Integration problems
 

In the Netherlands, there's a great problem about the integration of foreigners, mostly from Morocco and Turkey. We even have a real minister for integration, called Rita Verdonk. Personally, I find her a real ****.
Well, she recently had the "great" idea of making a law that on the streets no other language than Dutch is allowed to be spoken. That's the biggest political bullshit i have ever heard. 2 million of the 16 million people in The Netherlands are foreigners and have a different mother language than Dutch.
What do you think of this law?

Sounds pretty ridiculous.

If only they would do that here in the US and make English the only language spoke I would be ecstatic. I hate having to go through all the multilingual prompts on ATMs, phones, and what not just to get plain old English menus.

Such a pity.

"Would you like English? Se habla Espanol?"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT >=("

That extra ONE BUTTON that you press to get English could be more time spent doing other, more IMPORTANT things!

So, by not allowing them to speak their own language, the idea is that they will stop coming? My country shoots at you for crossing illegally and the population of unregistered aliens is still on a steady rise. Of course, it's pretty hard to measure a population that does its best to avoid any government institutions, but from all the info we can gather, it's still climbing.

That DOES sound like a rather ridiculous law. That seems to border on violation of the freedom of speech to a certain degree.
I think that a law in that spirit COULD have some merit if it were changed a bit, like requiring all immigrants to be able to speak dutch after a certain period of time of residence(like 2 years). If they cannot learn, they are clearly not able to be integrated and naturalized.

The concept of "integrating" foreigners to your own society is dead. The majority of foreigners is either unwilling or unable to integrate and there's not much a government can do about this except stop or restrict immigration.

We've seen what the multi-cultural society is leading to: misunderstanding, fear, hatred and ultimately, violence.

A law allowing people to only speak Dutch in public is nonsense, if not impossible because some immigrants simply refuse to learn the language. But a law saying that learning Dutch is mandatory seems like a good start.

This is because a multi-cultural society requires its constituents to accept multi-culturalism as a meta-culture, superceding many aspects of their own cultural or religious worldviews. It's an artificial construct, and it can't work.

Allow me to quote:

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other."

And further:

"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth."

Multi-culturalism tries to efface the essential differences between ethnic, social, and religious groups. Ultimately, you have to choose your identity: accept this effacement and embrace the Roman ideal, or reject it and live by other standards, whatever they may be.

That's going to make being a tourist in "Dutchland" so much fun! Glad to see such "enlightened" policy in European countries.

A certain degree? It's a literal infringement on free speech.

Then again, with Holocaust-deniers going to trial and all, it's not like Germanic countries have had a particular respect for Freedom of Speech.

This is also sure to encourage the Muslims to integrate wholly into Dutch society and not react violently over the oppression of their identity.

Wow, it seems that Europe can no longer take the high ground when they laugh at Americans for our sudden lack of civil liberties.

In other words, it's not just a ridiculous law, it's an unethical one.

Well, that's the ultimate comedy. An investigation of any nation's legal code would reveal exactly how few "civil liberties" people have. There are few things one can do in any given country that's not supposed to involve government consent, somehow. Things are politicised so much to the point where you'd need a permit to pee outside.

If the majority doesn't speak Dutch, wouldn't it be a stupid law to pass anyway? In some point, it would probably be overruled and scrapped of later. It's just stupid even considering it when statistics do show that the majority DOESN'T speak Dutch.

I hope they start stamping a disclaimer on people's passports when entering their country. If you speak anything other then Dutch YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW!!!! Or better yet, they'll just discriminate against the Arabs by making it illegal to speak Arabic.

I know. That's what make's this all the more hilarious. They never had the high ground in the first place.

Oh it might very well be quite ethnical from their (the Dutch government's) standpoint. Just not from yours.

The only ethical idea that a government can uphold is protection of its citizens, so from the Dutch's government's standpoint, it's unethical, too.

Don't pull the "everyone's ethics are different!!" card, because then we might as well forget about making judgments at all.

But the Dutch Government is protecting it's citizens by forcing integration and outlawing anything ethnically diverse.

I don't know about that though. One could possibly argue that the protection of freedom of speech is a protection of the content of said speech, not the language in which it is delivered. As such, they can rule that by mandating a consistency in language, they do not infringe upon the freedom of speech, but instead help encourage clear communication amongst it's citizens.

But of course, like you said, their reverence for freedom of speech is not very big at all.

Eurrope in general is struggling with a very large unintegrated population of Muslims. Look what happened in france over the summer. Many governments are now scrambling to protect their ethnic identitiies. The Eurpoean Union is a joke. Lets not forget the fear in Holland too, over the van Gogh slaying.

Europe will eventually calm itself down however. The situation isn't very dire, many nations just still need to come to terms with what is happenening. These aren't bad people coming into the countries after all.

No, but they are unemployed and segregated. Europe doesn't have America's melting pot tradition. People come to the U.S. and eventually blend with society. The Muslim immigrants in Eurpope, for whatever reason, aren't melting in with European society in general. This is causing alot of unrest in the various ethnic neighborhoods. Its also helping with the formation of terror cells, as can be seen by the homegrown cell responsible for the London train bombings.

An excellent book on the subject:

http://berlinski.com/?q=aboutmenace

Just wondering, guys, how are you going to bring this subject up (as one would load ammunition into a gun of some sort) when in a debate with a European over American policies that are actually law?

"Yeah but remember that one woman from the Netherlands - widely recognised for being a harebrained hardliner even in her own country - who once proposed an idea to limit public speech to Dutch only? A-ha! See, I've got you!"

If the Europeans start embracing diversity and become tolerate of differences in people's race, religion, ethnic backgrounds, and other things, maybe they'll start seeing less problems.

Glad somebody decided to ask. My answer; a concept originating in British Common Law. To be more particular, the legality of seditious libel. Basically what seditious libel is about is that the government is not trying to prevent a utterance, therby not infringing on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech only means you're free to say what you please. Not that there cannot be any legal recourse for what (or how) you say. Say for example you threaten the life of a world leader. You're free to do so, but there is legal recourse.

Now, for a European example. In Spain, under Franco you were free to be a communist. You could even start your own communist club decrying government practices. But in downtown Madrid there was a prison where screams of agony erupted from. Which was where the communists were sent for rehabilitation.

Oh, and isn't some Austrian being imprisoned over some pro-nazi things he said in a book a decade or two ago? Seditious Libel at work again.


I'm sure plenty of Americans think some of our policies are extreme as well. So your point is moot. And as I've already said, this "idea" is of European origin, which is still in wide use. Get my point about some Europeans being hypocrites now?

Amercian policies that are in effect? You know this isn't law in the Netherlands?

Those posts I quoted, they look like two people entering into this thread and announcing "ha you're no better than us!", just because of some mad woman. Now it's fine if you want to score points against the Europeans, it just would be a little less confounding to onlookers to do it some thread thats not about what isn't really happening. Is that alright?

Seditious libel is just as much apart of our laws as they are yours. Hence the examples I provided. In this case there's no freedom of speech conflict. Just some intolerance which is really nothing new in your country or mine.


Maybe so. It could be I was baiting somebody for a response for a reason. Since I cannot change what you think about freedom of speech or it's limits. But I surely can change your perception on what limits do apply. (and have been applied in the not so recent past)

Oh and don't feel too bad. That's not the first time I've pulled that on somebody.

It's a shame the journals aren't up, you could put that stuff in an entry with, like, a link in a signature somewhere saying something like "an education on seditious libel" so people can read it voluntarily. Nice gig though, you got me good.

I think I'm too lazy for a journal, so it's just easier to bait people and then make them look silly after relating numerous examples. Plus, I'm no lawyer... or historian for that matter.

I didn't really expect anyone who hasn't had a good "history of Western Civilization" and/or a couple college level classes on law to really understand it anyway. Most people have misconceptions about freedom of speech.

Ok, a little advice I may impart. For a really big payoff, I would wait until someone who is actually trying to counter your point bites. Also, that way anyone who's just attempting to point out some logical shortfallings doesn't have to waste their time on someone feigning ignorance and playing games for whatever reason.

This is kinda off topic but here goes.

I think the journal idea would probably be better. Something I'll consider. But I digress, since pretty much everyone who read the first post of this thread agreed that this was small-minded bigotry, if anyone; namely me were to come out and say "I don't think there's anything legally wrong with this..." I'd be denounced as a bigot or maybe even anti-arab nazi. Which clearly I am not. The point is, nobody would take the time to get to my true legal standpoint. Where as here at least one person got it. Probably more. And hey a little humility never hurt anybody with all these European-American rivalries/tensions going on right?


Then do accept my apologies for that. But regardless I would've dealt with your outrage, and your indinity either way. Instead of dealing with it all at once and from everybody (with the "I don't think there's anything legally wrong with this" comment) I chose to single somebody out, and hope everyone got my point without all the outrage.

Stop acting like a goddamn queen. This is Political Palace, not some dance floor at the student center.

Great diplomacy skills Brady! Used less words then I did. But I bet mine went over better.

Why didn't you make the point straight away? Why did you feel somebody had to lead you there? You know this thread has been sullied slightly because of your inablity to air your view point in the normal course of debate? But if Bradylama tells me trawling is commonplace over a straight laying down of opinions, then I've got it all wrong, for which you should excuse me.

You want to know what I hate? I hate people using the word Nazi and not knowing what it fucking means. Nazi was a german abreviation for National Socialist.

It's more of a 'journey of self-discovery' that way. I don't like preaching. Plus it was kinda fun; "You Europeans started it the moment you acted all superior to Americans!" and likewise.

Mmm okay. It could've also been sullied by the general ignorance about common law regarding freedom of speech that's older then 100 years? But I guess I'll take the blame for sullying the thread.

I'll leave it to Brady to explain himself, but I think he was just saying you were overreacting over nothing. If a moderator had a problem with what I did, they'd inform me.

Regardless I've made my point. So I'm done with this thread.

As I say though, at least wait until someone who proves they need the journey comes along, before smugly showing your hand. It still stands that I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with your standpoint concerning the issue of free speech or whatever, and my original interjection into the topic was based on your application of view, rather than content (which you kept hidden anyway).

That'll be ignorance about something that wasn't part of the equation when I made my first post, then.

I'm just in favour of straightforward debate rather than pussyfooting around. If you've got something to say on an issue, especially something which you think will educate, come out and share it, there's no need for muddying up a discussion with these games and provocative one liners before hand. I'd call it more 'reacting' than 'overreacting' to want things more clear cut.

You got there in the end huh?

Acting as if you're not affected by a quip or otherwise is just a waste of space. Clearly you would be, because you've taken the time to expunge on how unaffected you are.

Watts is being kind of an asshole by sounding full of himself, but that isn't particularly wrong, and neither is stringing somebody along to help prove a point. That's a part of discussion.

Now stop this cat fight and act like big boys.

You're so damn right!

The European Union is actually a great concept, but it's being run by incompetent fools.

Geez, we can't even agree on a common policy on terrorism.

And because they want to get many new members as fast as possible. Letting Poland, Hungary, the former CSSR etc joining in was in my opinion not a good idea.

Where did I do that?

Would you say then, that Watts' discussion methods have moved this thread in a positive direction?

This is pretty ridiculous. Anyone who consents to this is up to be laughed at.

In fact, it's pretty much a given (and important) that they would be members of the EU at some point in time, but I agree that some steps were just taken way too fast here.

To get back on topic, the joining of new countries at this pace doesn't really help with the integration of foreigners, either.

Speaking the lokal language is also important for integration.
In Germany the politicians are now debating if they should forbid alien students to talk in their mother language in scool. They say, that the students from Turkey, Greece, former Yugoslavia and so on have problems with the German language.

Well I don't know if this really helps people to integrate themselves, I know e.g. from some Turks that some of them don't want to learn German.

If they don't want to learn German, why are they going to German schools filled with German students and German teachers in Germany?:confused:

German universities still have a good reputation in other countries as well, you know. Some just get a student visa and return to their home countries after finishing their studies. Most of them still go through the hassles of actually learning German.

Seeing how more and more studying programs are offered in English or other foreign languages almost eliminates the need for it, though.

Same reason why there's so many azn grad students here that barely speak English even after living here for four years. They don't have a desire to learn the language, don't want to stay here when they finish, and there's enough of their friends that they can stick together and get through most things.

It doesn't bother me a whole lot except when I have to try and deal with them since they'll start yelling at me like it's my fault for not knowing Chinese/Korean/Japanese/whatever. =\