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A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

theguardian.com

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Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#141

Post by decimalenough »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #110
decimalenough wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people in Europe absolutely have a problem with legal immigration, with asylum seekers particularly maligned. Specifically, the rise of far-right parties in Scandinavia, Germany and France is very much a reaction to legal immigration from Arab and African countries. The argument is not "they're stealing our jobs", but "they're abusing our welfare benefits, driving up crime and raping our women".

1) Not all asylum seekers are legal immigrants. Legal means you have obtained an entry visa before crossing the border. 2) Even huge amounts of legal asylum seekers can end up straining the already thin welfare state, so it's only normal that taxpayers paying for the welfare state, ask their politicians "where are you goanna house all these newly arrived asylum seekers when even citizens and taxpayers are struggling…

I'm not sure who you're asking, but I'm not surprised at all.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#142

Post by arghwhat »

milesrout wrote: post #129
amadeuspagel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about vacationing in a country that has a lower VAT because hotels and everything are cheaper?

VAT is a consumption tax. If you consume goods in a place with lower consumption taxes then the tax is doing exactly what it is meant to do. If you buy consumer goods in a low-VAT place but transport them to a high-VAT place and consume them, then that is clearly illegitimate for the same reason that it is legitimate for VAT to be applied to imports and refunded to exporters.

Within EU, you have free movement of goods, and the VAT is generally paid in the country of sale, not in the country of of the consumer. There are a few exceptions to this, and other regions might have other trade agreements.

Within the EU definition, VAT taxes the company making the sale for the increase in value of a product through the processes the companies and distributors applied to it, and is not a taxation of the receipt of said value.

There is nothing illegitimate about then consuming the product in a different country. It just doesn't happen to send money to your own country's treasury.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#143

Post by mantas »

guappa wrote: post #136
mantas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimes by random thugs is affecting day-to-day life much more than corrupt politicians stuffing their pockets with public money. Getting stabbed on the street vs somebody giving a government contract to a buddy? If I must choose, I’d rather take the later tbh.

Is it? A thug might occasionally steal your wallet. Rich criminals make sure you will not get cure for whatever illness you will surely get as you get older.

A thug may kill you and it won’t matter much what illness you’ll get at old age.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#144

Post by alternatex »

bsoles wrote: post #124
bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

> If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be ready to cannibalize... People are the same everywhere. > That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Sure. People are not the same in their current behaviors. People are the same in how they acquire their behaviors or change their behaviors based on the co…

Your example is a popular trope in the Balkans about how Balkan people behave when they go to work in Germany vs how they behave when they come back home in the Balkans.

Incentives are everything in a civilized society and anyone who cannot wrap their mind around this is most likely privileged.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#145

Post by guappa »

mantas wrote: post #143
guappa wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? A thug might occasionally steal your wallet. Rich criminals make sure you will not get cure for whatever illness you will surely get as you get older.

A thug may kill you and it won’t matter much what illness you’ll get at old age.

A lightning might kill you as well while you're still in the crib. But not all these events have the same probability.

Why do you worry more about the very unlikely events and not at all about the almost sure events?

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#146

Post by dfawcus »

absolutelastone wrote: post #103
dfawcus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that is just what we do. Expressing things as percentages was a late arrival; when until the mid 70s folks had to be able to cope with, and mentally manipulate vulgar fractions.

"four out of five" has the same number of syllables as "80%". "Three out of four" has even fewer syllables than 75%, for that matter. So I can see why those stuck around. Meanwhile "one out of two" is wordier than just "half". Are you saying British people still use it in such an inefficient case anyway?

The media does when writing such things up, stylistic choices.

It is also likely to be "one in two" rather than "one out of two", in speech "half", "three quarters", "seven eighths" etc is more likely.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#147

Post by absolutelastone »

decimalenough wrote: post #106
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*)limiting ILLEGAL immigration, emphasis on the word illegal. Nobody in Europe has a problem with LEGAL immigration, but the left wing parties and MSM keeps ignoring this and sweeping illegal immigration along the legal immigration banner to drive the narrative that Europeans are racists who hate all immigrants in order to justify (social) media censorship and restrictions on free speech to fight the "right wing extr…

A lot of people in Europe absolutely have a problem with legal immigration, with asylum seekers particularly maligned. Specifically, the rise of far-right parties in Scandinavia, Germany and France is very much a reaction to legal immigration from Arab and African countries. The argument is not "they're stealing our jobs", but "they're abusing our welfare benefits, driving up crime and raping our women".

Is an asylum seeker really legal if their claim is a stretch and they are in fact just an economic migrant? Seems like an arguable category that should be treated separately. Though I agree there appear to be plenty of people in Europe who want to restrict legal immigration too. Is this taboo there now too?

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#148

Post by like_any_other »

hnhg wrote: post #79
bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

Some of those cultures that apparently celebrate gay people were also chemically castrating them not that long ago, and also have a lot of locals who still hate gay people and cannot wait to get back to the old ways. The rise of the far right in Europe and USA might challenge your idea of fixed regional cultures quite soon.

That same far right might challenge your idea of the far right. E.g. Germany's AfD is headed by a lesbian in a relationship with a Sri Lankan, and the party enjoys disproportionate support by gay men:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-so-many-gay-men-s...

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#149

Post by defrost »

like_any_other wrote: post #148
hnhg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those cultures that apparently celebrate gay people were also chemically castrating them not that long ago, and also have a lot of locals who still hate gay people and cannot wait to get back to the old ways. The rise of the far right in Europe and USA might challenge your idea of fixed regional cultures quite soon.

That same far right might challenge your idea of the far right. E.g. Germany's AfD is headed by a lesbian in a relationship with a Sri Lankan, and the party enjoys disproportionate support by gay men: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-so-many-gay-men-s...

In a world where Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, the Nazi Party's stormtroopers, was openly gay, and Reich uniforms and Hugo Boss feature heavily in gay iconography ... that would suprise us why?

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#150

Post by like_any_other »

jjani wrote: post #122
only-one1701 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to know your thoughts on what differentiates people. Perhaps race?

Culture is everything. Culture being the people you're surrounded with on a daily basis, not the culture of an arbitrary geography. The people you interact with in your home, at school, at work, at the church/sports club. What is the distribution of their actions, values, practices? It is the major decider from the way one talks, one walks, one acts, one decides, everything. Can it be overruled by nature? Yes, very r…

> Culture is everything.

This has been proven false. To name just one measure of human behavior, the Big Five personality traits are 40-60% heritable: https://www.nature.com/articles/tp201596

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