Marco wrote:
Important things are happening in NL that are changing it for the worse. But the word and meaning of anti-social behavior is well established and used by people and politicians on the left and right.
I used the word anti-social behavior because it is a Dutch phrase, used by everyone from coffeeshop owners, local resident up to politicians.
The reason I post about politics of the Netherlands on ACD is I think people find it interesting, especially those who come here often. The political situation obviously closely related to what will happen in the CS scene, but overall its a lot more important in terms of what type of society will exist here in 5, 10 or 15 years (when some of us will still be living here). And its only my opinion, by the way. But I am constantly interacting with the Dutch and ask them all time about what is happening and will happen.
How about you step out of the echo-chamber (saw you deleted that post, btw) and move beyond semantics to try and understand why the border town issue is fucking up the CS scene for the rest of us. Peace
Well, usually I try not to put too fine a point on this because I don't have a vast amount of experience in the matter(and, like everything I post here, I could be very wrong).
The political, like the cultural scene, seems to be making a very, VERY hard shift to the conservative side.
I don't want to say "fascist" not because it is a loaded word, but there doesn't seem to be a a real military side of it.
It seems that the Netherlands is becoming progressively less and less welcoming to certain groups of people, regardless of financial benefit.
Immigrants(especially "non-white" immigrants such as Muslims) seem to be one of those less welcome groups of people, as are visitors that aren't there for the most benign of reasons(museum and cuisine seem to be good reasons, prostitutes and weed seem to be less ok).
To be honest, it seems that the Dutch want to have a wealthy, Dutch-only society where people visit for the shopping, history, and culture(and then leave).
This has been a trend that has been happening since(at least) 2000 or so and will probibly not go the other way until the society either collapses in on itself due to calcification(remember all those people that the Dutch don't want around? They are also the people that keep societies current) or outside influence(I said that the Dutch weren't fascist, that doesn't mean that they can't ever be).
In regards to the border towns and CS, I think it is a lot more simple. The border towns want to be left alone and not be bothered with CS. They don't like people who go to their town just for the day to pick up weed and then go home to sell it. They don't get that significant of an economic benefit from the shops or the day visitors that frequent them(also remembering that using cannabis is not really a "Dutch thing").
The thing I can't figure is why the people in the border towns care what people in Amsterdam are doing? Most people who are going into Amsterdam go straight from the airport or drive straight through and usually only see the border towns from their rear-view mirrors.
But then, it could be part of the huge turn to conservative views I was talking about.
So, Marco, how wrong am I here?
