Talk:Progress Party (Norway)/Archive 1

Inproportionate criticism

The critisism section is simply too large in comparison to the rest of the article. It makes up 33% of the article text, while the political platform makes up about 5%. More text on party should be added, or criticism section must be shortened. Otherwise the article belongs to "Mocking the Progress Party(Norway)". --Heptor 21:35, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Not my fault if everybody thinks they're assholes... Again, if you have something about the party programme or ideology... please write it in. --Orzetto 11:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I imported something about the ideology of FrP from the Nynorsk Wikipedia. --Orzetto 15:40, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

---Wll, it is not anybodys elses fault if you want to portray the party according to your prejudgements.

Extensive vandalism from 85.165.125.150

A Norwegian address has erased all criticism of Frp, and also called "intellectually dishonest demagogery" (sic) the section about the political platform (which is by my best judgement one of the most neutral about the party). That section was imported by myself from the nynorsk Wikipedia, which I expect to have been reviewed by a sufficient number of Norwegians (and there was no NPOV notice there). Instead of putting an NPOV notice and starting a discussion on this page, the editor preferred censoring any critical part, and even parts that were not critical altogether, even inserting a notice (in a rather shabby English, I might add) that should rather have been on this page.

The same address tried to erase critic notes about Carl I. Hagen (already reverted there by others).

Dear Mr. 85.165.125.150, it's not my fault if nobody likes Frp, and no party wants it in the government no matter what. It's not my fault if Frp makes xenophobic electoral propaganda. It's not my fault if Carl Ivar makes islamophobic commentaries now and then. This article is supposed to report the facts, which, as far as I am concerned, speak for themselves.

Mentioning that, I think I should go dig that statistical study from 2000 or 2001 that found a clear-cut correlation between low education and tendence to vote for Frp. --Orzetto 17:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that 85.165.125.150 is correct in the criticism on the "tyranny of the models", that the description the policy of the party is based more on a minachist template, than on doing ones homework.

An example of the tyranny of the models is when users of Wikipedia it "informed" that "The party declares its principle to be "helping people help themselves". It is in favour of using money to help the families of the ill, instead of financing public institutions for education of the young and care for the sick or elderly. A notable point is the connection of such right to citizenship, since many immigrants do not have it." In fact, the real dispute is whether or not non-governmental production of governement financed welfare goods, should be allowed or not. The Progress Party says it should, and has proposed a neutral way of financing the production of such services, that allows for the establishment of privat alternatives and fair competition, saying that the money should follow the users og these services (an not be a bureaucratic system of central distribution), that the payment still should be done by the government, but through a national social security insurance (in Norwegian folketrygden), giving users rights. This policy is explained as measure against governmental monopoly on the production of such goods, of creating competition, and of empowering the individual consumers of government finances welfare good. Besides the tyranny of the models, the "notable point" that Mr. Orzetto points to, is false, a pure example of slur, and has nothing to do with this policy. --Nux 22:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Nux, I was translating their party program. Look up the PDF with the Frp program. Read page 7, last column, section "Sosialt ansvar" (under the big blue headline "The principles of the Progress Party"):

Sosialt ansvar

Fremskrittspartiets sosialpolitikk er basert på prinsippet om hjelp til selvhjelp. Syke og pleietrengende mennesker skal ha individuelle juridiske rettigheter til nødvendig medisinsk og annen behandling, samt pensjon finansiert gjennom folketrygden. Pensjonsytelsene bør være slik at behovet for særytelser bortfaller.

Fremskrittspartiet vil stanse utviklingen som går i retning av at offentlig ansatt personell overtar familiens naturlige sosiale funksjoner. Dette gjelder for eksempel oppdragelse av barn og ungdom, samt omsorg for eldre og syke. Sosial støtte bør gis til enkeltmennesker og ikke til grupper.

Sosiale rettigheter skal i hovedsak knyttes til statsborgerskap eller opptjente rettigheter.

Either the writers of the program have gone mad and written something contrary to the party's ideas in the official program presented for the elections, or you have misunderstood something about them. --Orzetto 21:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Still another example of the tyranny of the model, becomes clear after reading The Progress Party on development aid, The Progress Party's real views on development aid -i.e. the minority opinion in a document by the foreign affairs committee at the Norwegian Storting, translated from the original Norwegian by Bjørn Stærk. --Nux 05:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Still same PDF as above, same page, first column: "State-driven aid to underdeveloped countries must be shut down" (Statlig tvungen u-hjelp må avvikles.). Fine with all the things on Bjørn Stærk's blog, but these are the officially declared principles. --Orzetto 21:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Who are the seraphical nobodies that Mr. Orzetto has in mind when he says that "it's not my fault if nobody likes Frp"? Is it the "opponents" of FrP? Surly, it can't be the 31 percent that said they would vote for FrP in a recent poll?! --Nux 21:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Criminals of foreign origin in Norwegian media

On contrary, you can see this headline a lot, just take a look here: http://www.google.com/search?hs=Mmh&hl=la&client=opera&rls=nb&q=%28voldtekt+OR+drap+OR+ran%29+utenlandsk+opprinnelse&btnG=Quaere

Search terms are, in English "(Rape OR murder OR robery) foreign origin". Also, "propaganda" is a POV term when applied to modern politics --Heptor 22:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, "propaganda" should be a neutral word. It does not necessarily mean "lie", it just means "POV". Well, technically it is not the brochure, so can we settle on "advertisement" or something equivalent? The material comes from the Web site.

Your google stats is not so useful. First, it should keep "foreign origin" in quotes, so they match as a sentence. That makes 713 hits currently. Taking out "utenlandsk opprinnelse", one gets 1.730.000 hits. So, of all Norwegian pages mentioning rapes, murders or robberies, only 0.04% mentions a "foreign origin". I rest my case, mentioning of the origin of the criminal is not common in Norwegian or Scandinavian media, unless it is on topic. Furthermore, some of the hits with "foreign origin" are anti-racist pages or pages mentioning the Frp campaign.

I can compare, in my experience, with Italian media (Italy is growing more and more racist, as far as I can tell): articles tend to first state the nationality of the criminal (if he's a foreigner; they do not stress if he happens to be Italian), feeding racism. I don't think they do it on purpose, it's just a question of bad habits. When Anna Lindh was murdered, I did not find out that murderer Mihajlo Mihajlović was Serbian until he requested to serve his sentence in Serbia (then, mention of his citizenship was on topic).

--Orzetto 23:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

You found that among all pages in Norwegian language which mention the words "murder", "rape" or "robery" only few mention "foreign origin". It simply does not imply that of all newspaper stories which mentioned a crime commited in Norway and origin of the assailant was known only a few mention that assailant was foreign. And still in some cases the origin of the assailant will be clear from his name, hence removing any need to mention it explicitly; such as in the case with Mihajlo Mihajlovic.

The only point with my search was to show that there are many cases where the assailants origin is mentioned.

In any case, what you mention here is a result of your own investigation and attempt to interpret data. This clearly falls under Wikipedia term of "original research", even despite its low quality. As such, it may not be presented in an article. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research for more details on Wikipedia policy of no original research. --Heptor 12:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Heptor, you are fighting with reality and are quite pathetic at that. I reported obvious facts that can rapidly be checked, starting from your google search. As for Mihajlović, he could well have been a Swedish citizen as much as Zlatan Ibrahimović is. --Orzetto 08:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Ehm, you started with my google search, yes. Then you changed it, made a statistical analysis on it in a way never before seen, and certainly not authorized by Google, and then presented it as a fact on Wikipedia. Ibrahimović's parents are both Bosnian, so he is a so-called "Second Generation Immigrant". --Heptor 12:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course I changed it, to show you are wrong—I suppose this disturbed you. Comparing the number of Google hits is not exactly something I invented (you started using Google in this page, remember?). Of course, that is not an exact measure of published literature, but over 1.5 million against less than a thousand is more than enough to draw a conclusion. About Ibrahimović, "second-generation immigrant" is a contradiction in terms, or, worse, a racist expression.

I am going to reinstate the text, and if you want to remove it, find me one article with exactly that title. In Aftenposten, I find only references to the Frp ad. --Orzetto 14:25, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I used the google search to find examples of press mentioning the origin of the criminal; you used it for something else. Please do read the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research. And do read Wikipedia:Civility.

Here is your example: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/oslo/article922421.ece; the actual wording may vary, but criminals are of foreign origin, and it is clearly mentioned. --Heptor 14:39, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Heptor, I said exact. The article you point to does not even mention the "foreign origin" in the headline. I think that, if a party makes an electoral advertisement with "The assailant is of foreign origin"—Headline we often read, it is a fairly relevant fact that the headline has actually never been printed, if not in reference to the advertisement itself. I do not deny (how could I?) that there are some articles where the foreign origins of some criminals are mentioned. I am saying that such headlines are fairly rare. You picked an article, I could pick a bunch of others (as most of those in the NOKAS case: I had to dig to find that Halimi is Norwegian-Albanian, and had heard nothing about it in the mainstream media until I searched now).

In the article, you wrote that Norwegian media usually does not mention origin at all, not that it does not mention it in the headline. I put this page up in requests for comment, but as yet nobody bothered. I am reverting the stuff again. --Heptor 10:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

About the "No original research" thing, Wikipedia policy has a distinction between primary and secondary sources: the Google search is a primary source, i.e. data. What is not allowed is to make claims like "There are exactly 5 millions bunnies in Norway" without providing some sort of verifiable source. Of course, the credibility and the precision of a Google search can be discussed, but 1,700,000 against less than 600 is hardly a result of statistical variability. --Orzetto 17:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Are any of you guys norwegian? I doubt so. What was written on the FrP website was only stating what is obvious to most norwegians. The exact phrase is mostly used in newscasts on television or radio a short time after the crime was discovered/happened and when the first "beta"-articles appear. Later on this phrase is substituted with a name or nationality. A google-search won't tell you anything because the phrase only appears for a short amount of time, because it mostly is said (NOT written), and because a lot of the norwegian media and journalists say (and write) simply does not appear on google.

Vandalism from yet another Frp fanboy

A lot of edits have come from IP address 85.165.107.40 that have moved this page in a very POV light. See the list of his modifications (NB: includes some edits from others, mainly spellchecking though). I reverted practically everything, for the following reasons:

• Highly biased content in the Why did it succeed? section;
• Conspiracy theories in the introduction of the Criticism section;
• Unreferenced claims about parliamentary voting patterns for the Frp being consistent (it might be, but what's the source?)
• Unlikely mirror-climbing on the anti-immigration issue, also stating plain false facts, such as immigrants being overrepresented in crime statistics (a very common myth). In fact, immigrant youth is overrepresented among youth that never does anything against the law. In any way, this is a clear logical fallacy: "correlation does not imply causation".
• Censorship of a source where Hagen made a fool of himself saying that "all terrorists are muslim", and babbling some silly idiocies when confronted with IRA, ETA and the like.
• Censoring of the note stating that Hagen's speech is hosted on a biased site. The translation itself is accurate, but users should be made aware that not all material on that site is NPOV. This is not to the detriment of the site, they're not Wikipedia.
• Moving the issue of isolation of Frp from introduction to a small chapter towards the end. This fact is central in understanding Frp's role in politics, and is not "a claim"—it's a well-known fact. Sure, the conservatives are trying to get closer to them, but that was already cleanly stated.

--Orzetto 09:22, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

And please, Orzetto, keep a more respectfull tone. Calling another editor "FrP fanboy" is rude and a violation of Wikipedia:Civility. Not to speak of calling his contribution a "vandalism". You may or may not agree with an editors contribution, but calling it vandalism is utterly disrespecfull and is against everything Wikipedia stands for. --Heptor 12:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Given the type of contribution from that user, I find it hard to imagine he's not a Frp supporter. Since he censored some parts (the "all terrorist are muslim" thing, for example), and added only biased information, I cannot see what positive contribution that anonymous user might have given. Vandalism is the "attempt to compromise the integrity" of information, and that's what I see. Surely there can be worse cases, and surely a section on the reasons of Frp's success would be nice (I bet there are lots of sources and studies around), but this was not really encyclopedic. --Orzetto 14:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand that you consider 85.165.107.40's contribution to be a POV, but POV is not a vandalism, see Wikipedia:Dealing_with_vandalism#What_vandalism_is_not. Please keep fruits of your immagination to yourself, especially when they are in violation of multiple official policies of Wikipedia. --Heptor 14:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

POV tag

85.165.107.182 (Nux?), are you disputing neutrality of your own contribution? I removed the tag until you give an adequate explanation. --Heptor 13:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Kinds of liberalism

The intro was recently changed (by an IP) from saying the PP was a classical liberal party to a conservative liberal party. As I read liberal conservatism, that applies to the mix of free-market economics with traditional social values (something like the Republican Party (United States), I take it). Is that what the PP is like? I don't know much about Norwegian politics, but from the other descriptions here it seems the classical liberal label is more accurate. (Or, it could perhaps be described as a libertarian party.) --Trovatore 23:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Definition of being liberal is different, actually opposite, in Europe and US. In Europe, being liberal means that one wants to have liberal, ie free, economy, not influenced by the state. A translation would be something like:

Europe	US
Liberal	Conservative
Soscialist	Liberal

Conservative is more somebody who wants to keep things as they are (conserve). Some members of Norwegian Conservative Party once suggesteted to begin to refer to the party as "Liberal-Conservative", in stead of just conservative. This was not accepted, arguably because it wouldn't be much conservative. Pardon the pun, but the debate actually did happen. :) --Heptor 23:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand all that (though you've oversimplified; US conservatives often want strong state intervention on cultural issues, which I don't think is true of European liberals). The thing I'm not in a position to evaluate is, where does the PP stand? Was the anon change to "liberal-conservative" (that is, free market+traditional culture) an accurate one? Or are they more a straight liberal party (in the European sense, obviously)? --Trovatore 23:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't have anything to do with the difference of the definition of being liberal in Europe and US. I'm European myself, and I changed it because the Progress Party doesn't fit very well even to the European definition of liberalism. At least it isn't classical liberal, as when it seems that it gets more votes that way, it is willingly ready to support more public spending (or any other policy which it thinks brings it more voices). It is also an anti-immigration party, which excludes both the American and European definition of the term "liberal". "Conservative liberal" is only just possible. I think the right term would be "populist", but "conservative liberal" is a kinder term to use, as though it might not be the most apt, it is closer to the truth than "classical liberal" or "liberal".--213.243.156.75 01:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

As I understand the politics of the Progress Party, progress is obtained by liberating the market forces and increasing each individual's freedoms and responsibility, and reducing bureaucracy and the power of the state – except from a few areas where the state should have more responsibility and power, i.e. education, healthcare and care for the elderly, plus law enforcement and the court system. Healthy adults in working age, and private enterprises, should be able to take care of themselves and be neither supported nor bothered by the state, as long as they are good and don't break the law. Which liberal label fits best I don't know. --Eddi (Talk) 00:14, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What about issues like drugs, gay marriage, freedom of speech, protections for criminal defendants? --Trovatore 00:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Against drugs, unknown (to me) about gay marriages, support freedom of speach (not really an issue in Norway), strongly for harder punishment for most of the crimes and expelling of criminal foreigners. I would say they are liberal. Do agree with you that they are not liberal-conservative. --Heptor 01:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

(Disclaimer: These are my interpretations of the Progress Party's politics, irrespective of my own political stands.) Drugs and the rights of gay people are or have been controversial topics in the party, but the official party line is negative towards both. Drugs because they lead to crime, homosexuality possibly because the party doesn't want to step on too many Christian toes. That is, registered partnership is accepted but gay marriage and adoption are not. The police should be strengthened and the rights of criminals limited, which may logically lead to weaker rights of criminal defendants, although I can't remember having heard any official party politics on that. As to freedom of speech I believe none of the Norwegian parties would restrict the individual's rights to speak up against authorities, institutions, enterprises, or other individuals in powerful positions. However, the Progress Party is probably both more and less liberal than other parties (less liberal than the socialists and more than the conservatives and center parties) with respect to other kinds of public statements, e.g. slander and pornography (despite the Christian toes). --Eddi (Talk) 01:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Based on the above contributions, "conservative-liberal" sounds about right to me. --Trovatore 01:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The real problem with the article is that it refers to the PP as "libertarian," which is not true in at all, not merely for their opposition to immigration, but a general social conservative outlook. This along with the above mentioned free-market orientation except in "education, healthcare and care for the elderly." These are things that a libertarian party would not stand for. 192.149.97.50 02:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The PP's politicts is dominated by social-liberalism. Along with all the other parties seated in the Storting they want to strenghten the social profile and welfare of the norwegian society, but they have radically new ways of "doing things". They deeply disagree in the socialist regarding whitch role the authorities should have in the marked, and believe that that increasing the economic liberty of the individual is essential. The state should limit itself to ensuring that companies follow the rules of business-behaviour, and contributing to stimulate the will of investment. (A goal is a strong norwegian economy that is independent of our huge petroleumreserves and -income to avoid a social economic collapse when the income from petroleum-export disappear.)

Neutrality and factual accuracy

Eddideigel, please explain why you dispute article's neutrality and factual accuracy. Are there specific sections or sentences you disagree with? -- Heptor _talk 14:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't dispute any sections in particular, but I think the ongoing edit war supports the tagging. With such frequently changing information one never knows if a neutral and accurate version is in place, and the readers should be warned. (I suppose one tag would be sufficient, but I can't make up my mind which one.) --Eddi (Talk) 18:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

If you don't dispute anything, then you should really not add those tags. Or do you support Orzetto in considering his google search result count as a valid primary source? -- Heptor _talk 10:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Third parties may well comment on disputes. I observe there is a dispute, I add the tag. The message is not to the editors first and foremost, it is to the readers. I suggest your settle the differences at the talk page and then clean up the article. If you think the dispute should be announced at user talk as well, I will do so. --Eddi (Talk) 11:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Edits and reverts

Seems Heptor likes to revert instead of editing. I actually had put quite some effort in writing down the party program (and please, don't claim this one is not NPOV because there is a direct link to their program PDF that says exactly the same things: I just translated and reorganised). I reverted back (keeping the {{POV-check}} that has been inserted), let's start over. --Orzetto 10:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you please discuss the article and not the editors. I ask both of you to help identify the information on which you disagree, put it on the talk page, provide references, discuss, and find a compromise. Please. --Eddi (Talk) 15:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's give it a shot. I don't think Heptor disagrees on the History and Program parts.

• Heptor has reverted multiple times to a version with a section called "Why did it succeed?", which I modified in "Reasons for Success" and tried to sober up the text a bit (it sounded a bit too enthusiastic and biased).
• For some reasons Heptor reverted to a version in which the party program was placed in subsection Criticism/Minarchism. I cannot understand how that section is supposed to be criticism: that the Frp is more market-oriented than other parties is one of the few not controversial points about it. It's in their party program and all. I had translated the text myself from the Norwegian (nynorsk) Wikipedia, where it was not being contested.
• Heptor's version also removed a quote of Hagen in an interview, "Not all muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are muslim", properly sourced of course, and the proposal of making Islam a criminal offence by some local politicians.
• It would appear that Heptor's main concern is that I introduced a reference to Google searches with some terms to indicate that articles about criminality that mention the "foreign origin" of the criminal are indeed very rare in the Norwegian press. I know Google searches are not the Revelation, but almost 2 millions hits against 6 hundred seems a clear trend to me. The main point is that the "headline we read often" is not common at all, since the guidelines of Norwegian journalism discourage that, and I believe this is reasonably verifiable from here. --Orzetto 18:18, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Looking through additions

Sorry for long delay, I have been busy elsewhere. OK, I have following comments:

• Labour economics: The party does propose some liberalization of the labour marked, but it is far from "so that laws shall not pose any limit on the type of contract that employer and employee want." Where did you find this? If you read their programme here: [1], they actually support full organizational freedom and right to go to strike (original text: "Fremskrittspartiet går inn for full organisasjonsfrihet, hvor retten til å være organisert skal stå like sterkt som retten til å være uorganisert. Fremskrittspartiet vil bevare streikeretten og lockoutretten som virkemidler i en konflikt mellom arbeidstakere og arbeidsgivere."

I took it from this PDF, page 6, second column, under "Arbeid og sysselsetting", second paragraph: Lovverket bør, utover det rent sikkerhets- og helsemessige, ikke inneholde begrensninger i den enkelte borgers rett til å inngå arbeidsavtaler på de betingelsene partene selv ønsker. Seems pretty official to me, but we can surely include your quote. --Orzetto 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It's OK now. Interesting though... If they are remove the legal protection against firing people, while still allowing the trade unions, the trade unions would blossom.... But this is off topic here. -- Heptor _talk 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Democracy: Yes, they do support binding referendums, but how is this notable? It doesn't introduce any practical changes, nor does it show anything about their ideology. Should be removed for lack of notability.

Why? I'm not aware of other parties campaigning for this (may be though, did not check all of them). It is actually strange that there are no legally binding referenda in Norway, actually. Anyway, it indicates a tendency to give power to the people directly. --Orzetto 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say it is more strange that according to the same Constitution the King may dissolve the parliarment, refuse to sign a law or commit a crime (e.g. even kill someone) without getting punished. The legal status is that the Crown Prince Haakon may not be punished, while his whife, Crown Princess Mette-Marit may. This is just the tradition that this sort of thing doesn't happen, it is a so-called constitutional custom. It is just not an important fact that the PP wants to make it more formally correct.

But, if you like it, keep it. -- Heptor _talk 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• The section about how Progress Party actually wants to limit the state is overdone. On top of this page they write that "It is a public responsibility that everyone has access to necessary health care." If you are a total liberalist, you want to reduce the state to police, defence and justice (or something like that) everything else to be taken care of by individuals. The Progress Party is far from being so minimalist.

Again, I agree it is not something like the American Libertarian Party. But, in the same PDF as above, same page, third column, it is written clearly that "some issues must be taken care of by the public" (Fremskrittspartiet mener at en del oppgaver må løses av det offentlige, men slike oppgaver må avgrenses klart). They also say that the list (which is reflected in the items of that section) is incomplete but includes the main areas. The introduction to the section can be reworded as "... limited to some areas, of which the ones considered most important are:" --Orzetto 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually I don't see the sentence you quoted bear any real information. "Some tasks must be solved by the state, but those tasks must be clearly delimited". The closest I get to an actual meaning is that the tasks that must be solved by the state must be clearly delimited. And, ehm, so what?? Go ahead and delimit, so long as the state does what it must do! -- Heptor _talk 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• The sentence "According to professors P. A. Pettersen and L. E. Rose, the average Frp voter is a young man with low education and income. This is in contrast with the average voter of the Conservative party, characterised by higher education and income. It also appears that the Progress party is especially weak in academic circles" should never, ever be in the "critisism" section. Do you have any idea how elitistic and undemocratic this looks? A vote cast by a plumber is not a criticism, it is actually just as valuable as a vote cast by an engineer!

Agree. I guess it would not fall in a present section though, it would probably need its own one (after "Reasons for Success"?). Or maybe in the introduction, since it's just a paragraph. --Orzetto 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Electoral support / electorate composition would be best. -- Heptor _talk 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Your claim supported by the google search is already removed by somebody else.

Heptor _talk 20:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Which I reverted mercilessly. We can agree on a disclaimer note to specify that Google searches are not exact, but I do not think 2 million hits against less than 1,000 has a reasonable possibilty to be a statistical fluctuation. --Orzetto 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

As the search is presented now, it is simply irrelevant. It does not

• Limit itself to newspapers or news media in genral. It seaches entire internet for words in Norwegian language.
• In any way take into account that the origin of the assailant may be clear by other means, such as his name, an explicit mention of his original country, or mentioning that he was an asylum seeker et cetera.

And finally, this is still original research. Those results are not published in any credible publication where it has been suggested that the result may be interpreted in that way. Given the technical and statistical nature of your thesis, it should preferably be confirmed by professionals fields of statistics and Internet.

Heptor _talk

Slander instead of information

The following section is now removed:

 The Guardian once described Progress party as far-right and 
 included them in their special report on Europe's far right [2].
 Brookings Institution used the term "far-right extremist" [3].

There are also several other misinformations that needs to be removed or adjusted to make the information more accurate and neutral. Obviously some find it hard to resist temptations to make this article into an attestation of their prejudgements and enemy image of The Progress Party. But even if you're hellbent on lumping FrP together with right wing extremists, you need to argue for it. Slander is neither facts nor reasons, namely what information should be based on. --Nux 06:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I reinserted the above paragraph. I'm not saying that the far-right classification isn't slander, but the classification has demonstrably been made by the given sources. --Eddi (Talk) 21:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed the slander again because as I said, because the "sources" lumps FrP together with far-right extremists, without giving any reason for doing so. I also removed other parts because they confuse facts with opinion.

And that's not the only thing contributors to Wikipedia obliged by. They are responsible for the impression that they make, too.

 "However, as late as 2004, Halvor Hulaas and Karina
  Udnæs, the Frp representative and deputy leader in 
  Kristiansand, asked for a ban on Islam, making it 
  "punishable in the same way as Nazism"

Using the odd and uncommon assertions from some exotic member of a group, implicitly implying that assertions like these, is not uncommon, and not odd within the group, is not information. It's trying to make an impression that one is not willing either to do the chore of arguing for, or to let go of.

To assert that...

 The most anti-immigration elements in the Progress party,
 such as Jan Simonsen, left the party (or were expelled,
 as in Simonsen's case) in 2001 and founded a far-right, 
 clearly xenophobic movement, The Democrats. 

... is not to inform. It's holding an opionion. The implication is that Jan Simonsen is a xenophobe, which is obviously false to anyone familiar with Mr. Jan Simonsen. Another false impression is that the expulsion of Mr Simonsens, had anything to do with his policy on immigration. --Nux 06:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Nux, I removed all your edits for the following reasons:

• You removed a section stating that Frp wants to connect rights to welfare to citizenship. This is in their party program (see the link in the article), and you have to go a long way to deny that.

Removed it again because It's inaccurate and is used to make a false impression.

• Section "Reasons for success": you reinstated a highly POV version, including frankly undefendable statements like "The fading away of the social democratic hegemony" (who's in government today in Norway?).

Not hegemonically. See an article by the Norwegian historian Øystein Sørensen: http://www.ideeromfrihet.no/1991-7-sorensen.php --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• You removed the opinion that respectable international sources such as the Guardian or Brookings institution have expressed about The Progress Party. If you do not like them, find other international sources crediting the Progress party.

This is tertiary sources, not capable of anything else but to confirmation prejudgements. The critical question is who's their sources. Who did they get their "information" from? From the propaganda department of the Labour Party? They didn't say. And they didn't say what fact or factoid they base their jurdgements on. A wikipedia article should be based on facts, not on some opinion or spin. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. An opinion by a foreign newspaper where it categorized parties in Europe and put the Progress Party together with the right-wing extremists? Nothing suggest that they made an especially deep analysis, or are particularly well-informed on Norwegian politics. -- Heptor _talk 00:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Saying that the Democrats and Jan Simonsen are not xenophobic is frankly hardly sustainable. Surely they do not go around with racial purity propaganda, but they did, in the person of Vidar Kleppe, say that their web page was "muslim-free". If this is not xenophobia, what is?

If this is the conclusion that you want to make, then you need to do the chore of finding the facts to support you conclusion. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• You removed Hulaas and Udnæs' proposal to make Islam "illegal as Nazism". Since they were not expelled from the party, surely this is relevant to understand what the party is going to tolerate from its members. I cannot see representatives from the Conservative, Christian democrat or Liberal parties saying the same things and get away with that. Unless Hulaas and Udnæs did got silenced/punished/told to shut up, in that case it would be much more informative to tell the world how the Progress Party reacted to this.

As I said, you're making the odd stand out as the representative, just to support the conclusion that you're driving at. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• On the issue of the "Criminal of foreign origin" you removed a link to Frp's website that demonstrates that not all such brochures contained the Pakistani girl saying "Those most eager to get rid of criminal imigrants are us honest immigrants!".

So what! Do you have a hidden agenda. You're giving to much space to the war on interpretation in the election campagin on a non-news story that zebra has stripes. There is nothing new in the fact that FrP is concerned about overrepresentation of immigrants on crime statistics, but has nothing against law abiding immigrants. Besides, the "Pakistani girl" is a representative of FPU. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Claiming that there is a link between "islamist fundamentalism and terror" is hardly newsworthy, everyone knows that fundamentalists are not exactly boy scouts. The point is that it was claimed that "all terrorists are muslim". That's a link to Islam. A link to fundamentalism would have been "all terrorists are fundamentalists", which would indeed include IRA, ETA and other terrorist organizations in a broad sense.

Well that's was obviously what he meant, before the spin doctors had had their say. This is what he is stressing in his speach in Bergen. He clarifies that his criticism is directed against islamic fundamentalism, not islam. Further, it is obvious that he talks about international terrorism, and alludes to an international debate about that matter. But spin doctors can't let the obvious calm them down. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• You removed a part that explained why the Frp sees itself isolated (radically different politics). It leaves only a sentence to say that it is, and the reader wondering why.

You should distinguish between you own political opinions and facts. What you personally believe is the cause of the isolation is you opinion, your completely unfounded guesswork about this some other causality. My opinion is that is is not even an interesting hypothesis. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• You removed the part about the personal rivalry between Hagen and Bondevik. That has had quite an influence on recent Norwegian politics, and I do not see why it should be removed.

I removed it because it was used in a misleading and unfounded way. But this part should probably be reinserted, but based on facts. Here again you need to do your homework before your jumping to conclusions. --Nux 00:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I took your point that Simonsen was not expelled for xenophobia or similar things, it is now noted. --Orzetto 21:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of the Frp's immigration policy

Why is the party's immigration policy not explained in the "Program" section? There is a section discussing criticism and support of the party's stance on immigration. There is also a section highlighting the controversy the party generated due to its anti-immigrant publications. Yet, nowhere in the article does it actually state the party's official policy on the issue (assuming it has one). For example, is the Frp opposed to all non-European immigration, like most far-right parties? Does it advocate the repatriation of non-citizens?

WGee 05:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The party want to have immigration-rules like them in the US. Today immigratiodn is a too big burden on the few net taxpayers (app. 20 % of the pop.). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.149.51.180 (talk) 07:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I Removed Some Stigmatizing Quote Marks

I'm an American reader and I had never even heard of the Progress Party before reading about it here. I found the use of quote marks around some of the words to be a way of putting down the Progress Party and a violation of Wikipedia neutrality. I rewrote to remove the pejorative quote marks. The use of these quote marks makes me suspicious that the article could well be biased against the Progress Party, though being utterly ignorant of Norwegian I wouldn't have a clue how. At the very least, I think Progress Party members who complain about bias should be listened to.—This unsigned comment was added by JoePyeWeed (talk • contribs) 19 March 2006.

I agree with your edit, but not for the reason you stated. Putting "populist" within quotation marks, in this context, implicitly reduces its meaning? --Ezeu 15:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Framstegspartiet

A user removed the name Framstegspartiet, accordingly because there was "no indication on official site of that being the official name". This is wrong. This is from The Progress Party's constitution:

    § 1 Navn
    Partiets navn er Fremskrittspartiet. I lag der det ønskes kan Framstegspartiet benyttes. I begge tilfelle er forkortelsen FrP. [4]

PelsJakob 00:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Populism

As populism is a word with negative connotations, I believe it is against Wikipedia's principle of neutrality to call a party populist. That the Progress Party is populist is an opinion, not a fact. A neutral article about the Progress Party should state that

1. the party claims to be a liberalist party
2. its politics in practice is liberal conservative
3. some people (i.e. socialists) claim that the it is a populist far-right party

PelsJakob 00:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Read the last section and you will find that all non-partisan observers (not just socialists) state that the party is far-right. -- WGee 18:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

These days, few political parties wish to be pigeonholed as rigidly conforming to a general political ideology or 'ism'. However, 'ism" labels are used for a reason - such generalizing words serve to describe/capture a large, often somewhat inconsistent, set of actions, policies, and positions in a reasonable space. To completely avoid the use of such labels simply because they may have acquired negative reputations is not NPOV.

populism: Political program or movement that champions the common person, usually by favourable contrast with an elite. Populism usually combines elements of the left and right, opposing large business and financial interests but also frequently being hostile to established socialist and labour parties. In the U.S. the term was applied to the program of the Populist movement of the 1890s. --wormcast 21:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

FrP and the apartheid-regime

Anders Lange, FrPs founder, supported and received money from the racist regime in South- Africa: http://www.verdensmagasinetx.no/Artikler/788.html (article in Norwegian) In this article he says: Everybody that supports black majority rule in South Africa, is a traitor to the white race. (Alle som går inn for svart flertallsstyre i Sør-Afrika er forrædere av den hvite rase) Oddeivind 20:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the only source Verdensmagasinet X provides is Eschel Rhoodie's claims. Shouldn't there be other investigations in this matter? I live in Norway too, and I have never seen or heard of this magazine. After reading http://www.tidsskrift.org/index.php/ntf/medlemmer/verdensmagasinet_x, I get an impression that this is a magazine for members in organization "Fellesrådet for Afrika" (United Council for Afrika). Where is this magazine available for sale? -- Heptor _talk 16:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I dont know whether it is available in paper, but I would guess this organization have knowledge in the area, so they know what they are speaking about. Oddeivind 21:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Both Carl I. Hagen and Erik Gjems Onstad denies that ALP received any money from the South African government in 1973:

• - Utenkelig med pengestøtte
• - Sponset av apartheidregimet

Anyway, I cannot see how it is relevant to include this information in an article about today's Progress Party, no more than it is relevant to mention in the article on the Socialist Left Party that their former MP, Hanna Kvanmo, took part in World War II on the German side. PelsJakob 19:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

This is hardly comparable, as this happened a long time before Kvannmo became leader of the Socialist Left Party (and even before the party was founded). That the party leader claims that "everybody that supports black majority rule in South Africa, is a traitor to the white race" is part of the history of the Progress Party and is therefore relevant in such an article, just as it is relevant that the Norwegian Labour Party was member of the Comintern in the early 1920s. Oddeivind 17:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

(According to her article, she only worked for the Red Cross. But I guess this is beside the point). Narssarssuaq 13:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The Progress Party is clearly far-right

Here's what reputable sources have to say about the Norwegian Progress Party:

• BBC — "far-right, anti-immigration"
• BBC — "anti-immigrant", "far-right"
• BBC — "far-right"
• BBC — "far-right", "anti-immigration stance"
• Aljazeera — "far-right", "anti-immigration"
• Stephen Roth Institute — "far-right", "hostility toward immigrants and minorities in general", "leading source of semi-racist propaganda in Norway"
• BBC — "far-right", "hostile to immigration"
• Open Democracy — "far-right", "xenophobic"
• Washington Post — "anti-immigration"
• CNN — "far-right"
• Washington Post "far-right", "anti-immigrant", "a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment has bolstered far-right parties in some European countries"
• The Guradian (UK) — "far-right", "anti-immigration"
• The Guardian (UK) — "far-right"
• Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society — "The emergence of the RRP (radical right-wing populist) parties was preceded by the foundation of right-wing populist parties in Denmark and Norway (eg. the Progress Party) in the early 1970s."
• New York Times — "far-right"
• The Economist — "The [Progress Party] is expected to continue to promote a populist programme. . ."

I therefore push for statements in the lead to indicate that the Progress Party is far-right, anti-immigration, and populist.

-- WGee 18:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The fact that some journalists have used the term "far-right" doesn't make it true. These terms have repeatedly been inserted in to the lead, giving the reader an impression that FrP is a far-right party (as in fascist, racist etc.). Neither the party's program nor the voting pattern of the party indicates any kind of fascism or racism. I have removed these terms. Please provide a good reason here on the talk page before inserting them again. Ahy1 16:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Far right doesn't imply fascism or racism, and though it's sometimes used pejoratively, it's also a rather matter-of-factish label. Its use here contrasts the party to Høyre, which is moderate right. There is, as far as I know, no dispute that FrP are further right than Høyre. Still, as it's slightly pejorative (though I'm not sure to which degree), it may be left out? --Also, anti-immigration was another of the terms listed. I thought this was undisputed; that even FrP would accept that they're anti-immigration, while the picture is of course slightly more complex than this single term may imply. A problem is that putting it in the header may emphasise it too much, but anti-immigration is an important issue as to where FrP differs from other parties. It's also an important political issue, as it has been, and is, an important reason why other parties (and many voters) don't want close ties with FrP. Narssarssuaq 12:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree anti-immigration is an important difference between FrP and the other parties. I still think it is a little strange to mention that in the start of the article, while not mentioning other important differences.

My impression is that the term far right is clearly associated with fascism and racism, and I think using such words at the top of the article would give the reader the wrong impression. The fact that some journalists have used that term could be mentioned somewhere else in the article. It should then be made clear that this term is generally considered wrong as a description of FrP. Ahy1 15:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

"Far right" is not generally considered a wrong description of FrP. In political discourse they are often referred to as such. --Ezeu 17:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

From the start of far-right: "Far right, extreme right, ultra-right, radical right, or hard right". These terms are supposed to be synonyms? Wouldn't "extreme right" or "ultra-right" be translated to Norwegian as "høyreekstrem"? I don't think I have ever heard any Norwegian mainstream journalist or poitician describe FrP as "høyreekstrem". That word is normally used to describe neo-nazis and violent racists. Ahy1 23:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, many of those who are uninitiated in the realm of political science conflate the term "far right" with Fascism and Naziism, when the term is actually used to describe right-wing, authoritarian, disestablishmentarian political parties of any particular ideology. The labelling of the FrP as "far-right" extends far beyond "some journalists": there is a consensus among mainstream media organizations that the FrP is far-right, as evidenced by my cross-checking above. Two scholarly institutes use the term, as well: the Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society, and the the Stephen Roth Institute of Tel-Aviv University. Thus, my reason for including the term "far-right" is that there is a consensus among reliable sources that the FrP is exactly that. And nobody has the right to stifle these many reputable sources because of their personal viewpoints.

Ahy1, you said that "The fact that some journalists have used the term "far-right" doesn't make it true." But "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." (WP:V) This is because people's perceptions of truth vary, as demonstrated in this discussion. So you can't remove these sources simply because of your misconceptions about the term "far-right". Whether or not you think it connotes fascism or racism is irrelevant; what matters are the opinions of reliable sources, the supermajority of which state that the FrP is either far/radical right, anti-immigrant, populist, or all of the aforementioned.

-- WGee 21:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that these pejorative terms are put in the lead section of the article, giving a wrong impression. If you have to include them, you should put them in the "Criticism" section. Ahy1 21:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Why should it be swept under the rug? Clearly they are far right and we have many reliable sources saying so so it should be stated. // Liftarn

Stating that it is a "radical right-wing populist party" in the lead gives the impression that it is an extremist party, which it is not. Ahy1 14:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This section in Wikipedia:Words to avoid suggests that terms like "Far right" should normally not be used, because they depend on the writers POV. The current text "radical wight-wing" lead links to Far right. Could someone please explain why we should not follow the suggestion in this article? Ahy1 17:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

As noone has replied to this, I assume that noone has come up with a good reason to ignore this guideline, so I removed the sentence. Ahy1 10:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

User:WGee reverted with the following edit summary: WP:WTA does not apply in this case, because we are stating the opinion of reputable sources. It is dishonest to sanitize the findings of sources simply because you don't like the words they use.

I did not find an exception about reputable sources in Wikipedia:Words to avoid, and I still think this sentence should be removed. Ahy1 13:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It is undoubtedly the futherest to the right of Norwegian parties. This does not neccessarily make it "far-right" by other countries standards. It is certainly to the left of both main parties in the USA, and probably holds opinions close to the Tory party in the UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.213.154.101 (talk) 13:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This page needs cleanup

Much of this article is written by people more interested in digging up dirt rather then providing a neutral picture. Extensive cleanup is needed. -- Heptor _talk 20:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The article is simply a mess. I've made some attempts to clean up. The "Ideology" paragraph contains only direct quotes from the program, which by definition is POV. The entire chapter should be rephrased. Also, the "criticism" part is too long compared to the rest of the article, and should be summarised into something shorter unless the rest of the article grows. Narssarssuaq 20:25, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Why such obsession with critisism and cock-ups?

Comparing this article with the other articles about Norwegian political parties I can't help but noticing a very different approach in this one. The article seems to be written by someone more concerned with their own political agenda than writing a neutral and descriptive article similar to the other articles. While much of the content is not untrue it is more or less taken out of context, and the authour(s) seems to be obsessed with every little thing of negative value to be found ( see the sections "Critisism" and "References" in particular ). I live in Norway and do not recognize the Progress Party described here, may I suggest a more neutral approach i line with the other articles on the political parties of Norway? --Varyag 20:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree. Feel free to help cleaning up the mess. Heptor _talk 13:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It is classified in academia as a radical right-wing populist party.

This is not true. Cas Mudde thinks the Progress Party is more like the Dutch party (or at least what used to be that party) List Pim Fortuyn. The Norwegian Wikipedia says the Progress Party's ideology is liberalism. Simply citing academic sources that name the party "radical right" does not make for a classification. In order to classify things you have to compare things, which I believe those academic sources are not doing. An article about "Institutional Variables Affecting Female Representation in National Legislatures: The Case of Norway" is not talking about if the "radical right" label is appropriate for the Progress Party. Intangible 17:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

First, I could find many scholarly essays which say that the List Pim Fortuyn is radical right, so your citing Mudde's comparison doesn't help your cause. Second, what that Wikipedia article says is illogical, because the social conservatism that the FrP unassailably advocates is antithetical to liberalism. Plus, the content of other Wikipedia articles is irrelevant. Third, those academic sources are making comparisons: they discuss the FrP in relation to the European radical right and in relation to regional far-right parties. Finally, Institutional Variables Affecting Female Representation in National Legislatures: The Case of Norway discusses the representation of women in Norwegian party politics, and therefore discusses the anti-feminist Progress Party, which has not made gains in female representation. -- WGee 01:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

An anti-feminist party with a female chairman who is also parliamentary leader? Well call me crazy... Intangible 06:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I said that the party is anti-feminist, not anti-women; there's a large difference. The party may have a few female representatives, even a female chairperson, but the report is discussing theproportion of women within parties — in that category, the FrP is lagging far behind the other major parties. -- WGee 00:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I moved criticism of the party to the criticism section. The old lead was far more to point. There don't seem to be any evidence that the opinion of the critics is a consensus or even a majority opinion. References are barely good enough to support inclusion in Wikpedia at all. There are many references, but they include research published on activist web site (http://www.extremismus.com/); a twelve year old book; a research by Stephen Roth institute in Tel-Aviv about anti-semitism in Norway, a subject in itself irrelevant in this article, also being about seven years old, that is before Øysein Hedstrøm was excluded from the party. All of this material seem to be published outside Norway, where it is virtually immune from criticism by Norwegian media and the Progress Party itself.

Not to mention the reference that was not about the Norwegian Progess Party at all, that Intangible already removed [5].

Heptor _talk 23:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The old lead was based on original research: who says that the Progress Party ". . . is loosely classified as a neoliberalist or classical liberal. . . ."? Unless you propose a new lead, one which is derived from reliable sources, this one will have to stay. -- WGee 00:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

These are just three articles calling the party right-wing: [6][7][8]

Intangible 10:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yepp. It is only three foreign articles labeling party "right-wing". It very very far from sufficient to claim that this is the general stand in academia. -- Heptor _talk 14:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

PS: The Progress Party does call for closer cooperation with Israel, but it is by no means the core of their foregin policy. It does not deserve a place in the lead. The current lead was written after a quite long discussion, see the talk above. -- Heptor _talk 14:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all, it wouldn't matter if those sources just used the term "right-wing": "right-wing" is an all-emcompassing term that does not contradict "radical right" or "populist". Second, the Financial Times calls the FrP a populist party: "... with informal support from Progress, a populist rightwing party." Third, the BBC says that "... in a number of cases, where the centre-right has returned to power, it has been forced to do so with the support of smaller right-wing populist parties, which are often openly protectionist and xenophobic in character." It lists the Progress Party as one of those parties. Also pay attention to the heading, "Xenophobia". Fourth, Reason is a libertarian magazine, hardly a reliable source. Finally, there are absolutely no sources to back up your claim that the Frp is "... loosely classified as a neoliberalist or classical liberal...." If you don't stop re-inserting original research, I will seek mediation, and then arbitration, if necessary. -- WGee 18:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you folks blind, by the way? You seem to be forgetting the six sources in the article that label the party "radical right", in addition to the three you presented, which actually support those sources. I challenge you to find reliable sources that contradict that label. Have fun. -- WGee 18:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

If the BBC, FT or Reason called the party right-wing, that is all I know. Your notions are OR at best. Furthermore, I do not subscribe to the statement that this party is "neo-liberal" or "classical liberal". I do know they like a capitalist economic system though. If you are a communist, that might be enough to label this party "far right," but that is intellectually dishonest. Intangible 18:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

And one scholarly article that rejects the "radical right populist" label is [9] Intangible 18:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The six sources stating that Frp is a "radical right-wing populist" are all from the 1990's. One can not compare Frp in the nineties with Frp today. Frp anno 2006 can hardly be called "right-wing", but I can agree to "populist". --Kjetil_r 19:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've read the essays, and, despite thier age, they discuss themes that are still present in the FrP's politics, such as its disdain for immigration and multiculturalism, its anti-feminism, and its disestablishmentarianism, which manifests itself in the FrP's opposition to the socialist welfare state, the paradigm that has predominated Norwegian politics for decades. These things are what make the FrP "radical right". And could you please explain to me how the socially conservative, economically liberal (i.e. liberal-conservative) FrP cannot be called right-wing? Even contemporary sources describe the FrP as such, and even most casual observers would conclude also that the FrP is right-wing. -- WGee 20:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake, I intended to write “radical right wing”, not “right wing”. I agree that FrP is somewhat right-winged. But radical - well, they are not exactly opposed to the socialist welfare state anymore. For example, they are always voting for overspended budgets. I often think of them as populist social democrats who are hard on crime and imigration. --Kjetil_r 06:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I've read the abstract, Intangible, and the thesis of the essay seems to be that the automatic conflation of populism with the extreme-right in Europe is unwarranted. That is not to suggest, however, that a populist party cannot be far-right or that no European populist parties are far-right. Moreover, does the essay discuss at length the FrP, and does it specifically dissociate the FrP from the far-right? If so, could you please provide a relevant exerpt? -- WGee 20:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

And could you please explain, Intangible, how "my" notions, which are actually the opinions of reliable sources, are original research? You have an annoying habit of accusing people of inserting original research without justifying yourself. Combine that with your subtle accusations of dishonesty, which demonstrate that you are unable to assume good faith. -- WGee 20:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

You are talking to three people here. Which one of us do you accuse of not being able to assume good faith?

I'm talking to Intangible: I said, "And could you please explain, Intangible.  . . ." -- WGee 22:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

"it wouldn't matter if those sources just used the term "right-wing": "right-wing" is an all-emcompassing term that does not contradict "radical right" or "populist"." How is this not OR? And please do not call me, or other editors "far right" symphatizers. You are being hypocritical saying that I do not assume good faith, while you are calling me and other Wikipedia editors "far right sympathizers"[10]. Shame on you. Intangible 09:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

WGee, there are several problems with those sources:

1. They are old. Even if most of the Progress Party's policy remain the same, many people who expressed views considered racist were excluded from the party before 2001 elections. Even without it, some of the articles would be just too old to descibe the current situation.
2. They are not published in Norway. As such, they are virtually immune from criticism, both from the media and from the Progress Party itself.
3. It is not established that those articles represent majority, left alone consensus, in academia. In light if 1 and 2, they in absolutely no way represent the current consensus in Norwegian academia.

Heptor _talk 20:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the current lead was established by a lengthy debate, see "Kinds of liberalism" section. I participated in it somewhat, but I did not author the current lead (except for the foreign policy sentence). -- Heptor _talk 20:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Original research is always unacceptable, whether formulated by a consensus among editors or by the opinion of one person. Our goal is to relay the consensus of reputable sources, not the consensus of a group of Wikipedia editors. -- WGee 21:21, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

1. I've told you why their assertions are still relevant; if you're still unconvinced, however, I encourage you to find contemporary reliable sources. Until then, the sources I've proposed will have to remain instead of the original research that you kept re-inserting. Old sources are always better than no sources.
2. There is no requirement for sources to originate from the country of their subject. In fact, to overwhelm the article with sources from one particular country would cause a geographical bias, thereby violating WP:NPOV#Undue weight. Moreover, non-Norwegian sources are certainly not immune to criticism from the Norwegian media or the FrP, thanks largely to the Internet and to globally accessible literature. If the Norwegian media and the FrP choose not to criticize foreign sources, lest they repulse their Norway-centric viewers and voters, that's irrelevant.
3. Scroll up and read the section entitled "The Progress Party is clearly far-right", which demonstrates the consensus in Western international media that the FrP is far-right. If you don't think that my six sources are an accurate cross-section of academic opinion, then you'll have to disprove me by presenting several reliable counter-sources.

-- WGee 21:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Here are just two academic articles that repudiate your stanch:[11][12] Intangible 11:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and the earlier article I gave talks about all parties mentioned in Betz's "The New Politics of the Right", which includes the frp. Intangible 11:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

And this source calls the frp a right-wing tax protest party and even "libertarian" [13] Intangible 12:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I refuse to believe that any doctor of philospophy considers the FrP a libertarian party; many of the FrP's explicit proposals—such as increasing taxes on consumption, increasing state support for the elderly, providing state funding to private schools and universites, and opposing gay rights and immigration—are clearly antithetical to libertarianism. Not only that, but, according to this article, "The Progress Party is not for a reduction of the welfare state...." -- WGee 02:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is, I'm just providing evidence that the statement in the introduction, namely that the Progress Party "is classified in academia as a radical right-wing populist party," is not factual, since there is no consensus among academia what to call the Progress Party. Intangible 17:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a majority consensus. Citing the handful of scholars who use different terms in different ways does not erase that majority consensus.--Cberlet 18:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Your notion is WP:OR. There is nothing in the Richard E. Matland article 'Institutional Variables Affecting Female Representation in National Legislatures: The Case of Norway' for example, that could tell us that he is using the same kind of definitions that other scholars are using. Intangible 19:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Outside view by user Cberlet

I agree with WGee, and I note that this same discussion has happened over and over on other pages edited by Intangible, and that Intangible was put on probation for just this type of endless argumentation. "He may be banned for appropriate periods from any article or set of articles for disruptive edits." See: here--Cberlet 02:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Please take your ad hominem attacks somewhere else. I'm getting tired of them. Intangible 09:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Me to. If you persist in this pattern of contentious and disruptive editing I will file a notice that you are violating your probation on this and multiple other pages and reopen the arbitration. If you force me to do this, I will solicit other editors to join with me to have you banned from editing any pages on Wikipedia related to the political right for a period of one year. As I said, I'm getting tired of this as well.--Cberlet 01:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Cberlet: This talk page is for discussing the Progress Party (Norway) article. Not for making personal attacks on other editors. Ahy1 14:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reminding an editor to abide by the terms of a probation is not a personal attack.--Cberlet 14:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly which of User:Intangible's edits to Progress Party (Norway) are disruptive? Ahy1 15:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The relentless misrepesentation of research by Intangible is disruptive. See below.--Cberlet 03:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

criticism section

Why is there such a large criticism section? It's a political party for Pete's sake...Intangible 13:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Because there is much criticism and much to criticise? // Liftarn

Well besides the above question, the text is largely unsourced. So it needs to be removed anyhow. Intangible 14:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Please add some {{fact}} tags instead of blanking so we can se if sources can be found. // Liftarn

I haven't removed anything yet. The tags are already there (probably some time too). Intangible 16:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That the Progress Party of Norway is a right-wing political movement is clearly established by published articles in reputable sources. The large criticism section reflects its problematic history. We can debate if the proper description should be "radical right," "far right," "proto-fascist," "radical right-wing populist." Attempts to sanitize this entry to mask the controvery over its political past and present, however, are not appropriate.--Cberlet 14:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What has this comment to do with the criticism section? Intangible 14:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I will delete pretty much all of the criticism section pretty soon. It has been a while (probably months or so) that these tags were there, while nothing happened. Intangible 06:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Example of misrepresentation of underlying source

According to Intangible, in a post above:

"Here are just two academic articles that repudiate your stanch:[14][15] Intangible"

However in the case of the second source cited, this is a total misrepresentation of the underlying source, the author of which explain his use of the term "populist right

"By new politics parties, I mean the greens and the populist right. The latter is also often labelled the new radical right. They focus attention on a dimension in politics that cuts across (i.e. is orthogonal to) the economic left-right axis (Inglehart, 1977; Kitschelt, 1994). I use the label ‘populist right’ as opposed to the ‘new radical right’ (Kitschelt and McGann 1995), since I wish to underline that these parties’ 1990s manifestations are generally not radically neo-liberal on the economic issue dimension, and being so is a defining feature of Kitschelt and McGann’s ‘new radical right’ category (Ivarsflaten 2002)."

So clearly the populist right in this case means "the new radical right," when talking about the specific groups and parties being discussed. Many "new radical right" parties are populist, but not all populist parties and groups are part of the "new radical right." Intangible is well aware of this, and yet continues a Wiki-wide campaign of removing references to "radical right," "far right," and other terms used by social scientists around the world to describe groups. This is a POV campaign, and is not appropriate here or anywhere else on Wiki.--Cberlet 03:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

What about the sentence "I use the label ‘populist right’ as opposed to the ‘new radical right’ (Kitschelt and McGann 1995), since I wish to underline that these parties’ 1990s manifestations are generally not radically neo-liberal on the economic issue dimension, and being so is a defining feature of Kitschelt and McGann’s ‘new radical right’ category" don't you understand? Intangible 12:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

You don't understand. There is a debate over terminology among scholars. Each author tries to define a specific subset of right-wing politics. Our job is not to point out the terminological variation, but to highlight the central themes of the nmajority of scholars of the political right. Intangible, you continue to use these terminological debates, which are well-known in the field, as an excuse to sanitize from many articles any claim from a reputable published source that a particular group is right-wing, or far right, or extreme right. This is the core of the problem with your disruptive, endless, contrary, nit-picking discussions on this and other pages. You have a POV, and you engage in territorially priapic, structurally omphaloskeptic, faux intellectual word games to mask your POV war against majority scholarship. And yes, I do understand, since I co-wrote a book on the subject

Berlet, Chip and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. New York: Guilford Press.

In addition, I just finished helping re-write the section on neonazi and right-wing nationalist movements in Europe and the U.S. for the forthcoming edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica. So I do indeed understand. We disagree. Not uncommon here at Wikipedia. But the bulk of reputable scholarly text on the subject supports calling the Progress Party in Norway "radical right wing" or "far right" or "radical right wing populist."--Cberlet 13:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but if there is no consensus under academics on terminology and definitions, Wikipedia editors certainly cannot establish it either, and certainly not in the introduction of an article. Furthermore, this whole debate on the talk page here started on the suggestion that there was consensus among academics to label the Progress Party "radical right wing." I provided sources that show there is no consensus, and then you come in trying to change the terms of debate. Namely that we should look beyond the labelling, and look at the definitions at well. But this is not what the debate here at the talk page is all about. Intangible 13:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Intangible but just because there is a debate about terminiology it does not mean that we throw up our hands and decide that we cannot rely on any terminiology. There are reputable published sources that use specific words and phrases to describe the Progress Party of Norway. We should not pretend this is not so. Our task here is to report these specific words and phrases, and report in an NPOV way on the dispute over their use. Your refusal to abide by WP:OR and WP:RS and WP:NPOV on pages concerning right-wing groups is what got you put on probation in the first place. Your discussion here is further disruption of Wikipedia to push your POV. This is precisely the type of argument that got you put on probation. If you don't stop it, I will petition to have the probation violation noted by administrators, and further action taken under the appropriate Wiki guidelines. I hope this is clear.--Cberlet 14:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Erh, I'm not on probation for "a refusal to abide by WP:OR and WP:RS and WP:NPOV." Please Comment on content, not on the contributor. Intangible 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

For the record

From the Wiki Arbitration in which Intangible was placed on probation:

Finding of the facts

Locus of dispute

"1) The locus of the dispute is edits by Intangible (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to articles which relate to nationalist or right wing European political parties. It is alleged that Intangible engages in tendentious editing which minimizes the neo-fascist tendencies of such parties. Cberlet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and other have taken an opposing view."

"Passed 7 to 0 at 08:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)"

I hope this clarifies matters.--Cberlet 19:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are trying to clarify here, but maybe that is just me? What's the point of your cattiness? Intangible 20:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I was pointing out that you were violating the terms of your probation, but if you simply have no intention of abiding by Wikipedia policies, there is no point in continuing this discussion. Forgive me for trying to warn you.--Cberlet 02:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Intangible, you're using the same flawed and disruptive arguments that originally caused you to be put on probation. If you don't stop trying to stifle the judgements of reputable sources and/or misrepresent thier findings, you may very well be reported and subsequently banned. Both Cberlet and I have admonished you several times, so there is no excuse for your continuing this behaviour. -- WGee 19:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Please Comment on content, not on the contributor. I guess this goes for you as well. The only reason why I was put on probation is because I was blocked twice. One for just trying to put a NPOV tag to the Anarchism article, and another one for making two reverts to the Front National (France) article (someone else was trying to inject original research into that article). Your allegations are inscrutable, unwarranted and irreverent. Intangible 19:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

pov tag

I've added a POV tag to the article. One reason is the criticism section which is unreferenced, the another reason is the incorrect statement in the introduction, "It is classified in academia as a radical right-wing populist party." Since there is no consensus at all within academia on how to call the Progress Party, I suggest removing this bit. Intangible 17:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

This argument misrepresents Wikipedia policy.--Cberlet 01:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I assume your statement there is self-referential. Are you suggesting that either academic consensus is not important, or that academic consensus is irrelevant? Intangible 01:36, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I am stating that you are twisting and misrepresenting the academic consensus in a POV and disruptive way.--Cberlet 18:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've stated that there is no consensus in academia. One of the sources for your called "majority consensus" is the article 'Institutional Variables Affecting Female Representation in National Legislatures: The Case of Norway', which isn't even about the Progress Party proper. Hell, the only time that Progress Party in that 19-page article is mentioned, is briefly on page 13 and 14, and it is not called "radical right-wing populist party" there. The only one misrepresenting academia is you. Intangible 19:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Any further thoughts, anyone? Otherwise I will restore the introduction to User:Ahy1's one. Intangible 06:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the further thoughts are that you cannot delete the properly cited phrase from the Introduction and the whole criticsm section because part of it is properly cited. Your claims about no consensus in academia meaning that you get to delete material with which you disgaree are preosterous, and are one of the reasons for your probation. Please stop this disruptive and tendentious editing pattern.--Cberlet 13:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Just so this is noted, I too dispute neutrality of this article. The view presented in some foreign academic publications during 90s is given undue weight. I don't know about the other political parties Intangible used to edit about, but the Norwegian Progress party is seldom, if ever, described as "radical right-wing" in Norway. -- Heptor _talk 17:38, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Then what is it called? They are "dark blue", to the right of the Conservatives. That these terms are problematic because they have negative associations, at least in some circles, is true, and it is possible that there has been some evolution on the See also euphemism treadmill since the '90s. We should try to use as neutral terms as possible, but we also need to explain clearly where they are in the political spectre. Narssarssuaq 20:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It is a difficult question indeed. It was discussed earlier, with some sort of consensus reached. But after what I understand WGee claims that this was WP:OR. The party describes itself as "liberalist" on its home page[16]. Maybe simply stating that the party claims that would be a good idea?

Quoting from the link:

Ideologi - Fremskrittspartiet er et liberalistisk parti. Det bygger på Norges grunnlov, norsk og vestlig tradisjon og kulturarv med basis i det kristne livssyn.

Ideology - Fremskrittspartiet is a liberalistic party. It builds on Norwegian constitution, Norwegian and western tradition and cultural heritage with foundation in the Christian life values.

-- Heptor _talk 01:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

<---------So the proper Wiki solution is to include a self description from the Party, and then note what scholars have called them at different points in their political journey. This issue is simple to resolve if folks stop trying to delete references to scholarship and terminology with which they disagree.--Cberlet 14:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, it is already stated in the introduction of this article that strict immigration laws are a cornerstone of the party, as well as their opposition to the 'nanny state'. What more do you need to say? Intangible 15:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

And, as you are well aware, your idiosyncratic position on this question has been rejected not only by numerous editors, but through an administrative proceeding.--Cberlet 15:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Problems

Following up on complaints posted to Arbitration enforcement, I do not see sufficient disruption to warrant banning Intangible from editing this article. I do, however, have a number of concerns about the way the article is edited on both sides.

Most importantly, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the WP:NPOV policy on both sides. NPOV means that all significant points of view should be represented fairly; it does not mean that articles should be neutered of anyone's point of view, and it also does not mean that only the view with the most experts should be presented. I'd ask everyone to read the whole policy again but here are some selected quotes:

The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one.

Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular.

Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance

The real world

The world is what it is, our job is to report it. If pundits, political scientists, politicians and voters find it useful to characterize political parties and groups as "left", "far right", etc, we do not hide from that. Of course it is someone's point of view, but it exists and we should report it. NPOV policy does not require neutering the article, but presenting all significant points of view. If some analysts consider Frp to be far right but others do not, offer both sides and report not only that there is a disagreement, but the nature of the disagreement. This might mean stating in the introduction that Frp has been "characterized by different analysts as populist, right-leaning, and far-right." Then in the body of the article, perhaps in the history or platform section, discuss the issue of orientation. Don't simply slap on some labels, expecting your readers to know what you mean—report the meat of the analysis. "Political scientist John Smith called Frp an example of the European far-right political movement for their positions on immigration, free markets, and state provided welfare. Other analysts have classified Frp more in the mainstream of traditional populism based on..."

"Far right" is not a crime

This edit is a symptom of a problem. You say, Some scholars classified the Party in the 1990s as an "extreme right" political movement. Well, so what? Why is it a problem to be classified as far right? There is no context. This comment only makes sense to a reader who knows something about politics and dislikes the right end of the political spectrum. This is not to say that the label should be sanitized, but rather that the significance of being far right should be placed into context. What does Frp say or do that places them in the far right as defined by some analysts or political scientists. How does Frp view or characterize these same positions? Are there independent analysts who characterize Frp differently?

"Criticism" sections stink

Whenever I see a section headed Criticism I become suspicious that someone is selling something. It would be better to organize the article differently. You might have a section on Political identity that discusses their platform and places it in context of other Norwegian or European political parties. Or expand the platform section to include not just what they say about themselves, but what other analysts say about them. Specific reactions to the criticism section:

Populist

No sources except for "Some of the opponents." Looks like some Wikipedia editor's opinion of why populism is economically unwise. No actual economist is quoted as saying that populism is dangerous, and surely there are economists who take the view that economic populism is a good thing. I suggest moving this to a platform section. Describe the populist aspects of their platform and how they have changed over the years. Report notable third-party criticisms of Frp's populist approach (could even be opposing parties) and also report Frp's response.

Immigration

No sources. Come on, now, this one should be an easy slam dunk. In the aftermath of 9/11 and with the rise of muslim immigration in Europe, surely there are newspaper editorials, professional political analysts, political scientists and/or party leaders who have written or talked about the dangers/benefits of open immigration, and criticized/praised Frp's stance on limited immigration. (Acutally, except for the opening paragraph, the article does not mention Frp's stance on immigration except to criticize it.) The section on the election brochure is just peculiar, because it describes the brochure, and says Progress accused its critics of mutiliating its message, but does not actually describe any criticism of the brochure. How about a platform section/immigration subsection organized thusly: 1) Frp's immigration platform stated, 2) report the analysis and reaction of analysts and other parties, 3) they ran a controversial brochure in the 2005 campaign, 3.1) their opponents criticized it 3.2) Frp argues it was taken out of context.

War on Terror

Although the war on terror is not an issue the Progress Party promotes a lot (why not), they have a clear position in support of the United States (Is that a problem, and do they support the US in everything or is it more nuanced?). Party chairman Carl I Hagen sometimes goes far in claiming that there is a link between islamist fundamentalism and terror. (says who?)

Does this help at all? I mean, it really looks like this is written for a left-wing reader who can fill in all the blanks for himself.

Closing views

There are loads of interesting avenues to pursue here. Why did they go from 6% in 1993 to 15% in 1997? Did they change their platform or did the electorate change, and why? Why was Frp not invited into any governing coalition until 2005? Was it just that there were enough smaller liberal parties to make liberal governments, or were they also shunned by right wing governments? Someone has surely written about these issues. In general slapping a label on the party, even if justified by multiple sources, is much less useful than putting it into context by explaining their platform and other statements and actions. If efforts to actually do that (keeping in mind the need to represent all significant views) are still obstructed by Intangible, I will defiinitely reconsider an article ban. It seems premature at this time. Thatcher131 12:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The article is at least slowly improving. Only months ago it was a complete mess. With time, we'll manage to present a balanced article.

I think one of the problems is the long excerpt from the party's programme. Programmes are of course POV, if only subtly so (terms with positive connotations, a selective choice of cases, and more). The programme may be linked to, but right now it has a too prominent position in the article, and could be interpreted as "the truth" about the party's positions. It would be better to find the most shining examples of voting differently from other parties. Also, they (and the Conservatives) just released alternative budgets, which would be a good place to start regarding their present policies. But we might need minor experts on the subject to successfully extract that information. Narssarssuaq 18:15, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Very wise words from Thatcher131. I will se what I can do to improve the article, even though it is difficult to write a NPOV article about a political party. --Kjetil_r 23:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to use neutral language if you are quoting the views of other people, you just have to make sure to represent all sides and not go too over the top in either direction. Thatcher131 00:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I've tried to bring some sort of structure in, attempting to gather everything about the policies under one headline, as it before was spread out in a very unstructured manner. Again, I feel the article is too polarised. Firstly, there is the program, secondly there is loads of criticism in order to balance this out. Removing the program will give an opportunity to remove a lot of the criticism, which at the moment takes up far too much space. Maybe points of criticism should be summarised at the very end of the article. Narssarssuaq 01:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

My attempt to gather everything about policies under one headline was reverted, probably because it made the article temporarily poorer. Someone else give it a try. Narssarssuaq 13:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Aftenposten has lot of news in English that can be used for this article. Intangible 13:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

And none of their articles describe the Frp as "far right" or "radical right." Intangible 14:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

What about all of the other articles that do, which I've showed you time and time again? Are you implying that we should not refer to them? Also, Wikipedia favours the international perspective over the Norwegian perspective; thus the opinions of international news organizations like CNN, BBC, and The Economist are more relevant than Aftenposten's. -- WGee 03:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

At least these other perspectives mentioned by WGee need to be included.--Cberlet 03:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

There are more as well: see Talk:Progress_Party_(Norway)#The_Progress_Party_is_clearly_far-right -- WGee 04:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

So what about moving all this stuff into a sub-section of "Ideology" or so? You cannot really claim that Ignazi's points are criticism for example (because that would make him a "bad" political scientist). My criticisms about your points are regarding to the introduction of the article. I'm less reluctant to reject the notions of for example Ignazi if they were expanded on in a "Ideology" sub-section. Those kinds of debates should not part of the introduction however, since an article's introduction is not the place where to hold these kind of debates. The subject of this article is the Progress Party as political party, not "political science debate on the Progress Party's ideological position." Intangible 13:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

<------The vast majority of mainstream social scientists classify the Progress Party as far right, or extreme right, or radical right-wing populist. This belongs in the lead. The discussion of dissenting views certainly can go elsewhere.--Cberlet 17:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Each political scientist has one's own pet definition that is different from the rest. Your argument for the introduction holds only if every political scientist agrees upon the same definition, which is not the case. Ignazi for example considers FrP an "extreme right" political party because the FrP's stanch on immigrants, opposition against the social-democratic state and its "attacks" on politicians and bureaucrats. But Ignazi (The silent counter-revolution, 1992) acknowledges that other scholars describe the party not as "extreme right," like Kurt Heidar. There is nothing to suggest that there is a majority consensus on some sort of definition, and even if this were the case, it does not make it relevant to the introduction of an article about a political party on Wikipedia. Intangible 17:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I have trouble reading the text when there are more than 8 or so colons and no double spacing. Please extend to me the simple courtesy of letting me use the arrow to restart the indentation--a common practice here on Wiki.--Cberlet 18:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

According to Intangible, "Your argument for the introduction holds only if every political scientist agrees upon the same definition." This is nonsense. There is a longstanding discussion among a number of social scientists as to what terms to use to specify sub-sectors of right-wing political movements. Intangible uses this debate to twist reality around and suggest that these movements cannot be classified. This claim by Intangible is the basis of why Intangible ended up in arbitration in the first place, and was cited for tendentious editing that was disruptive:

The locus of the dispute is edits by Intangible (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to articles which relate to nationalist or right wing European political parties. It is alleged that Intangible engages in tendentious editing which minimizes the neo-fascist tendencies of such parties. Cberlet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and other have taken an opposing view."

Why is it necessary for editor after editor to go through the same endless argument with Intangible on page after page when Intangible has been put on probation for making this baseless POV and OR argument and refusing to edit collaboratively? Passive-aggressive editing on Wikipedia is not a new problem. The Passive-aggressive editor keeps a discussion going on endlessly in a tendentious manner until other editors wear out and give up in frustration--or take the editor to arbitration. We have already taken Intangible to arbitration. A ruling was made. Yet [[User:|Thatcher131]] sees no problem, and then jumps into this discussion with a serious of statements about the page not having sufficient cites when the page has numerous cites to books by scholars calling the Progress Party far right, or extreme right, or radical right-wing populist.

According to Intangible "that these movements cannot be classified." This is simply false, and POV and OR.

It is one thing to suggest the page can be better written. It is quite another to allow Intangible to continue to make specious and tendentious arguments that disrupt the ability of editors to edit--and deflects all of us into a endless debate over taxonomy that has already been rejected as tendentious through arbitration. Enough! Do we have to petition to re-open the arbitration?--Cberlet 18:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I know of nothing in either the WP:NPOV policy or the manual of style that says that the intro should only mention the majority view on a topic. At the moment it does describe the party as liberal (but with no source) although the wording is somewhat weak. Perhaps something along the lines of, "A number of political analysts classify Frp as a radical right-wing populist populist party {refs}, while Frps describes itself as liberal, with an emphasis on the rights of the individuals {ref}."

By the way, that sounds a lot like libertarianism. Is there any chance something has been mistranslated?

I am surprised by the emphasis on academics, and books published in the 1990s. Aren't there more current sources? Maybe in Norway people have better things to do with their time, but in the US we have hundreds if not thousands of pundits, op-ed writers, former congressional aides, and so on who all write books about politics. George Will is not an academic but no one would deny he is a notable commentator whose views might be worth quoting. Are there no more current sources?

Cberlet, please read my remarks again. I'm not criticizing the lack of sources on the party's position in the political spectrum. I criticized, for example, the Populism section, because it simply states that the party is far right, and then explains that economic populism is bad, without reference to a single economist or analyst having that view, much less any dissenting view. Thatcher131 01:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I have read your responses, Thatcher131, and I find them wholly inadequate, biased, and uninformed. There is no mistranslation. There are over 30 scholarly books on far right movements in Europe since the 1970s, and many of them mention the Progress Party as far right, extreme right, or radical right wing populist. There are certainly more current sources. Intangible has a history of deleting them, arguing that since there is a disagreement on exact taxonomy among scholars, there is no classification that is appropriate. This is ludicrous, and has been to arbitration. I have no problem mentioning minority views in the entry, I have a problem with Intangible deleting all references to the majority view. The Betz book is on radical right-wing populism in Europe, and discusses the linkage to right-wing libertarianism at length. The issue is not if right-wing populism is good or bad, the issue is whether or not Betz is a reliable source, and deserves being cited here. Betz is a reliable source. Intangible dismisses this fact. If the sentence on populism needs to be be rewritten, that is fine, but to simply delete references to Betz and his terminology is wrong. When I get to work next week, I will be happy to add more recent cites from the library where I work. There have been more recent cites. Intangible has deleted them. I think you need to consider the possibility that Intangible is refusing to abide by the terms of the probation by making the same argument that led to the arbitration in the first place.--Cberlet 03:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

First off, the party's self-description sounds to me more like libertarianism than liberalism, and I wonder if there might be either a translation problem or some differences in how liberalism is defined in the US vs Europe. Second, I have no quarrel with labeling the party as Far right, although I wonder why more of your sources aren't more contemporary. I do think that simply labeling the party is far less useful than providing context, such as a discussion of their platform and why it is considered a problem. In fact, your edit summary

many social scientists consider the Progress Party of Norway to be part of a collection of similar right-wing political movements and parties in Europe

contains more context than the article currently has. Third, I have criticized the lack of sources in the criticism section, which you have not addressed. However, since I am "wholly inadequate, biased, and uninformed", i will be pleased to absent myself from further discussion. Thatcher131 14:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

What have I deleted? Please re-read what I'm actually saying above: I'm less reluctant to reject the notions of for example Ignazi if they were expanded on in a "Ideology" sub-section. Intangible 09:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What you said above, Intangible, was that you opposed any political characterisation of the Progress Party in the lead or introduction unless "every political scientist agrees upon the same definition." This is not a Wiki policy. This is a tendentious argument. This undermines the purpose of an encyclopedia, which is to provide readers with the majority scholarly and analytical views on a subject with minority views when useful. If many social scientists consider the Progress Party of Norway to be part of a collection of similar right-wing political movements and parties in Europe variously called far right, extreme right, radical right-wing populist, etc., then that well-established fact belongs in the lead or introduction. Otherwise it is political POV bias used to sanitize criticism of the group when anyone with a library card and a handful of brain cells can easily establish that the Progress Party of Norway is widely considered a right-wing party and also wonder why Wikipedia does not mention this obvious fact in the beginning of the entry.--Cberlet 14:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not what I said, please re-read what I actually said, I was talking about your argument, not mine. Every political scientist is pretty much dissenting in one's own way. Intangible 10:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

<--------Intangible, I read the following to mean that you oppose describing the Progress Party of Norway as "far right" in the lead - Intangible from above:

"Each political scientist has one's own pet definition that is different from the rest. Your argument for the introduction holds only if every political scientist agrees upon the same definition, which is not the case. Ignazi for example considers FrP an "extreme right" political party because the FrP's stanch on immigrants, opposition against the social-democratic state and its "attacks" on politicians and bureaucrats. But Ignazi (The silent counter-revolution, 1992) acknowledges that other scholars describe the party not as "extreme right," like Kurt Heidar. There is nothing to suggest that there is a majority consensus on some sort of definition, and even if this were the case, it does not make it relevant to the introduction of an article about a political party on Wikipedia." (posted by Intangible 17:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC) )

If you are agreeable to retaining the description of the Progress Party of Norway as "far right" in the lead, then we can move on to some of the other matters.--Cberlet 13:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That discussion should be part of a platform or ideology section, if context is provided (which is lacking now). Intangible 01:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

I have rewritten parts of the criticism section to sound less like a college economics essay and more like a report of what other sources have said about the issue. However there are many unsourced critical statements here that have been fact tagged at least as far back as October. Per this email from Jimbo, I will remove any statements still unsourced after a further 7 days. Thatcher131 14:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

After two months without sources and no response here for 2 weeks, I have removed unsourced criticism. More important than restoring it with sources is context. Regarding the sale of the oil fields, please explain not only what Frp's wanted to do, but why, and try to cite some commentary on whether this was a good or bad idea and who said so.. It might also be interesting to contrast the intent to sell the oil field with their current demand for more domestic spending from the oil fund. Has anyone brought this up to the current party leaders and what do they say? Regarding populism, it is not enough to say they are populist and populism is dangerous and leads to inflation. That might be a good college essay in an economics class but is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Please describe their position including context, criticism from reliable sources, and their response. Thatcher131 01:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the undeniable fact that some scholars call the party a right-wing populist party. Please, let's not simply delete this fact. Thanks.--Cberlet 03:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps discussing the content of both the Criticism section and introduction would be better solution than engaging in an edit war, like are users Ernstjunger and Matt77 doing? From my side, there is something strange in the very existence of Criticism section, taking into consideration that none other norwegian political party has it. Second issue is the neutrality of the introduction, especially the FrP description as a "right-wing populist party that professes liberal-conservative doctrines". I haven't seen an analogical desription of eg. Norwegian Labour Party being a "left-wing populist party that profess social-democratic doctrines"; no doubt this is just a biased statement from some left-wing opponents of Progress Party, not suitable for objective encyclopedia. Ammon86 (talk) 18:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

According to The Economist (hardly left-wing): "The far-right Progress Party was founded (as the Anders Lange Party) in the political upheaval that followed the 1972 EU referendum. Running on a populist, anti-immigrant, nationalist platform,..."[17] Who refers to them as liberal-conservative? The source tag is useless. According to their own manifesto, they are a libertarian party[18]. But does anyone believe that? Matt77 (talk) 05:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

In Encyclopædia Britannica, in an article about Norway, you have a notion about "The right-wing anti-immigration Progress Party..."[19], which is definitely not the same as far-right. And even in the mentioned The Economist article, when you read further, you'll find a passage where it is written that "In subsequent years the former leader, Mr Hagen (who led the party from 1978 to 2006), successfully moved Progress into the mainstream of Norwegian politics...", which might imply that they no longer consider FrP far-right, despite that it could be such (in their opinion) at the times of the party foundation. But even if The Economist view hasn't changed, the difference between Wikipedia and The Economist is that the first one is encyclopedia, while the second is a newspaper, which has the right to have its own POV and to present any opinions, no matter how biased. But Wikipedia should be as much neutral as possible. I think that the better (in terms of NPOV) introduction would be to state that "The Progress Party (...) is a Norwegian self-described libertarian political party, considered right-wing populist by some sources." Ammon86 (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm content with your suggestion, at least for the time being, with a minor change: "libertarian" should link to Libertarianism, not Libertarian conservatism, for two reasons: 1) PP does not use the term "Libertarian conservatism" themself, and 2) "Libertarian conservatism" does not seem to be a very established term, certainly not outside US. Matt77 (talk) 09:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ammon, but I think that we should insert liberal conservatism in the infobox, maybe replacing economic liberalism: the party supports anti-immigrant policies, but as a whole is a liberal-conservative party. --Checco (talk) 09:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we take away the neutrality-tag right now? --Checco (talk) 10:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Claim of radical right-wing extremism

This claim is plain ridiculous to anyone even remotely familiar with Norwegian politics. With the upcoming elections, this article will be in spot-light and it needs some major clean-up. If anyone still wishes to keep those quotations, for starters at least provide the page where the citations are supposedly given. -- Heptor _talk 10:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Political platform

Something needs to be done with the political platform section too. I believe it was Orzetto who translated the political programme of the party from Norwegian. The language was very political to start with. In addition, it is necessary to separate Progress Party position from absolute facts. The result is sentences like "[The Progress Party] claims the individual is, together with the family and the right to own private property, a fundamental of society."

I am trying to figure out a way to rewrite it, ideas anyone? -- Heptor _talk 21:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, the requirements for the section should be:

• clear, fact-of-matter statements. as opposed to current misty, politicized language
• still describe a policy that someone from Progress Party would recognize as his own
• cover all parts of the policy representatively. immigration is not the only hot issue in norwegian politics.

Heptor _talk 22:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree in that the section needs to be rewritten or even deleted. I believe the section has two problems. First, it assumes that the political issues in Norway are the way the party's program has defined them to be. Second, it does not give any background that allows readers outside Norway to understand the issues. For example in the bullet currently named "Vote legislation"; what is the background for the weight of votes in the Storting valget in Norway, and what is the reason and purpose of the Sami parliament.Labongo 16:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

After some more thinking I propose deleting the entire section, since it is currently just a collection of random statements. Especially bad is the "Role of the state" subsection, which I don't believe gives any insight to what the political platform of FrP is, nor how it compares to other parties. I would also like to point out that no other(?) articles about Norwegian parties has such a section. If the section is kept, a complete rewrite is necessary based on other references than election material from the party.Labongo 16:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Last paragraph (criticism)

Last paragraph starts out "The South African Eschel Rhoodie wrote about this in his book". Wrote about what? The link in the footnotes is dead. I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that Anders Lange was supposedly financed by the apartheid regime in SA. 77.40.131.165 (talk) 22:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Political ideology

I find that it's incorrect placing frp as "centre-right" and in any way libertarian. It's a nationalist, right-wing party with certain economically liberal/classical liberal (in the US, perhaps indeed libertarian) traits, but quite an amount of statism, not unlike the now almost defunct, Danish Progress Party. It's often borderline-racist and as it may be understood of my description so far, the only distantly liberal/libertarian thing about the party is actually their economic policy. The party isn't genuinely liberal. Hence my changes to the party ideology Nationalistdk (talk) 04:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC) There are so many factual errors in these last claims. First of all, it is completely wrong to claim the Progress Party is nationalist! The Progress Party is actually very pro-globalisation and even pro-Europe and EU (it currently has a neutral stance on EU membership, saying it will respect whatever the people decide in a referendum). Secondly, to compare it with the Danish People's Party is also wrong. Their policies are very different on everything from agriculture to globalisation and the role of the state. The Progress Party is a (populist) liberal party, quite similar to the Danish Liberal Party, currently headed by PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The two parties actually collaborate and attend each other's conferences. Lastly, border-line racist? Come on! The Progress Party have several prominent politicians with minority backgrounds. --KariNordmann (talk) 11:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't beleive that Nationalistdk was comparing them with the in many ways socialist Danish People's Party, Dansk Folkeparti, but the Danish Progress Party, Fremskridstpartiet. I agree with the comparison with Venstre (Danish "Liberal" Party), but I'd say that in such case one should see it as a mix of Venstre's centre-seeking, pseudo-liberal economic policies and Dansk Folkeparti's often borderline-racist or at least ethnically/religiously discriminatory (racist? hehehe) national conservative policies on areas such as immigration. Furthermore i'd claim that frp actually have moved a lot to the left on the financial issues, moving away from Lange's (very) liberal "utgangspunkt". Is it me, or is frp in a way trying to copy and combine the development and "strong points" of all three parties of the Danish governmental coalition? // Glistruphool (talk) 02:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)