Hi koan; A fully democratic country where benefits are passed out by the government is a temporary thing. The founders of the US knew this and made our federal government weak to guard against it. (And the states did stuff like requiring voters to own property which has the effect of reducing the number of people in favor of looting.) Because of this wisdom, our republic has lasted over 200 years.
The European democracies are very young but their governments were designed to allow as much power as possible to the leaders. This is the natural choice when the people designing the government structure expect to be in control. And so they've set themselves up for the same thing that eventually happens to all democracies. You can see the cracks starting to form and yes, Denmark is involved.
When the government doesn't have quite enough money to pay everyone's bills, the next natural step is to reduce the number of mouths you have to feed. And so you get rid of the foreigners. This is the first step in a path that eventually leads to a Nazi dictatorship:
Nordic Tolerance Under Strain as Anti-Immigration Parties Grow
Reuters, May 14, 2014
HUSBY Sweden (Reuters) - In Stockholm's suburb of Husby, the roads still bear charred marks from cars torched in Sweden's worst riots for years.
Last May's violence exposed wounds yet to heal in a Swedish election year, underscoring the Nordic state's struggle to integrate a record number of immigrants and challenging its open door traditions.
Many Swedes remain tolerant of immigrants and asylum seekers. But a growing minority are fearful of crime, concerned about jobs and worried about costs to the welfare state.
Questioning immigration is no longer a taboo, a growing trend in the Nordics where populist anti-immigrant parties are now part of the political landscape.
In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, anti-immigration parties are now among the three most popular in some polls. In Norway, a rightist populist party is in the ruling coalition.
It is in Husby that Sweden's issues came into focus when hundreds of cars were burnt, shops and day schools attacked as police battled hundreds of immigrant youths after a Portuguese man was shot dead by police.
The week-long riots spread across Stockholm, shocking a country that prided itself on equality and welcoming asylum seekers. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called rioters vandals while the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats pressed for a curfew.
Immigration has become a hot topic across Europe as it recovers slowly from years of economic hardship. Fringe parties are likely to score strongly in elections to the EU parliament across much of the bloc next week, many demanding that borders be shut to new migrants or numbers be rationed.
...
Some 15 percent of Sweden's population is foreign born, the highest level in the Nordic region. Foreign-born unemployed rates, at 16 percent, compare with 6 percent for native Swedes. In Husby the youth unemployment rate is over 25 percent. Five years after arriving in Sweden, some 44 percent of immigrant men and 56 percent of women are still unemployed.
...
Two decades ago, the Sweden Democrats were a fringe far right party but they now hold around 8 percent support in polls and are aiming for up to 15 percent in EU elections.
Mainstream parties worry about Denmark's experience when an anti-immigrant party held the balance of power in the former government, pushing policies including tightening border controls that fuelled tension with other European nations.
...
Over the past year, Sweden has been shaken by a resurgence of violence linked to far-right and neo-Nazi groups far more extreme than the Sweden Democrats.
...
Some polls put the Danish People's Party - which has opposed the building of a mosque in Copenhagen and criticised Muslim radicalisation in Denmark - at over 20 percent.
af.reuters.com
The thing to note here is that these far right parties are not fighting against the welfare state. They are in favor of it, but want to restrict it to their own kind. This is the very small transition from "international socialism" to "national socialism" or Nazism. It's inevitable and eventually you'll see it here too.
It will be interesting to see how the same thing plays out over here (i.e. in the US).
-- Carl |
