Scandinavian politics thread: All stereotypes welcome

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TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR PEOPLE WHO PLAN ON READING THIS THREAD WITH ANY REGULARITY

Welcome, ladies and gentlegoons, to the Scandinavian politics thread. Ask us about drinking way too much vodka that is either moonshine or way too expensive due to government monopoly and our complete inability to drink responsibly, driving Volvos with lowered suspensions, getting depressed to the point of contemplating suicide every November, playing MMORPG's while being on welfare, eating fermented or lyed fish, being afraid of our Russian arch-nemesis invading us again, bashing the fash, getting bashed by the fash and wishing we could deport Ligur to the Finnish politics thread while he smugly claims that we aren't going to deport whatever Muslim dude was in the news this week.

Scandinavia proper traditionally consists of
- the Swedes, who are a bunch of insufferably smug jerks who constantly lord their claimed moral superiority over everyone else and aren't even ashamed by their limitless arrogance (see: Stockholm unilaterally declaring itself "the capital of Scandinavia")
- the Danes, who drink even more than the rest of us and are mean to foreigners, women and animals, while thinking they're the only ones who dare to speak The Truth
- the Norwegians, who are a bunch of fish-smelling rednecks who think their gigantic gently caress-You-Got-Mine oil money fund makes them better than everyone else

These three countries have a very long shared history (Sweden and Denmark have been at war with each other somewhere between 15 and 20 times in the last nine hundred years or so, depending on how you count), mostly mutually intelligible languages (nobody understands each other's dialects, though) and a very similar political scene.

Finland was a part of Sweden until 1809 but isn't considered part of Scandinavia. Finnish is very unlike the Scandinavian languages, but some of them speak Swedish due to a policy that is seen either as protecting a minority or government oppression, which I'm sure they'll tell you all about if you ask them about it in their own thread.

Iceland has historically been connected to Norway and Denmark but they've always done their own thing because they're so far away from everyone else. Icelandic is basically as close to Old Norse you can get in the modern world and nobody speaks that stuff in Scandinavia anymore. Ask Deceitful Penguin about elves and space MMORPG's, I guess.

If you wanted to refer to all five of these you'd call them the "Nordic countries". There's a "Nordic council" which has been made kinda irrelevant by the EU, but it was sort of a proto-political union kind of thing. The borders have been completely open among all the Nordic countries since 1952, including the right for all Nordic citizens to move to and work in another Nordic country.

The Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are not really part of any of these but the Swedes and the Finns sorta consider them to be within their sphere of influence or something.

This thread is mostly for Scandinavian politics, but if you want to drag the Finns or the Icelanders in here I don't really mind. I think half of the Finnish thread follows this one too anyway. Feel free to use native terms if you think it makes stuff clearer.

Randarkman posted:

Woke up early with a cold and thought I'd begin doing that write-up. Here's the parties currently in parliament and what I think I know about them. Feel free to point out typos and anything you feel is missing or just wrong.

PARTIES IN THE NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENT

H�yre (Conservative Party) - IN GOVERNMENT
Last election result: 26.8% (48 seats)
Number of mayors: 125/428
Identifier: (H)
Ideology: (neo)liberalism, conservatism (also social democracy, but don�t tell anyone)
Leader: Erna Solberg (prime minister)

Second oldest political party in Norway, originally the party of bureaucrats, monarchists and the traditional upper class, today they are pretty much a typical European conservative party with notable neo-liberal tendencies. Everyone expected them to do well in the last election, and in many ways, they did just that, but they could have done a lot better, chalk it up to a very uneven campaign leading up to the election. Their pet issues are lower taxes, increased centralization and education reform (they tend to favor a school with more tests and surveys and such). The typical H�yre-voter is a wealthy, educated person from one of the larger cities or their suburbs.

Fremskrittspartiet (The Progress Party) - IN GOVERNMENT
Last election result: 16.3% (29 seats)
Number of mayors: 11/428
Identifier: (FrP)
Ideology: liberalism, libertarianism, populism, conservatism, anti-immigration, etc
Leader: Siv Jensen (finance minister)

Founded as �Anders Lange�s Party for a strong reduction in taxes, duties and public intervention� by notable egg liqueur swilling, Viking sword-wielding journalist Anders Lange for exactly the purpose spelled out in its name. They have undergone some changes since then, perhaps most notably a name change, and have been most notable for their anti-immigration rethoric (particularly as regards Muslims) in the last two decades. Two elections back they were the second largest party in parliament but have lost a lot of votes to H�yre recently, possibly because their current leader Siv Jensen does not possess nearly as much firebrand outrageousness as former leader Carl I. Hagen or other party personalities such as Per Sandberg (build a wall in Greece to keep out immigrants) and Christian Tybring-Gjedde (rear end in a top hat). They�ve also been remarkably tame in their new minority coalition government with H�yre. Their typical voters are working class and middle class people who are attracted to the promise of reduced immigration and lower taxes and share their anti-elitist bent.

Arbeiderpartiet (The Labor Party)
Last election result: 30.8% (55 seats)
Number of mayors: 155/428
Identifier: (AP)
Ideology: Social democracy (also neo-liberalism)
Leader: Jonas Gahr St�re

Possibly the most influential political party in modern Norwegian history, having had majority governments various times in the post-war years allowed them to shape the country as they saw fit, what Norway is today is inarguably largely their doing. They aren�t quite what they used to be as they haven�t been able to win clear majorities in elections since the �90s and their two-term coalition partnership starting in 2005 with Sp and SV was the first time they ever led a coalition government. I�d say that their new leader Jonas Gahr St�re is the perfect example of what you get when you vote for AP; a competent, reliable, stern statesman with a pragmatist streak and a little bit of charm. In most ways however AP is a center-left party that like most other labor parties in Europe have adopted quite a bit of neo-liberalism in the last two decades, they also remain supporters of Norwegian NATO membership and are usually proponents of increased centralization. Their typical voters are basically anyone not likely to vote for any of the other parties, but immigrants (when they actually vote) are likely to vote for them as are many unionized workers (they have a very close relationship with Norwegian LO).

Venstre (Liberal Party)
Last election result: 5.2% (9 seats)
Number of mayors: 10/428
Identifier: (V)
Ideology: Social liberalism (with a certain libertarian streak), environmentalism
Leader: Trine Skei Grande

Norway�s oldest political party, starting out as the party favoring increased local autonomy and expansion of voting rights. They�ve undergone quite a few changes ever since then, fracturing several times to give birth to splinter parties and are today mostly notable for being almost completely irrelevant. They have been somewhat notable in the past years for their refusal to work with FrP on most issues, they went back on this after the last election, saying that their support of the new minority coalition government would allow the party to implement policies that they favor and such. Their voters are few, and are mostly in the large cities and I believe they are usually young and educated (or students).

Senterpartiet (Center Party)
Last election result: 5.5% (10 seats)
Number of mayors: 94/428
Identifier: (Sp)
Ideology: Centrism, agrarianism, EU-skepticism, nationalism (of the older romanticist bent)
Leader: Trine Skei Grande

Originally known as Bondepartiet (the Farmers� Party), representing the interests of Norwegian farmers, they might also have formed the core of what became Nasjonal Samling (Norway�s Nazi Party before and during WWII, but nevermind that). Their primary issues include keeping Norway as far away from the EU as possible (they mobilized a lot of support when the country voted on whether to join the union or not), keeping the countryside alive and populated, preserving Norwegian agriculture and local industry and killing every last wolf and bear remaining in the country. They haven�t done particularly well in recent elections but they have a staunch core of supporters located in the west and south of the country and are likely to remain kind-of-sorta-relevant, particularly in local politics. Also kind of notorious for being very mercenary in who they will work with to achieve their ends, though recently they had an internal debate about whether to stick with the Red-Greens or seek closer relations to the Blues. Their typical voter is someone employed in agriculture or living far out in the districts.

Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party)
Last election result: 5.6% (10 seats)
Number of mayors: 19/428
Identifier: (Krf)
Ideology: Christian democracy
Leader: Knut Arild Hareide

They�ve been a fixture of Norwegian politics since 1945, particularly due to their consistent support from voters in Norway�s Bible belt, though they aren�t even close to the force they almost were during the �90s under Kjell Magne Bondevik (who was prime minister). Think of them like the typical Christian democrats; they like the social welfare parts of social democracy well enough and are generally in favoring of extending such policies and offering increased aid to developing countries, they have also in the past supported policies that pay women to be stay-at-home moms (though I believe they�ve abandoned that), and are opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. They like to think of themselves as �non-socialist� rather than �bourgeois� (�borgerlig� is the standard moniker for the Norwegian right-wing). They support the current minority coalition government of H and FrP, initially gaining concessions in the form of introducing measures that would allow doctors to refrain from recommending abortion clinics and such (after this turned out to be very unpopular across the spectrum, they backpedalled). Their voters are Christians from the Bible belt, pure and simple.

Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialst Left Party)
Last election result: 4.1% (7 seats)
Number of mayors: 3/428
Identifier: (SV)
Ideology: Socialism, feminism, environmentalism, that whole thing
Leader: Audun Lysbakken

Formed as an offshoot of AP when many members and voters opposed their entry into and support of NATO. SV aims to represent a left-wing alternative to AP. They recently came out of their first ever turn at government and looked poised for a disastrous election, and things didn�t go that well, but they could certainly have been a lot worse. They might be able to pull themselves back up as they have always been the quintessential opposition party, but as for now they will have to deal with less seats in parliament than they�ve had in a long time and losing environmentalist votes to MDG. One of their core issues has been education where they are in direct opposition to H�yre�s vision of the ideal school being one of tests and surveys, they are also one of the most outspoken feminist parties in parliament. Typical voters are educated women, teachers and students.

Milj�partiet De Gr�nne (Green Party)
Last election result: 2.8% (1 seat)
Number of mayors: 0/428
Identifier: (MDG)
Ideology: Green
Leaders/Spokespersons: Hilde Opoku and Rasmus Hansson

The Green movement is kind of a new thing in Norwegian politics, environmentalism has mostly been split between SV and V and the party had no presence in parliament until last year�s election had them gain enough votes in Oslo to gain a single seat. They say that they do not see politics in terms of Red and Blue (that�s left and right), but �Green and Grey�, they want society to be locally self-sufficient and all that stuff, people expect them to co-operate with the Red-Greens in the future, as they already do in Trondheim�s city council. Other than that they are currently just the one guy in parliament, their voters I would guess are mostly the same people who would vote for SV or V but who consider environmentalism to be far more important than other issues those parties represent.

Old OP posted:

quote:
Om m�let med samh�lls�utvecklingen skulle vara att vi alla skulle arbeta maximalt voro vi sinnessjuka. M�let �r att frig�ra m�nniskan till att skapa maximalt. Dansa. M�la. Sjunga. Ja, vad ni vill. Frihet.

If the purpose of the progress of our society was that we all should work to the maximum extent possible, we would be insane. The purpose is to liberate people so they can be as creative as possible. Dance. Paint. Sing. Well, whatever you want. Freedom.

-- Ernst Wigforss (1881-1977), social democratic minister of finance 1925�1926 and 1932-1949

The current Swedish parliament is nearing the end of its usual four-year term, and on the second Sunday in September (that is, September 14th) a new parliament will be elected. As usual, elections to the municipal and county assemblies are held at the same time. This thread is for discussing and debating everything related to Swedish politics in general and the elections in general.

Brief introduction to the electoral system
The 349 members of the unicameral parliament (henceforth referred to by its Swedish name, the Riksdag) are all elected at once in a proportional system with 29 constituencies. If you're a maths nerd there are a few quirks to the system that might interest you. A member of parliament is called a riksdagsledamot.

Seats in the riksdag are assigned on a per-party basis, with a minimum of 4% of the votes nationally or 12% in a single constituency required to enter the riksdag. Voters may also (optionally) cast a vote for which candidate of their chosen party they would prefer; at least 5% of the votes in a single constituency are required for a candidate to get elected instead of the party's preferred candidate in this way. The municipal and county elections work in mostly the same way, but the votes are separate for each of the three elections. You can thus vote for a different party in each of them, if you wish.

Once seated, the riksdag elects a prime minister, who chooses his cabinet as he or she wishes. Immediately after the elections there's usually a fair amount of horse-trading among the seated parties - usually, no party gets a significant majority by themselves, so the bigger parties go looking for allies among the smaller ones, promising favors such as cabinet posts in exchange for support for their prime minister candidate. If the opposition is fractured and cannot unite behind a single candidate, your coalition won't need an absolute majority to form a government.

Voter participation tends to be fairly high by global standards. In the 2010 elections, the turnout was 84.63% of the elegible voters, which was the biggest participation since 1994. In the 70's and 80's, however, participation was frequently over 90%; the all time high was 91.76% in 1976.

Parties currently seated in the Riksdag
The sitting government (ruling since the 2006 elections) is a liberal-conservative minority coalition, consisting of Moderaterna, Centerpartiet, Folkpartiet and Kristdemokraterna, which refers to itself as Allians f�r Sverige ("Alliance for Sweden") or just Alliansen ("the Alliance"). It is headed by prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is the chairman of Moderaterna.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Parties in Sweden are traditionally divided into two groups; Borgare (literally: �the bourgeoisie�) and Socialists. This only really makes sense in a Swedish context, but whatever.

The parties that are currently seated in the riksdag are, in nominal order from the political right (traditionally the "blue" side) to the political left (the "red" side):

Moderaterna (the moderate party)
Last election result: 30.1% (107 seats)
Identifier: (m)
Ideology: Liberalism, conservatism.
Chairman: Fredrik Reinfeldt (prime minister)

Formally Moderata samlingspartiet. Formerly a traditional European conservative party that valued things like low taxes, family values and defense spending, they rebranded themselves as "the new worker's party" in 2005 and won the 2006 elections after forming a four-party coalition with their fellow liberal-conservative parties. Their rethoric is sometimes curiously social-democratic, but they are a solidly neoliberal/conservative party that has been hard at work financing their tax cuts with selling off public assets during the last eight years.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Right wing money-crowd. Current chairman and Prime Minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt, deposed the old guard, pushed the party to the political center and won a bunch of elections. Notable wingmen are Carl Bildt (foreign minister and possible cold war sleeper agent) and Anders Borg (minister of finance, used to have a pony tail but is now completely unremarkable). Top issues are unemployment, job creation and FYGM.

Wants: Money.
Voter base: Men, Money.

Folkpartiet liberalerna (the liberal people's party)
Last election result: 7.1% (24 seats)
Identifier: (fp)
Ideology: Liberalism, social liberalism.
Chairman: Jan Bj�rklund (minister for education and deputy prime minister)

Historically, these guys have always been liberals in the traditional sense (it's even in their party name). These days though they mainly define themselves by a few issues: most importantly, schools, nuclear power and NATO membership.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Spent 8 years trying to fix our schools. Actually made them worse, but that's okay, because now, this time, they're actually fixing them, honest. Plus, it was all really the Social Democrats fault anyway, if you think about it. Headed by former military officer Jan Bj�rklund, the party has drifted from vaguely almost-leftist-kinda-social-liberal to right wing liberal. Top issues are schools and education. Also schools. They really care about schools.

Wants: Liberal stuff, like the freedom to choose between 15 different kinds of toothpaste, or what sort of vulture capitalist private school you'd like to ~~sell your children to~~ enroll your children in.
Voter base: Educated men and women. Presumably.

Centerpartiet (the centre party)
Last election result: 6.6% (23 seats)
Identifier: (c)
Ideology: Liberalism, agrarianism, social liberalism, libertarianism, juche, conservatism, fascism, socialism with chinese characteristics, republicanism, anarchism, nationalism.
Chairwoman: Annie L��f (minister for enterprise)

Was known as Bondef�rbundet ("the farmer's league") until 1957 and used to be a staunch ally of the social democrats, but has constantly marched rightwards politically since the 70's. On paper they're some kind of green social-liberal party but their rethoric in recent years has been almost libertarian at times. They really don't cater to the rural population anymore, but rather seem to focus on the economic elite in the cities.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Formerly agrarian, the Centre Party is now a parody party that will be whatever the gently caress you want it to be, as long as you vote for them. In practice, this manifests as a core of mostly elderly agrarians looking lost and confused as chairman Annie L��f (whose southern dialect barely masks her mental retardation) and crew extolls the virtues of noted great thinker Ayn Rand, polygamy, flat tax or some other hilariously retarded thing. Top issues are whatever you want them to be, plus pigs or something.

Wants: To be put out of their misery.
Voter base: Rural Sweden and Inner City Stockholm.

Kristdemokraterna (the christian democrats)
Last election result: 5.6% (19 seats)
Identifier: (kd)
Ideology: Christian democracy.
Chairman: G�ran H�gglund (minister for health and social issues)

A fairly new (formed 1964, entered parliament 1985) conservative party with the usual Christian moral values. Mostly notable for being the only Swedish parliamental party that opposes gay marriage. Has a solid support from their very small voter base and while they are sort of insignificant they are also unlikely to get voted out of parliament.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
A party of profoundly limited appeal and an unworkable party platform that has somehow clung to the 4% cutoff for ages. Spends most of their time blocking humane legislation and/or making big bucks on substandard privatized health care and/or retirement homes. Chairman G�ran H�gglund is actually witty. Doesn't help him much though, seeing as he's stuck with a hopeless party. Top issues are improving the care of elderly and reducing regulations for private enterprises.

Wants: For god to smite the unbelievers.
Voter base: Practicing christians, Moderates Party members/voters.

Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden democrats)
Last election result: 5.7% (20 seats)
Identifier: (sd)
Chairman: Jimmie �kesson

The local racist party; was first seated in parliament as a result of the the 2010 elections. As far as European racist parties go they're not quite as bad as some of their cousins, but the rethoric is the usual hate for EU, muslims, beggars and foreigners in general as well as waxing nostalgic for the social democratic golden age. Weirdly enough they keep voting with the alliance in the Riksdag though.

Milj�partiet (the green party)
Last election result: 7.3% (25 seats)
Identifier: (mp)
Ideology: Green politics, social liberalism.
Spokespersons: Gustav Fridolin and �sa Romson

A pretty conventional centrist green party which first entered parliament in 1988. Obviously they're mainly concerned with environmental issues but on the side they have a rather liberal agenda, supporting private schools etc. They also have a reputation for harboring oddballs that believe in chemtrail conspiracies, anti-vaxxers etc.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
The bourgeois left, also called. This is what you vote for if you've got leftist sensibilities but also a lot of money/time/live in the big city/whatever. Since they are cool and hip and progressive they've actually got two chairmen, known as spokespersons, instead of just one. One is political prodigy Gustaf Fridolin, a 30-something dude who's something of a veteran despite his relative youth. He is generally viewed as competent, intelligent and charismatic. The other one is �sa Romson. She is a woman. Top issues are the environment, social justice... and some other things probably idk.

Wants: Peace on earth, sustainable environment, pyramid healing centers, drum circles, etc.
Voter base: Young educated women.

Socialdemokraterna (the social democrats)
Last election result: 30.7% (112 seats)
Identifier: (s)
Ideology: Social democracy, social liberalism.
Chairman: Stefan L�fven

The social democrats ruled Sweden mostly unopposed for decades during the latter half of the 20th century, with only brief interruptions. Occasionally they enjoyed an absolute parliamental majority on their own, but their last election result was their worst since 1920, which has triggered kind of an existential crisis. After switching chairmen three times in a few years their current strategy seems to be to say and do as little as possible in order to avoid rocking the boat. Nobody knows what they want these days.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Social democratic worker's party. Plagued by internecine conflict ever since former �strong man� G�ran Persson resigned in 2007. Former welder and trade unionist Stefan L�fven has taken a page out of the formers book and made efforts to consolidate his position and keeping the rest of his party in line top priorities. Currently has the left wing of the party under lock and key. Reciprocates by toeing the party line even when it goes against his own convictions. Pissed off at the Moderate Party for stealing their "boring centrist statesmen" schtick. Top issues are unemployment, job creation and equality.

Wants: Power.
Voter base: Unionized blue collar workers.

V�nsterpartiet (the left party)
Last election result: 5.6% (19 seats)
Identifier: (v)
Ideology: Socialism, Feminism.
Chairman: Jonas Sj�stedt

Formerly the communist party; rebranded just the "left" party after the fall of the USSR. They're currently not very radical in their rethoric and are focusing on a single issue: stopping profits in the private-owned parts of public social services.

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:
Token socialist party. According to popular wisdom the party is made up entirely of queers, foreigners, women and secret communists. This is probably true. Current chairman Jonas Sj�stedts plan, to, essentially, be Social Democrats now that the Social Democrats won't, is paying off, and the party is expected to make some modest gains. Top issues are stopping private profits in the welfare sector and halting further privatizations.

Wants: Mandatory gay marriage and the complete destruction of Swedish society.
Voter base: Social Democrats.

Parties of note outside the parliament

Feministiskt initiativ (the feminist initiative)
Last election result: 5.49% in the European Parliament elections of 2014
Identifier: (fi)
Chairwoman: Gudrun Schyman
A new-ish party focused on feminist issues, peace efforts and social justice in general. They won a major victory in the EU parliament elections this spring and got a seat there, but whether they'll get into the Swedish parliament or not is an open question. Their polling results aren't great.

Piratpartiet (the pirate party)
Last election result: 2.23% in the European Parliament elections of 2014
Identifier: (pp)
The original pirate party. Entered the European parliament in the wake of the The Pirate Bay raid and subsequent court case, and then promptly lost their seat in the next election since nobody cared anymore. Their chances of winning a seat in the national parliament are slim to none.

Svenskarnas Parti (party for the Swedes)
Last election result: N/A
Identifier: SvP
Actual honest-to-god nazis. They won't get any national parliament seats but might grab a few municipal seats in a few minor towns. Not really significant but they've been the subject of much political analysis.

Kalle Anka-partiet (the Donald Duck party)
Last election result: they usually get a few hundred votes, sometimes upwards of a thousand
Political platform: free liquor and wider sidewalks
Since blank votes aren't counted separately anymore, you can't vote blank to protest against the system, so people tend to vote for parties like this one instead.

Hot issues
- immigration policy: (sd) keeps insisting mass immigration will end us as a nation, (fi) wants free immigration, everyone else is kinda waffling about it
- military spending: the Baltic region hasn't been this full of Russian military activity since the cold war and the recent forest fires have shown some alarming holes in the civil defense
- the schools; should the national government take back control from the municipalities?
- the reduced VAT for restaurants and other tax breaks
- environmental issues
- social justice and women's rights
- weapons manufacturing: we have this indigenous fighter jet (among other things) for historical reasons, but exporting weapons isn't a thing the political left likes
- infrastructure: car traffic is on the decline but we keep building horrifically expensive highways, and making the trains run on time again after the latest round of privatizations seems like a Herculean task

Currently, the polls are looking like the right-wing alliance will lose its government position and the social democrats will come back into power, albeit heavily dependent on the green party and the left party.

This OP is obviously heavily colored by my own opinions, but I'm not picky, so if you want to contribute a party description or something about the political situation

Also if you have any questions

actually,

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Feb 27, 2015

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 21:58

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 18:38

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Cardiac posted:

The costs of immigration are getting high enough that no party will be able to finance any major reforms and we are among the worst countries in EU when it comes to integration.

Do you have any source for these amazingly high costs of immigration that you keep claiming are such a problem? Because I'm pretty sure it's a myth. Financing a Swedish-born kid's child support, education, healthcare, etc etc until they start paying taxes is almost certainly more expensive than just teaching some Syrian Swedish and letting him run a pizza place, even if he fiddles with his tax reports.

Of course, I agree that the integration is a complete failure and so is the SFI program (Svenska f�r invandrare, teaching Swedish to immigrants) so there are definitely reasons to ramp down on immigration until we've fixed these problems, but I don't think "it costs us tax money" is one of them.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 14:54

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Cardiac posted:

http://www.svd.se/opinion/ledarsidan/migrationsverket-behover-48-miljarder-till_3820506.svd
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=5934772&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
And as I am sure you are aware of, they have already this year added 3 billion to support Migrationsverket.

You know that a majority of those costs will be constant regardless of how many people we actually let in, right? They're not caused by paying for those mythical welfare queens (because once they're in, they're not Migrationsverket's business anymore), they're mostly for taking care of the arrivals while handling their due process and telling them that sorry, nope, you're gonna have to go back. The costs are more associated with how messy the wars in the middle east are at the moment than anything else.

Cardiac posted:

Employment among foreignborn is 58%, Swedishborn 82%. Employment needs to be 72% to not be a burden for society.
After 7 years 50% of the immigrants have a job.

Employment rates among foreign-born have been on the rise for the last ten years though, and they're rising faster than the employment rates among the native population. This is also a problem we still have to solve regardless of how many or how few people we let in.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Aug 14, 2014

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 15:52

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Lawman 0 posted:

That an odd thing for a libertarian party to demand.

Swedish libertarians are also incredibly upset about "municipal oppression" (read: zoning regulations), being prohibited from killing some massively endangered wolves (~200 left in the entire country) when they kill a sheep, and feminists pointing out that white men just might be a bit privileged. I base these observations on reading http://cornucopia.cornubot.se/ which is pretty consistently hilarious.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Aug 14, 2014

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 15:55

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Also in today's news, the prodigal daughter of social democracy has returned: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=5937921
After spending so many years playing hard-to-get in Brussels I kinda wonder what's she's up to now.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 16:37

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Stefu posted:

Oh Jesus, is the wolf thing an issue in Sweden too? WORST ISSUE IN NORDIC POLITICS

It sure is! It's one of the major reasons as to why people in rural areas who would otherwise seem to be concerned about environmental issues really hate the greens. You get the weirdest arguments about it too; the aforementioned libertarian blog argued that the wolf isn't endangered on a global level so obviously you should be allowed to shoot them here. Just keep them out of my backyard!

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 17:15

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Cardiac posted:

She was minister for 4 years in total and got sacked/kicked out by G�ran Persson because she started to become popular. She really haven't made much of an impression on Swedish politics. But hey, I guess she will be foreign minister, since Eliasson is occupied in UN. Regardless, S desperatly needs people used to governing, 8 years away from power have drained the party of many old ministers.

Every time (s) has been looking for a new chairman during the last few years of musical chairs, there's been a significant movement of people within the party that have been petitioning Wallstr�m to please return from Brussels and save the party like some kind of Messiah, but she's always said no. Her return now is kinda significant for that reason alone.

Cardiac posted:

Meanwhile they are carefully avoiding issues like islamic extremism (that seems to be loosening up thankfully), mutilation and forced marriages of young women and analfabetism, which are legit issues that we need to handle and discuss in order to integrate immigrants into Swedish society.

Who's avoiding these issues, exactly? Ever since the murder of Fadime Sahindal back in 2002 there's been a massive political unity regarding these things. The rhetoric might be more careful now since you don't want to get called a racist (for good reasons) but I don't really see anyone trying to sweep these issues under the rug. In fact it seems to be the other way around, what with that purported scandal in Link�ping (?) with a whole school class of mutilated girls a few months ago, which turned out to be a red herring.

Cardiac posted:

As for the costs after processing, that becames a responsibility of the municipalities, where the state only covers the costs for the first 2 years. After that, the municipalities takes over. Currently it takes 7 years for 50% of the immigrants to get a job. Who is paying for that if not the municipalities?

Well yeah, that's what I'm saying. Those costs aren't related to these 48 billion at all. Also, that 50% after 7 years number doesn't really say a lot since it's heavily dependent on the economic situation in the country as a whole and how many people get a job before that varies a lot. On that blog you linked for example there's this table:

Which shows that, for example, out of the people who arrived in 2006, 42% had a job after 5 years, while among the people who arrived in 2007 only 33% had a job after 5 years.

I maintain though that you seem to want to treat the symptoms rather than the cause of the disease. The problem isn't that we have too many immigrants draining tax money, the problem is that we are unable to give a large number of these people a reasonable way to enter our society, and that's a problem we need to solve regardless of how many people we let in.

Cardiac posted:

The question is not whether we should have immigration, which of course we should have, but how many?
Migrationsverkets own report says that the main flows of immigration comes from Syria, Eritreia and Somalia, where they first go to Libya, then get on smuggling boats across the Mediterranean and then finally ending up in Sweden, where the main point for entry is �resundsbron. Tell me, when do you stop being a refuge and start being a economic immigrant?

That's a really loving weird way to look at it, dude. You don't stop being a refugee just because you want to get somewhere that won't send you back to die in the place you tried to escape from in the first place.

Cardiac posted:

If you call 58% from 57% a rise?

I concede the point, I was looking at older statistics (up to 2008) where the downturn during the last few years wasn't included.

Cardiac posted:

A legitimate concern for people living in areas with wolves is whether you feel safe letting your children play in the garden. A number of family dogs as well as other livestock have been killed by wolves.
Wolves are predators and there is a reason why wolves in zoos are heavily locked in. As example, the wolves in Sk�nes Djurpark got loose in the park and killed some animals, and they ended up shooting all of them.

That "legitimate concern" is kinda like being concerned for your kids being struck by lightning if you let them out to play. The only known wolf attack on humans in Sweden since the 1820's was when that one zookeper got killed in 2012, and that's not exactly a case that supports being concerned about wolves in the wild. As for dogs, getting accidentally shot by a hunter is a more common cause of death than getting killed by a wolf. If you're gonna be scared of wild animals, it'd be a lot more rational to be afraid of bears for a number of reasons, but you don't really see people complaining about bears at all. It might also be worth pointing out that Sweden is actually rabies free, which is nice because being infected by rabies is by far the most common cause for wolves to be aggressive against humans.

I can understand livestock (particularly sheep) owners being concerned for purely economical reasons since wolves do kill sheep fairly regularly, but that's a problem that's better solved with things like insurance or maybe a state compensation than by hunting a naturally occurring species to extinction.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Aug 15, 2014

# ¿ Aug 15, 2014 17:56

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nagel posted:

I also have my own theory about a lot of SD voters are not racists, but they are globalization victims, either real, perceived by themselves, others or something in between. Are not a lot of SD voters old "gr�sossar" that used to work in the industry, and now they do not. They make the connection that 20-30 years ago, life was good, and there were very few immigrants, now life is bad, and there are a lot of immigrants. Therefore immigrants=bad.

I agree with this analysis, mostly. I have one thing to add though:

My main problem with Swedish public debate today is that everyone (except possibly some fringe elements in (v) and (mp)) is so completely caught up in the myth of the golden age of the welfare state. The idea goes that as long as our industry is productive and competitive and we have high employment, we can get our magical kingdom of rainbows and unicorns back, so we can't afford immigrants (because they cost money, you see) and things like environmental concerns (because China doesn't care about the environment, so we can't afford to either, in the name of competitiveness on the global market).

(s) and (m) and (sd) are all adherents of this basic line of thinking, and you see it in their rhetoric. Everything's about creating jobs, no matter if it's flipping burgers or telemarketing, and making things easier for small business owners since those are supposed to drive the economy or something. The differences are just in who they blame for things not working out; (m) blames taxes and socialists, (sd) blames immigrants and the EU, and (s) blames everyone else for ruining what they think they once built. This has gone on for so long that the original goals of the welfare state have kinda been forgotten and now the entire thing is just some kind of cargo cult.

In my opinion this is a completely rear end-backwards way of formulating public policy. I don't think infinite economic growth is possible, I don't believe that "producing" telemarketing is good for society in any way, I think formulating every problem in economical terms is a terrible idea and I think we have some rather pressing environmental concerns to take care of if we want our society to survive the next few decades. But of course, nobody listens to me, they just keep chasing unicorns and think that if we just manage to get more people working/kick out the immigrants/finance some huge infrastructure projects to keep people busy we can have a new golden age and then we can start thinking about the environment and other secondary concerns.

(v) and (mp) at least used to talk a little bit about the limits of economic growth a few years back, but these days they seem to have toned that down because apparently that's not what the voters want to hear. I'll probably vote (v) anyway but I dunno what good it'll make. I know Sj�stedt claims he'll play hardball with (s), but I really dunno how far you can trust that. L�fven is most definitely a "betongsosse" of the old school who believes that economic growth will solve everything.

edit: on a completely different topic, look at this gentleman:

look at him
guess which party he represents?
(c), of course: http://www.svt.se/nyheter/val2014/guide/kandidat/56694-patrik_andersson
"favorite sport: segway polo"

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Aug 15, 2014

# ¿ Aug 15, 2014 18:44

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In practice though we're closer to NATO than ever. We're basically as close as you can get to being a member (see for example this blog post) without actually getting the benefits. It's pretty dumb. I like the idea of being neutral but we haven't been so in practice since before WW2, and if we're going to be an obvious NATO member in all but name it's probably better to just join and get it over with.

In other news I suspect there's a distinct possibility we might be looking at an alliansen+SD government. I'm scared.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 19:13

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This (from 1928) is somehow eerily similar to the "say goodbye to RUT" election posters (m) has up right now.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 21:40

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This woman's been in the news for the exact same reason several times before. It's a wonder (mp) doesn't kick her out. Reminds me of the almost literal tinfoil hats in Mora who almost got the local cell phone network turned off a few years ago.

Also, Cardiac, congratulations on your new avatar. Someone who followed the Scandinavia thread in LF seems to like you; nils was kind of a local celebrity.

Oh, and I voted today. This thing with voting stations in all kinds of public places really sorta owns, you can just walk in there when you happen to be passing by and take five minutes to get it done.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Aug 31, 2014

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 18:08

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Cardiac posted:

I don't usually hang out in D&D so what is the ~legacy of nils~?
It sounds kinda interesting.

Back when the Laissez's Faire subforum (a D&D shitposting subforum, was dominated by FULL COMMUNISM NOW people) was still active there was a Scandinavian politics/general bullshitting thread in there. It was a pretty awesome place. Sometimes you had Norwegians with black-and-white philosopher photo avatars arguing about highway taxes for three pages in a row, sometimes you had people talking about video games and sometimes you had Kawa Zolfagary posting videos of himself doing things. One of the regulars in that thread, and much maligned by almost every other poster, was a poster called nils who was this amazing almost Toblerone Triangular-level libertarian nutjob, except I don't think he was trolling. There was much speculation about who he actually was and people tended to accuse other posters of being nils in disguise, etc.

Someone who remembers the old LF threads better than I do feel free to expand on this.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Sep 1, 2014

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 09:19

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It's a lot more expensive than that, at least in the inner cities. Try http://www.maklarstatistik.se/ - in Stockholm city, the average price was 69k SEK per square meter. Small apartments (one or two rooms) also tend to be more expensive than the average since apparently everyone is single these days.

The problem, as far as I understand it, isn't really the housing prices though, but rather the degree to which the households are in debt. Interest rates have been very low for a long time now and that makes people mortgage for more than they can perhaps afford, in the hopes that constantly rising prices will solve that problem for them. If prices start to fall and interest rates start going up, a lot of people might be in some severe economical trouble.

Den som �r f�rsatt i skuld �r icke fri, as Ernst Wigforss said (frequently misattributed to G�ran Persson since he wrote a book with the same name)

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Sep 1, 2014

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 14:12

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Rappaport posted:

Sorry for OT/stupid question, but is that apartment queue thing for city-owned flats only, or private renters too? If city-flats only, do private renters exist in e.g. Lund? I was semi-seriously considering moving to Sweden after I graduate, but if I have to live under a bridge I don't think I want to anymore

Usually the way it works is that both private and public landlords are managed in the same municipal queue system, but there are entirely private landlords with their own systems too, usually you just have to pay out your rear end for those. In smaller cities costs of living are cheaper, but at least in Stockholm ~supply and demand~ has driven up prices hilariously high. You can definitely rent an apartment in the inner city... if you are prepared to pay a loving shitton of money. My former boss rents via these dudes; they're legit and it's surprisingly easy to get an apartment, but yeah, prepare to spend 10k SEK or so a month.

If you're prepared to live in the countryside though, you can probably buy yourself a decent house with some forest included for maybe a quarter of the cost of a flat in a big city, or even cheaper if it's up north or in the midwest.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Sep 1, 2014

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 19:10

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Hevo posted:

Care post mode: ON

We do, in fact, have huge integration issues, and I'm certainly not denying that (see earlier discussion in this thread). However, voting for SD isn't going to solve those problems. If you just look slightly below that shiny surface of "we're totally not racist and we kick out all the racists" Jimmie �kesson is constantly polishing, all you find in the party leadership is a bunch of people basically saying that muslims aren't real people anyway. The iron bar incident should kinda have clued you in, if nothing else did.

I'm not saying every SD voter or every SD member is racist, and a lot of them probably genuinely believe what you seem to believe, that SD is the only party who dares to discuss the problems with our integration policy. However, I believe without a shadow of doubt that basically the entire SD leadership is racist as gently caress. It's really rather obvious, just listen to their rhetoric and look at what kind of organizations they came from.

Oh, and the entire party leadership seems to be loving retarded, too.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 20:13

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Hevo posted:

For the record I should have made it clear that I in near unto no way sympathize with SD (due to there being questions other than immigration), or regard it highly. It is simply the terms racism and racist that has been gnawing at the back of my mind for quite some time, and the fact that they may be used wrongly. Islamophobic/douchebaggy may be the better word to use for those discriminating Muslims, seeing as though Muslims in no way could be branded a race.

Well, if you insist on arguing semantics and literal dictionary definitions I guess you couldn't call discrimination on the basis of religion or culture "racism" since it does not - as you have discovered - involve race, but to me it's really all the same poo poo and I'm not going to apologize for technical misuse of the term.

Hevo posted:

As I said, I am curious: What are other parties' views on immigration, how to improve it, or if they're content with how it is? As far as I know SD are the only ones who suggests some form of change.

Well, here's what the party I voted for thinks about it: http://www.vansterpartiet.se/politik/integration
tl;dr they want to solve a lot of the problems by general equality policies, and otherwise improve teaching of Swedish and making foreign education easier to translate into Swedish education.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 21:17

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http://www.di.se/artiklar/2014/9/4/kontroversiell-miljopartist-avgar/

guys, it's the banking conspiracy too

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 14:03

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Neeksy posted:

Has there been any good polling data most recently? I never know who to check.

This thing uses weighted bayesian averages of a bunch of different polls and historical data and is pretty cool, at least from a nerd perspective.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Sep 11, 2014

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 00:17

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I've never understood why I'm supposed to believe anything Merit Wager says. There's absolutely no way to confirm her anonymous sources. The things they say are certainly spectacular enough to get mainstream media interested if they were true and verifiable, and yet they only choose to speak via this woman's blog? I guess it makes total sense if you believe in political correctness conspiracies?

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Sep 12, 2014

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 16:06

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Captain Scandinaiva posted:

Meanwhile, I found a pamphlet on my bike today. Islam is the light apparently. I thought about checking how many votes they got last election, but they don't think people should vote since democracy was created by people and not god so welp.

A few hundred members, according to SR: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=3993&artikel=5963116

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 21:48

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My PIN is 4826 posted:

I kind of regret not voting fi now. I don't really agree with a lot of what they say, but they'll be an excellent trolling of SDers

You can still change your mind, if you vote on election day that overrides any vote you may have cast earlier.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2014 13:31

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http://tinkzorg.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/onda-andar/
http://tinkzorg.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/onda-andar-del-2/

Re: political violence. I recommend reading it all. Yes, it's sorta long, deal with it.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 22:15

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We live in the country where a cabinet member* once declared that "politics, that is to want something". In today's public debate, however, politics seems to be about calculating (in great detail, but with different methods) that we cannot actually afford to want something. That needs to stop. Politics is about changing society for the better, not whining about how we can't change anything because of <reasons>. The debate should be about what we want to change and why, not bickering about by how many crowns we cannot afford this or that change. If you formulate every problem in terms of what its solution would cost, you'll soon end up in absurdities like how we can't afford sick people and such things.

* Olof Palme, who was "konsultativt statsr�d i statsberedningen" at the time (1964).

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 23:48

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In California (which is about the same geographical size as Sweden, but with about four times the population), 27% of the population is foreign-born (Sweden, 2013: ~16%). During the 90's there was a net foreign immigration of about 250-300k people per year while the state had a population of about 30 million. Yes, please keep telling us that accepting a few thousand Syrians and Somalians in a year is completely impossible and will end us as a nation.

I mean, it's obvious that with the current way we treat these people there's no wonder we have social issues involving them, but hurfing a durf about "nomadic herdsmen" (lol as if they could afford to get themselves here) and "eastern europeans with mischief in mind" (do you propose extrajudicial screening in order to establish that they do, in fact, have mischief in mind?) ruining our society just makes you seem loving retarded. Stop making GBS threads up the thread with myths and absurd arguments in the vein of the old Hassan classic "tio tusen tyska b�gar" (it would be funny, except you're not ironic).

Ligur posted:

I am under the impression Swedish democracy is so highly developed and tolerant, that admitting SD sympathies or membership might make you lose a job opportunity, or get you fired, or block you from working state positions so people tend to keep a lid on it. But I might be wrong.

Of course you are, since all of those cases are obviously illegal discrimination. Please stop spreading retarded reverse racism myths. Certain worker's unions block SD members from holding elected positions though, but that's an entirely different case.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Sep 15, 2014

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 16:09

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Baudolino posted:

It will work out in the end, but we have to accept that everything about our culture and the we do things have to change.

On a personal/household level, I don't think that's true. I really dislike the nationalist ideal that says that everyone who lives in a certain place has to absorb certain cultural values and have a certain mindset in order to fit in. Why can't we just not be assholes and let everyone follow their own traditions? A true multicultural society certainly needs to do so to work.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 16:43

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Ligur posted:

Huhuhu. Huhuhuhuhu. Your immigration services just told us you'll probably be accepting 100 000. Asylum seekers. In 2014. Alone. Not counting all the other immigrants AFAIK. It doesn't even matter where they come from, as long as you have to place them in hastily set up centers to deal with the volume and will probably have nothing reasonable for them to do in who knows how many years: ur doing it wrong.

I don't think you understand what the terms "asylum seeker" and "net immigration" mean. There might be 100k applications for asylum in 2014, that is true. It's an estimate based on the numbers so far. Out of those, ~15% are going to result in the applicant being sent to another EU country because that's where they arrived first, 15-20% are going to be rejected and sent back to where they came from, and 8-10% retract their application or otherwise aren't approved. The remaining ~50-60% can stay temporarily. But yes, keep throwing around BIG SCARY NUMBERS.

As for why we should let them stay: it's our loving moral responsibility as human beings to help our neighbors, you shitheel. We obviously can't help everyone, but neither is it right to help a token few and stare at the ceiling claiming it's Somebody Else's Problem and certainly these brown people are better suited to help several million other brown people because being brown makes it so much easier or something.

It doesn't even cost us that much as a society, and if we actually implemented sane integration policies it would cost us a lot less than it does today. I'd be okay with granting fewer people asylum for a limited time while we sort that poo poo out. You can keep bringing up unsourced myths about destroyed documentation and nomadic shepherds and "opposite cultures" all you want in your efforts to prove that immigrants are Bad People that are Bad For Society, but that doesn't make it true. I really don't see what the problem with people moving to a place as sparsely populated as Sweden is.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 17:24

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Phlegmish posted:

It's one of the things I find interesting about parties like the Feminist Initiative; they are strongly feminist while simultaneously promoting open borders and (presumably) 'multiculturalism'. The obvious problem with this is that their conception of feminism is ideologically rooted in Western culture and Western philosophy in the way it has developed over the past centuries. The way that even non-feminist Westerners view the role of women in society is very specifically tied to our culture. There is a fundamental contradiction between wanting to impose this view on society, which is ostensibly what FI wants to do, and declaring that everyone should be allowed to maintain their traditions as they see fit. Simply by legislating and applying the law without distinction, European governments are already imposing a fairly strict framework, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Well, yes, this is the fundamental issue in any democracy: how much should society decide and how much is up to the individual? Individualistic vs totalitarian, basically. FI is very authoritative in some issues but very individualistic in others. If you want a party that is entirely contradiction-free in this regard you're basically left with libertarians (society decides nothing) and North Korean-style communism (society decides everything). Everyone else is going to be somewhere in the middle.

Also, I'm well aware of the human tendency to always group people into "us and them". I really don't see the national state "us" being beneficial, though. If there's anything we can learn from the 20th century, it's that there are few things more dangerous than the nationalistic ideals taken to their extremes.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 18:52

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnk7huxeIbo

This is basically my political ideology in a nutshell. I want a society that forces you to not be an rear end in a top hat. That's pretty much it. Laugh at my naivety all you want.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 16, 2014

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 15:57

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SplitSoul posted:

I would personally have had a tough time picking between Onanists Against NATO and Satanic Initiative.

"King Carl Gustaf's faithful testicle" is obviously the correct choice for Sweden, with the times. What's the point of having a king (and a king's testicles) if he (they) doesn't get to rule? :colbert:

Also there sure are a lot of incredibly awful opinions coming out of the woodwork here. Some of you are skating awfully close to just declaring the Scandinavian Race the most superior of all (or, well, I guess it's called "culture" these days since race isn't hip anymore?). I mean, there's stopping an inch short of Godwin for a cheap troll, but well, this is getting pretty ridiculous.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 02:12

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Rnr posted:

In your opinion, did women's rights, democracy, low corruption, etc, spring from skin color? I sounds like that's what you're saying... Or did you just want to paint me as racist in a very clumsy fashion? Guess we can go on and call each other's opinions trolls or ridiculous and just win the argument.
But let's imagine we're adults.

Assuming that a group of people are inferior in some way (such as assuming that they hold "inferior opinions" and are unable to change them since they are from an "inferior culture") based on their geographical or cultural origin is basically the textbook definition of being a loving racist. Hope this helps you being an adult, I guess?

e: oh I forgot it's technically not about race which makes it a totally reasonable position to hold, right?

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 10:43

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Rnr posted:

Holy smokes, I was warned elsewhere on SA I guess, but still, it's quite something to behold. I'll leave you to your detached from reality opinions and the host of guys trolling you for shits and giggles. No point in trying to have a rational argument. Will be interesting to follow Sweden's development in this area and see who had the correct predictions.

Toodles.

Hey, if you want to be all rational and realist and poo poo you shouldn't be surprised if someone decides to call a spade a spade.

But feel free to keep your persecution complex going, I guess? We're all part of the leftwing media conspiracy that's keeping the truth hidden, of course. Except Cardiac, he's fighting the good fight.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 11:19

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Zudgemud posted:

Well, there are varying levels of cultural compatibility with the accepted social contract, governance and legal system, to deny this is pretty naive and will only make efforts for integration harder.

I don't deny that such differences exist. The racist part is claiming that people from certain cultures inherently have certain traits and opinions, and that living in segregated areas is their own fault.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 11:55

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Ligur posted:

I don't even, honestly, know who or what a stoddar is?! I was making fun of the fact if someone says "immigration should be limited to some extent" the Swede debater either says nothing, or calls the other person a racist.

We call you a racist when you say loving racist things and make up anecdotes about Somali goat herders and present them as serious arguments. We've been constantly talking about actual issues with our current immigration policy (and there is a broad consensus here that such problems exist and need to be debated) in this thread but I guess as long as you're not saying racist poo poo it doesn't count as debating immigration?

The entire argument about ~incompatible cultures~ is loving bullshit too. Syria, Iraq, Iran and a lot of other middle eastern countries we get a lot of refugees from are (or have been, in living memory) relatively modern industrialized countries with regular courts of law, and immigrants on average are not significantly less educated than the indigenous population here (we get a relatively low number of poor people because they simply can't afford to get here). The problem is getting that Syrian doctor specialized on hereditary diseases a job that isn't a complete waste of human capital, it's not educating these imagined Somali sharia-following goat herders on HBTQ rights. God knows we have enough problems with that in the indigenous population.

If you want to keep bringing up retarded anecdotes I can counter with a few retarded anecdotes of my own, such as the tweed-wearing secular Iranian management consultant we have at work (came here with his family as a refugee), or the deeply muslim faithful Bangladeshi Sharepoint developer I met when he was standing around looking awkward at a corporate conference after-party with free beer - he didn't drink, of course - (came here five years ago while our universities were still free for all them immigrants to leech off of, hurr durr), or the chill dude who loves extremely hard Japanese shmups who came here from Marocko via France and speaks four languages fluently. Somali goat herders, indeed.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 19:17

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Ligur posted:

I accept defeat; somalis herd actually mostly camels, not goats. But don't bullshit yourself about actually discussing your current immigration policy and numbers, you yourself said "a few thousand" when it's closer to "one hundred... thousand", and even if you pretend not, most get a pass.

"Most" being the ~55-60% number getting a temporary permit I mentioned? You're free to get your statistics right at the same source where I got them: http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik.html
I'm also not the only poster in this thread.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Sep 17, 2014

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 20:59

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
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Cardiac posted:

Also LOL at Sweden having a free market economy.

hello it's 2014 not 1974

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 14:41

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
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Ligur posted:

Heja heja, only 50% are "temporary". You think they will ever get a "get out of here, go back home" stamp? How do you send anyone away? Which was what we people who don't really believe in the system were talking about. And even if only 30% or 50% of the seekers were somehow via magic sent away on a magic carpet and actually left (which will not happen), 30k or 50k is a fuckton. And their family members who were not along will follow the year or the second after via family re-unification. Like, 10 x more then your neighbours. It's not a few thousand here and there like you said and which you can laugh about and then ignore.

I don't really know how to argue against this because you just keep making poo poo up. People who don't get a permanent residence permit are deported when their temporary one expires. They get taken care of by the police and are sent back to their country of origin. I guess an airplane with a state-paid ticket is a "magic carpet" to you? It would be cool if you could actually source your claims instead of making sweeping statements about how reality actually works according to Ligur. And no, your personal anecdotes don't count.

30k refugees really isn't anything special either, we've hit that number in a year several times since the 80's, the peak being 45k in 1994. Have some hard numbers: http://www.migrationsverket.se/download/18.5e83388f141c129ba6313943/1400506277636/tab1.pdf

I would also like to reiterate that regardless how much you keep screaming about all these large numbers of scary brown people, the raw number of people we let in isn't the problem. Our failed integration policy is the problem, and it is a problem we have to solve regardless of whether we let in five thousand people or fifty thousand.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Sep 18, 2014

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 15:58

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Baudolino posted:

But back to the topic of swedish politics. NATO Membership: Will the next goverment want to figth for it or is that a dead duck?

With MP in the cabinet there's no possibility we'll pursue a membership openly, but I think it's likely we'll keep pretending "we're totally nonaligned, honest!" while having the host nation support agreement in place and sending Gripens on NATO exercises and the like.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 17:09

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

nagel posted:

If it's S and MP no way in hell is NATO membership on the agenda. Isn't FP the only party that's pro, with M and KD not really sure?

FP is the only open supporter, the rest of the alliance says very little but has made us even more of an unofficial member than we already were. Wasn't the host nation support agreement signed just the other week?

S is pro-NATO in practice too, or at least pro "pretend to be nonaligned because it sounds good to the left while actually having extensive cooperation in secret".

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Sep 18, 2014

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 17:15

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
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http://www.svt.se/nyheter/sverige/expressen-ryskt-stridsflyg-karnkte-svenskt-luftrum

The Russians have been at it again, and unusually it's in the news very soon after the fact this time. In Finland I hear the air force makes a press release regarding airspace violations more or less immediately every time it happens, why can't we do that?

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 23:25

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 18:38

TheFluff: Dec 13, 2006; FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

In other news today (well, yesterday), Lars Beckman is out of the Riksdag: http://larsbeckman.blogspot.se/2014/09/tack-for-att-jag-har-fatt-representera.html
RIP @beckmansasikter, 2010-2014. You were the craziest of the twitter crazies. Sometimes you were almost on a @conspiracyduck level, except not a joke (I think?). You will be missed.

TheFluff fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Sep 19, 2014

# ¿ Sep 19, 2014 11:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Scandinavian politics thread: All stereotypes welcome

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