The Swedish election

[Shibumi]

Beskar, I am running out of time now - so to make it short.

The SD doesnt want to send anyone to the gas chambers, nor kick anyone out who is here (except fugitives without citizenship who commit crime, which I deem fair enough).

They do however want to get immigration numbers (henceforth) down to the levels of, say, Norway and Denmark. SD also offers a sum off money for refugees who decide to return to their birth countries.

"You fled - situation in your country calmed down - here is some money so you can return and prosper"

If they want people out, it is with carrots, not with sticks. Something I applaud. I do not think this will work though, as few will go back to, say, Iran, after having been granted citizenship in Sweden. The idea however is def far away from what they are accused of "they will kick the immigrants out".

[Beskar]

Sure, Immigration levels doesn't mean that Muslims are evil rapists. I have always been a long time advocate of Population control, in particular, think there should be a pretty universal one child per parent system (Any more kids won't receive any form of benefits from the government, it is your conscious choice to have more kids or not).

My post wasn't in particular against the SD party and their policies, it was in response to some of the posters based on what they said here and in other topics.

If the SD only want to limit immigration and offer non-citizens the chance to return to their country, then there is no actual problem with that. However, if this is simply it, they should say it like this.

[Skullheadhq]

The SD doesnt want to send anyone to the gas chambers, nor kick anyone out who is here (except fugitives without citizenship who commit crime, which I deem fair enough).

SD? Sicherheidsdienst?

[HoreTore]

SD? Sicherheidsdienst?

Hah! Well spotted!

....And you're not that far off, the Swedish democrats had to ban nazi uniforms from their rallies... Yes, definitely no nazi scumbags there

[Shibumi]

Beskar, the problem with SD is not really their policys. They would be seen as mainstream in surounding countries, and in many countries they would be seen as leftist bleeding for the immigrant cause.

However, this is Sweden. We have not been very logical for ages. So when I say that SD wants to bring immigration down to surrounding nations level, you must bear in mind that this means they will cut immigration by 90%. You start to see the problem?

"We should have the same immigration as the other European countries" - sounds normal.
"We should cut immigration by 90%" - sounds racistic.

Guess what perspective leftist (read: all) media has on it?


HoreTore, and the Democrats in the state are all slave owners, and the socialistic party in Norway worship Mao? It is true that SD in the beginning attracted a lot of racists. But few political parties origin is without flaws. What I find more interesting is the reforms that has lead to where the party is today. Meaningless arguments like the one you just used might attract some uneducated leftists, but you might want to refrain from using them in any form of civilized debate, non?

If you want to attack the party, then attack their program or budget. You know, their actual policies. What in these do you deem racistic?

[Louis VI the Fat]

It is true that SD in the beginning attracted a lot of racists. But few political parties origin is without flaws. What I find more interesting is the reforms that has lead to where the party is today. Meaningless arguments like the one you just used might attract some uneducated leftists, but you might want to refrain from using them in any form of civilized debate, non?

No, I think HoreTore is quite right to spell out that the SD was founded as the Swedish fascist party and remained pretty much a simple, unadulterated nazi party until quite recently.

The party has reformed the past decade into a populist party. True nazism, hardcore extreme right is now to the right of the SD. That, and the political climate in Europe has hardened to such an extent that what was considered fascist fifteen years ago, is now pretty standard rightwing fare. In fact, considered by its followers to be 'normal', and everything to the left of it as part of the leftwing conspiracy.

[Shibumi]

Louis VI the Fat, You are not all wrong. However, immigration question aside, SD mainly share policys with the left wing. So to put them on the right wing might not be all correct. In most social questions SD is to the left of the socialist party!

They are generally hard to get on to the left/right scale, better just call them a populist party.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Louis VI the Fat, You are not all wrong. However, immigration question aside, SD mainly share policys with the left wing. So to put them on the right wing might not be all correct. In most social questions SD is to the left of the socialist party!

They are generally hard to get on to the left/right scale, better just call them a populist party.

This is very true. Indeed, the European populist right is economically socialist, and socially nationalist.

Perhaps the European populist far right is best described with some imaginative combination of the terms 'national' and 'socialist'.

Easy mockery aside, it remains fascinating that it should be the far right that seeks to protect social democracy in Europe. I have very mixed, sad, and confusing thoughts about that.
Equally fascinating is that the populist electorate are to a great extent former social-democratic voters. And, lastly, that there is enormous resentment of 'the left' within the populist electorate - part ignorance of the very much socialist elements of populist right, part dissapointment and resentment.

[Shibumi]

Ironside, good post, and I agree with pretty much everything.

Two small things though. About economy, I wouldnt believe his calculations. The Social Democrats and Aftonbladet had the cost at 40bil, so I would rather have that as a "lowest" cost than the 11bil he suggests.

It depends much on how you count though.

It generally felt like 40bil is way to low, as they missed a lot of more "hidden" costs.

Just as an example, schools get funds after what issues they have, a loopsided view one might think. A school with bad results gets way more funds than a school with good results.

I dont like singular examples when speaking economy, but this one might highlight it. A friend of mine, working as teacher, just got his first immigrant child in school, straight from Somalia. And tadaaaa, the school cashed in, as they now need home-language teacher, school psychiatrist, extra teachers, a program for incorporation a.s.o.

As you well may see, most of this money is not counted as money going to immigration, but money to help students. But, let us be real, immigrants are a lot more likely to have the problems generating these money to the school. That is just one example of one of these "hidden" costs.



Second thing I object to is you saying their party program is well written, but just a small patina.

Well, their party program is what they got to election on, and what you cast your vote on. It is also what they have promised to try and fullfill. If they start going crazy at a later stage we will have to deal with it then, but till that happens, we should judge them by the policy they stand for, no?

Otherwise you couldnt vote for pretty much any party, as The Social Democrats are just communists who wants everyone to be the same, the Moderates are capitalist pigs who want to enrich a small elite while starving the working class, the Christian Democrats are religious freaks who want to sterilize all gay people... and... so... on...

So, why not give SD the same benefit of doubt we give the rest, and judge them based on the political policys they campaigned to get through?

Oh, and thanks for correcting HoreTore properly, I just couldnt be bothered.

[Ironside]

Beskar, the problem with SD is not really their policys. They would be seen as mainstream in surounding countries, and in many countries they would be seen as leftist bleeding for the immigrant cause.

However, this is Sweden. We have not been very logical for ages. So when I say that SD wants to bring immigration down to surrounding nations level, you must bear in mind that this means they will cut immigration by 90%. You start to see the problem?

"We should have the same immigration as the other European countries" - sounds normal.
"We should cut immigration by 90%" - sounds racistic.

Guess what perspective leftist (read: all) media has on it?

Nice example on the word twisting. Now I won't dig around more, but that number has to be talking about refugees through relatives or something like that to even make sense. More than 10% of the Swedish immigrants are Swedish citizens for example (almost 14%). Total number was 102 280.

Denmark recieved 65.669 immigrants in 2009, Finland 26 699.

Sweden has fairly low net immigration by international standards.

Ironside, good post, and I agree with pretty much everything.

Two small things though. About economy, I wouldnt believe his calculations. The Social Democrats and Aftonbladet had the cost at 40bil, so I would rather have that as a "lowest" cost than the 11bil he suggests.

That number comes from:
Ekberg J. (1999) Immigration and the public sector: Income effects for the native population in
Sweden. Journal of Population Economics 12: 411-430.

Seems to be the only well worked study on on immigration cost, even if I haven't red it. To make a counter example for hidden cost, the immigrant children behaves more as Swedes, so their economic profile will do the same. And they won't be counted as immigrants won't they?

Second thing I object to is you saying their party program is well written, but just a small patina.

Well, their party program is what they got to election on, and what you cast your vote on. It is also what they have promised to try and fullfill. If they start going crazy at a later stage we will have to deal with it then, but till that happens, we should judge them by the policy they stand for, no?

Otherwise you couldnt vote for pretty much any party, as The Social Democrats are just communists who wants everyone to be the same, the Moderates are capitalist pigs who want to enrich a small elite while starving the working class, the Christian Democrats are religious freaks who want to sterilize all gay people... and... so... on...

So, why not give SD the same benefit of doubt we give the rest, and judge them based on the political policys they campaigned to get through?

Well, firstly I wouldn't touch their political policies they campaigned on (not only immigration) with a ten foot pole, but might be down to political taste. But the thing with SD is that it also feels like they're a patina covered party that truely wants something else.

As I said, SD doesn't want the immigrants here because it's better for the immigrants to not be here according to their own policies. Do anybody find that belivable? Or non-whacky?

Or you can compare what they write to what the facist parties wrote.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Seriously:
kränkningar av den nationalistiska principen ger upphov till instabilitet och konflikter. Gränstvister och tvister om särskilda rättigheter för olika grupper har genom århundradena fått ödesdigra konsekvenser. Av den anledningen är den nationalistiska principen central och bör eftersträvas i största möjliga utsträckning över hela världen.” Yes, following the nationalistic principle is such a bringer peace such as it has always been, like the primeval of the nuclear family.

Sverigedemokraterna menar att det i första hand är familjen och nationen som ger oss förutsättningarna att uppnå detta. Inga konstruerade kollektiv kan helt ersätta dessa djupt rotade, ursprungliga gemenskaper

Both are not at all constructs with a much later date.

Also recall that V, MP and KD is getting occational political flak for being whacky and whacky statements. Ohly is part of the reason the left did poorly this election.

Oh, and thanks for correcting HoreTore properly, I just couldnt be bothered.

You are noting that I'm basically correcting most people here right? Horetore is vastly exaggerating, but he isn't really wrong. Data is showing on that immigrants are both reported more (heavily implied in the data) and doing more rapes. Assult rapes are decreasing relativly. Sweden's high number is mainly due to different definitions and reporting numbers or we recently imported all rapists from a new countries.

[Ironside]

Rape data from 2005. Latest big report.

All data taken from different Brå studies.
12% assult rapes, 11% multiperp rapes. Big overlap on those groups.

Number of reported rapes have almost tripled since 2004 to 2009, when a law change was introduced. 5940 reported rapes 2009.

Around 30% was assult rapes during the 70-ties, about 900 reported rapes 1975.

Immigrant crimes from the period 1997-2001. 2005 report. Based on police suspects

Immigrant groups suspected for no crime at all was between 88 compared to 95 procent for Swedes with two Swedish parents, overrisk of being immigrant was 2,5 compared to Swede with both Swedish parents. Larger for some crimes, in particular the more brutal one. Immigrant children are less prone to crime than their parents (that's unusual internationally), except on youth crimes. North African group highest risk group with 3,7 times higher number. North Africans is suspect of 0,7% of total crimes. Middle east 3,0 times higher and 3,4% of total crimes.
For rape, the immigrant value is 5,0 times higher or 0,22% of their part of the population. Can't get data for subsets.
Crime ratio is "Swedified" with time and haven't really changed numbers within the different immigrant groups since the 1985-1989 study. More people from the higher risk groups has arrived though, bumping up total number a bit.

There, some data. Won't really bother to comment, but yes immigration is not good for a country's crime rate. But it isn't the sole reason for the increase in rapes.

About economic costs linky. Since he bothered to link all his data. Not perfect, he's sloppy on the crime number (as evidencied above), since he's doing quick countings, but that doesn't matter much for total cost or main point.

Ironside, your comments seem very biased, to say the least. Have you actually read SDs political program? I assume you are Swedish? If you have read up on them, and not just read socialist media, I would welcome a discussion about their politics with you. A more elaborate one.

Their homepage was going down (and currently is), so I couldn't fully access it, but I've seen pieces of it and also their full official anti-immigration part. And it is finely written, but is a I said only a small patina.

Integration policy: Was a quote from a DN article and not contradicted by their official immigration policy.
Racists: Well latest incident should be the "arab violence gene". Multiple previous incidents.
Former Nazis: Common knowledge. Very notable in older policies.
Immigration money will support everything and all problems will be solved by the now proud Swedes: That was their whole manifesto for the election 2006 (well and lower taxes for retired people). Most points remains and thier two main documents are written 2005 and long before current election (2007 or 2008 iirc).
More social conservative than KD: Well latest suggestion is more central controlled culture budget to have more "broad and public" culture while making sure that radical and provocing culture gets nothing. They are really using the "verklighetens folk" (people of reality) concept.

Seriously, they have a lot of really horrible policies. And low quality rethorics. Why do you think it's easy to make mockery of them? Or note that if they follow their own policies it becomes bizarre. Sure they get a lot of flac that's only cosisting that they're bad, but they aren't exposed to an evil propaganda machine. Their own statements are enough for that.

Or do really think that they're against immigration to protect the immigrants? They are implying that all over their wed site.