A funny thing happens when left-wing social engineers begin to mess with other peoples’ neighborhoods;
The Swiss People’s Party, or SVP, which campaigned on an aggressively anti-immigrant ticket featuring posters that showed white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag, received about 29 percent of the vote and 61 of the 200 seats in Parliament, projections showed, up from 27 percent and 55 seats in 2003. It was comfortably ahead of the Social Democratic Party, which dropped from 23 percent of the vote to 19 percent and was projected with 43 seats, as opposed to 52 in the most recent Parliament.
There’s a reason they say that “all politics is local”.
Opponents protested with riots and criticized the conservative party for instilling racist policies, but the electorate was apparently more impressed by federal statistics that showed “about 70 percent of the prison population is non-Swiss.”
Better still- there is a movement underway in Switzerland, to the effect that if any member of a family gets in trouble with the law, the whole family is kicked out! (I like it!)
Is it OK to riot over political ads that offend you? What next,cartoons?
“if any member of a family gets in trouble with the law, the whole family is kicked out.”
Works like a charm in the United Arab Emirates where 80% of the residents are foreigners. Park your car with the window down and camera on the seat and they’ll both be still there when you go back to your car the next morning.
“the ultraconservative Swiss People’s party”
I wish the journalist would define what he means by ultraconservative. That sounds super dooper scary compared to the Harper “regime”.
“hallowed principle of consensus”
What kind of a dork, writes this!
The SVP not only won the election, they received the highest vote percentage of any party in Swiss history.
All hail ultraconservatism!
Immigration is a bust on many levels,
The other day Kate’s post said in the uk there was 4 billion pounds worth of crimes.
Ie if the average import earns 30k/yr he does 20k in criminal damages to show his gratitude for the UK taking them in….
The aboriginal people of Europe are….well the Europeans. So it is difficult for a North American midset to view what is happening there.
Would the Iroquois have been wrong to prevent the European invasion in the 1600’s….assuming they had the means?
I dont agree with expulsions etc but I understand them and you will see it happening more and more across Europe. The gate is starting to close, the question is whether it will be closed or finally pulled open.
It will be an ugly deade and a half.
Will our immigration policies be as open when there is mass migration of “the natives” from Europe in 20 years? Or will we accept all of the people they deport?
Funny thing when people deny the Steyn…
Like he said, when the “mainstream” parties deem everything the population feels is important off limits to polite debate, the people will look to parties that are not maintream.
You will see alot more of this very soon.
You either deal with people’s conserns or you make them angry enough to look elsewhere. The elsewhere is a scary, violent place. Steyn’s call for civil war is not unthinkable – especially in light of the last century of European history (never mind the ones before that…)
The “mainstream” parties will have no one but themselves to blame but that won’t stop them from trying.
…“about 70 percent of the prison population is non-Swiss.”
This is a racist comment, even if it is true. To show good faith, the Swiss should start arresting native Swiss at the same rate as foreigners.
A little late to this discussion but apropos of nothing at all whatsoever:
“… thanks to the latest London crime statistics, I am having a very hard time fuelling my favourite Eurabian paranoid fantasies. My correspondent was struck, not by whatever the Muslim component of foreign-born criminals in London might be, but by the Daily Telegraph article’s very thesis statement — that “more than one crime in five in London is now committed by a foreign national.”
Watch closely.
This alert reader asked: what proportion of London’s population is foreign-born, anyway? ‘Cause it kind of matters. If it’s one-half of one per cent, then for that tiny sliver of the population to commit 20 per cent of the crimes, they really have to be criming it up 24/7. But if the foreign-born population is 20 per cent or more, then the real point of the Telly’s article, alarmist headline and breathless prose aside, is that immigrant populations are indistinguishable from the broader population or more law-abiding.
And indeed it is so. I have found several different measures for the foreign-born population of London, but they cluster between 25 and 28 per cent. Today’s Financial Times has a typical piece, with perhaps fresher data, that puts the foreign-born component at 30.5 per cent. […]
If foreigners are nearly a third of London’s population and they’re committing only a fifth of its crimes, I say bring more foreigners.
Source: forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&pid=78471&tid=78471&eid=43&so=1&ps=15&sb=1
Gee Ted, if you stayed on topic instead of pontificating “apropos of nothing”, you’d find that the relevant numbers for Switzerland are 20% of the population committing 70% of the crime (ie. immigrants). Hence the “racist, xenophobic” SVP won the highest percentage of votes EVER.
BTW you might want to check out DrWright’s excellent link. It will give you a good idea of what exactly recent immigrants are “contributing” to Canada and what Canadians really think about mass immigration.
JP –
I think Ted’s point is that you should be careful about throwing out stats without putting them in context because once you put them in context they often prove the exact opposite of what your knee-jerk reaction thinks they say.
So lets put the Swiss numbers in context –
First – 87% of Swiss immigrants are not “black”sheep – they are white and have European citizenship. (those of you advocating a Europe only immigration policy for Canada might wanna give that a second thought based on the Swiss numbers — assuming those numbers stand for what you think they do )
Second- 20% of the population (immigrants) do not commit 70% of the crimes – they represent 70% of the prison population ( 64% if you exclude those on remand)
In fact immigrants commit 48.9 % of the crimes. The reason more of them are in jail has to do with Switzerland’s low incarceration rates (about half of Canada’s) and their use of community based sentences (e.g. house arrest).
However, to qualify for a community sentence one can’t be a flight risk ( i.e. skipping home across the boarder to skip out on your sentence) so more immigrants serve time in jail than under house arrest.
Still – you’re thinking – 48.9% of crime committed by only 20% of the population is way out of whack. Well it isn’t when you factor in age distributions.
The majority of immigrants fall into the 18 – 33 age range. They come to Switzerland for work and so are mostly of working age. The Swiss population has a wider range of age distribution of course because they are born and grow old there.
Age distribution is important because anywhere you go in the world 90% of crime is committed by those in the 18 – 33 year old range.
So if you exclude the percentage of Swiss population below 18 and over 33 the proportion of Swiss between the ages of 18-33 is about equal to the proportion of immigrants of the same age. ( e.g. there are approx. 35,000 people aged 25 yrs who are immigrants and approx. 40,000 25 yr old Swiss born in the country … only about 20,000 immigrants aged 55 compared to 85,000 55 yr old swiss born)
In other words, immigrants are no more prone to commit crime than Swiss born.
Nbob,
Interesting if true. What’s your source?