Could the Dutch experiment with liberalism be over? After winning power and ending the long reign of the left, the new Christian-right government of the Netherlands has outlined its conservative social agenda, which includes recriminalising marijuana, shutting down drug cafés, and laws against same-sex marriage and prostitution. Mind you, I wonder how much of the "failure of liberalism" spin of the article is due to it being from a paper in Singapore, a city-state that is the epitome of the philosophy of benign authoritarianism. (via rotten.com)

Posted by: Jimbob | http://the-fix.org | Mon Jul 8 05:57:12 2002

While I can't claim to be an expert on Dutch politics and culture, his plan reminds me so much of recent policies in Australia....make a whole pile of easy-fix, popularist decisions that will, in the end, be detrimental to the country you're supposed to be serving. What, after all, does the Netherlands offer us? What is Europe GOOD for these days? Boxy cars and TOURISM. People visit northern european countries for a reason, and it seems their leader wants to destroy any reason people might want to visit there. And the attitude of removing social welfare to force people back into work makes me think of Tony Abbott's attitude. The fact that there aren't any jobs out there that need filling somehow escapes their attention.

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