Yeah, but nobody ever talks about how they massacred and displaced countless indigenous people to colonize that land.
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The EU isn’t the Netherlands, though. Who wants to move to some non-Dutch speaking country? I mean sure, they will physically be able to move, but their smaller area they call home I am sure has an effect on how important things are to them.
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Now all that’s left of a once-proud culture is an American coffee chain logo.
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I don’t know what’s more offensive, that logo or the sports team named “The Amstelveen Scaleskins.”
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It would be interesting to see the historical demographics – the population of black US citizens is much older, while most black people in the Netherlands seem to have come within Obama’s lifetime. I can’t find any statistics on the demographics in 1960, just reports that this is when significant immigration first started.
(Dual citizenship was introduced in 1992 and stopped with some exceptions in 1998).
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Immigrants to Holland will never be Dutch. Just as moving to France will never make you French. That’s the difference between the US and most other countries. You can move here from anywhere in the world and become an American.
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Will their kids be Dutch? Or their kids kids?
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Your impression is correct. It’s somewhat ironic, given that an American provided the most pithy argument against that viewpoint now quoted around the world: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
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I do imagine that impacts the “flavor” of the racism experienced in each country. Both the United States and Holland have a long and troubled relationship with black people, but for the U.S. the roots of it are “centuries of enslavement within the country” and for Holland it’s “centuries of imperialism in subsaharan Africa itself including supplying those slaves to the Americas.”
One country has been struggling with its demons (with mixed success) since the Civil War, the other was able to try to forget that they ever happened.
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I’ve always seen the Netherlands as some sort of “better / not petty bourgeois Germany”. The culture is similar just less narrow minded. The language is so closely related that I can decipher written dutch decently well (can’t speak it though). The super markets are superior because the have a wider selection of “convenience food” and seafood.
The Netherlands is one of the two countries I would relocate to without hesitation.
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For a lot of white Dutch people on both the left and right, not really. That’s what happens when a nation-state places greater emphasis on the part before the hyphen, which has been one of the big differentiating factors between European countries and North American ones. I’m no longer certain that differentiating factor will remain in effect.
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Criticism of Germany?
Has someone hacked your account?
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You do see that the fallout of a black president has lasted past his tenure though, and the rallying cry of white people is to point to voting for Obama and declare Trump’s victory is not related to racism.
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Yeah right … and right after they have been welcomed into the bosom of America they start their career from dishwasher to millionaire.
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That’s funny because they had a bunch of primarily white people from Europe take DNA test, and there was an Aryan Swedish guy very proud of his national heritage, and a gal who was like, “Oh we have been French, French, French forever.” And then when the tests came back they found out their blood wasn’t so pure.
Americans have similar prides in their heritage, it manifests itself differently.
I have this great idea to start a T-Shirt fad, and I think it would work, and with the technology we have now, it would be profitable - but I don’t have the know how or start up money for it.
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– precedent for policy in a Trump administration?
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Absolutely, but I still take hope from the fact that the country was able to elect such a President (twice!) in the first place. That’s something that simply couldn’t have happened a generation ago and still has yet to happen in any other majority-white country. Even Republicans were considering voting for a (grossly unqualified) black guy this time around.
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Since this comment thread touches on Europe and America post-election, I’ll take the opportunity to post this video I just found of an Irish politician’s statement of principle on the matter. Wherever you’re from, it’s worth four minutes of your time to watch:
More of this, please.
ETA: here’s a little European election calendar for those interested in tracking the progress of right-wing populism across Europe. The Netherlands have their own decision day in March:
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I love the Netherlands (I have been there 3 times) and I love their society. However, I think it is worth noting that the Netherlands is a VERY wealthy country. It is probably also worth noting that while slavery was mostly outlawed in the Netherlands they were one of the primary exporters or slaves and this business was VERY profitable for this country. A successful liberal society is definitely possible…but it usually relies on a rather ugly economic history. It is relatively easy to afford liberal ideas when you have the resources to do so.
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That was one of the key points that the PNAC neoconservatives could never get through their thick skulls: you can’t force delicious Western-style democracy down the throats of countries that are neither economically nor culturally equipped to digest it. Thanks to 30+ years of right-wing propaganda and war on the middle class, the same applies to the U.S. itself in regard to accepting European-style social democracy.
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