Who to support?

funki_munkee

Im coming to the time of my life when I think its important to start supporting a specific political group and actually make an educated decision on who Im voting for in elections. Could anyone tell me the policies in a nutshell of the groups in general or even just the group you support yourself?

PunkFreud

Don't choose a political party. Pick the cadidate that best suits your views and opinions. There are many cadidates in a party who have different views than their party. But, very basically:

Fine Gael: Cente-Right
Fianna Fáil: Centre
Labour: Left
Sinn Féin: VERY Left
Green Party: I amn't too sure. All I know is they prefer public transport to building roads and want to reuce our carbon emmissions.

Sand

Id totally disagree with PunkFreud...pick the party that best represents your interests ( better expressed as the interests of the nation as you see them :rolleyes: ) on a national level as most TDs will slavishly follow the party line on national issues. If you want to elect someone to represent you on local issues, elect a county councillor.

Fine Gael: Cente-Right, Irish people
Fianna Fáil: Fianna Fail, Builders, Bankers
Labour: Trade Unions
Sinn Féin: Provo Scumbags
Green Party: Hippies and Fianna Fail Lite

Kalashnikov_Kid

Sand wrote: »

.
Fine Gael: Cente-Right, Irish people
Fianna Fáil: Fianna Fail, Builders, Bankers
Labour: Trade Unions
Sinn Féin: Provo Scumbags
Green Party: Hippies and Fianna Fail Lite

Comedy Gold. Probably the most inacurrate description there is Fine Gael = Irish people :pac:

zootroid

Sand wrote: »

Id totally disagree with PunkFreud...pick the party that best represents your interests ( better expressed as the interests of the nation as you see them :rolleyes: ) on a national level as most TDs will slavishly follow the party line on national issues. If you want to elect someone to represent you on local issues, elect a county councillor.

I agree with this. I'm always annoyed when I hear newly elected TDs say they look forward to acting in the interests of their constituents. A TD should be acting in the interests of the country, not a small portion of it. That is why there are local councillors.

Im coming to the time of my life when I think its important to start supporting a specific political group and actually make an educated decision on who Im voting for in elections.

A further point, OP, is that just because you begin to follow one party now, does not mean that you can never change your mind. Aside from the general policies a party may follow, conservative or liberal social and economic policies, the people within the party are going to change from time to time, and may not be able to implement those policies. So party A might have a particular policy that is desirable, but may not be able to implement that policy. Would you really want to vote someone into power who you believe isn't capable of implementing a particular policy?

Good on you for taking an interest though.

feb09

Sand wrote: »

Fine Gael: Cente-Right, Irish people
Fianna Fáil: Fianna Fail, Builders, Bankers
Labour: Trade Unions
Sinn Féin: Provo Scumbags
Green Party: Hippies and Fianna Fail Lite

can anybody guess who sand supports ?

irish_bob

fine gael = centre , used to be conservative but turned centre left under garrett and are firmly middle of the road under kenny , catch all party who are traditionally supported by farmers and business people aswell as urban professionals , decent and straight for the most part but lacking in personality and having an old money vibe about them

fianna fail = populist all the time but centre left at the moment = the quientesential populist party who face whichever direction suits them , presently they are firmly facing left , the party which most reflects the irish charechter , likable , not to bothered about orthodoxy regarding the law and beliving that the end justifys the means , also the party of what was the new rich

labour = left , while once the party of the urban working class , now very much the party of the public sector and elitist urban liberals , likes to think of itself as being morally superior than the two main partys but is constantly aghast at how little middle ireland care about them or thier ideals

sinn fein = only have one core policy and pay lip service to others , especially PC multi cultural blather and talk of equality which pleases young middle class lefties who are drawn to thier anti establishment vibe , thier core long term supporters are a very different kind of animal

green party = came about as a single issue party for tree huggers etc but have become a party for urban liberals who while not socilists per say , like to think of themselves as being above the whole vulgar rat race that is a capitalist economy , they support lisbon as they are wholey european but oppose shell and of course the M3, they are also wealthy enough to not be effected by some of the partys anti business policys

PunkFreud

In fairness, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail a fairly the same. It's just Fine Gael haven't had much of a chance to do much. what with only been in office a few once in the last 20 years.

synd

Fine Gael: Cente-Right
Fianna Fáil: Centre
Labour: Left
Sinn Féin: VERY Left
Green Party: I amn't too sure. All I know is they prefer public transport to building roads and want to reuce our carbon emmissions.

Labour are a right wing party and Sinn Féin are currently undergoing the process of purging their organization of leftist elements. Essentially a party/organizations political stance can be determined by its economic outlook. Labor for instance hold a neo-classical perceptive with elements of neo-kaynsianism. The same goes for modern sinn fein, rendering them clueless considering their espoused social plan cannot be reconciled with their economic thinking.

Genuine left wing organizations adhere to a completely different system of economic theory - generally marxism. The socialist party, the socialist workers party, the workers solidarity movement and people before profit are all left wing tendencies. Generally confined to the urban centers but growing rapidly nonetheless.

This said however, people identify labor/sinn fein as left wing organizations - so the massive increase in their popularity illustrates a shift to the left in the popular mentality. When however these parties are placed in positions of power they will be confined by the rules of the capitalist market - and in essence pressured to adopt right wing social policy. The subsequent disenchantment will pave the way for a further increase in support for revolutionary socialism.

irish_bob

synd wrote: »

Labour are a right wing party and Sinn Féin are currently undergoing the process of purging their organization of leftist elements. Essentially a party/organizations political stance can be determined by its economic outlook. Labor for instance hold a neo-classical perceptive with elements of neo-kaynsianism. The same goes for modern sinn fein, rendering them clueless considering their espoused social plan cannot be reconciled with their economic thinking.

Genuine left wing organizations adhere to a completely different system of economic theory - generally marxism. The socialist party, the socialist workers party, the workers solidarity movement and people before profit are all left wing tendencies. Generally confined to the urban centers but growing rapidly nonetheless.

This said however, people identify labor/sinn fein as left wing organizations - so the massive increase in their popularity illustrates a shift to the left in the popular mentality. When however these parties are placed in positions of power they will be confined by the rules of the capitalist market - and in essence pressured to adopt right wing social policy. The subsequent disenchantment will pave the way for a further increase in support for revolutionary socialism.

labour may be right wing to a communist , to the other 99.9% of the population , they are left

Sand

can anybody guess who sand supports ?

Theres no economic/social liberal party in Ireland unfortunately since the PDs crashed and burned. FG at least are in favour of the Irish people, as opposed to Fianna Fail who are in favour of Fianna Fail, bankers and builders.

All the others can be discounted for being provo scum, hippies or champagne socialists.

irish_bob

Sand wrote: »

Theres no economic/social liberal party in Ireland unfortunately since the PDs crashed and burned. FG at least are in favour of the Irish people, as opposed to Fianna Fail who are in favour of Fianna Fail, bankers and builders.

All the others can be discounted for being provo scum, hippies or champagne socialists.

thats about it sand , my question is why on earth fine gael are so afraid to be the party that so many of the population want , thier is a sleeping giant of middle ireland , private sector tax payers who have no voice , thier are enough parties who value the public sector vote higher than that of the majority , surely fine gael would reap the rewards if they regained their conservative ( economically ) soul and went after this demographic

mikemac

funki_munkee wrote: »

Im coming to the time of my life when I think its important to start supporting a specific political group and actually make an educated decision on who Im voting for in elections. Could anyone tell me the policies in a nutshell of the groups in general or even just the group you support yourself?

Why not support an independent TD who will concentrate on your area?

Dimitri

mikemac wrote: »

Why not support an independent TD who will concentrate on your area?

Thus defeating the point in electing local counsellors. The dail is meant to be where national issues are dealt with not local ones.

@ the op are you looking at this from a purely economic point of view or are you including their social policy. For me personally I find that none of the parties have both an economic and social policy that i support. Moreover most of the policies that have been floated by the opposition in recent times seem to be very general, which makes classing them even more difficult. Some posters have been very quick to say a party is left/right wing but realistically you can spend hours argueing over it. The last taoiseach was in coalition with arguably the most right wing mainstream party but he called himself a "socialist". The Labour party are traditionally the trade unions party of the working man essentially, left wing, however their last leader wanted to reduce the tax of the middle income earner before the last general election. Its often very hard to see the differences economically between the policies of ff and fg. Now you can only take fg word for it that should they be put in power they'd stick to them. FF on the other hand had their policies but never implemented them properly preferring instead to keep throwing money at it until it worked instead of digging deeper. FG are always talking about how FF bloated the public and civil service yet their answer is to get rid of the servants instead of changing the wasteful policies that they are merely implementing. Sadly in Ireland at the moment it can be hard for anyone who isn't an idealist to find a party to vote for but i wish you luck with it.