if only it were literal.
This from Keith in comments the other day:
It is difficult to see how this is going to resolve itself in a good way. I don't think any of them want to tackle the overgrown state sector, and they'll be as unpopular as hell for taxing fuck out of everyone to preserve it.
A coalition of the 3 major parties could share the blame for reform, but the state sector is such a juicy source of captive votes, I don't see any appetite for destroying it, from any of them.
Same problem with unions over here; a lot of politicians understand just what the problem is, but they'd rather let it continue to fester than deal with "The union won't push members to vote for me if I try to fix this."
Because, all too often, the politicians care more about keeping their fat ass in that office than about that 'public service' stuff they're supposed to be there for.
1 comment:
Your link is showing us the other problem:
The third and smallest of the major parties becomes the king maker.
In the case of the Brit's Liberal Democrats, the price of their support is a proportional voting system, which will have them, the smallest of the three, always in
power and deciding which of the larger (far more votes) parties joins them there.
That was the system which Italy had after the war, and which had the centre-right christian democrats in power constantly, until they collapsed in the scandal of massive corruption which a long term in office ALWAYS results in.
Fortunately for Italy, they changed the electoral system to a first past the post system, and the last election saw the neo fascists and the communists wiped out for the first time.
Also fortunate, Silvio Berlusconi was able to organise a new, clean party of the centre right. Although the man has his faults, he is also the target of the usual character assassination by the left, and so vicious is their attack, that Italians who would normally considder a man's private and married life to be seperate from his public life, have begun to take the English speaking world's attitude to it.
Getting back to Britain, The Conservative vote has also been reduced by protest votes for the UK Independence party and the British National Party.
I wasn't there to vote, but would have spoiled my paper, as I still have not forgiven the Tories for the 1988 and 1998 gun bans, and I could never bring myself to vote for nazis in protest.
Thoughts for the US:
Shun third parties
Get libertarian candidates into the two major parties and get their leaders to listen to you
Change your politicians early and change them often, they begin to smell bad if you leave them too long.
Never let one party have full control (power always corrupts...)
Good luck
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