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Comment by furkansahin | Hacker News Reader

Are you surprised with the extreme right being on the rise! No worries, they will loose their power like Geert of Netherlands does nowadays...

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I don't see the connection. It's true, as others say, that extremist's use of surveillance tool poses the greatest danger, but the desire to monitor the population is present across the political spectrum. Since you mention Wilders: the centrist, and most liberal Dutch party D'66 actually supported a surveillance "drag net" for the Dutch intelligence services.

As a data point, the largest political parties in Norway (Arbeiderpartiet / Høyre), are now both seeking to introduce age limits backed by national BankID login systems to access social media, which would be a massive invasion in the right to privacy online.

The same parties voted in 2011 to introduce mass data storage, where all international internet traffic can be stored and kept for 6 months by the state.

I see no reason to believe that either party would protect the right to private communication or internet use.

> international internet traffic

Which means all internet traffic that crosses the border at any point. So it practically includes all domestic traffic, too.

Is Ursula von der Leyen "extreme right"? Because it was her (and her commission) who established the group responsible and it was the commission's decision to not disclose its members.

Ursula von der Leyen is the example of where things are wrong in the EU. She is powerhungry. Has a history of things close to corruption. And she creates a very toxic environment to work in. Anxiety amongst personnel around her is very common. The balance between serving the people and serving the interest of corporations is very off.

She has managed to create an environment where people (me at least) do not want to live and which corporations are eager to leave.

Her personal politics are not extremist in the conventional sense. She is a center-right technocrat at heart. She believes people like her have to protect Europe against the idiot masses. When she dismantles European civil rights she does so for the "greater good". People can't be trusted to vote in their own best interest, or so the logic goes. She thinks she and people like her protect Europe against the rising populist right. I think she's badly mistaken and that the populist right is fueled by EU arrogance, and the GP probably shares that view.

> People can't be trusted to vote in their own best interest, or so the logic goes.

Is this wrong.

Ursula "I won't show my emails from Pfizer" von der Leyen wold never do such thing.

Yeah, I don't think enough of the centrists consider the question of how intrusive state powers might be used by a far-right government. Despite having several demonstrations at the moment.

The far left seem to be a far greater danger at present. They are the ones pushing for all the authoritarianism.

I know a few examples of upcoming far right, who are the upcoming far left?

In France the largest party is Parliament is labelled "far right". That being the case then the third largest party is "far left" and could be in government depending on next elections and, especially, on possible coalitions.

Same in Germany. It's not the right that are talking of banning the most popular parties.

Whom do you mean by that could you please elaborate?

We must be living in parallel universes with HN being our only interdimensional link.

On the far-right, we have authoritarian politicians openly mingling with fascists and neonazis. Le Pen in France, Reform in UK, whatever parties in Germany and Italy... Not to speak of the counties where they are _already_ in power like Hungary.

On the far-left we have... well actually, who is left enough that they'd be as "far" as the fascists and neonazis are on the right of the spectrum? I'm not aware of any party or politician with any sort of influence that'd be that far left. Is anyone proposing full-on marxism? USSR-style or chinese-style central planning (not that anyone on the left considers these a model to repeat)? The "communist" and "socialist" parties are wayyyy more centrist. The political horseshoe actually looks more like a hook.

Talking about "parallel universe", to claim that Le Pen or Reform UK are authoritarian and "openly mingling with fascists and neonazis" is pure fantasy.

But if that's what you think then surely many left-wing parties in Europe must be far left, too. For instance when the leader of the main left-wing party (and 3rd largest party in Parliament) in France says that he wants to get rid of capitalism.

Since I can't reply to the person with cotton in their ears, here's an article about Reform UK politicians sharing Hitler memes.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/newly-elected-reform-uk-counci...

If you use random social media posts and memes from a low level party member you can equally argue that Labour is a nest of dangerous communists and Hamas sympathisers, and make similar absurd claims against all parties.

Could you explain how Reform UK is "far right", and which neonazis and fascists Reform politicians are mingling with?

I am from the UK, and follow UK politics closely. Seems I missed these "far right" policy announcements and neonazi affiliations?

I read one mention of a local councillor who'd shared an inappropriate post and was immediately suspended from the party. Is that how you're concluding that Reform UK is a nazi-adjacent party?

Le Penn and Reform are slightly to the right of centre. Anyone that goes againt the replacement of the native populations of Europe is being smeared as far right.

I don't think the extreme right is pushing this. They are typically anti-EU.

I speculate that this is a result of centrist/neoliberal establishment wanting to solidify control.

The extreme right is typically using failures like this as a political attack vector.

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