| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Europe | |
| Swedish Left: "Men! Pay the tax before you beat your wife!" | |
| 2004-10-05 | |
| A barking Leftist party that wants to institutionalise sexism? Noooooo. Say it ain't so... A group of Swedish politicians is proposing to hit men with a domestic violence tax, in order to pay for the costs to society of abuse against women. Sweden's parliament will open debate today on the Left Party proposal, which follows an Amnesty International report this year which found that violence against women increased almost 40 per cent during the 1990s and that 20 to 40 women are battered to death in Sweden each year. "It must be clear to all we have a gigantic social problem and cost in men's violence towards women and we must discuss how we are going to pay for it," said Gudrun Schyman, the party's former leader, and one of several female MPs who have signed the motion. "We have to have a discussion so that men understand that they have a collective financial responsibility," she added. The Left Party says the idea of men collectively paying for the social costs of violence towards women is no different in principle than the fact that poor people pay less tax than rich people. Uh. Come again?
In 2003, 22,400 cases of violence against women were reported to police, but the country's Council for Crime Prevention said the number could be higher because many women do not report abuse. Sweden already has the highest taxes in Europe, with a person earning a monthly salary of 30,000 kronor (£2,280) paying 35 per cent tax. Call me cynical, but might this rise in domestic violence be linked in any way to the growth of Sweden's Muslim population? If so, maybe a Muslim tax might be considered? Why not be egaliatarian and just implement a person tax? Then they'd all be happy. | |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #11 Muslims should be taxed more to fund rape counseling programs since Muslims commit a disproportionate number of rapes in Sweden. Of Swedish women of course. |
| Posted by: dennisw 2004-10-05 7:09:22 PM |
| #10 Is there a brow beating only discount? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-10-05 6:22:39 PM |
| #9 Hmmmmm - what if you're muslim? Do the values of your multi-culti contribution to infidel society outweigh the emergency room bills unpaid from your wife's admittance after a proper Islamic beating? Oh, and provide all female doctors and attendants for her, infidel pigs! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-10-05 5:15:31 PM |
| #8 "Dang! I could feel my I.Q. being sucked out as I read that article." Hell, I could feel the life being sucked out of me while reading it-- what a dour, depressive culture they must have, to have their government obsess over this kind of shit. Ah, the glories of Socialism. Power to the People! |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-10-05 5:00:30 PM |
| #7 I believe the counter-proposal is for tradeable tax vouchers that would allow one to sell the right to beat another's wife. Or, if sold at a discount, to beat some sense into a Swedish Left Party. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-10-05 4:22:03 PM |
| #6 Dang! I could feel my I.Q. being sucked out as I read that article. I have to have sympathy now for lefties. If they have to support those kinds of positions... it must leave them brainless. |
| Posted by: Leigh 2004-10-05 4:19:54 PM |
| #5 ...What if your wife's bigger than you? Ditto: can you beat someone's smaller wife? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-10-05 4:11:42 PM |
| #4 It just occurred to me: if you're a single or unmarried man, but paying the tax anyway, can you beat someone else's wife for your money? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-10-05 4:10:34 PM |
| #3 Here's our girl. OUTSTANDING lefty credentials she's familiar with the tax laws... Gudrun Schyman (born June 9, 1948) is a female Swedish politician. Currently a Member of Parliament for the Swedish Left Party, of which she served as leader from 1993 until January 2003, when she was forced to resign over charges of tax fraud. Shyman began her political career by joining a secterist Marxist-Leninist grouping (KFML) on the far left in the mid 1970s, but later claimed that she never had been a communist and that she only joined because she had been in love with one of the activists. Following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union Schyman, as the elected leader, she was successful in transforming the public perception of the party from a old communist party, albeit a reformed one, into a populist party, that was ideologically to the left and embracing feminism. Even though the public perception of the party changed under her leadership senior party members are still admittedly communists, and in some respects there seems to have been few changes at the core. Shyman's greatest asset was her appeal to the voters, which doubled the number of MP's during her leadership, and because of this her transgressions were forgiven by the party and recurring public scandals did not seem to affect her popularity. In 2003 she was charged with missleading the tax authorities by attempting to make illicit deductions. Part of her populist agenda was based on critisism against that kind of behaviour and this finally made it impossible for her to continue as the head of the party. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-10-05 11:56:46 AM |
| #2 From this week's News of the Weird: "In April, the St. Augustine (Fla.) Record announced the opening of artist Andrea Giovanni's exhibit on behalf of The Betty Griffin House, a local shelter for battered women; eight days later, the same newspaper carried news of Giovanni's arrest for allegedly beating up her boyfriend and trying to run him over with her car." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-10-05 11:46:28 AM |
| #1 If I gotta pay a tax, I'm damn sure gonna get my money's worth... |
| Posted by: BH 2004-10-05 11:26:17 AM |