Liberal ideas such as legal prostitution, allowing smoking weed, etc. Why other neighboring countries did not have such view about life, etc
2007-01-09 10:21:31 · 8 answers · asked by cabhite 2 in Travel ➔ Europe (Continental) ➔ Netherlands
The Netherlands is a small country which flourished on trade. If you were liberal, you could trade with a country, because you respected their ideas. That made the Dutch open minded.
Especially in the 17th century when many protestant people from abroad fled to The Netherlands, the Dutch found out that is was rewarded being so open: many intellectuals fled from their country and contributed to the Dutch thinking. Being banned from their own country for their ideas, they pleaded for a liberal view.
A second explanation could be the Dutch country is below the sea and people have to build dikes. People do that together and have to consult and work with each each other. That is why we have so many wind mills: the mills were used to drain the water out of the 'polder' and to preserve the dry land. Without cooperation, you could not live in the Netherlands because your land would flow over with water. So people had to listen to each other.
2007-01-10 21:52:50 · answer #1 · answered by Stillwater 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Dutch have travelled a lot over the past centuries. This has brougth us into contact with a lot of different cultures, with all their habits. Some of these habits have found their ways into the Dutch culture.
Secondly the Netherlands is a protestant country, which in general is a bit more tolerant than the Catolic religion.
But most of all, we have a rather pragmatic view on life. And that has nothing to do with taxes, as some people above here claim. Prostitution will happen, whether you legalize it or not. The dutch is that when you legalize it, you can regulate it. This has mainly has to do with hygiene, but also abuse of women and illegal immigration. With what we call softdrugs, it is mainly to focus the effort of law enforcement on the big fish, for example the smuggling of hard drugs and the associated crimes. People will smoke softdrugs anyhow...
2007-01-10 12:53:07 · answer #2 · answered by Martin D 3 · 4⤊ 0⤋
The Nordic peoples have been around for a good amount of time. Perhaps they understand that if a person is wanting to drink, the person will drink, no matter what a law says. If a person chooses to smoke Marijahana the person will smoke it, regaurdless of any laws. If a oerson chooses to have sex with many other people that also choose to do that, same thing.
So tax it and make some improvements to the education and healthcare of the people, it helps more people out and alot less people in billion $ jails for victomless crimes.
2007-01-09 18:34:54 · answer #3 · answered by Yawn Gnome 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Simply put, the Dutch are the most civilized people on Earth. What is legal in the Netherlands exists in every other culture, but they deal with it on a more common sense approach.
2007-01-10 15:56:44 · answer #4 · answered by eldeeder 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
neighboring countries to have liberal views. In Denmark's Christiana you can smoke weed and not get hasseled by cops and look at the Moulin Rouge area of Paris...very much like the Red Light district.
The dutch have just figured out a way to capitalize on people's vices. The have a sort of "if you can't beat them tax em" mentality. I've been living in amsterdam for 2yrs now and love it and truly believe that all countries should adopt that mentality. I mean you're not going to stop people from doing bad things...so why not tax the hell out of it and make money off of it?? Make sense to me.
2007-01-10 09:18:03 · answer #5 · answered by silv2078 4 · 3⤊ 2⤋
They are decades ahead of most other "western" cultures. And they are not run by multi-billion dollar corporations intent on sucking every cent they can out of public coffers.The U.S. government prefers to make a profit from "crime",even though many of their "criminals" are incarcerated for non-violent and victimless crimes. Perhaps that is why they have 25% of the entire world's population of prisoners.The money spent on prosecuting and warehousing people for "soft drugs" (like marijauna) has led to a situation thats leaves other major crimes and criminal acts unchecked due to a lack of funds and manpower.Decriminalising and legalizing some of their laws in regards to unenforcable and victemless crimes, has given them all the funds needed for them to concentrate on real crime,with public support, and allows them to deal with their social problems,instead of just throwing away money and incarcerating (at a greater cost to the public) these so-called "criminals". They seem to prefer to deal with their social problems and not to allow private corporations to profit from these "crimes". Profiting from crime,hmmmm, shouldn't that be ilegal?
2007-01-11 08:21:56 · answer #6 · answered by Logical Earthling 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I fully agree with Martin D a 100 percent.
2007-01-10 14:07:39 · answer #7 · answered by Martha P 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Good question! I am not sure, but the more north you go the more liberal they get, Scandinavian countries are very liberal.
Maybe it's their way to fight the cold :)
2007-01-09 18:36:00 · answer #8 · answered by Valerie v 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋