Do you want to discuss the Swedish democratic process or are you just trolling?
If you do, I’d love to. I’m on the ballots and I am in the leader of the city campaign for the progressive party. But I suspect you’re just trolling.
For those of us who can’t read Swedish, could you give a summary of that article?
It’s about how a guy from the Danish version of the Tea Party (who actually have a lot of influence there unfortunately) wrote an article that wasn’t published in the main Swedish newspapers. The article tried to make the case that the Swedish elections weren’t democratic, because parties who get less than 1% of the votes have to print and distribute their own ballots. Blank ballots and pens are however supplied so that you can write the name of the party you want to vote for in case they don’t have printed ballots. His suggestion was that the EU should send international supervisors to make sure the democratic rights of the Swedish people aren’t infringed upon.
Oh, and it’s in Danish not Swedish.
edit: I don’t know why I felt I had to point that out… it’s not like it is reasonable to assume that non-Scandinavians can tell the difference
Don’t worry, I have to thank you. I was getting annoyed that Google translator was not working properly, (only the menus seemed to be translated… odd) once set to Danish… well now the “Babel fish” finally works!
LOL!
I thought the Danish to Swedish translation was bad but now I tried your “Swedish to English” translation, and I can see it being hard to make sense of that!
So far, I’m the only one in this thread who has given any relevant information by people involved in the case. All your troll business on the other hand seem to be a form of trolling itself.
First off, it is incorrect to compare the Swedish SD and any Danish party to the Tea Party movement, which is a uniquely American institution unlike anything in either Sweden or Denmark. Second your Babel Fish must be out of order, because the article the Swedish newspapers refused to publish was by two election experts not associated with any party but who have worked with preparing democracies in various new democracies – and one of whom was even member of the Swedish parliament for ten years. You should have known because the newspaper this article is published in is the one most harshly critical of the party you dislike the most.
The problems they list with regard to the Swedish version of democracy are mainly two:
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Unfair obstruction of smaller parties. Parties (especially new ones not previously represented in the parliament, but also established ones to some degree) must organise and finance the preparation, printing and distribution of their own ballot paper. For each of the three district election (local, regional and nationwide) there are three different such ballot papers, and since there are a large number of small districts this apparently easily runs into up to a hundred different forms of ballot papers for each party, and a substantial financial cost. Meaning that smaller parties will have to forget running in all districts wherefore the voters will not be able to vote for them even if they wished. In 2006 more than 571 millions pieces of ballot paper were printed for a voting population of around 7-8 million. In addition the actual delivery of the voting paper to the voter, which in most democracies is the responsibility of neutral third party officials, in Sweden this must be done by party activists. Meaning again that smaller parties will be forced to concentrate on a subset of the voting districts. And the two writers mention that one party (a feminist one! what the hell is it with you guys and radical feminists?) only managed to run for office at the last election when a dude from ABBA came to their financial aid. Perhaps he performed with Money, Money Money or something, who knows?
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A flawed implementation of the essential principle of a secret ballot. In Sweden, as mentioned, the votes must go directly to the political representative or political party activists for his voting paper, so everybody can see which party a person intends to vote for. This, and especially in smaller voting districts where everybody knows everybody, puts an unreasonable social pressure on voters to go to the “correct” representative to get the paper – rather than on the perhaps less popular or controversial candidate the voter would have preferred if the selection had been completely secret. In effect undermining the principle of a secret ballot. Would we accept such a system if it had been in Ukraine or even a place like Italy (Hello friend. I’m Tony and I have a ballot paper you can’t refuse)? The two experts writing the article believe the EU and the OSCE would have been on the case immediately.
Their conclusion is that the Swedish election is free, but not fair. I’d add that you guys have a real problem with freedom of assembly and freedom of press, the latter not made any better for the state media sitting 90%+ of the market.
You made a drive by remark where you tried to make the following points:
1.Swedish democracy has big problems.
2.Sweden is for some clandestine reason not being critisised by the EU or NGO’s, even though any other country would be under the same circumstances.
Based on that don’t think it is wrong to assume you’re trolling.
You’re right that the unpublished article wasn’t written by the politician of the Danish version of SD, the initial statement, which was public, was written by him. The editorial you linked to was written by those two who couldn’t get their article reiterating the politicians statement published.
It is not “incorrect” to compare the SD with the TP. It would be incorrect to say that they are identical. But they are both nativist, populist protest parties who are overtly xenophobic. They both use fear mongering as a political instrument. They both try to represent themself as the “real people”. I could go on and on but the overlap is so major that for anyone knowing about the two parties the comparison is inevitable.
Yes parties smaller than 1% have to print their own ballots. Since anyone in Sweden can register their own party there are thousands of parties registered for election in Sweden. Such as the “Donald Duck” party, or the “Beer Party”. Are you suggesting that this cutoff be removed and that we’re supposed to print not 571 million ballots, but 571 billion ballots. And voters should have to sift through thousands of ballots at the polling stations?
Wow, that is an amazingly dishonest represenation.
The former party leader of the socialist party, a very public figure who has had a seat in our parliament for 20 yeard, quit the ”Vänsterpartiet” and formed ”Feministiskt initiativ”. A single issue feminist party. Björn Ulvaeus who is one of Swedens most famous people, as well as one of the richest, publicly supported them and made a donation of 1.000.000 SEK to their campaign chest. That was obviously very helpful, but not essential. Gudrun Schyman, the leader, is a very well known person with a lot of influence and support, and Feministiskt initiativ gets a lot of attention for a <1% party. But their ‘problem’ is that they are active in what is possibly the most feminist country in the world (Iceland being the top contender). All parties but the most conservative ones are already feminist and most feminists (such as myself) feel that although Fi has great policies, several other parties have 99.8% of those policies but other important policies as well. I don’t want to trade away my enviromental policies, economic policies or other policies just to improve the feminist policies of my own party by 0.02%. Their problem (as far as getting votes) isn’t that Sweden isn’t feminist, it’s that Swedish politics and Sweden is too feminist. You trying to insinuate something different just shows that you either don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re being deliberately dishonest.
The answer to the question ”What the hell is it with you guys and radical feminists?” is that most of us ARE feminists, and a lot of us are ”radical” feminists.
The whole premise for this paragraph is false. All parties have the right to have people stationed outside polling stations handing out ballots, but all polling stations will also supply ballots inside. If you don’t want to show who you’re voting for you can just ignore the people like me who are standing outside and go inside to pick whatever ballots you want. You can also pick blank ballots, take a pen, and pencil in what party you want to vote for inside the actual voting booth if you prefer.
Your ”I’m Tony…” example is also a sign of ignorance. We who hand out ballots outside are not allowed to say anything political to voters or initiate contact. We’re allowed to wear a sash marking our party affiliation and passively provide people with ballots. We are not allowed inside the polling station. We’re not even allowed to stand close to the door or in a position that may in any way cause a real or perceived obstacle to someone coming to vote. Voters have to take a less direct route to the door AND initiate contact to be handed a ballot by a volunteer.
Cite?
Two TV-channels out of… eh… lots, and zero newspapers are government run. The TV-channels are financed through licensce payments rather than directly through taxes to ensure no political influence. Any politician trying to influence that government media would be committing instant political suicide. The TV-station refusing to air the ad in the OP is a commercial one, the state run is ad-free. Your statement that more that ”state media sitting 90%+ of the market. [sic]” is just amazingly devoid of any connection to reality.
Every single point you have tried to make is blatantly wrong, to the degree that it’s not realistic that anyone who has a basic knowledge of Sweden or Swedish democracy would be able to hold them and be intellectually honest.
Do not accuse other posters of trolling in Great Debates, (or anywhere else on the SDMB except the BBQ Pit where it may be used as a general insult).
[ /Moderating ]
Alright, cheers.
What is the correct way of expression an unwillingness on my part to take what a person says seriously, when I suspect that the poster is only making remarks to provoke and has no interest in an intellectually honest debate? Would what I just said be OK?
And do not respond to accusations of trolling with further accusations of trolling.
[ /Moderating ]
You can always just ignore that poster.
If you must respond, you may note that their comments are not on topic.
If you genuinely believe that a poster is trolling, use the Report button.
(Don’t bother Reporting this incident; you just happened to press a hot button that prompted a particular response. The two of you can always fight it out in a different thread.)
[ /Modding ]
If you think it is trolling to remark that the Swedish democracy is “less than stellar”, and that this would have attracted criticism if it had been in say Afghanistan, then by all means call me a troll.
SD and the Danish version thereof, as far as they are comparable, can – as the video you linked to makes clear – best be described as special interests welfare parties, with many traditional Social Democratic policies. I.e. they want to increase public spending on things like pensions and public health care and (at least the Danish version) is adamantly against any talk about tax cuts. If you can recognise the Tea Party in there your powers of perception are indeed amazing.
Other countries seem to manage without such financial and organisation burdens put upon the parties, but personally I find this problem of less importance.
Read again. I am giving Sitnam a summary of what the two election experts wrote. Not my own opinion. Although I of course think they point to some very troubling flaws in Swedish democracy.
Yes. And, as the article makes clear, the voter can pick up a number of voting slips from different parties and in this way disguise how he intents to vote. It still remains a flawed implementation of a secret ballot, in that it is easy to imagine there may be social (or other kinds of) pressure to select the voting slip belonging to the “correct” party – either outside or inside the voting room – and selecting a blank voting slip or the voting slip for the controversial party will be looked upon with public distrust and condemnation – and even have repercussions in ones working life, etc. Some people have the moral fortitude to disregard such public opinion, others don’t. That is why elections are secret. Sweden ought to do away with a system whereby it is possible to public flaunt ones voting pattern.
I’m sure there are nonverbal means to communicate ones wish. And can you honestly say that you’d be happy if say Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine or Sicily had adopted your polling method, whereby the voters can clearly and publicly signal their voting pattern by the voting slips they select? I’m sure the Mob would love such an effective instrument to survey the election and see they get their money’s worth, and I’m sure there are groups in Sweden that would be strongly opposed to do away with it. Yet, why is it that most other respected democracies manage to do with a single unified voting slip for all parties or otherwise restrict the voting entirely to the secrecy of the ballot chamber, but Sweden feels it needs a voting slip for each party to be selected in public?
The points are made by the two election experts, one of whom has sat in the Swedish parliament for a decade. I doubt they can be classified as without basic knowledge of Sweden or Swedish democracy. Instead of taking their points as a personal affront, you – personal and as a country - should take the criticism as an opportunity to examine your election procedures to see if there is not someplace where it could be handled in a better way.
The Swedes have every reason to be wary of a religion that has the implementation of Sharia as one of its major goals. Islam is a dangerous religion - one where the “moderate” elements are almost invariably transformed or subsumed by its most conservative factions.
Yes. They should worry about Christianity for the same reasons.
Dishonest representation from you, again. I said that pasting a link to a Danish editorial and claiming Sweden has “bigger problems” and a “less than stellar” democracy is what I characterized as trolling.
Your knowledge of the SD and the Social Democrats is either severely limited or you are being intentionally dishonest.
SD’s main platform is nativist and populist. The Social Democrats are obviously neither. The SD meme is simple: All social ills are due to immigration, especially muslims. There is a conspiracy against the people of Sweden where all established parties are hiding the truth and trying to stop SD from speaking.
The SD party leader has characterized the Social Democrats as their main enemy and has said he will support the Conservative candidate for prime minister. You have to smoke a huge pipe of crack to think that the SD is anything like the Social Democrats. The main issues on SD’s platform is:
- Stop immigration
- Restrictions on religious freedom
- Harsher punishments for crimes
- The ability to revoke citizenship for foreign born citizens who commit crimes
- Anti gay and women rights
Xenophobia and social reactionism are their main trademarks.
Regarding everything else you say…
You did not post constructive critisism. You made outrageous and unsupported claims about how Swedens democracy was in such poor shape that there had to be a conspiracy responsible for us NOT to be investigated by international organisations. Your methods were lies and misrepresentations. The only value of which would be to provide a script for a danish version of Glen Beck.
I’m just going to stop there. Your regurgitations about Swedish democracy are simply not based on reality and I don’t think anything I or anyone else can say will make you change your mind. Your cite is a Danish editorial, my cite is reality and the Swedish election law.
We should worry about neither. Sweden is THE most secular nation in the world. Religion was for all intents and purposes phased out a long time ago. The main faiths of Sweden is atheism, agnosticism and “I don’t know… I think there probably is something, you know?”. People have moved past religion and they’re not going back. The average age of a church goer is somewhere between 65 and death and they’re not getting any younger. Muslims who move here see their kids adapt to secular humanism, some resist it, most don’t. If anyone should worry about anything it’s the religious people losing their culture, but we’ve got state funded museums for that.
All the same. As poor insults, poor reading skills and lies seem to be the best you can muster. If this is what goes for debating skills in Sweden, no wonder your democracy is in such a sorry state.
And as all you can muster are insults and accusations of lying–both prohibited in Great Debates–you would do well to stop posting if you cannot behave yourself.
[ /Moderating ]
My wife is a GRITS, has gay friends, will debate you on religion in an open and honest manner, and loves country music.
OTOH, her brother …