Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Extra History"
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+Timothy McLean
Here in Norway we have a population of about 5 million people and 9 political parties in parliament (out of a total of something like 130 different party lists in the election, some only eligible to run in some election circles)
I recently did the math and the two biggest parties in the country recieved 52% of the votes and recieved 55,6% of the seats in our 169 seat parliament.
We have 6 parties with less then 11% of the voters behind them, and those had 48 out of 169 seats or 28,4% of the seats with 894 256 votes combined out of a total of 2 945 352 votes cast in the last parliamentarian election in 2017.
Or in other words they got 28,4% of the seats with 30,3% of the voters behind them.
I also checked what the result would have been if we used the winner takes it all approach to the election like Americans did.
The Labour party here would have recieved 90 seats instead of the 49 seats they actually got, the conservatives would get 76 seats instead of the 45 they actually got and the center party would get 4 seats instead of the 19 they actually got.
Having this many political parties has a lot of positive effects on our political system.
The elections are usually more civil then in countries like for instance the US as attacking other parties leave you vulnerable to counter attacks from parties that can not be targeted by your attacks but that can use your behaviour against you.
The labour party is the biggest party in my country by far and actually increased the number of voters voting for them back when they lost for the first time against the current cabinet.
However they lost the election itself because they failed to compromise sufficiently with the smaller parties they where in a coalition with so voters for those parties like me switched to parties less locked into such a coalition, parties more likely to help the conservatives win or that could swing either way.
Also, the conservatives played their cards well and their leader came across as a mediator that tries to get everyone onboard and to cooperate with everyone instead of lashing out like some parties did.
Something they've done over several years and gained a lot of support for.
In essence when it is impossible to rule alone the type of politicans that ends up being encouraged are the ones that are willing to make compromises with others reducing the risk of gridlocks.
Also, in Norway we do not have re-elections mid-term.
Instead what happens is that if the parliament lose trust in the cabinet or the cabinet feel that they can't rule the country anymore with the power vested in them by the parliament they raise the a cabinet question.
And anyone able to come up with a better cabinet proposal can replace them at any time.
Of course changing allegiance makes you less attractve as a coalition partner so parties don't do so lightly.
And in any case if you can't get a majority for any proposal it's entierly pointless anyway and you only end up making a fool of yourself.
So cabinets are only really switched out when there's major issues happening.
Once it was due to a major mining accident for instance causing the cabinet to resign and be replaced.
In essence our parliament does the job of the electoral college in the US in the sense that they are the ones that actually elect the prime minister and the prime minister choose the other ministers after negotiating with potential partners about what seats those other parties should have or if they don't want to join what policies, laws or other conditions may apply to their support.
And when the prime minister gets the aproval of the parliament he or she takes the proposal to the king who have to approve of it before the new cabinet is valid.
Till that happens the old prime minister and cabinet stays in power.
So the various parties have a insentive to cooperate as they won't get any change otherwise.
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5:56
False, it has happend in America, multiple times.
Both communists and anarchists have experienced persecution in the US multiple times, heck, a few years ago a coffee, cookies and crocket party with a group of elderly unarmed anarchists debating politics where raided for no good reason, at least non that I'm aware of.
For the record, anarchist in this context does not mean violent or no rule (something that the upper classes managed to make a synonym with the word in the english language), but rather the anarchist ideology where "anarchist" means no king/ruler and is all about moving societys power over to those being ruled instead of to a small elite class of rulers.
Democracy itself was the first form of anarchy and every step towards liberalization and making society more free for the individual to govern themselves more and be less governed by others is a continuation of this ideology and trend.
As for the communists...
McCarthyism is a clear case of this.
Believing in communist ideology, values etc where persecuted regardless of how much or little someone had to do with the country that supposedly where benefitting from the "treason" they where accused of.
5:38
Heh, while the intention might be to protect the minority the US election systems ruleset does anything but...
If you genuinly want the minority to be protected you kind of need a proportional system where no one party is able to become the majority on its own in my view.
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The way we deal with this issue here in Norway is quite simple.
Multiple parties in a parliament that can replace a cabinet at will in case of issues.
By having more then just two political parties a single party never is able to get their politics through on their own.
So you end up with people having to be nice to eachother in order to get their policies through, if they don't, or if they cheat and get caught doing something that harms other political parties then those parties simply won't support you anymore costing you your power.
On the flip side, if people do behave well then they're rewarded with additional power.
The conservatives in Norway has spent several years cleaning up their reputation from a time when they used to be thought of as all about the wealthy few and caring little for others to now being a mainstream center-right wing political party that is willing to cooperate most of the other political parties to get through their policies because they genuinly believe that said policies are good for the country (even if I as a left wing guy don't always agree with those policies they've at least proven that they truly do care about them) and as a party that is willing to make compromises with other political parties to get things done and as a result they've gained political power because more political parties are willing to cooperate with them and more people are voting for them and the parties willing to support them.
On the flip side the labour party has been neglecting their coalition partners forcing through their own policies at the cost of their partners.
And sure, they've proven that they believe their own policies are the best for the country too (and I believe in many of them) but their reduced will to make compromises that also favour the smaller parties has cost them the power in this country as even people on the left like me turn towards parties in the political center in order to get those concerns across.
And appart from the election a coalition partner of the conservatives the progress party has ministers who have made unacceptable statements or have been outright lying, the parliament as a result forced the cabinet to either replace that minister or leave, the cabinet was ready to go to protect this minister, but the minister in question decided to leave in order to protect the cabinet.
She gained browny points for thinking of the cabinet first, the cabinet members got to show loyalty to its members, the parliament got rid of a minister causing trouble and everyone was reminded that you get more done by playing nice.
So everyone wins.
(Regarding small political parties, there's no lower limit to number of voters needed to get a representative in the parliament, as long as you're big enough in a election circle to get some proportional representation there, but all political parties with 4% of the voters or more get a significant amount of power as 19 of the 169 seats in our parliament are only given to political parties with more then 4% of the voters behind them that have less proportional representation then their popularity at a national level would suggest, so parties that are too small in the individual election circles to get enough seats there to be fairly represented because their voter base is spread out a lot for instance, the remaining 150 seats are given to parties proportionally based on their popularity in the individual election circles)
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0:23 "Largely german speaking dutchy", true for Hostein, but not Schleswig, an area that at the time was largely Danish speaking at least as far as the population was concerned, the nobility...
Eh...
Also, 0:55, that part isn't the whole story either...
The problem was that Schleswig and Hostein where two dutchies that through treaties could not be divided and where to always belong to the same country despite the difference in culture in the two dutchies.
And the nobility there...
Well, they where an issue to put it that way...
Denmark had not that long before this actually started to become somewhat democratic for a change, Schleswig and Holstein, not so much...
Danes in Denmark proper wanted the new more democratic constitution of 1849 to apply to all Danes including the largely Danish lower classes of Scheswig (yes, there where Friiseans and Germans there too, and german influences where moving northwards there and held more status due to the german nobility there)
I'm not saying that Denmark couldn't perhaps have handled the situation differently.
But the way that the above video puts the blame squarely on Denmark for a war that quite frankly is still somewhat of a sore point in the nordic region...
Eh...
I think you guys could have done better...
The second Schleswig War and the Winter War in Finland are both wars where the nordic region lost territory due to the machinations of greater powers at the cost of ruining the lives of many of the people who actually lived there.
At least the issue of Schleswig was finally resolved after the second world war with an election, after ages where german influences had changed the cultural identity of even more of the local population...
That issue has been laid to rest even if we might be less then happy with the above mentioned war and its outcome...
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