Talk:Progress Party (Norway)

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Anders Behring Breivik's past membership

So what exactly are the reasons that there should be no mention of Breivik's past membership in the party? It is an objective, uncontested fact that the party officially admitted. It is also universally accepted that Breivik's actions are significant and political. Prohibiting the mention of Breivik's past membership is unjustifiably biased towards the Progress Party. 140.233.216.99 (talk) 05:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Single members who never made it to the party leadership are hardly of importance for the party itself. A mass murderer does not automatically cast a shadow of any organization he has ever been a member of. I see only one thing which would make it a relevant fact: if this terrible crime had consequences for the party in terms of big internal debates and future election results. --Hansbaer (talk) 15:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

So where is the Party manifesto from one of 200s elections? When they just said everything, what Breivik said and done? Just word to word, with "threats" from immigrants, that would do murders in cities? Imagine for e.g. that communist Party of CCCP would write that Stalin never existed, and Beria was only usual member, not worth mentioning... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.75.70.254 (talk) 00:32, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Classical Liberalism?

Is the Progress Party really classically liberal? A big component of classical liberalism is free imigration, witch the Progress Party does not believe in. The small Nowegian People's Party seems more genuinly classically liberal. "Economic liberalism" seems more fitting as a label for the Progress Party. -- Darthdyas (talk) 15:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The party support free imigration if no handouts from taxpayers, like in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.122.161.106 (talk) 14:57, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

This article is a mess

I agree with the below statement. I removed the heading that mentioned Anders Behring Breivik as it seems to be politically motivated and holds little relevance to the party as a whole. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.104.179 (talk) 10:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what happened to this article over the last few weeks, but amazingly it manages to violate just about every Wikipedia policy currently in existence. Here are two of its main problems:

• It reads like a promotional brochure justifying and rationalizing the racist, bigoted policies of a far-right political organization. To that end, I've clarified the party's political position by including information from reputable scholars, not statements from the Progress Party itself. The History and Ideology sections will need to be completely rewritten to avoid violating WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, and WP:OR.

• The prose is horrible in several spots and the article needs a thorough copyedit.

I'll work on it some more over the weekend to fix any lingering mistakes.UBER ^(talk) 05:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I've begun to give the article a thorough copyedit and my work will continue into the weekend. Besides the article's obvious bias, it's pretty clear that whoever wrote it does not speak English as a first language, given the innumerable grammatical mistakes I'm finding throughout. It's going to take a lot of work to overhaul this broken article, but we'll get it done.UBER ^(talk) 05:53, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I have not done anything "over the last few weeks", I have actually put a lot of work into this article over months I believe (seeing that it was originally a complete disorganised mess), but please feel free to correct my grammar if there are errors. As for the claimed "obvious bias" is just plainly wrong, and shows that you are not a Norwegian following Norwegian politics on a daily or even recurrent basis. It is obvious you do not objectively know anything about the subject of this article. I have for instance as a matter of fact added numerous controversies within the party to neutrally write about the party, and if I had wanted to "bias" the article I could simply have left such episodes out. And do you seriously think that 9% of immigrant Africans in Norway would vote for a racist/fascist party? (Just to say, it may be correct that some have classified the party as far-right during the 1990s, but you see very well that the MPs who contributed to such a classification was thrown out of the party ten years ago. I think it is from this the misunderstanding originates.) -TheG (talk) 16:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It is false to suggest that the Progress Party is facist, while it could be said about their past policies during the 1970s and 80s when their leader Carl I. Hagen made several statements where he wanted to abolish the welfare state. However, by the 1990s the party moderated its position in most of their economic policies.

It should be noted that the party is considered right-wing by the Norwegian media, not far-right or facist. The party is not anti-immigratiation, it is however immigrant-skeptic. While its true that the party is playing on people's fear when it comes to immigration, they have also played on people's fear in many other subjects; an example being that they said that the Socialist Left would make Norway a communist country.

My last comment is simple, you don't seem to know much about Norwegian politics. However, i agree with you that the article shouldn't contain to much sources from controversial subjects. --TIAYN (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has to provide a global perspective on all articles. What the Norwegian media calls the party should not take precedence over what reputable scholars call it. If political scientists identify the party as far-right, it needs to be reported on Wikipedia.UBER ^(talk) 19:18, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

And just to further clarify: please don't bring up red herrings. I'm not suggesting we call them fascist. I agree with you that they are not. However, they definitely qualify as far-right on the political spectrum, per numerous scholars and political scientists.UBER ^(talk) 19:28, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

You are borderline trolling here. Please stop immediately if you are not able to be constructive. -TheG (talk) 19:51, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

From your talk page you also have a long history of both vandalising and blatantly biasing articles. You can thus not be taken seriously, which only become evident here again because of your comments, as well as your complete ignoring of others comments. -TheG (talk) 19:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous political sciences here in Norway which would describe them as right-wing, as said it should be noted that some call them far-right, but the party is seen by the Norwegian public, political sciences, media and the party itself as right-wing. --TIAYN (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking at books that discuss the Progress Party they are not normally referred to as "far right".[1] The "far right" in Norway is small and was represented in politics by the National Alliance (Norway).[2] The Four Deuces (talk) 21:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

We'll get back to this later. For now, the article needs a copyedit badly.UBER ^(talk) 01:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I also question their description as "classical liberal" and "conservative liberal", which are not adequately sourced. While those are aspects of the party's ideology, they are overshadowed by their ideas on immigration and other issues. The Four Deuces (talk) 14:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

They are "adequately sourced", and must stay. As you see, right-wing populism is the thing that covers what you are suggesting, and is also there at present. So it is all covered, and is the most correct description of the party's ideology. The party is also about much more than merely immigration, despite that it might be the most "exciting" thing for people in other countries to write about. And again, as said the party is the secondly most popular party among immigrants, and this itself should reflect that the party is not like some of you claim. -TheG (talk) 16:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Classical liberalism is sourced to the party's own website, while conservative liberalism is from the European Election Database, which classifies "according to the recognized Manifesto Project dataset. The Manifesto project focuses on quantitative content analyzes of party manifestos from 50 countries covering all free democratic elections since 1945 to measure political positions of all relevant parliamentary parties." In both cases it is based on what the party says rather than independent evaluation. The descriptions themselves can have different meanings but are generally not seen as the same as populism. The Four Deuces (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I meant that right-wing populism covers the other things like immigration. -TheG (talk) 17:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Deuces about ideology. We can't source that kind of information to the party itself. Deuces, what do you propose for the party's ideology?UBER ^(talk) 17:05, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

What do you think entitles you to just "propose" the ideology of a party out of nowhere? Are you God? -TheG (talk) 17:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Anniken Hagelund in The Progress Party says "right wing populism".[3] Lars Svasand says "right-wing radicalism".[4] Right wing populism and radical right seem to be the most common terms. I agree that they are not far right but they are not traditionally liberal either. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:55, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

First, Gabagool - earlier you accuse people of "borderline trolling", then you accuse folk, in your last comment of 'just "propos(ing"' a party's ideology, when they were, in fact, doing nothing of the sort. "What do you propose for the party's ideology?" clearly means 'What do you propose as a good description of the party's ideology?' No one is trying to be a god. You should be careful you do not engage in what you accuse others of.AshleyMorton (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

However, on to the topic at hand: FrP's ideology. I have no truly authoritative references to back up my thoughts here, but I definitely agree with "right-wing populism". Here's some backup - the party's own website is promoting three policies right now - a desire for those employed by churches to have police background checks (promoting a timely matter as a major plank in the platform sounds populist to me), a belief that there should be a change in government after local government elections to be held in 2011 (all opposition parties would say something like that, although taking local government elections, and using them as the foundations for a claim to legitimacy as a national government is definitely a populist "grass roots"-style thing to do.), and a strongly-worded article about how elected politicians should be able to take back control over immigration policy from "topic-specialist jurists". All three of these are in the "sweet spot" of the world's populist right. Of course, they're Norwegian, so they're not screaming about Communists, or trying to ban abortion, or something, but they are arguing that their legitimacy comes from their close connection to "real/common people", yet they are not really ideologues, in that their policies do not constantly refer back to any "guiding principles" or core ideas. Thus, I definitely say "right wing populist".AshleyMorton (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is so wrong! Progress party has never proposed a reduction in public spending, rather the opposite. They want to use much more of Norway's oil whealth and expand the welfare state and at the same time reduce taxes. And the do not want to sell as much state-owned enterprise as the Conservatives. Progress party is no right-wing party. One cant place them on a political left-right scale. Carl I. Hagen is right. The Conservative party is further to the right. I don't know where you who wrote this article come from, but I am a politically active norwegian. Maybe you should listen to us? Hope people in norwegian schools do not trust in wikipedia on these matters for an exam or something..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.48.181.223 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 17 June 2010

How brain dead can a person get; the Progress Party is the most rightist party in parliament. --TIAYN (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

An who are you to decide this? Read the Progress Party programme, and see for yourself what they would like to spend. Thats not very right-wing, huh? Why is FrP so rightist in your eyes? Well, surely because og tax cuts and privatization. But how does that make it more rightist than the Conservatives, when they want exactly the same, only more in some cases. I am a Young Conservative, and I know what I stand for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.48.181.223 (talk) 22:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Traditionally the term "the Right" was applied to Norwegian conservatives. However new parties like the Progress Party are called "radical populist". Do they have anything to do with conservatism or the Right? The term "right-wing" is now applied to parties like that. Compare with the United Kingdom where the right-wing party is UKIP and the far right is the British National Party, but the party closest to your own is the Conservative Party, which is normally called "centrist" or "center-right". TFD (talk) 04:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so a right-wing party does not have to be libertarian on economical stances? I did'nt see it that way. I've allways placed parties from left to right depending what amount of goverment they want, and then my party, the norwegian Conservatives, was placed further to the right than Progress. And fascist are in my eyes nothing else than racist socialists. Of course i would'nt say that Progress is leftist, but in some cases they are. And on economic stances they propose tax cuts like us Conservatives, but would like to disband the Norwegian norm of how much public resources the Government should spend. They've used billions more on their budgets, even more than Socialist Left evere spended, and to me, that's not libertarian, and therefore I did not see that as rightist. But anyway this is confusing. This article contains inncorrect information. F.e; there is nothing about the spending of billions on expansion of the welfare state that FrP propose, rather that the party wants to reduce public spending. They do not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.48.181 (talk • contribs) 09:37, 18 June 2010

If you can find sources to back it up, you are free to expand the economic policy secion of this article. While I wrote much of the article, I have not written too much about economics here, for the simple reason that it is not something I know particularly much about. But, as said, it would be very helpful to have the economic section expanded. -TheG (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. I will do it, just have to find time for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.48.181.223 (talk) 10:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Placing parties from left to right depending what amount of goverment they want is a modern concept. In the 19th century the liberals, not the conservatives, advocated minimal government. In the early 20th century, fascists were considered far right and came to power with support from conservatives in Germany, southern and eastern Europe. TFD (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Title translations

There appears to be a difference of views between Gabagool and Eisfbnore regarding the provision of English translations of some citation titles. I am not understanding why we would avoid providing a translation of the title just because the original was in Norwegian. Gabagool, can you explain your objection? hamiltonstone (talk) 22:12, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally I see no need to translate the titles. The reference is to provide information to the reader of how they can access the reference, including providing its name. The translated title does not contribute to this at all, and adds a lot of space in an otherwise crowded reference section. On the other hand, it does seem a bit reckless to go about reverting additions of translated titles. Arsenikk ^(talk) 22:40, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The above user explains very nicely my reasons for removing those hardly necessary translations, which in addition messes up already somewhat complicated citations. As the publications themselves are also not in English (you need to know the respective languages to read them), I can hardly see the point in having such translations of the titles (the translations in themselves were also rather poor, WP:OR and the editor actually questioned his own translations in "hidden text"). I just can't see why it should be in the article, and I think it deteriorates the article for nothing. -TheG (talk) 23:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It is true, the rationale I provided for reverting Gabagool had nothing to do with the text he wrote in his former WP:ES, but merely with his tolerance of others editing "his" article. I do have somewhat of a difficult time figuring out how a translation can be OR. Should I have given citations for my translations? And why couldn't you (TheG) have improved the translations instead of just simply reverting them and labeling them OR. I also cannot see the point in having the |trans_title parameter in {cite book} if it shouldn't be used. And for the record, I did merely comment out one single word, since I was not sure if "opinion" should be translated directly. Eisfbnore (talk) 08:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Please refrain from such unbased (and rather pathetic) claims that I should somehow want to "own" this article just because a part of your edit was removed. Everyone is allowed to stop disruptive edits, and you edited much more than the translation-stuff. Why on earth should I seek to not allow others to edit the article as you oddly seem to think; you are more than welcome to, for instance, expand the article's sections on political positions such as Economy, Society etc. (or anything else) -TheG (talk) 11:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The |trans_title parameter could be useful for titles in other alphabets, I don't know. Here, I do not see why someone would need to know the title, when such a title can not be looked up anywhere in any newspaper in the world. I don't think the title contributes to a better understanding of the topic; it should be understood well enough by reading the article. Precision is also an argument (can't improve it if someone should spread the manner of translating to many articles). Geschichte (talk) 08:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I support the inclusion of translations. I can't see how they could possibly said to "deteriorate" the article - if you're not interested in them, just don't read them. I think they are useful. If I read an article about some political figure or party from, say, Hungary, with references to articles or books in Hungarian, which I don't read, I would still find it useful and interesting to know the title of the articles or books which was quoted. Also, the very fact that the possibility for adding translations is included in the template, shows that Gabagool's viewpoint that they are unnecessary, is not a universally held view. I agree these specific translations left something to be desired, but as a general principle, I find them useful. --Barend (talk) 12:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I know, and if I'd read an article with foreign-language refs, I would be glad to see translated titles in them, so that I at least could have a clue—or maybe impression ;)— about what the references say and if they are documenting the facts stated in the article. Eisfbnore (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a "|trans_title=" in the cite news template too; why don't you start translating the titles of all 130 news articles in the article too. Consistency is the most important thing regarding the quality in articles, so if you're translating something, you must translate everything, or otherwise leave it alone. -TheG (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I would gladely do so, but it doesn't feel like a good idea, when the king of the article most likely will remove it promptly after seeing it... --Eisfbnore (talk) 17:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you try to help constructively, rather than continuing with cheap characterisations of other editors who have actually put in a lot of work in this article. -TheG (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I must say that I believe Eisfbnore's started program of publicising OR translations of every source in the article to be highly inappropriate, and I have never seen anything like this anywhere on Wikipedia. -TheG (talk) 00:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Then go ahead and revert. The translations will either be very strict, direct and therefore poor english, or more relaxed, liberal, and as you say: OR. Eisfbnore (talk) 00:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming in on this discussion only now, and firstly I must admit I have never realized there is a |trans_title= field available for the Cite news template, which I very often employ when referencing text added to articles. That said, I strongly suggest that whenever an editor has made the trouble of adding such translations, they ought NEVER to be removed! if it's a bad translation, then address that, but actually removing these translations seems really unconstructive to me. I concede they may not always seem important, but on the other hand, who knows when a researcher will be sifting through the references looking for one specific in-depth article which then can be processed by a translation tool for further studies? __meco (talk) 11:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I guess I have to say thanks for the support, but I did actually remove the translations myself, since all I got for taking the time to do so, was resentments and accusations of being "unconstructive" and the translations of being "inappropriate" by the ki..., eh, nevermind. Eisfbnore (talk) 17:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree with Gabagool's argument about consistency - "if you're translating something, you must translate everything". One translation in a 100 is better than 0 translations in a 100. Some information is better than no information.

As for the term "OR translations" - I find this an utterly meaningless term. A translation can not, by definition be original research. It is the transfering of a piece of information from one language to another. It is not original research.--Barend (talk) 17:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Post-shooting revisions

I have attempted numerous times to keep this article as it was written prior to the shooting tragedy in Norway. My account (dallasmayor) has been blocked for trying to preserve this article. Does the Wikipedia crew do nothing to prevent slanted, politically motivated revisions following a tragedy of this magnitude? I encourage the staff to return this article to pre-tragedy status and keep it that way so as to prevent revisionists from twisting this entry to fit their political agenda. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Texaspedro (talk • contribs) 06:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Then bring attention to it and work to build a new consensus (after your block expires). Rather than attempting to perform mass reverts, focus on the actual content that you find objectionable. VQuakr (talk) 07:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not very much involved in that, but I must say that I feel the state of the article before the shooting is not a desirable one either. I don't mean that the party is as directly connected to this terrible crime as it is suggested by many now. I mean that the article in its old state seemed to me quite a whitewash - it based its text largely on the party's own documents and press articles. The article reflected more how the party would like to see itself and what it does in everyday politics, but little on what it actually is. Its xenophobic tendencies were just a remark way down the article. In that context it can hardly be a bad thing that there is much more attention on the article now. --Hansbaer (talk) 09:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Daily poll variations are not utile. Collect (talk) 17:13, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Breivik

His relation to the Progress Party is basically de minimis. Hence not germane here. It may be germane in his BLP where it currently resides. WP:BLP applies in all articles. Collect (talk) 22:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, the same issue is being pushed over at the Progress Party's Youth article; and in an even more tasteless manner. – Bellatores (t.) 11:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, there's a discussion on the talk page there, and I'd much prefer it if you participated in the discussion rather than revert-warring and calling my behaviour "tasteless". Some of my most important arguments given there don't apply to the Progress Party which is why I'm not really participating in the discussion here and don't have any strong opinions either way. In general, though, I'm alarmed by a tendency I see in fans of the Progress Party - that they seem to behave as if media around them should function more like Pravda than anything you'd see in the free world, which explains why their Wikipedia pages read like advertisement, and (necessary) criticism or inconvenient facts are removed. -- toresbe (talk) 12:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The fact is --- Wikipedia does not use "indisputable facts" as a basis for edits. Meanwhile I have absolutely no interest in Norwegian politics, so would appreciate it if you redacted any such imputation above. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

you're not interested in norwegian politics? that explains it. the link between frp and breivik is being debated among politicians, terror experts and others. it is having repercussions both on frp and its youth wing. this should also be included in the article. -- mustihussain (talk) 13:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

mustihussain is correct, the connection to the Progress party is acknowledged by all parts in this: By Breivik himself, by the media, by the Progress Party leadership as well as all other political parties represented in parliament. It's a main point of discussion in Norwegian politics. If you have no interest in/knowledge of Norwegian politics I don't understand why you would edit an article related to this theme. --Johanneswilm (talk) 13:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The Progress Party is not famous for having Breivik as a member, and Breivik is not famous for being a member of the Progress Party. Full stop. Eisfbnore • talk 12:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

the connection between the anti-islamic rhetoric of frp/fpu and the actions of breivik is being widely discussed by media, experts and politicians, both domestic and foreign [5]. this criticism cannot be swept under the carpet forever.-- mustihussain (talk) 15:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)