The date of Sept. 25, when Italian citizens will be called upon to elect their representatives to the Parliament of the 19th legislature, is approaching. As the parties launch their election campaign in the unusual holiday climate, the Machiavelli Study Center wants to offer a contribution to the future elected MPs.
Here is a list of 13 principles that we believe should inspire the next Members of the Parliament.
It is not an "electoral program": that is up to the parties, with which we do not want to place ourselves in competition. For this reason, in the list you will find few practical proposals, but many statements of principle and general directions that, in our opinion, should inform all the legislative activity of those who will represent us in Parliament.
So here are our 13 points, collected in five areas (nation, people, family, labor, freedom). And it doesn't end there: we invite all our readers to have their say on these. Through an open poll you will be able to select the points you consider most urgent and important. The 6 most voted will be brought to the attention of the candidates.
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NATION
National interest
We are aware that in foreign policy there are commitments and pacts that once made must be fulfilled; net of these, foreign policy will have to follow the north star of national interest. By this we mean that all choices that increase the strength, security and welfare of the Italian people will have to be taken, and those that diminish them will have to be avoided.
National tradition and history
Certain anti-national doctrines have, unfortunately, long been successful in Italy, but now they are being joined by anti-Western doctrines that are already rampant in the English-speaking world. They portray the West and anyone with white skin as intrinsically evil, "systematically racist"; they impose, often by force, to cancel our history and repudiate our tradition. We must counter this drift by cracking down on violent demonstrations against monuments. Above all, we must counter the "cancel culture" with a positive rediscovery of pride in our nation and civilization. This must be done through educational and cultural policies, as well as laws against vandalism and for the preservation of historical memory, urban, landscape and toponymic heritage.
PEOPLE
People's Sovereignty
Sovereignty belongs to the people. This is enshrined in the Constitution (which does not provide for "surrender of sovereignty," but only "limitations on an equal footing with other states") and is an obvious basic principle for a democracy. However, this sovereignty is increasingly being eroded, either by surrendering it to supranational bodies, or by introducing legislation through international treaties, or by allowing the courts to take the place of Parliament. Popular sovereignty should no longer be eroded but, on the contrary, reconstituted as far as possible.
Immigration control
Current migration flows are overwhelming and uncontrolled. The Italian ethnic group itself is in danger of soon becoming a minority in the country. Immigration is often controlled by organized crime, and extremists and terrorists also move through it. The multicultural model (already failed abroad) is going to create within Italy non-integrated communities that do not identify with our nation and reject its culture. Migration policies must drastically reduce the numbers of arrivals, crush the illegal ones, require that newcomers - if not intending to return one day to their country of origin - assimilate into the Italian people. Citizenship must be the culmination of this process of assimilation/acceptance into our people (so no to ius soli, ius scholae, ius culturae or similar).
FAMILY
Relaunching the birth rate
Among the problems that most afflict Italy is denatality; we are now one of the countries with the fewest children per couple. Thus, on the one hand, the proportion of elderly people to be maintained is increasing compared to fewer and fewer Italians of working age, and on the other hand, a point is offered to those who want more immigration. We need to put in place policies to provide socio-economic support to couples who want to have children, but also match these policies with cultural efforts. After decades of anti-natalist propaganda, it is appropriate to return to telling young people how wonderful it is to have children, rather than instilling in them the idea that babies are a "burden" or an "obstacle" to their fulfillment.
Defending women and children from gender ideology
Gender ideology is a threat to our children and society. The Left tries to inculcate in the youth pseudo-scientific theories that, exploiting their psycho-physical vulnerability, can lead them to traumatic pharmacological and surgical paths. Children must be protected from premature sexual messages, from doctrines that emotionally and psychologically destabilize them. Schools and the National Health Service must not facilitate the pseudo-scientific fad of "gender reassignment" among the very young. Women must also be protected from the transgender agenda, which in the name of gender fluidity takes away those spaces that were exclusively reserved for them: from bathrooms to locker rooms to sports competitions. Finally, both women and children are victims of surrogacy, that is, the barbaric practice of snatching a newborn child from its mother's womb and handing it over to its buyer: this new "slave trade" must remain illegal and those who resort to it abroad must also be punished.
Educating the youth
In face of the disaster of progressive schooling, it is necessary to propose an alternative. The Left has produced a school that no longer knows how to teach or educate: at best it knows how to make ideological propaganda. Far from helping the children of the lower classes, it has deprived them of the powerful social elevator that was a high-quality public education. We need a school that knows how to teach young people the most important subjects again, even if that means requiring study, dedication and discipline. We need a school that values technical training but does not forget that it has to educate citizens. We need a school that nurtures in the younger generation the feelings of love of country, national belonging and civic commitment.
LABOUR
Workers first, then corporations
The present burden on taxpayers is intolerable. The state must reduce its unnecessary expenditures rather than taxing citizens. The state, like a good householder, should not go into debt except for investments of undoubted economic return or of a strategic nature: otherwise indebtedness corresponds to a deferred tax increase. The state must also rebalance the tax burden, which today weighs predominantly on workers and small and medium-sized enterprises, while large multinational corporations manage to avoid taxes or obtain tax advantages.
Reindustrialize
For 30 years, Italy has been undergoing, like many other Western countries, a deindustrialization process that impoverishes it economically, socially and technically. The former working classes now experience the scourge of unemployment or underemployment. What was once a major industrial power is now being surpassed by many nations. We have moved from positions of primacy to backwardness in high technology. There is a need to defend what remains of our industry and also to bring back those that have relocated, through reshoring policies.
No to cash abolition
The treasury must not turn into a police state, with draconian measures such as the prohibition or semi-prohibition of cash use. Money, as a measure of one's labor and individual and family property, cannot be subjected to "permission" by the state or much less by banks. As recently demonstrated even in Western democracies (?), the more electronic and virtual savings become, the greater the chances for an oppressive government to take them away treacherously from the citizen.
LIBERTY
Enough of pandemic restrictions
The advent of covid has led to a sudden and drastic curtailment of individual freedoms. From mass confinement to vaccination certificates to enjoy basic rights; from compulsory masks (even outdoors) to the suspension of parliamentary work or the postponement of elections. No health (or any other kind of) emergency can justify such a protracted suspension of rights and freedoms that are natural even before they are constitutional. Not least because a suspension that goes on for years looks much more like an abrogation. Certain fundamental individual freedoms must once again be considered sacrosanct and intangible, and guaranteed by appropriate laws that curb any "emergency" abuse.
Free speech
Among the most threatened rights are those of thought, expression and speech. We must oppose any law or initiative that aims to reduce the free speech, whether it does so in an alleged effort to counter "phobias" (such as "homophobia") or undefined "hate speech." The state must guarantee this freedom not only passively but actively. No company, starting with social networks that de facto manage public debate, can impose limitations on employees and customers that are contrary to constitutional rights.
No to social credit and points-scoring citizenship
The temptation to exploit (as in communist China) technology to impose extensive controls on citizens became a reality with the experiments carried out during the pandemic. The risk of totalitarian drifts and the creation of a society of control, in which the citizen's existence can be "turned off with a click" remotely, must be averted. Limits must be placed on the use of technologies useful for surveillance and control of citizens (see facial recognition, tracking and storage of biometric and personal data), with the understanding that many possible security or crime-fighting benefits risk being paid for on the front of personal rights and constitutional freedoms.
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