European Politics Thread.

[iNeo 0]

My bet is though that you'll grow up to be a lower-class loser with no individual accomplishments of your own to be proud of and use your "nationalism" as motivation for your existance.

You know nothing about me so go to hell

Quote[/b] ]I do feel sorry for you, but you have nothing to worry. Even if you are useless deadwood to society I fully support your right to exist. I won't try to get you euthanized because you are a loser.

Oh thank you, you're such a good person

Quote[/b] ]No, I think that everybody that is against mulit-culture is a clueless idiot that hasn't got any connection to realty. If it wasn't for the blending of cultures we'd be in the stone age today. Not even the most fundamentalist states as for instance Iran are mono-cultural.

You don't understand "anti-multi-culturism." It's NOT isolation. It's the sensible way of, for example, the first half of the 20th century, without massive (im-)migration.

Quote[/b] ]And that's fairly equal to the policy of the Nazis. They didn't mind Jews elsewhere in the world, they just wanted to get rid of them from Germany and from Europe. Their "final solution" was not the complete extermination of the Jewish people, but the full removal of them (one way or another) from Europe. They wanted Europe to be a germanic entity, the rest they didn't care about. They were not against any nation per se, but they were against other cultures being part of their society. I.e they were working against a multi-cultural Europe.

So they were against multi-culture, and so am I - what, that makes me a Nazi? I don't know too much about Nazism cause I don't care enough about it to read into it except for what I've learned in school, but I do know Nazism stood/stands for more than that. The policy of expansion for one thing (since we're saying Nazism equals what Nazi-Germany was) which I don't agree on. Do you want to continue trying to convince me and everyone else that I'm a Nazi, or - now that you know what it means - do you want to have a relevant discussion about the problems of multi-culturism? Or neither. Whatever. Screw you...

[ralphwiggum 6]

do i have to intervene?

[denoir 0]

You don't understand "anti-multi-culturism." It's NOT isolation. It's the sensible way of, for example, the first half of the 20th century, without massive (im-)migration.

LOL. Read Villhelm Moberg's "Utvandrarna".

There was no massive immigration, because there was massive emmigration. Between the 1840's and 1930's 1.2 million Swedes moved to America, because conditions in Sweden were so pissy.

Yeah, let's go back to that.

Incidentally, when the emmigration started was the high point for national-romanticism in Swedish culture. I suppose it was some kind of living in denial about the harsh realities. The same goes for individuals - when people have little to be proud of as individuals they try to compensate by taking pride some arbitrary collective feature.

As for lack of multiculturalism equalling isolation, it does. All industry and commerce is international today. Companies have branches around the world with staff from mixed countries. They couldn't operate any differently. The same goes for science. You'll find that for instance at KTH almost half of the researchers and teachers are immigrants. The obvious principle is to pick individuals with that are the most competent - and not by their race or nationality. It would be terrible for the development of the society if we started employing people by skin color rather than by skill.

Not to mention that basic communication wouldn't work. Language is for instance the most basic building block of culture. So, in your mono-cultural society, we would of course not be learning english in school. Forcing everybody to learn a foreign language is typically a multi-cultultural invasion of the Swedish culture.

The bottom line here is economics. Sweden had its econmic high-point in modern history in 1970's to the early 1980's. And that was after mass labour immigration in the 1960's.

Quote[/b] ]I don't know too much about Nazism

Don't worry, you seem to have a good gut feeling for it.

[iNeo 0]

You don't understand "anti-multi-culturism." It's NOT isolation. It's the sensible way of, for example, the first half of the 20th century, without massive (im-)migration.

LOL. Read Villhelm Moberg's "Utvandrarna".

There was no massive immigration, because there was massive emmigration. Between the 1840's and 1930's 1.2 million Swedes moved to America, because conditions in Sweden were so pissy.

I know of the emigration, and that's not the era I was refering to, was refering to something like the 50's.

Quote[/b] ]The same goes for individuals - when people have little to be proud of as individuals they try to compensate by taking pride some arbitrary collective feature.

Maybe you can't be proud both of yourself and your heritage at the same time but for most people one doesn't exclude the other.

Quote[/b] ]As for lack of multiculturalism equalling isolation, it does.

...

Not to mention that basic communication wouldn't work. Language is for instance the most basic building block of culture. So, in your mono-cultural society, we would of course not be learning english in school. Forcing everybody to learn a foreign language is typically a multi-cultultural invasion of the Swedish culture.

You're not fucking listening, that's not what's meant with multi-culture. Moron.

Quote[/b] ]Sweden had its econmic high-point in modern history in 1970's to the early 1980's. And that was after mass labour immigration in the 1960's.

Yep industry was doing well, labour immigration was needed. First - the goal of immigration today isn't for labour, but for "creating a multi-cultural society," we are hardly receiving any labour immigration and we don't need any these days anyway. Second - when foreign labour force is no longer needed, why should they stay? They should move to another country that needs them, or return home.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]I don't know too much about Nazism

Don't worry, you seem to have a good gut feeling for it.

Fuck you.

[Akira 0]

Now now ladies. Ralph is about to open his can of Whoopass with his Boom stick.

[Balschoiw 0]

I can´t understand all that latest discussions about immigration, national identity, "values" that need to be protected and such.

Back in the 50´s and 60´s and 70´s a lot of work had to be done in the countries that were affected by WW2 and suffered from lack of manpower due to the fact that a lot of men in the working age got killed or imprisoned as a result of WW2.

So manpower came from countries like turkey, greece and many others.

Those people helped to rebuild, to bring back countries into the economical premier league. Without them, germany for example wouldn´t have had the chance to rise again that fast.

For sure there are problems with immigrants nowadays, but keep in mind that the 3rd generation of these people now live in those countries. They have every right to be here if they follow the rules of the legislation. For sure that´s not the case with every single person of them, like it is with people who have their "ancient" roots within those countries. There will always be criminals, religious or nationalist fanatics on both sides. That´s the human factor.

The integration process may have failed for some, or the process itself may have been flawed, but that doesn´t make every citizen with foreign roots a potential suicide bomber.

The issue is much more complex. The black-white approach doesn´t work, as it doesn´t work with other polarizing issues.

There is something like a multicultural approach within societies. I can see that every day, when I meet with couples who are not the same ethnical origin. I never had the feeling that that was a bad thing. In fact it widens your horizon.

There are extremists among all humans, not only among red, black or yellow people.

[bonko the sane 2]

just to step away from this little heated debated, last week, for the first time, socialists (PS) won with huge majority here in portugal, they had their way paved by an incredibly inept democrat (PSD) government. At the end of the day the socialists are just as corrupt as the previous coalition (PSD\CDS - Democrat Cristians) but hopefully things will get better

[theavonlady 2]

I'm in a lighter mood today. Maybe I'll respond to much of what's been said above later. Then again - maybe not.

In the meantime, darkness is descending upon Europe.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

You have been warned twice by both me and Ralph to behave. "Fuck you" is not acceptable behaviour, that's a 48hr PR and a WL for you, iNeo.

[Colossus 2]

LOL

School computer, it won't alow me to open the link.

[Thunderbird 0]

The richness of Europ is its multi-culturism, a lot of people of the poor countries come to Europe in the hope to find a better life, why to not accept them? it's true that a minority of those people create some problems, but it isn't a reason to generalize all the immigrants, Europe's the best example of sociability between people, Europ became the cradle of peace and of the democracy, Europe exceeded the USA economically, and I am proud to live in Europ, I am against nationalism but I am for patriotism

[Colossus 2]

Quote[/b] ]Different people have different opinions about whether patriotism is morally good. Often, these opinions vary according to what sort of patriotism is involved.

Some instances of patriotism induce almost universal admiration. To give just one of many possible examples, in 1940, a number of Dutch soldiers gave their lives in a hopeless cause attempting to defend the Netherlands from invading Nazi armies. This act would be considered by almost everyone to be a clear case of selfless, admirable patriotism.

Yet many of the invading Nazi soldiers doubtless felt, too, that they were engaged in a patriotic act, in this case on behalf of the German nation. Many of them had been indoctrinated in a form of unquestioning patriotism during their teenage years, while they were members of the Hitler Youth. Very few people today, even in Germany, would consider the unprovoked German attack on Holland to have been justified, and to the extent that patriotism facilitated it, then patriotism could be considered, in this case, a bad thing. Throughout history, various governments have invoked patriotic feelings to support military aggression, arbitrary imprisonment of aliens, and even murder, acts considered evil by most individuals.

In addition, many politicians have exploited patriotism in attacking their opponents, accusing them of betraying the nation. In the view of many, the nature of these comments harm political discussion and provide less opportunity for deliberative democracy to flourish, because it appeals only to a visceral negative emotion (that is, angry patriotism), rather than to voters’ reasoned views on policy.

A commonly cited example of the danger inherent in the political exploitation of patriotism is the case of Adolf Hitler, who rose to power (terminating democracy in Germany for many years) in part by accusing the existing government of treason for having signed the armistice that ended the First World War.

So in a way patriotism can be dangerous. Too much of it would maybe couse unessesary wars.

No expert in this, but thats my opinion.

Quote[/b] ]Levels of patriotism in all nations have varied through history, and it is an intriguing puzzle for historians why this should be so.

It is tempting to think that democratic government is a cause of patriotism. For instance, it could be imagined that the military forces of Ancient Greece succeeded in fending off much larger numbers of attacking Persians because ancient Persia was a despotism, whereas many of the Greeks lived in democracies, which gave them a sense of solidarity and hence of patriotism. Similarly, it is often thought that the French Revolution, by freeing the French of the yoke of monarchy, set off a great surge of patriotism that led to the great (if ultimately temporary) success of the French armies in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

This theory cannot be entirely true, since there have been many states that had tyrannical systems of government but nonetheless had very high levels of patriotism. Two have already been mentioned here: early 19th-century France (after Napoleon had made himself emperor) and Nazi Germany.

Patriotism

Note: Against nationalism, a country is for all and everyone. So that I would not be mistaken.

[GoOB 0]

I am against both... I feel no real ties to Sweden, it's a lovely piece of soil. But nothing more, and personally I can't understand why "the nation" is so important to some people. Call me a hippie, but I think we would be better off without borders and artificial means of tying people down to a single piece of land.

[Thunderbird 0]

I haven't meant "extremist patriotism" but "moderate patriotism" , a kind of patriotism wich is based on the respect of others, of the country where one live, the respect of the laws and the positive action

[Colossus 2]

Call me a hippie, but I think we would be better off without borders and artificial means of tying people down to a single piece of land.

You mean anarchy?

That was maybe too extreme by me, hehe

Added:

I haven't meant "extremist patriotism" but "moderate patriotism" , a kind of patriotism wich is based on the respect of others, of the country where one live, the respect of the laws and the positive action  

I know what you meant, just wanted to warn that extreme patriotism is dangerous

[Ares1978 0]

Is it just my imagination, or are some of you perhaps confusing patriotism with nationalism?

[bonko the sane 2]

Call me a hippie, but I think we would be better off without borders and artificial means of tying people down to a single piece of land.

right on!

[Colossus 2]

Is it just my imagination, or are some of you perhaps confusing patriotism with nationalism?

Quote[/b] ] -Nationalism

1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.

2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.

3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.

Quote[/b] ]-Patriotism

1. Love of and devotion to one's country.

No.

What I mean with extreme patriotism is that if anyone loves there country so much that they would do anything for it, it's dangerous.

But that doesn't mean that loving your country very much would make you dangerous for others.

There is a blury line between nationalism and patriotism when it comes to extreme measures.

[denoir 0]

I can´t understand all that latest discussions about immigration, national identity, "values" that need to be protected and such.

Back in the 50´s and 60´s and 70´s a lot of work had to be done in the countries that were affected by WW2 and suffered from lack of manpower due to the fact that a lot of men in the working age got killed or imprisoned as a result of WW2.

So manpower came from countries like turkey, greece and many others.

Those people helped to rebuild, to bring back countries into the economical premier league. Without them, germany for example wouldn´t have had the chance to rise again that fast.

For sure there are problems with immigrants nowadays, but keep in mind that the 3rd generation of these people now live in those countries. They have every right to be here if they follow the rules of the legislation. For sure that´s not the case with every single person of them, like it is with people who have their "ancient" roots within those countries. There will always be criminals, religious or nationalist fanatics on both sides. That´s the human factor.

The integration process may have failed for some, or the process itself may have been flawed, but that doesn´t make every citizen with foreign roots a potential suicide bomber.

The issue is much more complex. The black-white approach doesn´t work, as it doesn´t work with other polarizing issues.

There is something like a multicultural approach within societies. I can see that every day, when I meet with couples who are not the same ethnical origin. I never had the feeling that that was a bad thing. In fact it widens your horizon.

There are extremists among all humans, not only among red, black or yellow people.

Exactly.

I think what iNeo is not getting is what he names as problems with multi-cultural societies is actually the exact opposite. It's when multi-culturalism breaks down to isolated cultures that do not communicate.

The two most basic elements in a multicultural society is respect and acceptance between all cultures involved. If integration doesn't work, then it isn't a proper multicultural society. And that's what we're seeing in some places in Europe with non-European immigrants forming closed communities that arn't getting integrated with the native population. I'd say both sides are responsible for it - the society makes it difficult for people to integrate (through for instance discrimination on the job-market) while the closed communities refuse to accept the native culture.

I don't think it has anything to do with specific cultures - you can take your pick from any culture and you'll find plenty of people who have integrated well, without losing their own cultural identity. A good example for instance is the labour immigration that helped the Swedish economy so much a couple of decades ago. These people integrated quite well and were contributing members of society and accepted as such. I can give plenty of examples from my work. I'm an engineer and I basically work with people that have university degrees or higher - i.e well educated working people - good contributors to society. I work with lots of immigrants from all around the world and they have integrated all quite well. Mostly they've come to Sweden because they are experts in their field and we couldn't do without them. Most of them still practice their culture and have no problems whatsoever with working with Swedish people and accepting Swedish culture.

Immigration is btw a very important factor of Swedish culture. We've always been fairly open. It was Belgian immigrants that taught us how to process steel. It was Germans that taught us banking and commerce. We have taken over many traditions and cultural practices of others. Not to mention our culinary traditions. We have always been open to helping people in need. For instance during WW2 Sweden was a safe-haven from the Nazis. Thanks to its openess, Sweden has a relatively good name in the world.

There is however a new relevant factor here that makes things a bit more complex. It goes for whole of Europe and it's the extensive social security that exists.

In America there are basically no problems similar to the ones in for instance Holland. Why is that? There are plenty of muslims in the US that integrate perfectly with society. The answer is quite simple: they have no choice and society accepts them. Without extensive social security, they like everybody else have to work. Through that they meet Americans with other cultures and learn how to get along. There is no other choice. And America, being very business oriented, has a long time ago realized that discrimination is bad for business - plus the whole country was founded by immigrants.

In Europe the societies are less open to immigrants, which creates problems for them at the job market. The second problem is the social security that makes it possible for a person to live OK without ever working. This allows for closed communities to avoid any form of integration.

I'm not quite sure what the best solution to that problem is. I think we need to get people from these closed societies out on the job market, making sure that they work with people from other cultures. If we can do that then we'll have working integration.

[SpongeBob 0]

Quote[/b] ]Europeans Grow More Intolerant of Immigrants-Study

Tue Mar 15, 7:55 AM ET

Yahoo / Reuters

By Marcus Kabel

VIENNA (Reuters) - Europeans are becoming more intolerant of immigrants and one in five want them sent home, a study released Tuesday by the European Union racism watchdog showed.

The study, based on pan-EU opinion surveys between 1997 and 2003, found a significant increase in support for the view that there were limits to a so-called multicultural society.

There was also a significant increase in the minority of people who supported repatriating immigrants, to 20 percent, the study said, without providing the scale of either increase.

"The European Union is confronted with intolerance and discriminatory attitudes toward minorities and migrants," Beate Winkler, head of the Vienna-based European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), told a news conference.

The center's analysis of the data found:

<ul>[*]60 percent in the former EU of 15 states and 42 percent in the 10 mainly east European states that joined the EU last year believed there were "limits to multicultural society."

[*]nearly 40 percent across the EU opposed granting legal immigrants full civil rights.

[*]50 percent expressed "resistance to immigrants."

[*]58 percent saw a "collective ethnic threat" from immigration, meaning they answered yes to questions including whether immigrants threaten jobs and a country's culture, add to crime problems and make a country a worse place to live.

The study said the largest increases across the six years of polling were in support for sending immigrants home and the view that there were limits to a multicultural society.

"They are the two most significant trends," chief researcher John Wrench told a news conference.

There were also contradictory findings that the EUMC said showed people may be more open to immigrants once they know them. "Personal experience creates trust," Winkler said.

About 80 percent of respondents said they had no problem interacting with minorities. Attitudes were more open in urban areas than in the countryside

Read the pdf here http://eumc.eu.int/eumc....-EN.pdf

[iNeo 0]

Quote[/b] ][*]58 percent saw a "collective ethnic threat" from immigration, meaning they answered yes to questions including whether immigrants threaten jobs and a country's culture, add to crime problems and make a country a worse place to live.

58 % of the EU population are Nazis according to Denoir.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]58 % of the EU population are Nazis according to Denoir.

Grow up.

Those 58 percent are the ones who pee their pants because the politicians want them to do exactly that. It´s much easier to blame everything on immigrants than to devolpe a political agenda to do something against this stereotypes and cope with immigration-problems in a serious and effective manner.

This would be the obligation of responsible politicians, but they want to make bonus with all that "blame it on the immigrants" bullshit and they find their listeners as this statistic shows.

Fear as a method for gaining voters. The concept of politics today.

Any rational thinking human should try a serious and logical approach before joining the lynch-mob.

[iNeo 0]

Grow up.

Those 58 percent are the ones who pee their pants because the politicians want them to do exactly that. It´s much easier to blame everything on immigrants than to devolpe a political agenda to do something against this stereotypes and cope with immigration-problems in a serious and effective manner.

This would be the obligation of responsible politicians, but they want to make bonus with all that "blame it on the immigrants" bullshit and they find their listeners as this statistic shows.

Fear as a method for gaining voters. The concept of politics today.

Any rational thinking human should try a serious and logical approach before joining the lynch-mob.

I don't know where in Europe politicians create empty fear of immigrants, they all seem too eager to create and maintain "multi-cultural societies." In Sweden, the only non-Nazi immigrant-critic party (which has few supporters and aren't yet in the Riksdag (= Reichstag I suppose (?) but they are in a few municipal/local governments) gets no room in media, other parties refuse to debate with it, and it's ignored (!) in these local governments (democracy huh?). No other party expresses any immigration-criticism whatsoever since that would be "racist." So I'm not familiar with politicians wanting people to pee their pants because of immigrants and actually succeeding in making 58% of the EU population do that. It couldn't be people are actually displeased with the situation and the multi-cultural craze...

[GoOB 0]

In Sweden, the only non-Nazi immigrant-critic party (which has few supporters and aren't yet in the Riksdag (= Reichstag I suppose (?) but they are in a few municipal/local governments) gets no room in media, other parties refuse to debate with it, and it's ignored (!) in these local governments (democracy huh?).

Your'e referring to Svergiedemokraterna, am I right?

It's not so quite so odd that they get no room in the media, or are ignored in said local governments. And the simple fact that they haven't gotten many votes over the years isn't too surprising either.

One of the reasons is that the party has more or less sprung from the organisation BSS (Bevara Sverige Svenskt or Keep Sweden Swedish). Which was a real hoot in the nineties, While it may not be a Nazi party, it sure as hell is a racist one. I mean, they had a ban agains adopting children from outside of the nordic countries in their party manifesto until they removed it without an explanation in 2002

They stand for something that is in the past, nationalism isn't feasible in todays world climate, as it was back in the good o'l days. To me SD represent the typical Swedish closet racists, that haven't the guts to say what they really think, nor the guts to learn what lies beyond their own little patch of land, and their meatballs with gravy and potatoes.

[iNeo 0]

Sverigedemokraterna yes. If they've gotten enough votes they shouldn't be ignored, even if they were Nazis - which they aren't.