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Remember Sweden
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Doc HM
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Feb 19, 2017, 04:16 PM
 
First the Bowling Green Massacre, now... Sweden

What is the world coming to?

Sweden to Trump: What happened last night? - BBC NewsSweden to Trump: What happened last night? - BBC News
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Cap'n Tightpants
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Feb 19, 2017, 08:36 PM
 
Who can tell? They've been covering up rape and other violent crimes perpetrated by migrants for years now.
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Feb 19, 2017, 09:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Who can tell? They've been covering up rape and other violent crimes perpetrated by migrants for years now.
Sweden? They aren't generally well known for going out of their way to protect the reputation of immigrants.
I'm going to call bullshit on this claim. Give us a source please.
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Feb 19, 2017, 10:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Who can tell? They've been covering up rape and other violent crimes perpetrated by migrants for years now.
You should call out Trump's bullshit here for just making stuff up rather than digging in — especially if you want him to succeed. Trump is headed straight for impeachment through faults of his own.
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Feb 20, 2017, 04:20 AM
 
I keep reading this as "Remember Snowden".
     
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Feb 20, 2017, 08:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Who can tell? They've been covering up rape and other violent crimes perpetrated by migrants for years now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy#Intentional
     
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Feb 20, 2017, 12:01 PM
 
CTP just likes to be provocative and has no concept of picking his battles wisely.
     
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Feb 21, 2017, 10:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Sweden? They aren't generally well known for going out of their way to protect the reputation of immigrants.
I'm going to call bullshit on this claim. Give us a source please.
Is this what you are looking for?
Sweden IS suffering from migrant crime wave says cop | Daily Mail Online

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Waragainstsleep
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Feb 21, 2017, 06:33 PM
 
Sweden is possibly the worst example. France and Germany have bigger recent swings than Sweden. Scandinavia is much less cosmopolitan than western Europe. Right wing parties and xenophobia have not been so marginalised in recent years in Sweden and Denmark as they have in France and Germany and the UK.
Even though its true that the far right has gained traction in France and Germany in particular, its not as drastic as our media has made it out to be and the "crime waves" have been exaggerated too.

I've heard Fox claim there are no go areas of Sharia law in the UK. Its total garbage. 100% shit. I can assure you the Swedes would not tolerate it any more than we would.
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Feb 21, 2017, 06:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
You should call out Trump's bullshit here for just making stuff up rather than digging in — especially if you want him to succeed. Trump is headed straight for impeachment through faults of his own.
Stop going to the fake news sources. I know it's your most vivid fantasy, along with the rest of the Left, but Trump isn't going to be impeached. You think Repubs will remove a sitting Republican president? Really?
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Feb 21, 2017, 06:49 PM
 
Don't prod me for a lack of intellectual honesty when you have none. While it appears you're shrugging off a 13% increase in reported rapes, like Politifact does here, objectively it's a disturbing number, no matter how you want to spin it.
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Feb 21, 2017, 06:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
CTP just likes to be provocative and has no concept of picking his battles wisely.
and you're nothing more than a jr varsity cheerleader.
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Feb 21, 2017, 08:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Don't prod me for a lack of intellectual honesty when you have none. While it appears you're shrugging off a 13% increase in reported rapes, like Politifact does here, objectively it's a disturbing number, no matter how you want to spin it.
If you finish reading that piece, it also notes that the number of rapes in 2016 is down slightly from 2014. 2015 was lower than other recent years. It does note that the reported number rose between 2006 and 2011, but there was no specific immigration surge then.

There is no specific statistic tracking crimes by migrants, and the government isn't interested in tracking it. However Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of information policy (the first such policy in Europe, IIRC, and still strong by international standards), so in theory one could study it privately by simply studying names of the convicted.
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Feb 21, 2017, 08:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Sweden is possibly the worst example. France and Germany have bigger recent swings than Sweden. Scandinavia is much less cosmopolitan than western Europe. Right wing parties and xenophobia have not been so marginalised in recent years in Sweden and Denmark as they have in France and Germany and the UK.
We had a right-wing party of some power in Sweden between -91 and -94, but their total collapse meant that there was no strong extreme right of any power for a long time. Denmark and Norway both had strong populist and anti-immigrant parties (Dansk folkeparti in Denmark in particular). In Sweden there is now a moderately strong anti-immigrant party, but they are completely shut out of decision making both in parliament and in the bigger cities by the other parties. When one party recently considered changing this policy, they lost a quarter of their voters overnight. I'm not so calm about the future, but for now, the Sweden Democrats are far from power.
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Feb 21, 2017, 11:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Stop going to the fake news sources. I know it's your most vivid fantasy, along with the rest of the Left, but Trump isn't going to be impeached. You think Repubs will remove a sitting Republican president? Really?
These two points are not connected: Trump's evident lies about small and big things, and the difficulty of getting him impeached by a Republican Congress have nothing to do with one another.
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Feb 21, 2017, 11:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Even though its true that the far right has gained traction in France and Germany in particular, its not as drastic as our media has made it out to be and the "crime waves" have been exaggerated too.
Just a small interjection: I think the extent to which far right parties and movements have gained traction is smaller in Germany than in, say, Austria or France. There would be zero chance for someone from the AfD (Alternative for Germany, the newest populist right wing fringe party) to nominate a chancellor or a president — unlike in Austria (where the right-wing FPÖ candidate was narrowly beaten twice) and France (where there is a realistic chance that Marine Le Pen will become the next president). However, the level of right-wing populism is nevertheless very, very worrying to me, and has already had an impact on policy. For instance, the Christian Democrats felt compelled to back down from their friendly stance towards refugees (Germany giving asylum to people who need it is a constitutional right), and Merkel's “We can and will do this!” has been replaced by worry, fear and uncertainty. Even more worrying is the current trend for countries to look inwards and to find “national” solutions to such a supranational problem. My government hasn't done nearly enough to inspire cohesion among our European neighbors.

Regarding crime, in Germany at least there was no appreciable up tick in the crime rate, and with the exception of small scale theft and using public transportation without tickets, refugees are less likely to commit crimes.
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Feb 21, 2017, 11:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Stop going to the fake news sources. I know it's your most vivid fantasy, along with the rest of the Left, but Trump isn't going to be impeached. You think Repubs will remove a sitting Republican president? Really?
I think you're most likely right on this one. That said, if Trump's two main backers were to find themselves at odds, its possible the Evangelicals might try to kick Putin to touch by impeaching Trump in favour of putting their boy directly in charge. Seems like quite a long shot though. I expect Putin is just happy to let Trump keep causing trouble and making America look unstable and foolish.
Even if you hate him, its worth listening to John Oliver's points either this past Sunday or the one before, I forget. He made some interesting observations about Putin and Trump.
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Feb 21, 2017, 11:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Just a small interjection: I think the extent to which far right parties and movements have gained traction is smaller in Germany than in, say, Austria or France. There would be zero chance for someone from the AfD (Alternative for Germany, the newest populist right wing fringe party) to nominate a chancellor or a president — unlike in Austria (where the right-wing FPÖ candidate was narrowly beaten twice) and France (where there is a realistic chance that Marine Le Pen will become the next president). However, the level of right-wing populism is nevertheless very, very worrying to me, and has already had an impact on policy. For instance, the Christian Democrats felt compelled to back down from their friendly stance towards refugees (Germany giving asylum to people who need it is a constitutional right), and Merkel's “We can and will do this!” has been replaced by worry, fear and uncertainty. Even more worrying is the current trend for countries to look inwards and to find “national” solutions to such a supranational problem. My government hasn't done nearly enough to inspire cohesion among our European neighbors.

Regarding crime, in Germany at least there was no appreciable up tick in the crime rate, and with the exception of small scale theft and using public transportation without tickets, refugees are less likely to commit crimes.
I stand corrected, I thought Scandinavia in general was at least a little more xenophobic than most of western Europe. I was probably thinking of Denmark in regards to their right of centre party having more influence than people might imagine.

Given that the news source for these crime waves seems to be Fox News via a Jewish filmmaker (because we know how much the Jews love Muslims as a rule), its far from a credible source is it. I still call total bullshit on the no-go Sharia zones, we've heard that lie from Fox before.
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Feb 21, 2017, 11:28 PM
 
45/47
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 12:17 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
If you finish reading that piece, it also notes that the number of rapes in 2016 is down slightly from 2014. 2015 was lower than other recent years. It does note that the reported number rose between 2006 and 2011, but there was no specific immigration surge then.

There is no specific statistic tracking crimes by migrants, and the government isn't interested in tracking it. However Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of information policy (the first such policy in Europe, IIRC, and still strong by international standards), so in theory one could study it privately by simply studying names of the convicted.
Indeed there was. There was an immigration surge from the ME in 2007 and in 2016, get your facts straight.
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Feb 22, 2017, 02:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I stand corrected, I thought Scandinavia in general was at least a little more xenophobic than most of western Europe.
Sorry, perhaps that wasn't clear: I was talking about Germany, not Scandinavian countries. I haven't lived in Scandinavia, so I can't speak from personal experience there.
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Given that the news source for these crime waves seems to be Fox News via a Jewish filmmaker (because we know how much the Jews love Muslims as a rule), its far from a credible source is it. I still call total bullshit on the no-go Sharia zones, we've heard that lie from Fox before.
Much of this type of reporting focusses either on isolated incidents or on small regional pockets where problems are particularly severe. Many of the problems “caused” by the refugees are much more mundane: they put pressure on the real estate market, especially in cities where demand was high before and supply very constrained, this makes it more difficult for the natives to find something affordable. There are too few language classes, and conscious efforts need to be made to integrate them. Of course, such stories are not “entertaining” because they neither re-inforce existing stereotypes (e. g. that integrations is failing and Europeans are shivering in fear of terrorist attacks), nor do they fit neatly into the preconceived notions viewers may have.

Regarding no-go zones, I have yet to see one in Europe. I have lived in ethnically diverse neighborhoods for years (because it was cheaper) and travelled Europe quite extensively, and I have never seen them. If they exist in some pocket, I haven't seen it at least. The only memory of no-go zones that I have encountered were in Jerusalem where Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods discouraged tourists from entering — they wanted to be amongst themselves.
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Feb 22, 2017, 03:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
These two points are not connected: Trump's evident lies about small and big things, and the difficulty of getting him impeached by a Republican Congress have nothing to do with one another.
Then why even bring this up?

Trump is headed straight for impeachment through faults of his own.
He can embellish or even lie about whatever he wants, they won't remove him from office, and half of America (going by his current 50% approval rating) doesn't care.

It seems that the Left is much more concerned about what he says rather than what he does. I personally couldn't care less about the former.
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Feb 22, 2017, 05:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Indeed there was. There was an immigration surge from the ME in 2007 and in 2016, get your facts straight.
I live here, I know the facts. The last two waves of immigrants were from former Yugoslavia in the nineties and the most recent wave from Syria. There has always been immigration, because we live in a dangerous world and Sweden is one of the countries that tries to stay out of those interventions (and looks huge on a map - thanks Mercator!) but there wasn't a wave then.

Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
I was wondering when someone would notice this. Yes, there was a riot in a Stockholm suburb. No deaths, worst injury was a police officer with a bruised arm after getting a stone thrown at him. Not good, and it was major news here, but also not exactly Ferguson.

(Sidenote: The original headline visible in the URL makes it sound like Trump caused the riot with his comments. That's at least a little funny)

Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
One police officer in a small Swedish town posted on Facebook about the first names of his last few suspects. That's an anecdote, not data, and the local prosecutor disputes the view. There is actually a much bigger story there - police are overworked because a lot of them are retiring and there are not enough training slots available because past governments were too slow to react. There is also a reorg going on right now that is a total disaster according to everyone involved, which isn't helping - but of course that is much less interesting news to print.

(Another sidenote: when I clicked, 5 of the top 7 articles in the right sidebar were about "shocking" "nude" images of some minor celeb I had never heard of. Ah Daily Mail: you never change, except for the worse.)
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Feb 22, 2017, 09:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I live here, I know the facts. The last two waves of immigrants were from former Yugoslavia in the nineties and the most recent wave from Syria. There has always been immigration, because we live in a dangerous world and Sweden is one of the countries that tries to stay out of those interventions (and looks huge on a map - thanks Mercator!) but there wasn't a wave then.
Just one commment about the immigration wave from former Yugoslavia: at least in Germany (which also took in ~350,000 people or so) this immigration wave was handled very nicely with no long-term effect. Even in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, it isn't brought up much, neither in a positive nor in a negative context (despite the usual concerns at the time). It seems people simply forgot about it. Is Sweden handling that period similarly?
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Feb 22, 2017, 01:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Just one commment about the immigration wave from former Yugoslavia: at least in Germany (which also took in ~350,000 people or so) this immigration wave was handled very nicely with no long-term effect. Even in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, it isn't brought up much, neither in a positive nor in a negative context (despite the usual concerns at the time). It seems people simply forgot about it. Is Sweden handling that period similarly?
The wave from former Yugoslavia was a big problem back when it happened, but I think it was positive in the long run. There were instances of war veterans/former partisans/whatever who became very violent criminals, but I think the majority were hard workers who integrated well. This was helped by there being a significant minority of immigrants from the region already (recruited as a labor force by Swedish companies back in the fifties) so language was less of an issue.
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Feb 22, 2017, 03:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
A little bit more detail: there was a drug-related search of two people entering the subway when one of the officers recognized another person in the area as wanted. Said person was 17 and was sentenced to a "youth home", basically minimum security prison for people under 18, from which he had escaped. The fugitive was apprehended and as the patrol was leaving the scene, a number of his friends started throwing rocks at the police officers.

The fugitive appears to be a native - although I'm sure Trump et al wouldn't settle for that and start asking about his ethnicity and religion, which are not in any report that I have seen - and has a record stretching back to the age of 10. A model citizen indeed.
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Feb 22, 2017, 03:15 PM
 
From reddit.

Swede here, gonna chime in a bit late to the party.

The population of Sweden is very divided on the topic. Polls from Eurobarometern, Demoskop and SOM (different pollsters) all show varying statistics on Swedes' view on immigration from countries outside the EU, but I would say that it's roughly a 50-50 split. Personally, I think what concerns a lot of people is that we were the country in Europe that accepted the most immigrants from outside the EU per capita, while at the same time being perhaps the most ill-suited country in the world to accomodate these people. Let me explain why.

Sweden is a socialistic country. We have really high taxes. The municipal tax is 30%, the state tax is up to 25% (it's progressive). So yeah, some people pay 55% tax on income above ~75000 USD. The sales tax (VAT) is 25%, so when buying a normal product you pay 20% VAT. Social fees payed by the employer is about 31% on your gross salary. So if you earn 50 000 USD per year, your employer actually pays you 65 500 USD. You pay at least 30% income tax on that, and then buy goods that include 20% VAT. As you can see, we pay A TON of taxes. Therefore, we expect a lot back from the government.

Unions play a big role in Sweden as well. We don't have a minimum wage mandated by law (technically you can pay someone 1 cent a week), but unions have minimum wages. Almost all companies work with the unions to set the minimum wage. For certain jobs, such as being an electrician, you have to pass a test issued by the union if you want to become certified. Obviously, they don't issue that test in any other language than Swedish (this might have changed recently). A friends boyfriend from Australia who was a trained and skilled plumber couldn't work here due to this. In short, there aren't any low wage jobs in Sweden that serve as points of entry into the job market for unskilled laborers. The guy reading a book at the subway turn-stall for 8 hours a day earn almost as much as a nurse. We also have very strict laws and union rules regarding when we can let an employee go. We have a last in last out system with few exceptions (that are very restrictive). Couple this with the high wages and taxes the employer pays to have you work for them, you can easily see how hiring a person for a small to medium sized company is a very big deal. You have to, absolutely have to, make sure it is the right match. Now add on that higher education is free in Sweden, and a ton of people get at least a bachelors degree.

Guess how easy it is for an immigrant to get a job in Sweden? Not that ****ing easy. Most of them turn to the restaurant business due their union having more lax rules and the fact that no swedes want to work as a disher. But there aren't that many jobs. So how do you get an Iraqi middle aged man, with no education, who doesn't speak the language, and have no discernible skills to get a job in Sweden? In short, you don't. A lot of the people we have taken in will never get jobs. They don't have educations. And if they do, they can't become certified in Sweden. Usually due to the standard of education in Syria for example being much lower than in Sweden. A physician from Syria will probably not be able to work as a physician here without years and years of further education (which for sure happens, but is rare).

So you have a ton of unemployed people living in areas deemed "no-go-zones" by the Swedish police, and we accept more immigrants, some of whom ends up living in those areas cause they can't find any other place due to a massive housing shortage. It's not a great recipe for increasing socio-economic status in those areas. We have let in a lot of people that want to work, and want to earn an honest living. But our society can't accommodate them. We don't have low wage jobs that can provide them with an entry into future better employment opportunities.

So saying there isn't a problem at all is disingenuous. We do face a lot of challenges, most of which we don't have answers to yet. But these are challenges concerning bigger issues than rape statistics. I honestly don't know why people focus on that so much? It makes me sad that the debate is so shallow and pointless. It brings out the worst in both sides instead of working together to come up with solutions to very real problems. And it also polarizes people, turning them to their respective echo chambers, further dividing us and turning us away from co-operating and having an honest discussion about what economic policies we need to take.
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 04:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I live here, I know the facts. The last two waves of immigrants were from former Yugoslavia in the nineties and the most recent wave from Syria. There has always been immigration, because we live in a dangerous world and Sweden is one of the countries that tries to stay out of those interventions (and looks huge on a map - thanks Mercator!) but there wasn't a wave then.
Given your responses, I don't think you do. It's funny how you can tell us about all the crap going on in LA but completely blind to what's going on in Gothenburg.
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Feb 22, 2017, 07:22 PM
 
I can't tell you how many times people scolded me for having an opinion about America while living in America and not being American. Apparently, no matter how long I lived there I couldn't have a valid belief system because I was missing a piece of paper.

Anyway, apparently some Americans are the only ones that have a valid take on affairs in other countries too, in this case Sweden. It's too bad P is not American!
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 08:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I can't tell you how many times people scolded me for having an opinion about America while living in America and not being American. Apparently, no matter how long I lived there I couldn't have a valid belief system because I was missing a piece of paper.
It's not the missing paper, it's biology. Freedom is recessive in Canadians.
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 08:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I can't tell you how many times people scolded me for having an opinion about America while living in America and not being American. Apparently, no matter how long I lived there I couldn't have a valid belief system because I was missing a piece of paper.

Anyway, apparently some Americans are the only ones that have a valid take on affairs in other countries too, in this case Sweden. It's too bad P is not American!
Even lying about being an American didn't help you? Aw shucks. It wasn't about you not being American, it was about you not understanding its history and traditions. Dig out some of the limitless "understanding" you have for Muslims in the M.E. (who have truly barbaric customs, like: treating women like cattle, slavery, and murdering gays) and try applying a little it to the USA. Maybe that will help?

You can't look at Sweden and think things are hunky-dorey, no matter how it's spun. If you do, then you have an agenda you're trying to polish.
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Feb 22, 2017, 08:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
The wave from former Yugoslavia was a big problem back when it happened, but I think it was positive in the long run. There were instances of war veterans/former partisans/whatever who became very violent criminals, but I think the majority were hard workers who integrated well. This was helped by there being a significant minority of immigrants from the region already (recruited as a labor force by Swedish companies back in the fifties) so language was less of an issue.
So the two stories track pretty closely: also Germany had a (similarly sized) of immigrants from former Yugoslavia, so that definitely helped. I wish people remembered that the two previous waves of immigration (there was one in Germany right around 1988-1993 from former Eastern block countries) worked out quite well, despite concerns and well-localized problems at that time.
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Feb 22, 2017, 09:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
It's not the missing paper, it's biology. Freedom is recessive in Canadians.

Yes, the second we are born we look for somebody to rule over us and relinquish our freedoms.
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 09:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Even lying about being an American didn't help you? Aw shucks. It wasn't about you not being American, it was about you not understanding its history and traditions. Dig out some of the limitless "understanding" you have for Muslims in the M.E. (who have truly barbaric customs, like: treating women like cattle, slavery, and murdering gays) and try applying a little it to the USA. Maybe that will help?

You can't look at Sweden and think things are hunky-dorey, no matter how it's spun. If you do, then you have an agenda you're trying to polish.

Are you suggesting that you understand Sweden's history and traditions better than P?
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 09:47 PM
 
Sweden is often considered one of the best places you can possibly live. If things aren't hunky-dory there, they aren't hunky-dory anywhere so that 'fact' is meaningless.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Feb 22, 2017, 09:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
and relinquish our freedoms.
Like you ever had them.
     
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Feb 23, 2017, 01:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Like you ever had them.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Canada for a while, as has gay marriage. We also have the freedom to get sick without having to think about it driving us to bankruptcy.

Most importantly though, we enjoy the freedom of being able to buy a donut on pretty much every block.
     
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Feb 23, 2017, 02:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Medical marijuana has been legal in Canada for a while, as has gay marriage. We also have the freedom to get sick without having to think about it driving us to bankruptcy.

Most importantly though, we enjoy the freedom of being able to buy a donut on pretty much every block.
and the freedom to apologize whenever you want to whomever you want.
     
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Feb 23, 2017, 02:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Medical marijuana has been legal in Canada for a while
Freedom is not giving a **** about the government's opinion.

Not only can you get a donut on every corner in America, they come with 9mm ammo.

Checkmate, hoser.
     
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Feb 23, 2017, 05:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Given your responses, I don't think you do. It's funny how you can tell us about all the crap going on in LA but completely blind to what's going on in Gothenburg.
I know very well what is going on in my city. A lot of it I don't like very much - I just don't blame immigration for it.

That piece Laminar quoted is quite good. The poster is wrong about some things - he's exaggerating the opposition to immigration in principle, but I know that a lot of people think that we took in too many in too short a time for the system to handle, and need to take a break to integrate what we have received. And while he's right about the fact that a small company will be hesitant to hire someone they're not 100% certain of, that is not the case for bigger companies - we have quite a lot of people of immigrant background in our assembly plant. (Strictly speaking not employed by us but by a company that supplies manpower to employers).

The rhetoric around no-go zones is exaggerated. We have suburbs of the major cities where over 90% of the population is from an immigrant background, but that has been the case since the beginning of the nineties at least. The term no-go zones didn't even show up in the debate until we became an argument in an international debate.

But all in all, it is a post well worth reading.
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Feb 23, 2017, 07:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I know very well what is going on in my city. A lot of it I don't like very much - I just don't blame immigration for it.

That piece Laminar quoted is quite good. The poster is wrong about some things - he's exaggerating the opposition to immigration in principle, but I know that a lot of people think that we took in too many in too short a time for the system to handle, and need to take a break to integrate what we have received. And while he's right about the fact that a small company will be hesitant to hire someone they're not 100% certain of, that is not the case for bigger companies - we have quite a lot of people of immigrant background in our assembly plant. (Strictly speaking not employed by us but by a company that supplies manpower to employers).
I can't speak for Sweden, but in Germany there is still very, very broad support to take on refugees, the right of asylum is baked into our cultural DNA and is a right of constitutional rank. (Out of curiosity, is that also true in Sweden?) Previous large waves of immigrations have always been handled successfully, despite hardships, mishaps, isolated incidents of failure and unappetizing politics.

That is why even most critics support the overall idea of taking on refugees as an idea, but perhaps think “we took on too many in too short amount of time for our system to handle”. People believe that the government (including the security apparatus) is capable of handling the crisis. For example, the attacker of the Christmas market in Berlin had been on the radar of police, and basically was able to execute his attack, because his native country refused to take him (the Moroccan government is under pressure from its own population which doesn't want to take back its radicalized citizens). There is certainly not a generalized angst that the presence of refugees will kill our country as there seems to be in a sizable part of the US population, and that is despite the really large number of refugees (the equivalent of 4.5–6 million if you scale up the number to the population of the United States; Sweden took even more in proportion, and they should be lauded for that).

A lot of communities are very pragmatic: the German state pours a lot of money into public housing at the moment, housing that is desperately needed in the big cities anyway, and also private housing projects are accelerated. So after a share of the refugees leave, they will have left new, affordable housing in the urban centers. Integration programs such as language courses will be improved, as is a general sense that Germany is and has been a country of immigration.
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Feb 23, 2017, 07:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Are you suggesting that you understand Sweden's history and traditions better than P?
I'm suggesting he doesn't read or understand the news. Plainly Sweden has some major issues, particularly with migrants, right now.
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Feb 23, 2017, 07:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Sweden is often considered one of the best places you can possibly live. If things aren't hunky-dory there, they aren't hunky-dory anywhere so that 'fact' is meaningless.
Maybe a decade or two ago.
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Feb 23, 2017, 07:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I know very well what is going on in my city. A lot of it I don't like very much - I just don't blame immigration for it.
Of course not, it's obviously the fault of the indigenous population that, at one time, made Sweden one of the highest QLI countries in the world, #3 in 2011, and now #14 (the largest drop in the industrialized world).

https://nationranking.wordpress.com/...3/06/2011-qli/
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-li...by_country.jsp

On top of that you now have the 2nd worst Safety Index in the top 30 (down from the 6th best). Admittedly that's now right behind the USA, but we have enough legal firearms to arm every adult in the country... 6x over, and the worst gang violence on the planet. I wonder what could have changed lately that might have made such an impact? Hmmm....
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Feb 23, 2017, 09:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Of course not, it's obviously the fault of the indigenous population that, at one time, made Sweden one of the highest QLI countries in the world, #3 in 2011, and now #14 (the largest drop in the industrialized world).

https://nationranking.wordpress.com/...3/06/2011-qli/
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-li...by_country.jsp
Those are two different quality of life indices from two different companies. They only share a name, there is nothing similar in the formula. The older one is based on:

Health Index:
Health of the average person, access to and quality of health care (20%)
– Life expectancy at birth
– Mortality amenable to health care (when available)
– Infant mortality
– Access to health care
_
Education Index:
Education, access to and quality of education (20%)
– Adult literacy rate
– School life expectancy
– PISA results (when available)
_
Wealth Index:
Wealth of the average person (20%)
– GDP (PPP) per capita
– Gini coefficient of national income distribution
_
Democracy Index:
Individual rights and liberties (15%)
– Freedom House political rights index
– Freedom House civil liberties index
– Freedom House freedom of the press index
_
Peace Index:
Security from crime, repression and armed conflict (15%)
– Global Peace Index
_
Environment Index:
Quality and preservation of the environment (10%)
– Environmental Performance Index
While the newer one is described as:

About Quality of Life Indices At This Website

Quality of Life Index (higher is better) is an estimation of overall quality of life by using empirical formula which takes into account purchasing power index (higher is better), pollution index (lower is better), house price to income ratio (lower is better), cost of living index (lower is better), safety index (higher is better), health care index (higher is better), traffic commute time index (lower is better) and climate index (higher is better).
Now, I can quickly spot two things in at last list that will bring Sweden's score down: Purchasing power index has dropped because of currency fluctuations after Brexit (Apple stuff for instance is really expensive now) and house price to income ratio has skyrocketed (my apartment has tripled in price over 10 years). The first one is completely unrelated to immigration - the second is barely related in that of course an influx of new citizens will raise housing prices, but prices are not increasing on the cheap "starter" apartments that immigrants get - they are rising on more expensive houses. This in turn is due to a housing market that is not producing enough new homes for structural reasons (rent control basically, but let's not go there). Unlike immigration, THAT is a real problem (and one that existed in one form or another since forever).

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
On top of that you now have the 2nd worst Safety Index in the top 30 (down from the 6th best). Admittedly that's now right behind the USA, but we have enough legal firearms to arm every adult in the country... 6x over, and the worst gang violence on the planet. I wonder what could have changed lately that might have made such an impact? Hmmm....
You're going to have to provide a link to that one if you want a takedown. When I google "safety index by country", I get the Global Peace Index (also included in the first quality of life index above), which has us at number 14. We seem to have been roughly there for a while now, and except for Canada and Japan at number 8 and 9, all the countries above us in the list are fairly small and not very densely populated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index

(In that index, Germany is just behind us at 16. The US is number 103)
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Feb 23, 2017, 09:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Those are two different quality of life indices from two different companies. They only share a name, there is nothing similar in the formula. The older one is based on:
Indeed, there is, but you're just going to deny it.

You're going to have to provide a link to that one if you want a takedown. When I google "safety index by country", I get the Global Peace Index (also included in the first quality of life index above), which has us at number 14. We seem to have been roughly there for a while now, and except for Canada and Japan at number 8 and 9, all the countries above us in the list are fairly small and not very densely populated.
It's in the same link I posted, the 2nd one. Sweden is behind the likes of India... and Russia. And you can keep believing that migrants aren't causing such a slide, but you're only kidding yourself.
( Last edited by Cap'n Tightpants; Feb 23, 2017 at 10:24 AM. )
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Feb 23, 2017, 09:37 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
It's in the same link I posted, the 2nd one. Sweden is behind the likes of India... and Russia. And you can keep believing that migrants aren't causing such a slide, but you're only kidding yourself.
Why don't you address P's specific points instead of making claims about a country and a culture that you probably haven't had much first-hand experience with?

Addendum: Numbeo uses crowd sourced data, and the questions regarding safety are solely based on perceived risks. India has a 30 % higher murder rate and much higher levels of corruption, so it is quite dubious that India's safety index is that high.
( Last edited by OreoCookie; Feb 23, 2017 at 09:53 AM. )
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Feb 23, 2017, 10:04 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
and the freedom to apologize whenever you want to whomever you want.

Yeah, I know this is pretty annoying. I'm sorry about that.
     
besson3c
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Feb 23, 2017, 10:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Freedom is not giving a **** about the government's opinion.

Not only can you get a donut on every corner in America, they come with 9mm ammo.

Checkmate, hoser.

To be a little serious, isn't this whole freedom thing partially a matter of definition?

I mean, couldn't universal health care be considered a freedom? You could make the argument either way, I guess. As far as freedom to gun up, is there such thing as a freedom of not having to worry as much about being shot at?
     
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Feb 23, 2017, 10:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Why don't you address P's specific points instead of making claims about a country and a culture that you probably haven't had much first-hand experience with?

Addendum: Numbeo uses crowd sourced data, and the questions regarding safety are solely based on perceived risks. India has a 30 % higher murder rate and much higher levels of corruption, so it is quite dubious that India's safety index is that high.
Because he's obviously suffering from Stockholm syndrome, if he believes Sweden doesn't have a migrant problem, esp WRT violent crime.

Maybe because the rape rates are higher in Sweden than India?
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