11 ms·

Liberal, Harsh Denmark

57 points by NN88 11y ago

surfmike 11y ago
Definitely Denmark stands out compared to their Scandinavian measures. But looking here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee...) they still have 4x refugees per capita compared to the US, 2x more than Australia, and still have more refugees per capita than Germany. And they're well above most EU countries. And I can almost guarantee they're more generous to refugees than the US. Seems funny for a US paper to be calling Denmark "harsh".
- wslh 11y ago
  We need to remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews
  - useerup 11y ago
    That certainly was a proud time of the Danish people. However, the jews were also forced to pay vast amounts - in cash, jewelry and more - to the kind fishermen who ferried the jews over to Sweden. Not all danes participated out of kindness of heart. The heroes of then - the fishermen - were what we today label as "people smugglers". The real heroes were the danes who participated without pay and simply because the jews were their freinds, neighbours, parents of their childrens friends etc.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Yeah and Denmark isn't sending home 80k people like Sweden, exactly because it's trying to be responsible to its own population too. Denmark is one of the most generous countries and the article is clearly written by someone who don't really get the Domestic situation. Also keep in mind Denmark is a small country and one in only 5 who spend more than the UN recommended gdp for aid.
- stenl 11y ago
  In terms of attitudes, Denmark is the least welcoming to foreigners, of all Western countries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/03/21/a-fascinating-map-of-countries-color-coded-by-their-openness-to-foreigners/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/03/21...
  - pervycreeper 11y ago
    In-group altruism is correlated with out-group hostility.
    - adventured 11y ago
      They have to be, otherwise the vast welfare state system collapses. It's why the big European welfare states can't handle huge amounts of immigration very well. The greater the welfare state, the greater the influx of immigrants that you're likely to see wanting to get there. The only reason the US was able to absorb the massive immigration it did on a few occasions in its history, was due to the almost complete non-existence of a welfare state at the time, immigrants had to make it on their own at very limited additional cost to the state or tax system. If you deployed a full European style welfare state in the US, and then attempted that scale of immigration again, it would collapse the political system and economy.
      - surfmike 11y ago
        Sweden has more immigrants per capita than the US. It doesn't seem to be collapsing.
    - hitekker 11y ago
      This is an interesting line: do you have links and research which support it?
- rbehrends 11y ago
  I don't want to distract from your bigger point (because the relative numbers have probably gone up at least with respect to the US), but these are mid-2015 numbers, i.e. before the big refugee wave started. They also only count refugees, not asylum seekers.
smegel 11y ago
How dare you be a sovereign nation with a border!
- tim333 11y ago
  Though Denmark signed up to the Schengen Agreement allowing border-free travel in the EU.
  - dijit 11y ago
    And, to be fair, Sweden did start border control first.
hackuser 11y ago
It seems like a political problem, like most of Europe's problems. People just aren't choosing to work on obvious solutions to the problems, like a coordinated EU-wide refugee program. There is no question Denmark (and others) can afford the refugees, and the refugees certainly are not going to threaten the national security of any nation. As in the US, the problem is politics. Climate change, health care, judges, and most of the rest of the issues have obvious solutions, it's just that some politicians currently refuse to participate on the grounds that other Americans also get a say in what happens (it is a democracy, after all). Unless they get their way 100%, undemocratically imposing their will on the rest of the country, no matter what their fellow citizens vote for, they won't act.
Netwt 11y ago
Denmark values their own way of life more than a stranger's. I admire them.
vessenes 11y ago
The money quote is a few paragraphs in. "Denmark has long led the continent in its shift to the right—and in its growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy." Europeans have generally experienced good cultural assimilation from immigrant populations, although I imagine conservative Jewish populations are an exception, leading to some troubling parallels right now. American politics and journalism make those parallels uncommonly mentioned in national media, but we should be considering them as societies. At the same time, lack of assimilation to these previously well functioning societies is troubling. The lack of liberalism (in a formal sense, not an American political sense) is here on HN, too; debate on the story about whether religiously conservative men could/should be able to move women away from their assigned seats on planes was shockingly vigorous to me. This seems like a battle that countries like France and America helped win decades ago. I read a suggestion many years ago (well before Turkey entered the EU) that in part Northern European countries "worked" because of their social homogeneity, and their success at cultural assimilation of immigrant populations. However true that is or was, that homogeneity is seen as at risk right now. Like anyone, I have some mixed feelings about this as seen from across the Atlantic. I both like and dislike America's fragmented and vigorous culture, and I think of these more homogenous countries like I think of the small town I live in; with some rose colored glasses on about how 'nice' they must be. And a small town can be nice. But, it can be nasty if you don't fit in. And a small town with a massive population influx can lose its niceness quickly. At any rate, it seems to me that Denmark should be allowed to ignore Syria if it wants, and also turn away refugees if it wants, or vet them on whatever criteria the country decides to. Right now liberal and right-wing (in the European sense) politics are ending up in bed together over immigrants, liberals on the behavior front, and right-wing on the culture front. Things seem likely to get more heated and violent before they cool down.
- mc32 11y ago
  Like Japan, or Bhutan, countries have the right to manage migration however they wish. I'm also grateful there are countries which are more diverse like Singapore and India and the US. People like to repeat the trope that diversity is strength that it's invigorating. But in that, the only diversity that matters is the diversity in thought, not necessarily in culture. There are as many successful nations which are diverse as there are those which are homogenous and there are as many failed nations which are diverse as there are homogenous. However, if you look at a Northern Ireland, Algeria or Iraq or India, when trouble hits, it stirs up animosity among the groups who play the blame game. In times of trouble or uncertainty stability is likely more likely retained the more homogenous the group as everyone is in the same boat and there is no one to scapegoat but the self. From that perspective I can understand Japan, Denmark or Bhutan. That said, some cultures integrate into the host culture more readily and successfully --Indochinese (Vietnamese) in France, or Chinese in France, for example, or Jews in Latin America, Indians in the US, Chinese in the Malay peninsula, than some others who retain or want to retain their mother culture and thus find a clash and harbor mixed feelings and alienation.
mudil 11y ago
These are not refugees. These are hordes of invaders.
- bcook 11y ago
  Your post is non-contributory. You are a troll. but seriously, what is your point? Why are these people "hordes" rather than "a group", and why are they "invaders" rather than "refugees"? I smell prejudice...
mercurial 11y ago
I'd like to add a few points to the article. First, the party which got the most votes at the election was SD, the center-left Social Democrats, not DF (Dansk Folkeparti). However, overall the left-wing "red block" did not have enough representatives to form a coalition government. Out of the right-wing "blue block", DF was the party with the most votes [1]. Secondly, the current conservative government has indeed a tough line when it comes to asylum seekers and refugees. Their allies from DF have in particular an obsession for muslims, which leads to fairly transparent measure such as mandating the presence of pork in menus offered by the city of Randers to "preserve Danish food traditions" [2]. If we ignore momentarily foaming-at-the-mouth-about-muslims-but-we're-really-not-racist DF types, it's hard to deny there are real integration issues with immigrant populations. However, I wouldn't be so quick to put the blame squarely on these people. You regularly have tests which show that, depending on how ethnically Danish the name on your resume sounds, your chances of getting an interview, all other things being equal, are drastically different. And I have the feeling that anti-Muslim feelings have become relatively mainstream. On the other hand, you do have a number of Muslim extremists which clearly have absolutely no intention of integrating and who'd be better off emigrating to Saudi Arabia, for everybody's good. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_general_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_general_election,_2015 2: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/danish-city-pork-protect-food-culture-160122075225203.html http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/danish-city-pork-prote... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
useracct567 11y ago
As a brown man who's lived awhile in Northern Europe, watching this saga unfold, I have to say the nimbyism shown by Denmark and Norway has been astonishing. Only Sweden and Germany seem to still be able to hold their heads high, actually treating brown people as humans without prejudice. Norway and Denmark have shown small mindedness comparable to the likes of Poland and Hungary while being vastly richer and better educated. I've had to eat my prior words and praise sung in favor of N.Europe to my friends and family and restrict it to just Sweden, because the entire world can now see the reality of the actions taken in adversity by each of the countries and not just the words. It is a small matter of consolation that the iphones so many Danes and Norwegians love is the brainchild of a man with Syrian blood whom they would have refused to shelter while counting their nickels and dimes. They are welcome to deal with that cognitive dissonance as they fade into the twilight of history while hoping the names of their ancestors are not much tarnished by the actions of the current generation. It would take a long time for the world to forget these things.
- im3w1l 11y ago
  Some people will demand more and more. And when you finally say no, they will hate you. Only a fool helps such people (edited)
- digi_owl 11y ago
  For Norway it is a perfect storm. A right wing coalition government (with the "extreme" right wing party as member for the first time in history no less), a slump in the oil price, and therefore a slump in offshore related services and industries, and a influx of refugees, in particularly across the border with Russia. Its basically a very messy situation.
- MIKarlsen 11y ago
  You must be informed solely by the media.
- tomp 11y ago
  I find it unfair to compare Steve Jobs to the current wave of immigrants. Personally, I have nothing against immigration in general. However, I strongly oppose and rationally worry about any kind of mass immigration, especially to countries that haven't experienced it before. They don't know how to manage the flow of people, they might have no place to put them (i.e. houses), they don't know how to "integrate" them (enought to enable them to get educated and get jobs), they might simply not be able to handle a sudden 20% increase in population.
MIKarlsen 11y ago
As a dane, I would like to point out that the largest group of "Muslisms-not-welcome" are the people who are seemingly at the bottom of society. They are the ones spewing uneducated nonsense on social media, and in general, have no idea what they are talking about. Most of the time, their "solution" is simply to "send them home". I feel bad for this group of people living in fear, when there's (perhaps) not that much to fear. I can however understand that you would feel threatened when you don't have an education, and can see the government trying to help refugees by offering them the same jobs you would be applying for. Also, if you have any questions regarding this whole matter, I would like to answer them as best as possible.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  You are used to having poor and stupid people being right and anti-immigration, easy to mock, with stupid arguments. Brace yourself, a new wave of anti-immigration thinkers arrive, like me. We are educated, we are smart, we are non-dogmatic. Now it will be the left whose arguments will look stupid and unwieldy. You better prepare your best thing.
- pingou 11y ago
  I'm not sure I understand, you say they have no idea what they're talking about, but understand that they may feel threatened by immigrants taking their jobs. Seems like a not so irrational fear. The article is even taking about others problems "Though Muslims make up less than 5 percent of the population, there is growing evidence that many of the new arrivals fail to enter the workforce, are slow to learn Danish, and end up in high-crime immigrant neighborhoods where, while relying on extensive state handouts, they and their children are cut off from Danish society". As a french guy, I think people should be really cautious about taking a large proportion of (relatively) poor people less educated than natives, sure it makes you feel good about yourself, then you realize that these people are more likely to be unemployed, criminals, and discriminated. I don't think it makes a country more tolerant, I think the opposite happens, prejudices simply grow, and not only without rational explanation. And 40 years later you have gigantic problems. Are french people of Arab descent discriminated in France for example? Yes I think so, and I'm pretty sure it would not be the case if the only Arab immigrants France had taken had been very educated people. Presumably the prejudice about them now would be that they are very educated/successful. Sure France did a terrible job at integrating immigrants from Arab countries, and I'm 100% sure Danemark will do better. Still, it's very difficult. I'm seeing it right now in Europe, helping these refugees didn't make the countries more tolerant, it only had the opposite effect of giving more power to far-right parties. Isn't Danemark already relying on the "solution" of "sending more and more of them home"?
guard-of-terra 11y ago
I envy Danes, at least they seem to decide for themselves. I can't, most of people in most of countries can't too. We're instead driven by a combination of dictatorship, baseless populism promoting things nobody wants, alienation ans promoting political agenda over citizens' wishes.
ulrikmoe 11y ago
Yes, we reduced social benefits to refugees by 45%, from $1600/month to $871/month, which means that we now provide roughly the same as in Norway and Sweden. If that is harsh then I'd rather not tell you what I think of the Mexico–U.S. border. Please America, go fix your own problems before you point fingers at your friends.
a_imho 11y ago
The article says 2016, March 10, any idea why?

57 points by NN88 11y ago

Definitely Denmark stands out compared to their Scandinavian measures. But looking here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee...) they still have 4x refugees per capita compared to the US, 2x more than Australia, and still have more refugees per capita than Germany. And they're well above most EU countries. And I can almost guarantee they're more generous to refugees than the US. Seems funny for a US paper to be calling Denmark "harsh".

wslh 11y ago
We need to remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews
- useerup 11y ago
  That certainly was a proud time of the Danish people. However, the jews were also forced to pay vast amounts - in cash, jewelry and more - to the kind fishermen who ferried the jews over to Sweden. Not all danes participated out of kindness of heart. The heroes of then - the fishermen - were what we today label as "people smugglers". The real heroes were the danes who participated without pay and simply because the jews were their freinds, neighbours, parents of their childrens friends etc.
ThomPete 11y ago
Yeah and Denmark isn't sending home 80k people like Sweden, exactly because it's trying to be responsible to its own population too. Denmark is one of the most generous countries and the article is clearly written by someone who don't really get the Domestic situation. Also keep in mind Denmark is a small country and one in only 5 who spend more than the UN recommended gdp for aid.
stenl 11y ago
In terms of attitudes, Denmark is the least welcoming to foreigners, of all Western countries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/03/21/a-fascinating-map-of-countries-color-coded-by-their-openness-to-foreigners/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/03/21...
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  In-group altruism is correlated with out-group hostility.
  - adventured 11y ago
    They have to be, otherwise the vast welfare state system collapses. It's why the big European welfare states can't handle huge amounts of immigration very well. The greater the welfare state, the greater the influx of immigrants that you're likely to see wanting to get there. The only reason the US was able to absorb the massive immigration it did on a few occasions in its history, was due to the almost complete non-existence of a welfare state at the time, immigrants had to make it on their own at very limited additional cost to the state or tax system. If you deployed a full European style welfare state in the US, and then attempted that scale of immigration again, it would collapse the political system and economy.
    - surfmike 11y ago
      Sweden has more immigrants per capita than the US. It doesn't seem to be collapsing.
  - hitekker 11y ago
    This is an interesting line: do you have links and research which support it?
rbehrends 11y ago
I don't want to distract from your bigger point (because the relative numbers have probably gone up at least with respect to the US), but these are mid-2015 numbers, i.e. before the big refugee wave started. They also only count refugees, not asylum seekers.

smegel 11y ago

How dare you be a sovereign nation with a border!

tim333 11y ago
Though Denmark signed up to the Schengen Agreement allowing border-free travel in the EU.
- dijit 11y ago
  And, to be fair, Sweden did start border control first.

hackuser 11y ago

It seems like a political problem, like most of Europe's problems. People just aren't choosing to work on obvious solutions to the problems, like a coordinated EU-wide refugee program. There is no question Denmark (and others) can afford the refugees, and the refugees certainly are not going to threaten the national security of any nation. As in the US, the problem is politics. Climate change, health care, judges, and most of the rest of the issues have obvious solutions, it's just that some politicians currently refuse to participate on the grounds that other Americans also get a say in what happens (it is a democracy, after all). Unless they get their way 100%, undemocratically imposing their will on the rest of the country, no matter what their fellow citizens vote for, they won't act.

Netwt 11y ago

Denmark values their own way of life more than a stranger's. I admire them.

vessenes 11y ago

The money quote is a few paragraphs in. "Denmark has long led the continent in its shift to the right—and in its growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy." Europeans have generally experienced good cultural assimilation from immigrant populations, although I imagine conservative Jewish populations are an exception, leading to some troubling parallels right now. American politics and journalism make those parallels uncommonly mentioned in national media, but we should be considering them as societies. At the same time, lack of assimilation to these previously well functioning societies is troubling. The lack of liberalism (in a formal sense, not an American political sense) is here on HN, too; debate on the story about whether religiously conservative men could/should be able to move women away from their assigned seats on planes was shockingly vigorous to me. This seems like a battle that countries like France and America helped win decades ago. I read a suggestion many years ago (well before Turkey entered the EU) that in part Northern European countries "worked" because of their social homogeneity, and their success at cultural assimilation of immigrant populations. However true that is or was, that homogeneity is seen as at risk right now. Like anyone, I have some mixed feelings about this as seen from across the Atlantic. I both like and dislike America's fragmented and vigorous culture, and I think of these more homogenous countries like I think of the small town I live in; with some rose colored glasses on about how 'nice' they must be. And a small town can be nice. But, it can be nasty if you don't fit in. And a small town with a massive population influx can lose its niceness quickly. At any rate, it seems to me that Denmark should be allowed to ignore Syria if it wants, and also turn away refugees if it wants, or vet them on whatever criteria the country decides to. Right now liberal and right-wing (in the European sense) politics are ending up in bed together over immigrants, liberals on the behavior front, and right-wing on the culture front. Things seem likely to get more heated and violent before they cool down.

mc32 11y ago
Like Japan, or Bhutan, countries have the right to manage migration however they wish. I'm also grateful there are countries which are more diverse like Singapore and India and the US. People like to repeat the trope that diversity is strength that it's invigorating. But in that, the only diversity that matters is the diversity in thought, not necessarily in culture. There are as many successful nations which are diverse as there are those which are homogenous and there are as many failed nations which are diverse as there are homogenous. However, if you look at a Northern Ireland, Algeria or Iraq or India, when trouble hits, it stirs up animosity among the groups who play the blame game. In times of trouble or uncertainty stability is likely more likely retained the more homogenous the group as everyone is in the same boat and there is no one to scapegoat but the self. From that perspective I can understand Japan, Denmark or Bhutan. That said, some cultures integrate into the host culture more readily and successfully --Indochinese (Vietnamese) in France, or Chinese in France, for example, or Jews in Latin America, Indians in the US, Chinese in the Malay peninsula, than some others who retain or want to retain their mother culture and thus find a clash and harbor mixed feelings and alienation.

mudil 11y ago

These are not refugees. These are hordes of invaders.

bcook 11y ago
Your post is non-contributory. You are a troll. but seriously, what is your point? Why are these people "hordes" rather than "a group", and why are they "invaders" rather than "refugees"? I smell prejudice...

mercurial 11y ago

I'd like to add a few points to the article. First, the party which got the most votes at the election was SD, the center-left Social Democrats, not DF (Dansk Folkeparti). However, overall the left-wing "red block" did not have enough representatives to form a coalition government. Out of the right-wing "blue block", DF was the party with the most votes [1]. Secondly, the current conservative government has indeed a tough line when it comes to asylum seekers and refugees. Their allies from DF have in particular an obsession for muslims, which leads to fairly transparent measure such as mandating the presence of pork in menus offered by the city of Randers to "preserve Danish food traditions" [2]. If we ignore momentarily foaming-at-the-mouth-about-muslims-but-we're-really-not-racist DF types, it's hard to deny there are real integration issues with immigrant populations. However, I wouldn't be so quick to put the blame squarely on these people. You regularly have tests which show that, depending on how ethnically Danish the name on your resume sounds, your chances of getting an interview, all other things being equal, are drastically different. And I have the feeling that anti-Muslim feelings have become relatively mainstream. On the other hand, you do have a number of Muslim extremists which clearly have absolutely no intention of integrating and who'd be better off emigrating to Saudi Arabia, for everybody's good. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_general_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_general_election,_2015 2: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/danish-city-pork-protect-food-culture-160122075225203.html http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/danish-city-pork-prote... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

useracct567 11y ago

As a brown man who's lived awhile in Northern Europe, watching this saga unfold, I have to say the nimbyism shown by Denmark and Norway has been astonishing. Only Sweden and Germany seem to still be able to hold their heads high, actually treating brown people as humans without prejudice. Norway and Denmark have shown small mindedness comparable to the likes of Poland and Hungary while being vastly richer and better educated. I've had to eat my prior words and praise sung in favor of N.Europe to my friends and family and restrict it to just Sweden, because the entire world can now see the reality of the actions taken in adversity by each of the countries and not just the words. It is a small matter of consolation that the iphones so many Danes and Norwegians love is the brainchild of a man with Syrian blood whom they would have refused to shelter while counting their nickels and dimes. They are welcome to deal with that cognitive dissonance as they fade into the twilight of history while hoping the names of their ancestors are not much tarnished by the actions of the current generation. It would take a long time for the world to forget these things.

im3w1l 11y ago
Some people will demand more and more. And when you finally say no, they will hate you. Only a fool helps such people (edited)
digi_owl 11y ago
For Norway it is a perfect storm. A right wing coalition government (with the "extreme" right wing party as member for the first time in history no less), a slump in the oil price, and therefore a slump in offshore related services and industries, and a influx of refugees, in particularly across the border with Russia. Its basically a very messy situation.
MIKarlsen 11y ago
You must be informed solely by the media.
tomp 11y ago
I find it unfair to compare Steve Jobs to the current wave of immigrants. Personally, I have nothing against immigration in general. However, I strongly oppose and rationally worry about any kind of mass immigration, especially to countries that haven't experienced it before. They don't know how to manage the flow of people, they might have no place to put them (i.e. houses), they don't know how to "integrate" them (enought to enable them to get educated and get jobs), they might simply not be able to handle a sudden 20% increase in population.

MIKarlsen 11y ago

As a dane, I would like to point out that the largest group of "Muslisms-not-welcome" are the people who are seemingly at the bottom of society. They are the ones spewing uneducated nonsense on social media, and in general, have no idea what they are talking about. Most of the time, their "solution" is simply to "send them home". I feel bad for this group of people living in fear, when there's (perhaps) not that much to fear. I can however understand that you would feel threatened when you don't have an education, and can see the government trying to help refugees by offering them the same jobs you would be applying for. Also, if you have any questions regarding this whole matter, I would like to answer them as best as possible.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
You are used to having poor and stupid people being right and anti-immigration, easy to mock, with stupid arguments. Brace yourself, a new wave of anti-immigration thinkers arrive, like me. We are educated, we are smart, we are non-dogmatic. Now it will be the left whose arguments will look stupid and unwieldy. You better prepare your best thing.
pingou 11y ago
I'm not sure I understand, you say they have no idea what they're talking about, but understand that they may feel threatened by immigrants taking their jobs. Seems like a not so irrational fear. The article is even taking about others problems "Though Muslims make up less than 5 percent of the population, there is growing evidence that many of the new arrivals fail to enter the workforce, are slow to learn Danish, and end up in high-crime immigrant neighborhoods where, while relying on extensive state handouts, they and their children are cut off from Danish society". As a french guy, I think people should be really cautious about taking a large proportion of (relatively) poor people less educated than natives, sure it makes you feel good about yourself, then you realize that these people are more likely to be unemployed, criminals, and discriminated. I don't think it makes a country more tolerant, I think the opposite happens, prejudices simply grow, and not only without rational explanation. And 40 years later you have gigantic problems. Are french people of Arab descent discriminated in France for example? Yes I think so, and I'm pretty sure it would not be the case if the only Arab immigrants France had taken had been very educated people. Presumably the prejudice about them now would be that they are very educated/successful. Sure France did a terrible job at integrating immigrants from Arab countries, and I'm 100% sure Danemark will do better. Still, it's very difficult. I'm seeing it right now in Europe, helping these refugees didn't make the countries more tolerant, it only had the opposite effect of giving more power to far-right parties. Isn't Danemark already relying on the "solution" of "sending more and more of them home"?

guard-of-terra 11y ago

I envy Danes, at least they seem to decide for themselves. I can't, most of people in most of countries can't too. We're instead driven by a combination of dictatorship, baseless populism promoting things nobody wants, alienation ans promoting political agenda over citizens' wishes.

ulrikmoe 11y ago

Yes, we reduced social benefits to refugees by 45%, from $1600/month to $871/month, which means that we now provide roughly the same as in Norway and Sweden. If that is harsh then I'd rather not tell you what I think of the Mexico–U.S. border. Please America, go fix your own problems before you point fingers at your friends.

a_imho 11y ago

The article says 2016, March 10, any idea why?