Comments on: Lazy Europeans

By: Patrick Faas

Patrick Faas — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:50:43 +0000

@21 Lowie A. &@ Ms Mees.
I am very sorry for misspelling Ms Mees’ name. My apologies.

I know the European cities Lowie A. suggests and I know the social conditions in several American cities too. The idea of adopting the social conditions of the United States is a horrific concept. WASPs may benefit from such a harsh and heartless system, but not society as a whole. Have you forgotten hurricane Katrina? Have you forgotten the incredible selfishness nearly all citizens of New Orleans displayed? Have you even seen a more despicable moral? Selfishness has been elevated to an ideal in the USA and it showed in the pure barbarism that was exposed after the hurricane. Europe is heaven in comparison to the States, where it concerns social justice.

By: Lowie A.

Lowie A. — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:17:10 +0000

Mr. Faas, what’s the deal on misspelling Mrs. Mees’ last name? European laziness or dyslexism? It might even be part of your little want-to-be-world you are living in. The reality pictured in the article merely needs statistics to back it. A walk in any european city confirms the stated inactivity among non-western immigrants. Never been to The Hague, Cologne or Marseille? Never mind, Mr. Faas, get your ‘figures’ from the dutch CBS and check ethnicity percentages in prisons, welfare and health social security. Soon enough, these data will not be spread publicly anymore. The issue is too delicate to be discussed. All attempts to stir up these FACTS will be dismissed as demagogy, populism or, in your words ‘neo-conservative immorality’. Goodnight Mr. Faas.

By: Patrick Faas

Patrick Faas — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:53:32 +0000

Those figures are completely unsubstantiated. Where does Ms Rees get these statistics from? Without source references we can only conclude she made them up. I am shocked to see that NRC publishes her article, which is clearly far below our journalistic standards.

Rees’ concluding paragraph, in which she blames our social system for the riots in Paris and for the murder on Theo van Gogh, is an attempt at populist deception that recalls the lies of George Bush. In the same way Bush tried to connect the invasion of Iraq to the Osama’s attack on 9-11. Many Americans fell for those lies. But Ms Rees, we are not Americans, so keep your neo-conservative immorality to your own side of the ocean please.

And enjoy your hotdogs every night, I have some quality cooking to do.

By: Anya

Anya — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:33:14 +0000

As an immigrant in Dallas, TX, I can tell you from firsthand experience that anything is possible in America, for immigrants and natives alike. I can’t speak much for how well Europe integrates its immigrants. They get welfare benefits, but yet they constantly riot. My family didn’t get a single dime from the government, and my parents managed to work themselves up into middle class. For my parents, it was sacrifice and risk. They went without health insurance for a while, they cut corners to save a penny everywhere they could. Knock on wood that nothing terrible happened to our family during those first few years. It’s merely survival of the fittest here in the States. There’s no compassion, like a previous poster from Houston said. My husband and I do pretty well for ourselves, but between us we have 80K in student loans to pay back, which is a small sacrifice to make I’d say. We’re lucky that we work in recession-proof industries. Xenophobia is alive and thriving here. I’m a white immigrant, so I hear a lot about “those dirty immigrants.” Imagine the surprise on people’s faces when I tell them that I’m a foreigner. But that certainly doesn’t prevent one from rising up in society. You have to take everything your hear with a grain of salt and focus on your ultimate goal, because the opportunity is always there.

By: Mr Jorge Vargas

Mr Jorge Vargas — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:19:49 +0000

Immigration all over the world Hill increase no matter which law you create, is just like water, people Hill look for were it is better to flow on. It will move as fast as the communication will go up. Races will mix up, languages will get in such a gay that a new language will show up, hundred per cent should be English but with a lot different profiles. USA, Brazil are good examples of places were races learned to deal with this stuff. We need no frontiers, we need no borders, we must move to a globalize world, because that is nature is sending us to. World does not need religions but comprehension, understanding, loyalty, values that are too far away in some societies

By: Lowie A.

Lowie A. — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:40:15 +0000

Altough sentence structure might not have been top of the bill, Mrs. Mees aces on content and conclusion. Non western immigrants have a low participation grade and are well of doing so. Regarding the circumstances they are coming from, welfare still is a lottery ticket compared to their former situation. No need implies a change of the status quo. Government measures will cause popular disobedience (riots) and market mechanisms don’t get the opportunity to filter out non contributing attributes. Easy to fit in social structures are a magnet for exponential growth of misery, which is best to be visualized as a cyclic whirlpools sucking in the worldwide surplus of unqualified non desired unemployed.

By: Marco

Marco — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:36:20 +0000

All is not so rosey over here in America. My job with pays me a flat hourly wage gives me absolutely ZERO days vacation, ZERO days of holiday, ZERO days of sick time and ZERO amount of benefits. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. Wages are going down right now because of the economic crisis. Companies are hiring lower wage employees to trade out the higher waged ones. I am thinking of returning my family lineage back to the Netherlands because this American worker is getting burnt out.

By: Tiskie from Phoenix, AZ

Tiskie from Phoenix, AZ — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:25:45 +0000

In the US you definitely do get rewarded more for hard work, and it indeed doesn’t take generations.

The article written by Heleen isn’t structured very well, rather confusing. Seems to me she needs to mingle more with the locals and ditch the Dutch sentence structures!

I appreciate her concern regarding women not pursuing careers, but the root of that problem really lies with being female, period. Let me explain a little further, as a young female in the US, pursuing a career. See, here you NEED a car, groceries are expensive, the cost of living is generally pretty steep. You pretty much HAVE to work full time, if you want to be able to afford a little bit of luxury.

As an entry level engineer I get just about a week of vacation per year, and your regular holidays. Health insurance I get through work, though the contributions and copay both are rather expensive, and coverage is limited.

At the moment, the thought of kids would give me nightmares. Since everything is so spread out, they are not able to get to places by themselves, so you need that soccermom van to drive them and their friends around. If they get sick, you’re screwed unless you have unused vacation time or floating holidays. Medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy, so I am not taking any risks in general. Pregnancy beats you up pretty well too.

Altogether, the necessity to work (more than) full time, longer commutes (my drive is a little over an hour, which is not bad compared to some coworkers), and the high cost of medical care keeps me from starting a family.

The general picture that is painted about the average immigrant in the US is questionable. Here in Arizona, right across the Mexican border, the immigrants do have low paid jobs usually, but live in such poor conditions that they usually end up as criminals mooching off of welfare.

By: Emir

Emir — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:32:09 +0000

CB @ 13
I agree with you. It is rather cruel in that case. I work for company where I can take up to 3 months PAID medical leave because company covers that as accident. As for ladies it is few weeks I think plus 3 months UNPAID guaranted leave. Cruel and unhuman rather. CApitalism as its worst and best. But I am not sure if I would prefer all the luxury of social programs in Europe if it would have taken few generations for locals to accept me for what I am : foreigner!

By: cb

cb — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:46:49 +0000

Emir @ 12 forgot to explain what would happen if he used up his PTO for vacation and got sick after that, or how much paid leave a pregnant woman gets. Let us hope that his good luck stays with him.