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Netherlands6273 Posts
Geert Wilders, the Dutch Freedom Party leader who’s targeting an election win next year amid the tide of populism sweeping Europe, was found guilty of inciting discrimination with comments he made about Moroccan immigrants, but the judges in the case imposed no penalty.
“The guilty verdict was punishment enough,” the presiding judge, Hendrik Steenhuis, said when he delivered his verdict in the courtroom near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport amid tight security on Friday. Wilders, who was also found guilty of using offensive language about Moroccans as a group but cleared of inciting hatred, was not present in court.
“With his comments, Wilders contributed to a further polarization of Dutch society,” Steenhuis said. Wilders, whose party is known as the PVV in Dutch, responded via Twitter, saying: “Three PVV hating judges declare that Moroccans are a race and convict me and half of the Netherlands. Madness.” Wilders’s lawyer immediately announced an appeal, Dutch national news agency ANP reported.
The verdict represents a possible boost to Wilders in his bid to make the Freedom Party the largest in the Dutch parliament in the March 2017 elections. All recent polls suggest the party is set to win most seats ahead of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals. Wilders, who has gained support on a program of opposition to Islam and the European Union, is pledging to emulate the U.K. and take the Netherlands out of the bloc and shut the country’s borders to Muslim immigrants if he gains power.
‘Fewer, Fewer, Fewer’
During a speech in March 2014 in The Hague, Wilders asked people attending a Freedom Party rally if they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands. When the crowd responded by chanting “fewer, fewer, fewer,’’ Wilders replied that he would “take care of that.” More than 6,400 complaints about the remarks were filed to the public prosecutor’s office.
Wilders, who didn’t attend most of the proceedings but used his right to make a closing speech in his defense, called the trial a ‘’political process’’ and he said he would never be silent. “The freedom of speech is the only freedom I still have,’’ said Wilders, who is under close police protection.
The elections to the Dutch lower house present one of the next big opportunities for populists to shake up the political establishment after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president a month ago.
www.bloomberg.com
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On December 09 2016 21:02 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +Geert Wilders, the Dutch Freedom Party leader who’s targeting an election win next year amid the tide of populism sweeping Europe, was found guilty of inciting discrimination with comments he made about Moroccan immigrants, but the judges in the case imposed no penalty.
“The guilty verdict was punishment enough,” the presiding judge, Hendrik Steenhuis, said when he delivered his verdict in the courtroom near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport amid tight security on Friday. Wilders, who was also found guilty of using offensive language about Moroccans as a group but cleared of inciting hatred, was not present in court.
“With his comments, Wilders contributed to a further polarization of Dutch society,” Steenhuis said. Wilders, whose party is known as the PVV in Dutch, responded via Twitter, saying: “Three PVV hating judges declare that Moroccans are a race and convict me and half of the Netherlands. Madness.” Wilders’s lawyer immediately announced an appeal, Dutch national news agency ANP reported.
The verdict represents a possible boost to Wilders in his bid to make the Freedom Party the largest in the Dutch parliament in the March 2017 elections. All recent polls suggest the party is set to win most seats ahead of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals. Wilders, who has gained support on a program of opposition to Islam and the European Union, is pledging to emulate the U.K. and take the Netherlands out of the bloc and shut the country’s borders to Muslim immigrants if he gains power.
‘Fewer, Fewer, Fewer’
During a speech in March 2014 in The Hague, Wilders asked people attending a Freedom Party rally if they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands. When the crowd responded by chanting “fewer, fewer, fewer,’’ Wilders replied that he would “take care of that.” More than 6,400 complaints about the remarks were filed to the public prosecutor’s office.
Wilders, who didn’t attend most of the proceedings but used his right to make a closing speech in his defense, called the trial a ‘’political process’’ and he said he would never be silent. “The freedom of speech is the only freedom I still have,’’ said Wilders, who is under close police protection.
The elections to the Dutch lower house present one of the next big opportunities for populists to shake up the political establishment after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president a month ago. www.bloomberg.com
I really don't like where this is going. It's gonna be Trump all over again in March. He might actually get like 30% of the votes.
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Netherlands6273 Posts
I doubt it. He polled 30 seats before last election as well before imploding. He'll never be able to forum a government anyway since our parliament is so fractured (pvv polling first with last than 30 out of 150 seats). Nobody wants to govern with him anymore since he let the last government he supported implode quite fast.
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After the loss in the US, political correctness has to find a way back. My solidarity to Wilders. Defending one's country has become a crime, apparently.
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On December 09 2016 21:02 RvB wrote:
“With his comments, Wilders contributed to a further polarization of Dutch society,” Steenhuis said. Wilders, whose party is known as the PVV in Dutch, responded via Twitter, saying: “Three PVV hating judges declare that Moroccans are a race and convict me and half of the Netherlands. Madness.” Wilders’s lawyer immediately announced an appeal, Dutch national news agency ANP reported.
Far-right trolls are really always the same everywhere, “I can't be racist, being Muslim/Moroccan/whatever isn't a race !1!1!1!1” So basically racism never exists because races objectively don't. Geniuses.
On December 09 2016 22:21 SoSexy wrote:
After the loss in the US, political correctness has to find a way back. My solidarity to Wilders. Defending one's country has become a crime, apparently.
Out of all the terrible/ludicrous concepts that right/far-right thinking produced, “political correctness” definitely belongs to the top3. Not encouraging people to blindly hate others based on such or such trait is simply basic human decency, really. It's only in your orwellian worldview that attacking others based on their origin/ethnicity/religion/etc. is “defending one's country”.
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On December 09 2016 21:48 RvB wrote:
I doubt it. He polled 30 seats before last election as well before imploding. He'll never be able to forum a government anyway since our parliament is so fractured (pvv polling first with last than 30 out of 150 seats). Nobody wants to govern with him anymore since he let the last government he supported implode quite fast.
Yes, but the disturbing thing is that none of what you said is particular reason to be optimistic that the next government will do anything besides observing how the systems currently in place will slowly break down in terms of their actual usefulness. From health care (which seems focused on allowing corporations to find multiple angles of making money off of it, rather than focused on providing quality care to people) to the whole pension versus aging situation that's been bubbling up for 50-60 years now.
I don't know why this keeps happening, maybe the fracturing is partially responsible, but aside from some decent work against the threat of global warming, nothing useful ever seems to be happening or decided upon. The government doesn't really listen to the people (eg. referendum Ukraine) and instead listens to corporations. Personally I'm still sore about the introduction of the faulty OV card the first time around -- it was known to be defective when they were issued in London, the corporation selling the fundamentally insecure system said it wasn't, and the government just said "OK then!", and consequently we had to spend a couple of million replacing all the issued cards and reworking the machines that checked them basically paying said corporation twice for one job.
Now the court is saying Wilders is responsible for increasing the polarization of the people in Netherlands, but it seems to me that the unwillingness to listen/work with 15% (or however many people voted for him) of the population is just as polarizing. Wilders may be a douchebag, but he's the douchebag that people vote for, so if you say in advance that you won't work with him you are in effect also polarizing the situation. You're pushing the people who vote for him in a corner, and they will lash out eventually (hopefully through democratic means, rather than violently, although I certainly wouldn't be happy with a Wilders cabinet either).
Maybe that digital democracy thing I suggested in the US thread is something we can do in the Netherlands since there are fewer people here.
Anyway.
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The fundamental issue is going to be the social welfare state. The European left has created and nurtured a social welfare state that most of Europe loves and most of the world envies. Immigration is a direct threat to it. You cannot have a generous social welfare state and open borders because the generous social welfare state will act as a magnet for the world's poor.
Your options are:
1) Allow your social welfare state to deteriorate to the point where it is no longer attractive to the world's poor.
2) Find a way to convert the world's poor into people who pay in as much as they take out. If a way to do this can be found the problem has been solved. Unfortunately as it is, most European countries are failing to get their own (relatively) rich citizens to pay in as much as they take out, so I am not optimistic that this is possible.
3) Restrict access to the social welfare state based on racial ancestry and set up a permanent underclass of people who have fewer rights. (This is illiberal and undemocratic, but it could theoretically allow open immigration and a generous social welfare state to live side by side)
4) Restrict immigration to those unlikely to burden the social welfare state.
Popularity of the social welfare state rests on the assumption that it is helping the unlucky and people collecting from it are a lot like you. It could have been you.
Multiculturalism creates a situation where the population is not alike and each does not like the ways the other collects from the social welfare state. It goes both ways. Here are the thoughts that go through people's heads:
"Why should I pay for his benefits when he choose to have 3 wives and 15 kids. That was his irresponsible decision. That could never happen to me or anyone like me."
"Why should I pay for his benefits when he chose to drop out of school at age 14. I toughed through school while he slacked off."
On the other side you have:
"Why should I pay for his college education. He would be richer than me without that education and with that education he will be even richer still. Let the rich college boys pay for their own educations."
"Why should I pay for his pension. It is not my fault he only had one kid. I have fifteen kids. They will take care of me. I go to the effort of raising 15 kids and he is lazy and raises one and now he wants to share our children's income? Worse yet, his pension is more than my salary ever was, so he collects more money for doing nothing than I ever got for working."
As I see it open immigration and a generous social welfare state are incompatible in the long run and one will give way to the other.
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I wish you would stop calling it a welfare state. That is an American term that is hardly positive. Social aid does not mean welfare.
Education and health care should always be free, people actively looking for a job should receive benefits. Turning either into a business is simply capitalism at its' worst.
Your examples are insane.
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Of course Europe is a welfare state. Why do you think that refugees are trying so hard to get to Germany and Great Britain? The weather?
Education and health care should always be free, people actively looking for a job should receive benefits.
That's not welfare, that's public investment. Welfare is giving out free shit to the poor. It has its merits of course but in Europe it's over the top. mostly because we can afford it and it's a good way for politicians to be popular. Well, we could afford it. not anymore though
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No doubt your against the RSA and the CAF then? Against having the best health care system in the world? Wanting things to become more like the UK where students are sold 9k/year debt to attend 12h of uni classes a week? Should we aim to be like China and screen those who deserve it and those who do not? Let's turn the world into a gigantic factory.
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Why is education and health not part of the "welfare state"? It would be much cheaper just giving up on bad pupils early, they are statistically not worth it. It would be much cheaper just letting old people die when they catch a cold.
(At least) the bottom 25% of the working population gets more benefits over their lifespan than they pay for, mostly through health care, education and pensions. That's welfare total. Just let them die, they're not worth it!
In Austria "giving to the poor" makes for around 2% of our states budget. The extras we pay for pensions in addition to the contributions by working people make for 13%, and those two overlap a bit. (Old people get "Mindestsicherung" too if they do not get a high enough pension)
"Social welfare" isn't our problem at all. We can easily afford it. It's just right-wingers pointing their fingers, because people with low education and low social status hardly vote and many of them are foreigners to begin with. It's easy to point your finger on those who cannot participate in a democracy, but it has nothing to do with the real problems and numbers.
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I did not intend the term welfare to be pejorative and I intentionally mentioned pensions, healthcare and education because those are the most expensive benefits. Will the new crop of immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of their healthcare and pensions later in life? I suspect not since Europe has struggled to get their own citizens who are far more prosperous to pay enough.
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Maybe if your country spent less on its' military and tax avoidance schemes it could provide universal health care, forced lowering of education fees and actual state pension instead of whatever the hell a 42k is.
For that matter tax avoidance is a problem everywhere it would seem.
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On December 10 2016 23:42 meadbert wrote:
I did not intend the term welfare to be pejorative and I intentionally mentioned pensions, healthcare and education because those are the most expensive benefits. Will the new crop of immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of their healthcare and pensions later in life? I suspect not since Europe has struggled to get their own citizens who are far more prosperous to pay enough.
I've also seen people raise the issue that there's a lot of old people now who live longer, need more expensive healthcare for an increased amount of time, etc. I'm fairly certain there's countless of things contributing to the whole "problem of the welfare state". Immigrants are only part of the problem in this equation. Maybe someone can up with some statistics regarding the cost of taking care of old people and the cost of immigrants who take welfare. Of course, if someone does that and they don't match my viewpoint I will just say that the statistics are rigged to show only one thing or another, obviously, so maybe don't bother.
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On December 11 2016 00:23 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2016 23:42 meadbert wrote:
I did not intend the term welfare to be pejorative and I intentionally mentioned pensions, healthcare and education because those are the most expensive benefits. Will the new crop of immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of their healthcare and pensions later in life? I suspect not since Europe has struggled to get their own citizens who are far more prosperous to pay enough.
I've also seen people raise the issue that there's a lot of old people now who live longer, need more expensive healthcare for an increased amount of time, etc. I'm fairly certain there's countless of things contributing to the whole "problem of the welfare state". Immigrants are only part of the problem in this equation. Maybe someone can up with some statistics regarding the cost of taking care of old people and the cost of immigrants who take welfare. Of course, if someone does that and they don't match my viewpoint I will just say that the statistics are rigged to show only one thing or another, obviously, so maybe don't bother.
Pensions is an entirely separate problem from welfare and the money for them comes from different sources so such statistics would be pointless.
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On December 11 2016 00:32 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2016 00:23 a_flayer wrote:On December 10 2016 23:42 meadbert wrote:
I did not intend the term welfare to be pejorative and I intentionally mentioned pensions, healthcare and education because those are the most expensive benefits. Will the new crop of immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the costs of their healthcare and pensions later in life? I suspect not since Europe has struggled to get their own citizens who are far more prosperous to pay enough.
I've also seen people raise the issue that there's a lot of old people now who live longer, need more expensive healthcare for an increased amount of time, etc. I'm fairly certain there's countless of things contributing to the whole "problem of the welfare state". Immigrants are only part of the problem in this equation. Maybe someone can up with some statistics regarding the cost of taking care of old people and the cost of immigrants who take welfare. Of course, if someone does that and they don't match my viewpoint I will just say that the statistics are rigged to show only one thing or another, obviously, so maybe don't bother. Pensions is an entirely separate problem from welfare and the money for them comes from different sources so such statistics would be pointless.
Problem solved lets close the borders.
(I always thought that young native people who can't get jobs cause they're all taken by immigrants who are paid less and can't afford the more expensive health care plans paid for the medical cost of old people, not pensions)
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Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni emerges as frontrunner to replace Renzi
Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, vowed to quickly resolve the political crisis shaking the eurozone’s third-largest economy, with Paolo Gentiloni, the foreign minister, emerging as a leading candidate to replace Matteo Renzi as prime minister.
After three days of consultations with parliamentary leaders of all stripes, Mr Mattarella said Italy needed a “fully functional government within a short timeframe” in order to meet its domestic, European and international commitments.
“In the coming hours I will evaluate what has emerged from these discussions and will take the necessary initiatives for the solution of the government crisis,” Mr Mattarella told reporters.
According to one senior Italian official, Mr Gentiloni had emerged as the frontrunner for the job of prime minister, as the chances of Mr Renzi being reappointed to the position — which had been floated in recent days — appeared to recede.
Italy was plunged into political uncertainty six days ago after voters rejected a set of constitutional reforms championed by Mr Renzi by an overwhelming 20 percentage point margin in a referendum on which the 41-year old mayor of Florence staked his tenure in office. Mr Renzi resigned on Wednesday, triggering the talks held by Mr Mattarella.
The urgency of installing a new government increased on Friday after the European Central Bank rejected a bid by Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the country’s third-largest bank, for extra time to raise capital among private investors.
The ECB’s decision has increased the chances that the Italian government may have to use state funds to rescue one of its most prized financial institutions, which has been dogged by non-performing loans.
The choice of Mr Gentiloni, who played a key role in talks to establish a government of national unity in war-torn Libya, would likely allow Pier Carlo Padoan, the finance minister and another contender for the top job, to stay in his current role in order to manage the banking troubles.
Assuming Mr Gentiloni is able to form a government and obtain votes of confidence in the Italian parliament, he might even be able to represent Italy at next week’s European summit in Brussels.
Although Mr Renzi resigned in the aftermath of the referendum, there have been no significant defections from the coalition that sustained his government since February 2014. This means Mr Gentiloni — if he is chosen — should be able to count on a combination of the centre-left Democratic party and other centrists in order to stay in power. However, there have been widespread calls from all political parties to move to early elections, probably in the second quarter of 2017, in order to clarify the will of the Italian people.
[...]
https://www.ft.com/content/a3e5b04a-bf1a-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354
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So, anything interesting about Romanian elections? From what I can gather it looks like a rather unremarkable election where things aren't really expected to change much.
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On December 11 2016 23:26 LegalLord wrote:
So, anything interesting about Romanian elections? From what I can gather it looks like a rather unremarkable election where things aren't really expected to change much.
No Ponta, nothing to laugh about.
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On December 11 2016 23:26 LegalLord wrote:
So, anything interesting about Romanian elections? From what I can gather it looks like a rather unremarkable election where things aren't really expected to change much.
If PSD get enough to form a coalition (and they're very likely to do so) they can undo some of the anti-corruption progress done in the last several years, they've been very vocal against the work done by the anti-corruption agency. The only way they don't win is if their buddies from ALDE don't pass the 5% threshold.
On a lighter note, I thought I accidentally entered a human cloning plant instead of the polling station earlier. There were 6 women working the station, every single one in late 20s/early 30s, average build, red lipstick, black coat, dark hair.
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EPT
