How are liberals doing internationally?
Considering that liberalism is a very apolitical stance in politics, and is based more on long-term non-political gains for society rather than short-term political gains for the party...liberals have been doing surprisingly well.
Claiming to be a liberal, in theory, should not win you many votes, and even doom your political career even.
Yet, in Germany, the Vice Chancellor is a liberal whose party managed to win 5% of all the seats, with nearly 100 seats in the national parliament and nearly 200 in the regional ones. No matter that their parliament rises up in outrage at every one of Guido Westerwelle's liberal talking points - he is still considered a member of their political establishment at all, and is not seen as a pariah or a political lightweight.
Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and a few other nations in southeastern and eastern Europe are known for extremely liberal policies, and as a result Estonia has shown amazing economic growth and development in the post-Soviet era. Estonia was creating tens of thousands of jobs even during the recent recession. Lithuania has a large number of independent candidates not affiliated to parties; perhaps this is the key to a successful liberal society?
Poland is completely dominated by liberals, with the Civic Platform and Law & Justice Parties, which have found no opposition in deregulating and privatising their state. Unfortunately, Poland is also a puritanical society, and worries far more about abortion, divorce, gambling and homosexuals. It's tied up on the petty distraction issues, which hold it back in liberalising Poland.
Australia has also been a historically liberal-dominated nation, but many allege that it is now liberal in name only. Many Australians allege that John Howard has done far more to destroy freedom than to protect it, and Australia, like Poland, has also been too focused on petty matters like banning and censoring entertainment media, because of its puritanical values.
In Netherlands, the 13th most capitalist nation in the world with a long history of laissez-faire policies, Geert Wilders, of the Party for Freedom, is now looking like he is going to win the elections when they come up.
In UK, liberalism died 22 years ago with its famous Liberal Party being dissolved. It is quite ironic that the birthplace of liberalism has itself abandoned it.
Similarly, in United States, liberals are also nearly decimated. Interestingly, 'liberal' eventually even became a hijacked term for a Far Left person who is the compete opposite of an actual liberal (doublethink in action), much the way 'conservative' also became a hijacked term for Woodrow-Wilsonian style progressive, so Americans have no idea what a liberal actually is. Liberals in US are political lightweights, such as Ron Paul, and wield no influence whatsoever. Liberal Americans are far more likely to be in academia than influencing policy, and in a fiercely progressive society like America, liberalism may well have been shunned back in the 1960s.
At least that is still better than Asian countries like mine, where liberalism has not even been born...
Ukraine and Poland? I don't think so...
I do believe that America is the last true beacon of freedom and liberalism.
Not offices and bureaucrats, but big business deserves credit for the fact that most of the families in the United States own a motorcar and a radio set. - Ludwig von Mises
Caley McKibbin: Ukraine and Poland? I don't think so...
The Polish Sejm has 460 seats and its Senate 100.
There are two dominant parties in Poland. The Civic Platform party has 206 seats in the Sejm and 59 in the Senate. The Law and Justice party has 155 seats in the Sejm and 38 in the Senate.
The Civic Platform party wants flat tax, privatisation of all public sector industries, decentralisation of state, direct democracy for all local regions, dismantling of the central banking system and central monetary policy, and removing the union-biased labour laws. The Law and Justice party wants to do all these exact same things as well, and then also wants to have the names of all Polish secret service agents publicly revealed, all their activities revealed, and all their collaborators and infiltrators in the public sector removed. Then they want to stop all their activities in spying and oppressing targeted Polish civilians.
If an American President or legislator attempted to declare war on the CIA and put an end to all its activities in spying on people, conducting assassinations abroad, and funding revolutions by local warlords, the CIA would just as quickly assassinate that man before he knew what hit him, and make an example out of him in public. John F. Kennedy Jr. learnt this the hard way when CIA snipers blew his head off.
That starkly contradicts what a Pole in this forum said not a week ago
Ukraine is a cleptocracy its politics defined by turf wars between rival oligarch clans.
Caley McKibbin: That starkly contradicts what a Pole in this forum said not a week ago
It's doubtful for liberals to have much influence in any country the first place, admittedly. I was surprised that a self-professed classical liberal like Guido Westerwelle still managed to become foreign minister and Vice Chancellor in a statist country like Germany. It's the equivalent of making Ron Paul a foreign secretary in the US, if you ask me.
Of course, even in Poland, they are thinking of adopting socialised medical care, but I reckon they have some international free market economists strongly advising them against this plan.