Cogs can think.

Peter R. de Vries, known in the Netherlands as ‘crimereporter’ (he investigates cases the police cannot solve, and he has done that extremely succesfully, with major cases being solved due to his work) has today presented the programme for his new political party, “Partij voor Rechtvaardigheid, Daadkracht en Vooruitgang” (Party for Justice, Drive and Progress). Now, I was actually waiting for that– there is no political party in my country which I support, so a new party with a prominent leader could become my party of choice.

However, the PRDV is a no-go for me. I’ve read the first 20 points of the programme, and I read it in disgust. Basically, this party wants to destroy my Monarchy, our proven governmental system, and much more. A selection:

1. They want to degrade the Crown’s role to a strictly ceremonial one, like in Norway. They want to take away the Crown’s power as defined by the Dutch constitution (the Crown appoints the informatuer/formateur who will ‘create’ the alliance between the parties that will form the government, and appoint secretaries. The Crown follows the electoral results by appointing the (in)formateur from the biggest party; the formateur most likely becomes our prime-minister; this is very similar to how it works in the US, where the electoral vote *always* differs from what the US people have voted);
2. They want the people to directly elect the prime-minister; effectively turning my country into a - gasp, ugh, barf, urgghgh - republic. Now, as I just said, the biggest party will deliver the PM;
3. They want to abolish the Senate. The Senate isn’t directly elected by the people (our directly-elected Lower Hose does that) so it must go, according to them. The Senate’s role in my country is to shine a critical light on newly proposed laws; the Senate is made up of older, more experienced, and more careful politicans who have already proven themselves in the past;
4. They want to increase the barrier of entry for parties willing to join the Lower House. Now, all you need is one seat and you’re in. They want to increase the percentage of votes needed for a party in order to be accepted into the Lower House. This way, they want to decrease the amount of parties in the Lower House (about 9, currently). Effectively taking the first steps towards a - gasp, ugh, barf, urgghgh - bi-party system;
5. They somehow think the people need to directly elect the town mayor. Why I’m against this? For the same reasons why I’m against directly electing the presi… err, prime-minister: read here.

Those are not all their points. They have other, good points too; but the above mentioned mean I won’t be voting on them. They are on their way to ruin my country with all that crap. We have a governmental system, a constitutional monarchy, that has ruled this country for more than 170 years in a very succesful manner, making my small nation one of the richest countries in the world, even an economical force to be reckoned with.

Abolish my Monarchy? Over my DEAD FCUKING BODY.

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Now, over to the good points:

1. The PRDV wants to create a nation-wide DNA database, which contains the DNA profiles of all Dutchmen and women. Good point, I’ve been a proponent of that for a long time as it will make solving crimes a lot easier;
2. More money to development aid;
3. Less money to the EU. We Dutch pay the most per capita; more than ie. Germany, France or the UK;
4. Social service (a sort of militairy draft, but then youth must help in hospitals, elderly homes, etc., much as in Germany and their Zivildienstleitung (probably spelt that wrong)).

But still, the bad points make the rest useless.