Ireland is going to face a new general election no later than 3 April 2016. As such most political parties are gearing for the “event”. One such political party is the newly-formed Social Democrats which is yet another re-shuffle and re-wiggle of the old Social / Democrats / Laborers / Socialists parties. Yes, re-brand and re-sell . What the heck! If it works for products it should also work for political parties. But this is no standard party. It has three leaders. Three? Yes. All three. It is going to be fun to watch how they eventually turn against each other for the top position… but we digress.
What interest us most is what Ms Shortall (no, it’s not a joke - that’s her name) said; that a significant proportion or the majority of Irish people had become disillusioned with the existing political parties.
Right ON lady, right ON!
And what are you going to do about it? Well, the “revolutionary” set of proposals include:
A two to one division in favour of spending over taxation in the budget.
Which sounds impressive, assuming we actually know what it means… which we don’t. Does this mean that they will spend more money than they will tax? Huh? And how exactly are they proposing to achieve such a miracle? Well… we don’t know because they are still working on the budget. Aha. Uhu. It smells like a free lunch. Got it.
Repeal the Eight Amendment of the Constitution which is essentially an anti-abortion law.
Great! Now, who was the idiot that put this law into the Constitution to begin with? As far as we can tell, an unborn child is part of a mother’s body and as such “society” as a whole has no right to any opinion whatsoever.
They will abolish water charges.
Of course! Silly us! Water does not require a gigantic infrastructure to be provisioned, it just requires Irish people to open the tap and voila! Water! Magic! Who cares if the government owns the facility Irish Water, even better. After all the government can print as much wealth as it wants! They should spend some of that wealth to give us free water! It is our right! We demand a free drink with our free lunch!
They will extend paternity leave and establish child clinics.
Because paternity leave is clearly a right! Also child clinics must be free! For that we will spend, spend and spend and…well… do something with taxes…because we are soooooo wealthy. Our debt to GDP ratio is of “only” 124%. What the heck! Plenty of room to borrow more! Yes, more free lunches for parents and children! WooooHoooo!!! We can already see the vote avalanche coming our way!
They have shared goals of progress, equality, democracy, sustainability and a commitment to a Nordic model of social democracy.
So, they are for progress but their platform is essentially a spend avalanche which will slow down progress by increasing debt and creating booms and busts. We see.
But that’s OK because they are all for “equality”. So from no on every Irish citizen will live in the same house, have the same clothes, eat the same food, have the same number of children and so forth, right? Oh, no? That’s not the “equality” they are referring to? So then please enlighten us because we are at a loss. If it is not an economic equality and not a social equality, what kind of equality are they talking about? The equality of economic decay and decreasing standard of living? Yup!
But that’s OK because Irish people will have sustainability! Really? Yes. Really? Yes. Really? Neeeeeee. We are just joking. If we would be serious we wouldn’t get Ireland into the debt quagmire in which it seats today. Sustainability is… how would we say… oh yes! a “Lofty Goal” to be strived toward. There! Much, much better.
And lastly we have the thingy about their commitment to a Nordic model of social democracy… as opposed to any other model of social democracies because, you know, there are sooooo many differences between them. It’s not like Social Democrats are all more-or-less the same throughout the world. No sir! The fact that they all spend, go into debt, interfere with peoples’ lives and lower our standards of living has nothing to do with it. You see, we –of the Nordic model of social democracy- are going to abolish the eight commandment…err the eight amendment to the constitution. There! See how different we are?
We could go on and on and on like a broken record but your time –and ours- is valuable. So, let’s summarize. New Irish party must make a splash. New Irish party proposes free lunches (and drinks) to be paid for with more taxes and debt. New Irish party hopes to re-brand itself to “appeal” to voter. New Irish party ends up looking just like the same old Irish parties.
Consequence?
The dissolution of Irish people with all parties will continue to drop. Mission accomplished! Theirs? No, ours. We are all for dissolution. The more the better. If we would belong to a party, we would be the Dissolution NOW party.
Or not. Or perhaps we are getting all this wrong. Perhaps democracy is the solution. Perhaps it can be “fixed” from the inside and the fact that the success rate of this “fixing” is about zero is irrelevant. Perhaps voting is meaningful. That’s OK. Just one question. If this is the case, why are we in the drain? Politically and economically? Just sayin’…
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.