If there was party that had these political beliefs, would you vote for them?
Withdrawal of the state from every kind of business activity and the reduction in the size of government and public sector.
Amen to this. If one Greek can come to me and say what the government does better than the private sector we will take back our endorsement.
Given the simply horrendous state of Greek hospitals, tax offices and roads. This is surely one pledge that all Greek must support.
Decriminalization of drug use.
As has been shown by Portugal, the criminalisation of drugs serves no purpose other than to enrich those who arepreared to act violently agasint others. Not to mention turning people with substance problems into criminals. As if a substance problem was not enough of a burden.
And this ignores the simply massive cost to the taxpayer ofcontroling what things people put into their own bodies.
Full separation of church and state
Why has this not happended already?
Abolition of the (compulsory in Greece) military draft.
Quite right. Men in Greece are not the property of the state and they should not be treated as if they were the property of the state. I cannot understand how it is acceptable for the government to force people into service against their wishes.
Abolition of permanent employment in the civil sector
I could not agree with this more. The civil sector should be treated as a type of benefit for when people are made redundant from the private sector. For people to dedicate themselves to living an unproductive life by living of the taxes of others is unacceptable ie to have the ambition of being a career civil servant.
I fact I would go one step further and stop government workers from having the right to vote due to the simply massive conflict in interest it creates.
Tax reduction
Given the amount of alledged tax avoidance in Greece, I am surprised 100% of Greek do not vote for the Liberal Alliance on this point alone
Permission for non-Government controlled universities to exist
If you want to see a state controlled industry that has seen little or no innvoation since its inception, then eduacation is it. Despite the emergence of the interent and online video, treaching practices have not changed in at least the last 50 years.
This alone should motivate all students and potential students to vote for a party that wants to introduce innovation into education.
Privatization of state run public services.
This one is not so celar cut with me. It depends on what form the privatisation is in. If it comes in the form of government assets being sold to private investors then I do not agree.
If privaistation comes in the form of all citizens of Greece getting an equal share of the utlitiolies, ashare which they arte then free to sell on the open market, then yes, this is a pledge I agree with.
Respect for the individuality of citizens.
Its a shame this is such a revolutionary position that it has to be put into print.
Abolition of the state-run, defined benefit scheme to a defined contribution pension system managed entirely by the private sector under supervision by a specialized government superintendency.
Praise the lord. Does not go quite far enough for me but this is a million times better than any currenct state run system anywhere in Europe
Now here is the good news, there is a party that has these beliefs and you as a Greek can vote for them in the June 2012 elections
Actually there are three or four parties with similar positions which collaborated in the recent elections and still they didn’t even get close to entering the parliament despite receiving a rather favorable treatment by the media. So it’s obvious that the majority of Greeks like myself disagree with most of these points. Sorry to disappoint you 🙂
By the way this particular party has even held rallies in support of the bailout loan agreements, the austerity memorandums, etc. I’m not sure how much you approve of that but to the average Greek they look more like trolls than an actual political party. The only neighborhoods of Athens where they had some success were Ekali, Psychiko, etc (the areas where most of the ultra-rich reside).
Trolls? How are you coming to that conclusion?
The basic philosophy of the memorandums is that the Greek government must balance its books. I would expect the Greek Liberals to support this 100%.
The methods employed by the Greek Liberals would be the exact opposite of what has been done ie what is outlined in the article.
About the ultra rich supporting them. I don’t see your point. Ultra rich that want to shrink government. This is exactly what Greece needs.
You call them “trolls” and your post seems to be running them down but they have the answers and the support of the mega rich, that sounds like an excellent foundation.
If you don’t like the Greek Liberals, out of the points in the article, which ones do you not agree with?
Ok lets actually believe for a second that their goal is to balance the books. Since most of the deficit is caused by the enormous cost of servicing the debt why are they so much opposed to any kind of default? And how is privatizing even the profitable, income generating state assets gonna help in the direction of balancing the books? Apart from that the program they have presented is almost a copy paste of the measures described in the memoranda and you’ve said it yourself that the troika’s policies have only made the situation worse. I think you’ve also mentioned Einstein’s words that repeating the same experiment and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Since I’m not a big fan of privatization I’d like to ask why should the state not be involved in any kind of economic activity which is the first of the points that you present here. Just to make myself clear I don’t say that the private sector should stop operating(that would be wrong or even dangerous) but that it should compete with the public sector. We know that competition would drive both sectors to improve the services they provide and if the public sector keeps its prices low then that would force the private sector to lower its prices too. I guess you already know that Greece is one of the most expensive countries in Europe even the prices of basic goods are much higher than in places like Britain or Germany.
I don’t disagree with every single of the points you’re making here for example I’m not at all against separating church and state or legalizing (soft) drugs or cutting some taxes but I don’t support abolishing the military service because Greece has problems with its eastern neighbors and I don’t think we can afford a mercenary army or rely on it. The reason I call them trolls is because often when there is an antiausterity/antibailout protest they dress in bankers costumes and they go out protesting(mocking) the protestors –which seems like a hobby similar to trolling. Sorry if I made any mistakes, I’m trying to improve my English day by day.
I have no problem with the state competing with the private sector just as long as the public is not forced to purchase from the public sector organisation through taxes.
About privatisations http://independence4wales.com/2011/privatisation-of-greek-companies-is-like-theft