At a recent barbecue I talked to a couple of Europeans, one from France and one from Romania. They’re living in Massachusetts now. Would they want to return to live in Europe? “No,” said the Romanian. “It is too violent.” The French woman agreed.
How was that possible? Doesn’t the U.S. have a near-monopoly on violence, at least if we are to believe our media? The answer was “no.” They both thought that their countries were ripe for essentially a civil war between the native Christian population (of which they had been part) and the immigrant Muslim population. They thought that large parts of their respective countries were already unsafe for non-Muslims and that the problems would become dramatically worse in the near future.
They also appreciated America’s service-oriented economy in which the customers usually is a priority. “You think that the French hate Americans because of the way you get treated in shops,” said the former Parisienne, “but they treat us the same.”
They considered the cost of living in Europe to be dramatically higher than the U.S., even more than could be explained by the VAT (consumption tax). “I have a friend who is a nurse and her husband is an architect,” said the French woman. “They live just above what we would consider the poverty line.”
What was good about Europe? “The vacations, the ability to relax and enjoy life, the social contacts.”
Related:
- “It’s Time for Sweden to Admit Explosions Are a National Emergency” (Quillette): “The use of explosives in the Nordic country is now at a level that is unique in the world for a state not at war, according to police.”
We have a Jewish business owner here in Delaware who left Marseille over 5 years ago because he perceived it to be unsafe for him and his family, and that the threat was worsening. Several of his Jewish colleagues have likewise followed him to the US to establish businesses, typically food & beverage. He runs two coffee shops. High quality beans from a Philadephia roaster, La Colombe, Austrian-style pancakes, and potato latkes. Try Kaisy’s in Rehoboth Beach or Lewes, Delaware, if you’re at the beach resorts on the coast.
This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, but I do thank them for their candor because my sense is that descriptions like theirs are usually ignored. Even more cynically they are “rationalized” away and dismissed in a million different ways.
You lost me there. Is it because they are Jewish? If so, it’s understandable.
Jews are not a progressive ethnicity or religion. They are not demanding reparations, they are not opposing Donald Trump, they are not chanting about the Fascist USA, they are not willing to dismantle the presidency to oppose the president.
They would not riot, never torch fancy cars or smash window panes that belong to filthy Koreans (I mean, grocery storekeepers in LA) or Indians (I mean, gas station owners in the Midwest). They are all white supremacists and Nazis. They are not even complaining, well, except… casually and socially, to each other. WTF?
Jews do not support the religion of peace (i.e., anyone who is willing to stand up to Trump.) The idea that Trump is an anti-Semite was tried and mostly failed, so Jews are 100% deplorable again. And besides, be realistic and check out grade school records: Jews seem to be good at math, just as bad as Chinese.
I am planning to leave California, and was considering Europe. Thanks for the tip.
Not to fond of England right now, if it is true what is said on Twitter that MI5 and MI6 helped to take down Trump, (see Steele Dossier) it will be 1776 all over again.
Darn it, Phil you need an edit feature.
I am surprised to hear that Romania has such ethnic division. Things have really gotten bad if the troubles are that widespread.
According to Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto, he shot up the New Zealand mosques to accelerate these social divisions, so that the ethnic rifts would turn into full-scale warfare while Europeans still had a fighting chance. The ruling Liberals in his native Australia condemned him, even as they tried to flush him down the memory hole. The Conservatives came to power in the next election and the media wrung their hands in sanctimonious despair at the will of unwashed democracy.
Tarrant’s manifesto (which is illegal to view in some foreign jurisdictions and Google actively hides the source document):
https://tarrantmanifesto.com/
Marine Le Pen, the French National Front politician, faces criminal prosecution for linking to videos of Muslim violence. She posted those links to answer critics who called her patriotism more damaging to France than Islam.
Chevaucher Le Dragon is a song sympathetic to Madame Le Pen, by the girl-band Les Brigandes (and recently memory-holed by Youtube):
Here in New York, the parks of Long Island have becoming killing fields for the Central American death squads that have taken over the local high schools.
https://pix11.com/2017/04/14/names-released-of-4-males-found-dead-in-long-island-park/
Trump is called a Nazi even though his favourite daughter converted to Judaism and the Jerusalem football club Baidar, changed their name to Baidar Trump.
Speaking of Nazis, the cultural marxism of the Weimar Republic resulted in a reaction that did not end well. Since Russia seems sympathetic to the Neo-Nazi Trump, who would defeat the Trumpenfuhrer as Mother Russia defeated the original Fuhrer?
This whole train of thought makes me a bit queasy, like a medical student’s first human dissection.
The ruling Liberals in his native Australia condemned him, even as they tried to flush him down the memory hole. The Conservatives came to power in the next election and the media wrung their hands in sanctimonious despair at the will of unwashed democracy.
There was an election in Australia few weeks, but the incumbent party (technically a coalition of two partied) remained in power. You may be confused because the main center-right party there is called the Liberal Party. Of course, he was condemned by everybody in every party, with the possible exception of Pauline Hanson.
I guess the big news is that he’s got fans here in the USA. That’s amazing. Thanks for not censoring, Philip.
“The ruling Liberals in his native Australia condemned him, even as they tried to flush him down the memory hole. The Conservatives came to power in the next election and the media wrung their hands in sanctimonious despair at the will of unwashed democracy.”
In Australia the “Liberal” party are the Conservatives and were already in power before the latest election. Members of the “Coalition” ( aka the ultra-Conservative side of the ruling party) came out in support of the New Zealand shooter. The media here is largely run by Rupert, so there wasn’t much hand wringing.
Vince,
It is presumptuous to call a hyperlink as support for his actions. How can we condemn what we do not understand? How can we understand if we do not study? What better evidence of a man’s motivations than his own words?
What’s your opinion of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry? Does condemning he and his supporters’ murderous rampage make one a supporter of slavery?
Glory, glory, Hallelujah!
Mememe
Don’t ever argue with a DNC operative. There is a national election to win. Arguing with a propagandist is waste of air.
Anecdotal
Anecdotal evidence is just that. And if not contextualised, it’s a shame to pass this as anything but “pub chatter”.
First of all, there’s no denying that religious tensions in Europe have increased, with it being associated with immigration. Rise of anti-semitism is a problem, and tensions between Muslims and non Muslims has also increased. Yet saying that Europe is on the verge of a civil race war is nothing but scaremongering and blatantly false. I live in Europe, have relatives and friends all over the continent and have also lived in Massachusetts.
In France, one can certainly argue that Islamic terrorism is a problem (Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, Nice, etc) and Muslims represent almost 10% of the population (5-6 million). But in Romania, Muslims are far less than 100k people, representing less than 0.5% of the population. And I searched but I did not find a single record of a terrorist attack. There are 77 mosques in Romania (in 2011 there were 2106 in the USA), one built in 1575 – so it’s an ongoing affair. How can there be an imminent civil war between Muslims and Christians in Romania?
I can see French (or Belgians, or British, maybe even some Germans, Austrians or Swedes being afraid of Muslim majority zones), but that’s basically impossible in Romania unless this individual lived in the county of Dobromir (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Romania). One should also point out that there are Muslim majority European countries like Bosnia and Albania, and that most of its neighbours are Muslim majority countries (from Morocco to Turkey).
For intentional homicides, there were 247 (1.25) in Romania and 875 (1.35) in France. In parenthesis are the rates per 100k people. For comparison, the USA had 17,250 (5.35) in 2016 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate). In fact, the leading cause of death if you’re aged 14-20 in the USA is a gunshot (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1901264). Furthermore if you expand the concept of “violence”
The USA has significantly higher rates of obesity (https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Obesity-Update-2017.pdf) and deaths by drug overdose are 3.5 times higher on average when compared to 17 other high-income counties to the point that life expectancy is decreasing (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190221083419.htm).
Putting France and Romania in the same basket makes no sense. GDP per capita of France is around $45k, while in Romania its $25k. For comparison in the top US state (NY) it is $86k and the lowest (MS), it’s $38k.
Finally, «“You think that the French hate Americans because of the way you get treated in shops,” said the former Parisienne, “but they treat us the same.”» – Parisians are notorious for their arrogance. It’s hardly a widespread thing. But it’s true that services are less fawning in the USA. I could also get you a list of testimonials of non American people (me included) that would say the opposite: why can’t they let us eat and shop alone without asking several times per meal about our food or if we need help shopping after asking how we are (but not caring about the answer).
Regarding cost of living, generally speaking I have the same impression. Some are obvious, even after taxes like VAT, as you mention, such as regulations: there’s no way you’ll find chicken as cheap as in the US, and you wonder what’s in those chickens. But comparing a few anecdotal prices is not a decent comparison. Do those individuals have school aged children? Have they factored in the cost of good education, or college debt? The cost of bad health insurance in case you’re hit with a cancer?
I live in Romania and I am really surprised that a Romanian sees an imminent clash with Muslims as a real problem (I think it is a made-up one; how long was your acquaintance away from Romania?). If one wants to feel insecure, there are other options: proximity to Russia, the health system with its chronic underfunding, the overcrowded roads (poorly developed, hardly increased over the last 30 years, sized for other times; that leads to aggressive driving sometime, the country has one of the highest road fatalities rates in Europe). Then there’s the still widespread corruption. I think any of these are higher than Muslims on the top of reasons for which Romanians leave their country.
Both have been in the U.S. for quite a while (10+ years) with periodic vacation trips back to their respective home countries. Both live in quiet all-white/Asian Boston suburbs. So they aren’t exposed to the high crime areas of the U.S., e.g., https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/experience/america/2018/10/17/25-most-dangerous-cities-america/1669467002/
I think the reason that America sometimes seems less violent is because there actually is less casual violence. People are less likely to engage in casual violence when serious violence might result (e.g. someone pulling a gun.) This is the Heinlein effect – an armed society is a polite society. There is more serious violence, but that happens to someone else, on the other side of town.
I call BS on this. Our crime rates are comparable to other developed countries but our results are deadlier in comparison.
Correct. True in the over-regulated North-East where only criminals carry guns in the street.
I was robbed at a gunpoint. (Fortunately, I only had a quarter\ as I was going for a jog.) I reported the incident to the NYPD, and they just laughed at me: are you sure you saw a real gun pointed at you, they asked?
I am actually pretty good at handling a hand weapon (don’t ask). I could deal five guys and a single pistol given a right chance. But I would hate to have bullet holes in me simply because those would be in a wrong guy.
What would have happened in the mouse utopia if batches of wild mice had been introduced during the later stages of the experiment? Would strife have developed in a way not necessarily to the advantage of the established population of lab-evolved mice?
It’s a pity Dr Calhoun didn’t try it. We’ll probably never know how it would have turned out – at least, not with mice.
Romania has a pretty low share of muslims, 0.3% (2011 census) or may be 0.4% (Pew Research estimate from 2016), almost all of them concentrated in a couple of counties in the traditionally muslim Dobruja. https://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/
During the recent European refugee crisis Romania have been receiving just a few thousand asylim seekers per annum http://cirsa.pl/?p=395&lang=en, as most refugees prefer to transit to wealthier countries further North and West. So the recent immigration could not have changed the composition too much.
It is very unlikely that this minority poses a real violent takeover threat to the remaining 99.6% of population. So the only interesting question here is why would a non-asylum seeking migrant make up scary stories about their home country.
have your friends bothered to consult any of the statistics available for violent crime in the US and european countries?
As noted above, both live in quiet all-white/Asian suburbs of Boston (but they do have a lot of Black Lives Matter banners hanging in front of their churches, even if their zoning laws generally prevent most Americans of Color (AOC!) from living near them). So the nationwide statistics for the U.S. don’t reflect their personal exposure.
Can’t comment on the French person’s point of view, but large parts of present and former Romania (Moldova) were part of the Ottoman Empire so Muslims in Romania are not exactly new.
It seems to me that this could perhaps be due to selection bias. The people that perceive problems, rightly leave France or wherever for what they perceive to be a safer place. They may or may not be right that there is a problem in their home country, but that is why they leave. Then Phil asks that group of people in the US for their opinion and so he gets what is an accurate polling of local immigrants, but what may not portray the actual situation in the home country.
This is interesting, I happen to know both countries (and the US) fairly well.
France does have a problem with (mostly muslim) immigrants, mainly because too many of them are segregated into “banlieus”, i.e. poor suburbs with high population densities and subsidized housing. Paris and Marseille are particularly bad.
Romania seems to have more of a problem with people leaving the country than people moving there. I certainly didn’t notice a muslim problem there.
The US is simply huge and empty by European standards (the population density is half that of Europe). That makes it much easier to find a place that fits your vision of a nice place to live, whatever that is, far away from people you don’t get along with.
I agree that in general North Americans (Canada and US), especially away from the big cities, are much more approachable than most Europeans.
Another idea: the perception of violence could be exaggerated by the higher population density, e.g. Germany has a “murder density” that is 2 times higher than the USs.
This means in Europe you are much more likely to experience a murder in your proximity, although the number of murders per inhabitant is much lower.
I’d assume the numbers to be similar or evern worse for other crimes.
This makes a lot of sense. After a horrific crime in a small town, residents inevitably talk about how nothing like that ever happens in their peaceful hamlet. They ignore the fact that, with a population of 3,000 or whatever, they could have the same murder rate as New York City and have a reasonable probability of a 100-year murder-free period.
but crime is not any more evenly distributed in european countries. if your friends can afford the leafy boston suburbs, they would presumably not be moving into the parisian ghetto!
romania is just poor (relative to the rest of the EU) and experiencing a brain drain much like the earlier entrants to the EU did