In a previous post I took FOX News to task for a misleading report about the Netherlands by using actual facts and data to counter their claims about Holland being a moral cesspool because of the high levels of atheism amongst the population there. Bill O'Reilly then followed this up by claiming that Amsterdam was being overrun by crime and corruption because of their permissive legalized drug and sex policies, which spurred a native Dutchman to make this video countering his claims.
Well now he's claiming the same thing about the Netherlands again but this time he's refuting the Dutch statistics using the same logic he once applied to Canada:
Is it any wonder I love watching this guy? In Bill O'Reilly's world (and it seems that most of the less intelligent right-wingers live in this same world) the United States is inherently superior in whatever category you're measuring simply because that's what they want to believe. Verifiable facts and provable data say something different? They use different math in those countries, what do you expect?! And failing that of course, just rub some Wikiality on it:
You see O'Reilly and Colbert don't need literal facts, just the right facts. And in both cases those facts are the ones they make up for themselves, the only difference being that Colbert is actually playing a character making fun of serial conservative liars like O'Reilly. I'll say it again: The bar for getting your own television show in this country is set depressingly low.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Bill O'Reilly: Still Crunching Those Numbers...
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7 comments:
Doesn't this clown have a masters degree in something?
The last time I opened a cracker jacks box, I couldn't find my masters certificate. Could you?
Cheers
Perhaps he found it in the same Cracker Jack box our man Truth101 claims as the origins of my boy Don's PhD, CS. Good hearing from you again.
As someone who actually grew up in Holland, I will say this regarding crime there. From the time I was in 7th grade until I graduated highschool, I went out all the time in The Hague and Amsterdam and never saw any crime. My parents never even worried about it. It was, and still is, a very safe place.
The one thing that I think is a problem for Holland (and for many other W. European countries, such as France) is their open immigration policy. I realize that what I am going to say may not sound great, but in a majority of the cases, the crime you did hear about there, and the problems that I witnessed first hand, involved groups of (Morroccan, Turkish, etc.) immigrants or gangs of such. Look at the riots outside of Paris for another example. The open door policy sounds great, and fits their societal norms, but the massive influx of young, uneducated immigrants is causing them problems.
Making a big deal out of the sex and drugs (redlight district) in Amsterdam is about like griping over the gambling and hookers in Las Vegas. Neither is representative of the country as a whole.
The inhabitants of Right-Wingnutistan (and Letf as well) are generally living there because of their inability to process and deal with information. To wit:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/why-do-you-hate-me/Content?oid=2156227
I'm not too sure how such a long link will come out so I'll try to tag it here
Dutch,
The "mass influx" of uneducated young immigrants are no different than the influx of uneducated, under-priveleged ghetto dwellers of any race.
You just have to check out some of the projects in America for example.
The soaring crime rates that you speak of, aren't exactly exclusive to some genetic predisposition of immigrants to cause crime. The common thread and perhaps the root cause of much crime, regardless of region, seems to be poverty related.
I don't think that Dutch meant to imply that the high levels of crime are a product of genetic predisposition inherent to minority immigrants CS but rather just as you've said: That the immigrants, who did happen to be of Moroccan, Turkish, etc. descent, were the main cause of crime there.
If any sizable portion of a country's population is young, poor and uneducated then it logically follows that this group will cause a disproportionate amount of the crime. In this case this group is made up of foreign minorities flooding in because of a lax immigration enforcement policy and I don't see any problem with stating these facts thusly.
You're correct that saying this doesn't sound great Dutch but the reasons for this are couched in economic and educational disparities, not any inherent prejudice on your part for merely stating uncomfortable truths.
And I suspected that I was correct on my other point about sex, drugs and lack of religion not making the Netherlands the rotting cesspool of iniquity that O'Reilly ignorantly claims it to be but it's always good to hear the opinion of someone who's lived it longer than the four days I spent there.
I think I said this already, but read the Colbert interview in the latest Rolling Stone. It's really insightful and really great. He actually goes out of character for it.
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