Democratic Norway v. Authoritarian Sweden: Viking Say "Hi" To Your New Neighbors

[roo_ster]

All 40,000 80,000 of them from Syria.  I'm sure they'll fit right in.

Democratic Norway v. Authoritarian Sweden
http://www.unz.com/isteve/democratic-norway-v-authoritarian-sweden/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/opinion/sunday/syrian-refugees-nordic-dilemma.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Some 40,000 Syrians have arrived in Sweden since the conflict began. And following a decision to offer permanent residency to all Syrians, Sweden is expecting more than 80,000 asylum seekers in 2014, many of them from Syria...

A far wealthier social democracy than Sweden, Norway spends a greater share of gross domestic product on humanitarian assistance than any other country in the world. It also has the lowest unemployment in Europe and, like Sweden, several decades of experience with immigration.

Yet Norway is not encouraging asylum-seekers...

In Sweden, a closely patrolled pro-immigration “consensus” has sustained extraordinarily liberal policies while placing a virtual taboo on questions about the social and economic costs. In Norway, a strong tradition of free speech and efficient administration has produced a hard-nosed approach about which refugees, and how many, to take in...

“Sweden is very puzzling,” said Grete Brochmann, a leading Norwegian immigration scholar. The Swedes, she said, “are extremely liberal toward immigration, but they have a very authoritarian attitude toward debate about it. In Norway the idea is, open discussion is basically good. If there’s hostility, better to get it out.”

That’s not actually a paradox. For example, Ferdinand Marcos was extremely liberal about compensating himself from the public trough, but had a very authoritarian attitude toward debate about it. It’s really not that puzzling when you stop and think about it.

Hmm:

...supporting a single refugee in Norway costs...enough to support some 26 Syrians in Jordan.

So, the best way we can help the most folk is to keep them outside the USA or any other first-world country and (if we deem it proper use of taxpayer dollars) provide for them over there.

Gotta love the stalinist approach of the Swedish Left.  Pretty mush all "progressivism" and leftism devolves into authoritarianism. 

[Viking]

Ayup. Denmark is about the same as Norway IIRC. Sweden, OTOH...you're allowed your opinion, as long as your opinion is on the list of approved opinions. If not, expect, at worst, to have your apartment or car firebombed by leftist thugs or for yourself to get assaulted, expect to end up in the files of a private leftist intelligence organization that provides intelligence to aforementioned thugs, and also to employers, media, various government agencies, so you can be denied a job, be kicked out of the union and thus lose the unemployment benefits you paid union fees for.

[KD5NRH]

Ayup. Denmark is about the same as Norway IIRC. Sweden, OTOH...you're allowed your opinion, as long as your opinion is on the list of approved opinions. If not, expect, at worst, to have your apartment or car firebombed by leftist thugs or for yourself to get assaulted, expect to end up in the files of a private leftist intelligence organization that provides intelligence to aforementioned thugs, and also to employers, media, various government agencies, so you can be denied a job, be kicked out of the union and thus lose the unemployment benefits you paid union fees for.

Have you considered taking a play from your ancestors' book and leading a proper uprising?

[Viking]

Have you considered taking a play from your ancestors' book and leading a proper uprising?

Occasionally, but now I just want to get out so I can watch and laugh as the whole thing goes to hell.

[Tallpine]

Occasionally, but now I just want to get out so I can watch and laugh as the whole thing goes to hell.

Prepare to keep up the watching and laughing if you move to the USSA     

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Not as funny when you are in the middle as it's swirls round the bowl....


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[Viking]

Prepare to keep up the watching and laughing if you move to the USSA     

Parts of the US might go down the shitter in a relatively close future, but other parts will probably do just fine. And since your country is a union of states with different laws, unlike mine, there's greater chance for states to go their own little merry ways and live like they prefer to. While you've lost freedoms for a long time, you still have many that are denied the rest of the world, and the whole "union of states" thing is one such freedom, since it allows for potentially greater separation and independence at a future date. Just got to pick where to live carefully...and hope to hell that idiots from elsewhere don't come to fcuk things up after they've fcuked up their home states. Note: none of the above is guaranteed, but it is not impossible.

[Tallpine]

Parts of the US might go down the shitter in a relatively close future, but other parts will probably do just fine. And since your country is a union of states with different laws, unlike mine, there's greater chance for states to go their own little merry ways and live like they prefer to. While you've lost freedoms for a long time, you still have many that are denied the rest of the world, and the whole "union of states" thing is one such freedom, since it allows for potentially greater separation and independence at a future date. Just got to pick where to live carefully...and hope to hell that idiots from elsewhere don't come to fcuk things up after they've fcuked up their home states. Note: none of the above is guaranteed, but it is not impossible.

Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska are about the only good choices 

[Viking]

Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska are about the only good choices 

Good thing I like the cold then. But I'm sure you're being a bit pessimistic. Idaho? The Dakotas? IIRC, most of the Pacific Northwet outside Seattle & Oregon has nice laws, attitudes & culture? The midwest?

[Tallpine]

Good thing I like the cold then. But I'm sure you're being a bit pessimistic. Idaho? The Dakotas? IIRC, most of the Pacific Northwet outside Seattle & Oregon has nice laws, attitudes & culture? The midwest?

I've heard some bad things about Idaho, but if you were up in the mountains/panhandle it might be okay.  There is a strong presence of a certain religious persuasion in Idaho who while are generally very nice people, tend to run things their way (likewise NE Arizona).

I dunno about Dakotas but the eastern edge is more mid-west than west.  So like PNW the nicer/remote areas probably tend to be pushed around by the population centers.

[roo_ster]

Good thing I like the cold then. But I'm sure you're being a bit pessimistic. Idaho? The Dakotas? IIRC, most of the Pacific Northwet outside Seattle & Oregon has nice laws, attitudes & culture? The midwest?

Keep an eye out for heavy concentrations of Norwegians, especially in Minnesota.  They seem to have an irrational hatred of Swedes.  No shinoal, the most hate-filled racial/ethnic remark I have heard at my company was "The damned Swedes!" uttered by a co-worker from Minnesota.  Dude meant it. 

Talk about "holding paper!" ( http://c4.nrostatic.com/corner/95734/re-holding-paper/john-derbyshire )

Holding paper. News item: “Hundreds of Armenian-Americans gathered in Times Square yesterday to observe the 90th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million people died at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish empire. They demanded that the mass extermination, which they say served as a model for Hitler’s ‘final solution,’ finally be acknowledged by Turkey.”

That, as readers of The Corner will know, is called “holding paper.” The Armenians are certainly entitled to hold paper on the Turks in re the appalling 1915 massacres, as are the Irish on the British, the Chinese on the Japanese, and so on. Paper-holding-wise, though, this is penny-ante stuff. For really tenacious holding of paper, nobody can come close to the Jews. In the course of an e-conversation on the topic, Noah Millman sent me this:

    Parshat Zachor is read the Sabbath before Purim each year (which this year is in late March). The section ends as follows:

    “Deuteronomy 25:17-19
    “17. Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt;

    “18. How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and they did not fear God.

    “19. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it.”

    Amalek was a tribe that dwelt in the Sinai and Negev desert during Mosaic times (about 3500 years ago according to the traditional dating). So we’re already talking about holding a grudge for a very, very long time.

    But the interesting thing is that 2000 years ago or so the rabbis concluded that the mitzvah of wiping the nation of Amalek off the earth was no longer operative because Amalek no longer existed as such; all the nations of ancient Canaan were, they said, mixed together during the Babylonian exile of 2500 years ago, and so now there was no way to distinguish Amalek from anyone else–or even from Israel! NONETHELESS, even though it is impossible to perform the mitzvah, the mitzvah remains, and we are obliged to remember never to forget to blot out the name of Amalek, because of what they did to us in the desert.

    So the Jews bear the following distinction: We are under a RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION to hold a 3500 year-old grudge against a group of people WHO DON’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE.

Now that is holding paper.

[Viking]

I've heard some bad things about Idaho, but if you were up in the mountains/panhandle it might be okay.  There is a strong presence of a certain religious persuasion in Idaho who while are generally very nice people, tend to run things their way (likewise NE Arizona).

I dunno about Dakotas but the eastern edge is more mid-west than west.  So like PNW the nicer/remote areas probably tend to be pushed around by the population centers.

Mormons?

[Tallpine]

Mormons?

Yeah.

[Marnoot]

There is a strong presence of a certain religious persuasion in Idaho who while are generally very nice people, tend to run things their way (likewise NE Arizona).

No mention of the state in between? There are even more of us here. 

I don't think we're quite so prevalent in the northern/panhandle area of Idaho if you're looking to avoid it, and I think Viking might spontaneously combust in central/southern Arizona.

[Tallpine]

No mention of the state in between? There are even more of us here. 

I thought that was obvious.