Political Correctness Gone too Far

[Jackmoves]

£50 for a haircut?! i would rather cut it myself!!

Depends on where you go, but yeah it can cost that much... and more. My gf pays +100 at the place she goes to. I pay around 35 at the place I go to. You can also get it done for like 15 though!

---------- Post added 2012-11-26 at 11:11 PM ----------

Don't think it's fair to judge an entire political party because some individual... thought wrong or w/e. Judge parties for their politics. And by crazies I mean mostly "The environment party", but the other left parties aren't so much better.

And just because some, imo,"crazies" rule the country doesn't mean the population is uncivilized, not sure how you come to that conclusion.

The Greens are not left across the board, not if you look at their economic policies(quite pro-free market, for lower taxes, for lower corporate taxes etc, not to the same degree as the right though) for example, they are quite moderate/center on several issues, which is why the rightwing parties have worked with them on several occasions in the parliament.

They are certainly easier to work with then the social democrates and the Left party. They are basically quite diverse, some issues they push are a bit mad, some are more then reasonable.

[Baracuda]

SvD's politics is just like the Social Democrats; It's inconsistent. SvD claims they're not a racist party, yet they don't fire the guys that harassed strangers in the middle of town with racist remarks, while videotaping it. And even worse, Jimmy Åkesson, the very party leader of SvD doesn't condemn the actions and doesn't want to take a stance on the issue, despite saying they're non-tolerant towards racism. As a single-issue politics directed at just immigration you'd expect them to take it more seriously than just being the Swedish equalivents of Republicans.

Afaik they've all been fired, their actions condemned and at least in the interviews I watched JÅ said he had extremely low, if any, trust in them. I don't understand your last sentence. I'm not defending their actions either I just think you should judge political parties by their politics. I didn't vote for the green party and it removes a lot of voting alternatives for me when the Alliance decides to "team up" with them.

[Jackmoves]

I didn't vote for the green party and it removes a lot of voting alternatives for me when the Alliance decides to "team up" with them.

Me neither, but the alliance is not in a majority position hence they need to seek a broader support at times among "reasonable" parties to get something through, and the green party are reasonable on different issues. They are diverse. Writing them off as treehugging lefties is not very accurate. One does not need to seek cooperation on every issue with them, but when their stance on an issue is similiar it's only natural to do so.

[Wilian]

So I should be burned to death if I don't call somebody a racial slur, or make sexist or homophobic comments? But only if I intentionally refrain from being a complete jackass? If I just accidentally don't use racial slurs, then I can just be trained to do so?

As my gypsy friend once said, there is nothing wrong with calling them gypsies, it's only the tone and the intention behind it that can be offensive. Yet the word is politically incorrect here and we should address them Romanians, lest hell breaks loose (usually by non-gypsies while at it).

Basically, if people stopped being so bloody offended about the word there would be no need for political correctness at all. We could just easily make word "black" politically incorrect if it was started being tossed around offensively instead of nigger. It's all disgusting show based on stupidity of mankind.

[Deleted]

Yes, political correctness has gone way too far. Like with the ridiculous notion of prosecuting people for chanting something racist at a football game: http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/footbal...-racist-chants

Not only is the notion of the police force investigating the activities of a stadium full of people absurd and infeasible, it is also frightening and frustrating to think that police time and resources are being used to crack down on people saying mean things, rather than actually fighting crime. The police in the area are the fucking Metropolitan Police! They should be dealing with shit like this: Boy Beaten to Death At Victoria Station at Rush Hour, not jailing people for being morons!

Social condemnation should be the tool used to quell non-violent bigotry, not the judicial system.

[Spectral]

Man, this is insane. Does anyone think this Cultural Marxism?

No, a company electing to market things in the fashion they desire to is not "Cultural Marxism".

[Simulacrum]

It looks like the only thing left now is increasing a woman's salary and getting men raped more often...

We also need to kill more women, to get their life expectancy down!

[Deleted]

Afaik they've all been fired, their actions condemned and at least in the interviews I watched JÅ said he had extremely low, if any, trust in them. I don't understand your last sentence. I'm not defending their actions either I just think you should judge political parties by their politics. I didn't vote for the green party and it removes a lot of voting alternatives for me when the Alliance decides to "team up" with them.

They weren't fired, they are still in the party but they got demoted. There are still SD members, such as Kent Ekeroth, that are left on their post despite openly working with racist sites. What I'm trying to say is, their biggest issue is immigration, and that is essentially their only serious issue, but at the same time they don't want to look racist but they still don't give any real repurcussions to the top people in the party when they are openly racist. This shows that they're not serious about their party agenda and simply want to sound nice when saying "We want all muslims out of Sweden".

By simply looking at the party's politics and saying "that sounds nice" instead of looking at what the party does and analyze how they would handle a question in the same way they handle all other issues is just creating a narrow-minded view of the party.

I think the biggest issue in Swedish politics today is that it's extremely black and white, there's no real gray zone, the enviromental party is the only party which really is in the gray zone on some issues, but I'd rather have a gray zone for immigration issues, because I think that present day immigration is just unorganized, but if we stop ignoring the immigration issue just because we don't want to offend anyone and actually start to debate about it and come up with a way to make immigration organized, I think we can turn around immigration from being a way to simply help people to being a way to help people and make a profit off it.

[Deleted]

this is crazy and sick at the same time. liberal mentality in europe never ceases to amaze me.

[Jackmoves]

They weren't fired, they are still in the party but they got demoted. There are still SD members, such as Kent Ekeroth, that are left on their post despite openly working with racist sites. What I'm trying to say is, their biggest issue is immigration, and that is essentially their only serious issue, but at the same time they don't want to look racist but they still don't give any real repurcussions to the top people in the party when they are openly racist. This shows that they're not serious about their party agenda and simply want to sound nice when saying "We want all muslims out of Sweden".

By simply looking at the party's politics and saying "that sounds nice" instead of looking at what the party does and analyze how they would handle a question in the same way they handle all other issues is just creating a narrow-minded view of the party.

I think the biggest issue in Swedish politics today is that it's extremely black and white, there's no real gray zone, the enviromental party is the only party which really is in the gray zone on some issues, but I'd rather have a gray zone for immigration issues, because I think that present day immigration is just unorganized, but if we stop ignoring the immigration issue just because we don't want to offend anyone and actually start to debate about it and come up with a way to make immigration organized, I think we can turn around immigration from being a way to simply help people to being a way to help people and make a profit off it.

Aye, our immigration and more importantly integration policies is a shambles, it's horrible. It needs some serious work, and SD is not the party to do it, but I say let the SD do what they did in that video, who won the argument? Soran did. They made themselves look like uncultured, uncivilized xenophobic tools, despicable human beings and thats the kind of people that they have in the highest positions in the party. Let them destroy themselves.

[Deleted]

Yes, political correctness has gone way too far. Like with the ridiculous notion of prosecuting people for chanting something racist at a football game: http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/footbal...-racist-chants

If you follow that train of thought to it's conclusion though, and argue that the man making racist gestures at Stamford Bridge or the guy arrested over racist remarks on twitter are not worthy of police time, then surely the other man who posted a picture of a poppy being burnt on facebook shouldn't be arrested either? Except at that point it does become "offensive" or "indecent" - and it's no longer about political correctness but the offense caused to conservative mindsets. How does the law determine what is considered offensive or not in each context?

Coincidentally, I think all these recent police arrests are risible examples of populist policing, but the problem doesn't go away, with or without PC.

[Deleted]

The PC of Sweden has been waaaaaaaaaay overboard for a long time.

[Deleted]

Aye, our immigration and more importantly integration policies is a shambles, it's horrible. It needs some serious work, and SD is not the party to do it, but I say let the SD do what they did in that video, who won the argument? Soran did. They made themselves look like uncultured, uncivilized xenophobic tools, despicable human beings and thats the kind of people that they have in the highest positions in the party. Let them destroy themselves.

Problem is that we can't let SD die. They are the only ones taking up the immigration debate in Sweden, I bet it would get absolutely destroyed if there was another party which, instead of having such an offensive immigration policy, just wanted to debate how to intergrate immigrants into our society better instead of restricting immigration. This will also get the other major parties to work with them since they know that the party isn't racist and thus they won't lose votes in case they work with them.

If I wasn't 18 years old and so inexperienced at life I would've just started the party myself.

this is crazy and sick at the same time. liberal mentality in europe never ceases to amaze me.

It's mostly socialists and communists coming with the crazy PC stuff, the liberals in Europe are much more different than your average San Francisco liberal.

[Deleted]

If you follow that train of thought to it's conclusion though, and argue that the man making racist gestures at Stamford Bridge or the guy arrested over racist remarks on twitter are not worthy of police time, then surely the other man who posted a picture of a poppy being burnt on facebook shouldn't be arrested either? Except at that point it does become "offensive" or "indecent" - and it's no longer about political correctness but the offense caused to conservative mindsets. How does the law determine what is considered offensive or not in each context?

Coincidentally, I think all these recent police arrests are risible examples of populist policing, but the problem doesn't go away, with or without PC.

Yes, he shouldn't have been arrested. I hadn't heard about it 'til now and think that it is equally ridiculous as using the judicial system to prosecute people for shouting racial slurs. I find the concept of "taking offence" contemptible and think that the "right" to not be offended should never take priority over the right to offend. I'm all for a welfare state, but a nanny state is not something we need.

[Deleted]

Yes, he shouldn't have been arrested. I hadn't heard about it 'til now and think that it is equally ridiculous as using the judicial system to prosecute people for shouting racial slurs. I find the concept of "taking offence" contemptible and think that the "right" to not be offended should never take priority over the right to offend. I'm all for a welfare state, but a nanny state is not something we need.

But Law is often conceptual. Remember the outcry over the son of the Pink Floyd singer David Gilmour defacing the Cenotaph during the 2010 Student Protests? That was a public order offense, but how do you determine the severity of the punishment? It is an important national icon and as such the behaviour was going to be more "offensive" than defacing just any nondescript public statue. And without guidelines how can the Police be relied upon to charge people on a case by case basis, and not apply a subjective severer punishment to one type of offence over another?

The irony isn't lost on me that the Police are using the same subjective reading of laws to define things on facebook and twitter as in "the public sphere" but it only makes me think we need more guidelines to stop from doing so.

[Deleted]

But Law is often conceptual. Remember the outcry over the son of the Pink Floyd singer David Gilmour defacing the Cenotaph during the 2010 Student Protests? That was a public order offense, but how do you determine the severity of the punishment? It is an important national icon and as such the behaviour was going to be more "offensive" than defacing just any nondescript public statue. And without guidelines how can the Police be relied upon to charge people on a case by case basis, and not apply a subjective severer punishment to one type of offence over another?

The irony isn't lost on me that the Police are using the same subjective reading of laws to define things on facebook and twitter as in "the public sphere" but it only makes me think we need more guidelines to stop from doing so.

I definitely agree that more clarity in the law (slanting it as more favourable to freedom of speech and expression, rather than suppression of those things) would be extremely beneficial.

And, I'd say the line is drawn there when an act of vandalism of public property is committed. The difference between that and the poppy burning are presumably the arsonist was burning something that he owned. Destruction of personal property is fine and expression in that manor should be acceptable as long as it is controlled, but when someone chooses to deface/destroy someone else's or public property, the line is crossed from free expression to vandalism.

[Jackmoves]

Problem is that we can't let SD die. They are the only ones taking up the immigration debate in Sweden, I bet it would get absolutely destroyed if there was another party which, instead of having such an offensive immigration policy, just wanted to debate how to intergrate immigrants into our society better instead of restricting immigration. This will also get the other major parties to work with them since they know that the party isn't racist and thus they won't lose votes in case they work with them.

If I wasn't 18 years old and so inexperienced at life I would've just started the party myself.

Well thats part of the process, the other parties need to get in there and take control of the issue rather then leave it up to SD to run their show. Once thats done they can selfdestruct and none but a few will miss them. Some adjustment to the number of asylum seekers we accept wouldn't hurt, but the big problem we got to deal with is integration, one of the biggest problems is the fact that immigrants tend to cluster up in the same municipals, it doesn't matter if all of the municipals have signed a deal to accept refugees and immigrants when all but a few move to already "over crowded" areas after they've been placed somewhere.

I mean I understand why they do it, it's the same way with all expats or people that move to other nations, you can go to any city in the world and you will have expat communities, you could go to Silicon Valley and you would find that there is a very active Swedish expat community there, go to London and you get the same thing there, etc etc. Hanging out with your "own" gives a sense of security and familiarity, not to mention that you can learn from those who have lived there longer. But it doesn't help anyone much as far as integration goes, they would be better off living in less immigrant crowded areas.

What we really need to do is to break some of the bad habits, we need to get employers to care less about origin and we need more immigrants to activly look for work, statistically work and education are the best ways to integrate someone into the sociaty, most of our educated immigrants are contributing to sociaty. There is great human and financial capital in immigration, as long as we can get them employed, a 1% increase in employment among our immigrants would net sweden 2,5 billion SEK/year. If we could get the same employment levels among foreign born as we got in people born in Sweden it would net us 17-27 billion SEK/year, thats a wild dream atm though, but it shows the potential it has. All economists(Jan Ekberg for example) that has done the most research on the subject agree on this, but as it is right now, it's a net loss for Sweden because unemployment is too high. Immigration back in the 60s and 70s was a big boost to our economy, we need to get back to that.

So immigration as such is not a negative thing for Sweden, but we fail to take advantage of the potential of immigration.

[Deleted]

I definitely agree that more clarity in the law (slanting it as more favourable to freedom of speech and expression, rather than suppression of those things) would be extremely beneficial.

And, I'd say the line is drawn there when an act of vandalism of public property is committed. The difference between that and the poppy burning are presumably the arsonist was burning something that he owned. Destruction of personal property is fine and expression in that manor should be acceptable as long as it is controlled, but when someone chooses to deface/destroy someone else's or public property, the line is crossed from free expression to vandalism.

I personally believe that legislation on the concept of "offensiveness" was created with the noble aim of defending members of the public whose rights might be overlooked by the police. But in the process it has created a new monster. I'd like to reverse back to the more practical approach of vandalism/public order, but I think that without further guidelines the Police could easily fall back into more subjective appliance and reading of the laws. I'm with you on more freedom of expression though.

[Deleted]

I personally believe that legislation on the concept of "offensiveness" was created with the noble aim of defending members of the public whose rights might be overlooked by the police. But in the process it has created a new monster. I'd like to reverse back to the more practical approach of vandalism/public order, but I think that without further guidelines the Police could easily fall back into more subjective appliance and reading of the laws. I'm with you on more freedom of expression though.

That's a good point and I think the kind of reform you suggest would be very sensible.

[gullfaraz]

I personally think we went over the line long ago, however this definitely picks it up and moves it further.