Captain’s Quarters notes the results of the recent Greek election, which saw the ruling Socialist party soundly trounced by the conservative New Democracy Party led by Costas Caramanlis. This move signifies a major transition in Greek politics, after twenty-three years of Socialist rule, the relatively conservative New Democracy party has promised significant reform.
Some of these reforms include better relations with other European nations, lower taxes, decreased government spending, and less regulation – exactly the sort of thing that can maintain the current Greek GDP growth of 4.7% beyond the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
Greece is usually a bastion of socialism and nearly fell to Communist domination in the 1960 and 1970s – now, like the fall of Mexico’s PRI, the new change in Greece represents a new era in politics that could help make Greece a significantly stronger power in the EU.
What’s ‘conservative’ mean in Greece, though. Isn’t the entire political spectrum there well to the left of Nader?
Generally yes, although Caramanlis is promising to slash spending, something which not even a lot of Republicans stateside have the guts to do…
They’re not only socialist, they don’t work. Real concern for the poor doesn’t involve enmeshing people into a lifelong dependency on government.
In fact, they used to call that slavery…
Real concern for the poor doesn’t involve enmeshing people into a lifelong dependency on government.
Ah, but uncontrolled escalation of rent helps the poor? I guess that logic makes sense for conservatives, but for those of us in the real world, you’ll pardon us if we try to solve problems rather than lay blame.
No, rent control makes things worse, which is why every city that’s tried it is ending it. It raises prices for everyone else, ensuring that only the super-rich can afford housing.
It’s another example of why “liberal” means can never achieve liberal ends. Modern “liberalism” (which should more accurately be called “statism” or “neofeudalism” ) attempts to shift the balance of rights away from the individual and towards the state – the exact opposite of Enlightenment liberalism. Not only does this not work, but it almost always makes things worse in the end.
Modern liberalism is just masturbation, it makes the liberal feel good but doesn’t accomplish a damn thing and leaves everyone else with a mess to clean up.
May I ask you to quote others only when you want to react on a particular part, or when the thing you are reacting to is so far above in the posts, that it is needed to understand what yo are reacting to. Quoting the whole right-above post doesn’t really make sense, and (I find) is annoying to follow.
thanks.