Article

2011-09-16 Europe

SWZ mind own business, at peace for over 600+, years defends its prosperity.

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Posted by Besoeker 2011-09-16 03:21|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 A little over 200 years ago, French revolutionary forces invade and occupied Switzerland. Other than the intervening civil war, they've had peaceful international relations.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-09-16 08:54|| 2011-09-16 08:54|| Front Page Top

#2 Highly recommend La Place de la Concorde Suisse (it's in English) by John McPhee. It's a short read, but discusses the Swiss Army / culture.

Posted by CincinnatusChili 2011-09-16 09:16|| 2011-09-16 09:16|| Front Page Top

You know what the fellow said in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime [Orson Welles]
The Third Man

Not quite accurate, but....

Posted by Eric Jablow 2011-09-16 09:22|| 2011-09-16 09:22|| Front Page Top

#4 the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love,

Heh. At the time the Swiss exported their manpower as mercenaries which were considered among the more professional [least likely to revolt or desert] and efficient killers of their time. The Swiss seldom gave quarter. The last vestige are to be found in the Swiss guard of the Vatican.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-09-16 10:16|| 2011-09-16 10:16|| Front Page Top

#5 Peace has its price. The Swiss have become immoral in their neutrality. Unwilling to help defend the West and yet basically hiding behind the defensive shield provided. Unwilling to fight the Nazi's yet profiting by selling and hiding Nazi gold. Pretty questionable stuff, I wouldn't hold them up as an example to anybody.

Posted by rjschwarz 2011-09-16 10:18|| 2011-09-16 10:18|| Front Page Top

#6 Switzerland is neutral and armed, not pacifistic.

When they did the right thing by not tolerating Gaddafi's hellspawn's crimes on their own territory they got zero help from the 'West.'

Switzerland's Schengen 'partners' applied heavy pressure on Switzerland to make them lift the ban on visas for Gaddafi regime elements.

The US government did nothing when Gaddafi regime threatened to storm the Swiss embassy in Tripoli. In fact a US State Department spokesman apologized to Gaddafi for having ridiculed Gaddafi's call for jihad on Switzerland.
Switzerland is representing the US in Iran so a threat to a Swiss embassy should be a concern of the US.

The 'West' has been unwilling to make minimal efforts to defend Switzerland even when under an implicit treaty obligation to do so.

Posted by Snusotch Uleper6339 2011-09-16 19:27|| 2011-09-16 19:27|| Front Page Top

#7 During WW II the Swiss government repeatedly and pointedly told the Germans that they would not surrender --unlike the rest of the Western European countries-- and that they would fight all the way back to the Alps and leave nothing usable in the country, whether factories or fields. They basically told them that they'd rather destroy their own country than be conquered.

But sure, continue to promote your ignorant hatred of Switzerland, a tiny country that was surrounded by the Axis on all sides, and HAD TO F*** TRADE with both sides at war in order to maintain neutrality. Unlike America, Switzerland has for centuries been determined to not get involved in foreign wars; part of that determination is the requirement by other countries that you don't SIDE with either party.

You may want to consider living at peace instead of running a militaristic empire and p**** on all other countries in the world. Destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam's Baathist regime in Iraq was plenty sufficient; Iran should have been next. Get out of these hellholes, stop sacrificing the young and spirited, just bomb enemies back to the stone age when they commit acts of war, tell them it will be worse next time, and be done with it. After more than 60 years, get out of Japan, Italy, Germany, etc. and let them protect their own peace and freedom. Learn some history. Don't be a self-destructive empire. And understand that America is --today-- in some respect far from being the best in the world.

Posted by Aware of History 2011-09-16 20:15|| 2011-09-16 20:15|| Front Page Top

#8 And understand that America is --today-- in some respect far from being the best in the world.

And soon the world will find out what happens when America, as imperfect as it may be, is not around to bail it out at its expense.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-09-16 20:54|| 2011-09-16 20:54|| Front Page Top

#9 Mr. History, were you aware that the Nazis put a big, fat, red J on the passports of their Jewish citizens because the Swiss demanded it? That way they could stop such undesireables at the border and send them back. According to family lore a few of my relatives made it in before the cut-off. Others did not.

The other price of Swiss "independence" was the German military trains taking a shortcut through your country from one side of the Nazi empire to the other. My German tutor, who grew up in St. Gallen -- a cousin of mine had been her family doctor there, oddly enough, before she moved to America in disgust at the rest of you -- remembers them keeping her awake many nights...and she resented deeply that none of the grownups ever talked about it.

When your banks give back what they refused to return to the Jews after the war, insted of getting caught over and over again shredding documents, then you might be entitled to own a high horse, let alone climb into the saddle and sneer down your nose from such a great height.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-09-16 21:06|| 2011-09-16 21:06|| Front Page Top

#10 Keep repeating your lies, miss tw. And for your education, I'm not Swiss, as you seem to believe. Swiss banks are so not "my" banks in any meaningful sense. I'm not going to spend time arguing with your misrepresentations, I've seen your anti-Swiss game previously.

While you believe the Swiss people had a happy and pleased life in cahoots with the Nazis and their extermination of Jews EVERYWHERE ELSE in EUROPE, you are watching the True America go down the drain. You're busy hating Switzerland? the only country in Europe that adopted a constitution and form of government actually based on the American Revolution?

As Procopius rightly hints, the end of America will lead to another Dark Age. Think about it. Your hatred of Switzerland is so important to you? You think your false accusations, and your bankrupt government who has extracted MULTIPLE TIMES OVER DECADES gold and money from Swiss companies and their central bank as "reparation" for being neutral during WW II, you think that government somehow still occupies a moral high ground? you think your anti-Swiss creeds do?

I hate what started in the middle of Europe 70+ years ago, and in Russia almost 100 years ago. I know and appreciate that you're at neither point, but I'm sorry to have to despise your obsession with trying to present Switzerland as some sort of Nazi stooge. I love the ideals and achievements of the American Revolution. We should all try to live up to those ideals, and one aspect of it is to practice the virtue of justice -- praise the good, don't propagate lies and hatred of the good.

I guess what I say won't change your mind, but maybe I'll motivate others to study history and focus on praising the good instead of claiming that the good are somehow evil. Meanwhile, let's be clear that your hatred of Switzerland is deeply and entirely unjust.

Posted by Aware of History 2011-09-16 22:43|| 2011-09-16 22:43|| Front Page Top

#11 God damn swiss, stealing our chocolates

Posted by Frank G 2011-09-16 22:53|| 2011-09-16 22:53|| Front Page Top

#12 the only country in Europe that adopted a constitution and form of government actually based on the American Revolution?

You almost sound like Trujillo!

Posted by badanov 2011-09-16 22:58|| http://www.freefirezone.org 2011-09-16 22:58|| Front Page Top

#13 Mockery! Well met.

I must have erred, trusting in America, truth, justice, and Rantburg.

Posted by Aware of History 2011-09-16 23:37|| 2011-09-16 23:37|| Front Page Top

#14 No, they are an example. An example of what happens when you make safety your priority. It causes you to compromise all of your Christian values. And should you do so, what is left of your soul when you die a safe death?

Posted by rammer 2011-09-16 23:46|| 2011-09-16 23:46|| Front Page Top

#15 I must have erred, trusting in America, truth, justice, and Rantburg.

Do we have a Pomposity Of The Day award?

Posted by SteveS 2011-09-16 23:46|| 2011-09-16 23:46|| Front Page Top

#16 I don't hate Switzerland, Mr. History, any more than I hate Germany, where I lived quite happily for a number of years. The war was a long time ago, after all, and most of those still alive were children But I don't put the Swiss up on a pedestal, either, not when I have information from eyewitnesses of their fine earthenware feet. Whence your own passion, pray tell, if you have no personal connection? And where did you get your information: reading the Heidi books, fondue dinners with friends, a ski trip? Or are you the child of Swiss emigrants, perhaps, loyal to the old sod, as it were?

Interesting site on the history of SwItzerland here, put up by a gentleman in Lucerne. According to him, my accusations are not so far off.

As for America, we here at Rantburg are doing our various bits to keep it all from sliding into the sea, taking the rest of the world with us.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-09-16 23:55|| 2011-09-16 23:55|| Front Page Top

#17 The gentleman appears to be posting from Denver...and his indignation is oddly focussed.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-09-16 23:56|| 2011-09-16 23:56|| Front Page Top

#18 I abide by facts and history, not anecdotes or invectives. You don't seem to believe that one can seek the former without foul motive or recourse to the latter. That's less than admirable.

And why would my present location matter -- does this piece of information give you a sense of superiority? is it relevant in any way?

Do stay the course, keep denouncing Switzerland and the Swiss people for remaining free from Nazi occupation. Surely all neighbouring people were so superior during WW II. I'll tell that to my relations in Switzerland, none of whom were sent to concentration camps, despite being Jewish. NOT ONE. Should I then try to reach their relatives from Germany, France, Austria, and Italy? how about the ones in the Netherlands? Poland? the rest of Europe? I've not witnessed your kind of anti-Swiss vitriol poured onto such other European nationalities. Is that significant?

Some day you may want to reflect on the consequences of denouncing the good while being immersed in growing evil. I don't quite understand why p**** on Switzerland is a badge of honour for some Americans. It rather reminds me of anti-Americanism in France.

Posted by Aware of History 2011-09-17 00:24|| 2011-09-17 00:24|| Front Page Top

00:24 Aware of History
23:56 trailing wife
23:55 trailing wife
23:48 rammer
23:46 SteveS
23:46 rammer
23:37 Aware of History
23:18 newc
23:11 newc
22:58 badanov
22:53 Frank G
22:43 Aware of History
22:21 JosephMendiola
22:03 JosephMendiola
21:59 Eohippus Phater7165
21:55 JosephMendiola
21:45 JosephMendiola
21:27 Frank G
21:21 Skunky Glin****
21:06 trailing wife
20:54 Procopius2k
20:50 Bob
20:26 Secret Master
20:15 Aware of History