Need help with a "statistics socialist"

[AL the Inconspicuous]

Weak is the argument of freedom for the sake of freedom - it is not an end in of itself.  Individual freedom is desirable because it is economically advantageous - individual economic actors have individual brains and are capable of independent thought and action, and of experiencing individual consequences of their actions, which creates a self-optimizing evolutionary system.  If cannibalistic fascism was a better system, then I would be a fascist cannibal instead.

[AL the Inconspicuous]

From Commiedot -- Why Broadband In North America Is Not That Slow --

The Globe & Mail has an article written in response to a recent study done by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard about how far behind the rest of the world the US and Canada are with regard to broadband internet. The refutation basically tears apart Harvard's analysis and shows why the US and Canada are actually far ahead of most European countries.

"Canada has a true broadband penetration rate of close to 70 per cent of households.  And North Americans use the Internet somewhat more intensively than do Europeans, according to Cisco Systems data on Internet traffic.  Further, business Internet traffic in North America appears to be at levels substantially higher than elsewhere in the world.  Sadly, there is little systematic effort by international agencies to measure the intensity of Internet usage.  Instead, we see comparisons of advertised speeds and 'price per advertised megabit', which are especially misleading.  Advertised broadband speeds vary from actual speeds.  In North America, this is largely a result of 'network overhead', and is quite modest.  In Europe, however, the variation is often dramatic."

Yet another bullshit statistic Euro-socialists like to throw in our faces bites the dust...

And, looking over comments on Commiedot, isn't it amazing how Europeans always find a Potemkin Village for every issue, like in this case Stockholm, which is in no way representative of EU as a whole? 

And of course what they're doing is mentioning the quality of the product without mentioning the price, which they pay for in taxes.  If people had individual choice over paying the ridiculous prices they pay for broadband, most of them wouldn't.  Imagine being a rich old lady in Sweden who doesn't even know how to turn on a computer, and being forced to pay thousands for bandwidth per month!

[BobRobertson]

Does anyone have any stats that I can counter with?  I tried a moral argument but he thinks its OK for the "poor" to steal from the "rich" if they need it.

If they are actually intelligent, suggest that they read "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" by Ludwig von Mises.

Not one iota of "morality" in it, just cold hard facts about how it SUCKS to be socialist.

http://mises.org/econcalc.asp

Maybe they will pay attention, see especially the forward by Yuri Maltzev.

[Alex Libman]

Every once in a while you come across something so awesome you gotta paste it somewhere (links at the bottom especially)...


From cat-v.org -- Considered Harmful -- Society -- Sweden --

The Swedish dream

Sweden is probably (together with Japan) the most undemocratic developed country in the world. For all practical purposes Sweden has been a single party system for the last 60 years, the single party system is so strong, that the few very short times other parties have been in power their policies even more socialist and it never was long before the real Socialists were back in power.

Cronyism and corruption are rampant, except that they have become so institutionalized that they are accepted as normal.

In the Socialist government power has passed from generation to generation, they are so imbredded that the Prime Minister was married with the CEO of the national liquor monopoly (which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, company in the country and which provides huge amounts of income to the government).

Politicians abused the rent control system so they can pay almost nothing for huge apartments in the center of town while everyone else has to pay exorbitant prices for a pathetic sociality flat so far from everything that it takes you two hours to get to work.

There are less than five construction companies that control all the housing in the whole country thanks to exclusive contracts from the government.

The list goes on and on, Sweden society is a lie, don't believe it.

Neutrality and pacifism

Sweden likes to boast of being a neutral and peace loving nation that doesn't even want to join NATO, while at the same time the Swedish military industry is one of the main exporters, and sells to all kinds of corrupt and despotic governments all over the world, specially the USA (note that USA-bashing is the Swedish national sport).

But you will never see any Swedish person mention or admit this, nobody talks about it, it is like there is a social agreement to never bring this up, just like the cooperation with the Nazis during WWII.

See also

• Nearly 95 percent of Swedes admit that they abuse the country's public services and benefits systems.

• Who pays for Sweden's free lunch?

• Mob rule in Sweden

• Should the United States Be More Like Scandinavia?

• Google likens Sweden to dictatorship

• Göran Lindberg and Sweden's dark side.

And of course no Scandinavia debunking thread would be complete without a link to Johan Norberg's blog.