7 ms·

It's Better Over There

19 points by sasvari 16y ago

confuzatron 16y ago
Tl;DR "I suspect white Americans are against European-style government services because they're racists."
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  This seems to be a fairly common theme over here in europe when discussing American resistance to social health care. And any nation doing well with socialist policies seem to get tagged by Americans as "homogeneous". Whether that makes it true or not is a different matter, but it's bigger than one random article and might be worth addressing even (particularly?) if you think it's a false impression.
lmz 16y ago
I have to agree with the author's friend that it's easier to share with those that are similar to you. Europe is getting quite tired of the wave of mass immigration, partly fueled by the welfare state. The hard working immigrants are tolerated especially in today's climate of political correctness, but what about the ones that live off welfare and don't integrate? This does not seem to be the case in the US where you have to work so you integrate in the workplace. Here's an interesting editorial I just read on that topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/immigration-germany-editorial http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/immigrat...
dantheman 16y ago
Flagged - This article is nothing but racist hate bait.
- dejb 16y ago
  How so? It seems that he is making a point that requires acknowledgement of the existence of racism and the impact it may play in shaping social policy. Hopefully we are mature enough to be able to discuss this on it's merits.
kiba 16y ago
Does every political essay have to be such one-sided argument? Isn't it important to understand the truth, the crux of the matters? "Politics is the mind-killer. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back. If you abide within that pattern, policy debates will also appear one-sided to you - the costs and drawbacks of your favored policy are enemy soldiers, to be attacked by any means necessary." -- Eliezer Yudkowsk
yequalsx 16y ago
My girlfriend is German and lives in Berlin. I just spent 3 months there. She lives in Kreuzburg, it's a poor area of Berlin. You get the winos, drunks, and junkies. There's a fair share of street people with mental issues. But one thing you don't get is fear. It's a safe place by American standards. You also don't see many cops. There are way more cops in American cities. This suggests that it really is fundamentally safer. I don't know why this is so. Maybe it's because of the social safety system, maybe it's because of culture or a combination of both. But German elites want Germany to emulate America. The social system is under attack there and the government wants to embrace American style corporatism. It's ironic that while it is better there those in power want to make it more like America.
- bokonist 16y ago
  The U.S. has always had a ~10X higher crime rate than the western European countries, going back over a hundred years. The best explanation of why comes from a writer in 1920, Raymond Fosdick who spent years studying both the American and various European systems. Read his book online for free: http://books.google.com/books?id=NGBLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=crime+in+america+and+the+police&source=bl&ots=zxG6FtL166&sig=Rlb7gr3KGJ_c1b23YupR9BfwSVs&hl=en&ei=1_2ETLnxCYO88gauhYSDAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=NGBLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... His arguments are backed up by almost everything else I've read on the matter, and they still remain as true today as they were in the 1910's.
  - edderly 16y ago
    I can't claim to have read Fosdick, but I see an immediate problem in that demographics have changed through out Europe. Take for example London has a foreign population now of greater than 30%. At the same time there are areas in the north of England which remain overwhelmingly white which have deep social issues.
    - bokonist 16y ago
      London is also much less safe than it was 100 years ago. Actually, all of England is much less safe. A good treatment of the subject is Peter Hitchen's A Brief History of Crime http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Crime-Peter-Hitchens/dp/1843541483 http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Crime-Peter-Hitchens/dp/...
elblanco 16y ago
My first day back in New York after a year in Berlin, I got on the subway and found my end of the car dominated by an obscenity-shouting black man with a crutch and a suitcase spilling garbage. Apparently she has never met a homeless Roma on the U-Bahn. Except in Berlin people won't stop to help her when she pretends to fall getting off the train, they'll spit at her or throw trash. My friend David Abraham, a historian and legal scholar, gave a fascinating talk at the American Academy in Berlin in which he suggested that the European welfare state is linked to ethnic homogeneity: people are more willing to share with those who seem like themselves. Muslim immigration will be the moral test, and not just for Germany but for the rest of Europe as well. I know the article is about Germany. But there's ample, recent, evidence that when the welfare states of Europe have problems, it's blamed (fairly or unfairly) on immigrants. Similarly in the U.S., anti-immigration proponents often blame the drain recent immigrants have on social services as part of the justification for extreme policies. Recent mass deportation events in France show that this sentiment is probably true. Likewise, in the time I've spent in Germany, many people expressed discontent with the wave of Muslim immigrants and the subsequent strain on the welfare state of all these new, poor, undereducated people suddenly showing up to the new promised land. Europe is undergoing some massive growing pains as it has emerged as the new go-to place for the poor unwashed masses of the world. These massive waves of immigration are very new to the continent (and especially to the individual countries). But I think the American experiment can show that in the long run, relatively open immigration policies pay off. Everybody forgets that the poor unwashed masses from a foreign country that suddenly show up on your shores are there for primarily one reason...to work and to work hard. That kind of free, positive, energy needs to be harnessed. In two or three generations it pays off with so many ways. If it's not harnessed, it goes someplace else, often not in a constructive way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Riots
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Why did you state that your hypothetical Roma lady only "pretends" to fall? Seems an odd detail that separates the article's mentally ill person from your deceptive one and the appropriate responses.
  - 16y ago
dagw 16y ago
Her opening argument seems seriously flawed. I've seen scenes similar to the one she described here in Sweden on several occasions. And by all accounts Sweden has at least as good a "safety net" as Germany. The really interesting part for me was that two people actually stepped forward to help the crazy man. That is something I don't think I've ever seen here. So the generalized point to take away I guess is Americans are far friendlier and more helpful than Europeans.
slavat 16y ago
My theory is more primitive: a critical mass of white Americans would rather not have something than see black and Latino Americans get it too. A good rule of thumb: any time you see some white liberal accusing others of racism or complaining about the plight of minorities, that person invariably lives in a white neighborhood and--if they have children--sends their children to a white private school or to a "good" public school in their white neighborhood. While I couldn't pin down her current place of residence, in the article she mentions returning to New York, and according to an old article[1], at one point she lived on the Upper-West Side of Manhattan. I don't know if she still lives there, but where ever she lives now, you can be certain it's not on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard or anywhere else where the minorities she pines for predominate. tl;dr version: hypocritical white liberal accuses others of racism. [1] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-01-08/features/1995008099_1_katha-pollitt-feminism-reasonable-creatures http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-01-08/features/1995008...
- elblanco 16y ago
  Are you claiming that the Upper-West Side is only white? Isn't that a kind of racism? Minorities can't get rich and own houses in a fancy part of town? She might be the only white person in her building for all you know. I suspect that many perceived racial biases are more class biases. It's interesting that you chose places with people of different skin colors as her theoretical avoidance zones. I suspect she'd be just as unlikely to hang around in poor white areas as well.
  - slavat 16y ago
    I live in NYC. The Upper-West Side is predominantly white, affluent and liberal. That was my point. And there is no chance in hell that she is the only white person in her building. As for her disliking poor whites, I have no doubt that she does. Rich white liberals love to promulgate policies that harm poor whites, such as race-based affirmative action and illegal immigration.
- edderly 16y ago
  That's as irrational as saying "if you like poor black people so much, why don't you become one?".

19 points by sasvari 16y ago

confuzatron 16y ago

Tl;DR "I suspect white Americans are against European-style government services because they're racists."

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
This seems to be a fairly common theme over here in europe when discussing American resistance to social health care. And any nation doing well with socialist policies seem to get tagged by Americans as "homogeneous". Whether that makes it true or not is a different matter, but it's bigger than one random article and might be worth addressing even (particularly?) if you think it's a false impression.

lmz 16y ago

I have to agree with the author's friend that it's easier to share with those that are similar to you. Europe is getting quite tired of the wave of mass immigration, partly fueled by the welfare state. The hard working immigrants are tolerated especially in today's climate of political correctness, but what about the ones that live off welfare and don't integrate? This does not seem to be the case in the US where you have to work so you integrate in the workplace. Here's an interesting editorial I just read on that topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/immigration-germany-editorial http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/immigrat...

dantheman 16y ago

Flagged - This article is nothing but racist hate bait.

dejb 16y ago
How so? It seems that he is making a point that requires acknowledgement of the existence of racism and the impact it may play in shaping social policy. Hopefully we are mature enough to be able to discuss this on it's merits.

kiba 16y ago

Does every political essay have to be such one-sided argument? Isn't it important to understand the truth, the crux of the matters? "Politics is the mind-killer. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back. If you abide within that pattern, policy debates will also appear one-sided to you - the costs and drawbacks of your favored policy are enemy soldiers, to be attacked by any means necessary." -- Eliezer Yudkowsk

yequalsx 16y ago

My girlfriend is German and lives in Berlin. I just spent 3 months there. She lives in Kreuzburg, it's a poor area of Berlin. You get the winos, drunks, and junkies. There's a fair share of street people with mental issues. But one thing you don't get is fear. It's a safe place by American standards. You also don't see many cops. There are way more cops in American cities. This suggests that it really is fundamentally safer. I don't know why this is so. Maybe it's because of the social safety system, maybe it's because of culture or a combination of both. But German elites want Germany to emulate America. The social system is under attack there and the government wants to embrace American style corporatism. It's ironic that while it is better there those in power want to make it more like America.

bokonist 16y ago
The U.S. has always had a ~10X higher crime rate than the western European countries, going back over a hundred years. The best explanation of why comes from a writer in 1920, Raymond Fosdick who spent years studying both the American and various European systems. Read his book online for free: http://books.google.com/books?id=NGBLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=crime+in+america+and+the+police&source=bl&ots=zxG6FtL166&sig=Rlb7gr3KGJ_c1b23YupR9BfwSVs&hl=en&ei=1_2ETLnxCYO88gauhYSDAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=NGBLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... His arguments are backed up by almost everything else I've read on the matter, and they still remain as true today as they were in the 1910's.
- edderly 16y ago
  I can't claim to have read Fosdick, but I see an immediate problem in that demographics have changed through out Europe. Take for example London has a foreign population now of greater than 30%. At the same time there are areas in the north of England which remain overwhelmingly white which have deep social issues.
  - bokonist 16y ago
    London is also much less safe than it was 100 years ago. Actually, all of England is much less safe. A good treatment of the subject is Peter Hitchen's A Brief History of Crime http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Crime-Peter-Hitchens/dp/1843541483 http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Crime-Peter-Hitchens/dp/...

elblanco 16y ago

My first day back in New York after a year in Berlin, I got on the subway and found my end of the car dominated by an obscenity-shouting black man with a crutch and a suitcase spilling garbage. Apparently she has never met a homeless Roma on the U-Bahn. Except in Berlin people won't stop to help her when she pretends to fall getting off the train, they'll spit at her or throw trash. My friend David Abraham, a historian and legal scholar, gave a fascinating talk at the American Academy in Berlin in which he suggested that the European welfare state is linked to ethnic homogeneity: people are more willing to share with those who seem like themselves. Muslim immigration will be the moral test, and not just for Germany but for the rest of Europe as well. I know the article is about Germany. But there's ample, recent, evidence that when the welfare states of Europe have problems, it's blamed (fairly or unfairly) on immigrants. Similarly in the U.S., anti-immigration proponents often blame the drain recent immigrants have on social services as part of the justification for extreme policies. Recent mass deportation events in France show that this sentiment is probably true. Likewise, in the time I've spent in Germany, many people expressed discontent with the wave of Muslim immigrants and the subsequent strain on the welfare state of all these new, poor, undereducated people suddenly showing up to the new promised land. Europe is undergoing some massive growing pains as it has emerged as the new go-to place for the poor unwashed masses of the world. These massive waves of immigration are very new to the continent (and especially to the individual countries). But I think the American experiment can show that in the long run, relatively open immigration policies pay off. Everybody forgets that the poor unwashed masses from a foreign country that suddenly show up on your shores are there for primarily one reason...to work and to work hard. That kind of free, positive, energy needs to be harnessed. In two or three generations it pays off with so many ways. If it's not harnessed, it goes someplace else, often not in a constructive way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Riots

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Why did you state that your hypothetical Roma lady only "pretends" to fall? Seems an odd detail that separates the article's mentally ill person from your deceptive one and the appropriate responses.
- 16y ago

dagw 16y ago

Her opening argument seems seriously flawed. I've seen scenes similar to the one she described here in Sweden on several occasions. And by all accounts Sweden has at least as good a "safety net" as Germany. The really interesting part for me was that two people actually stepped forward to help the crazy man. That is something I don't think I've ever seen here. So the generalized point to take away I guess is Americans are far friendlier and more helpful than Europeans.

slavat 16y ago

My theory is more primitive: a critical mass of white Americans would rather not have something than see black and Latino Americans get it too. A good rule of thumb: any time you see some white liberal accusing others of racism or complaining about the plight of minorities, that person invariably lives in a white neighborhood and--if they have children--sends their children to a white private school or to a "good" public school in their white neighborhood. While I couldn't pin down her current place of residence, in the article she mentions returning to New York, and according to an old article[1], at one point she lived on the Upper-West Side of Manhattan. I don't know if she still lives there, but where ever she lives now, you can be certain it's not on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard or anywhere else where the minorities she pines for predominate. tl;dr version: hypocritical white liberal accuses others of racism. [1] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-01-08/features/1995008099_1_katha-pollitt-feminism-reasonable-creatures http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-01-08/features/1995008...

elblanco 16y ago
Are you claiming that the Upper-West Side is only white? Isn't that a kind of racism? Minorities can't get rich and own houses in a fancy part of town? She might be the only white person in her building for all you know. I suspect that many perceived racial biases are more class biases. It's interesting that you chose places with people of different skin colors as her theoretical avoidance zones. I suspect she'd be just as unlikely to hang around in poor white areas as well.
- slavat 16y ago
  I live in NYC. The Upper-West Side is predominantly white, affluent and liberal. That was my point. And there is no chance in hell that she is the only white person in her building. As for her disliking poor whites, I have no doubt that she does. Rich white liberals love to promulgate policies that harm poor whites, such as race-based affirmative action and illegal immigration.
edderly 16y ago
That's as irrational as saying "if you like poor black people so much, why don't you become one?".