Yep. Politics is the craft of finding a workable compromise despite disagreements - between politicians as well as between parties and voters. It's very rare that I'm on total agreement with the party I vote for, but I usually find one that I agree enough with to back them.

I'm pretty certain that forced voting would actually help the established parties, not the extremists. Extremists can usually mobilize their supporters to a much higher degree than established parties. Historically, extremists get their best results when general voter turnout is low.

That said, forced voting would of course not solve any problems, and is not a viable solution. The problem is that many people don't care about the elections, or lost hope that elections change anything. Forcing such people into a decision about which they neither care much, nor know much about the circumstances, is very unlikely to improve anything.

No, he isn't.

What other politician says something along the lines of the country can go fuck itself in public then stands fro re-election?

Some might not agree i think he is a fountain of amusement

And one week later the government of italy is history more or less. What a funny guy Berlusconi is. Hard working italians will surely feel amused by a prolonged period of instability and chaos and gridlock.

If all this wouldn't have a real impact on other people I would actually find him funny too.

Germany should grant me German citizenship and everyone there should vote for me. Problem solved.

Wrong topic.
He is not funny.

Seriously? It seems your political views are a little bit tainted with prejudice and lack some elaboration. If you prefer the left wing, just say so and enlighten us with arguments, nothing wrong with that. But trolling polemic is pointless, unless you're just looking for affirmation.

For someone who accuses a fellow forum member of "trolling polemic" without arguments, your own post seems to contain very little substance ... actually, you're not giving a single argument to anything. You're doing exactly the thing that you accused Khadgar of, just worse.

Regarding the statements the Khadgar made, I don't think they even require further elaboration, since anyone with a modicum of understanding of German politics will agree to most of them.

- CSU as the most accepted right wing party - even the iconic ex-leader of the CSU (Strauß) said that there must not be any legal and publicly accepted party that's more right-wing than the CSU. They also naturally share some platforms with the right-wing extremists, just like the left wing parties share some platforms with the left-wing extremists. Debating this would be silly.

- SPD shifted towards the center. No one can seriously debate this after Gerhard Schröder and the Agenda 2010. People _can_ of course debate if this shift was a good thing or not, but no one can seriously claim that it didn't happen.

- FDP not being likes, practically being hated at the moment - definitely true. Just ask the 90+ FDP members who just got voted out of the parliament, or ask the people who are now tasked to resurrect the party. Actually the hate towards the FDP has grown to a state where some of our elder statesmen are already concerned about our ways of dealing with each other.

I'm sorry, but I don't see any reason for your post. Khadgar gave a correct summary of why the names of our political parties don't mean much anymore. You criticized that without providing a single argument, writing a post that contained nothing but personal accusations. If you disagree, then why not address the (in your opinion) questionable statements with counter-arguments, instead of running a personal attack?

Excuse me? German erection? You inpolite person!

I refuse to believe that German erections are in any way less polite than US, UK, French, Czech, or any other country's erection for that matter. ;)

But they are - they're accompanied by a lot of clanking of all the metal screwed in the flesh. I've seen all the porn!

Wellll ... my experience with that particular brand of porn is very limited, but since some of the most popular actresses in German porn are actually Czech ladies (if I remember correctly), I'll take your authority on that. ;-P

Well Psyringe, I was complaining about the way, in which implicitly and unfairly several parties where pushed in the bad corner (e.g. neo-fascists, douchbags, etc.). I wasn't about to argue about contents, because I think a forum is a rather poor medium to discuss politics close to an election. Everything is heated up, everybody is still tense about it and the anonymity of the Internet doesn't bring people's best side to light. Furthermore, the depth in which I'd enjoy discussing these things would go beyond the scope of a web forum.
Nevertheless, it's nice to see people talking about politics, but I find it rather pointless to flame one side. Thinking in the category of sides, is by itself pretty unconstructive, in my opinion. I know, you don't see the posts above as flaming, but I think they subtly are. I probably wouldn't have replied this way to your post, but anyway, I don't take it too seriously here, as I'm sure Khadgar doesn't either.

Political porn. Whore-shipping elderly politicians so that they get erected. Sounds ugly enough.

</sarcasm>