My wish for all Americans; IAmsterdam life

[Miigwech]

I want to confront Americans that have never traveled, especially to a well run Democratic Socialist country. If they did travel to Holland, they would break down and cry over the crazy abuse we here in the USA take, while paying big time for it.

Expat Essentials
Netherlands vs. the U.S.: Two wildly different definitions of ‘freedom’

That includes two wildly different visions of “freedom.”

In the United States, “freedom” increasingly is defined by the Far Right’s freedom to dictate to Americans what they can and can’t do. They are free to carry guns, indulge in hate speech with impunity and discriminate openly against groups they dislike.

They are also free to go without healthcare, unoppressed by a tyrannical social safety net.

In the Netherlands, people are not free to do any of those things. But they are free to enjoy unfettered access to all the things the Dutch believe make for a stable and productive society including education, healthcare, a social safety net, a safe and secure environment and jobs.

https://dispatcheseurope.com/netherlands-vs-the-u-s-two-wildly-different-definitions-of-freedom/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The Netherlands is not a socialist country.

It's a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, and its economic system is one of regulated capitalism (the Dutch actually invented the stock market) with a comprehensive social security system - very much like the Scandinavian countries, which are also often mischaracterized as socialist. Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are collectively owned, typically by the government, which is not the case in any of these countries. Like Norway, the Netherlands has huge energy reserves (natural gas), and in both countries these reserves help make a robust social safety net possible. Norway's oil exploration company is 2/3 owned by the government and the rest is owned by private investors via the stock market. I think the term "socialism" needs to be used carefully and rarely because (a) it does not actually apply to countries like the Netherlands and Scandinavia, in which most businesses and assets are privately owned, and (b) for much of the public it carries connotations of Soviet collectivism.

[Miigwech]

4. Well said

But the people have ownership of much of the Country ... health care, education, mass transportation, for example ... A Socialist Democracy is what I think I said.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Those countries have ownership just like we do, except that they have more of it,

in the sense that they are willing to be taxed for the benefit of everyone, while we (as a country) resist paying taxes and resent having tax revenues spent on social programs. But what they have is not socialism in any sense of the word, "democratic" or otherwise. It is regulated capitalism - regulated by the government with the consent of the people that supports a robust social security network funded by taxes paid by the people (and in the case of Norway and the Netherlands, by revenue derived from their energy reserves).

[Miigwech]

7. True

but the min. wage for 25 -30 year old is 25.45 Euro's. Min. wage goes up with age, not down. If you are waiter in one of the many busy Cafe's , you could earn easily 10 to 20 more Euro's per hour. Yes, they pay much more in taxes but they get: health care, education (including a stipend for college student's living expenses), childcare, 1-2 years off with full pay to raise your newborn (men included), preschool education, clean environment ...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Yes, but it's still not socialism.

Ideally we would have a system like those countries', but we won't as long as too many people, brainwashed by the GOP, believe government programs benefit only the lazy and unworthy (you know, those people), and that universal health care is the first step down the slippery slope to Soviet collectivism. Calling such a system socialism just feeds that narrative.

[Jeroen]

15. That is not correct

Min. Wage for 21 years and older is max. EUR 10,49.

Further, the Dutch pay for healthcare, but get compensated based on income. Education is not free, stipend do no longer exist. Students have to borrow nowadays. 1-2 years off with full pay is nonsense. On average, a women gets 6 months off. The father a few weeks.

[DFW]

17. I don't know which Netherlands you mean, but it's not the one in Europe

I am there once a week for work (it's less than a 2 hour ride from my house to Utrecht), and speak the language.

Spreading this kind of fantasyland stories about European countries may be a nice feel-good tactic to the "grass-is-always-greener" crowd, but if they were even close to reality, the world would be lining up at their consulates around the world for immigration visas.

The Valley of the Shmoon (look it up if doesn't ring a bell) is not in Europe.

[Miigwech]

46. Fantasy land no, who said that?

Just reporting the way humans are better off there then the USA when it comes to caring for it's people. Maybe it's fantasy land to Americans that have never experienced what their gov can do for them with the taxes they pay?

[DFW]

47. You reported a minimum wage

Namely: "the min. wage for 25 -30 year old is €25.45" That sure is fantasyland. Ask anyone from the Netherlands (en dat bent jij zeker niet, as the locals might say). Many people are better off there, not all. Like people who only have one media source, whether it's TACC or Fox "News," many who live lives of hardship are actually convinced they are better off than the rest of the world. If they were better informed, there would not be a Republican Party any more.

And by the way, wherever it is you come from, while your English is excellent, we do not use an apostrophe to form a plural in English, unless you are writing in Republicanese. "Euros," "cafés," and "its (when meant as a possessive)," please.

[Ron Obvious]

54. "ben" not "bent"

Ik ben, jij bent, but it's ben jij. At least to my ears.

Christ, now I'm beginning to doubt that...

[DFW]

55. Tricky--if I were asking a question, you would be correct.

As a declarative, I am pretty sure the "t" stays. But now you're making ME doubt it!!

[Ron Obvious]

56. It should be "bent" according to the rule

But it really, really sounds wrong to my ear. I admit I only lived there between 1968 and 1979 and would like to think myself still fluent but I suspect I'm not completely any more.

Dutch people would SAY "ben jij" in all cases, though. I'm pretty sure.

It's similar to the fact that it should be "am'nt I" in English, but everybody says "aren't I", even though it's "I am" and not "I are".

[DFW]

57. Plus, the Dutch tend not to pronounce consonants at the end of a word to begin with

So you wouldn't hear a "t" in the spoken language, whether one was meant to be there or not.

[Ron Obvious]

58. Alright. We'll call it a draw.

I'll have to dig up my Dutch cousin for a ruling on whether the convention follows the rule.

[DFW]

59. Agreed

I'm there once a week anyway. The Dutch border is a one hour drive from me (at German speeds, anyway!)

[Turin_C3PO]

2. It would be nice if we had a system

similar to the Netherlands and Scandinavia. At the very least we should have true universal healthcare.

[DFW]

18. Agreed, we SHOULD

Most countries do not. People on DU, for a while, were spreading the fairy tale that we have it in Germany, which is far from the truth.

[Turin_C3PO]

20. Germany doesn't have universal coverage?

I know they don’t have a single payer system but I thought it was still that everyone was covered.

[DFW]

22. Hardly!

Last edited Mon Jun 10, 2019, 05:43 AM - Edit history (2)

My wife is a retired German social worker (we live near Düsseldorf).

By no means is everyone covered, and certain procedures, especially dental, are deemed "optional" by all the German insurance companies so they can get out of paying for them altogether. When my wife took early retirement at age 60 (both health reasons and mobbing at work), I had to spring for her coverage (about €450 a month, or $6500 a year), or she wouldn't have been covered at all between the ages of 60 and 65. Good thing, too, since she had her second battle with cancer at age 64, and that was brutal. She was in the hospital for a month and then later on in rehab for almost another month.

Germany loves its bureaucracy almost as much as France loves its own, and it expects every one to take care of their own paperwork, even the several dozen thousand illiterate Germans (they get through school with street smarts, but they are there). If you are not active in taking care of your own, either a social worker does it for you or you really can fall through the cracks, and be totally without.

[Turin_C3PO]

23. Wow that's surprising to me.

You always hear out here in the States about the great health coverage in Europe. Sounds like they have plenty of problems of their own.

[DFW]

34. Of course we do. Like I said--in the States they like to tell stories of Fantasyland

A hundred years ago in Europe, legend had it that the streets of America were paved with gold, too.

During the 2016 campaign, some (purportedly, anyway) Sanders supporters on DU were going on about how everything is "free" over here, as if there were endless quantities of money from endless taxes on endless rich people to pay for endless programs that made life here some kind of paradise on earth. The money was, of course, carefully distributed by pure-minded government workers with nothing but the good of the people in their hearts. About the only thing they DIDN'T claim was to have seen the Great Pumpkin rise on Halloween.

There is a reason the consulates of Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries do NOT have two miles lines at each one with Americans desperate to emmigrate there. Besides that, there is always the language issue. Yes, most people here speak more English than average American speak foreign languages. But to LIVE here, and be accepted into society, you can no more integrate into Germany or Holland (and get a residence permit) speaking only English than you can integrate into Dallas speaking only German or only Dutch.

There IS no paradise on earth, not even here in Western Europe. You are absolutely correct: each country here has its own problems. One of my wife's best friends has suffered from mental illness for decades. She lives off a meager pension, in a tiny apartment in the basement of a building in Essen (Ruhr), and always runs out of food money at the end of each month. My wife often helps out--with money I give her. My wife's pension, for decades of social work that she went to college to master, is all of €850 a month--less than $1000. Now at over 65, she is covered by the German version of Medicare. I make up for that of course, but many millions more here in Germany do not. The train stations here are full, besides the foreigners, of Germans who fell through the cracks, and are begging for coffee money.

Most of the people do get by, of course--just like most Americans do. But nothing here is for free. What there is, SOMEBODY paid for, somehow or other. Doctors and college professors don't work for free here any more than they do in the USA.

Thank you for realizing that no country here in Europe is some kind of paradise from Li'l Abner. I have seen the stories on the political boards in the States. Some people make wild distortions of reality for their own purposes, and like Fox Noise, hope that no one fact checks them on them (or only try to appeal to people will believe them blindly in the first place).

You are spot on that you always hear stories in the States about Europe. They are all too often just that: stories. "I have a friend who got a heart attack in Frankfurt, and he was treated and cured for free, and given a free college education in English to boot, out of the good of their system." Or some such nonsense. Like I said, this is not the Valley of the Shmoon.

[Turin_C3PO]

38. Thanks for your post!

Very informative and interesting. I still love Germany, of course. I’m in the process of learning the language and saving up to go on a vacation over there, hopefully next summer!

Yeah I think here in the States there’s a “grass is always greener” phenomenon regarding Western Europe in regards to social programs. I think it’s possibly because ours have been cut so badly since the Reagan era that people are on the lookout for more “compassionate“ countries to model after.

[DFW]

41. German has a more complicated grammar than Dutch or Scandinavian, but it is far more widely spoken

And so on a practical basis, it's your best bet for getting around. Be aware that there a huge dialectal differences despite the relatively small geographical area, and in some places, you will have more trouble understanding the people than an Oxford professor visiting Biloxi for the first time. Swiss German programs are either dubbed or subtitled by German TV.

The lack of compassion of our Republicans does make many programs in Europe seem far better, and if you are a citizen here, you are often better off. The so-called "conservatives" here would never dream of dismantling the social programs in place. That would be electoral suicide here. Certain vestiges of World War II (i.e. we really DO hang separately if people don't hang together) have remained in the collective memory, whereas southern Republicans still think they are the German delegation at Versailles at the end of World War I.

Still, the total apathy of many of the "civil" servants charged with their administration is beyond maddening. My wife had to bend the rules plenty of times to get justice for many of her charges. She had to take time off or work overtime (always unpaid, of course) to go argue with (or threaten with press exposure of) bureaucrats who couldn't be bothered with the paperwork for some poor guy because he had an alcoholic history (or whatever), and it would take him beyond his coffee break to process the guy's request to not get his electricity turned off, or his eviction notice delayed. She had been offered jobs as a model, but chose to do social work her whole life instead because she felt it was more meaningful. She had the dedication, alright, which just made it all the more frustrating to deal with bureaucrats (tenured for life here) who cared more about their next coffee break than the people they were supposed to serve. Few systems here are drastically different from their post-war origins. The desire to create a more just world has given way to generations that take the system for granted, and stagnate in their desire not to rock the boat--especially theirs. Where Republicans see initiative for any change for the better as an attack on their way of life, European bureaucrats see initiative as something to be scared of, as it might endanger a comfortable sameness. Many forget that their comfort's origin was born in a cauldron of benevolent initiative, which is not a threat to anyone outside a circle of true oppressors..

[Turin_C3PO]

43. I'm having a hell of a hard time with German grammar!

It’s so different than English ya know? I had a much easier time learning Spanish actually.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

45. You can easily memorize the dative prepositions by singing them to The Blue Danube.

Aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu. See? It works. And that's my only tip. Right now I'm learning Norwegian, which is waaay easier than German. They hardly ever conjugate verbs at all, and they have no dative prepositions.

[DFW]

48. Norwegian and Swedish (essentially the same anyway) are the insider's tip for learning a language

If English is your native language, Scandinavian (to use a collective term) is the easiest language to learn. Once you have a form for a verb you never have to conjugate it. It is the same for first, second and third person, singular and plural. Future tense? Just add "skall (English: shall)" and there you have the future tense. Jag skall gå hem nu= I shall go home now. The only real quirk to learn is that the indefinite article goes before the noun, and the definite article gets attached to the end. Vi har en kniv (we have a knife) vs. vi har kniven (we have the knife). Once you can read one of them (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish), you can read over 85% of the other two. Danish is a catastrophe as far as pronunciation goes (think "Fawlty Towers meets the Beverly Hillbillies&quot , but if they write it down, you are saved.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

50. There are quirks, of course.

Your example is the same in Norwegian: Jeg skal gå hjem nå - present tense would be Jeg går hjem nå; the only difference between normal present tense and using the modal verb skal is you drop the r in the verb. But there's the quirk of inversion that English rarely uses - if you want to say Now I shall go home, placing nå at the beginning of the sentence, you invert the word order: Nå skal jeg gå hjem. (IIRC, German does this too) You also have to remember whether you are going home (Jeg går hjem) or you are at home (Jeg er hjemme). If you forget things like this they'll know you're not from there.

And then there's Icelandic.

[DFW]

51. The word order oddities become instinctive after a while

As for Icelandic, the Scandinavians treat it pretty much like Italians do Latic--a relic, except it's a living one. When I was there, the "preferred" second language was Danish. As usual--they understood my Swedish, and I was lost with their answers.

Funny similar story: when I was in college, the guy who lived down the corridor from me was a classics major, and not your typical one. A long-haired freak from some rich family near Philadelphia, one summer he decided to take a hiking trip through Greece. He said some of the smaller rural villages treated him like some kind of resurrected divinity, because he walked out of the mountains from nowhere, looked like a lot of the Jesus icons, and the only Greek he knew was ancient Greek, which he was able to speak.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

52. I thought of trying to learn Icelandic just for giggles;

since Norwegian is so easy, Icelandic can't be that hard, right? But it is. The grammar hasn't changed much in 1,000 years, and like most old languages that haven't had their sharp edges ground off by centuries of exposure to other languages, it's horrifically complicated. I learned German and Latin in my youth, and those languages were fairly challenging grammatically, but now I'm too damned old to want to work that hard.

Danish is something else. I've been watching TV shows and movies in Norwegian to help with pronunciation and vocabulary, and sometimes I watch the Danish and Swedish ones as well. Spoken Swedish actually seems easier to understand than spoken Norwegian because they speak more slowly and don't run their words together so much (and Norwegians drop final consonants, usually t and d, in some words). But Danish might as well be Martian. I read recently that Danish children take much longer than other children to be able to pronounce their own language correctly - they're in about the fourth grade before they can speak their own language.

[DFW]

53. Get a copy of the old film "Pathfinder."

The invaders all speak in Icelandic. It is so far removed from modern Scandinavian, it might as well be ancient Greek. They kept all their declined forms and other linguistic anachronisms. I took 4 semesters of Latin in junior high (Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, don't ya know)), so by the time I started with Russian, I knew what a declined noun was. Still, I wasn't ready for six cases and two words for every verb. That took some getting used to. In Japanese, the adjectives even have time, so their word for "blue (currently)" is not the same as "blue (used to be)." So count your blessings.

Danish might indeed as well be Martian. Just look at their numbers. They take the worst aspects of French and German, add in the way they tell time, and combine them. Up to 40, it's coherent. But then comes 50. In Danish, it is expressed at "half [of twenty off from] three times twenty." Sixty is "three times twenty." Seventy is "half [of twenty off from] four times twenty." Eighty, like French (except in parts of French-speaking Switzerland), is "four times twenty." Ninety is "half [of twenty off from] five times twenty." But one hundred is just one hundred. So the number 356 in Danish is "three hundred, six and half of twenty less than three times twenty."

In the modern Germanic languages, they call 9:30 "half ten," 10:30 "half eleven," etc. EXCEPT in England. "Half ten" in England means 10:30.

The Danish know it about their language, too. I once went to a lecture (in English, fortunately) by a member of the Danish Parliament, who told us not to expect their nation to have too much clout internationally. He said, "we are a nation of only four million people, speaking a language that our neighbors regard as a disease of the throat."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

61. OMG, how do they ever even know what time it is in Denmark?

That's just nuts (though I suppose they're used to it). In Norwegian, eighty is just - åtti. To the extent there is a standard version of Norwegian at all, it's Bokmål, which was in part an attempt to somewhat de-Danishize the language. I'm glad they at least kept a less awkward way of expressing numbers that doesn't require one to actually do math.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

62. I found a movie in Sami called "Pathfinder"

(called Ofelaš). Sami is even older and more obscure than Icelandic, to which it's completely unrelated. I watched the trailer, which showed a bunch of guys in fur parkas getting shot with crossbows.

[DFW]

63. Yes, I know what Sami is.

I've to Kiruna, seen them in town shopping for supplies. Hard to miss!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

64. But can you *speak* Sami?

I know you can speak a lot of languages (can you do Maltese and Dari like Pete Buttigieg?) but I'll give you extra props if you've got Sami.

[DFW]

65. No props for Sami, I'm afraid

I only speak languages well if I use them regularly. Tomorrow, I will have to use one that I only need a couple of times a month, namely Schwyzerdüütsch (Zürich version). I haven't been back to Kiruna in decades.

No Maltese (my dad was from New York) or Dari (never been to Afghanistan), either. However, my Catalan is good enough to make the people in Barcelona think it's my native language, and so is my Dutch and Swedish. And over the weekend, my wife and I were in London, stopping in an Italian espresso bar, and they ALL thought I was either native Italian or had Italian parents. When I said Texas, and no Italian family, they laughed and said "si, certo (yeah, right)," and my wife had to back me up before they believed me. So, while my inventory may not be as exotic as that of Mayor Pete, the ones I DO speak, I can do so convincingly.

[DFW]

49. Spanish has a more linear sentence structure than German.

German preserves declined articles, virtually an anachronism elsewhere, and the Germans split their verbs unmercifully.

"I had imagined something complete different, actually" becomes "I had myself actually something completely different imagined (ich hatte mir eigentlich etwas ganz anderes vorgestellt)."

But take heart. You think that's bad, try Japanese sentence structure. To westerners, their whole language seems like sentences spoken backwards. German is a snap by comparison.

[Yavin4]

3. The D-Day commemoration sparked a thought in me.

The U.S. was the lone industrial nation that did not physically feel the effects of WWII. Yes, we lost servicemen who fought abroad, but we weren't bombed. No foreign soldiers patrolled our streets. We didn't experience it on the same level as many nations in Europe did.

Europe learned the very hard lesson that building a vibrant middle class was the key to stopping wars on their continent. People are less likely to follow extremist leaders if their basic life needs, food, housing, healthcare, education, were taken care of at birth.

For 35 years, we followed that same path after the war, but the anti-war and social movements of the 1960s gave our right wing a means to attack government as the enemy. Starting in the 80s, the right used racial and sexist resentment to attack social programs that helped everyone. The end result is that we have lost our middle class, but Europe still has theirs. As the article points out, the right wing movements of Europe don't attack social programs. Yes, they're nativist but they also remember what happened in WWII.

[FakeNoose]

24. Well Pearl Harbor was unforeseen

... however I do agree with your main point. We Americans grew up with an entirely different attitude towards war, since we never felt the repercussions the way the Europeans did after World War II.

[eppur_se_muova]

32. Unforeseen by whom ?

[KentuckyWoman]

6. I have been in Amsterdam

It was so disgusting they had to come through and pressure wash the gross from the street. People kept standing way too close to my husband's back pocket. We were in 9 cities in Europe. Amsterdam was the only one I won't go to again.

It works fine for those raised there, but it isn't for me. Switzerland I could move tomorrow.

[Miigwech]

8. May I ask ... when were you last in Amsterdam ?

[deurbano]

12. I love Amsterdam, the first city I ever visited in Europe. When I visited in the early 1990s, it

seemed a bit seedier (or something) in some areas than on my previous visits, but I didn't notice that on my last visit in 2017. That was the first time my two younger children had been to Amsterdam, and they loved it, too.

ETA: I loved Amsterdam in the early 1990s, too.

[KentuckyWoman]

66. 2018

[Miigwech]

69. I am trying to figure out how we had such different

experiences.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. I have also been in Amsterdam and experienced nothing like that.

I saw nothing at all I could call disgusting (although there's a thriving red light district, it's clean) even during an evening of pub-crawling. It's an interesting, fun, historic city with a lot to see and do, plus a lot of very good beer and cheese.

[ooky]

11. Me either. I used to travel regularly to Netherlands on business,

fly into Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, catch the train to Nijmegen. Several times I stayed in Amsterdam overnight and it was always enjoyable time and I never saw anything but people enjoying life. And the beer was great.

[LibDemAlways]

13. I have a friend who had an unfortunate accident in

Amsterdam, was hospitalized there for six weeks, and ultimately flown back to the U.S. on a medical flight. Despite the best efforts of doctors in Amsterdam and back in the States, he did not make it. Throughout the ordeal, the Amsterdam hospital could not do enough for his wife. An apartment building affiliated with the hospital provided a room and meals for her at a very nominal cost -- much less than a hotel. Trip insurance the couple had wisely taken out covered most expenses including the flight home. After he passed away, my friend's wife was stunned to receive a personal letter from the Amsterdam Mayor expressing condolences and regret for the accident. I live in Los Angeles and am quite certain a foreign tourist or even a local involved in an accident here would not be treated with the same consideration. Low cost accommodations and meals for the family? A personal letter from the mayor? Dream on. There's a lot to be said for Amsterdam and it's pretty damn good.

[DFW]

21. Key phrase there

"Trip insurance the couple had wisely taken out covered most expenses including the flight home." VERY wise indeed!

This is as common as brushing your teeth in Germany, and almost as rare as the Crown Jewels in the States. Maybe it costs more in the States, I don't know.

A couple very close to us once sent their son, age 16, on his dream semester abroad to California, where he suddenly collapsed. He was taken to a hospital where the doctors said that whatever he had was extremely serious and would require a long treatment. It turned out he an extremely rare heart cancer, and it ended up killing him at age 18. The bills started coming in from the States, and they added up to $50,000. Because our friends had taken out the travel health insurance (maybe €175 for the six month period at the time), they picked up every cent of every bill.

[FakeNoose]

25. Wow!

That's a sad story, however amazing it may be that the insurance company covered the cost.

I believe any American insurance company these days would have weaseled out of it by saying it was a "pre-existing condition." It's their favorite weasel-word now.

[DFW]

35. I'd like to hear the argument saying a 16 year old with heart cancer had a pre-existing condition

Heart cancer is so rare, it is almost never even diagnosed at all. I think they said less than 2000 cases a year are diagnosed WORLDWIDE. Statistically speaking, that's non-existent.

One thing the German insurance companies ARE known for is paying for health bills incurred while traveling abroad. Germans travel outside Germany a LOT. Don't forget, here, you can get in your car anywhere in Germany after breakfast, drive in any direction, and be in another country (sometimes crossing through two or three others along the way) by the time you are ready for dinner. Since literally millions of people buy these policies, so few people, percentage-wise, actually need to take advantage of them that the insurance companies can pay for the occasional drastic case and not suffer financially. Indeed, it enhances their reputation when they do, so people almost always buy them when they travel.

Since most Americans (that I know, anyway) do NOT take out that kind of insurance when they travel, the insurance companies have a much smaller pool of cash from which to pay out the occasional drastic case, and I can imagine that there will be times when they try to get out of paying. Obviously, they are not all like this, luckily!

[a la izquierda]

19. Your sense of Holland is based on Amsterdam?

It is my least favorite part of the country.
Try Utrecht or Gouda or Groningen, or any of the towns around them.
Two more months and I get to leave the US for Holland and Germany...hopefully permanently.

[DFW]

36. I love Utrecht

It's crowded as hell, and the living space (apartments or houses) is so cramped there, I'm not sure I'd want (or could afford) something like I have here in Germany. But the town itself is just a joy to roam. My friends there all live in a tiny town outside called IJsselstein, which is a 25 minute tram ride away. IJsselstein is just a mini-Utrecht anyway, and not a one of them has ever considered moving into the big city--to the extent that Utrecht can be considered "big." Another friend of mine is from the Groningen area originally, but decided to settle in Bennekom, which is in the area of Ede-Wageningen. Haarlem is beautiful, too, but so popular that the issue of affordable living space shows it ugly head there, as in in Utrecht.

One consolation--though Dutch may SOUND like total gibberish at first to the untrained ear, it is actually a close relative of English, and, especially if you learned any German in your time in Germany, is easier to pick up than it sounds at first listen. Je kan inderdaad Nederlands leren (You can indeed learn Dutch)!

[a la izquierda]

68. I can read Dutch slowly but surely...

Pronouncing it is another matter altogether
I just applied for a university position at Groningen, so we’ll see.
I cannot wait to be back in Europe. Five weeks left. I’m avoiding the States as much as possible (I’m currently in Mexico working).
Cheers from south of the “Wall.”

[KentuckyWoman]

67. I said Amsterdam.

I never mentioned a single word about Holland as a whole. You mistook my post.

[tclambert]

14. But don't they have cancer-causing windmills there?

Only Trump can save the world from windmill cancer!

[DFW]

37. Yes, but you needn't worry

They only pose a health risk to overweight American males over the age of 70 who lie a lot.

For the rest of humanity, they are harmless.

[Thyla]

16. You can also play this game with

Almost any civilised modern western nation and not just the Netherlands.

[planetc]

26. Although I have traveled a bit, I have not made it to Amsterdam, and I should, because ...

I have a very important ancestor whose ancestors came from the Netherlands. This is the side of my family that I think of as providing me with my major life survival skills: the ability to make a budget and keep it, the civility and decency, the appreciation for beauties smaller than the Alps, the love of cheese, and the celebration of color that tulips represent. Not to mention Rembrandt and Vermeer.

I like the perspective this article takes, and I have begun to reflect on the number of freedoms that are either useless or dangerous to me. I have the freedom to protest outside an abortion clinic, to own a gun, and to mouth off in the most vulgar and intemperate terms. My entire Dutch side would like other Americans to forego these freedoms in favor of moderation, responsibility, and charity.

Socialism is an accurate political term, which suggests that social needs are real and must be addressed. Just because it was misused by the Nazis is no reason to abandon the term, but it is reason to refurbish it and use it proudly.

And the only worry I have about The Netherlands is its situation next to the sea in the face of sea level rise. If you are forced to move your country elsewhere, please keep in touch with your new location. Canada, for instance, has open spaces and lots of water at the edges.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. There is no Utopia and nothing is free.

In countries like the Netherlands and Scandinavia, many of the things we Americans pay for out of pocket or through private insurance are covered, at least in part, by a government program, but that doesn't mean those things are free. Doctors and teachers and child care providers need to be paid; hospitals and schools need buildings and equipment. In these other countries many of those expenses are covered by the government, that is to say, taxpayers. While this eliminates the profit motive of private providers, making the whole program arguably less expensive overall, the citizens do pay indirectly for these benefits. While the result is a more humane system that covers pretty much everybody, the reality is that we will have to accept higher tax rates in exchange for better benefits. We would hope that the tax system would be changed to ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share, but all but the poorest will probably pay more. And, as in the other countries with more robust social welfare systems, not everything will be covered, just as with our current Medicare system.
We can certainly do better, but there is no "socialist" Utopia anywhere.

[NNadir]

28. Last I visited Amsterdam, I was extremely outraged and upset.

There were young women, displayed only partially clothed, like merchandise, in store front windows.

It was not nirvana, by any stretch.

[OliverQ]

30. It's called the Red Light District, or De Wallen.

I'm surprised you were outraged by it. It's probably the most well known aspect of Amsterdam to your typical tourist. But it doesn't represent the whole city or country.

[NNadir]

31. My feeling is that it must represent, in many cases, human slavery.

These were very young girls when I saw them.

I wasn't in Amsterdam as a tourist. I was there on business. I didn't seek these places out; I was simply walking the town in the evening and came across them.

The experience of the city also left me an opponent of pot legalization as well.

Perhaps I'm a prude, but I cannot think of the city without thinking of those girls, sold like meat to fat old men for money. Rightly or wrongly, for me it does represent the entire city, and the entire country, just as the history of this country, as a home for historical human slavery, represents a basic truth about my country.

I'm not impressed with Amsterdam.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. Prostitution is legal and regulated in the Netherlands but they are concerned

that there is still quite a bit of organized crime involvement and human trafficking, which they had hoped legalization would reduce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands

[OliverQ]

29. One of my coworkers is from the Netherlands. He's moving back this summer.

I'd love to move to the Netherlands. My family is trying to find places to retire to in Europe or Canada.

Unfortunately, we've have no means to move there. We're not entrepreneurs so the DAFT treaty doesn't help us, and I'm not in a highly skilled profession.

[brooklynite]

39. Does the Dutch Government do a better job brewing Heineken or Amstel?

[brooklynite]

40. Out of curiosity, why do you feel the need to defend the term "socialism"

You could have spoken admirably about the progressive capitalist economy with a strong social safety. Why is it necessary to attempt to redefine "socialism"?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

42. That's the point I'm trying to make, too. Trying to defend "socialism"

as it is commonly understood in this country - Soviet-style collectivism - is a fool's errand. Nobody is advocating for that kind of system, but that's what the term means to an awful lot of people after decades of cold-war rhetoric, and it's anathema. I remember when Medicare was first introduced (I'm old), and you'd think it was the end of Western civilization and we were all going to be shipped off to gulags. It was all, OMG, socialized medicine! The government is going to take away our doctors and make us stand in line for days to get prescriptions filled! and shit like that. Now, of course, everybody likes Medicare, which isn't socialism; it's a health insurance program funded by our FICA taxes and our employers and administered by a government agency. But the GOP used the threat of socialism to try to scuttle the program.

As I argued elsewhere in this thread, the existence of robust welfare programs in some other countries does not mean those countries are socialist countries; in fact, most of them (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) are constitutional monarchies with democratically-elected parliaments and an economic system based on regulated capitalism. Those who are advocating "socialism" with respect to proposed changes in our system to copy those countries are using a term that is not only political Ebola, it's not even accurate.

[Turin_C3PO]

44. Very true.

I think Bernie Sanders makes a mistake in labeling himself a socialist. As far as i know, he’s not for collectivism but for highly regulated capitalism. Socialist is a poisonous word in this country and our side would be better off never using the term.

[Oneironaut]

60. That's why it's funny when Americans say that America is the best country in the world.

Yes, a country where the "personal failing" of getting cancer or having a heart attack can lead to medical bills totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the only out being bankruptcy. I think people who have no problem with this mistake predatory capitalism for freedom.