Swiss politics

[Oracle of Delphi]

Video Link: http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&brand=...16-bdedb2368522

[Flybrian]

'Foreigners' includes you, buddy!

[ZL-1]

interesting, isn't it?

[Oracle of Delphi]

'Foreigners' includes you, buddy!

I'm not a foreigner, I have and EU passport, and that's what I entered the country on. I have dual citizenship, US and Germany. The EU changed my German passport to a EU passport 2 or 3 years ago. All the countries in Europe are going to an EU passport too, if they haven't already . We are one big happy European family now!

Edited October 20, 2007 by Pontiac Custom-S

[FAPTurbo]

One big happy European family who all get together to build a massively stupid Airbus, and then not even buy it?

[K.C.]

Mazel Tov

[CARBIZ]

It's going to get worse, I'm afraid. Twenty percent is a big chunk of a small country's population. Canada's numbers are similar, and its beginning to show when entire neighborhoods have drastically changed in a matter of a decade or so.

I think 'multi-culturalism' looks great on paper, but when a country (or in the case of Europe, countries) absorb a large chunk of 'different' people in a relatively short time, there are bound to be problems. I think it is particularly interesting that the 'economic right' promotes immigration for the purposes of cheap labor, whereas the 'social right' shuns immigration on the basis of irreconcilable cultural differences. The U.S is having its own upheavals. I was frankly shocked at the number of obviously Spanish peoples I saw in Nevada and California when I was there. With 40 million Hispanics in the U.S. and many of those having arrived in the past 15 years or so, that is rapidly approaching 20% of the population.

As 'civilized' societies, we like to feel superior and tsk, tsk when we read articles about apparent racism, but under the guise of 'national security' and 'overwhelmed' schools and hospitals, citizens and, indeed, governments everywhere are beginning to question the wisdom of the past couple decades of open borders.

We must remember that there are obvious reasons 'they' want to come here, and why 'here' has so painfully grown to be so desired a place to live. If we forget that, then 'here' will become just as bad as 'there' and nobody will want to come 'here' any more.

[Dsuupr]

I don't think our problem with Mexico is the same as Europe’s and our problem with Muslims.

When I traveled abroad the concern that I heard was about fundamental differences. Many were concerned that the incoming Muslims having very different views in key areas like war. Give the immigrants a generation to have citizenship and a peaceful country like Switzerland can change to a nation believing in war by vote and upcoming politicians.

Things I heard concerns on;

1. How women are treated.

2. Opinion of Capitalism

3. Positive stance on the Jewish & Hindu community

4. Support of the US (though many countries don't like what we are currently doing they still like our overall political stance)

5. A religion that does not melt well with other religions (stance on Jesus, stance on the Jewish community, and stance on Hindu community, war, etc)

Compare that to the concerns Americans have with the Mexican community;

1. Don’t speak the “language” (same issue with Muslim community in Europe)

2. Take jobs (same issue with Muslim community in Europe)

3. Coming over illegally (same issue with Muslim community in Europe)

Key positive things about the Mexican community in the United States;

1. Basic same religion

2. Basic same beliefs

3. Though women have a different stance in society, they are still a voice that is heard

4. Believe in the US

5. Same basic belief about war

[CARBIZ]

Look, every 50 years, this subject has reared its ugly head. At the beginning of the last century, it was the damned Poles, Germans, Portuguese, whatever (I guess Irish in the U.S.!). I know the Italians were spoken badly of by my parents when I was a kid. (Toronto had at one point the largest concentration of Italians outside of Italy)

There are some significant differences between then and now.

1) Social support nets. Healthcare, ESL classes, community centers - all funded by our taxes. These are being strained. The poor eastern Europeans who came here in the teens were dumped into Saskatchewan to sink or swim. No welfare, no healthcare, nothing.

2) Internet, $5 phone cards, internet banking. They have no need to commit to our way of life or language. They can speak with their family, swap photos, keep in touch with their communities back home with ease. Why do they need us at all? They can support their entire family with a few keystrokes and transfer thousands of dollars out of the country.

3) $1,000 and you can fly anywhere in the world inside of 24 hours. Compare that to a 3 week ship/train ride 100 years ago.

4) The 'average' Canadian/American 100 years ago was not very educated or well off either. Today, our embassies are lying to these people. Communication is everything and you cannot drive a truck without a highschool diploma.

But I would have to agree that 'Europeans' of whatever nationality, have for the most part become a part of our society. They may have seemed a little odd at the time, but they have melded well.

I am less optimistic about the past 25 years. The current round of immigrants are less concerned about becoming 'Canadian' or 'American' and more about changing us to their ways of thinking - and we are so paralyzed with our own PC way of thinking that they are winning, I am afraid. We keep being brainwashed into thinking that all immigration is good and that we must have it for the health of our economies, yet whenever questions are asked about the true costs of immigration, the usual suspects shout the opposition down with cries of 'racism.'

Our local newspapers are filled with issues that 15 years ago were only things that happened in distant lands: tribal warfares, hate crimes - all things that have been brought to our doorsteps by peoples who, historically, just cannot get along. One recent example that stands out in my mind is the current Air India fiasco that has occupied our press here for 15 years. A group of Sikh extremists blew up an Air India plane and the Canadian government has spent tens and tens of millions of MY tax dollars investigating and passing the buck. These were all 'Canadians' involved, but I have to ask myself what is the true cost of multiculturalism when this is brought into my livingroom every day.

[frogger]

I for one am happy about the immigration. To generalize, someone's got to work hard and second generation types seem all too often to be averse/"above" that.

[CARBIZ]

I for one am happy about the immigration. To generalize, someone's got to work hard and second generation types seem all too often to be averse/"above" that.

...no, just not for $5 an hour, that's all. There'd be lots of takers to pick apples in Thornbury for double what they pay the Jamaicans that come up there every year to do it. LIke I said, the economic conservatives and cultural liberals make strange bedfellows when it comes to immigration issues. Wal-Mart wants immigration to put downward pressure on labor prices and 4th year university Arts grads want immigration to attone for all the 'sins' white folk commited on the Indians. That's being somewhat simplistic, but that pretty much sums it up.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Arts grads want immigration to attone for all the 'sins' white folk commited on the Indians. That's being somewhat simplistic, but that pretty much sums it up.

Don't you mean Native Americans?

[pow]

It's going to get worse, I'm afraid. Twenty percent is a big chunk of a small country's population. Canada's numbers are similar, and its beginning to show when entire neighborhoods have drastically changed in a matter of a decade or so.

I think 'multi-culturalism' looks great on paper, but when a country (or in the case of Europe, countries) absorb a large chunk of 'different' people in a relatively short time, there are bound to be problems. I think it is particularly interesting that the 'economic right' promotes immigration for the purposes of cheap labor, whereas the 'social right' shuns immigration on the basis of irreconcilable cultural differences. The U.S is having its own upheavals. I was frankly shocked at the number of obviously Spanish peoples I saw in Nevada and California when I was there. With 40 million Hispanics in the U.S. and many of those having arrived in the past 15 years or so, that is rapidly approaching 20% of the population.

What did you expect instead? A city made up of only rich white people who only have adorable blue-eyed kids who only drive 3-series convertibles shaded at all times by palm trees with the Hollywood sign always visible in the distance?

I think you'll be "frankly shocked" to learn that the founders of Los Angeles were never white, and that, in fact, most of them were "obviously Spanish peoples". California has always had a rich cultural history with Mexico (after all, L.A. was part of Mexico), and "white L.A." is a relatively modern and short-lived phenomenon. Hispanics make up the majority of the population in Los Angeles (we have a Hispanic mayor, an Austrian governor, an Iranian Beverly Hills...) and we seem to be getting along just fine.

There's a huge, perfectly normal Hispanic middle class in CA, with enormous buying power, enough to afford the same $650K 3-bed tract homes and Tahoe LTZs that white middle class families buy, yet somehow that's inferior or threatening because they speak Spanish at home or use salsa instead of ketchup? The majority of Hispanic population growth within the state comes not from immigration, but growing families through several generations.

Frankly I'd be completely bored without the multiculturalism of LA. Los Angeles is not a city about its landmarks or resources or even popular culture (all of which rightly exist for a global identity), and no one here gives a damn about Hollywood, except for maybe the transplants. Los Angeles is not like Paris or London, cities that will always maintain their historical allure regardless of events. No, the soul of Los Angeles lies in the people who shape and change it everyday.

Honestly, though, having your city explained to you by others, "most frequently by those who jet in for a week or two and report on the world they find a few miles from their hotel suites", as Jonathan Gold says, never ceases to amaze.