Switzerland Moves to the Centre

In yesterday's federal election in Switzerland, smaller, more moderate parties took votes from the larger, more polarizing parties.  However, that didn't prevent the conservative Swiss People's Party from winning the plurality.  Here are the results:

• Toni Brunner (Swiss People's Party - conservatism): 26.6% - 54 seats (down 2.4% and 8 seats from 2007)
• Christian Levrat (Social Democrats - social democracy): 18.7% - 46 seats (down 0.9% and up 3 seats from 2007)
• Fulvio Pelli (FDP. The Liberals - classical liberalism): 15.1% -  31 seats (down 2.5% and 5 seats from 2007)
• Christophe Darbellay (Christian Democrats - Christian democracy): 12.3% - 28 seats (down 2.2% and 3 seats from 2007)
• Ueli Leuenberger (Green Party - green politics and progressivism): 8.4% - 15 seats (down 1.2% and 5 seats from 2007)
• Martin Bäumle (Green Liberals - green politics and classical liberalism): 5.4% - 12 seats (up 4.0% and 9 seats from 2007)
• Hans Grunder (Conservative Democrats - conservatism and classical liberalism): 5.4% - 9 seats (did not exist in 2007)
• Heiner Studer (Evangelical People's Party - Christian democracy and social conservatism): 2.0% - 2 seats (down 0.4% and no change in seats from 2007)
• Giuliano Bignasca (Ticino League - right-wing populism and national conservatism): 0.8% - 2 seats (up 0.2% and 1 seat from 2007)

The re-election of the Swiss People's Party seems to indicate that immigration is still a major issue, and hopefully Switzerland can make some more progress in fighting the threat of the spread of Islam and Sharia law.  And, despite this ugly incident, Switzerland yet again demonstrates a level of sanity that is quite rare in Europe (Switzerland is not a member of European Union and it has relatively low taxes).  Furthermore, despite a drop in support for the Swiss People's Party, the leftist Social Democrats and Green Party both also received lowered support.  Most of the parties that gained support are centre to centre-right (particularly the Conservative Democrats).  Let's hope the common sense of the Swiss spreads to other European countries (which is unlikely).

CNN Shows Bias in Wake of Swiss Election

To anyone familiar with CNN, this should hardly be surprising.  As I was looking for an article about the federal election in Switzerland that occurred today, I found this one from CNN and I was a bit surprised at some of their word choices.  I expect CNN to be slightly biased, but not so blatantly (emphasis added):

Despite its xenophobic, anti-immigration campaign tactics, Switzerland's far-right Swiss People's Party, which took the largest share of votes four years ago in Swiss modern history, suffered losses in Sunday's parliamentary vote as voters chose more moderate parties over polarizing candidates. 

The Conservative Democrats and the Liberal Greens -- more moderate parties -- were the clear winners of Sunday's vote, signaling a change in the nation's heavily polarized political scene. 

According to Swissinfo.ch, the nations' public broadcaster and pollsters, near-final results showed the People's Party taking a considerable drop, but still ahead of the center-left Social Democrats. 

The two traditional center-right parties, the Radicals and the Christian Democrats are also down 3% and 1.5% respectively, Swissinfo.ch reported.
The far-right People's Party's loss came as a surprise to many who expected the far-right's scare campaign tactics to succeed once again.

Opposing immigration is not necessarily xenophobic.  And recognizing Islam as a threat and establishing measures that mean to limit its influence is the logical thing to do, as the facts suggest Islam is threatening to Western society (hopefully I will elaborate on that shortly).

An Appalling Case of Progressivism

This is precisely the reason I am a proponent of socially conservative values (h/t GayPatriot):

Officials in Basel [Switzerland] have agreed to rename the “sex box” after receiving some 3,000 letters of protest from parents angered by the controversial trove ofwooden penises and fabric vaginas set to be used in a new sex education programme for playschool and primary school kids. 

Christoph Eymann, Basel education minister and member of the liberal democrat party (LDP), responded to parent’s protests in an interview with SonntagsBlick. 

“It was no doubt stupid to call it a ’sex box’ – we will change that. But we will stick to our goal: to get across to children that sexuality is something natural. Without forcing anything upon them or taking anything away from their parents,“ he said. 

Many parents say they do not understand why sex education needs to be taught to children as young as four.

I can see the point of educating teens about sex, but four year olds?

Eymann said he understood that one line in the programme, “touching can be enjoyed heartily”, could be misconstrued, but insisted: “It is not about ‘touch me, feel me’. We want to tell the children that there is contact that they may find pleasurable, but some that they should say ’no’ to. Kids can unfortunately can become victims of sexual violence already at playschool age." 

Eymann said he would prefer if sex education was taught to children at home but argued that education officials needed to respond to the realities of today. 

“We currently live in an oversexualised society. There is uncontrolled distribution of pornographic material that can reach young children. Some primary school children know the TV schedule until 2am. We would like to offer these children firm support, which is often not available in the family. The box is only an aid. I trust the teachers to approach the material with care.”

Yes, we do live in an oversexualized society.  However, making it further oversexualized is not the solution.  And, this is perhaps the worst part:

Some parents have called for their children to be exempted from sex education. Eymann says he is strictly against exemptions, although he is aware this will not make him many friends: 

“Primary school may be the only big audience that our society has. The shared values that it teaches are very important. I would definitely like to keep this. The explanatory lesson can be portrayed in a way that doesn’t offend“, he said.

This is one of those things that would make me check the date if it weren't August (in case it were April 1st).  Still, I have a difficult time thinking any sane person would actually think this is the solution to anything.  While I am opposed to government intervention into the actions of people in private (as long as they are not causing harm to anyone), it is clear to me that children, especially children this young, are not rational, and cannot understand sex and what its significance is.  Sex is a natural thing, but, it has the capability of causing problems when it is not understood rationally.  I would prefer to live in a society where sex is not out in the open, where it is private.

In addition, it is totally unacceptable for parents not to be able to pull their children out of this program.

NOTE: I almost titled this post "Mental Porn for Pedophiles" but I decided not to.

Attack in Norway, Islam in Europe, and Multiculturalism

(Note: The death toll  of the terrorist attack in Norway has been reduced to 76.) 

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian bomber, has been described as a Right-wing Islamophobic Christian who wanted to start a revolution in Europe agains multiculturalism and Islam. 

I consider Islam a threat.  I believe the policy of multiculturalism is idiotic, since I do not believe Islam allows for multiculturalism.  I oppose courts adopting Sharia law.  I strongly support Israel, because it is a mordern nation, in contrast to the 7^th century nations that surround it, where women are oppressed and gays are persecuted.  As with many other left-wing positions, I am simply confused by the left’s opposition of Israel, seeing as how they venerate human rights and how those Islamic nations have such poor human rights.  

In Norway, the population of Muslims is increasing:

Norway has recently tightened its liberal immigration and asylum rules in the midst of a longstanding debate about assimilation and multiculturalism. Despite Norway’s oil wealth and low unemployment, there has been a growing concern over the increasing size of the Muslim population, especially after Sept. 11 and the Danish crisis over the publication in late 2005 of cartoons depicting Muhammad, which were published in Norway, too.

But the Muslim population is growing, and Islam is now the country’s second-largest religion. The impact of an increasing, and increasingly visible, Muslim population in a relatively monoethnic, liberal and egalitarian Norway has led to a surge in popularity for the anti-immigration Progress Party, now the second-largest party in Parliament. And it appears to have been one of the triggers to the massacre carried out here on Norway’s white elite. The suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, claims he was compelled to act by the failure of mainstream politicians — including those in the Progress Party — to stem the Islamic tide.

I applaud Norway for its tightening of immigration rules and I applaud Norwegians for supporting the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet).  I admire the leader of the Progress Party, Siv Jensen, based on what I know about her.

The city of Malmö, Sweden is the quintessential example of Islamization in Europe.  Apparently, Malmö is one quarter Muslim.

But despite Malmö's usually placid appearance, this experiment in multiculturalism has not gone well. In the Rosengaard section of Malmö, a housing project made up primarily of immigrants, fire and emergency workers will no longer enter without police protection.

Unemployment in Rosengaard is reported to be 70 percent. An immigrant-fueled crime wave affects one of every three Malmö families each year. The number of rapes has tripled in 20 years.

But Malmö has been so accommodating toward immigrant Muslims that a local Muslim politician, Adly Abu Hajar, has declared that "The best Islamic state is Sweden!"

Jews Cannot Walk The Streets

Don't ask Malmö's Jews to give the city the same glowing assessment. Jews who dare walk the streets wearing their yarmulkes risk being beaten up.

"It's true. Jews cannot walk the streets of Malmö and show that they're Jews," said Lars Hedegaard.

Hedegaard lives across the water from Malmö in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he was a columnist for one of Denmark's largest newspapers. He says pro-Israel demonstrations in Malmö, like the ones during the fighting in Gaza earlier this year, were met with rocks, bottles and pipe bombs from Arabs and Leftists.

"I was there for demonstration; a pro-Israeli demonstration with about 400 or 500 people," Hedegaard told CBN News. "Jews and non-Jews, and I came over to cover it. The police allowed, I'd say a hundred Palestinians or Arabs to shout and threaten and throw bombs and rockets at us. A homemade bomb landed about ten yards from me, and went off with a big bang. And now of course, I thought the police were going to jump these guys, get them out of the way. They didn't. They just let them stand there."

Swede Ted Ekeroth helped film the Arab-Left counter-demonstrations. He saw Arabs throwing rocks at a 90-year-old holocaust survivor.

"I filmed the police chief and asked him why are they not reacting to this," Ekeroth said. "Why are they not doing anything? And he simply answered, 'It's their right according to the Swedish constitution.' We apparently did not have the same right, because we were forced out of there. Our manifestation for Israel is always peaceful, and theirs is always the quite opposite -- Death, hate and killing of Jews. They come and they shout different slogans," he continued. "It can be everything from Arabic slogans inciting killing of Jews to in Swedish and Danish, 'Kill the Jews.'

Political Alliance Against Israel

And like all over the Western world, some on the Left, along with Arabs and Muslims and anarchists, have formed a political alliance against Israel and Jews. They demonstrate together, and in Sweden, they vote together. Muslims are a core constituency of the Left.

The immigrant issue a big reason the right-wing Swedish Democrats are the fastest growing political party in the country.

Matthias Karlsson is the Swedish Democrats' Press Secretary

"In many parts of Sweden, people are, as I said, fed up," Karlsson said. "And they're being pushed too far and they want to make a stand."

Fascist and Bigoted?

Swedish Democrats, who stand for traditional Christian values and limits on immigration, have been stigmatized by the Swedish media as fascist and bigoted.

Erik Almqvuist is national youth leader for the Swedish Democrats.

"The media has tried to portray us as extremists, racists," he said. "People think we're almost inhuman"

Almqvuist faces regular death threats, and was almost killed recently in a Left-wing knife attack.

"The multicultural model in Sweden has polarized society," Almqvuist explained. "We have a political polarization. We have also an ethnic polarization. And the extremes are growing and it's harder and harder to get to consensus."

Hedegaard says as Malmö goes, so goes the rest of Sweden.

"I think the best prediction is that Sweden will have a Muslim majority by 2049, so we know where that country's going," he said.

Given the heavy immigration to Europe by Muslims, anti-Islamic parties are gaining popularity in Europe.  Other right-wing anti-Islam parties in Europe include: Austria’s Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (based in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium), Denmark’s Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti), Finland’s True Finns (Perussuomalaiset), Netherland’s Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid) (which is led by the admirable Geert Wilders), Sweden’s aforementioned Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), and Switzerland’s Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei).  

In Switzerland, a constitutional amendment was approved in 2009 banning the construction of minarets (the spires at the tops of mosques).  Several locations in Europe have banned the wearing of the hajib (Islamic headscarves) in certain locations, such as schools.  Personally, I disagree with the Swiss amendment banning the construction of minarets, because it seems purely symbolic to me and I don’t see its practical value.  I’m not sure why the hijab is being banned in certain places.  I believe the threat of the spread of Islam should be dealt with more pragmatically. 

Back to Anders Behring Breivik, regardless of his ideology, he is a murderer.  I do not support violence (except for when it is necessary, such as during war).  I condemn his actions strongly.  Anti-Islamism and right-wing ideologies are not generally violent.  I do not support extremism of any kind.  I applaud the efforts of certain non-violent Europeans who mean to rid Europe of multiculturalist policies that harm its native cultures.  In addition to condemning his violence, I am disappointed that Breivik’s terrorist attack may have undermined those efforts. 

Right wing parties in Europe condemn Breivik’s actions:

Friday's massacre in Norway has placed a renewed focus on the far-right after the killer claimed to have links with extreme right-wing parties in Europe. The parties have quickly responded by condemning the attacks.

I disagree with labelling these parties and these movements as extreme far right or as far right.

I would also like to say that, while I strongly oppose multiculturalism, the spread of Islam, and Sharia law, I do not hate Muslims in general, nor do I believe all Muslims are extremists or terrorists.  The fact, is, however, the spread of Islam (in its current form) poses a threat to Western society.  We cannot let this abhorrent act of terrorism undermine the movement against the spread of Islam.  It is important to remain peaceful and not sink to the Islamists’ level.

UPDATE: Please see the second-to-last paragraph of this post for clarification of my views on Islam.