VPD

German news outlets are getting the vapors over recent gains by far-right political parties. According to an International Watchdog Association, ultra-nationalist organizations like the NPD and DVU are emerging as the low-carb alternatives to the bloated socialist menu that has dominated the political here since The War.

After a long night of beers a couple of weeks ago, I touched base with a Real Live East German. Our discussion of possible solutions to the emerging Nazi problem led us to an interesting idea: the German Rationalist Party, or VPD. Although purely hypothetical at this point, a good libertarian party would run gangbusters in Europe, I suspect.

The real cause of the rise of the right, in my opinion, is the lack of alternatives to the left. There is no truly conservative party in German politics. Of the two main parties, the Social Democrats-Greens alliance (Fischer's & Schroeder's party) and Christian Democrats (Stoiber's Party), neither focuses on individual freedoms or small government. They're both statist parties with only slightly differing viewpoints on how the government should run everybody's lives.

The right, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to be interested in government work per se; just on hot-button social problems, like immigration, reparations to Israel, cultural protectionism and the like.

What Europe in general, and Germany in particular, needs is something to fill the vacuum created by the hard-left turn their politicians have taken. So, the answer to right-wing extremists in Germany could very well be a move toward the center by the left. The people need an alternative to the Socialists that doesn't involve shaving their heads, and right now, there isn't one.