Title. Asking because:
- When I was in the US, people glazed NL like it is paradise on Earth
- Recently I moved to NL’s schizophrenic Southern neighbor, where the things I’ve heard about NL is… overall quite messed-up?
- Apparently NL government did some thing about following the US and labeling antifa as a terrorist organization??
… basically above. I have little to no clue about what is going on about NL, and I feel I really, really should have a better grasp of it
It’s one of the most democratic countries on earth (1).
There’s the national, provincial and municipal levels. With some weird stuff like water management (waterschap) being it’s own electable agency outside of the typical political system.
On the national level there’s the executive (cabinet), and a 2 tier legislative (parliament and senate).
It has a very low electoral threshold, so new parties can come (and go) quite fast. Last elections BBB (Boer Burger Beweging/“Farmer Citizen Action”) was such a surprise winner.
Governance is almost always through a coalition of parties.
Anyone who votes PVV, VVD, BBB or FVD is against democracy.
Anyone who says how others should vote is against democracy 🙂
Neither did the person you replied to do that, nor is what you say actually against democracy. Forcing others to vote a certain way is against democracy, but telling someone why they should vote for something is just advertisement.
You’re right :)
With some weird stuff like water management (waterschap) being it’s own electable agency outside of the typical political system.
The Sea has been shaping NL and it’s society for ages. Keeping it at bay (which is one of the tasks of waterschap I guess) is a life-or-death task.
It has a very low electoral threshold, so new parties can come (and go) quite fast.
Very interesting factoid! We should know more about such things in all countries.
The Sea has been shaping NL and it’s society for ages. Keeping it at bay (which is one of the tasks of waterschap I guess) is a life-or-death task.
Indeed. I like that they decided that politicians shouldn’t meddle with important engineering. :)
NE? It’s NL.
What we’re hearing out of NL these days is pretty similar to what’s happening in many EU countries: the far-right populists are getting stronger, gaining access to government, usually as part of a coalition, and generally fuck things up in a big way.
NE? It’s NL.
Or NED or NLD.
ATM politics is in pre electoral limbo. The last coalition screwed up and fell apart. Those parties are all trying to blame each other. Meanwhile the two remaining parties are trying to suck up as much as they can to the rightwing voter, as they managed to do jack shit in their governing period and they want to score some minor points before the next elections of 29. okt.
So the right wing parties are all scrambling to be what they think the voter will reward them for. The centrum parties want to seem level headed. The left is scrambling to connect with voters and if they would only not get bugged up on ideological topics they would -but guess what?-
So it’s a clown fiesta with one major benefit, that one party will not likely get the majority and thank fuck for that. I personally hope that the left can muster a rare win, but the centralist parties will probably move right wing again.
The antifa thing is the right wing parties managing to connect over something that is not enforcable, but sounds like very steadfast and deliberate.
NL might be paradise compared to the US, but I have never been to the US so not sure about that. We don’t have Trump here though so we do have that going for us.
Dutch politics is a joke, politicians prefer throwing mud at eachother over actually solving problems, of which we have many, and increasingly so over the last decade. Notably drug related crime (which is probably what our southern neighbours are referring to), poor care for the elderly, housing shortage, inflation, shortage of staff, etc, etc.
Our government, like many other european countries, is still very pro Israel, even though the vast majority of the people that live here are are not, especially in the current timeline. Not sure what the exact reason behind this is.
So, not exactly paradise I’d say.
