Quote Originally Posted by Idaho View Post
The follow-up question is "Should people always behave in a way that the majority in a society feel happy and comfortable with?"

Then the question after that is "To what extent do individuals have rights of belief and expression?"

Of course, as ever, none of you see the historical parrallels. The development of fascism in the early 20th century was due to the creation of new, potentially disparate nations. When Germany and Italy were created out of the various smaller states they had to impose an ideal of nationhood. Everything had to branded with the mark of the new nation. Germany still has Bundes-everything. The side-effect of this is it left a large number of people with questionable loyalty. Catholics (to Rome), Gypsies and Jews.
No, to use an old English saying; "do whatever you want, just don't scare the horses", i.e. its not my business to interfere in your life, just make sure you don't interfere in mine.

Every right up to the point it interferes in someone else's life. eg, british jews. They look funny, they keep themselves apart, the east funny food, have a funny religion, but who cares, because they live there lives without imposing that view on others.
Then for example you have the millions of ME/muslim immigrants the UK is trying to 'assimilate'. They look funny, they keep themselves apart, the east funny food, have a funny religion, but find themselves the object of distrust from the native population, because that native population perceives a noisy grievance culture from the newcomers which is forcing the natives to adjust their lives to accommodate a griping minority who really ought to be grateful they got citizenship and quietly set about making themselves British, i.e. the italicized English idiom above.

Some of us see those exact problems in the attempt to forge a federal europe.