Sweden: A Beggar on Every Corner

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It seems that the begging problem has gotten a lot worse in Sweden over the last 10 years. I don't know how they are going to fix it. I don't think it's as much of a problem in the UK as it is in Sweden.

As for the article about gypsy campsites being allowed to stand for years - there was the notorious case of Dale Farm in the UK, which had been allowed to fester for a very long time and was eventually closed five years ago.

I never give to beggars anyway - as the article points out, it's a stupid thing to do. It doesn't help them and it doesn't help me. I don't give to the homeless for the same reason - because they will spend the money I've given them on alcohol or drugs.

That's the trouble with democracies - there are no state-sanctioned workhouses, workfarms, or labor gulags for the bums to be shipped off to unless they've committed a crime.

Maybe if panhandling was criminalized (or more heavily criminalized), there would be fewer homeless people crapping on the sidewalks where they sleep.

Last edited by Fnord on 09 Apr 2016, 12:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The point I'm trying to make, also, is that Sweden would not even have this particular problem if it weren't for the EU. Immigration from Bulgaria and Romania of Roma gypsies (they are a very disliked minority in their own countries, because of what many people there say is their begging and criminal behaviour) is what has caused this problem to land on Sweden's doorstep.

Yet another reason to vote Leave in June.

I'm surprised there hasn't been an explosion in child marriages/abductions here, or perhaps that's something else the government would rather keep quiet about.

Well, when the general cultural meme consists of "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...", you run the risk of seeing people from the lands of the "have-nots" emigrating to the lands of the "haves" and sucking the lifeblood from free and democratic societies.

This lifeblood is the earned incomes of honest and hard-working people.

Well, that's just life-- people will gravitate to where the "stuff" is. The great society you live in and brag about was based on the same thing: just go to where the "stuff" is and take it from the people that are already there. I shed a tear for your struggles.

The point is that they are not entitled to come in merely because they want to, no matter how much the EU dickheads like to say so.

Otherwise literally the whole world would be in Western Europe.

Yeah, that's the legal point you're making, but the point I'm making is nature-- and trust me, human nature overrules human law every single time. You can complain, leave the EU, build a fence, yada yada, people will always move to where the stuff is and there's nothing you can do to stop it aside from training out human desire for more stuff.

That reminds me of a largely apocryphal story about William Sutton, a notorious bank robber:

Someone once asked Slick Willie Sutton, the bank robber, why he robbed banks. The question might have uncovered a tale of injustice and lifelong revenge. Maybe a banker foreclosed on the old homestead, maybe a banker’s daughter spurned Sutton for another.

Sutton looked a little surprised, and replied "I rob banks because that's where the money is!"

Sutton later debunked this story in his autobiography, "Where the Money Was":



So yes, it makes sense that it's human nature to go where there is a chance at prosperity, not matter how slight that chance may be.

When you were homeless you never asked for spare change?

Also, if you had been shipped off to a gulag you could never have gone to college.

I asked for work, and to be paid for doing that work. I worked a lot.

Panhandling is for losers.

That's the thing about Capitalism...particularly right here in the USofA: A job is not a right. It's a selection process and no matter what you might think or have been taught in school, it's not a meritocracy. When you fall through the cracks of society into the gutter, there's pretty much no way out of there unless you're LUCKY enough to have someone help you. I've always believed that we shouldn't give the poor money we should give them jobs but that's not gonna happen. I see no reason why cities don't put homeless people to work and give them subsidized housing. That's probably because those unskilled menial labor jobs goto immigrants and many city service jobs are unionized. Pretty much NO ONE wants to higher a homeless person! So telling them to "get a job" is a moot point.

I would like to believe that life is fair and we live in a world where you get what you give, but that's just not reality.

Yeah ideally a homeless person could be put to work, but not shipped off to some labor camp where abuses are obviously going to happen.

Sweden is well on its way to becoming a third world country as measured by the UN, it's HDI will fall between Libya and Malaysia. I don't understand why Swedes hate themselves and their own country so much.

A lot of Swedes endorse the Sweden Democrats, a socially conservative, anti-mass immigration, anti-EU party (allied with UKIP in the European Parliament) but not enough of them, unfortunately.

I think this is more about Roma than beggars per se.

Roma are certainly the most miserable people in the West. They have no homeland to be sent back to, they can't fit in in Europe because they aren't white, they can't complain that they've been overrun by white settlers (unlike aboriginal populations in North America and Australia), they are despised in all of Europe where most live, and I suspect they are raised to despise themselves and distrust all others. Hence no shame at begging.

I would think a Roma has some chance of success in the US if he can put his ethnic history behind him. He can certainly get an education, enter a profession, or start a business and succeed. Not to say it would be easy, but impossible in Europe.

As for migrating from Romania or Bulgaria to Sweden - if citizens of those countries are free to migrate to Sweden by virtue of being EU citizens, then there's nothing to be done unless a crime was committed, then there's prison. Or else impose restrictions on everyone from those two countries.

Ironically I suppose a white Muslim Bulgarian might face less discrimination in Sweden than a Christian Roma. But then, if said Muslim has come to Sweden, most likely it's to find work or start a business, not to live as a beggar.

I agree.



I don't think that's true. Many non-white minorities can flourish in Europe. Indians, for instance, have flourished. The reason they can't fit in is because they refuse to adhere to the rules and regulations of a modern society. They have a reputation for criminal behaviour, and that's really the issue. I mean, you could give them a flat and prospects of a job, but I suspect many would trash the place and go back to begging and living in disgusting caravans.

There are Roma that do integrate and you rarely hear problems with them.



I think the issue is that they are raised to reject the society around them and stick with their own. Hence you have these social problems.



The ethnic history is not really the issue. It's the way of living. I wouldn't have anything against Roma that integrate and go to school, get a job (if they're able), and so on and so forth.



The problem was that they broke the law. At the time when they emigrated to Sweden, if they failed to get a job within three months, they were supposed to go back to their home countries. Many just stayed and begged and lived off the host society.



We need to leave the EU. We don't want or need the social problems of other countries - we have enough to contend with at the moment, thank you very much.