Charges of ethnic agitation will be brought by deputy state prosecutor Jorma Kalske against Kontiolahti councilman Mika Hiltunen, reports YLE. Hiltunen claimed on his Facebook page in January that refugees and asylum seekers “are social-welfare bums and rapists.”
JusticeDemon asks an interesting question about the case: “… this particular statute [Section 10 of chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code] has evidently become Lex Persu. Is it my imagination, or can we say that ALL convictions for this particular offense in the last 5 years have been more or less closely associated with this specific political faction?”‘
Another important question we can ask concerning Hiltunen is why doesn’t the PS sack the councilman? Remember the answer PS chairman Timo Soini gave on HARDtalk when he was asked about sacking MP Teuvo Hakkarainan for calling black people the n-word?
Soini’s answed: “Why should I?”
It’s pretty certain that Soini won’t sack Hiltunen.
The reason why the PS chairman denies racism to be a problem is obvious: The party cannot rid itself of its racists because it would commit political hara-kiri.
Politician spelt wrong in the title, Enrique. Would it be useful to produce the rap sheet for PS politicians/counsellors in the last couple of years? I know it must be getting quite long, but I for one would love to see this in one place.
This was a list of PS rogues I put up in a comment in April last year, but it must have grown some since then.
Rautio, Hirvisaari, Hakkarainen, Immonen, Pyysalo, Putkonen, Eronen, Oinonen, Eerola, Viinikainen, Van Wonterghem, Okkonen, Niikko, and Allah-oho
“How common do offenses of this kind have to become among the PS and its members before the general activities of the party itself become a criminal offense?”
Wont matter how common they become. Remember that you cant stigmatize people in the party as a whole on something that only some do, right? That is your doctrine in here right?
Yossie
Yes, the docrtine is not to stigmatize people. We have had this debate about exactly this point several times on MT. The reason that stigmatisation is wrong is because human beings in an ethnic group really do show enormous variety, in terms of values, behaviour, beliefs, and characteristics – it really doesn’t make any sense to generalise.
However, the same is not as true of a political party – where the party exists to promote a ‘specific agenda’. Now this is not to say that all members of the party have the same agenda. Clearly this isn’t true, and one person’s actions cannot be put onto others. But if the party as a whole does not like the racist/xenophobic/homophobic/fascist agenda that is put forward by some of them, then they must be seen to take a stand. When they choose not to, the strong suspicion is that this is a shared agenda, but not a public one.
Dear Yossie.
Most voters for PS agree the PS as it presents its political views. However, the racists that are on the frontline of PS all the time -and obviously with the consent of the PS leadership- create the image of racisme, anti migration, anti-gay etc. in a way that voters support. The question is if this picture is correct.
The leadership -and especially the far-right section- should go to a “crash course of marketing” of Berlusconi. He is far more better that you guys.
You say that MT bloggers stigmatize PS as racist and and and, am I correct?? Shall we play a game?? You are a PS member, right? You don’t feel like racist and and and, right? The party leadership do ‘t allow you to criticize these “important members, am I still right?? You don’t take position when somebody agrues with a memebr on racist and and and remarks, right still?? Therefore what happens in or on the fringe of the party is right or not addressed, still right I guess??
Now!! An outsider disagrees with the stigma that the PS is sending out about immigrants, gays etc. That’s a wrong opinion, isn’t it?? The outsider’s arguments are based on assumptions, false data etc. That’s of course wrong, am I right? The outsider wants to put a label of wrongness on the PS and that’s wrong, am I right?
Conclusion of the game is: You are right and I am wrong. The next conclusion is: I stigmatize PS and you had the right arguments and labels all the time, am I right??
Yossie, go to the Zoo, take a good look at ostriches, especially when they start to become afraid. What you actually are continuously.
Seems that you have developed a long neck as well. I can see a lot of sand in your hair and eyes. Your brains have been clotted up by the sand as you “dig your head in the sand” because you refuse to see.
You must be very happy with your “mental darkness”. You would be the “bright boy of the Berlusconi class”.
But……..dear Yossie………in Finland you and your PS will fail in the end. As did your friends in 1945!!
Not a good foresight.
Yossie
It turns out that ethnic agitation is not singled out as an offence that can characterise an organisation as criminal. My remark was based on an error in the Finlex database.
The amount of hypocracy and double standards is astonishing here in MT 🙂
Farang
Accusations of hypocrisy are your favourite weapon against us, but to make it stick, you have to provide convincing examples, Farang. You cannot get away with just a smiley 🙂
Even a 10-year old can tell you that an ethnic group and a political party are quite different entities, both in terms of identity and in how we understand them. It’s hilarious that you deny racism against ethnic groups, even when it’s blatantly obvious, and yet you jump to call any criticism of PS stigmatisation of a group.
Here it is in simple terms, even your dog should understand this:
ethnic group = individuals with many different political views who by accident of birth are born into their ethnic grouping
political party = individuals with broadly similar political views who CHOOSE to join a political party because of a shared identity
Now tell me, which group can we more realistically generalise about while avoiding being discriminatory?
Ricky
It seems that I have been misled by an error on a government website. The consolidated text of the Finnish Penal Code as published on the Finlex database defines criminal organisations in terms of the following aim:
Section 10 of chapter 11 does indeed criminalise the offence of ethnic agitation, but the published consolidated text is incorrect. Both the government bill and the Act of Parliament make it quite clear that the intended reference statute was section 8 of chapter 11.
Errors in the Finlex database are highly unusual.
Strangely enough. the published unofficial English translation on Finlex is correct. The error only affects the Finnish and Swedish consolidated texts.
Thank you JD for pointing that out. Sometimes these things happen to the best of people. I’ve corrected the blog entry.
Mark
If we take for example muslims, they can CHOOSE if they want to be muslims or not. That’s no different than a political party.
Farang
By the same reasoning, you can simply choose to be Mexican and start enjoying huitlacoche.
What is the basis of your expertise on the nature of religious community membership, Farang?
What is your obsession with Muslims, Farang? I didn’t mention Muslims, but somehow you managed to squeeze them into the conversation?
We are talking about the difference between ethnic identity and membership of a political party and whether generalisations can be made equally. We argue that you cannot generalise about ethnic groups but that you can generalise about the ideology of political parties, mostly because they state exactly these generalisatios in their manifestos.
YOU argue the complete opposite. I really wish that you didn’t because you make yourself look like such a fool when you do that, but I just cannot stop you from doing it, no matter how I try! 🙂
JD
No you can’t. If you are born mexican, then you are mexican for life.
My whole point was to point out Mark’s hypocracy and his failure to prove otherwise.
He says that it is ok to generalize whole political party, but not for example a religion. There he fails. Religion is exactly similar as political party: It’s persons personal choice to be in it or not.
Therefore if one approves generalisation of political party based on what some individuals do, then same should apply to religions aswell.
Farang
So you get to call me a hypocrite and then it’s my job to prove I’m not? 😀
You are half right. It is okay to generalise about ‘whole’ political parties, of course, otherwise how the hell do we decide who to vote for? But you can also generalise to an extent about the beliefs of someone belonging to a religion or about that religion. I have no problem with that, and I have no problem you having a debate or criticising religious ideas. Of course, many people have some half-baked ideas about what religion is, or how religious people think, but as long as the debate is civilised, I really cannot criticise someone for criticising religion.
The difficulty happens when you start to vilify people because of their faith, or to discriminate against them because of their faith.
You are a good example, because you invariable drag ‘Muslims’ into the conversation in a derogatory way. If you were serious about debating religion, you would either talk about Islam or about the writings or thoughts of specific Muslims. You do not. Instead, you talk about ‘Muslims’ constantly in some kind of generic way, as if that actually means anything (it doesn’t).
Now, let’s see if you are smart enough to understand this very simple point or whether you are going to keep banging on about me being a hypocrite!
Farang
You did not tell us the basis of your expertise on the nature of religious community membership, and now you come out with a childishly naive definition of religion. Can you identify any reputable theologian or scholar of comparative religion who agrees with that definition?
A religious position informs every aspect of an individual’s life and becomes the broadest frame of reference for all experience, including interpretation of the experiences of others. This is inseparable from individual behaviour patterns and the culture of the community, none of which make complete sense without the religious perspective. There is no way to understand religious views without also appreciating what it is that makes them meaningful to their adherents.
I am quite sure that you could not simply choose to enjoy huitlacoche. There are many aspects of your life that are similarly not open to choice. Could you simply change your mind and decide that it is morally right to kill children for fun, Farang? If this is not a matter of opinion, then what is it and why do you adhere to your view so strongly that you cannot even begin to imagine what your life would be like without it?
Yes, I know that at this point you stick your fingers in your ears and yell sick sick sick, but how is it that you cannot simply choose not to be sick? Focus on that and you may begin to understand how silly it is to dismiss the religious perspective as mere intellectual assent to propositions.
An individual’s religious position and religious tradition is as fundamental to that individual as his or her feelings of enjoyment or disgust and his or her sense of right and wrong.
JusticeDemon
No it’s not. It’s always persons personal choice. Only when persons own intelligence is low enough, he can’t question the stuff that has been teached to him since he was born. But that is equivalent with the case of any unintelligent person getting used because they are too simple to understand.
And there is no healthy people who would think killing childred for fun would be right. Same as with all crimes, violence and stuff. People know it’s wrong, but some people don’t care, they do it anyway, because those persons are bad, evil.
Oh, sorry I forget that you don’t accept that people are divided to good and bad…
Farang
I can only conclude, Farang, that you literally do not know what religion is. Perhaps the overwhelming academic and political consensus that religion is an element of personal identity is simply false because… well, because Farang knows better and all of those experts are just unintelligent.
Didn’t I just forecast that you would stick your fingers in your ears and shout sick sick sick?
Obviously you have merely shifted the question onto some undefined notion of health (the opposite of sickness, Farang). What specific illness are you talking about here, and what are its symptoms and cause? How would you test for it? You can offer no characterisation of the alleged illness that would not make your argument circular and trivial. Witch trials work on the same principle.
What you are really relying on here is an unexamined gut reaction, but why is it so difficult to appreciate that a religious position and tradition may have the same kind of justification?
We have seen your concept of sinfulness here before, Farang. It’s irrelevant that you are unaware of its origins. Indeed you seem to exemplify someone who, in your own words:
Either explain your moral views or accept that you hold them instinctively, without proof or empirical evidence, and that you acquired them merely by unreflectively copying the behaviour of others around you and trying to conform to their expectations. In the latter case explain why an individual cannot hold religious views in the same way and with the same degree of conviction.
Farang
What is the point of your argument? That because people can choose religion, they should be forced to not choose it, or that it’s okay therefore to persecute them when they do choose it because, well, they have a choice, don’t they? I really don’t see what you are getting at.
I have already pointed out how you are perfectly free to criticise religion, and that there is a clear difference between criticising religion and discriminating against people because of their religion or breaching the sanctity of religion. I am against discrimination and breaching the sanctity of religion. I am against Islamaphobia, which is an irrational fear of Muslims, not because I think it should be illegal, but because it vilifies ordinary innocent people and because it creates social unrest.
You seem to think that PS politicians can break the law and not be criticised, or that party members can break the law and not be kicked out the party and still no criticism – at what point does this political party of yours start to become accountable for its actions?
JD
Mental illness, which causes person to not understand his actions and what is right or wrong.
That is totally separated thing compared to person who knows what is right and wrong, but decides to act in wrong way willingly, because he doesn’t care.
Farang
You are now explaining the choices of others as the outcome of some mysterious mental illness that is characterised ONLY by the fact that they make those particular choices. This essentially circular approach was most famously applied in the USSR, though many of the incarcerated 19th century inmates of Bethlem Hospital in London and the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital in New York would not have satisfied any modern definition of mental illness. Elsewhere we do not jump so readily from “I disagree with your values” to “You are mentally ill.”
Please try to remember that you began by asserting that people are free to choose their religion. I have pointed out that religious convictions are at least as fundamental to individual personality as the foundations of emotional reactions such as pleasure and disgust and the principles that we express in our moral choices. This is the orthodox position on the relationship between religion and individual identity. If you now assert that moral values (or such matters as sexual orientation or left-handedness) differing from your own are an outcome of mental illness that requires no further explanation, then I put it to you that religion could be the same kind of phenomenon sufficient in and of itself. Such an illness would not be a matter of individual choice, and so again you have to admit that people do not choose their religion.
Even if you very naively define religion in terms of assent to propositions, there is the point that we are not free to assent to any proposition at all. Most importantly, we cannot assent to a proposition that we know to be false. If someone is convinced that a religious proposition is true (due to mental illness or personal experience), then they are not simply free to choose not to believe it, any more than you can choose not to believe that 2+2=4. In other words, even on your own primary school understanding of religion it cannot be a matter of choice. This theme was famously explored by George Orwell in 1984.
Mark
It’s simple. Point was to demonstrate that religion is as much persons choice as is political party.
Therefore if you say it is ok to generalise a whole political party based on few individuals of that party, then similarly it is ok to generalise a whole religion based on few individuals of that party.
If you don’t agree, then you can’t claim that the whole political party can be defined based on few individuals.
Now, if you expect PS to kick out it’s members, why would that be? If person has committed a crime, it has nothing to do with politics as you can see from other parties aswell. For example Halla-aho and Hirvisaari have only got fined, yet there are members in other parties who have been sentenced time. Still you think the crimes of Halla-aho and Hirvisaari are more severe. Strange biased thinking.
Farang
You have said in the past that no concessions can be made to religious people because ‘they chose the religion’, and if they don’t like something, tough. That is an argument you have made several times on this blog.
Can you try to be realistic for just one second! There are 3.9 million Christians living in Finland and only 39 PS MPs. If a group of a few dozen of those Christians set up their own extremist sect, are you going to be justified in drawing conclusions that apply to all Christians or even to vilify all Christians on the basis of a minority? Clearly not!
Now, if a half dozen MPs have made racist, homophobic and fascist statements, have memberships of fascist organisations, and constantly bash on immigrants and immigration, AND they hold influencial positions within the party and THE PARLIAMENT, while the party does very little to discipline them over these ‘indiscretions’ except a gentle wrap over the knuckles, then the general public is justified in believing that these issues are not taken seriously, or much more likely, that they are actively exploited as political issues in order to gain votes.
Now if you are too naive or too stupid to understand that this is the reality in terms of PS as a political party, then you have no place coming here and trying to lecture us about politics.
I really get tired of seeing you constantly distorting my opinions. It’s just an endless and pointless exercise in correcting you. I have never said that the whole party can be defined by the actions of a few. However, I DO think that the leadership of the party should make it clear what the party does and does not stand for, and that this must be clear too from the actions of the party. If Soini says he will sack convicted racists, then he should sack them! When he doesn’t, me makes himself look weak and he gives the distinct impression that the party doesn’t give a shit that there are racists in the party and that actually, they seek to profit from it.
I think if the Chairman of the Administrative Committee is convicted of hate speech and this Committee is dealing directly with immigration matters, then clearly that person cannot hold that position. It is a simple matter of political intregrity. Indeed, he was kicked out of the Committee. But the fact that Soini didn’t also make the same point shows that he has no integrity either.
Most of our criticisms of PS are of the leadership. It has been said many times on here by all the posters that PS is a mixed bag, and many are not racist even if they follow the party line in being skeptical towards immigration. It’s been said so many times, and yet you still choose to lie and distort. Why is that? I guess you have no integrity either!
Interesting again 🙂
Now you say that because the amount of PS MP’s is low, you can do generalisation, but because the amount of members in religious group is big, you can’t.
Earlier, when we talked about crime statistics, you said EXACTLY the opposite: because amount of certain ethnic group is low, you can’t make generalisations.
So once again I caught you from the same thing. Facts don’t matter to you, as we can see here. You always apply your stories based on who is the reference group. If reference group is for example muslims, you apply your figures and “facts” in their favour. But if the reference group is PS, you do exactly the opposite.
Farang
As long as PS continues to keep convicted racists in its ranks and to have membership of extremist organisations, then I will continue to believe that PS has a strong extremist element within it and that it’s leadership is at best weak, and at worst, racist themselves. Now if you want to call that ‘generalising’, go ahead. I have made it quite clear in the last several years of commenting here on this site that I do not think that all PS members are racist/homophobes, but if you want to ignore that, go ahead.
You haven’t supplied any facts. None. And you have not contradicted any facts that I have given to you. So what is your problem with the ‘facts’?
This is such an amazingly confused comment that it is very difficult to know where to start. It is wrong on so many levels that it just beggers belief that you thought this was somehow a positive contribution to this discussion.
For a start, the previous discussion about generalising about small ethnic groups centred on racist crime. You used the per capita statistics to ‘prove’ that Somalis were more racist than Finns. You were generalising. I used a very simple model to show that you were totally incorrect.
Second, that argument rests on a very well establish criminology principle that a criminal must have an ‘opportunity to commit’ crime, and this factor is taken into account when comparing crime rates in the city with that in small towns. It is NOT that small-town folk are less criminal, but that opportunities to commit crime are naturally greater in the city. Opportunity is one of the three key factors that underlie crime – motive, means and opportunity.
Actually what I do is generally respond to your racist and xenophobic generalisations with reasoned arguments to show that you are talking through your arse most of the time, while using ‘factual’ data in completely incorrect ways to come to completely wrong conclusions. I never set out to make statements like Muslims are like this, or Finns are like that. That is your game, and I just spend my time putting a spanner in the works.
However, I do have opinions about PS as a political party, and the idea that I cannot draw conclusions about them is plain undemocratic. Are you going to try to gag all press with this argument? Until Soini kicks the racists, fascists, homophobes and other extremists out of his party, then I will continue to hold the judgement that PS deliberately exploits racism to gain votes.
JD
Then how do you explain that I have been totally able to choose my own religion/non-religion?
Farang
Perhaps you should stop trying to think of this in such rigid terms. First, there are clearly some religions that are much more identified with birth – Judaism, for example, which is one of the strongest ‘ascribed’ religions. But evangelicals and non-religious people will often emphasise ‘choice’ as their reason for being part of religion or not.
The question of choice is important in understanding how far we go in respecting the freedom and rights of religious people. If we say that religion is a ‘lifestyle’ choice, then it’s very easy to say that all religious freedoms are not ‘rights’ but ‘lifestyle choices’. This carries much less weight. However, if for example you try to make circumcision of boys illegal and then argue that being born in the Jewish faith is a ‘lifestyle choice’, then this is effectively ‘no choice’. What you are saying is – if you don’t like it, don’t choose to be Jewish. You have made this kind of argument in the past.
Choice is extremely important in religion, as it often hinges on the question of ‘free will’. Religion without choice would seem quite odd, and maybe this is what is stopping you from really grasping the importance of religion as a fundamental identity.
The thing is, once a person has chosen religion and lives a religious life, then this religious identity is as fundamental to their character as their nationality or ethnicity. It’s easy to say that it’s ‘made up’, if you start from the idea that all identity is ‘made up’, but that is not a reason to start disrespecting identities. That’s the key thing. You seem to use the ‘choice’ element as a reason to disrespect identities.
Farang
That choice is an illusion. At what point did you explicitly choose to reject the Judaeo-Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Shinto, or Animist worldview? You would not even recognise these for what they are when they impinge on your consciousness and subconscious in an immense variety of human stories, values and practices, but every feeling of admiration and every moral lesson learned reinforces the underlying metaphysical position (i.e. the things that must be true or must exist in order for the moral view to make sense).
Millions of people around the world have been influenced profoundly by essentially religious ideas conveyed in the form of popular morality tales (the Star Wars franchise is a particularly good example of this: how many religious influences can you recognise and can you find them all?). In your case, Farang, we have already identified a very specific view of moral goodness that fundamentally depends on a religious notion of holiness. Your comment about three weeks ago was highly revealing:
You think that this is obvious and self-evident, but to a moral philosopher it is merely one view among many. This asymmetric view of human goodness only makes sense within a religious metaphysical frame of reference. It depends fundamentally on the idea that “goodness” and “badness” are objective and sustained properties of the moral agent, and that the latter is some kind of indelible stain. As I pointed out before, this is a doctrine of sinfulness (a falling away from a state of holiness) that is as clear to the moral philosopher as a fingerprint is to a detective. It is highly typical of the Laestadian communities in northern Finland. You have evidently absorbed this value-metaphysics so thoroughly that you cannot even see how marginal it is.
Willful refusal to examine the origins of your values and worldview does not show that they are not religious in origin. We can all see that you become highly defensive when those values and worldview are questioned. That kind of defensiveness and refusal to examine personal convictions is thoroughly typical of the uncultured religious mind. We have seen a great deal of it in the young earth creationist debate of the last 20 years.
You might like to tell us whether you can simply choose to change your opinion quoted above, which is unquestionably a position in moral theology. What would it feel like to hold instead that there is nothing absolutely good in the world other than the good will of a free moral agent making specific moral choices in the moment, and that each such choice is unique and independent? Many people do think this way, and their view is absolutely incompatible with your view. Can you even imagine what it would be like to adhere to this as your most general view of moral goodness?
JusticeDemon
Your logic is unbelievable. You just claim with straight face that if some religion has a moral philosophy, then everyone who shares that philosophy, must be followers of that religion.
Let’s say, for example Christianity believes that people should not be killed. Now, if someones morale is similar and he definitely agrees that people should not be killed, you would immediately claim that this person “follows” this rule because of Christianity.
That is just so twisted that I don’t find words for it…
I was watching Die Hard 2 from TV last night and you and Mark came in to my mind. In the end the cop killed all the bad guys and it immediately struck to me that if that would have been a real life scenario, you would have condemned this cop for doing that. That is your philosophy, you are much more concerned of the wellbeing of bad people and their treatment. Unless the bad guys are PS members, then you don’t give a s**t.
Farang
No. He said that it is possible to be influenced by a religion even when you are not a member. Have you been drinking Farang, because you really are missing the boat today, I mean, more than usual!!!
And it came out of your head! 😀
More concerned about bad people than what? Once again, you fail to point out that it was you that started the conversation about torturing ‘bad’ people. We responded to your comments.
And what makes you think we don’t give a shit about PS members? Because we criticise homophobes, racists, xenophobes, Islamaphobes, and fascists? And of course, you defend them…. that says it all, Farang.
I don’t defend them. I have never defended a racist. I have only defended those PS members who you are collectively bashing based on something they haven’t done.
Like Halla-aho, he has never done anything racist and yet you treat him like he is the biggest devil in the universe. Always when I ask for references or an example of something racist that Halla-aho has done, you fail to respond. You always try to use his conviction as an example, but that is already proven not be be sufficient. Even if judges convicted him, we can see that there was no racism in his actions.
And what is this nonsense about being influenced by religion? Like JD tries to prove that I have been influenced by Laestadians, could he give some example how is that possible? I haven’t been in contact with Laestadian when I was a child, and still I have managed to made my own choices related to religion. I know what is right or wrong regardless that nobody have had to tell me that. JD will never give any concrete examples, because if he had to he would fail.
Fararng
Well, I guess that is a start. I fear for your disappointment when you find out that your ideological idols turn out to have feet of clay.
So who exactly are you talking about when you say you defend PS members? Ordinary members, Hirvisaari, Halla-aho? Which ones do you do defend and which ones do you condemn? Some specifics would be useful.
I don’t remember you asking for references about Halla-aho’s racism, ever. I might be wrong, but that is a request I would happily reply to. Have you read much Halla-aho? Did you read his article on multicultural discourse, which was translated and posted on the Gates of Vienna (counterjihad) website, where he was described as a cult hero! Tell me if you have, and we can discuss what was written and why I think it is a disgusting and racist article!
Even you are handcuffed when you try to defend J-Ha because you just cannot get away from that conviction now. If you read his blog and you read what he was convicted for, you would realise that he wasn’t concerned at all about double standards, but that he feels restricted in just how extreme a condemnation he can make of some specific non-Finnish ethnicities living in Finland. Agitation of ethnic hatred pretty much describes his manifesto! And that in any sensible person’s book is a racist!
You do realise that the more you write about this, the more you are actually reinforcing what JD wrote about you? 🙂 You should probably drop this.
JusticeDemon
What you are describing here is mental defect. A person who believes what is told to him, has a mental defect. Person with healthy brain will study the matters and make decision based on own thinking.
So you are now taking the same shortcut as JD and don’t even bother to elaborate? What JD said was total nonsense, and I am interested to see him trying to crawl out of it 🙂 Truth is, JD can’t give any concrete examples of the case, therefore he needs to stay on theoretical level and uphold his illusion of being right.
Neither of you have been able to answer these simple questions:
Community A has a principle X.
Person B has the same principle X.
– Does this mean that B has adopted this principle from A?
– Or could it be possible that both A and B have come to this conclusion independently, even without knowing anything about each others principles?
– Do you agree that if A and B share same principle, A and B still would have nothing to do with each other and not having any influence from each other?
Farang
No, not directly.
Yes, quite possible.
They may not influence each other directly, no.
If this is supposed to be all the possibilities on offer for cultural exchange and influence, then it explains why you have trouble understanding cultural matters.
My turn to ask questions:
Community A has a principle X.
Person B has the same principle X.
– Is there a wider community (Community H) to which Community A and Person B both belong?
– If the answer is yes, is it possible that the ideas of Community A are present in different forms in Community H?
– Are these ideas also present in a non-religious form?
– If these ideas are present in a non-religious form in Community H, is it possible that Person B has absorbed those ideas from Community H?
You can argue that you are ‘free’ to choose, but most sensible philosophers will say that ‘freedom’ is constrained by the number and types of choices on the table. If you have chosen from what was available on the table and not started from first principles to find your own choices, then your ‘freedom’ is an illusion, as JD points out. It is recognised as extremely difficult to step outside of the cultural paradigms in which we live – simply because they are the norm and therefore appear simple as ‘the way it is’. It is only by exploring ‘other ways to be’ or spending significant time studying other cultures that you are able to losen the ‘chains’ so to speak.
Not only that, but just because you have a choice from what is on the table doesn’t mean that this in any way describes how these choices came to be on the table, which is what JD refers to I’m sure.
You have made this theoretical. Perhaps it needs to be put in plain language. We are all influenced by Christianity, whether we are Christians or not. Second, many ideas that are religious in origin can often lose their ‘religious’ clothes and still be entrenched within the culture – homophobia is a classic example.
Do you understand this? My guess is that you don’t.
This is quite trivial question as that would always be true, it just depends how wide we want to take this. For example in Finland, we can take ANY person or group and when we go up, they all belong to same community: Finns. And if we go even higher we all belong to same community: Humans.
So if you are asking if I am a Finn, then answer is yes.
The point is not if we belong to the ‘same’ community, but whether it’s possible for ideas to be transmitted in other ways than directly. Now please answer this question. Do you accept that ideas that have their roots in Christianity can influence you indirectly and in ways that you may not even be aware of? Is this possible?
No, it is not possible, because I don’t absorb ideas from communities. And if there are good ideas I might share them, but the initiative has not come from the community.
There is not a single idea or principle from Christianity, Leastadianity, Islam, etc, which I would have absorbed.
Farang
I would describe this as utter self-deception. The idea that you actually invent all your own ideas and that you don’t ‘absorb’ ideas from around you is quite ridiculous. You are a buffoon. I’m not having any more conversations with you about this matter.
If we consider case, where we define that a person who treats other people well and with dignity, is a good person, do you really think this has something to do with some community, or could we consider that an universal fact?
And another one: A person who abuses other people for his own good, is a bad person. Is that an universal fact, or just an opinion of some communities?
You are going off topic.
No, I’m not going offtopic. This was exactly what JD started as he claimed that this kind of thinking comes from Laestadian community, implying that anyone who thinks like this, has absorbed this thinking from Laestadian community.
If that is not what JD meant, then his mention about Laestadian had nothing to do with anything, therefore it was used only to distract the converstation.
Is it getting tough to get caught constantly on dishonest communicaiton?
JD was teasing you but also making a very valid point about the fact that your thinking is generally considered rigid and typical of authoritarian and moralistic cults.
So, you decided not to answer the questions about Halla-aho? This is more important to you?
There was no racism in Halla-aho’s multicultural discourse article.
So you read it?
Browsed through.
Then you know what the first part of the article was about. Can you please enlighten our readers? What did J-Ha do in regard to newspaper reporting on immigrants?
Crime statistic on crimes committed by people of foreign background and how media cencors most of the incidents. (not reporting them or leaving out the background of the persons who committed the crime)
He mentioned specifically rapes by people of specific African origins. He also mentioned the rape of a child and the assault of a girl on a bicycle that involved a driver of African origin. Did he mention any cases relating to rapes of children by Finns? Did he mention any rapes of women by Finns?
But anyway, I have read the original article written in Finnish, so I don’t think I have to read this translation in order to being able to discuss it?
No, unless you want to question the translation. But I think it was a good one.
I dont have to question the translation. But I still dont see the racism, but I see some strange behaviour of yours. Why should it mention rapes by Finns, while the whole article is about crimes by foreigners? If I would write an article about cars, I wouldnt need to mention bicycles.
Farang
You best be prepared. I have a lot of questions to ask about this article. But if you are happy to defend it, let’s continue.
Why was he writing about the crimes of foreigners? If we take any population whatsoever and ask, have there been crimes in this population, what would the answer be? Why does he think crimes by foreigners are ‘special’ that they would be discussed completely separate from crimes by Finns in Finland? For example, do some Finns rape children?
Because crimes by foreigners are the ones that can be affected with immigration policy. Immigration policy have no affect on crimes by natives.
Explain? You mean that the way to keep crime down is to not let foreigners in?
That is the whole point of Halla-aho’s article. Didn’t you read it?
Oi, I’m the one asking the questions. That is a ridiculous argument. If a population increases through any means, crime rates will go up. In the same way that government spending is always record spending because of inflation.
Now answer me this – do you think that Halla-aho thinks that Africans are more criminal? Also, do some Finns rape children? You still haven’t answered.
Yes and yes.
So you try to play that card again: One is not allowed to be fighting against one problem if he doesnt also try to fix some other problem.
Crimes by finns cant be reduced by immigration policy as i already said. That would require much more work in different areas. That is not Halla-ahos focus area. His focus area is immigration. Still it doesnt mean he doesnt care about crimes by Finns, as you desperately want to claim.
Target for immigration policy by H-a is not to prevent everyone from coming but try to adjust it so that we could keep as much criminal immigrants outside as possible. And I totally agree with that target. Too bad for you as you have already pointed out that you like criminals and want to reward them.
Farang
This doesn’t make sense. If Halla-aho is not focused on crimes by Finns, then why is he SO FOCUSED on crimes by foreigners? There has to be a motivation for so persistently seeking to demonstrate that a foreign population are capable of committing horrible crime. His motivation is clearly to argue for less immigration. And yet that is not a reason in itself. He sets a goal, less crime, and says lower immigration is the way to achieve it. This is ridiculous. The Finnish population is far greater. The amount of Finnish crime far far exceeds that of crime by foreigners. And yet to reduce crime he focuses exclusively on the foreigners. It doesn’t add up, Farang. Focusing on crime by foreigners is selective and unjustified.
Too bad you like fascists and want to reward them. Look, you are being a total prick by saying I ‘like criminals and want to reward them’. I mean, a total prick, and everyone can see that you are just being a prick. The issue is making the current situation better. Your ideas about crime and putting people away for their whole life for serious crime is utterly unsustainable and a sign of a totalitarian society. That doesn’t seem to bother you. So, you attack the Norwegians, our Nordic brothers and sistes, for actually having a BETTER system than us. Not just better, but A LOT better. But because that would force you to face or change how you FEEL about criminals, you would rather shift your position to being even more extreme – 0% re-offending with LIFETIME sentencing for serious crime. Next step is the ‘final-solution’. So, you are being a prick and a fascist at the same time. But hey, you sound tough, so that’s got to be good, hasn’t it! I mean, if you benefit from having your masculine ego stroked. Meanwhile, in the REAL world, Norway is doing a far better job of keeping their crime rate among the LOWEST in the world.
And to do that, he is assuming that particular ethnicities are ‘more’ criminal and more ‘evil’. He’s therefore setting out to prove they are criminal by citing case after case, though that is by no means an act of genius, but simply an act of selectiveness. All populations will have criminals among them, some of them quite vile. Pointing the finger at one population’s criminals is not exactly a very intelligent thing to do, as if we wouldn’t know this already if he wasn’t pointing it out. It’s not news – so he’s obviously using this information to create an emotional revulsion towards particular ethnicities. That is racism, in all its ugliness.
Not only that, but if criminals constitute 1% of an immigrant population, he is willing to ‘punish’ the other 99%, with stigmatisation and vilification and reduced opportunity to have a life in Finland. I’m sorry, but what the hell happened to the notion of protecting the innocent? The innocent are only of value if they are Finns? That’s the racism, right there! Different value for different people. I’ve covered that moral disease of his in another article, I’m not going over it again now.
Why is it ridiculous?
We already have a crime rate by Finns, let’s say X. Now if we add to that the crime rate by immigrants, we will have crime rate of X+n.
With immigration policy we can’t change X, but we can adjust n.
Now, tell me why is it so hard to understand that crime rate X is better than X+n?
Because it’s about the most ridiculous idea imagineable – nobody is allowed in Finland because some of them will be criminals. It’s fucking paranoid!
You let the population grow in any way and you will have higher crime simply because you have a bigger society. In fact using exactly the same argument, you might as well get rid of Finnish society altogether because then there would be ‘NO CRIME’. It’s just the most stupid fucking argument that you have put forward on this site, Farang. But of course, genius Farang is going to defend it to the hilt. You seem to have little sense of reality!
Next point about the Halla-aho – if he is interested in reducing crime through population control, why doesn’t he push for Finland to adopt a ‘one-child’ policy like China? That way, population would come down, crime would come down! Or is is that he doesn’t mind criminals, as long as they are Finnish?
Mark
This is exactly what I was talking about. Why can’t you be interested in problem A if you are not interested in problem B?
This is totally idiotic logic. You are effectively saying that nobody is allowed to be worried about crimes by immigrants as long as they are no worried about crimes by Finns.
What is the logic in that? I can’t fix my bike, if I don’t fix my car?
And here it is again. Why can’t you understand that H-a has no means to or solutions to stop crimes by Finns. But he has solutions for stopping crimes by immigrants. Simple as that. Why can’t you understand that? If I rephrase this with my above example:
I have broken car and broken bike. I don’t know how to fix a car. But I know how to fix a bike. Therefore why do you forbid me from fixing the bike only because I don’t fix the car?
Farang
He’s worried about crimes, but only those of foreigners? Why? Why? And why again? Why just foreigners, it doesn’t make sense.
Criminology is “the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences, drawing especially upon the research of sociologists (particularly in the sociology of deviance), psychologists and psychiatrists, social anthropologists as well as on writings in law.” (Wikipedia)
Now even if he was intersted only in ‘crimes by foreigners’, why does he do NOTHING except list crimes by foreigners, complain about the lack of reporting of crimes by the media, and only present statistics that have absolutely no ‘cautionary analysis’ attached whatsoever? Where is the sociological analysis of the causes of crime? Where is the psychological understanding of crime? It’s completely absent.
All you see is an attempt to imply that crime is a trait of ethnicity, a theory that is largely unsupported and where it has been advanced, it has been heavily criticised on clear scientific grounds. His arguments are totally uninformed by the expertise of people who actually investigate crime scientifically. He complains about the media because he clearly feels that if Finns heard more selective reporting about the crimes of foreigners that it would be a powerful weapon in using public opinion to turn people against Africans. The media have made signficant attempts to reduce the insitutional racism that meant that crimes by ethnic minorities were highlighted above those of natives. This is something he saw as a setback. The man is such an obvious racist – it hurts! The fact he doesn’t understand that is not suprising. I’m sure he believes he’s doing good for the Fatherland – just like the other fascists that have informed so many of his ideas and thinking.
Which also shows that he’s exploiting crime to create hatred towards African ethnicities in particular and Muslims in general.
Mark
You can’t defend bad choices only by their end result. Rewarding murderers with holidays is not a right thing to do, no matter of the end result. And I already proved that you are dishonest here. I told you an example of other “bad choice”, which would give even better result than Norway style. But yet you disapproved that, proving that the end result is not something that can be used as defense for some questionable actions. I can also tell you other example: Let’s legalize everything, then there would be no crimes at all. Doesn’t make sense, therefore once again proves the failure in your logic.
Farang
The end result is that Norway has one of the lowest crime rates in the world and one of the lowest rates of re-offending. That doesn’t need defending. That’s a fact.
And it was not a holiday camp. Didn’t you read the article, written by an ex-convict! These people are not ‘free’. They are just treated as humans and given productive work and a chance to practice proper social skills so that when they come out, they come out more like the rest of us. I guess you simply cannot bring yourself to ‘forgive’ mistakes. I can see you had an interesting childhood, Farang. The world has tried your kind of justice many many times, and it never worked!
Because it’s totalitarian and extreme. It would result in a massive and very expensive prison population in a very short space of time and would do nothing to actually reduce ongoing crime. The Americans have done exactly this – and they still have runaway crime. Three strikes and your out – life sentence. So, three convictions for petty theft and your life is gone! It’s a crazy system. And it doesnt’ work! It’s just expensive and dehumanising and discriminates against the poorer communities, where crime is part of subcultures that seek opportunity through ‘creative’ economics and brutal ‘justice’.
Nuts. Nuts. Nuts. Are you drinking at 10.00 in the morning?
Mark
I already explained this couple of times very clearly, so it seems that you are being dishonest when trying to demand answer again and again, like you just don’t want to admit that this is a clear case. So, for the third and last time: Halla-aho IS interested in crimes of both Finns and immigrants. But he only has solutions for crimes by immigrants. He doesn’t have solutions for crimes by Finns. That is the reason why he is concentrating on crimes by foreigners. Someone who is able to tackle the crimes by Finns and has solutions for those, should be concentrating on crimes by Finns. It is that simple.
Farang
Well, I’m really sorry to disappoint you, but your response was totally unconvincing.
His solution for crimes by immigrants is racist. Any increase in population will bring an increase in crime. He is right to be concerned about ghettoisation, where people are dropped into a hopeless cesspit of deprivation, unemployment, discrimination and institutional racism that will almost GUARANTEE that those ethnic minorities will be represented higher in crime statistics. He doesn’t seem to realise that his own vilification only increases the discrimination, which is likely to create its own self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s exactly the same self-fulfilling prophecy that you create in regard to crime by dehumanising prisoners, emphasising punishment over rehabilitiation, all of which creates more problems. Read that again – CREATES more problems. Halla-aho is part of the problem and your solution to crime in Finland is frankly verging on the insane.
So the fact he also attacks their culture and their religion is a coincidence? Now you insult our intelligence, Farang. Don’t take people for fools!
Mark
Excuse me? With my suggestion the end result would be even better, so with your logic that shouldn’t need defending as it’s a fact.
That’s what I was talking about earlier, you just use the end result to defend your opinion, but you don’t allow the same (or even better) end result to be used to defend some other opinion, which is something you are against.
Not very honest debating, Mark.
Farang
The final solution wasn’t called that for no reason!
Your system would never be implemented. Not unless Finland became a totalitarian state. You are living in cloud cuckoo land, and when I call you out on it, you call me ‘dishonest’.
You haven’t even stopped for one second to consider the actual SUCCESS of the Norwegian system. You are too focused on your own FEELINGS that they might be having ‘a good time’. You don’t stop to actually find out what experience they are ACTUALLY having. You are so far up your own arse it must be see the daylight from the back of your throat!
Actually, technically all ‘prison’ is a holiday, i.e. a departure from the normal self. Not all holidays are massive fun – for many, it’s the most stressful thing they will do all year! But, those small realistic details will never make it into the frame, will they, Farang?
You cannot argue with Norway’s success. Instead, you offer a solution that is frankly insane, very expensive, and no solution to ongoing crime.
Mark
Prisoners should be suffering in prison, not enjoying their time. Prison should be an experience nobody wants to relive.
And murderers shouldn’t even be let back to society ever, therefore it’s total waste of time to try to rehabilitate them.
Farang
JD was right to point out the religious overtones in this kind of moral stance. Sinners must go to hell. Except that the world has moved on from the Bronze Age and Iron Age Farang.
Murderers have been successfully rehabilitated. So, the only obstacle in this scenario is your need for vengeance against them. Why don’t you process your own feelings instead of demanding a life of ‘suffering’, as if that was somehow an answer to the problem of the suffering they have already caused. It’s not. It merely demonstrates your moral bankruptcy.
I guess you are trying to be true to your Master’s teachings about society being too soft, too optimistic and therefore too susceptible to being exploited by the ‘evil doers’. But as the Norway system demonstrates, demonising people is not necessary.
And once again, you have not dealt with the fact that today, Norway’s custodial system operates far better than Finland’s, while having a similar level of population.
What do you mean by coincidence? If Halla-aho thinks that their culture and religion causes them to be more propable offenders, then it is no coincidence, it’s just causality.
That is what has been studied and you can’t honestly say that he is wrong. We can see from statistics that immigrants from certain cultures are committing statistically more crimes that natives and other immigrant groups.
Therefore your earlier comment about crime rates going up either by immigration or by normal rise of native population is nullified. There are differences, and that is a fact. Mostly immigration critics just want to prevent immigration which is harmful for Finland, not all immigration.
Farang
So you are saying that religious people are more criminal? There are other possibilities too. Communities that are deprived may cling to religion more closely as a comfort, as a promise of some kind of moral equality and justice – and those same deprived communities may also have higher rates of crime.
The crucial fact is, J-Ha has not provided any evidence that the people doing the crime are ‘religious’, only that they come from a community whose most obvious difference to natives is in their religion. Talk about a leap of faith! You might as well take every one of the considerable number of rape crimes in Finland committed by a Finn and describe it as ‘rape by Christians’.
Farang
You do realise that in many parts of his article, he is listing crimes in Sweden – rapes and phone thefts – and then quoting the rates of immigrants living in those areas and ‘surmising’ that they must have been committed by the immigrants. He’s not even bothering to factually check whether the perpetrators were actually immigrants. He referred to this by saying that he believes it is ‘not likely’ that these crimes are committed by Swedes. I guess he never heard about this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/former-swedish-police-chief-is-jailed-for-rape-2040046.html
Halla-aho is a fraud, both as a ‘criminologist’ and as a serious thinker. And you are just a buffoon with your nose stuck right up his arse!
Halla-aho writes this in his article on multiculturalism:
I guess he just wasn’t old enough to remember the Raggare gangs of Stockholm and other parts of Sweden, those 50s rockers and greasers who used to hang out on the streets almost 24/7, interested in sex, cars, drinking and fighting! They were feared by ‘ordinary’ Swedes and referred to as ‘scum’. They were known for stealing petrol, lawbreaking, fighting, driving without licences and getting girls pregnant, even though these things were in fact quite rare. Parents even used to scare their kids by saying “You better be nice or Raggar-Svempa will come and take you away!”
I guess he just ignores interesting social commentaries like Steig Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), the first of which in Swedish was called ‘Men who hate women’, and which tackles throughout the books the problems of violent rape of women in Sweden as well as neo-fascism, murder, and the corruption of money within Sweden’s ‘perfect culture’. The writer Larsson was an active ‘anti-Nazi’ journalist prior to writing the books.
Take another popular Swedish writer, Henning Mankel, who created Wallander, as a way to explore the dark side of Swedish culture. The author often tells how the series started as a way to tackle xenophobia and racism in Swedish society. Both authors say that they based their stories heavily on real life events.
The idea of a perfect Swedish culture into which immigrants are coming with their ‘filthy’ corrupting ways is just a myth; rather it is just the latest wave of globalisation to hit Sweden’s shores. Swedish culture is and has been for many decades rife with violence against women, drugs, child trafficking and neo-fascism. But Halla-aho will paint only one picture of Swedish and Finnish society – that idealic of perfect meatballs, peaceful lakes and purifying saunas disturbed only by a savage barbarian horde come to invade and take over. It’s a work of fiction without anything like the accuracy of Larsson’s or Mankel’s work.
If something is broken, it should be fixed, not break more.
Farang
So the answer to problems in Swedish or Finnish society like neo-fascism, racism and xenophobia is….wait for it….more of the same!?
Farang
You really didn’t pay any attention to what I wrote about the observations of Larsson and Mankel, did you? That’s what you do, you ignore the stuff that in any way paints a different picture to the extreme cultural and social pessimism around immigrants! You simply don’t process it.
When you start to compare real life with a fictional movie, I think it don’t deserve any processing from me…
You are such an ignorant Time to kick this conversation into touch for today! ! Goodbye Farang.
Mark
That is not punishing. If someone comes to you on the street and asks you for money and you refuse, do you consider that you punished that person?
If you don’t give someone something that originally doesn’t even belong to him, that is not punishing.
If you are giving that ‘money’ to everyone else, then yes, it’s a punishment. You’re idea and J-Ha’s is that Finland is open to immigrants but not Muslims and not Africans. Or did I miss something amidst all that claptrap you’ve been spewing?
And what about those innocent members of the African and Muslim communities that have had to put up with J-Ha’s mudslinging, using his position within Finnish academia and the political establishment to throw shit in their face? When do they get to have their say?
Mark
Well, this comment pretty much tells all necessary to know of your state of mind.
I would understand a punishment if something is taken away, but now nothing is taken away. If I would like of offer free dinner for people I like, it doesn’t mean that I am punishing those that don’t get invited.
You have really black and white world. You think that rewarding and punishing are complements for each other. You can reward someone without punishing others. And you can punish someone without rewarding someone. Do you understand?
By your logic, everytime someone gets punished, for example gets fined, do you really think that it is a reward for everyone else?
Farang
This is your example, it’s not my fault if it’s totally inadequate to convey the real situation.
I would say the exact opposite is true.
I noticed that you dodged the important question. If you are denying Africans/some Africans/Muslims and allowing others to make assylum applications, then you are indeed punishing this group, by taking an opportunity that is available presumably to other ethnicities and religions. Now tell me that you oppose Halla-aho on this point and we might be able to move on. If you do agree with him, then you owe us an explanation for that discrimination, which is clearly racist and also discriminating on the grounds of religion. And that with NO evidence that the people he is concerned about committing crime are actually religious. Dodge, dodge, dodge!
Mark
Yes. I don’t approve discriminating refugees/asylum seekers based on their origins/background.
I have told that many many times, so why do you have to ask me that again and again?
So, you have no problems at all with Somalis and Muslims coming to Finland and living in Finland? You are not in favour of a specific policy that would discriminate against these groups?
No, as long as they come with proper reasons, eg:
– working
– real need for asylum
Same requirements apply to all immigrants.
Okay. So you condemn Halla-aho’s attack on Somali’s and Muslims, because he clearly targets these groups, not as individuals who happen to be Muslim or Somali, but as ethnic groups and religious groups. You strongly condemn this kind of ethnic and religious hatred, yes?
Yes
About time. So now I guess you understand why we criticise him on this blog?
Well, there are small fails in each of us, nobody is perfect.
True. I take it you also imply that we work to improve those flaws too?
True. One improvement here, the word I was looking for was flaw, not fail 😉
I knew what you were getting at.
Farang
You have been taken off the moderation queue. Don’t abuse the privilege.