Have you ever been told you cannot put a price on peace, love, etc.? It’s a lie. Everything has a price, albeit not necessary a monetary one. Failing to understand this usually leads to a failure in securing one’s goals. This is why we need to talk about the price of victory.
Only about 16 months ago, the minority government led by Marjan Šarec and his liberal party LMŠ, which only held 43 of 90 seats in parliament, came to power. The center-left coalition consisted of the LMŠ, the Social Democrats, the liberal party SMC, the party of Alenka Bratušek (SAB) and the Pensioners’ Party.
The Liberals are looking to the next parliamentary elections in Slovakia with hope, but also with concern. This is pretty much picture of the mood in the country at the moment. The elections to the Slovak National Council, a unicameral parliament with 150 MPs, will take place on February 29, 2020.
Estonia has stood up to its reputation of the liberal Musterland in the region. The opposition center-right Reform Party secured a convincing victory over the currently governing center-left Center Party.
Time and again, those who should defend “our” ideas vehemently beat their breast and start apologizing, claiming that they were stupid in their attempts to redefine liberalism. They sometimes even go as far as to state that liberalism is a thing of the past.
The way youth’s votes will break between the opposition’s coalition and the Spring party may significantly affect the electoral programs and election campaigns of the autumn parliamentary election. In the meantime, we’re still in our bubble.
Karácsony believes that political liberalism works best in Northern states, which are not classical liberal countries, but highly redistributive policies and various welfare state services are implemented. These countries also follow the model of consensus democracy, which should also be applied in Hungary.
Before PiS and the right wing have embarked in Poland on a large-scale anti-immigrant propaganda project, more than a half of all Poles had been understanding of helping migrants fleeing wars. After all, what other nation in the world could better understand what war means for a person than the Polish nation?
I know it is much more comfortable to stay in our own bubbles, but in order to be better, we must push ourselves and step out of our comfort zones. Beside cultivating a relationship with our audiences (and educating them better on communicating liberty), we have to build the roads to others.
For years, liberals have been struggling to lower and simplify Polish taxes. The results are, however, rather “moderate”, labour cost remains high, the dream of PIT flat tax – once a flagship project of the Civic Platform – is rarely even mentioned, and the recent governmental “temporarily” raised VAT rate to 23% seems to be becoming permanent. Every year, taxes and charges to the benefit of the state, not visible at first glance, are raised.
