Belgium is a federal country, which consist out of 3 regions, named Flanders and Wallon and The Brussels capital region, and out of 3 Communities: the flemish community, the french community and the german community.
Flanders and the flemish community are exactly the same territory, but they take care of different aspects. They both have the same government and parliament tho
Wallon consists out of the french community and the german community
Who each have a different government and parliament with their own little part of jurisdiction.
The Brussels capital region (completely surrounded by Flanders) is an indepent region which also has it's own government and parliament.
Then Belgium is divided into 11 provinces
For the national elections there are different parties in Flanders and Wallon. Both parties from Flanders and Wallon are represented in Brussels
There are a 150 seats in the chamber of representatives who are determined by proportional voting within each province, (the more people live in it, the more seats there are to be devided)
In the senate there are 71 seats
which are allocated a following: 40 of them are chosen directly, from lists that stretch out over the entire communities.
10 are selected by and from the parliament of the flemish community
10 are selected by and from the parliament of the french community
1 is selected by and from the parliament of the german community
10 more senators are co-opted (chosen by parties already in senat)
The national government consists out of 15 secretaries, of which 7 have to be from Wallon and 7 have to be from Flanders (the prime ministes is usualy from Flanders but he could also be a wallon)
The “freedoms” we often associate with modern “democracies” are probably some of the most abused ever ( - hence the quotation-marks).
In a “democracy” I have certain rights – and then – I have certain responsibilities.
I see it as a problem today that quite many people ***** and moan about, say, limitations on the freedom of speech, when said freedom is being abused over and over again. Because having such a freedom also gives us responsibilities.
Let’s see… hmm… what happened in Europe some 80-70 years ago, when racist, anti-Semitic and anti-socialist freedom of speech were allowed?
So, shouldn’t we learn from history? If I give a Nazi absolute freedom of speech, he’ll be the first to take mine away if given power and put me against a wall to be shot for my beliefs.
Bardock42> The Nazi’s were not really elected when they gained power in Germany. Go read up on how EXACTLY the two elections that year went, and how strings were pulled in the shadows.
I think it’s important to bear in mind that the Weimar Republic failed in parts because of the huge war-debts put on Germany at the Versailles Treaty. Debts the country – being in ruins – had a HARD time paying. And having it’s economy intertwined with that of the States, when the stock market collapsed the Germany economy just went down the drain.
Massive unemployment, poverty, people started voting right-wing and left-wing…
Well I know that they did't get to power just by election but that doesn't change the fact that it happened more or less according to possibilities granted by the Republic. Of course it is true that it was caused by the debt of the Treaty of Versailles even thougbh I fail to see the point in this arguement.
And I think there shouldn't be any limitaqtions of the freedom of speech but there should be a protection of the belifs of a society, like we have it in Germany.
Bardock> “Well I know that they did't get to power just by election but that doesn't change the fact that it happened more or less according to possibilities granted by the Republic.”
Ah, true enough. The people did VOTE for the Nazi’s. But then bear in mind that most of the pre-1933 propaganda were against the ”traitors of Versailles” and ”communists.”
Hitler and co. were smart. They made a National-socialistic-german-worker’s party, the name could cater to almost everyone. They promised jobs and to get rid of the humiliating war-debts from Versailles.
The anti-Semitic propaganda didn’t take up more than some 5 % until the end of the 1930’s and onwards.
So you can say the Nazi’s lied about what they really wanted to do with Germany.
The point about the failing of the Weimar Republic is, that the Nazis gained power under very special circumstances. You see semi-fascist-nationalistic-racist parties sprout up all over Europe when unemployment goes up and the economy is in trouble.
People willingly and freely vote for parties with easy and distorted answers. They’re using their freemdom of speech – or abusing?
Well the fault of the Weimarer Republic was that it didn't protect itself, not the freedom of speech is the problem but the possibilities to take certain right away. There are two types of constitutional states, a formal and a ,material one, the Weimarer Republic was a formal one thats why the Nazis had the possibility to abuse it, the Federe Republic of Germany nowadays on the other hand is not, even if the Nazis would come back and even if they had a majority they couldn't make Laws like the Nazis did with the "Nuremberg Laws" .
AOh and aboot the lying of the nazis, now seriously which party has ever said the full truth in a campaign?
[edit] upps I totally forgot my conclusion 😛
I wanted to say that we shouldn't cut down the the fredom of speech but on the other hab´nd protect the values our society has.
Nope, since they are far too small (only a few ten thousand people) their politicians generaly work in wallon parties
They're not known enough in the whole of belgium to get a shot as prime minister (but that might change, altho the unofficial rule is that the prime minister is flemish because we have a numeric superiority over the others)
The Patriot Act is, IMO, complete bull...
There's something about Freedom of Speech in the US that most people don't understand...it DOES have limits, and the limits it has are there for good reason. Now, I'm all for FoS, being a very outspoken person. But I also understand that some minimal limitation is needed to keep order.
In the US you have rights until you infringe upon the rights of others. So basically you have FoS until you use it to abuse the rights of another person; then it can be taken away from you. Also, what are known as "fighting words" are not allowed. An example of this would be if you were to go out into a street and yelling "Kill all the (insert racial slur here)". If doing this would incite a riot and cause violence, YOU would be arrested and held responsible, because your words caused the violence to occur. Also, you can't walk into a crowded place and yell "Fire!" or call in fake bomb threats, because this can cause a panic.
But are we allowed to go out and say whatever we want about the government? Of course. I talk a lot about how I feel about our current administration (and 99.999% of the time it's not in very nice terms either). When FoS starts getting restricted because someone doesn't agree with someone else...that's when we have problems. And already we're starting to have problems with that because of censorship (which I am totally against...just pay attention to what your damn kids are watching on TV instead of whining about it later! It's not that hard!).