Sweden

An old cowboy once said "I came to the desert to change it and was changed by it."

We are not a product of our environment as much as we are a product of our thinking but our thinking is often a byproduct of how we live and react in our environment.

"The “Swedish model” was not replicable in most other societies, because it relied on a peculiarly Swedish set of cultural virtues: industriousness, thrift, honesty, intelligence, integrity, and a general trust in one’s fellow man."

Where did that honest "industriousness, thrift, honesty, intelligence, integrity, and a general trust in one’s fellow man" come from? Where does virtue come from?

"These virtues we acquire by first exercising them, as in the case of other arts. Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave..." Aristotle on Self-Discipline.

The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, believed that moral virtue was found in doing the right thing for the right reason. Motive was paramount.

The modern Christian, believed that virtues was motivated by love for God.

But since God is both an idea and an entity how do we know if our love for God is not merely a love for the image of God which we have created or allowed to be created in our own minds. And if we are motivated to do what is right out of pride in our claimed faith in the image of God created through our doctrines and personal eschatology could it be that we do not actually love the righteousness of God?

If we do not actually love righteousness then it must be that although we sometimes do it that righteousness is not actually written upon our hearts and upon our minds.

Could we love righteousness without the idea of an image of God in our mind?

Virtus was a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carries connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth,

Does Sweden's nanny state only work in Sweden? Jun 30th 2009, 17:29 by Charlemagne

"EARLIER today, I attempted to ponder the angst of liberals in Sweden, a country that combines a vast public sector, and a style of life that looks hugely enviable to outsiders."

Are the Swedish people being changed by their expanding Folkhemmet.

"Sweden is a semi-socialist country that started to fail already in the mid 1970ies, and was hurled into a serious crisis in the early 1990:ies, which it has still not recovered from."

"The country is probably also one of the least democractic and most politicaly corrupt countries in the Western world."

"In recent years the spotlessly clean stainless steel and glass cities [of Sweden] have been slowly transforming into shabby, crime-ridden third world hellholes surrounded by ghettoes where the police, fire brigade and ambulance services dare not go except in force." read why

Folkhemmet The people's home is a political concept that played an important role in the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish welfare state. It is also sometimes used to refer to the long period between 1932-1976 when the Social democrats were in power and the concept was put into practice, but also works as a poetic name for the Swedish welfare state. Sometimes referred to as "the Swedish Middle Way", folkhemmet was viewed as midway between capitalism and socialism.

The base of the Folkhem vision is that the entire society ought to be like a small family, where everybody contributes.

The problem arises when the power of choice that once belonged to the individual is now held by the collective or by their elected rulers. Without the daily exercise of choice the individual looks to the state rather than neighbor corrupting the bonds and relationships that once held society together.

Within the social and economic environment of such systems the individual is changed through practices and lack of individual dependence upon one another. Power of choice or what is called liberty to choose is inevitably centralized in the elected official of a bureaucracy and diminished in the individuals themselves.

Virtues that once made a society strong are lost through neglect. Since those virtues are the foundation of society their loss is not realized until the whole structure of this new Folkhem society begins to crumble.

The Sleeping Mouse

August 14, 2012 By Celia Farber

“...The erection of ...“Folk Hemmet,“ and what it was all about–the Utopian dream of the Social Democrats, to build a perfect country that would have everything going for it except the quality perhaps of being a country. [Identity, free will, destiny.]"