Politics

[Dude]

lord only knows what terrible things will happen if african americans get treated the same as caucasians

i really need to stop posting in this topic it's toxic here

[Tobbeh99]

So apparently now the Moderate party has officially elected a new party leader. Everyone was pretty sure about how it was going to be, but now it's officially clear. And I said a lot of positive things about him here. And looking at the different party leaders I think he's one of the best, which is important as the Moderates has been historically the major right party. One thing I think he's better at than the other party leaders is the fact the he's a good speaker, and the best of all at that. Which I feel is really important because it really makes you want to listen to him more and also makes you rather have him as prime minister. And it's also good considering that the Social-democrat party's leader is less good at that. I'm not 100% pro the things that the Moderates value like the free market economy, focus on law and order, privatizations, and are really against allowances. But I do value having a good leader being the prime minister which makes voting for the right seem like a more viable option in the next election.

[Tobbeh99]

Read some small segment in the news when it talks about the prime minister Stefan Löfvén. And how he wants to have a narrow immigration politics and focus on law and order. And I have mixed opinions about that. I really like how he seem to care about critical issues and what people worries about. So that's really good. But I also really think that he really dislikes having to deal with those issues so much, being a left politician. I think he rather care about things concerning the workers, class differences, the state owned companies and other stuff. Having narrow immigration politics and focus on law and order is really more something that right-wing politicians value and care a lot about. And I feel like he's sort of forced to take care of these issues as the society has changed so rapidly over the last 5 years or so. But those issues surely needs to be addressed. The immigration issues is that it hasn't worked smoothly and it barely any "immigration" at all (meaning that refugees integrate into the society). And the issue with law and order really needs to be taken seriously. According to the police, the amount of areas classed as "critical areas" aka. dangerous areas have increased from 15, 2 years ago, to 23 now. So it clearly is going the wrong direction. So those are 2 important issues that needs to be taken care of whether you're left or right.

edit: Also watched a party leader debate. And I really liked it. I felt like it was "as usual". I've felt like that the political talk has been more tense and hysterical the last 10 or so years in Sweden. And it feels good that it seems to have returned into "same old boring politics" rather than "Sweden democrats are rasist and evil! Omg we need to take care of this fast or else god knows what could happen!". And I really like that. I think the political talk in some aspect represent the society as a whole, and I think it's way better having good political debates rather anxious hysteria.

[Tobbeh99]

I remember some years ago how the nationalistic party Sweden-democrats talked about "mass immigration". And how all other parties (the most vocal opposition being the left parties) responding with "there's no mass-immigration everything is just as it use to be, the immigration levels are just normal". And omg, what a big lie that was! It's a literal lie! And those people wants to have more credence and want to think think that the Sweden-democrats is a dishonest party that just exaggerates. I mean, the immigration question has been on the list of key issues that Swedes are concerned with, along side other topics like jobs, education/the school, the healthcare etc. And they straight up lie, pretending that everything is just the same! I mean imagine if they'd do that in any other area like economics (no, there's no inflation, everything is just fine), or the school doing horribly bad (no the students aren't doing worse than before), or the climate (no there's no global warming/climate change). I mean they'd be seen as lairs and hypocrites, or irresponsible politicians. But apparently they think that they can just get away with anything when it comes to immigration, that they just can put it aside. And the same people are surprised that the nationalistic party Sweden-democrats has been on the rise. Literal idiots!

Sweden's immigration statistics (orange being immigration, grey being emigration)

Spoiler

[close]

[Trasdegi]

Don't forget than world (and Sweden) population has drastically increased in the last two centuries. That makes the difference between 1880 levels and todays levels far less impressive imo.

[Tobbeh99]

True. The emigration in the 1800 were a big thing, and the population were lower. My point is how rapidly the immigration has increased from just the 2000 and onward. The high emigration is also noteworthy, but apparently most people who emigrate from Sweden emigrate to Norway, the neighbor country, because of more jobs there. Which is different from the immigrants who mostly comes from Syria, Afghanistan and etc.

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

As much as I am a fan of taking in refugees, I have to say that Europe seemed a little eager.

The U.S., in addition to taking very few refugees to begin with, puts each refugee through an intense vetting process, usually taking around a year. Source: http://time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/

(If you don't like Time, plenty of other sources have reported on this)

To me, when dealing with areas like Syria where a sizable portion of the fighters involved are Jihadists (both the Assad forces and the rebels fighting them), a vetting process is necessary. Germany and Sweden have both seen the consequences of unregulated immigration. That doesn't mean you go Le Pen style and call for complete halts, just regulate it.

Ofc this isn't at all original, but you can either have borders and a welfare state, or no borders and no welfare state.

[Tobbeh99]

I agree with you PdS. There was one quote that some minister in the former government made about immigration, how they had to "know the amount/quantity of the refugees". Which apparently shocked people, making people make comments like "the amount/quantity of refugees, how rasist and dehumanizing making human beings into "amount/quantity"". And as usual in Sweden, someone says something and everyone follows like a big shoal, without even thinking about it. And now afterwards I just thought "counting refugees. ...that's probably pretty smart. Then you know how many that comes to Sweden.", but apparently people thought that it was almost some nazi-thing about counting people (and then making a list and etc.). So it just highlights some of the stupidity in Sweden.

I'm also surprised how the immigrant number has risen so dramatically the last years, but as I hear, the amount of wars has decreased and the poverty seems to slowly decreasing. It makes no sense. I guess Syria is a big exception, and also Afghanistan. But then you have a lot refugees from Africa as well. You'd think that the amount of refugees would decrease with fewer wars, but doesn't seem like it. I don't even know for sure if there are fewer wars nowadays, might just be my bias.

A final point. I don't know if the US has bought into this idea of multiculturalism that much as Europe and particularly Sweden. I guess it's a different case, because US as country has a pretty unique history. And because it's basically built on immigrants, the idea of "the mix pot" came naturally. But I think that idea has really been influential here in Europe and particularly Sweden. And I personally think it's been just purely bad. Like instead of making refugees get into the society and the culture, they created this idea of multiculturalism, which is just some goofy word describing a country with many different cultures living along side each other. It just really goes along with the left-hippie mentality of "no borders, where all citizen of the world". And along side worshiping multiculturalism has arose another idea about criticizing our own Swedish culture (because if we point out everything bad about Swedish culture, then the nationalists can't romanticize it and then they lose hohoho...). And that even fueled the xenophobia even more. I heard some (right-wing) person call it "nationalistic masochism", which is basically what it is. If you look at it from that perspective, nationalism vs nationalistic masochism, it really it's like garbage vs trash. So all if this leftist talk about this multiculturalist utopia just completely fell flat, and people are frankly pissed off at it. The left literally built the tower of babel, everyone thought that this was the big thing, but the it just crumbled back on itself. And all this multiculturalism has created all the xenophobia and the nationalistic parties, which no one wants.

It's even more odd how leftist parties really celebrate when the Kurds get their independence. I mean that's an ethnic group forming a nation, no multiculturalism there. It was more multiculturalism in Iraq before the forming of their nation. But no, then they immediately switch to "the West draw lines on a map". Literally two-face/dubble-moral. 

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

The immigration has risen partially b/c of population growth, but also because there are still plenty of wars going on in the Mideast. The US is still involved in Afghanistan and Syria, so the number of people displaced isn't going down.

But I think you're really misunderstanding the multiculturism part. A people establishing their independence (ie Kurds, or Jews post WW2) is not an antithesis to cultural diversity.

[Tobbeh99]

Still think that that multiculturalism/cultural diversity really is a fake utopia. Like, it's just so much easier if everyone has the same culture (sort of) to get along. It clearly strengthen the togetherness.

[Altissimo]

Whose culture? Yours?

[Bloop]

Still think that that multiculturalism/cultural diversity really is a fake utopia. Like, it's just so much easier if everyone has the same culture (sort of) to get along. It clearly strengthen the togetherness.

I hope you realize segregating cultures also weakens the "togetherness".

[Maelstrom]

Still think that that multiculturalism/cultural diversity really is a fake utopia. Like, it's just so much easier if everyone has the same culture (sort of) to get along. It clearly strengthen the togetherness.

It also does an incredible job of creating "us and them" mentalities.

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

Still think that that multiculturalism/cultural diversity really is a fake utopia. Like, it's just so much easier if everyone has the same culture (sort of) to get along. It clearly strengthen the togetherness.

Why is it a fake utopia?

You're confusing multiculturalism with segregating cultures like has happened in Europe (where Muslim groups might go off and make a group by themselves). That isn't what multiculturalism is. That's segregation, albeit voluntary.

Ditto to what Alti and Mealstrom said.

[Tobbeh99]

Why is it a fake utopia?

You're confusing multiculturalism with segregating cultures like has happened in Europe (where Muslim groups might go off and make a group by themselves). That isn't what multiculturalism is. That's segregation, albeit voluntary.

Ditto to what Alti and Mealstrom said.

Maybe I am confusing multiculturalism. But I'm speaking from my experience. And I'm just saying that there has been a lot of problems, culturally in Sweden. Multiculturalism may not be wrong, but during the last years, I've felt as it hasn't worked out as well the politicians and other people driving for it, said it would. It have felt like the politicians say "this is what we have to do, It's the best" and then you wait and you think at first "y this is the right way!" but as time goes and the number of problem areas increases and the tensions in the country rises, you start to think "emm y... it'll work out, I guess. ... ... ... or?? ... ... I'm starting to doubt in this. Maybe we should have tried integration/assimilation instead?". I'm not as negative as some right-extremists are, but I'm skeptical to it, and I do think I have solid ground to say so.

And no I don't think in the extremes of either you have only 1 culture (North Korea) or you have a whole bunch. But what I want to emphasize is the cultural problems in Sweden (and probably also in other parts of the west world). And I think that the integration could have been more thought-through, but I guess the government had little time dealing with the problems.