Posted on 12/29/2001 12:10:35 AM PST by madprof98
It's the Christian Coalition's worst nightmare. Gay and lesbian marriage, prostitution, marijuana, abortion on demand, physician-assisted suicide -- all are part of everyday reality in the Netherlands, and completely legal. What's more, the Dutch are happy with it, and the experiments are spreading elsewhere in Europe, as described by journalist Gilbert Charles in the December 7 issue of the French weekly news magazine L'Express.
Beginning April 1, gays and lesbians have been able to marry. No "domestic partnerships" here -- these are full-fledged marriages indistinguishable from heterosexual marriages, and bearing all the same rights, including the right of adoption.
In May, the Netherlands fully legalized medically-assisted suicide. Prostitution has been legal since 1999, and is treated as just another ordinary business. Abortion has been legal since 1984, and the law now allows abortions through the 22nd week (about 5 months). Marijuana has been on sale in misnamed "coffee shops" since 1976.
Predictions of social disaster have not materialized. The Netherlands has one of Europe's lowest rates of abortion, including for teenage pregnancies. Marijuana use is no higher than in France, and the rate of addiction to cocaine and heroin is half what it is in France. That suggests that legalizing marijuana makes it less likely that youthful experimenters will try more potent narcotics. Moreover, permissive Dutch policies have reduced the spread of HIV.
The Netherlands' liberal policies enjoy wide public approval. 87% of the population approves of medically-assisted suicide. Even among Catholics, 70% favor abortion on demand, and more than half the priests say they are ready to marry homosexuals within the church. Resistance is limited to three small Protestant fundamentalist parties that hold only 8 out of 150 seats in the lower house of parliament.
Not surprisingly, the Dutch example is spreading. Belgium and Switzerland have recently decriminalized possession of marijuana. Belgium is preparing a law to legalize gay and lesbian marriage. Germany is getting ready to legalize prostitution.
But not everyone is happy in the Netherlands. Prostitutes and houses of prostitution complain that they now being taxed, that they have to submit to hygiene inspections, and that they must carry health insurance.
Compiled by Andrew Reding
Either way, looks like socialism and a service based economy are working out well for the Dutch.
Well... let's not get carried away.
In any case, decadence and societal decay aren't anything new. If Sodom may or may not be have happened, we know for a fact that the great Greek civilization experienced nearly-similar symptoms before it decomposed.
Long live the Dutch empire. Or not.
This is an interesting gimmick - throw in a name that will ensure readership of an otherwise vapid and stupid article. It's like that guy who wrote a book titled, 'Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.' If he hadn't put the name of a superstar on the cover, nobody would have even looked at the book.
The Dutch can have their society if they want it. Of course, it will spread through the rest of western civilization eventually. Men always tend toward their own destruction if they forget about G-d, and men always forget about G-d. Then, when civilization is fallen and men realize they aren't as all powerful as they thought they were, they turn back to G-d and He forgives.
It has happened many times in history, and it will happen until history is no more.
But the Christian Coalition will ignore all of this because it has nothing to do with US politics and the Christians will do their best to pick up the pieces during and after the fall of western civilization.
Shalom.
I wonder why we haven't heard of weather disasters, terrorist bombings, or serial murders in the Netherlands.
If God is using the weather and terrorists to punish the U.S., why haven't we heard of daily disasters striking the Netherlands?
He described the conditions aboard this ship. There were three bars: one for the officers, one for the senior petty officers and one of the lower enlisted ranks. Moreover, the crew was completely coed, and it was more like a party cruise than a fighting ship. While this may sound pretty good to an 18-year old seaman, I rather doubt that their combat efficiency would measure up to ours (not that we don't have our share of "love boats"). The attitude of the Dutch navy pretty much reflects life in their homeland.
That's why the whole pro-dope, pro-porn, pro-sodomy set-up "works" there. Taxpayer monies are used to pay for teen abortions and contraceptives, to benefically police and medically treat prostitutes and their clientele, and to support dopers who would rather spend their days getting high than being profitably employed. Drug-related crime is low because the dopers can have their dope and an undemanding life too--all at taxpayer expense ("uitkering").
There are vigorous hate-crime laws in effect that stifle public criticism of homosexual behavior, so naturally anyone who is asked will tell you he or she is perfectly happy with the whole sodomite scheme.
A few heroic Dutch capitalists carry the entire sorry abomination their backs.
All libertarians in California who are cheering that nanny state's pro-dope, pro-sodomy changes should peer deep into the Dutch experience. It is their future.
Well, let's see - the dikes broke in the early 50s in the "Springflud". Drowned 40% of the country!
There was the fireworks thing last year. There are others. They wanted to build a 30 story pig barn in downtown Rotterdam.
It's a small place. It floods easily. One Cat 1 hurricane and it's gone for good.
Of a more serious immediate nature, two things you can do to make your own life much more pleasant - the first is to never make use of the services of any physician who trained or worked there - the probability of latching onto a "killer doc" is too great a risk. The second is to never put a Nederlander in charge of your cashregister. They have entirely too many personal vices to trust them with money these days.
There, that said, I suppose you were questioning whether or not the Dutch are paying for their sins. Well, they are. You just don't hear about it because there are so few of them. You will hear less as there are even fewer. The whole country should just disappear, people and all, within the next 25 to 50 years - it will be but a passing memory - important to the history of New York City but not much else.
Perhaps you can distinguish for me how taking their wealth and handing it to their drug-abusing losers is somehow worse than taking our wealth and paying to hunt down and imprison ours (not to mention feed, clothe, and pay for their cable TV and lawyers).
Not that I approve of either course of action. They should be left to depend on voluntary charity, as long as they don't harm or threaten another. BTW I consider abortion to be "harming another".
He described the conditions aboard this ship. There were three bars: one for the officers, one for the senior petty officers and one of the lower enlisted ranks. Moreover, the crew was completely coed, and it was more like a party cruise than a fighting ship. While this may sound pretty good to an 18-year old seaman, I rather doubt that their combat efficiency would measure up to ours (not that we don't have our share of "love boats"). The attitude of the Dutch navy pretty much reflects life in their homeland.
Well hey, sign me up for the Dutch Navy!
Yeah, it sucks when not everyone in the world holds the same war lust that the Anglo/Prussian societies do. Here we are, trying to keep people at some articficially high level of blood lust every ten years or so, glorifying war for the State above all other things, and there go those wacky Dutch thinking that life is about fun and enjoying oneself. While I think that their socialist economics are wacked out, at least they seem to understand that life isn't about a constant need to kill, constrain or limit individuals (outside of the sphere of economics at least).
And contrary to popular belief among NeoCons, America was at one time a pretty fun place to live as well. But that was before we readopted our British/German "motherland" lust for war and death. Remember the saying "no entangling alliances", the thought that a standing army was actually wrong and bad, and the idea that the Pursuit of Happiness on an individual level, free from puritanical crusaders backed by the state, was a good thing?
Thank goodness we woke up during the 19th century and became puritans again, else we might have missed out on all those wars which eventually set up this nice, fine National Security, Homeland Defense, Safety before Liberty State we have now.
How dare the Dutch remind us that life doesn't have to be that way.
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