delete
04-06-2007, 09:12 PM
As a Norwegian, I found this one funny.
On November 12th, 2002 there was an article about the Heritage Foundation’s latest Index of Economic Freedom in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Liberty = Prosperity", which attributed a nation’s economic freedom to the application of property rights and the rule of law. This started me thinking. Property rights exist even in the most "repressed" countries of the world like Zimbabwe and Iraq, except the rights there usually all belong to one man. Also, there is a very strong rule of law in both Cuba and North Korea, some of them not very nice laws, but they are there and the citizens of those countries are undoubtedly ruled by the application of them. Therefore, there has to be something else, one unquestionable factor common to all, which makes certain nations more economically free and less corrupt, and their citizens better off than those of other nations. So I have researched and contemplated upon several such lists and I have found only one common denominator that applies to all of the "successful" countries, and regrettably damns all other countries not possessing this attribute to probably always be as they presently are.
The only common denominator I am able to come up with is as follows:
All the really successful countries in the world today are those nations whose citizens are the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or they are nations established as trading posts or independent entities, built without any consideration of, or input from, the indigenous local population, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
Merely being colonized by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings does not seem to have anything more than a temporary cosmetic effect. A nation actually has to be established either as a trading post totally independent of the local population, or completely from scratch with no thought to the culture of the original inhabitants, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings. Then it has to be run totally oblivious to the wishes or needs of the local population for at least a hundred years, for there to be any real effect at all. Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the United States, etc. are examples of this. Countries that were colonized by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings, but where the local inhabitants managed to survive as a majority, maintain their own culture, and finally expel their colonizers (i.e.: Sudan, Nigeria, Burma, Zimbabwe, Pakistan or India, etc., etc.) actually seem to be compounded in their loss of civility to at least one group or another by having been colonized - and who can blame them for that?
That, my friends, is it! I can find no other indisputable common factor that either determines the quality of life, innate honesty and economic success of any country presently included in the United Nations. In fact, the lack of this factor of development seems to condemn the citizens of every nation without it to anarchy, low wages, or third-world-dom dictatorship. It appears to be an incontestable law. Some people have long pointed out that Protestant countries, by and large, are richer, freer and safer to live in than those that adhere to any other religion. This correlation also makes a lot of sense, for if you had been raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings on a continuous basis for several hundred years you would probably protest a bit too, and as Darwin pointed out, you would of course pass that talent (mutation) on to your descendents.
However, contemplating the various lists involved, it could actually be said that the less zealously religious the citizens, the more successful the country is likely to be.
Also, or so it seems obvious to me, those administrative systems and religions that were introduced and developed furthest from those areas consistently being raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings seem the least likely to be affected by the Protestant thing. It might also be said that such nations, administrative bureaucracies and religions are also the least likely to call upon their adherents to go off in little boats to impose their concepts and freedoms on others, (once called colonizing and/or missionary work and today called nation building and/or foreign aid).
For those who were not taught this fact of life by their History teachers and have never sat through the Introduction to Genetic Economics 101, (most students miss this important tidbit as it comes just before lunch on the third day of the introduction, when most of them are already dozing off), I truly believe that I can prove this theory.
...snip...
As you can see the Vikings obviously did little or no rape, pillage and looting of the least productive, or the most corrupt, countries in the world. Now I am not claiming that these countries were not raped, pillaged and looted by someone or another, at some time or another, but they just did not have the luck for it to have been the Vikings who did it. There are also countries that were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings in the middle of both lists (i.e.: Spain, Portugal, Italy and Russia, etc.), but obviously they were not raped, pillaged and looted often enough for it to have a really lasting effect. Therefore, as I previously stated and have, I believe without any doubt whatsoever, now proved, to myself and probably to my eight year old son, that: All successful countries in the world today are those nations whose citizens are the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or they are nations that were established as trading posts or independent entities, built without any consideration of, or input from, the indigenous local population, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
I leave you to ponder the above, but advise you against developing Cassandra-like tendencies to broadcast this reasoning beyond your immediate family, especially if you happen to live in a country founded by the descendants of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or a nation established by the descendants of ancestors who were NOT raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
http://www.bizforum.org/www_features-12-2002.htm
On November 12th, 2002 there was an article about the Heritage Foundation’s latest Index of Economic Freedom in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Liberty = Prosperity", which attributed a nation’s economic freedom to the application of property rights and the rule of law. This started me thinking. Property rights exist even in the most "repressed" countries of the world like Zimbabwe and Iraq, except the rights there usually all belong to one man. Also, there is a very strong rule of law in both Cuba and North Korea, some of them not very nice laws, but they are there and the citizens of those countries are undoubtedly ruled by the application of them. Therefore, there has to be something else, one unquestionable factor common to all, which makes certain nations more economically free and less corrupt, and their citizens better off than those of other nations. So I have researched and contemplated upon several such lists and I have found only one common denominator that applies to all of the "successful" countries, and regrettably damns all other countries not possessing this attribute to probably always be as they presently are.
The only common denominator I am able to come up with is as follows:
All the really successful countries in the world today are those nations whose citizens are the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or they are nations established as trading posts or independent entities, built without any consideration of, or input from, the indigenous local population, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
Merely being colonized by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings does not seem to have anything more than a temporary cosmetic effect. A nation actually has to be established either as a trading post totally independent of the local population, or completely from scratch with no thought to the culture of the original inhabitants, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings. Then it has to be run totally oblivious to the wishes or needs of the local population for at least a hundred years, for there to be any real effect at all. Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the United States, etc. are examples of this. Countries that were colonized by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings, but where the local inhabitants managed to survive as a majority, maintain their own culture, and finally expel their colonizers (i.e.: Sudan, Nigeria, Burma, Zimbabwe, Pakistan or India, etc., etc.) actually seem to be compounded in their loss of civility to at least one group or another by having been colonized - and who can blame them for that?
That, my friends, is it! I can find no other indisputable common factor that either determines the quality of life, innate honesty and economic success of any country presently included in the United Nations. In fact, the lack of this factor of development seems to condemn the citizens of every nation without it to anarchy, low wages, or third-world-dom dictatorship. It appears to be an incontestable law. Some people have long pointed out that Protestant countries, by and large, are richer, freer and safer to live in than those that adhere to any other religion. This correlation also makes a lot of sense, for if you had been raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings on a continuous basis for several hundred years you would probably protest a bit too, and as Darwin pointed out, you would of course pass that talent (mutation) on to your descendents.
However, contemplating the various lists involved, it could actually be said that the less zealously religious the citizens, the more successful the country is likely to be.
Also, or so it seems obvious to me, those administrative systems and religions that were introduced and developed furthest from those areas consistently being raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings seem the least likely to be affected by the Protestant thing. It might also be said that such nations, administrative bureaucracies and religions are also the least likely to call upon their adherents to go off in little boats to impose their concepts and freedoms on others, (once called colonizing and/or missionary work and today called nation building and/or foreign aid).
For those who were not taught this fact of life by their History teachers and have never sat through the Introduction to Genetic Economics 101, (most students miss this important tidbit as it comes just before lunch on the third day of the introduction, when most of them are already dozing off), I truly believe that I can prove this theory.
...snip...
As you can see the Vikings obviously did little or no rape, pillage and looting of the least productive, or the most corrupt, countries in the world. Now I am not claiming that these countries were not raped, pillaged and looted by someone or another, at some time or another, but they just did not have the luck for it to have been the Vikings who did it. There are also countries that were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings in the middle of both lists (i.e.: Spain, Portugal, Italy and Russia, etc.), but obviously they were not raped, pillaged and looted often enough for it to have a really lasting effect. Therefore, as I previously stated and have, I believe without any doubt whatsoever, now proved, to myself and probably to my eight year old son, that: All successful countries in the world today are those nations whose citizens are the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or they are nations that were established as trading posts or independent entities, built without any consideration of, or input from, the indigenous local population, by the descendents of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
I leave you to ponder the above, but advise you against developing Cassandra-like tendencies to broadcast this reasoning beyond your immediate family, especially if you happen to live in a country founded by the descendants of ancestors who were raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings; or a nation established by the descendants of ancestors who were NOT raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.
http://www.bizforum.org/www_features-12-2002.htm