Swiss may have best immigration policy.

[Montegriffo]

Not so quaint when they wake you up in the middle of the night with their incessant clanging.

[doc_loliday]

They don't even need a wall.

[Smitty-48]

Can't stand gratuitous noise polluters, I'd chuck them out of the helicopters with the commies, two fer one deal.

[DBTrek]

Can't stand gratuitous noise polluters, I'd chuck them out of the helicopters with the commies, two fer one deal.

Good thing you have your own country to live in, eh?
We can all just be in our own countries, if we don’t like the others.
Good deal.

[Smitty-48]

Can't stand gratuitous noise polluters, I'd chuck them out of the helicopters with the commies, two fer one deal.

Good thing you have your own country to live in, eh?
We can all just be in our own countries, if we don’t like the others.
Good deal.

I'm the leader of the NIMBY's round here, no doubt, but we have an ultra strict noise by-law, 24-7-365, oh and we have it enforced, make no mistake, they know who I am down at city hall, but I just make them enforce the laws on the books, no more no less.

I have a sound pressure meter, I am monitoring at all times, and I have no compunction about summoning the by law officers, whatsoever.

[clubgop]

100 db cowbells? Anyone calling bullshit on this batshit crazy lady? Pretty sure those bells aren't as loud as jackhammers.


Witness the bucolic horror.

Yeah it might be 100 db in a stampede, but if that is the case then cow bells should the least of concerns.

[BjornP]

When I said she has the right to speak to the Swiss about their cowbells I was talking about a moral right, (a distinction in English from actual constitutionally or lawfully recognized rights) in response to the claims that she was somehow an asshole, or morally in the wrong for complaining about Swiss culture while living there. I am saying she was morally correct and not an asshole to criticize another culture for their cruel practices , no matter where she is from or where she lives, because wrong is wrong and right is right. I was not saying the Swiss are legally obligated to be her audience.

About cultural relativism, I am denying the idea that to criticize cruelty is to "impose ones morality" on another in an unfair manner. I never said or implied that it was "un-culturally relativistic" to criticize other cultures, I am saying criticism of other cultures is compatible with both universal morality as well as relativistic morality.

I can respect the right of a culture to be different only so far as the culture respects the individual's rights. For I don't recognize the "right" to take away rights, that is not a "right" of any sort, if you are confused about the matter I am sorry for you.

Ah, well I deny that our Western human or civil rights are universal, because they're obviously not when you look around the world. I want to live in a society with freedom and human rights because I agree with and consider those rights to be worthwhile, reasonable and just. Not because they're part of some Platonic ideal of freedom and human rights we've drawn from the Aether.

I am fairly sure that Swiss citizens are all afforded the same sort of freedoms you'll see in several other European countries. Obviously, those freedoms apply to citizens, though. Having a "Person applying for citizenship is a pain in the ass"- disqualifier as part of citizenship application is not a moral wrong given that, while rights are individual, this woman was applying to join a specific community, a society. They get to decide if she belongs or not. The applicant does not.

Criticising animal cruelty isn't imposing one's morality - nor do I say that it is, indeed I linked to a Swiss study saying the same thing in my first post. But the cultural way Americans communicate with each other, for example, can be considered rude in some countries, whereas the way Danes communicate with each other would be considered rude by Americans. There are methods of communication, cultural codes if you will, to how you are supposed to communicate in any given country, if you want people to take you seriously.

[BjornP]

100 db cowbells? Anyone calling bullshit on this batshit crazy lady? Pretty sure those bells aren't as loud as jackhammers.

The assertion isn't coming from her:

https://www.thelocal.ch/20140925/study- ... -cow-bells

The findings, reported by newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag, came as part of a doctoral dissertation carried out by agricultural scientist Julia Johns and a fellow researcher at the top-flight Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ).

The pair strapped 5.5kg bells to more than 100 cows in 25 farms across the country and monitored their activity, head movements, reactions to sound and feeding behaviour during a series of experiments.

They concluded that cow bells can create noise levels of up to 113 decibels, the same as a chainsaw or a pneumatic drill and well over the legal limit of 85 decibels.

According to the researchers, it’s possible that thousands of cows – whose hearing is more sensitive than a human’s – have already been made deaf through wearing a bell.

Speaking to Schweiz am Sonntag, project manager and ETHZ scientist Edna Hillmann said some of the 100 examined cows were unresponsive to sound.

“In humans we would expect a hearing impairment to develop after being exposed to this high noise for a certain length of time,” Hillmann told the paper.

[Smitty-48]

Aren't the animal welfare activists after the Swiss farmers over that? I seem to remember a protest in Germany, all about Swiss cow bells and how it was animal cruelty.

[BjornP]

Dunno about Germany, but it's mentioned in the article that animal welfare groups have argued the same thing prior to the report.