Liberal, Harsh Denmark
The money quote is a few paragraphs in.<p>&quot;Denmark has long led the continent in its shift to the right—and in its growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy.&quot;<p>Europeans have generally experienced good cultural assimilation from immigrant populations, although I imagine conservative Jewish populations are an exception, leading to some troubling parallels right now. American politics and journalism make those parallels uncommonly mentioned in national media, but we should be considering them as societies.<p>At the same time, lack of assimilation to these previously well functioning societies is troubling. The lack of liberalism (in a formal sense, not an American political sense) is here on HN, too; debate on the story about whether religiously  conservative men could&#x2F;should be able to move women away from their assigned seats on planes was shockingly vigorous to me. This seems like a battle that countries like France and America helped win decades ago.<p>I read a suggestion many years ago (well before Turkey entered the EU) that in part Northern European countries &quot;worked&quot; because of their social homogeneity, and their success at cultural assimilation of immigrant populations. However true that is or was, that homogeneity is seen as at risk right now.<p>Like anyone, I have some mixed feelings about this as seen from across the Atlantic. I both like and dislike America&#x27;s fragmented and vigorous culture, and I think of these more homogenous countries like I think of the small town I live in; with some rose colored glasses on about how &#x27;nice&#x27; they must be. And a small town can be nice. But, it can be nasty if you don&#x27;t fit in. And a small town with a massive population influx can lose its niceness quickly.<p>At any rate, it seems to me that Denmark should be allowed to ignore Syria if it wants, and also turn away refugees if it wants, or vet them on whatever criteria the country decides to. Right now liberal and right-wing (in the European sense) politics are ending up in bed together over immigrants, liberals on the behavior front, and right-wing on the culture front. Things seem likely to get more heated and violent before they cool down.