Scandalous News from Norway: What If All the Planet's Welfare Systems — Supposedly Proof of the Left's Superiority Over Capitalist America — Prove to Be Little More Than So Many Scams?

I have often said that the dream of the world's leftists is to make a world where all citizens are de facto welfare recipients (an update from the serfs and the peasants that they used to be during feudalism and in prior eras). This, far from incidentally, in turn explains why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world, since statists in the United States as well as in the rest of the world are enraged that Americans made a rich and successful country with the minimum involvement of politicians and bureaucrats, and not only that but indeed made it the richest and the most successful country on the planet.

As California and other states seem to be heading in the direction of fraud-soaked Minnesota (the home for many Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century), it appears that the nation's welfare systems throughout the American nation might be little more than a scam.

But for the statists, American and foreign alike — whether they turn out to be true believers or hypocritical conspirators — the international situation is far worse than that.

In view of the fact that the global left's major talking point — that leftists like the Democrats and all the Socialist-leaning Europeans — are far more tolerant and compassionate than the egotistical brutes in the capitalistic United States (or, at least, then the neanderthals of America's Republican Party), it would be highly problematic if the welfare systems throughout the rest of the West — and the rest of the world — proved to be a scam as well.

That is what might be happening in the region — Scandinavia — whose countries are often lauded as the very top model of a healthy government and a healthy nation. Certainly, Norway's reputation for honesty and humility, for good governance, and for “least corrupt in the world” rankings has been taking broadside after broadside in the wake of the Epstein Scandal.

And if Norway turns out to be so filled with (for want of a better word) corruption, can Sweden and Denmark be far behind?

Indeed, none other than one of neighboring Denmark's top two newspapers, Politiken, has twisted Shakespeare's Hamlet line and has been wondering aloud if there is something rotten in the kingdom of Norway.

As the World Economic Forum's Børge Brande becomes the latest Norwegian VIP to go down in flames, the New York Times weighs in with a tidbit of rare good news, wholly thanks to the Winter Olympics: According to Lynsey Chutel and Louise Krüger, Norway’s Record Olympic Medal Haul Is a Welcome Distraction From Scandal:

Days before the Winter Olympics, the country was riveted by scandals that raised questions whether Norwegians abroad had betrayed their national values. U.S. Justice Department files revealed how chummy Norway’s future queen, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. At the same time, her adult son stood trial for rape. The embarrassment extended beyond royalty when police charged former prime minister and past Nobel committee chair, Thorbjorn Jagland, with “gross corruption” over his relationship with Mr. Epstein.

Other prominent Norwegian diplomats who have served in international organizations also face scrutiny for their relationship with Mr. Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The revelations fueled outrage in Norway, where elites, including the royal family, are prized for humility. 

 … But for some, these victories have prompted as much soul-searching as celebration.

“Norwegians are simple, sober people, and we see this in the athletes,” said Daniel Roed-Johansen, a columnist who writes about sport and society for one of Norway’s largest newspapers. 

 … Just as the revelations in the Epstein files showed cracks in Norway’s high-trust society, a recent cheating scandal on Norway’s ski jumping team showed that national sport is also vulnerable to corruption, Mr. Roed-Johansen said.

Into this morass steps 

Rebecca Mistereggen

 with a stunning article that is far more telling than that in the the New York Times. It is entitled The Habitus of Norway’s Elite: Lies, Corruption, and the Absence of Consequences.

The skeletons keep tumbling out of the closet.

The Epstein case’s slimy grip on the Norwegian elite is only a fraction of how they’ve been screwing over ordinary Norwegians for years.

[One of the most recent examples] is Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide apologizing for “mistakes in handling” his own conflict of interest when his son was picked as an intern at the Paris embassy just before Christmas.

Translation: He assumed he would get away with it. Just as former Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s thought she could get away with her husband profiting from stock trades influenced by political decisions she made while in office. The “consequence” at the time? She was denied assistance from the Prime Minister’s Office when she asked whether they could effectively babysit her husband’s stock trading if she was ever re-elected. After all, she claimed she had no idea what the man she shares a bed with was doing. Apparently that is not a prime minister’s responsibility.

 … They seem to believe they can simply ride out such matters, while ordinary citizens would face serious consequences for similar conduct.

But that is hardly surprising. They have been getting away with this for years.

Over the past decade alone, Norwegian politics has been marked by a steady stream of scandals involving financial misconduct, conflicts of interest, commuter housing abuses, travel expense irregularities, plagiarism in master’s theses, stock trading, inappropriate relationships, and abuse of power. Numerous ministers have resigned

 … The problem is that they often reappear in positions of influence.

It’s not just Erna’s husband cashing in on his wife’s policies. Anniken Huitfeldt, now Norway’s diplomat in Washington D.C., a job she was handed without applying, which is controversial in itself, was supposedly clueless about her husband’s massive stock trading while she held the post as foreign minister.

Then there are the “favours for friends”, what most people would call corruption, along with résumé embellishments and other irregularities.

 … [The many cases mentioned], emerging from what appears to be an endless closet of skeletons, demonstrate a basic truth: power corrupts. Politicians should not serve more than two terms, neither in ministerial roles nor within the bureaucracy.

A System Designed to Protect Itself

Norwegians don’t elect their prime minister or cabinet ministers directly. Governments can appoint ministers whom voters never supported.

Politicians cannot be prosecuted for lying to the public. That provision was removed in 2005.

… When you add up the changes, raising the threshold for forming new political parties, limiting voters’ ability to alter candidate lists, repealing Section 105, transferring sovereignty to the EU despite two referendums rejecting membership, the result is a democracy made significantly less democratic.

An untouchable elite has emerged. One that believes it can apologise on television, express how “deeply sorry” they are, and then “take responsibility by remaining in office.” Jens Stoltenberg did precisely that after the July 22, 2011 terror attacks, accepting “overall responsibility” yet choosing to stay on in order to “implement reforms.” Since then, Norway has endured further attacks. After the Oslo shooting, the security service admitted it lacked oversight of how many Islamist extremists operate in Norway. Yet it priorities “anti-state attitudes”, that is, citizens critical of those in power, as a threat to democracy.

Which democracy?

A democracy does not survive on self-congratulation and false rankings as “least corrupt in the world.” It survives on real checks and balances, real consequences for abuse of power, and respect for voters’ mandates.

When apologies replace accountability, and accountability means remaining in office, the states is not governed by the people. It is an elite managing itself, investigating itself, disciplining itself by temporarily stepping aside, only to return a year or two later.

Criticism of the state does not threaten democracy. The total absence of consequences for those who govern does.

When skeletons emerge year after year without real repercussions, we’re past 

forgetfulness. It is a systemic pattern and problem.

… Yet the response is familiar: Apologies, “we are reviewing the matter,” expressions of regret, and proposals for parliamentary commissions appointed by the very institutions under scrutiny.

It leaves a bitter taste.

That is not justice. It is a controlled, self-contained process in which the same networks rotate back into influence, immunity is preserved, and responsibility is diluted until no one is truly held accountable.

 … it is merely another chapter in the story of an elite that consistently evades responsibility while ordinary citizens pay the price.

How can one claim to live in a democracy when voters are asked to choose between deception and fraud?

Related: • Denmark may have free universities and a national health system, but what is its free education and health care actually worth? 

• We’ve all been guilty of projecting some kind of utopian fantasy on the Nordic countries 

• Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream" 

• Note to Americans Who Believe Europeans' Health Care System Is the Way to Go 

• You really can’t have a Scandinavian-style welfare state without a broad high tax burden 

• Sustaining a benevolent nanny state is proving to be challenging even for the notably generous Danes 

• The Happiest Nation on Earth: “Way too many Danes think ‘What’s in it for me?’ instead of considering what’s best for Denmark” 

• 36-Year-Old Dane on Welfare Since She Was 16: the "Danish model of government is close to a religion" 

• Europe's Superior Health Care System: Wasting an entire day at the hospital 

• Worse Than Albania — Waiting in Sweden's national health care queues can take over a year

• Scandinavia’s quality of life didn’t SPRING FROM leftist policies; It SURVIVED them 

• The Nobel Prize is really Obama's payback for disciplining the unruly United States and taming it to be a member of the European family of nations 

• 52% of the Norwegian population receives government financial aid; A health care worker in Norway is "not hired as a guard dog but trained to see suffering" 

• But Apart From That Pesky Little Detail, Europe's Health Care System Is Unquestionably a Model for America to Follow 

• Charity: Some Statistics You Rarely Hear About… 

• The land of humblebrag and its drunk, depressed, lazy, tumor-ridden, pig-bonking bureaucrats 

• Epstein Scandal: No Matter How Clever You Think Trump Is, You Do Not Appreciate His Brilliance Enough