2005 prolog
In star wars episode III - "revenge of the sith" (produced 2005)
2020 warn signals for liberal democracies?
There are fewer liberal democracies than there were 10-15 years ago.Some countries, that were choosed the way to liberal democracy some year ago, returned now to a more authoritarian style.
German public-service television network ARD's 'Tagesschau' titled one year ago:
Tunisia's President Saied
On the way to becoming a dictator?Tunisia's President Saied is voting on a new constitution that would give him comprehensive rights. Is the president, who has already disempowered the government and parliament, on the way to becoming a dictator?
Reasons for reducement of democratic institutions
If the economic situation is bad and debts and unemployment rise, then savings are often made in some areas of the state sector.
Unfortunately, only a few states process government shutdown procedures. where all except most necessary government spendings are reduced, unless a new budget is democratically decided.
Governments often save money where it affects only a few and the few have a weak lobby or no lobby at all.
- NGOs regularly have their budgets cuts
For churches and a small group of state authorized charity you can spend money and pay less tax,
but for a lot of other NGO's, specifically free churches (like the taxas christ chuch, baptist church, knights templar society or hindu temple), gnu opensource group, ieft, civil right movements, LGBT communities, free artists associations you don't get 1 penny of tax facilitation / reducement, when spendig a lot.
So most NGO are dependent on crowed founding and small subvenetions from the state,
some special state legitimated NGOs have privileges, that spending will cause tax reduction and a minimum of state budget is reserved for them.
e.g. I spended also only for caritas socialis & Volkshilfe, when earning good, because of tax cuts.
p.s. I really coulded to reduce my tax bill even more, but I didn't it in case of investation in car, books, membership for liberal party or investments for the children and wrote every income postion on my tax declaration.
Financal support for free pressed were limited for public TV, you had to pay a special GIS tax, but there is no posibility to spend money to the free press pod neither for companies nor private persons.
- Invalidity pensions were abolished
In some areas, state welfare is limited to incapacitated people (without full citizens and human rights). Former finance ministress Maria Theresia Fekter critized in year 2013, that too many healthy people retire at average age of 52-53. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omb-jdmy_nw&t=65s
Now even very sick people stay at 56 fully in labor market,
but I'm so proud that we all will retire later. - Homeless shelters cost €200 - €300 per month.
(I remember, my Frank pointed out to me in year 2000 that in Asia homeless shelters are not free like here and cost US$5 per night and thought, that such things will never become popular in Europe or legitimated. Well since ~2014 that changed.)
'Many democratic processes, especially court proceedings, legitimation for new rather unknown business licenses and environmental impact assessments, are often bureaucratic, take a lot of time. In order to speed up these processes, things were simplified and appeal options were limited in trys and short time period.
- revoked me my driving license for one year and after obtaining it back, the license is limited to year 2025 and I have to proove a certificate of a psycolical investigation every ¼ year (3 months)
- imposed a general weapons ban on me
Well, I was able to achieve a big fat cut from social insurance, when I worked for a community based project where all profits were donated to cancer aid and then only reached a maximum of €2000 before taxes per year for the period of 1-2 years.
I am currently unemployed since September 2023 and receive too much money for doing nothing and that only because a have to pay for two children and my ex-wife has too little income. I feel so ashamed for that, that I have already initiated the reopening of my small company after X-Mas on January 1st, 2024 in new lulz.