Your Friendly Neighborhood Politicians: Attack Ads in American and Dutch Elections

So do political parties in parties in multi-party systems use attack ads? This is another post in the series based on a Facebook conversation with my neighbor M that started here.

Party Platforms: Promises, Promises!

Photo: Harderwiek

Since Dutch-style party platforms are such an alien concept to Americans, I thought I’d show you how it works. Sure, both parties in America have their platforms, but they’re ultimately useless texts, because each individual representative will say as much as possible what all the voters in his/her constituency want to hear, and then mostly do what

Can Politicians Compromise?

Photo: willysford.com

Should the wing nuts (that’s right-wing nuts and left-wing nuts for you, Dutch readers) have less say in the elections? Or More? How does that work in the Dutch parliamentary system?

The other day my neighbor M and I had a Facebook conversation on American and Dutch political representation. My last post was the beginning of this conversation, with me shamelessly expanding on my Facebook comments. In this post my answer to his first follow-up question.

Who Can Represent the Whole Country?

Photo: jetmade

Are you wondering if it’s time to change politics? Wondering how it works in other countries? The other day my neighbor M, a few other people and I (but mostly my neighbor and I) were having a discussion on Facebook that I’d like to share, with some expansion on my comments. I’ll cut it up into several posts, to keep it readable.

My American Dream

This is what I dreamed last night.

I was in a school gym, remembering how we would be made to run laps around a gym just like that in high school in the Netherlands. And I remembered that I could. I’d be tired, and I’d be protesting loudly like any self-respecting un-sporty teenage girl should, but that’s all. And I resented–in this dream–that I can’t run for two minutes now without having a gimpy knee for the next two weeks (this is real; I ran for two minutes last weekend, and now it hurts when I walk down steps).

The Primaries: American Politics at Its Most Obvious

I’ve written about my views of American democracy vs. parliamentary democracy before. Now the Republican primaries are going on.

President For A Day

What would I do if I were president for a day? There are tremendous limits to what a president can do, let alone in one day. If I were president for a day, the most I could hope to get out of it would be really good room service from the White House chef, and shooting some hoops in the White House basketball court. Here’s a more useful question: What would I change if I were an absolute monarch for a day, and after that the country went back to being a democracy forever?

Freedom of Speech

There is nothing quite as frustrating to me as American freedom of speech.

Political correctness was pretty much non-existent when I left Holland, and judging by the percentage of racial slurs on a website with Dutch swear words that I visited recently, it still is. I have to say that living here, I have been influenced by the whole political correctness thing, and when I see those racial slurs on that Dutch website, neatly collected in alphabetical order, I cringe. I would have cringed before, but now I feel shame–yes, shame, ladies and gents–for my country.