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While Sweden Slept
New York Sun ^ | December 8, 2006 | By BRUCE BAWER

Posted on 12/08/2006 8:16:05 AM PST by Eurotwit

The approach of the New Year and departure of the old inevitably brings a flurry of "year's best" lists. This even applies to nations, which some organizations make it their business annually to rank in order of wealth, quality of life, and what-have-you. Surprisingly often, the Nordic countries come out on top. This placement is usually a reflection less of objective reality, however, than of the list-makers' enthusiasm for the Nordic welfare-state model. The criteria, in other words, are formulated in such a way that the Nordic countries will inevitably end up on top. Hence Norway, for example, is repeatedly named by the United Nations as the world's richest country — forget that prices and taxes are so high that even business executives lunch on dry sandwiches brought from home in aluminum foil. Now it's Sweden's turn.

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bawer; brucebawer; euorweenies; eurotwit; eurotwits; euroweenies; sweden
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To: Eurotwit

Gee ... in the '60s, Sweden was only famous for for its world-leading suicide rate - attributed to the socialist cradle-to-grave welfare depression.


21 posted on 12/08/2006 9:36:05 AM PST by bimbo
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To: Eurotwit

Gee ... in the '60s, Sweden was only famous for for its world-leading suicide rate - attributed to the socialist cradle-to-grave welfare depression.


22 posted on 12/08/2006 9:36:14 AM PST by bimbo
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To: Eurotwit

Wikipedia is the MTV of research.


23 posted on 12/08/2006 9:38:39 AM PST by AD from SpringBay (We have the government we allow and deserve.)
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To: Eurotwit

Can someone with the proper knowledge fact check this article? I think many of the assertions may be incorrect


24 posted on 12/08/2006 9:40:06 AM PST by NMR Guy
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To: NYorkerInHouston

Well he's gay, so he's going to be mad at anyone who tells him that humping guys isn't good.

However, that doesn't mean he is wrong on what is going on Sweden and with Islam in Europe. We all would be better off if more gays and feminists shared his views. One of the "big suprises" to me since 9/11 is the fact that gays and feminists have not come out against fundamentalist Islam which stone gays and take all rights away from women. One would think those groups would be Islam's biggest opponents, but they are not. If fact, it's nearly the opposite.

His homosexuality is between him and God (until he starts trying to teach children about it or shoving it in our faces), but jihadist with a bomb affects us all in an explosive way.


25 posted on 12/08/2006 9:55:28 AM PST by Barney Gumble (A liberal is someone too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel - Robert Frost)
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To: NMR Guy; ScaniaBoy; WesternCulture
Can someone with the proper knowledge fact check this article? I think many of the assertions may be incorrect

I pinged two Swedes to it. Hopefully, they can help correct any faults.

I particularly wonder about the voting procedure. I have heard before that people can see what party or parties who intend to vote for, but I see that the one comment on the NY Sun webpage denies this...

Cheers.

26 posted on 12/08/2006 9:59:31 AM PST by Eurotwit (WI - CSC)
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To: 1234; A knight without armor; american colleen; AndyPH; anguish; AzSteven; Bartholomew Roberts; ...

Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
27 posted on 12/08/2006 10:20:38 AM PST by rmlew (Having slit their throats may the conservatives who voted for Casey choke slowly on their blood.)
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To: kabar
He wrote something that questioned multiculturalism, so the left has been wringing their hands about what to do with him.
28 posted on 12/08/2006 10:46:26 AM PST by GoLightly
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To: Barney Gumble

He's a liberal that's essentially been mugged.


29 posted on 12/08/2006 10:48:56 AM PST by GoLightly
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To: Eurotwit
Hi,

On the crime rate I am pretty certain you are right - it is not as high as stated in the article - although it is certainly much higher than the reported crime rate. This is due to the fact that such a small fraction of crimes are solved that a lot of people don't even bother to inform the police if they have been exposed to petty crimes.

On the election procedure. Yes, you can order ballot sheets from the various parties to be sent to your home. If you vote on the election day (postal voting is quite common) you are most often greeted at the door of the election place by party workers from the various parties who will hand you their ballots.

(By common consent and courtesy no election propaganda may take place on the election day or in or around the election places.) Now if you want to maintain your vote secret you just accept one ballot from each party, pick up any ballots you may have missed from the stacks of ballot sheets inside the voting station, and then pass behind a curtain, where you put your votes in one of at least three different envelopes (parliament, local council, county). There may also be local or general refernda to vote on.

You then approach the election official, show your vote card and a photo ID (a must!! US, please note!) and have your name ticked off the voting list as you put the envelopes into the appropriate boxes (national parliament, local council etc).

Postal voting is slightly more complicated - only because your votes inside their envelopes are kept within a sealed envelope until the voting is over. This allows you to change your vote, should you decide to do so up until the day of the general election. If you vote in your voting station, your postal vote will be void, and the envelope and the votes contained in it will be destroyed.

It should also be noted that the election officials and vote counters are chosen from different parties, and there are always at least two at each position.

The only cheating that I've ever heard of has taken place outside the voting places. Handicapped and elderly people may vote by proxy. Basically it is the same as postal voting except that a relative or other trusted person may carry the votes to the post office or voting place. This has been misused sometimes by (I'm sure you guessed it) socialists who've handed the old people already closed envelopes and asked them to sign, and similar tricks. All in all it has never amounted to more than a few extra votes, and the people found out doing such things are usually sentenced to a period in jail. (Not long according to US standards, but according to Swedish standards a bit more than just a slap on the wrist.

On the SD (Swedish Democrats) -this was one of the untold stories in the foreign media re our latest election. They gained a lot of seats in the local and regional councils. In Landskrona, about 20 km north of Malmö, they got 23% of the vote. In the general election they got 2.9%.

I must admit I was pretty happy about the result. We got a non-socialist majority, and the Swedish Democrats did not gain enough to enter the Parliament (where they unfortunately would have made fools of themselves most likely. Unfortunately we are not talking about the sharpest tools in the box.) but enough to force the other parties to take the immigration question seriously.

Unfortunately I was wrong. They have more or less continued as nothing had happened. The result will be that the SD will enter the parliament after the next election. Barring any major foreign policy crisis at the time of the election, which may cause people to chose a safe alternative, there is really nothing to stop them. Well almost nothing.......

The Social Democrats will have to chose a new party leader. Most of the people voting for the SD are disgruntled former SocDem voters. If the SocDem were to chose a leader who would argue for limited immigration, and take up a determined EU negative position, there would be absolutely nothing to prevent the SocDem from gaining more than 50% of the votes next election. However, this is as likely as finding an orthodox Jew in Mecca.

30 posted on 12/08/2006 1:29:41 PM PST by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: Eurotwit
Hence Norway, for example, is repeatedly named by the United Nations as the world's richest country

Of course Norway is rich, they a small population with a lot of oil and unlike the US, they aren't afraid to drill for it.

31 posted on 12/08/2006 2:41:20 PM PST by RJL
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To: Eurotwit
In 2003, there were 189 homicides in Sweden [3]. In 2001, there were 169, which gives a rate of cirka 2 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This figure is in line with most European countries, which also have a level of between 1-2. For comparisments: U.S has 6 murders per 100,000

Americans of a European ancestry have rates very similar to those of European countries.

32 posted on 12/08/2006 2:50:57 PM PST by RJL
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To: El Gato

He won't be bringing them sausage, pepper and onion heroes.


33 posted on 12/08/2006 4:39:00 PM PST by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: Eurotwit
When voices of dissent do break through in Sweden, they're often punished. During the runup to the Iraq war, the Swedish government censured the independent TV channel TV4 for running an "Oprah" episode that presented both pro- and anti-war arguments.

The Democrat model is the Swedish model. People around here can recall the "Fairness Doctrine" that Clinton and the other Dems were trying to advance years ago. In Sweden, Rush Limbaugh would likely be treated worse than Howard Stern is over here.
34 posted on 12/08/2006 4:59:52 PM PST by dr_who_2
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To: untenured
Maybe this has something to do with where he got murder rate factoid.
35 posted on 12/08/2006 5:30:22 PM PST by dr_who_2
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To: Eurotwit
From Mister Bawer's article, "In Sweden, whose murder rate is currently twice that of America and where Muslims now constitute over 10% of the population and are ... prone to violence..."

How long will it be before Scandinavians (and all Europeans) start a panicked race to move away from the Muslim takeover of their countries, and to the United States?

(It also looks like they might move to escape political persecution, ja?)

.

36 posted on 12/08/2006 5:41:48 PM PST by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except to convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: mad puppy

I thought the comments were generally suupportive of the article, by no means a rebuttal. One guy was negative, but was also inaccurate about election secrecy, as two other of the comments indicate.


37 posted on 12/08/2006 6:19:30 PM PST by expatpat
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To: NMR Guy

Did you read the comments on the article by Swedes?


38 posted on 12/08/2006 6:22:21 PM PST by expatpat
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To: ScaniaBoy

Two of the Swedes commenting on the article said that you have to pick party ballots in public, and people tend to frown at you if you take a ballot for a non-centrist party.


39 posted on 12/08/2006 6:25:39 PM PST by expatpat
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To: Eurotwit
I will welcome with open arms any Swedish refuges looking like this.


40 posted on 12/08/2006 6:47:56 PM PST by razorback-bert (I met Bill Clinton once but he didn't really talk , he was hitting on my wife)
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