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Europe - The Official Thread
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Dotini
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If you can justify sacrificing your own domestic peace and prosperity for the sake of attempting (but failing to accomplish) social justice on the other side of the world, then chapeau to you. But that would not be something I could do myself, given a choice.
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VolkswagenX
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I would not call it self-inflicted blowback.. It's not the people setting the agenda of chaos that are suffering from any form of blowback.
I'd say that intervening is what has caused genocide.
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It was a perhaps a factor, but claiming that is still wrong. In that logic you can claim the aftermath of the second world war and the holocaust destabelised the middle east.
Dotini
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The first world war also played a major factor in the destabilization of the Middle East.
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VolkswagenX
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Can you explain wich genocide was stopped by intervening?
You are not convincing me and I don't think this is convincing many people in Europe. Why should we make Europe less safe because people are suffering from war in their countries? Why should we bring in a lot of people with the same ideology that is causing the problems in these countries and that aren't compatible with European culture?
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The holocaust in WW2.
I am an immigrant and from a different culture then native europeans. In most cases the refugees dont cause any significant rise in crime at all. That is somehow spread as truth by populist leaders. I havent seen any evidence that proves the contrary. The problem isnt the "real" refugees coming in europe. The problem is that it is difficult to filter out economic and "fake" refugees. But that doesnt mean we should abandon the people who do need help. I am happy most countries try their best to help. I have spoken to some refugees about the atrocities that forced them to leave. It is heartbreaking. Most of them didnt want to leave in the first place! It was their home.
Edit: added sentence
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VolkswagenX
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Strange answer. Can't see how the holocaust relates to recent immigration problems.
Maybe that's why you don't see a problem with Europe becoming less European? I have an african mother by the way..
I think the "fake" refugees are a problem but I don't think it's difficult to filter them out.
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You asked specifically which genocide was prevented by intervening. I gave you an example.
Personally I dont see europe becoming less europe. As long as italy has its pasta, spain its paella, france its cock au vin etc. I dont mind other cultures integrating. I have personally not seen any evidence of a culture taking over a european culture.
I also prefer to look in to the future what europe can be. Looking too much back sometimes holds back progress.
VolkswagenX
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I was talking about the recent interventions that have are a part of the recent migrant problems.
Culture is more than just food.. The problem is that these other cultures are not doing much integrating.
I would like for the European future to remain European.. The same goes for Africa an Asia.. At the moment I'm not seeing much progress..
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Recently syria. If they were refused at the border.
Ofcourse culture is more then just food. The other cultures are doing a lot of integrating, even the muslims. In the Netherlands you are probably only noticing the ones who are not integrating. That is only a small part of the muslims in the Netherlands. The vast majority are integrating perfectly well and contributing to the economy and culture. Just look at the statistics and data. Even if you listen to populistic nonsence of thee right, you should also listen to the leftist nonsense to even it out and then make your own conclusion. Europe isnt becoming less Europe.
VolkswagenX
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Can you show me these statistics?
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- GTP_Mars
Around 85% of votes have been counted in the Swedish elections and it would appear that the far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, have not done as well as expected, scoring near the lower end of the pre-election poll estimates at around 17.5% - that's still an improvement, but it is not enough to put them in second place.
Meanwhile, the Centre-Left and Centre-Right blocs are in a virtual dead heat with just over 40% of the vote each.
Meanwhile, the Centre-Left and Centre-Right blocs are in a virtual dead heat with just over 40% of the vote each.
Problems that are tied to immigration by the parties who benefit from that idea.
I'm not claiming they have no effect on it. But have you ever considered the aging population combined with less kids per family to be a larger part of the issue? We have more to pay per person and more people to pay for and relative to that population an ever shrinking population to pay for those social securities...
On top of that we as countries are holding a race to the bottom to have companies set up.in our country giving big companies biljions of dollars in tax cuts. Taxes you and me are gping to have to pay to make for, we're essentially temporarilly paying the workforce of certain companies. This system is not feasable in the long run.
This imo is also the reason why radical right wing parties gain power. They offer non solutions forr problem people care about and then go ahead acting as if it's correct. Generally simple solutions are a good way to gain votes. One liners are what work. Don't be honnedt don't go into detail just use a simple phrase and repeat it over and over wh8le claiming it to be te solution. The masses wil follow.
I am speaking about populist right wingers. There are 'normal' conservatives to off coarse, they just happen to lose a lot of votes to those people who claim immigration is the problem that creates all other problems.
What made europe europe and are we currently losing? I don't share that opinion and I'm a belgian with belgian parents, who have belgian parents, who in turn also had belgian parents. So I hope 3 generations cuts it as being considered a 'real' Belgian. There might be more generations but I never looked into my family tree so
You want the european future to remain european and african future to be african...
What do you mean by that? Because I can only think of skin colour. Europe itself is a meltingpot of cultures, in belgium there are 2 cultured this diffrent that it calls for an.extra government (comparable with a state in the US).
So yeah I'm sorry, I'm wondering what you meant with this because it's hard to belief you actually meant whiteys over here, the blacks over there,...
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SestoScudo
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I dont want to derail this thread but the Middle East is a complex place from politics, history, ideologies and religion wise.
Its easy to blame a religion or a certain people for the hell hole of a region.
But as an Australian of Turkish descent my ancestors also had a hand in destabilising the region.
Its easy to blame a religion or a certain people for the hell hole of a region.
But as an Australian of Turkish descent my ancestors also had a hand in destabilising the region.
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Muslims account for less then 5% of the dutch population.
Cant find anything more recent then below. Unemployement for non western ethnicities is higher then native dutch people. There are multiple reasons for that difference. The majority of the non western ethnicities are working a paying job and contributing to the dutch economy.
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- Johnnypenso
Isn't this an inevitable result of a top heavy, high taxation, government centric economy? When you advocate for "free" healthcare, "free" daycare, "free" post secondary education, huge social safety net etc and you get it, you create a huge dependency on GDP growth rates and economic stability to be able to support those expensive systems You create a system that is highly dependent on a very large and young working class to support it with tax revenue. In a global economy what incentives do you have to work with, other than lowering taxes, to encourage corporations to locate in your particular country? If taxes in one jurisdiction are significantly lower, perhaps because they don't have the large social safety net that you do, why would anyone locate in your country when they can freely ship goods in from anywhere in the world for next to nothing?
To say the system is not feasible in the long run is to say that globalism is not feasible in the long run or that your own socialist system is not feasible with globalism. Is that what you believe?
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His post was about the populist agenda and how rightwing policy (tax cuts) is not sustainable in the long run. How do you spin his post to blame leftwing politics? The left are the ones who want to tax these corporations accordingly. The only reason populist agendas have become popular is because of the large number of refugees that have been coming in. They pray on the fear of people and more often then note ignore facts to spread fear and gain popularity. The vast majority of refugees are not rapists or criminals, but there propagenda lets it seem as if they are all criminals, which just isnt true.
In your post a social democratic system like in scandanavia and most of europe is not sustainable. However europe has proven differently there are only 3 european countries (Greece, Portugal and Italy 12% population of EU) in the top 10 national debt to GDP. The usa having 107% national debt to GDP, compared to 87% national debt to GDP for the european union.
As a sidenote, Japan has 236% debt to GDP and I cant really say Japan has a failing economy.
I agree with the majority of that analasys.
I think our biggest hurdle to climb is to get nations to work together. We kind of hold each other hostage by lowering taxes for multinationals just so they would relocate ro our state/country/... when we would be able to come together with a large consumer base we could blackmail the multinationals instead.of the multinationals keeping us hostage.
I agree that it's the only leverage we currently have (lowering taxes). And that is where the left and the right acrually differ imo. Rigjt wingers say this model is not feasable, let's cut all social security that's 'unnessecary'. I disagree with that idea because we shouldn't make conditions worse, we shouldn't go back in time,... I think we should work together as that multinationals can't blackmail us into paying their employees (yes this is a hyperbole). Or break up companies.that a few companies don't hold as much power and.you actually get competetiveness again.
Off coarse the situation and solution will be more complex and difficult then currently described in a simple post on a forum but those would be the direction I would look into.
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Blackmailing is going a bit far, leveraging might be more appropiate. But i agree with you last statement concerning large corporations having so much leverage. In a free market the big shark will always eat the little fish. As much as I dont like government regulations (I dont mind higer taxations, I know my beliefs are like an oxymoron) the government should protect the people from potential monopolies or oligopolies that are a danger for consumers and small/medium businessowners.
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But you can't necessarily "tax those corporations accordingly" when capital is so mobile in a global economy. Raise taxes enough and corporations just move somewhere else and ship their products into your country. Some can't move and they get stuck with the high tax bills, mainly the smaller and more local businesses and those that depend on a physical footprint for survival. It's not propoganda it's economics. The only way to stop them from moving is to lower taxes or enact tariffs to make it more expensive to ship goods into the country but globalists are anti-tariff so you're left with very few options to entice companies to locate in your jurisdiction.
I didn't say it wasn't sustainable. I said the conflict between the tax revenues required for a government centred economy with a huge social safety net and the task of dealing with aging populations and a shrinking tax base is inevitable. The Japanese situation is not as bad as it seems at first glance. Their government has a huge amount of assets and a huge portion of their debt is not to foreign sources but to their own central bank. Net debt/GDP is actually below 100% when you look at it that way. The Americans and Japanese all face the same problem though. Shrinking tax bases with an aging population in a global economy where production of consumer goods is being moved offshore or to areas of the world with cheap labour. Americans aren't as socialist as Europe, but they are definitely leaning that way whether they admit it or not.
Nations don't generally work together, they compete for resources. China, India, much of Africa and other places all offer relatively cheap labour pools that are attractive to manufacturers as long as other conditions are met like sufficient infrastructure, access to cheap and reliable power etc. They have no incentive to work with more developed nations and risk losing the development of their manufacturing base and the middle class and foreign investment that comes with it. You can work with your European partners but that isn't your competition for the most part. Your solution is to punish the very people who provide the jobs and investment in your own economies which will only further drive capital out of your country and into more business friendly environments. Multinationals aren't blackmailing you into anything they are doing what they are supposed to do in a global economy. They are seeking the most profitable arrangement for their shareholders. To gain that investment you need to compete. This is what comes with a global economy.
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As I wrote, it can be related to immigration, but these problems have deeper roots than recent migration wave.
Interesting read here:
http://tidskriftenrespons.se/artike...ight-wing-populism-upcoming-swedish-election/
But those obviously aren't the real reason these parties grew so much so fast.
Obviously the ciltural aspect was the big factor. You never start with this argument you always start with the preservatio f of ypur own culture.
Which you then never really define in a concrete way. Which I think is your intention but off coarse that's just my opinion. These undefined concepts are often used by the likes of richard spencer and david duke and such. So not defining them is a dangeroud game to be played.
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or you can start with just plain preservation, when hand grenades in Sweden are now in fashion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden
imo support for Sweden Democrats is directly related to how many people are negatively influenced by immigration, when majority lives in neighbourhoods with native Swedes, they can still ride their moral high horse without any compassion to their fellow countryman who have to deal with negatives of migration.
btw. funny story, our national TV reporters were in Sweden to report about recent election and when they wanted to film in a migrant neighbourhood, they needed Police assistance to be able to film on a street and in the interview Policeman was frank about situation over there. In Sweden no-go zones are real.
or you can start with just plain preservation, when hand grenades in Sweden are now in fashion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden
imo support for Sweden Democrats is directly related to how many people are negatively influenced by immigration, when majority lives in neighbourhoods with native Swedes, they can still ride their moral high horse without any compassion to their fellow countryman who have to deal with negatives of migration.
btw. funny story, our national TV reporters were in Sweden to report about recent election and when they wanted to film in a migrant neighbourhood, they needed Police assistance to be able to film on a street and in the interview Policeman was frank about situation over there. In Sweden no-go zones are real.
First of you agree with my point, it's the 'preservation' of your culture that's important to these voters. And it often isn't so much preservation as it is saying everyone in your country should have your culture. Often it's more about them not assimilating to a degree the 'real' population wants them to. Which is a big diffrence. Integration=/=assimilation.
And again it's how many people PERCEIVE to be negatively influenced by migration. There are correlations between the issues and migration but holding it up as the root of the issues is just dishonnest.
How often has the idea of no go zones been raised to be true? How often has it been debunked? Can you provide more then a single datapoint for these no go zones?
SestoScudo
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Assimlation politics always ends up bad especially when its forced. Dont expect people to give up their ethnic identity or origins so easily.
If Swedes migrated to Egypt for example and the Egyptians start doing assimlation politics dont expect the Swedes to give up their ethnic identity so easily.
Integration has always been the way to go not assimlation. If somebody wants to assimlate it is there choice.
If Swedes migrated to Egypt for example and the Egyptians start doing assimlation politics dont expect the Swedes to give up their ethnic identity so easily.
Integration has always been the way to go not assimlation. If somebody wants to assimlate it is there choice.
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Whitestar
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A bit of after-election drama: Apparently there had been an election blunder which became known yesterday. Turns out one of the constituencies (or wards) reported the wrong numbers. This resulted in The Alliance (Centre-Right bloc) losing a seat to the Sweden Democrats. Ooops!
So the seats are now as follows:
Left Coalition (Centre-Left bloc): 144
The Alliance (Centre-Right bloc): 142
Sweden Democrats: 63
Meanwhile, the Sweden Democrats have reached out to the other parties for negotiations but nobody wants to talk to them (last I heard).
EDIT: Apparently there is still also about 200,000 votes from Swedes living outside Sweden that haven't been counted yet.
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