There are many more examples than just Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan comes to mind but also many other Muslim countries use Islam and Shari’a law to control the population or use religious laws as an excuse for their authoritarianism. No religion is free of that.
The Chinese approach is far more effective I fear. The Soviet way worked only with mixed results and was more ideology driven than logical. In Poland, the Catholic Church became a huge factor in the opposition because of that. If religion is deeply rooted in society, controlling and steering religion makes for a powerful tool to control the masses while fighting it automatically makes it a strong opposition force.
Lol, sure it does
Two choices is not complete control
What? Not all positions are elected, in no system. Or when did you vote for secretary of state in the US?
The prime minister of France is not an elected position but appointed by the president. This has nothing to do with multiparty democracy.
Counter examples exist. Willy Brandt was social-democratic German chancellor in a coalition with the liberals while the conservatives were the biggest party in parliament. The conservatives could only watch.
Also recent state elections in Thuringia, the fascist AfD is the biggest party but nobody wants to work with them, so they don’t get a chance to form a government.
What’s important in both cases: the majority of voters want it that way. They wanted a social-democratic+liberal government under Willy Brandt and there is a clear majority in Thuringia that don’t want the AfD to govern. In both cases it’s more democratic to not let the biggest party govern.
In a two party system the power balance within the coalition is decided behind closed doors and the voters have no say in it
As long as the coalition represents the majority, I don’t see why the largest party needs to be part of the government. The largest party doesn’t represent the will of the people by itself, otherwise they would have a majority.
still taking Russian oil
That’s a lie
Also: Germany’s coal power production drops to lowest level in 60 years in 2023
Stop with that bullshit
The Shinkansen is absolutely great and I love traveling in Japan by train, much better experience overall than Germany. That said, there are still so many things that are oddly outdated. Like, why is there no app to book tickets? Even when booking online, physical tickets are still needed and have to be collected at the train station.
Now with the typhoon a lot of connections were cancelled. Hundreds of people had to go to physical counters to exchange their physical tickets to cash. Because there’s an emergency schedule on some lines, the ticket machines don’t work and customers have to go to counters to get tickets. Even Germany is more digitized than that. Granted, Germany has a lot more experience with cancelled train connections…
It’s like, Japan was ahead of everyone else and just stopped there. Still a great experience but it could be so much better with relatively little effort.
I don’t quite share your sentiment. Although FDP tends to yap a lot about car infrastructure, investments into train infrastructure in Germany are at a record high. Still far too low, I agree, but it’s not getting worse. And I don’t see AfD joining any government on national level anytime soon. Also, cycling infrastructure is more a local topic and most cities are still center-left. Outside of cities I don’t see biking infrastructure improving either, though.
The article is pretty well done and shows exactly why this discussion is moot. There’s simply no merit to the accusation, plain and simple.
If an accusation comes from Russia and only from Russia, it’s part of their misinformation warfare. That’s not ad-hominem, that’s paying some fucking attention.
True, Breezy is just one example. But that’s not the ones they were discussing with.
Is that remorse here in the room with us?
Just to make clear what I mean:
he said it’s the biggest mistake of his life - I sure fucking hope so. This is an empty statement, of course it is.
and he has to bear the consequences - that’s what grinds my gears. No, he doesn’t bear the consequences, his victim does. I would like for him just once to acknowledge that there is an actual victim here and it’s not him. He destroyed her life. Even that carefully crafted PR statement you posted here only ominously mentioned “those involved”. He doesn’t mention her, his organization doesn’t mention her. He calls it a misstep and a mistake, he doesn’t call it what it is, child rape.
If he were truly reformed, he would acknowledge what kind of pain his continuous presence in the public eye inflicts on his victim and others like her and would actually bear the consequences - step down on his own.
There is no proof that he is a pedophile.
Not entirely sure where you’re going with this. He’s not an irredeemable asshole because he might be a pedophile, he’s an irredeemable asshole because he raped a child and that’s indisputable.
Real talk: constantly conflating child rapists with pedophiles is actually a problem. Pedophiles didn’t choose their sexuality, however coming out would destroy their lifes because of how society sees them, so they don’t. Which means they don’t seek help which increases the risk of them acting on it at some point in their life. Even if you feel no sympathy towards them, which I get, them getting treatment is important to reduce cases of child abuse.
That’s wrong, he knew she was twelve before he went to the UK. Don’t make shit up.
He joked about finding 10-year-olds at this Olympics.
WTF? Seriously?
It’s Germany’s biggest union