The Dutch

[Brenus]

“the test for real Dutchness is eating a raw herring with chopped onions and a pickle, in one go - dangle it above your head, let it slide in, then bite it off just before the tail.” I did it: nothing special to report.

I worked for a Dutch Charities for few years. It was a mixture of efficiency, greed, almost-professionalism and family business…
To negotiate (or report) contracts with Dutch Foreign Ministry (or Embassy) was always nice and almost informal. Contact with the ambassadors (in all countries) are easy, (unlike with the French) similar with the US personal. Changing budget line is possible if you stay within the budget, and they are very reasonable people.
Side comment, the only reasonable comments during NATO bombing campaign I heard were on a Dutch Channel.
In fact the Dutch TV was the only channel where opponents to this war were heard without been mocked or/and ridiculed…
The Dutch proud themselves about to be pragmatic and efficient (at least the one I worked with). They were nice people and I mostly enjoyed working with them.
We never came real friends, but it never happened in Charities any way (turn-over).

And here comes the dark side.
Their acceptance of “what other do until it doesn’t hurt me” is as well called indifference or hypocrisy. Prostitution and drugs are all right if it is not their children doing or using it.
A friend of mine working The Hague Tribunal suffered a lot there of loneliness.
She ended to think that all this so-called liberalism is in fact a cover for a superb selfishness and egocentricity excluding any empathy for the others.
Pragmatism can lead to do things absolutely atrocious (if we can’t do something about it, just do it) as illustrated but the deportation of the Jews of Amsterdam.
The real Politic / pragmatism can be easily turned in a nasty way.

[Fragony]

And here comes the dark side.
Their acceptance of “what other do until it doesn’t hurt me” is as well called indifference or hypocrisy. Prostitution and drugs are all right if it is not their children doing or using it.
A friend of mine working The Hague Tribunal suffered a lot there of loneliness.
She ended to think that all this so-called liberalism is in fact a cover for a superb selfishness and egocentricity excluding any empathy for the others.

But of course, what's in a word, when you tolerate something you allow something you don't agree with. Nothing hypocritical about it, do what you want as long as it doesn't affect me. Consequences of a nanny state people become selfish. I am from the countryside, if your house burns down and you aren't properly insured don't be surprised if the community collected enough money to build you a new one. In the city's it is different.