German Federal Elections 2009

[Shearwater]

If you have always wondered how you would vote in the next German elections (and who doesn't :03:), here's something I've just come across at the SPIEGEL homepage:

http://wahlomat.spiegel.de/bundestagswahl2009/main_app.php?sprache=1&wombundestagswahl2009=9f726449f45cccba7f8b7b532abe d967&sena=wahlomat.spiegel.de

Basically, it's a series of questions to determine with which political party you agree most.
Enjoy!

[Schroeder]

Well according to that thing the Pirates would be my first choice.
After that it said that I should either vote the Republikaner (not the American Republicans:O:) who are pretty far right or the Left party (guess where they stand)..... Boy, I must be a twisted guy.:doh:

[Skybird]

Wahl-o-mat. Stupid politics for a stupid people. :shifty: Voters not knowing what to vote or not - and why so! - should not even be allowed to vote. They are not qualified.

That in German media this is seriously sold as a tool to improve political awareness and education (amongst other the TV station RTL and the Federal Centre for Political education are patronising and advertising it, the latter authored it), tells something about the accelerating fall of public and general education levels and political culture.

If somebody does not know at what end of the barrel the bullet comes out, don't hand out a gun to him.

But we have plenty of Spaß, haven't we...? :88) Thank God, the future is saved.

[Shearwater]

I wouldn't be so negative.
Of course, clicking yourself through 38-something questions is and can never be a substitution for a careful process of thought at whose end there will or will not be a decision to vote for a certain political party. But to some people who have no idea about politics, it might offer a glimpse as to where they stand on the political spectrum. After all, you're allowed to vote (and supposed to, according to politicians), even if you are totally clueless about politics.

[OneToughHerring]

I did it, I got left as number one and greens as number two. Didn't check the smaller parties.

[Lurchi]

I found the Wahlomat pretty useful. There is nothing wrong to use it and vote for the party that comes closest to your opinions.

It is much better than just voting for a certain party just because of a habit or -even worse- not to vote at all. I used it and the result wasn't a surprise so my decision was confirmed.

[Skybird]

If you guys cannot decide by yourself what party matches your politic views (and why you think so!) - then you should not even be allowed to vote, becasue you have not sufficient education and experience about what you vote for or against. Sorry if that sounds rude, but if you depend on an arbitrary software routine whose inner mechanisms you do not even question and analyse, then you are not ripe to have a word in political processes.

That is as if you are asking some stranger what to vote - and then do so. What'S the use of that? You give up your freedom that way.

And if somebody gets interested only becasue he gets a game or gadget to play around with, the same arguments apply. If you do not feel the responsibility to participate in political processes (which includes to decide not to vote - as long as you know your political arguments why you refuse to do so), then you should not make an entertaining show of it. It is kind of an abuse of a freedom that is claimed to be precious by many.

Poltiics should be about arguments, reason - not about being entertained, or getting talked into something. This is no TV game show. You cannot be a responsible person when interested in poltiics, if you do not invest the time to get educated about it.

Although campaigns make a hollow show of it, admitted.

P.S. I know from own observation as well as from professional teachers I am friend with, that in germany in past years in order to improve the education quotient and the quality of the german school system, giving too many bad notes in a class has practically become forbidden, and standards by which teachers should evaluate the performance of students in tests have been lowered - and very much so. the desired class mean values decide how the indovidual'S performance in a test gets scored. when I was at school, it was exactly the other way around. By perverting things like this, the general performance quotient raised, giving an appearance of students in Germany having become better. But in fact they have become worse. You can change such general performance mean quotients in two ways: by students becoming better and thus scoring better with the same tougher standards of before: or by letting them stay where they are, and lowering standards, so that the same infeiror performance gets rated better.

Things like the Whal-o- mat compare to such a lowering of standards, standards in political education, for example, and seeing the responsibility in accepting oneself to be a political person (which, btw, means much more than just voting, or holding a party membership - in fact parties are the worst part of politics, it seems to me).

[Shearwater]

If you guys cannot decide by yourself what party matches your politic views - then you should not even be allowed to vote. Sorry if that sounds rude, but if you depend on an arbitrary software routine whose inner mechanisms you do not even question and analyse, then you are not ripe to have a word in political processes.
(emphasis mine)

And who would be the judge of that?
Universal suffrage is the only way to make sure that elections are free, fair and representative. There will always be people who will vote without knowing what it actually is they're voting for. Not a pleasant thought to me either, but I can live with it (as long as they aren't voting for some extremist party). Democracy simply depends on the belief that people are capable of governing themselves.

Your first paragraph is pretty much what I have said before, though I did it more politely.

if you depend on an arbitrary software routine whose inner mechanisms you do not even question and analyse

It really doesn't take much to figure out how it works. You have your satements, your 3 possible answers and the option to emphasize certain answers. You could just as well do it on a piece of paper.

And yes, I do think it's sort of entertaining, and that's not inherently bad.

Bottom line: Take it with a grain of salt :DL But that applies to virtually everything you find on the net.

[Skybird]

(emphasis mine)

And who would be the judge of that?
Don't try to relativise what I said until it means nothing anymore. What I pointed out is self-explanatory. The issue does not need to get judged by a judge. Becasue it is plain and simple.

If you do not know your options in a situation where you make a choice, you can't make an educated decision on what to chose, and why. What's difficult about understanding that?

Democracy detoriates when being decided upon by reasons of only habits and "becasue others do it, so I do it too" and "all my family doe slike that" or "last year i did this, so this year i do the same/do different".

If you can't give educated reasons and arguments for your decisions, do not expect others to take your precious little "opinion" as important. just claiming to have an opinion and leave it to that, or leaving the explanation and argument for your choice to others (in this case, a software whose mechanisms you do not even care to check out), is not good enough. such an unfounded opinion that even the holder of that opinion does not care for, means nothing to anyone.

I have a great idea. For a small fee, I am willing to fill the ballot for you. That way the burden to think about how to use your freedom and why to make this choice and not the other, is taken off your shoulders. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

Freedom is no right imo, but a skill. It must be learned and practiced. It can't be given, therefore, but must be taken. A given freedom is not worth much if people do not know how to use it, and for what. To the ammount you do learn this skill, you can become free - or stay unfree. The ammount to which you learn it, it produces "free" conditions in the environment you live in. Don't care to learn to be free, and you will see the world you live in becoming unfree. Or to be more precise and make the point clear: you would be unable to see that lacking freedom.

[Skybird]

Your first paragraph is pretty much what I have said before, though I did it more politely.

I thought about to say it differently, but found that it would leave too much substance behind. If I sounded rude, that was not intentional as I said, but comes with expressing what I mean in content. I do not wish to give up on the latter.



It really doesn't take much to figure out how it works. You have your satements, your 3 possible answers and the option to emphasize certain answers. You could just as well do it on a piece of paper.


Nonsens. That is just a description of the visuals and tells nothing about the calculation model. You do not now how options get weigthed by the software. You take it as granted that all issues are of the same importance ot the one perosn filling the form. that all issues rated inside the double-weighted or single-weighted categories, are equally important to each other. you leave it to assuming how the software processes the markings you made. Regarding methodology you are very uncritical. ;)

And regarding "on paper" - the voisual presentation would be different then, and that also makes a difference in how your brain and your intellect absorbs and calculates the information. Just to be a bit of a psychologic smartass, if you forgive. :D


The problem I have with this wahl-o-mat is not that it is there. The problem is that it is not being given as a fun-game, or a joke, an ironicc comment on the campaign - but that it is promoted and understood to be a serious tool of forming political opinion. You see - they mean it serious, if you have not realised it so far! ;)

[Shearwater]

Freedom is no right imo, but a skill.

I would agree that it is a skill. But to me, it is very much a right to which every citizen of a free state is entitled.

And to make one thing quite clear: There is no such thing as self-explanatory.

To revert to the freedom issue: Because I care about freedom, I strongly oppose any attempt, even a hypothetical one, to deny anyone the right to vote.
What you are doing (or so it appears to me) is that you sort people into the cateogires 'fit to vote' and 'unfit to vote'. You cannot determint that objectively. It's always subjective, like it or not. Stupid people do stupid things, and because they are free, they themselves are responsible for what they do.
If you would like to know if people who vote do so because they have more than just an opinion of, or a vague idea about, what they're doing, you'd have to be able to look inside their heads. That's something nobody can or should do.

And I like your sarcasm as a like my women: Not even thinly veiled :DL



... ;)
Just keep it civil :up:

EDIT: Refering to post #9.

[Skybird]

I would agree that it is a skill. But to me, it is very much a right to which every citizen of a free state is entitled.

I'll be more precise: it may be a right or not, but without the skill to be free and use freedom, and without you learning that, the right to be free does not have any meaning that you could fill with substance. It is pointless.


And to make one thing quite clear: There is no such thing as self-explanatory.
Offensichtliuch. Selbsterklärend. Selbstzeigend. Call it what you want

To revert to the freedom issue: Because I care about freedom, I strongly oppose any attempt, even a hypothetical one, to deny anyone the right to vote.

And I say that somebody not knowing what he is doing and why, is a threat to himself and to others. Nobody should be given powers (not even the power influence political landscape with his perosnal vote on election day), if he is unable and too uneducated to understand the consequences of what he decides for or against.


What you are doing (or so it appears to me) is that you sort people into the cateogires 'fit to vote' and 'unfit to vote'. You cannot determint that objectively. It's always subjective, like it or not. Stupid people do stupid things, and because they are free, they themselves are responsible for what they do.

Go back to what I said on the difference between freedom as a right and freedom as a skill. Without the latter, the first means nothing. A person cannot be worried by living in a tyranny if he has no idea of what freedom should be. and you can't miss something if you do not know that it exists. You cannot make use of and benefit from a skill that you have not learned. You cannot use knowledge you have not gained. You cannot reasonably guess where you have had not the educational basis and necessary information. It's not all a question of taste and opinion only. Some things, many things you cannot value and/or understand if you lack the information and the skill that are prerequisites to it.

Freedom is a burden. By that nobody should conclude that people should be saved from that burden. It is a burden that makes us needing to invest more work and energy and ressource (to raise it, to keep it, to defend it), but it also turns us into self-detemrined, responsible individuals that take respnsibility form their own lifes (instead of claiming the state, the party, the law, the whatever being responsible for our wellbeing). It means that people needs training in order to be able to bear that burden, like an athlwete trains in order to train the race or win the match, or - at least - being competitive even if winning is not his ultimate goal.

Doing that training, increases the number of options available to us in our life. And that is what is called to be free: have a range of options. The right of freedom only claims that such options may exist, and that you have the right to raise them. But raising them you must yourself.

And where such right for freedom does not exist, in an opressive regome for example, you ablöity to act freely and rasie the number of options possible nevertheless can form and create it. First comes your skill of freedom. The right of freedom always is just a product of that, it always comes second only.

The right to become free, is all nice and well. But it means nothing as long as you are not able to get there. It's remains to be only political catchphrasing then. A person having no legs does not need the explicit right to run. And it cannot make use of it even if being given that right.


If you would like to know if people who vote do so because they have more than just an opinion of, or a vague idea about, what they're doing, you'd have to be able to look inside their heads. That's something nobody can or should do.

The Whal-o-mat is meant as a serious tool to help people decide where to make their precious tiny cross on that ballot. that is the problem here: that it is meant serious. By that it makes obsolete the need that people should raise their awareness and educational level on politics to become able to find by themselves what they want to vote for. The crutch no longer is the tool to help you becoming fit again and stay mobile until then, but the crutch is declared the reason why health is no longer needed.

Remember what I said about the lowering of school standards to raise the classes mean score although students do not learn better? The same principle works here.

And I like your sarcasm


I am not sarcastic here, nowhere.

[CastleBravo]

I took the test, and admitedly I don't know all the intricacies of the German political structures, but I came up as leaning toward FDU.

A quick google informed me that FDU was considered a 'right-wing' party. But more for economic issue than social issues. Is that correct?

[Skybird]

I took the test, and admitedly I don't know all the intricacies of the German political structures, but I came up as leaning toward FDU.

A quick google informed me that FDU was considered a 'right-wing' party. But more for economic issue than social issues. Is that correct?
I am not so sure after a quick Google. But I never have heared of them. They seem to be a regional minor party and member of some greater independent party union - that I also never have heared of. After just dealing five minutes with it, they give me the impression to be mnot right-winged extremists, but liberals (in European understanding, I am not sure that "liberal" means the same in europe and America, in america it seems to associated with the left while in Germany it is more centrist, slightly right-leaning). They do not play any role in federal politics. Like me, probably most people also do not know that they exist.

If I got it wrong, somebody correct me please. I would hate to misidentify a n organisation close to a Nazi party.

However:

http://micro-nations.de/du/fdu/index.php

Party-program: http://www.dur2005.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=5108

[CastleBravo]

I am not so sure after a quick Google. But I never have heared of them. They seem to be a regional minor party and member of some greater independent party union - that I also never have heared of. After just dealing five minutes with it, they give me the impression to be mnot right-winged extremists, but liberals (in European understanding, I am not sure that "liberal" means the same in europe and America, in america it seems to associated with the left while in Germany it is more centrist, slightly right-leaning). They do not play any role in federal politics. Like me, probably most people also do not know that they exist.

If I got it wrong, somebody correct me please. I would hate to misidentify a n organisation close to a Nazi party.

However:

http://micro-nations.de/du/fdu/index.php

Party-program: http://www.dur2005.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=5108

My mistake, FDP. Sorry for the confusion. My ignorance for German politics showing in a big way:DL

[Skybird]

FDP is the mainstream liberal party. 60% Republican, 40% Democrats, so to speak :D

Terms do not mean much anymore. The Christian-Conservatives CDU are in parts more left than the Social-Democrats SPD, and the Liberals FDP are more right than the Conservatives CDU, while the Green have become a mixture of both. Only the extreme left "Die Linke" stands out, featuring both dogmatic communists and many sympathesizers of the old SED regime, it also tolerates sympathesizers of terror groups like FARC. Nice company.

[CastleBravo]

FDP is the mainstream liberal party. 60% Republican, 40% Democrats, so to speak :D

Terms do not mean much anymore. The Christian-Conservatives CDU are in parts more left than the Social-Democrats SPD, and the Liberals FDP are more right than the Conservatives CDU, while the Green have become a mixture of both. Only the extreme left "Die Linke" stands out, featuring both dogmatic communists and many sympathesizers of the old SED regime, it also tolerates sympathesizers of terror groups like FARC. Nice company.

So it matches the other political test, for the most part. I guess I'm pretty much main stream.

EDIT: Perhaps I'm the 'pragmatic-nationalist':D