Giorgia Meloni’s iron fist: Prison for blocking a road and chemical castration for rapists

heinous

Strongman leaders are driving the sensitive souls toward childlessness, so they can rule over their fellow rent-seekers and migrants (slaves) in a neoliberal dystopia. It’ll make for a thrilling novel, but a shitty existence.

She and Leon are soulmates. I hope he moves over to that country as rules as her consort.

Like any other Italian MP, she won't last very long. Italians are fickle people.

r4 Unfortunately, her government seems unusually stable for Italy, she's been PM for exactly two years now.

There are like six different parties in Italy. Hers is just one.

Yes, but the coalition is remarkably stable by Italy's standards.

Chemical castration for rapists? Aren’t most of the rapists migrants anyway? Once they’re in prison they won’t need SIM cards anyway.

100% with her on jail for road blockers. Protests can happen without making life for everyone else in big cities a living nightmare.

R9 I wish they would’ve locked up those BLM fuckers in the Bay Area.

I don’t have an issue with either initiative.

Even Alabama doesn't castrate rapists. Just to put this into some context.

[quote]It also makes it impossible for undocumented migrants to buy a SIM card and bans light cannabis.

Yes, because it's so difficult to find someone selling weed. Or spare SIM cards.🙄 Also, will they be searching the cars of literally everyone entering the country, considering it's in the Schengen Area? And WTF is "light cannabis" in the first place? Italy already bans it except for medical use.

This is a nothingburger (to use wording preferred by this type of person) that'll have zero practical effect, and is being enacted solely for Meloni to better ingratiate herself with Italy's far-right. (Much like Trump constantly did while in office, and will once again if he wins next month.) Assuming Italy wishes to remain in the EU, discrimination against non-Italians would be an exceptionally bad idea, plus a migrant can readily hop over to an adjacent country for either.

[quote]Chemical castration for rapists?

If rapists can't use their penis, they'll just abuse their victims with other weapons.

R13, you sound like a turd

There’s no reason to go to Italy when there are much nicer countries close by.

Some of you bitches REALLY get off on fascist bootlicking.

R16 Tell that to every basic American.

[quote]chemical castration for rapists

🤔 I'm sure there's a downside to this but I don't see it.

I’m an American living in Italy. When you hear about these extreme proposals it’s not the same vibe as in America with its two party system. Even though her government seems stable, it takes a lot to pass anything, to get it done. You can talk a lot, make big speeches but in the end, how much of it is enacted? And as someone posted above Italy doesn’t want to piss off the EU and lose funding.

I think they are just trying to make Italy less desirable to illegal immigrants. Which I am not mad at. I’m a legal immigrant and it takes A LOT of work, paperwork, patience to get your documents. I have to renew my permesso di sorggiorno, my right to stay in the country, every year. I just submitted my paperwork at the end of September. My appointment with the questura, immigration police is February 2026! It took so long to get my last one that it expired three months after I got it. I can only travel in Italy and back to the States during periods of renewal. So I won’t be seeing the rest of Europe for a long time.

And Italians are proud to be Italian, but there is no jingoistic Nationalism that you feel in the States. The police aren’t aggressive. I’m black and I don’t fear them like I sometimes do in the U.S. - and I’m an immigrant. If these were proposals in the U.S. it would be different. But here, it just doesn’t feel the same.

Meloni may seem nuts, but I don’t mind her or hate her like I do some conservatives in the U.S. she’s a politician, she is smart and ultimately not as extreme as she puts on - at least I think. She has a child out of wedlock with a boyfriend she just broke up with. Can you imagine the same thing in the states for a woman?

R17 It must be a shock to you virtue signalers who would rather live in an echo chamber.

Re: chemical castration:

[quote]I'm sure there's a downside to this but I don't see it.

Of course you and the other dummies here are clueless to the fact that chemical castration is also a thing in the US.

"California was the first U.S. state to specify the use of chemical castration for repeat child molesters as a condition of their parole, following the passage of a modification to Section 645 of the California penal code in 1996. This law stipulates castration for anyone convicted of child molestation with a minor under 13 years of age if they are on parole after their second offense. Offenders may not reject the intervention, although they may elect surgical castration instead of ongoing DMPA injections. "

"The passage of this law led to similar laws in other states such as Florida's Statute Section 794.0235 which was passed into law in 1997."

BTW in Italy unlike the US, the treatment can only be applied if it is consensual and reversible.

Going over the rest of Meloni's proposals, I see nothing that is unlike the US or other European countries.

Re: SIM cards. Photo ID is required in many other Euro countries.

So will you please point out what of her proposals here can be classified as "fascist", since some of you love that word so much.

She speaks Spanish like a native speaker and is stirring shit up in Spain to get people to vote for Vox

[quote]There’s no reason to go to Italy when there are much nicer countries close by.

Why should people pass up Italy?

What's wrong with these proposals? I say 10 years in prison for road blockers and cut off dicks of rapists.

[quote] There’s no reason to go to Italy when there are much nicer countries close by.

Which ones and why R16?

r25 Just read the fucking article – there will be no exceptions for either children or pregnant women, which will all go to prison. Once again for those in the back, not even in the shittiest of American states like Alabama will you find this arrangement.

Cutting the dicks off rapists is something they do in Islamic shitholes, is that really the legal tradition you want to get closer to? The whole point of a custodial sentence *in the developed world* isn't degradation or torture, it's to (temporarily) limit a person's freedom of movement, whether for small offences or for murder. It's crazy to me that you don't seem to understand it's that which sets us apart from all the cultures that came before.

Also, the problem is that it never stops just with the rapists. Just a couple of decades ago, they'd be cutting the dicks off homos, too.

She’s actually very pretty. Too bad she’s such an asshole.

r26 San Marino, France, Switzerland, Slovenia. Of this bunch, the latter is the only one with a center-left government, the rest are all right-wing now. So you might as well reward it (us) with your tourist dollars if you want to put your money where your mouth is.

The worst part of this legislation is actually a proposed ban on "light cannabis" which makes no sense at all. The provision about prison for blocking roads etc I have serious reservations about too, surely they can find some other punishment given their prisons are already overcrowded. The chemical castration I have no issue with, it is something already in place in much of the world. Legislation allowing chemical castration exists in France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, North Macedonia, Belgium and Turkey

Light cannabis? Is that like catnip?

Why cannabis?

The problem here is not a discussion of each specific measure, some of which may make sense or at least be deemed only a little heavier than necessary. Put together you get a very clear right wing agenda that is moving forward with a smile. Look up the measure she introduced re gat couples, the prohibition to register children of gay couples, among others.

She is as clever as she is vile.

[quote]Why cannabis?

Why indeed R32. Makes absolutely fuckall sense

Questa fica.

[quote] cut off dicks of rapists

That's not even what chemical castration is, you moron R25.

[quote]Just read the fucking article – there will be no exceptions for either children or pregnant women, which will all go to prison. Once again for those in the back, not even in the shittiest of American states like Alabama will you find this arrangement.

Once again you are wrong.

The article states: "What’s more, under the new decree, pregnant women and women with children under one-year-old, will no longer be exempt from having to go to prison. If the decree is approved, these women will be sent behind bars."

Because you don't know how to read, the children will not be going to prison.

As far as pregnant women in prison goes, this is out it is in the US of A: "There are an estimated 58,000 admissions of pregnant women into jails and prisons every year, and thousands give birth or have other outcomes while still incarcerated." - source prisonpolicy.org.

^ this is how it is in t

I can't trust anything R27 says if he believes castration means cutting someone's dick off.

it's "Questa Stronza" or "Questa Puttana" R35.

Again, there maybe a lot of proposals, but how much of that actually is implemented? When you look at the complete picture - Italy elected an unmarried female prime minister who had a child out of wedlock with a man she just broke up with because he was cheating on her. That's pretty progressive and something that would probably never happen in the States. Italy is far from the fake super religious totalitarian vibe that America is giving off right now.

^ Some here are clueless about their own country.

Freedom House ranks Meloni's Italy at 90 on its World Freedom Index. It ranks Biden's USA at 83.

Reporters Without Borders' "World Press Freedom Index " ranks Melon's Italy at 69.8

It ranks Biden's USA at 66.59

Her politics are anything but progressive, whatever her personal situation is. Her motto is God, Family and Country (a fascist motto). It is a clear case of do what i say, not what i do.

You shouldn’t be comparing Italy with the USA but with Italy itself. She is moving the country backwards. Never a model country for gay rights, there is no gay marriage and gay adoption is forbidden. She prohibited surrogacy and the registration of children of lesbian couple using IVF, among other measures.

More generally, she is implementing, little by little, policies that corrode civil liberties and democratic institutions (including attacks on the press and media). It follows the current right wing strategy of doing these things little by little. You don’t implement fascism or an authoritarian state the next days you win elections but do it gradually, so that one day, further on, you may wake up in one. Putin, Orbqn, even Trump, are all models of this (with different levels of success).

She is all the more dangerous for bring clever.

[quote]The worst part of this legislation is actually a proposed ban on "light cannabis" which makes no sense at all.

I bet you are completely unaware that cannibis for recreational use is completely illegal in Macron's France. And in Denmark for that matter.

R28 I guess, if you’re into massive, flaring nostrils.

Is she tuning Elon a handie under the table?

[quote]God, Family and Country

Values that resonate deeply with Italians.

R44 I did not know that, and I am surprised those two countries are so epically stupid. As is my own country

[quote]She prohibited surrogacy

Uh...it's also illegal in France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.

So true r41. An unmarried woman with a child out of wedlock elected president in the US? No fucking way. Too many Americans wouldn't vote for her because God and Jesus told them not to!

This thread really shows how uninformed Americans are.

At least she would keep the trannies in line.

^ That's another thing that's interesting about Italy. A current children's show on State television with Topo Gigio is conducted by a transvestite. Amanda Lear hosted a kids program back in the '90s. Platinette has been a big TV star for the last 30 years. Vladimir Luxuria was the first trans member of the European Parliament. Openly gay Rosario Crocetta was elected President of Sicily back in 2012 and was elected mayor of Gela Sicily in 2003. All things that would have been unheard of in the US.

Drusilla and Topo Gigio:

And no one ever mentions that the other major political power in Italy, the head of the Democratic Party, is also a woman, Elly Schlen - a 39 year old lesbian with a girlfriend.

And I’m not saying pot should be illegal. But damn if most of the country doesn’t smell like weed every time I come back home to visit. It’s like half the country is constantly baked.

[quote]100% with her on jail for road blockers. Protests can happen without making life for everyone else in big cities a living nightmare.

This is why she’s been successful. Because some of her proposals make sense, and get passed through along with the fascist stuff.

R54 List the fascist stuff

They are using transgenders to attack gays, after all, that is what the gays wanted, to be one and the same indisoluble entity with trans.

In perfectly spoken Spanish, she made a speech in a Vox party event in Spain and she mentioned the trans, she then said , this is the “lgbt agenda” , referring to trans, so gay=trans, two sides of a same coin. This is how gays rights are going to be dismantled.

While I don’t like her, remember that it was because of the left’s immigration disaster that she was voted by Italians since the left was letting thousands of Africans into the country every month. Only the Left is to be blamed for this.

But what fascist proposals have been successful passed through R56?

[quote]In perfectly spoken Spanish, she made a speech in a Vox party event in Spain and she mentioned the trans, she then said , this is the “lgbt agenda”

Most gay men are tired of the trans mania too.

It's the Left's fault with their immigration fiasco.

Some of you have no clue about even male basic biology. Cutting off a dick is not castration. Cutting off the balls is castration. No balls, no sex drive, which is why all male slaves in the islamic world, we're talking millions, were castrated at capture or puberty. No wonder so many of you are deluded and think trans women are women.

A child out of wedlock and she SMOKES! She'd be burned as a witch the American political machine.

I'd ride the babydaddy's dick like a cowboy at the rodeo.

Quite studly.

I can see why she was taking that dick raw whenever she could.

The split comes after Giambruno caused a series of recent political embarrassments for Meloni, including making controversial remarks that young women could avoid rape by not getting drunk and comparing migration to the movement of livestock.

It sounds like Italians get to say what we are all thinking.

Italian/Italian-American men are hot AF and great lovers. BIG dicks.

Physiological breakdown of what makes Italian men so attractive.

From r67's link: [quote]I actually know more Southern Italians from Sicily who have blonde hair or blue eyes

The Vikings had a helluva time ravaging all those Sicilian women!

Italians are generally very attractive people. I've been to both Northern Italy and Southern Italy and I couldn't believe how many drop dead gorgeous men there were.

IMO Northern Italian men are the hottest men on Earth.

Americans think there's some wall dividing Italy.

People from the north and south have been mixing it up for generations now.

Not to sound like a chicken hawk, but living here in Italy, I kinda feel like one. The young guys,16 to early 20s, are so young and cute and twinkish. Such great faces, thick curly black hair that falls in their face. Barely any of them are fat. Actually it's the reverse where some of them seem impossibly thin with their matchstick legs and arms. love how they cosplay being adult men, the way they walk around puffed up but you can tell they are little insecure puppy dogs. They are earnest and respectful as well, which is so refreshing. In the grocery store, if they are working stacking shelves, or any job like that, you actually see them giving it all of their attention, trying to do a good job. Whereas in the states, their comparable age in similar jobs can't broadcast loud enough how unimportant the job they are doing is to them.

I live in Florence and my husband and I sometimes get pizza out in Santo Spirito on a Friday, if any of you all are familiar with the city. It's a big piazza where everyone hangs out. The drinking age in Italy is 18. So like clockwork around 10pm, all of these groups of teens and twenty somethings start descending. They take over the piazza, just hoards of kids hanging out together. There is no screaming, no fighting, no public drunkenness, no real reason for cops. In fact I never see any around. It's just refreshing to see that teens can be themselves and act normal. It reminds of the US in the 70s, 80s that way.

I actually meant to post then one at r71

[quote]Not to sound like a chicken hawk, but living here in Italy, I kinda feel like one. The young guys,16 to early 20s, are so young and cute and twinkish.

Then you and I would get along very well.

It's the hot Italian daddies that drive me crazy.

They are hot too r73. It’s just that I’ve never found young guys attractive. But these kids are cute. Again it’s a combination of their looks and earnestness.

One thing I do love about Italian culture is that it’s not youth driven. No one gives a fuck what gen Z thinks about skinny jeans. You don’t have grown men walking around like 17 yo skaters. You see younger teens looking up to the adults and studying them, and modeling how they act. Kids, even though they definitely are kids, seem more serious here.

Damn you r61, i deeply dislike her and think she is vile but i love the smoking.

R71, sorry to go completely out of the topic but i am returning to Florence next month, can you recommend a couple of good restaurants?

Dear Lord R43, from your post, I'd say you should learn a little about Italian culture before you go.

R76, I have been to Italy quite frequently and Meloni is a fascist. I now understand from your posts that you have a different opinion which is totally fine. By all means ogle the twinks in the piazza. Beware of the hair dye running all over your cheeks though.

[quote]I have been to Italy quite frequently and Meloni is a fascist.

Oh boy here we go...

Even Matteo Renzi, the former Mayor of Florence, the city you will be visiting, even called out foreign press for labeling Meloni a Fascist.

The "Brothers of Italy" is defined in Italy (by the people and the press) as "Centro-Destra". Look up the meaning. Learn a little Italian.

Just don't go around calling Meloni a Fascist. You'll out yourself as just another clueless American.

Italians know about Fascism.

^ By the way Matteo Renzi is from the PD, the opposition party.

Her Wikipedia is something. She was a member of the Fascist party and called Mussolini the best leader of the last 50 years. She hates gays, women, everyone. Her father was a communist. She has serious issues.

[quote]and called Mussolini the best leader of the last 50 years.

Yes. It's true. She said it in an interview.

(when she was 19 years old)

Your point being?

She also stated that the recognition of same-sex unions in Italy is good enough,[231][232] and she said it was something she would not change;[233] in 2016, while she said she would respect the law if elected mayor of Rome, she had supported a referendum to abrogate the civil-union law.[234][235] At a rally at the Piazza del Popolo in October 2019, she spoke against same-sex parenting; her speech became viral on Italian social media platforms.[236] During a February 2016 interview to Le Iene, an Italian television show, she had also said that she would "rather not have a gay child".[237][238][239]

Meloni has opposed the 1993 Mancino law [it], a hate speech law.[13] She is opposed to the DDL Zan, an anti-homophobia law that would expand the Mancino law to cover LGBT discrimination, declaring in 2020 that "there is no homophobia" in Italy.[240]

She is supportive of changing the Constitution of Italy to make it illegal for same-sex couples to adopt children.[251] In March 2018, she criticised The Walt Disney Company for the decision to represent a gay couple in the musical fantasy film Frozen II. On Facebook, she wrote: "Enough! We are sick of it! Take your hands off the children."[252][253][254]

After the formation of FdI in 2012, she decided to add the tricolour flame to the party flag, a neo-fascist symbol associated with the MSI, which derived its name and ideals from the RSI.[360] The tricolour flame is said to represent Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb in Predappio.[361] Heading into the 2022 general election, Segre told Pagine Ebraiche that Meloni should remove the tricolour flame from the party's logo. FdI's co-founder Ignazio La Russa rejected this view,[84] and Meloni ignored the request, keeping the tricolour flame.[362]

She’s a fascist fuck and proud of it.

R83 Uh....you really understand nothing about Italy.

Of course you are completely unaware that Giorgio Napolitano the president of Italy from 2006 to 2015 was an avowed Communist and Marxist.

As an example: as a pro-Soviet Communist he was AGAINST the Hungarian resistance in 1956.

Yet he was later President of the country. Did that bother you?

The PD, the opposition party in Italy, has roots in Soviet Communism. Does that bother you?

But no one today considers the PD to be Communist. Just as no one today considers the Brothers of Italy to be Fascist.

R78, i am not american. I dont live in Italy butmi visiit frequently, even if I didn’t you just have to read the news. By all means defend Meloni, a woman very clearly anti-gay, it is on you. Enjoy Italy while they have you.

R84 Up until around the year 2000 this was the flag of the PD, the most popular party in Italy at that time. Second most popular today.

Did people consider them Soviet Communists? No.

Thanks for providing facts, r83.

There is no homophobia in Italy? lmfao. She sounds Iranian.

[quote]After the formation of FdI in 2012, she decided to add the tricolour flame to the party flag, a neo-fascist symbol associated with the MSI, which derived its name and ideals from the RSI. The tricolour flame is said to represent Mussolini's remains, where a flame is always burning on his tomb...

More bullshit. Used as a made up argument from the opposition. Note that the article says "It is said to represent..." Not "it represents..."

The tricolor...the flame with the three colors of the Italian flag.... was designed after the War and has always been used by parties on the right. It was on the flag of the Alleanza Nazionale from which the Brothers of Italy evolved.

Gianfranco Fini the leader of the Alleanza Nazionale was Deputy Prime Minister in 2001 and was Foreign Minister from 2004 to 2006.

She should appear naked in some prison drama, like her relative Chris.

I wouldn’t trust that Wikipedia entry R80 since Mussolini hasn’t lead anything but the line at the pasta bar in Hell for almost eighty years.

I don’t think we are arguing WHAT Meloni is. I think that is clear. She is definitely Fascist leaning. She courts them just like Trump courts white Nationalists. I wouldn’t say Trump is a card carrying member of the White Nationslist group, but he says what they want to hear. Much like Meloni.

I was arguing - given her beliefs - what is she capable of actually enacting given how the Italian government is structured and how difficult it is to pass anything.

And to be 100% honest - she is a politician on a World stage now. I think she cares more about being accepted on that level than appealing to backwards ideas that got her elected in the first place.

R94 is why Jews who didn’t leave ended up in camps.

Stop with the offensive rhetoric like that r95. It is offensive not just to me but to Jews as well and is becoming all too common on Datalounge solely as a means to torpedo any conversation. You are using one of the darkest periods in human history SO cavalierly, without any thought or intention behind it other than to silence someone. Stop It. Find an ulterior way to make your point other than using the death of 8 million Jews.

you're not helping either

Helping what r97? Please make it make sense IF you can connect the dots of your own thought process. Can you point to anything I have said that would be "Not Helping?" All I am saying is she could WANT to do any myriad of horrible things. She could talk about it all day. My point is she won't get them done? What is wrong with that?

R43 There are a tons of good restaurants in Florence. Depends on how fancy, or casual you'd like to go. Casalinga, 4 Leoni, Ghianda, Vini e Vecchi Sapori or good casual trattorie. L'Ortorne, La Giostra are also good. But there are several. If you want really good pizza and glass of beer, Tamerò in Piazza Santo Spirito. Get an aperitivo at Volume first, then walk a couple of restaurants down. If you want a super classic Tuscan steak experience, Antico Ristoro di Cambi is probably the most popular. ALL take and need reservations. Just showing up anywhere is not recommended (except Tamerò).

[quote] It is offensive not just to me but to Jews

I am a Jew so shut the fuck up, fascist cunt!

[quote] Stop with the offensive rhetoric like that [R95]. It is offensive not just to me

Fuck off, Nazi scum.

R96 is too fucking dumb to know about the relation to Mussolini and Fascism to Hitler and Nazism.

R101 is the type of person who pushes every time when it clearly says pull. The sheer will of his stupidity supersedes any written instructions. It must be tiring to go screaming through life, yelling at the rain because your phone said it was sunny.

R100 is the type of person who'll talk your ear off the first half of the movie then ask you "what's going on" forty-five minutes into it.

I don’t think that there’s been a convergence of such evil and mendacity since the rise of fascism in the thirties. MARY!

This is one of those threads where a bunch of people are just spouting off without having any fucking idea what they're talking about. Chemical castration does not involve cutting anything off.

[quote]Chemical castration is castration via anaphrodisiac drugs, whether to reduce libido and sexual activity, to treat cancer, or otherwise. Unlike surgical castration, where the gonads are removed through an incision in the body,[1] chemical castration does not remove organs and is not a form of sterilization.[2]

Thanks a lot for the recommendations, r99!

[quote]And to be 100% honest - she is a politician on a World stage now. I think she cares more about being accepted on that level than appealing to backwards ideas that got her elected in the first place.

"Backwards ideas "? Such as?

You know nothing about what got her elected.

R108 I live here. I was here when parliament voted her in as Prime Minister after Mario Draghi stepped down. She was s a cofounder, head of Student Action which was a part of the National Alliance that was basically the new version of MSI, the Italian Socialist Movement which can be seen below just LAST YEAR gathering and throwing up Fascist Salutes. She ran on “pro-family” platform which for her was anti-gay, anti lgbt, anti immigrant. She openly opposes same sex marriage (something Trump doesn’t even do) and same sex parenting - those are the backwards views I was talking about. And as the case in America where immigration is a real problem, she stoked racist fears in Italians to confront the immigration issue to gain power for the Fratelli d’Italia - Italian Brotherhood most notably right after Covid blaming immigrants on the 1000s of dead Nonnos and Nonnas.

BUT, what most people don’t realize is the Prime Minister is not elected by the people of Italy. The prime Minister is elected by the house, the legislature. So the leader of the party with the most support becomes Prime Minister.

So unlike an America, an election isn’t necessarily a referendum of what the country believes at that given time since Italians don’t directly elect the Prime Minister. Whereas her beliefs are extremely conservative, right-wing, backwards, it doesn’t mean that’s what most people in Italy believe - just the base of people who elected her into the legislature and then members of the legislature who positioned her to take power.

And I feel as she steps in to a much larger stage (she was voted by Forbes as the 4th most powerful woman in the world) a lot of those extreme views will lessen because they look straight up crazy in the larger first world politics she wants to be a player jn.

I see Meloni’s trajectory being the opposite of Trumps. She is young, born 1977, and has the opportunity to have a long political career ahead of her. Whereas Trump was mostly liberal his entire life and embraced fascist ideas, courted racist and totalitarianism to gain power, Meloni was raised in it. But, besides the fact that you have to move mountains to change anything in Italian law (there are no executive orders I think) Meloni is not going to risk her political future clinging onto her extremist views. And you can’t trample on people’s civil rights and still remain a strong player in the EU. She would never be voted leader hanging on to them. So yes she’ll say shit to maintain her base. But I’ll be interested to see if and how she shifts.

[quote]She openly opposes same sex marriage

Even when the left was in power there have only been feeble calls for same sex marriage. It's not going to happen in Italy and there are cultural reasons for that. There are civil unions and it will remain that way, Meloni or not.

BTW: I lived in Italy for nearly 40 years...nearly all of my adult life. Openly gay. And not in an ex-pat bubble. I always felt more comfortable there than here in the US.

Re: Meloni. What you seem to not understand is that Meloni's party is now governing in regions of Italy that were always hard left strongholds.

My town voted left for 70 years solid. 70 years! The idea of the city voting for the right was folly. But 8 years or so ago, the Brothers of Italy won and after a successful term the mayor won again. That story has played out in municipalities all over Italy.

There is a reason for that. And I don't think you understand why.

[quote]There is a reason for that. And I don't think you understand why.

I'm not the poster you're addressing but the reason is very clear........

And BTW: Americans confuse Italians who vote for Meloni with Americans who vote for Trump. They are NOT the same.

My town, as I said, is governed by the Brothers of Italy.

The town features electric busses. Huge swaths of the city permanently closed to traffic. It is a city of culture with a full program of cultural events. The city has 2 stage theaters, an opera house. A theatre school. It is a city with a big heart. The town has a soup kitchen for the poor. A drug habilitation center. Curated parks and piazzas. Non existent street crime. And on and on and on....do not confuse Italians who vote for the Brothers of Italy with MAGATs.

R112 That is certainly an important reason.

But also for things like transparency, a stance against corruption, concern for basic quality of life issues.

You have to look at the left's failings to understand why people who faithfully voted left are now supporting the Brothers of Italy.

Also for all the blabbing here about FASCISM, in issues that are important to the vast majority of people, Meloni's Italy is much more progressive than the US.

Yes in Italy we have civil unions instead of same sex marriage. OK.

But Italy has free higher education. A pretty good social safety net. Free health care. No capital punishment. Legal abortion throughout the country. A comprehensive low-cost transportation system of trains and busses. Low crime. Much much less homelessness. Etc.

Sure the country has its problems with low wages and unemployment and other issues, but the country in most things is PROGRESSIVE.

Meanwhile....

[quote]BUT, what most people don’t realize is the Prime Minister is not elected by the people of Italy. The prime Minister is elected by the house, the legislature. So the leader of the party with the most support becomes Prime Minister.

When you say "most people", r109, you mean "most Americans", because the system in Italy is how all parliamentary democracies work, and it's a far better, more democratic system than in the US. Ironically, one of Meloni's policies that does reveal her fascist background is not the two OP mentions but her proposal for the prime minister to be directly elected. The only other parliamentary democracy to have tried this is problematic Israel, and they had to abandon it because it simply does not work.

R111 you basically said exactly what I said from a more informed point of view and curiously with a need to insult me.

What is happening now in America and with threads like these is a lot of projection of American fears on other countries. I understand it. America is a very scary right now. But just because a country maybe facing similar issue doesn’t mean they are handling them the same.

I agree with you R11, Italy does not feel the same as America at all. At the minimum the Italian government supports ALL kinds of arts and protects its citizens against big business industrial food complexes instead of throwing its citizens to the wolves for sake of business.

The country feels progressive in a lot of ways compared to the States and feels like it’s run by adults. Intelligence isn’t viewed cynically.

They say misery loves company and Americans are seeking companions to commiserate with in this dark period. But they aren’t many of them in the 1st world.

Prison sentences for the morons who block the roads and similar actions is already happening in the UK.

[quote]Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s orbital motorway have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms by a judge who told them they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.

[quote]Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

[quote]Hallam received a five-year sentence on Thursday, while the other four were each sentenced to four years.

And these aren't the only examples of prison sentences for these fanatics in the UK.

Furthermore, as stated above, chemical castration for sex offenders is legal in several states in the US, including California.

There are plenty of problems with Meloni, but let's not get all histrionic and misrepresent everything she does as fascist.

Gays will now be jailed if they seek surrogacy abroad. It was never legal in Italy in the first place.

[quote]Italy passed a law on Wednesday that criminalizes seeking surrogacy abroad, a move the country’s conservative government said would protect women’s dignity, while critics said it would deprive gay or infertile couples of a way to have children.

^In Italy, surrogacy is illegal for all, straight and gay. It is also illegal in France.

And this is Germany: "All forms of surrogacy are prohibited, and children born through surrogacy are not recognized, even if they have a genetic link to the commissioning parents"

What's their problem with surrogacy?

It’s unnatural, ie not God’s will.

[quote]What's their problem with surrogacy?

They argue that it's to protect the best interest of the child (birth should not be transactional/commercial) and that the abrupt separation of the birth mother/surrogate and the child right after the baby's birth is harmful to both, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Self-described "left-wing conservatives" such as Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany will also condemn surrogacy on an economic basis, as just another one of the excesses of neoliberalism, where everything can be ordered and paid for, even human life. Not sure what they have to say about non-commercial surrogacy.

Of course, some countries/governments may have other arguments. They are certainly not all homophobic, and apply to both straight couples and gay couples.

^ [quote]Not sure what they have to say about non-commercial surrogacy.

Also ilegal in Germany

I should add that, of course, some will also object to the economic injustice of the exploitation of financially vulnerable women from poor countries by relatively wealthy Westerners.

The surrogacy law is designed to hurt gay male couples, a straight couple can just have a kid via surrogate and then claim the woman gave birth...

I agree, R126. Though outside Italy surrogacy is also more generally regarded as an ethical and legal minefield. Even in more progressive countries, self-styled "reactionary feminists" such as Mary Harrington believe that surrogate contracts commodify children because they regard parental rights over children not as trusts, to be allocated in the best interests of the child, but as similar to property rights, to be allocated at the will of the parents.

Within Italy, however, it is clear as day what Meloni's party is doing.

R127 Surrogacy has been illegal in Italy since 2004.

I'm referring to this latest law (passed today) criminalizing seeking surrogacy abroad, R128. They are clearly targeting gay males.

R129 It applies to everyone.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Anders Breivik is posting on DL.

R131 What posts specifically?

r120 Can you read my fucking post again? They made illegal surrogacy abroad, an arrangement France and Germany don't have. What business is it of theirs if Italian gays get their kids from outside of Italy, you turd?

r120 accounts for 30% of replies in this thread, btw. Maybe like, chill?

"Get their kids" - Like shopping, r133?

[quote]They made illegal surrogacy abroad, an arrangement France and Germany don't have. What business is it of theirs if Italian gays get their kids from outside of Italy, you turd?

And it has been explained to you that an Italian citizen, gay or straight, is held responsible for breaking Italian law even if that law is legal in a foreign country.

If that bothers you, don't become an Italian citizen. It is NOT the USA. It is a different culture.

BTW: Japan does not recognize same-sex marriages or even civil unions. Personally I don't give a rat's ass about it. If that bothers you, cross Japan off your bucket-list.

Me personally? I'd love to spend some time there.