The Great Nordic Thread

[Famous Mortimer]

What are the differences between the right wing and left wing of the SPP on foreign policy?

[Famous Mortimer]

What are the differences between the right wing and left wing of the SPP on foreign policy?

There arent any, really. All tough there are a small portion of euro-sceptics on the left wing.
 Its mostly on economic policy and "value issues"  - like immigration and law and order - that they differ. But the present SPP minister of foreign affairs, Villy Søvndal (who is on the right wing), doesnt really follow the party line, but executes the governments (mainly SDs) pro-American line.
But thats mostly because SPP is so marginalized in the government.

Which side is more anti-immigration and pro-law and order? The right-wing?  That would be the obvious choice but you can never be too sure.

[Famous Mortimer]

Weird that he's the nephew of a Dominican Liberation Party president but dating a Conservative. I was under the impression that the PLD was soft Chavez-y.

[Famous Mortimer]

"direct democracy with citizens initiative and Iceland as one single constituency"

These two things seem contradictory.

[Famous Mortimer]

Honestly, I find all this talk of "cultural identity" frivolous to offensive. What is Swedish culture? Swedish culture is probably 90% the same as culture in any other rich country, they watch the Avengers and eat McDonalds like everyone else. Sure, they also like terrible fish shaped candy and terrible rotten canned fish and they like synths slightly more than is usual. None of that is ultimately that important though. If that's all that was under threat from immigration, I don't think anyone would care and rightly so. The main danger with immigration is that it will lead to cuts in welfare and a decline in living standards.

Even issues like homophobia and misogyny, which are linked to culture, if you could someone take those things out of Arab and African culture, what's left would be harmless.   

[Famous Mortimer]

It's not really an American way of looking at things. America very much has its own culture, probably a stronger more defined culture than anywhere in Europe, because it doesn't get as many outside influences. It's a culture of country music, Protestant Christianity, fried food, guns, and showy nationalism. I'm over it though. Most people who go to college are over it. I'm frankly surprised there are any educated people who aren't over their own petty local culture.

At first I figured you guys were just using this language as an argument tactic, like obviously everyone who is in favor of immigration thinks that Islamic culture is great, so you can pull the rug out from under them by forcing them to admit that Danish or Swedish culture or whatever must be great too.

If you really believe this stuff though, it's just weird. You sound like Edmund Stoiber dancing to polka music in lederhosen while most other people are living in the city like it's the 21st century.

[Famous Mortimer]

Well "culture" is all fluid and constantly changing. European culture is dynamic enough to survive in a changed form. This isn't like the Native Americans or Abroginals Australians, whose culture was obliterated along with them.

Oh, of course. You won't hear me saying things like that. But at the same time I think there is a rather large gap between the way Atlas Americans tend to see European societies and the way Atlas Europeans tend to see European societies. On the surface, sure, every cinema has popcorn, shows the Avengers and there will always be a Burger King or McDonald's close to the cinema. However, that's not really what culture and identity are about. Like Politicus said, most European countries do have their own cultural characteristics. The fact that many American posters don't see this, doesn't mean that these should be deemed irrelevant or (worse) objectionable.

I would agree that there's a disconnect on the modern left between people think that culture associated with Brown people is great and culture associated with White people is terrible. That is hypocrisy. A lot of Europeans here have seemed to respond to it by going "well all cultures are valuable and have the right to self determination" That's consistent but I don't agree with it. I'm saying all cultures are rendered frivolous and irrelevant in the modern world.

[Famous Mortimer]

Well "culture" is all fluid and constantly changing. European culture is dynamic enough to survive in a changed form. This isn't like the Native Americans or Abroginals Australians, whose culture was obliterated along with them.

Oh, of course. You won't hear me saying things like that. But at the same time I think there is a rather large gap between the way Atlas Americans tend to see European societies and the way Atlas Europeans tend to see European societies. On the surface, sure, every cinema has popcorn, shows the Avengers and there will always be a Burger King or McDonald's close to the cinema. However, that's not really what culture and identity are about. Like Politicus said, most European countries do have their own cultural characteristics. The fact that many American posters don't see this, doesn't mean that these should be deemed irrelevant or (worse) objectionable.

I would agree that there's a disconnect on the modern left between people think that culture associated with Brown people is great and culture associated with White people is terrible. That is hypocrisy. A lot of Europeans here have seemed to respond to it by going "well all cultures are valuable and have the right to self determination" That's consistent but I don't agree with it. I'm saying all cultures are rendered frivolous and irrelevant in the modern world.

Not really, what you're say is "my culture is universal and it's frivolous for other not to adopt it, because their cultures are irrelevant".

What's my culture though? I don't care what food people eat, what clothes they wear, what music they listen to. It really does not matter at all to me. The only thing I care about is that people aren't put to death for non-violent crimes or imprisoned for their opinions. Also, socialized medicine is nice. Beyond those things though, anything goes.

[Famous Mortimer]

What's my culture though? I don't care what food people eat, what clothes they wear, what music they listen to. It really does not matter at all to me. The only thing I care about is that people aren't put to death for non-violent crimes or imprisoned for their opinions. Also, socialized medicine is nice. Beyond those things though, anything goes.

That you are okay with anything does not in any way prove that there are no distinct European cultures. In fact, I fail to see any connection between the two issues.

I was responding to a different claim here, the one that I want my own culture to be supreme. For the record though, I'm not denying that different European cultures exist, just that in the grande scheme of things, the differences are minor and unimportant.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Danish Social Democrats are generally thought of as one of the more tepid social democratic parties and that's saying something. Not surprised at all.

[Famous Mortimer]

Just learned that former Finnish PM Matti Vanhanen is apparently the son of race scientist Tatu Vanhanen. Is that true? Why don't people talk about this? What did people in Finland think?

[Famous Mortimer]

Did he have to distance himself from his father's views or did he just avoid commenting on it?