Elections in various countries

[rotting bones]

There's a difference between personal opinions and legal mandates.

Why is it unhealthy to wear clothing covering your body? Why is it healthy to wear clothing that doesn't cover your body?

It's unhealthy to let the reactions of others mold your habits to that extent.

It's one thing to wear military fatigues while sneaking through enemy territory. But if you consign an entire category of people to wearing military fatigues for all eternity, they will never stop being alienated from society. Normalizing women's dress based on men's reactions is different only in degree, not substance.

Obviously, it's fine if they're doing it because they actually feel like it. Like I said, I don't support laicite. A society where arbitrary rights are curtailed will probably use "social good" as an excuse to punish dissidents. I also think cigarettes are unhealthy, and I'm not in favor of banning those.

Why do these sorts of statements mysteriously only seem to appear to apply to women, and not to men?

Mostly because men love objectifying women. If the French Revolution happened today, the bare-breasted goddess leading the charge would most likely have cat ears too. On the other hand, women often start these conversations themselves - on behalf of both overdressing and underdressing. Men are usually less interested in fashion statements than ease of objectification.

[Ryusenshi]

Generally, atitudes towards women's clothes are basically a double bind, which I'm told is the best way to drive people crazy. There's no good option and there does not exist a set of clothes women can wear that people won't loudly object to. (It'll either be too long or too short, and that's just for starters.)

To paraphrase an old quote: everybody who wears more clothing than me is a prude. Everybody who wears less clothing than me is a slut.

If the French Revolution happened today, the bare-breasted goddess leading the charge would most likely have cat ears too.

I assume you're referring to the Liberty Leading the People, which represents the July Revolution of 1830, not the French Revolution of 1789. Yes, we really like revolutions.

[Moose-tache]

Vitamin D expression is different across different parts of the body. It's the abdomen that counts the most, not the arms. So forced short-tanks and low-rise jeans? Oh. It's 2002. That's just legally mandated 2002.

Oh no. Does that mean goatees and spiky hair too? Because I'm not doing that again.

Today I learned that the late 90s didn't reach France until the early 00s.

[rotting bones]

I wish the Mohawk Hijab would be more popular and give the Islamists an aneurysm.

I assume you're referring to the Liberty Leading the People, which represents the July Revolution of 1830, not the French Revolution of 1789. Yes, we really like revolutions.

Oops. Completely forgot about that.

[Raphael]

Wait, so the French constitution enables the president to pass a law without a vote? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

[Torco]

i'm equally opposed to FGM and MGM;

FGM is worse; it doesn't have any movies that are even close in quality to Casablanca or Rocky I.

[bradrn]

Wait, so the French constitution enables the president to pass a law without a vote? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

Isn’t this common in the US too? That has ‘executive orders’ and suchlike.

EDIT: Oh, it looks like this is something a bit different.

[Travis B.]

Wait, so the French constitution enables the president to pass a law without a vote? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

Isn’t this common in the US too? That has ‘executive orders’ and suchlike.

EDIT: Oh, it looks like this is something a bit different.

Executive orders are different from laws here in the US - they are not legislation, but rather orders given to the executive branch. They may have the force of law when the legislative branch has delegated the making of policy with the force of law to the executive branch (e.g. regulations), which is very much the case on a broad level in many areas, but they cannot create new law de novo where the legislative branch has not delegated such powers to the executive branch.

[Raphael]

Wait, so the French constitution enables the president to pass a law without a vote? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

Isn’t this common in the US too? That has ‘executive orders’ and suchlike.

EDIT: Oh, it looks like this is something a bit different.

Yes. What Travis says. Executive orders seem to have basically the legal status of instructions that a boss at work gives to their subordinates, except that in this case, the boss in question is the president of the USA, and the subordinates are all people who work in those parts of the executive branch of the US government that are affected by the orders.

[Ryusenshi]

I think you're referring to the use of the infamous article 49.3 of the French constitution. This allows the executive (not the President) to commit its responsibility in front of the National Assembly: it means the bill goes through without a vote, unless the Assembly makes a vote of no confidence to overthrow the Government. There are limits to its use, though: the executive can only use it once per session (i.e. once per year), except for budget. Basically, it's meant to mean "let me do my job or fire me". It's supposed to prevent a gridlock like the one in the UK a few years ago, where Parliament would reject all of Theresa May's propositions but wouldn't fire her either. In practice, it means that the French government has one "get an unpopular law passed" free card per year.

[Raphael]

I think you're referring to the use of the infamous article 49.3 of the French constitution. This allows the executive (not the President) to commit its responsibility in front of the National Assembly: it means the bill goes through without a vote, unless the Assembly makes a vote of no confidence to overthrow the Government. There are limits to its use, though: the executive can only use it once per session (i.e. once per year), except for budget. Basically, it's meant to mean "let me do my job or fire me". It's supposed to prevent a gridlock like the one in the UK a few years ago, where Parliament would reject all of Theresa May's propositions but wouldn't fire her either. In practice, it means that the French government has one "get an unpopular law passed" free card per year.

Ah, thank you!

[bradrn]

NSW state election in two days! So far it’s been a relatively staid campaign; the biggest revelation was that our current state Premier (a.k.a. Governor, for the Americans, except that we also have Governors and they’re different), from the Liberal party, once dressed up as a Nazi when he was 19. I feel he’s been doing a very good job otherwise, though, and in fact has been rather supportive of the Jewish community here. I’ve been particularly impressed by how he’s stood up to the gambling lobby here, which has influence comparable to — if not greater than — the gun lobby in the US. Also impressive is the way he’s been willing to accept debate on controversial topics, even when they go against his personal beliefs (he’s a very conservative Christian). That being said, when you ignore the leaders and look at the policies of the two major parties outside gambling, they’re pretty similar, approaching identical. I’ll probably vote first preference for the Liberals, but with a little reluctance.

[bradrn]

Looks like Labor won, pretty decisively. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens now.

[Raphael]

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens now.

Why - have they been unclear about what they'll do if they win?

[bradrn]

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens now.

Why - have they been unclear about what they'll do if they win?

I’m just a little sceptical about some of their policies, that’s all. Probably it will be fine.

[Torco]

regrettably, I've no idea about stralian politics. are your Labour neolibs ? or is this a good thing?

[bradrn]

regrettably, I've no idea about stralian politics. are your Labour neolibs ? or is this a good thing?

I should probably make a thread about this some time…

But basically, the two main parties are Liberal and Labor (no ⟨u⟩!). Traditionally, the Liberal party is, well, liberal — probably neoliberal, insofar as I even know what the term means. It has famously been described as a ‘broad church’. Labor, meanwhile, has skewed left.

That’s all been changing recently. The Liberal party has been moving in a decidedly conservative direction, probably due to their permanent coalition with the Nationals, a rural party which has always been a bit conservative. Meanwhile, Labor has been doing who-knows-what in an attempt to respond; I’m not sure what their ideology might be described as now, although they’re still fundamentally to the left of the spectrum.

Then there’s the smaller parties: the Greens (perennially popular in the inner city, the primary ‘leftist’ party now), One Nation (perennially popular amongst the racist), the UAP (run by idiots), the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (who have been losing members like a sieve), the Christian Democrats (until recently when they were apparently deregistered), and of course the independent candidates, to mention only a few. These were enormously influential in the most recent federal election, but less so at the state level, probably due to differences in regulations and voting methods.

[Raphael]

the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (who have been losing members like a sieve),

To shooting, fishing, and agricultural machinery accidents?

[bradrn]

the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (who have been losing members like a sieve),

To shooting, fishing, and agricultural machinery accidents?

No, they’re all still alive, just independents now. They resigned from the party over some dispute of which I’m not sure about the details.

(This is specifically Members of Parliament who’ve been leaving, to be clear. Or more precisely, Members of the Legislative Council, which is what the lower house is called in NSW.)

[Raphael]

OK, now that I'm here, I might as well try to talk about the latest episodes in the long running drama that is the local/state (it's a city-state, so there's no distinction there) politics of Berlin.

Let's start by looking more than a year back into the past. Back on September 26th, 2021, which was the day of the most recent German federal election, Berlin had hold an election for the city House of Delegates as well. And for the twelve borough assemblies in Berlin, too, while they were at it.

Both the Berlin city elections and the Berlin part of the federal election were very poorly managed. Among other things, the people in charge had had the brilliant idea to hold the city's annual marathon on the same day. One effect of that very poor management was that on election day, there were photos and footage of long lines in front of polling stations that looked very much like the kind of photos and footage that you usually get from the USA when they have an election day. That was generally seen as very scandalous, and a lot of people started to demand that at least the Berlin elections should be annulled and rerun.

At first, the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left in Berlin continued their old coalition - they still had enough seats for that. But after some back-and-forth, on November 16th 2022, the city's constitutional court decided to annul the Berlin elections and ordered a rerun. That rerun was hold on February 12th, 2023.

The result of that rerun was:

CDU 28.2 percent and 52 seats in the House of Delegates; 10.2 percent more than in 2021
SPD 18.4 percent and 34 seats in the House of Delegates; 3 percent less than in 2021
Greens 18.4 percent and 34 seats in the House of Delegates; 0.5 percent less than in 2021
The Left 12.2 percent and 22 seats in the House of Delegates; 1.9 percent less than in 2021
AfD 9.1 percent and 17 seats in the House of Delegates; 1.1 percent more than in 2021
and FDP 4.6 percent, below 5 percent, and therefore no seats in the House of Delegates; 2.5 less than in 2021

That was quite a shock for some people. The last time the CDU had been in first place in a Berlin city election had been back in 1999 (insert your own Prince reference here). And it looks like the FDP keeps being abandoned by their core voters to punish them for being in a coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens at the federal level.

There was some back-and-forth about who should try to work with whom, and eventually, SPD leader Franziska Giffey - the outgoing mayor - "convinced" her party's city executive to agree to coalition negotiations with the CDU. But there seems to be a lot of grumbling about that inside the SPD. Well, that's where things stand at the moment.