"If you reward cruelty with kindness, with what do you reward kindness?" --Hillel
You would think that governments as well as people in general would understand that appeasing and rewarding negative behavior doesn't work. It's basic psychology 101--but one that not even most psychology professors understand or put to use. And apparently, this concept is foreign to many of the politically correct persuasion outside the classroom as well--for them, their feeling of moral "superiority" trumps human nature and causes liberals to turn a blind eye to justice and acts of violence.
In Bruce Bawer's new book,
While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,
the side effects of the appeasement of Muslims by the Danish government are clear--as their government pumps more and more welfare money into the pockets of disgruntled Muslims, the rate of violence against "infidels" there increases.
Bawer points out that in Denmark, Muslims make up only 5% of the population but receive 40% of welfare outlays. Many of these immigrants are told by their leaders that Muslim law gives them the right to "cheat and lie in the countries that harbor them." They are told to view the benefits they receive as
jizya--the tributes that "the infidel natives of Muslim-occupied countries are obliged to pay to Muslims in order to preserve their lives." And the welfare offices in Denmark can be the setting for violence--termed "culture clashes" by Danish journalists. "Some clients lay waste to social security offices and hit social workers--not out of frustration but because they've learned that bullying gets them what they want. The Danish government is not repressive; welfare workers tend to be sympathetic and eager to help. Many immigrants perceive this as weakness, and exploit it, 'tyrannizing' the social workers." The Danish solution? More PC behavior--get translators to translate not only between languages but between cultures. Yeah, that will work.
Having worked with social security disability clients for 15 years, I can tell you that human nature is the same all over. The more competent clients who had held jobs and had truly bad misfortunes happen to them were often kind and treated me with respect. Those who had never worked, been fed a steady diet of entitlement and justification of the "system owing them" from family members and society were the most abusive, often threatening me or treating me as an object to be used to get them what they wanted (not that it worked one way or another--I just wrote an objective report regardless of threats etc.). I learned to talk in a big booming voice that commanded authority and never swayed from speaking in an objective manner-of-fact tone. Once the potentially violent client saw that I was not intimidated by threats or strong language, they often settled down and cooperated. Too bad European countries haven't learned this lesson--appeasement of violence doesn't work.
I think the last paragraph of Bower's book summarizes the conflict of the PC Danish approach to conflict best:
"The irony was tragic: .......having instituted a welfare system meant to safeguard every last one of them from so much as a moment's financial insecurity, and having built up a culture of extraordinary freedom and tolerance that promised each of them a life of absolute dignity and perfect equality, postwar Dutch men and women had raised up their children into tall, strapping, healthy, multilingual young adults--
...and yet they'd turned a blind eye to the very peril that would destroy them."
Dutch cartoons anyone?
Update: Sorry,
Right Girl, didn't mean to interrupt your brunch.
and Tim Minear, Executive Producer and writer of such shows as Wonderfalls,
Serenity, Angel and Firefly. Scalzi tells us how the internet has changed the way he works, writes and promotes his novels. Minear discusses his 13 hit wonders, his new projects and the aggression of girls (and talks about how violence can be a good thing!)
The article (only available through a subscription), entitled, 
