walking barcode sent me this clip today and asked me what I thought of it. It so happened that I had seen it earlier today, and since there are other Swedes here, I thought I'd just make an entire thread about it. The clip is split in two parts, here are the links:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... m-syndrome
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... rome-pt.-2

So, as a Swede, what do I think of this? The answer is simple: it's f***ing hilarious, in every sense of the word. I literally cringed with laughter watching it. How they manage to poke fun at both Sweden and America at the same time is just completely ingenious. There is a large thread about this in the Flashback Forum(Sweden's largest underground forum with almost 300,000 members, located on international servers to avoid Swedish law, thus making people able to speek freely about anything, truly exercising the right to freedom of speech far from political correctness and taboos) and the opinion is unanimous: it's absolutely brilliant. At first, I shook my head in exasperation at people like O'Reilly depicting Sweden as a sterile, bleak, grey and homogenous socialist state; and then I remembered that Sweden IS a sterile, bleak, grey and homogenous socialist state.

Of course, free education, free healthcare etc is all dandy, but it sure as hell makes for one lame country. Sweden is essentially a frozen shithole infested with the side-effect of the national battlecry, "welfare". A whole nation of people molded into a lump of grey clay, devoid of dreams, hopes and ambitions. The struggle to make everyone equal results in ambitious and visionary people being crippled, and "behind" people being frozen out of society. Out of sheer goodwill, we accept roughly 182 million Middle-Eastern immigrants per month, without having a fragment of the resources required for integrating these people. We welcome them to our utopia of freedom, welfare and brotherhood, then we stow them all away in concrete suburbs with no knowledge of Swedish, no job, and only a small wad of social security money to keep them from starving to death. Then we stop giving a shit about them and start focusing entirely on silencing the group of disillusioned nationalists(wanna hear the world's funniest two-word joke? Swedish nationalism!) who become increasingly frustrated with poorly integrated and equally frustrated immigrant youth who roam around and beat people up, because we can't provide them with anything substantial to do. We can't have Nazis in our utopia!

Swedes like to think of Sweden as the ideal middle ground between capitalism and socialism, but the truth is, there is no middle ground. There can be no perfect balance. Thanks to capitalism, the US has always been the land of opportunity where literally everyone is free to run for fame and fortune; hell, that's the reason why basically half of Sweden's population emigrated to the US in the 19th century. On the other hand, the US is littered with inbred Republican rednecks, delusional ideas about being the international emissary of democracy(thus gaining the US the right to march right into other countries and tell them how to do everything), ghettos, junk culture, the world's most malfunctioning healthcare system, poverty, obesity, and bad education leading to, for example, Christianity. Luckily, there is quite the general awareness about these things in the US, which the Daily Show guys perfecly depict throughout the clip(MTV Cribs, Baconnaise etc).

Of course, Sweden has its advantages too: most people are well-educated, rational atheists, there is hardly any poverty at all, free education and healthcare, the cities are clean and tidy etc. And to Swedish politicians, the aforementioned reasons make Sweden superior to America in every aspect. However, they left out one little detail. Sweden does not have a f***ing soul. In the US, people live. There is diversity, there are dreams, hopes and ambitions, melting pots of cultures; in short, the whole nation is teeming with life. Here, in this frozen, lifeless institution, people spend their entire lives as grey, disillusioned shadows, carrying out their menial jobs every day, all getting their identically sized share of the public welfare. Complete equality, complete homogenity, complete melancholy; a complete abscence of soul, both individually and nationally.

Alright, as you can see, this turned into a story about my inner war against my homeland rather than a discussion about said clip itself, but I saw it as a good opportunity to open a discussion about Sweden, the US, politics, or anything remotely related to this endless rant of mine. Also, once I get started on this topic, I simply can't stop. A fact that would appear as quite obvious by now.

And now, I'm off to watch "The Involuntary" whilst simultaneously loathing this hell I live in from the very core of my soul. If I could only have one wish granted in life, it would be a quick escape from here.

Capitalism is the answer - and the reason why the US has stayed alive as long as it has. socialism, and yes that is exactly what is being pushed onto us in several different shapes currently here, is always going to be the beginning of the downfall. it has never proven to work, anywhere ever.

And those 'redneck republicans?' i happen to be one. i am not exactly a republican, and I am not christian...nor redneck. BUT...i eat meat, and also think the smith's "meat is murder" track is one of the best from their song collection. i shoot guns, but don't stockpile to kill others. i drive a big truck, but it doesn't have a southern flag on it. i work for an evil capitalist company. i am a conservative. i want to pay my own way, and never ever ever want my government to do anything for me other than protect us from external threats. other than that - leave us the fuck alone so we can live and create on our own.

you, along with much of our own government today, has seemingly accepted this ignorant stereotype of us that believe in conservative values. we are, as our horrible president stated, clinging to guns and religion - except for the fact that there are thousands upon thousands like myself that don't use religion as a crutch for my beliefs - we just want freedom, motherfuckers. thats it. i want to be able to eat a goddamn hamburger any day of the year, and listen to the smith's meat is murder while doing it - all the while not finding a bit of irony in it. i can do and enjoy as i please, as long as i work my fucking ass off and don't take from others. i take care of my own family, and would never in my life want anyone else, including my government, to take that away from me by providing for us.

just thought i'd throw all that out there since we're throwing out stereotypes of americans via ignorant pieces of shit like jon stewart.

This is not a place for this kind of political talk guys, it only leads to flames.

Take it private or onto one of the many forums specifically for political "debate".