Discussion Why aren't people from Norway immigrating to the US in mass numbers like Trump wants?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Indus

Indus

Diamond Member
May 11, 2002
9,892
6,470
136
Ever wonder why we don't have immigrants from there? Democratic Socialism!!!

Really think about it.. why are most immigrants to the US coming from capitalistic countries?

Mexico Capitalist.
China Capitalist.
India Capitalist.
Philippines Capitalist.
Domican Republic Capitalist.
Vietnam Capitalist.
El Salvador Capitalist.
Jamaica Capitalist.

Current socialist countries: Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Nicaragua, N. Ireland, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Venezuela.

Why if socialism is so terrible aren't they trying to immigrate to the USA in mass #'s?

Maybe it's because they have socialism giving them good healthcare and a safety net, they are happy in their country and don't want to lose it by immigrating away.
 
T

tweaker2

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
14,519
6,951
136
If there is socialized health care then there is a socialist society supporting it. This is the current mindset that the Repub Party leadership has pounded into the heads of their constituency, as if "socialism" is tantamount to being "communism" in practice and culture.

Now we have a president who is in every way possible a despot, a tyrant that seeks to destroy the underpinnings of our own Constitution in order to have things his way, all with the blessings of the core of the party. They consider themselves the "true patriots of the nation" even as they give aid and support to Trump whose most fervent wish is to create a dictatorship within our Republic so as to shield himself from any repercussions that his push for absolute power is creating. Everything that smacks of socialism is now an existential threat to the nation, never mind that Social Security and Medicare of which so many of the Repub constituency enjoy is "socialist" in nature.

From looking at this whole scenario at a distance, Trump, with the acquiescence of the whole of the Repub Party has been very busy manipulating the mechanizations of our system of gov't to give him and the party he leads the ability to control the nation from a minority party status. His Repub controlled Supreme Court has given them the best gift it could by allowing Repub controlled states to ensure their control via gerrymandering, one of the most potent weapons of choice that the Repubs have been using to stave off the threat of the demographic shifts that the nation is going through just to name a few.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Meghan54 and DarthKyrie
P

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,036
7,963
136
Nobody wants to immigrate to the US from Europe. Other than maybe Katie Hopkins (and hurrah for that).

OP hits nail on head, though, in one respect, in that that is what Trump and the right want - hence the ludicrous panic they (and their acolytes across the world) try to spread about Muslims 'taking over' Europe. That's the correlary to the obsession with the idea of an exclusively white America. They want to exclude everyone but whites from the US, while encouraging white Europeans to flee to the US.

The definition of 'socialism isn't really relevant. Europe is more social-democratic and less neo-liberal than the US, and has a significant socialist strand in politics, but in any case neither the rich nor the poor really see any benefit in crossing the Atlantic.

Though at times it feels as if Europe and the US just have different flavours of the far-right trying to take over power.

There are differences, I think. The US version seems much more exclusively based on 'race', and is more unified across the country, while the European version seems to be far more fractured across regions and local cultural identities, often being as hostile to other European white people as to ethnic minorities...occasionally even more so.

The US version also seems happier to make common cause with the pro-capitalist right. The European far right seems to have more of a Strasserian tradition.
 
ecogen

ecogen

Golden Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,217
1,288
136
The only reasons Europeans actually move to the US are a) university or b) they have a good job already lined up. Other than that there really isn't any incentive to relocate tbh.
 
O

obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
1,407
423
136
ecogen said:
The only reasons Europeans actually move to the US are a) university or b) they have a good job already lined up. Other than that there really isn't any incentive to relocate tbh.
Click to expand...

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess I'm the only Norwegian immigrant to the US here, lol (The reasons are boring and uninteresting.) But this sounds about right. If you live in a functioning country (e.g most of europe), unless you're wealthy and/or highly educated, or in the process of doing either, there's little benefit to coming to the US. And even then there isn't much. The worldwide "ease of doing business" rankings place wester/northern europe same level or above the US. Even if you're some startup genious there's isn't much reason to do that in the US, running a small business can actually be more hassle (cost of healthcare of your employess being an obvious one!).

I won't speak for everyone, but compared to Europe, at least the richer parts, it's the US that is kinda seen as a "shithole" country. It just lags behind. Public services are backwards, convoluted and crappy, infrastructure is laughably antiquated. It's just kinda dirty, with huge amounts of homeless and destitute people everywhere etc. Big cities in western europe have lots of flashy gleeming new buildings, with more going up all the time. The US has dumpy looking old concrete falling down. No offense, but I think most EU people see the US as a worn down, dysfunctional has-been. Sure there are pockets of wealth and "flashyness", but majority of the nation is closer to a developing country than cities of europe (and yes rural areas of euope can be bad too, and obviously the east).
Yes I think this relates to politics; at least to some degree EU countries see "tax+spend" as necessary investing in the country. In the US this is "waste". And the concentration of wealth in a few tiny areas.

edit; ease of doing business, norway the spot above US
https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings
Only thing US is good at is getting credit. And as my family runs a business in norway I'm a bit sceptical of that; they seem to get credit just fine..
 
  • Like
Reactions: thilanliyan
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,562
29,171
146
Because the USA absolutely sucks in every metric of modern social advancement and quality of life compared to Norway--and the bulk of Western and Northern Europe?


(cue the happy racists and their "that's because Norway is homogeneous and you can't compare!" racist argument)
 
  • Like
Reactions: DarthKyrie, tweaker2, soundforbjt and 1 other person
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,562
29,171
146
O

obidamnkenobi

Golden Member
Sep 16, 2010
1,407
423
136
zinfamous said:
Because the USA absolutely sucks in every metric of modern social advancement and quality of life compared to Norway--and the bulk of Western and Northern Europe?

(cue the happy racists and their "that's because Norway is homogeneous and you can't compare!" racist argument)
Click to expand...

I will say that visiting Norway just weeks ago it does have a level of low-level and casual racism and xenophobia that's shocking to me living in a very diverse US state. Some pretty racist attitudes both in it's politics and among fairly educated people. Likely because as you say; norway was (and really still is) very homogeneous (i.e. white..). This usually isn't the straight up "KKK level" racism, more like some pervasive stereotypes and fear of people with a different culture, and a sense that they aren't "real norwegians", and maybe they don't quite belong or fit in.. Still shitty, but maybe not quite as pure evil on the racism scale..

Note that there's a fair few other things I don't love about norway either, but that wasn't the topic here..
 
T

thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
11,864
2,066
126
obidamnkenobi said:
I won't speak for everyone, but compared to Europe, at least the richer parts, it's the US that is kinda seen as a "shithole" country. It just lags behind. Public services are backwards, convoluted and crappy, infrastructure is laughably antiquated.
Click to expand...
Nuh uhhh!!! It's the bestest and most powerful country on Earth!!! Screw those European socia...errr...commies! :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: DarthKyrie
ImpulsE69

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
obidamnkenobi said:
I will say that visiting Norway just weeks ago it does have a level of low-level and casual racism and xenophobia that's shocking to me living in a very diverse US state. Some pretty racist attitudes both in it's politics and among fairly educated people. Likely because as you say; norway was (and really still is) very homogeneous (i.e. white..). This usually isn't the straight up "KKK level" racism, more like some pervasive stereotypes and fear of people with a different culture, and a sense that they aren't "real norwegians", and maybe they don't quite belong or fit in.. Still shitty, but maybe not quite as pure evil on the racism scale..

Note that there's a fair few other things I don't love about norway either, but that wasn't the topic here..
Click to expand...

That's kind of interesting as I was going to jokingly say 'because the US isn't white enough', but honestly didn't know how diverse the area was if it was at all.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,562
29,171
146
obidamnkenobi said:
I will say that visiting Norway just weeks ago it does have a level of low-level and casual racism and xenophobia that's shocking to me living in a very diverse US state. Some pretty racist attitudes both in it's politics and among fairly educated people. Likely because as you say; norway was (and really still is) very homogeneous (i.e. white..). This usually isn't the straight up "KKK level" racism, more like some pervasive stereotypes and fear of people with a different culture, and a sense that they aren't "real norwegians", and maybe they don't quite belong or fit in.. Still shitty, but maybe not quite as pure evil on the racism scale..

Note that there's a fair few other things I don't love about norway either, but that wasn't the topic here..
Click to expand...

Oh yes, I've seen this too. In my limited to travels to northern Europe, there is definitely some very serious racism. You pretty much see it anywhere, really, but it's different. In Western Europe there is a longer history of Romani and Algerian and other immigrants that have been attached to generations of racism--but in Northern Europe I think it is a general lack of exposure to other races, for so long, that sort of creates this bubble of "of course I'm not racist but I'll say and think this racist thing anyway because how would I know it is not racist?" :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: evident
hal2kilo

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
23,413
10,304
136
obidamnkenobi said:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess I'm the only Norwegian immigrant to the US here, lol (The reasons are boring and uninteresting.) But this sounds about right. If you live in a functioning country (e.g most of europe), unless you're wealthy and/or highly educated, or in the process of doing either, there's little benefit to coming to the US. And even then there isn't much. The worldwide "ease of doing business" rankings place wester/northern europe same level or above the US. Even if you're some startup genious there's isn't much reason to do that in the US, running a small business can actually be more hassle (cost of healthcare of your employess being an obvious one!).

I won't speak for everyone, but compared to Europe, at least the richer parts, it's the US that is kinda seen as a "shithole" country. It just lags behind. Public services are backwards, convoluted and crappy, infrastructure is laughably antiquated. It's just kinda dirty, with huge amounts of homeless and destitute people everywhere etc. Big cities in western europe have lots of flashy gleeming new buildings, with more going up all the time. The US has dumpy looking old concrete falling down. No offense, but I think most EU people see the US as a worn down, dysfunctional has-been. Sure there are pockets of wealth and "flashyness", but majority of the nation is closer to a developing country than cities of europe (and yes rural areas of euope can be bad too, and obviously the east).
Yes I think this relates to politics; at least to some degree EU countries see "tax+spend" as necessary investing in the country. In the US this is "waste". And the concentration of wealth in a few tiny areas.

edit; ease of doing business, norway the spot above US
https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings
Only thing US is good at is getting credit. And as my family runs a business in norway I'm a bit sceptical of that; they seem to get credit just fine..
Click to expand...
Must be fake news. Not possible.
 
Indus

Indus

Diamond Member
May 11, 2002
9,892
6,470
136
mikeymikec said:
I was about to say "err, the UK is not a socialist country", but by GOP standards it probably is.
Click to expand...

The whole point of brexit was to stop giving money to Europe and fund their own socialist health care..

1563302660384.png
 
B

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
26,070
23,944
136
BoomerD said:
Calling China and Vietnam "capitalist" is really a stretch...
Click to expand...

The percentage of the economy that is state owned is falling rapidly in both countries while general economic freedom is rising. They are becoming capitalist economies with authoritarian political systems.
 
C

conehead433

Diamond Member
Dec 4, 2002
5,566
890
126
No one in their right mind wants to emigrate to a shithole country, which is what DJT has effectively turned this country into.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HomerJS
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom