel, and Cameron are all supportive of health care systems far more socialistic than anything Barack Obama would dare propose.”
But, partially, that’s because their respective health care systems are now traditional within their respective nations. Not proposing large changes is precisely conservative
October 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Steyn is almost always wrong, and he may continue his streak with the assumption that Gordon Brown will lose to David Cameron. That has been the conventional wisdom; but if it turns out that Brown has hatched the plan that saves the international financial system (as Paul Krugman posits), he may pull out a victory in the next U.K. parliamentary election — which, remember, Brown gets to call at the most opportune time in the next three years.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Sarkozy would kick Steyn in the nuts.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
The healthcare issue alone makes the point. In those countries, even the rightwing believes in universal health care. In the US, our crazy-extreme leftist candidate won’t even push for mandates. Most (all?) of those countries have free or nearly free higher education with govt’t mandated tuition rates (if the schools aren’t outright controlled by the government). This is orthodoxy in many countries and pure heresy in the US. The same can be said about taxes, social safety net systems, unions, etc.
What Steyn is missing is that our lefty president (who the GOP thinks it the most eeeevilist leftist marxist in the world) is still arguably to the right on many issues compared to the right wings of many foreign governments.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I think to go to the right of Steyn you have to go to places like the middle east where religion is not just an inspiration for public policy, but IS public policy, where they don’t just ban gay marriage, but ban homosexuality. You know, places where science is viewed with hatred and fear, where citizens can be killed for breaking certain laws. Places where torturing people, spying on citizens, etc. are all common practices. Can anyone say strong “unitary executive” powers?
The most ironic thing about the rightwing hatred for the middle east is that the middle eastern governments are closer to their desired America than anything in the western world. They mainly just want to change the religion.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Nylund,
Don’t be silly. “Changing the religion” is changing the very basis of what a religious state would be. If you want a Christian state (I’m not saying the Repubicans do) then having an Islamic state would defeat the whole purpose. A Christian and an Islamic state would both be anti-liberal, naturally. So would any decent government that stands for anything be anti-liberal. (Liberalism is pretty much the negation of all absolute values in the political sphere..) That doesn’t make all antiliberal regimes (fascist, communist, socialist, anarchist, militarist, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist) similar to one another. It’s liberal regimes that all look drearily and revoltingly similar.
I’m an anti-liberal who thinks that the post-Enlightenment era has erred in trying to completely separate religious inspiration from political morality. My ideal balance of church and state would be along the lines of some of the South American countries- perhaps the late General Velasco’s regime if you want me to choose one, which was both Christian and socialist. I have no interest in trying to establish a Christian version of Shariah law.
I’m not sure why you feel compelled to bring up the Middle East- if you’re a Christian who thinks that Christianity should be the established state religion, Santo Domingo or La Paz* would probably be a better fit, as well as a much cheaper and more convenient destination. But I suppose that Santo Domingo isn’t as attractive a boogeyman for the professional atheists around here as some dark mutterings about ‘Shariah’.
Given that you people appear to always be apologizing for the worst of Islam, that’s really pretty funny.
*Bolivia’s government believes in discouraging abortion, bringing back corporal punishment, and declaring natural gas wells to be God’s property. They’re also, of course, on the Left, very much so.
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