As any libertarian, i am a huge fan of Switzerland.With all its problems, Switzerland is probably the most sucessful , free and prosperous country in the world.It has radical decentralization.No one knows who its president is.Property rights actually mean something ( there's a reason the villan always wants to fly there) So of course, this weekend vote really hurt.
Since the minarets ban in 2009 i've been worried that the country's sucess could lead to a desire of isolation and for locking immigrants out.Unfortunately, this seems to be happening.
Let's be honest: Switzerland, for all its virtues, is a pretty mediocre country culturally speaking.It hasnt really invented anything.Rolex? Founded by Huguenot immigrants. Nestle? Founded by immigrants. Even the World Economic Forum was founded by a german immigrant.All these people brought their ideas and skills to the country and Switzerland is better off because of them. Indeed, one of the most famous quotes ever made about Switzerland is from Orson Welles:
“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.”
And in fact, even this is untrue.The cuckoo clock, it turns out, is a german invention.
So, of course, Switzerland is worse off without its immigrants.But of course, Blocher and other lunatics will want you to believe otherwise. By the way, im happy i don't speak swiss german, because from what ive read , he is going as far as not regretting his relationship with apartheid South Africa and even dismissing the importance of Nelson Mandela.So im happy for my health i can't understand him or anyone at the SVP, otherwise i would probably throw up everyday reading newspapers.
In the end, the truth is that fear and envy are irrational things and with fear and envy swiss people voted.
