Kroes for president!
December 28, 2009Right now, there is only one person in this country whom I’d accept as prime-minister.
Neelie Kroes. She’s the kind of iron lady we could really use - immense body of experience, stately, intelligent, charming (in a weird way), and she’s dealt with a world far harsher than politics: business. Most of all, however: I don’t think she’d give a rat’s ass about someone’s religion. If you’ve broken the law, she’ll deal with you - Muslim or no. And that’s really the attitude we need over here, because we’re getting ever closer to a new Kristallnacht.
If the VVD announced that they would put her forward as candidate, the VVD would score votes big time. I’ve heard even the most die-hard leftists speak out their preference for Kroes. It’s really too bad that she accepted a new post in the EC. She should be preparing for the PM post now.
Coincidentally, it would be our first woman as PM.
Politics | 
Oh, Thom. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you. You presumably support values such as gay rights, women rights, euthanasia, …. yet you think the growth of something that finds these values antagonistic to its own is a good thing, something to be encouraged.
Comment by Andrew — December 28, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
I think the difference between you and me is that I understand the difference between extremists and normal people. I fcuking hate extremism - Muslim, Christian, or otherwise - but I also know that most Muslims or Christians are not like that at all. If you believe they are - then welcome, line up for your free t-shirt and join the media-addicted crowd.
But even so, I have no innate problems with extremism. If you have extremist beliefs, then that’s your god-given right. As long as you remain within the boundaries of the law (i.e., you do not try to impose your extremism upon others), then it’s all fine by me. I don’t want thought police.
If you believe that it is okay to label people as dangerous and inferior just because of their religion, and want to create an apartheid state (which is what people like Wilder openly advocate), where Muslims have less rights than non-Muslims, then you are free to do so. Just don’t expect me to go along in your delusion.
You cannot restrict freedom in order to gain security. One of the greatest minds in human history believed so, and who are you to argue with him?
Comment by Administrator — December 28, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
>I think the difference between you and me is that I understand the >difference between extremists and normal people. I fcuking hate >extremism - Muslim, Christian, or otherwise - but I also know that most >Muslims or Christians are not like that at all. If you believe they are - then >welcome, line up for your free t-shirt and join the media-addicted crowd.
No. I realize there is a difference between moderates and fundamentalists. I do think moderates are even more crazy in a way: They profess to be nearly as devout yet vagrantly flaunt “God’s word” when he reveals he isn’t quite progressive, but other than that I have no problems with moderates. Now, I do have big problems with religious fundamentalism. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or otherwise. Even then I do not think these people are terrorists. I don’t think they’ll start bombing daycare centers or whatever. I’m afraid of their vote more than anything.
I don’t believe in any of the things you seem to think I believe. I’m not interested in depriving people of their freedom, or creating an apartheid state or whatever.
I’m in favour of denying immigration to individuals who hold politically or religiously extreme views. That’s it. We have enough homegrown bad citizens who dislike other the freedom of others. We have to deal with it because it’s their home too. But willingly creating more bad citizens. It’s just insane.
Comment by Andrew — December 28, 2009 @ 5:28 pm
“I’m in favour of denying immigration to individuals who hold politically or religiously extreme views.”
How is the government to tell that a person has extremist views? Where do you draw the line for what is extremist? Will the government start only letting people who support their party immigrate?
Most “extremists” are just uneducated people who are misguided on what their religion is about through misquoting and misinterpretation. Read the New Testament or the Quran or any Indian religious texts and you’ll find that they preach goodness, and are very reasonable.* Religion is not the problem - it’s the people who distort them and use them as excuses to be bad.
*I cannot say that for certain parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joshua and Deuteronomy) and the Talmud.
Comment by Sultan Q. Khan — December 28, 2009 @ 5:57 pm
>How is the government to tell that a person has extremist views?
Interviews, background checks, … won’t completely weed out extremists but can nab a great many.
>Where do you draw the line for what is extremist? Will the government start only letting people who support their party immigrate?
People that are opposed to the fundamental laws and near universal values = extremists. If I was an American I’d consider anyone who didn’t believe in the constitution and bill of rights as an extremist who should be denied entry, as a Canadian I view someone who doesn’t believe or accept the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an extremist, …
>Most “extremists” are just uneducated people
You’ll find no argument from me. :-)
>who are misguided on what their religion is about through misquoting and misinterpretation. Read the New Testament or the Quran or any Indian religious texts and you’ll find that they preach goodness, and are very reasonable.* Religion is not the problem - it’s the people who distort them and use them as excuses to be bad.
>*I cannot say that for certain parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joshua and Deuteronomy) and the Talmud.
I think the idea that extremists are just completely misinterpreting their religious texts is a very naive view. And your asterisk certainly did not help your argument. As you mentioned, there are parts of the Old Testament (and don’t think the New Testament and Quran are exempt) that are crystal clear, and entirely irredeemable.
Terrorists are closer to missing the point completely, but fag/infidel/etc. hating are textually sound in pretty much all of the Abrahamic religions.
Comment by Andrew — December 28, 2009 @ 7:04 pm
How is the Netherlands getting “ever closer to a new Kristallnacht?” I understand that the Netherlands is having a lot of problems with Muslims there, but why is that the case? This interests me as an American who spent some time living in France. It seems to me that the US has done a pretty good job of integrating Muslim immigrants, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Europe, with perhaps the exception of Scotland.
Comment by José Hernández — December 30, 2009 @ 12:03 am
She may be strong, but is she fair and reasonable?
Comment by malxau — January 1, 2010 @ 3:22 am
(A very belated answer but I just saw this blog — and this post — today. I think José deserves an answer.)
José: to a large extent because your Muslims are better than our Muslims.
To some extent that’s an effect of the way the US (and Canada) is different from (much of) the EU in how we treat newcomers.
Also, we have had (and still have) a real Left. You know, honest to God Socialists. Communists, even. They’ve had a sad tendency to explain away problematic behaviour from Muslim immigrants with “poverty”, “class”, and “racism shown by the majority”. They also tend to believe that cultures have rights and that those rights are more important than the rights of individual people. That makes it very hard to take a stand against some of the bad sides of Islam.
But back to the main reasons:
1) We simply don’t attract the same people, 2) it is way easier to sneak across a border or two in or around Europe than to sneak across the Atlantic, 3) we don’t as tough a filter for immigrants as you do, 4) we don’t treat those that get in the same way you do. Oh, and 5), how many Muslims do you have? Do they clump together so that their kids can dominate the local schools?
ad 1: if you work hard/are resourceful/are well-educated/are lucky, you are way better off in the US than in the EU, even in the UK. If you can barely read in your own language (and can’t be bothered to learn) then you are better off here.
ad 2: on the other hand, we have very few Mexicans…
ad 3: we suffer from chain immigration where one generation immigrates and their children get married off (often against their will) to someone from back home. We also take more refugees (in many cases those would actually be “refugees”) — this varies a lot from country to country. Some European countries hardly have any Muslim “immigration through asylum”, not just because they are tough but also because they aren’t sought as much by would-be refugees.
ad 4: they instantly have many rights here that they don’t get in the US or Canada. They can (or could) for example more or less decide not to learn the local language (or English), decide they don’t want to work, demand interpreters every time they show up at local social office to talk about jobs and government handouts. And they get to call people they don’t like racists. And they get money per child (probably the last thing we should be doing). As I stated in ‘ad 3′, this depends a lot on the European country. For some reason, those that give immigrants many rights (even long before they have become citizens) are sought more by these people and have more of the undesirable kind. Those that have more limited government handouts and perhaps only for a short time also have remarkably few asylum seekers. Imagine that.
We also don’t have “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” laws because we consider them barbaric. But they seem ever more attractive by the day…
ad 5: imagine lots of countries that were never set up for large-scale immigration. Perhaps like Maine or Idaho writ large. Then imagine that over a few decades, about 10% of the population end up being Muslim immigrants and their descendants. And that the rate is still growing…
—
And the problem isn’t really Islam as such, it is the culture — i.e. values, norms, and habits — of a few predominantly Muslim countries that’s problematic. The non-Muslims — Christians, say — from the same countries are just as problematic. Most of our immigrants, which includes immigrants from other EU countries, are barely even thought of as immigrants because they simply don’t cause any trouble. That’s true not just for Finns, Canadians, and Germans, but also for Ukrainians, Australians, Columbians, Thais, …
The tragic thing is that many of the immigrants from Muslim countries actually are okay. It’s just that so many of them are not.
Granted, we would also have a problem if more of the Gypsies(*) from Romania and Bulgaria decided that they wanted to move to other EU countries. The relatively few of them who tour the richer EU countries are already causing enough trouble. Again, the problem is the culture — not in the sense of songs, poems, food, and folkloristic dresses but in the sense of values, norms, and habits. In this case it’s a cultural practice of stealing and vandalizing.
*) No, they are not all Roma. Easier to just use the perfectly good word Gypsy.
-Peter, Denmark.
Comment by Peter Lund — November 7, 2010 @ 1:10 am