Author Topic: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections  (Read 35307 times)

Offline Fuchs

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #75 on: 10-06-2010, 21:06:06 »
Nice to have known you Hawkeye, hope you enjoy Canada. Luckily I can cancel my flight to Canada as Cohen didn't won.

@Donutz, I was two/three years before the law of 'free' books and I don't know how expensive they where in your days but 500/1000 euros where normal prices to hire a pile of books. Thus when the reduction in costs came it was a great relief for my parents, sure they can pay it but look what else can be bought for that amount of money.

Sure marriage immigration should be legal if you get your Thai chicks to live in your house I'm fine with that. IF they pass 'immigration tests'. So do they speak slightly Dutch and are willing to improve it, do they know basic rules in the Netherlands, do they know something about our culture (to avoid awkward situations), etc.

Then I'm fine with that but in quite some cases people just import other people by marrying them. Very common under the muslims as you mentioned, I'm fine with those coming along but atleast let them do a test so they can atleast go shopping by themselves without language and cultural problems, etc.

And then theres the part who gets paid to marry a girl and simply import her to a Western nation, very small percentage but utterly retarded  :P

"Force answers force, war breeds war, and death only brings death.
To break this vicious circle one must do more than act without thought or doubt."

Offline Admiral Donutz

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #76 on: 10-06-2010, 23:06:58 »
Nice to have known you Hawkeye, hope you enjoy Canada. Luckily I can cancel my flight to Canada as Cohen didn't won.
Why, are you secretly a banker or invester who anally raped us a hundred times over, is loaded with trillions in cash and has too many damn houses around the country with ane ven more massive loan (mortgage) on them to get a huge tax profit from? :p

Quote
@Donutz, I was two/three years before the law of 'free' books and I don't know how expensive they where in your days but 500/1000 euros where normal prices to hire a pile of books. Thus when the reduction in costs came it was a great relief for my parents, sure they can pay it but look what else can be bought for that amount of money.
I am not sure, a few hundred guilders and euro's. If I'd have to guess (!) I'd say... 300+ euros? It used to be more cheap when the school rented out the books, but after two years or so they rented them externally via a well known, large student/pupil book company. Prices didn't exactly went down... though the books wer more new then the somewhat over-used books the school used to provide.  
Regardless,  it shouldn't be too difficult to compensate this via child/family support program. Simplying things might be nice, I ain't a parent but it seems like they got all sorts of programs for this and that. WOuld be easier if they all added in one big pile and then looked at your family and financial situation to calculate how much financial aid/compensation you might receive to  help you out with raising your kid in a reasonable enviroment.

Quote
Sure marriage immigration should be legal if you get your Thai chicks to live in your house I'm fine with that. IF they pass 'immigration tests'. So do they speak slightly Dutch and are willing to improve it, do they know basic rules in the Netherlands, do they know something about our culture (to avoid awkward situations), etc.

Then I'm fine with that but in quite some cases people just import other people by marrying them. Very common under the muslims as you mentioned, I'm fine with those coming along but atleast let them do a test so they can atleast go shopping by themselves without language and cultural problems, etc.

And then theres the part who gets paid to marry a girl and simply import her to a Western nation, very small percentage but utterly retarded  :P
Obviously some demands are required to make sure that both the import-partner gets a decent life and that society at large isn't really "damaged" by it such as them being doomed to rely on goverment funding (partially perhaps due to lazyness/cultural principles, but in that case you don't really derserve any support except life saving aid as the wellfare system isn't supposed to be leeched off and abuse).  But if one reasonably fits in our society, then they are welcome. Regardless of your culture, aslong as you respect our laws and culture you'd be welcome. Though, as part of our culture/laws you'd be free to express your opinion and tell us you are offended by a certain aspect of "our" culture. Cultures changes over time anyway and is quite diverse, so I don't believe in that "must protect 'the' Dutch culture" BS.

Oh and regarding the VVD, it's "bad" enough that they are (too) liberal in the economic field, but that they are a bit conservative when it comes to social issues. Such as their stance that abortion should only be incase of emergency. I'd be pleased if they'd be a bit more liberal in that area and be truely liberal. =p

Their view of banning allface covering clothing/gear is also debatable as a "liberal" viewpoint. On the plus sides it makes it easier to confront people who are "suspicously wearing a helmet, and might intend to commit a robbery" or to identify some one (more easily). On the other hand, does this mean that whenever somebody steps of his motorcycle or scooter, you'd be force by law to take your helmet off? Or if you want to walk around in some sort of costume or uniform etc. for whatever (fair) reason? Or if it's part of some religious ceremony? Etc. etc.  I'd acknowledge that I rather not see people wear full face covering helmet in shops or  having about a hundred woman wear a full body covering burqa. In the case of the later I'd prefer if they'd dress less orthodox, on the other hand, it is their choice (I'd hope) and banning these cloths from public might bind these women to their house...

So as with many other things, getting proper legislation that achieves a goal that many people probably could agree on, is... quite tricky. We should be careful not to introduce too much legislation, as this makes things rather complex, reduses liberties etc.  I'd wish we'd could shred the whole lawbook an simply change it to "use common sense, be a good person and be respectful and tolerant". And then deal with any obvious criminals, trolls and such as they obviously are doing something that damages our society. *utopian dream*
« Last Edit: 10-06-2010, 23:06:45 by Admiral Donutz »

Offline Fuchs

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #77 on: 10-06-2010, 23:06:14 »
No, but that guy creeps me out somehow  :P

One example on 'cultural education'; Don't know if you have seen Gran Torino but ol' Eastwood shows some goodwill to pat a kid on the head which is a big sin in the Hmong culture and only worsens the relationship between those people, if we learn them some basic do's and don'ts you wont get such situations. That was my point with 'cultural stuff'  :P

Yup, Studieboekencentrale are rip offs. I asked my parents, costs for me in my first and second year it was around 500 euros. After the government compensation it was sort of 50/50; 300 euros.
"Force answers force, war breeds war, and death only brings death.
To break this vicious circle one must do more than act without thought or doubt."

Offline Admiral Donutz

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #78 on: 12-06-2010, 20:06:56 »
100% of the ballots have been counted, the last results (from voters abroad) were made public lasy Friday. This is the result:

Voter turnout: 75,3% (Below the avarage of 80+%. Ex: previous-2006- elections 80,4%).
Number of votes casted: 9.435.667, of which 0,3% was blanc or invalid.

VVD - _____________20,5%____1.926.551 votes, 31 seats
PvdA - ____________19,6%____1.847.776 votes, 30 seats
PVV - ____________ 15,5%____1.453.944 votes, 24 seats
CDA - _____________13,6%____1.281.137 votes, 21 seats
SP - ______________ 9,8%______924.977 votes, 15 seats
D66 - ______________6,9%______653.265 votes, 10 seats
GroenLinks - _______ 6,7% ______627.912 votes, 10 seats
ChristenUnie - ______ 3,3%______305.628 votes, 5 seats
SGP - ______ _______1,7%______163.512 votes, 2 seats
Partij voor de Dieren - 1,3%______122.257 votes, 2 seats
Trots op Nederland - 0,6%_______52.735 votes, 0 seats

Partij voor Mens en Spirit - __ 0,3%___26.224 votes, 0 seats
Piratenpartij - _____________0,%___10.570 votes, 0 seats
Lijst 17 - ________________0,1%___7.440 votes, 0 seats
Partij Een - _______________0,0%____2.087 votes, 0 seats
HeelNL - ________________ 0,0%____1.343 votes, 0 seats
Lijst Lacle, _______________0,0%_____949 votes, 0 seats

The results could still change, as the official and final amount of seeats is yet to be calculated. Due to the way votes are counted there are some "empty seats" which then are divided along the parties.

How the seats are divided:
The total amount of valid votes (say it's 9.100.000) is divided by the number of seats (150), which is roughly 60.666. This number is the "kiesdeler".

The amount of votes for a single list (party) is now divided by the kiesdeler. The result, rounded down, is the amount of seats for that party. For example for the VVD this would be(1926551 / 60666) = 31.75 seats. Rounded down, 31 seats.

As you can may have noticed, this means a number of seats is not assigned yet. There will be a handfull of unassigned seats, called "rest zetels" (leftover seats). SOme further calculations will decide on which party gets the seat, roughly speaking, the party with the highest decimal count gets the seat. Generally larger parties have a slight advantage, so some parties "combine" their lists. Such as the CU with the SGP and Pvda with GroenLinks, to increase their chanches of getting a "restzetel".

So in theory the PvdA could get one extra seat and thus create a tie with the VVD. The official results will be announced next Tuesday.

Offline luftwaffe.be

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #79 on: 13-06-2010, 00:06:45 »
Ok Dutchies, I'm gonna hijack this threat.

Tomorrow we'll have Belgian federal elections. The Dutch might have needed to vote for 4 elections past 8 years, the Belgian government has fallen 4 times last 3 years, and Yves Leterme (CDnV) has resigned to the King 5 times.

I will try to explain how Belgian elections work, since they are not as straight forward as that of most other nations.

In Belgium we have four main governments (and a bunch of small crap to) consisting out of :
*Flemish parliament (authority restricted to Flanders)
*Walloon parliament (" Wallonia )
*Brussels parliament (For Brussels and closeby towns)
*Federal  parliament (our national government)

each one has it's own ministers, and leaders : minister presidents for the communities (3) and the prime minister as national representative. Not all governments have the same authorities, although the communities have allot of posts that are available nation wide to.

for instance, the federal government is the only government which has a minister of justice. But each government has for instance a minister of finance AND a secretary for fraud(6 com, 2fed). I think each have about 10 ppl working with them, so that's about 80 for the nation.

And ofcource a lot of flaming for who can do what.   

This goes on for every post of the government but some thing go only for the community (for instance education) others go only for federal (social security, pensions, defence, homeland sec,...), others are shared (housing, environment,mobility, agriculture,...     

So in Belgium, many ministers have the same sort of authority ( and each community has it's own minister for the subject) , so we get 4 ministers on the same subject in our nation although only one nation wide.


Now the federal government consists out of  parts : chamber and senate. Only the chambers is important, senate always follows(There are rumours some politicians want to abolish the senate)

The federal government ... is a big mess. In Belgium, your only allowed to vote on parties of your community to go federal, except BHV, which can vote both (I'll try to explain that mess l8)

So flemish are only allowed to vote flemish, walloons only on walloons. personaly, I believe I should have the right to vote for a walloon party, if I believe it is the better one. Right now I don't.

And this creates No 1 of Belgiums problems: parties are only focused of what they can do for their community, and not for the NATION !

this is the current government




Nice and colourful isn't it ? In Belgium we need at least 5 parties each government. This usually means Flemish + Walloon counterpart

We have

CDnV (F Christian demo) 
CDH ( W "")
open VLD (F Liberals)
MR (W "")
SP.A(F socialist)
PS ( W "")
GROEN ! (F Eco-nazi's)
Ecolo (W"")

VB( Vlaams belang, far right wing)
NVA(Niewe Vlaamse aliantie , right wing with seperatistic ambitions)
FDF(walloon right wing anti Flanders party, in coalition with MR)

Current polls suggest that NVA will get from 5(2006) to 25%, CDnV will get hits VLD a slight slap as well.

The current government consists of CdnV, VLD, MR,FDF, CDH and PS.

They have failed beyond believe. They have done 3 years utterly nothing. Leterme has resigned 5 times( CDnV campaign moto was "never give up" , suits them right!)

Migration :

total mess. Indecisive to make either open or closed border policy, they've utterly chosen national amnesty, which means that for 3 months, ppl without papers could automaticly become Belgian citizens if they came and registered.

People are no longer send back either: the government can only ask if they please get back, but can no longer force.

As a result migration centres are far over capacity. Immigrants are currently sheltered in hotels. The migration directors and human activists have sued the state for this and got right: Belgium now has to pay 500 euro per capita per day to immigrants (I had to read this in the paper to believe it ! but if you come from Afghanistan with your wife and 4 children, you'll get about 100 000€ for being in Belgium while you are w8ing the next four years to get regulated !)

Justice : total mess. We need to rent cells in Holland. Most convicted don't even get in jail, since there is no room. There is a waiting list in order to get "allowed" into jail. most just get House arrest, and thus get away cheap. they won't put you in jail if you have to serve less then 2 years.

Pensions: total empty. is being done by this guy : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Dw9GL9Pdc
                                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6icNu70hx9ofeature=related

And then the argument used that they aleast did something last 3 years : "but we did save the banks!"

You mean by selling them cheap to the Dutch and Giving the Belgian part to the Frensh instead of nationalising ? no thanks !

Previous government was bad (they did allot of selling and lendleasing back at ridicules renting prices, the state no longer owns any building aside from the parliament itself ), this one was a disaster

now about BHV:simple version : Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde are a single voting district. However, by language law of 1958 (I think) it states that Halle and Vilvoorde are Flemish. Now these ones have had allot of migration of walloons from Brussels to there, who, as a result, vote for walloons. Now, not a big deal you think ? You're right, the population doesn't care a fuck, but politics do! each vote = 3€(per annum I belive) , and these communities are densely populated. Walloons will vote for wallon parties , so parties are missing lots of funds. They care because Flemish in Wallonia can only vote Walloon, but now Walloons (who mainly migrate to that region) can vote Walloon in flanders, so Flemish parties are missing lots of €€€. And ofcource Walloons Object!



Sorry for the chaotic post.
I tried to reflect Belgian politics in a nutshell, but it is rather complicated to do this online since it's hard to explain how we have a national government, without actually having one.

If you would want to learn more , we should go to the bar and I can give you a 4 hour lecture about it how it all works ;)

I did not go in too deep because that would lead to to mush walls of text

We'll have the results tomorrow !   
 
   
   

Offline Admiral Donutz

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #80 on: 13-06-2010, 00:06:15 »
And we were thinking our goverments under Balkenende I, II, III and IV messed up. =p
The Belgium voting system sounds like it could need an overhaul, mostly some unity (though there are more Flamish people then Wallonians, not? SO I guess that's out of the question...). It would make things simple though: One federal goverment and beneath it only some officials/councils for the states/provinces and the municpals on the lowest level. Ie: National, Regional, local.

Then allow anyone to vote on any party. So if you happen to like the Wallonian liberals better then the Flamish ones... vote on the Wallonian one.  Better yet, in time they shouldn't really represent a region (wallonia or flanders) but simply be a party that has members in it's rank of all backgrounds. And aslogn as the most promintent members speak proper French and Dutch... there shouldn't be an outcry over a person only speaking Dutch/French.

Offline luftwaffe.be

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #81 on: 13-06-2010, 01:06:53 »
And we were thinking our goverments under Balkenende I, II, III and IV messed up. =p
The Belgium voting system sounds like it could need an overhaul, mostly some unity (though there are more Flamish people then Wallonians, not? SO I guess that's out of the question...). It would make things simple though: One federal goverment and beneath it only some officials/councils for the states/provinces and the municpals on the lowest level. Ie: National, Regional, local.

Then allow anyone to vote on any party. So if you happen to like the Wallonian liberals better then the Flamish ones... vote on the Wallonian one.  Better yet, in time they shouldn't really represent a region (wallonia or flanders) but simply be a party that has members in it's rank of all backgrounds. And aslogn as the most promintent members speak proper French and Dutch... there shouldn't be an outcry over a person only speaking Dutch/French.

Well, I believe it used to be like that, where all parties where on one list rather then separated lists for the communities (hence there used to be NO communities, only a Unitarian Belgiuù)

But in the '70 and '80 they found it necessary to  get state reforms : If a minister was Walloon he was accused of doing only stuff for Wallonia, and visa versa. They thought the "Unitarian state was an obsolete idea", and now we get this mess.

Why do Belgians need 4(!) parliaments and governments over their heads ? I don't know, one sounds just fine for me. Now we have a solution that pleases nobody. Belgium as a state holds on to a tiny string. On one hand it doesn't please the separatists, since the nation is not split up, yet the state has been undone from most of it's foce and power .

They should abolish all that communitarian crap, one government is more then enough. Bart De Wever(NVA) even suggested to abolish the Brussels' community parliament, and I'm going to support him for that. I know he does it only for his own purpose to try and clear the road for an independent Flanders, nevertheless the nation is better off with one parliament less, and let Brussels be governed by the federal state. He had some good arguments to : Why does Brussels need a minister of AGRICULTURE for a bloody city ? It's like having a minister for farming at time square.     

Offline Admiral Donutz

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #82 on: 13-06-2010, 13:06:00 »
Yeah, to me it sounds like an overly complicated, oversized bureaucratic machine.. and thus a waste of tax income better spent elsewhere (such as on your infrastructure, haha).

Offline 508th PIR Hawkeye

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Re: Dutch parliamentary elections comming up
« Reply #83 on: 13-06-2010, 14:06:18 »
Yeah, to me it sounds like an overly complicated, oversized bureaucratic machine.. and thus a waste of tax income better spent elsewhere (such as on your infrastructure, haha).

Rename the thread to Belgian/Dutch parliamentary elections comming up ?  8)
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Offline THeTA0123

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #84 on: 13-06-2010, 18:06:19 »
I did not had to vote today


FHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA


LOVE you poland! <3
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Offline siben

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #85 on: 13-06-2010, 18:06:36 »
You still have to vote at a local ambacy, or did you ask your mom to do it for you :p

Every one has to vote in Belgium, an exuse like "i was in a foreign country" and " i had to work" are not valid. There are plenty of alternatives to let someone else vote for you.

Offline luftwaffe.be

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #86 on: 13-06-2010, 18:06:09 »
I was not obliged to vote neither (students of uni can receive a  pardon), but I did my duty anyway.

Looks like huge profits for N VA




grey is previous. No previous for NVA due to being in cartel with CDnV but generally it would be near 5 percent.

This is of antwerp , the most important province of Flanders
« Last Edit: 13-06-2010, 19:06:11 by luftwaffe.be »

Offline THeTA0123

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #87 on: 13-06-2010, 19:06:30 »
You still have to vote at a local ambacy, or did you ask your mom to do it for you :p

Every one has to vote in Belgium, an exuse like "i was in a foreign country" and " i had to work" are not valid. There are plenty of alternatives to let someone else vote for you.
i had to bring a copy of my flight and it was A-Okay  ;D
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Offline Lightning

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #88 on: 13-06-2010, 20:06:42 »
So, when the NVA breaks Belgium in 2, will you Flemish join The Netherlands?  ;D

Offline siben

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Re: Dutch (and Belgian) parliamentary elections
« Reply #89 on: 13-06-2010, 20:06:44 »
I would not mind, but i don't think it will happen :p