I think Czechia might just be the best country in the world.
- Europe’s best gun rights (just further liberalized)
- But lower homicide rate than UK/France/Germany because no aggressive Third World minorities
- Social liberalism without the poz and purple-haired SJWs
- Also most atheist European country
- But with a higher fertility rate than Holy Poland nonetheless
- Sane foreign policy
- Richest country in ex-Communist Europe.
- Has more industrial robots per capita than France or UK (the word “robot” comes from the Czech/Slavic word for “worker”).
- 40% cheaper than the US.
- Member of the Schengen zone.
Okay, someplace like Switzerland or Norway might give it a run for its money, but if I were a Westerner looking to downshift to someplace nicer, affordable, and more European, Czechia seems to check all the boxes.
Is this about right, or do I have an overly rosy view of the Czechs?
Are we supposed to refer to the Czech Republic as “Czechia” now? I’ve never heard this name before.
Yes. This is one of the few name changes that make patent sense.
You are correct, in my assessment. Czechia is remarkably affordable, even in Prag (I use the German/Scando spelling because to-hell with France). I was in Prag recently and it was cheaper, even with the airfare, than a holiday in the US would be. That said, it is quite flooded with tourists.
Some things I like: women are beautiful (if not quite to East Slav levels), food is fantastic, pilsner is fantastic, mostly pleasant pre-war buildings, Americans can buy property. I’m thinking of investing myself. Prag stands to be the tourism capital of Europe, now that London and Paris are basically ruined and Rome well on its way.
Sure this isn’t due to their gypsy population?
I’ve never been to the Czech republic… in Germany media reports about it often feature topics like crystal meth, child prostitution etc. (a lot of perverted Germans apparently cross the Czech border for such things; back in 2002 there also was an intriguing case when the CSU mayor of some Bavarian town went missing…turned out after a few months he had been lured into a trap by a Czech prostitute and murdered by robbers).
But on the whole it’s probably a very nice country. I especially like the “no religion” bit since I’m sick to death of Christian do-gooders.
@Anatoly Karlin: For what it’s worth, Czechia’s total fertility rate still appears to be way below the replacement rate of 2.1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Czech_Republic#Births_and_deaths
In turn, this means that Czechia’s population will fall–indeed, perhaps significantly fall–once its population momentum exhausts itself.
Also, in regards to corruption, Czechia does a bit worse than countries such as Poland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index#2016
In addition to this, in regards to guns, I have no problem with gun rights just as long as crazy people (of any race and ethnic group) don’t have any easy ways to get guns.
Finally, I suspect that, due to its high IQ, Czechia is likely to become a developed country by the mid-21st century. Indeed, overall, Czechia appears to be a pretty nice country. 🙂
Interestingly enough, “Lonely Planet’ included Lviv as one of the top 5 cities to visit within Europe in 2016. Doesn’t Lviv oblast share a border with Slovakia, close to Czechia? Good things must be going on in that part of Europe:
I haven’t been there in 10 years, but AP, a frequent contributor to this blog often raves about the place and has family there. AP, where are you, on vacation somewhere?
Eh, it’s been a “developed country” for quite a while…it was heavily industrialized even before WW1.
Yes you do, I say this not because its a bad place, but because its simply too small and that all that rosiness is going to be wiped out in a relatively short period. It is part of the EU and thus it is basically nation that has willingly signed its own death sentence, that endless flood of Africans entering through Italy will eventually start entering Prague and the Czechs will not be able to stop them because of the immense pressure from the EU.
They steered clear of the Euro, unlike Slovakia.
I agree to some extent, but at least Czechs seem to have quite sensible views about those matters. Their atheism is also a plus in this regard since it inoculates them against being blackmailed by the church (despite what Christian national conservatives like to imagine, at this point it can’t really be denied that the Christian churches in Western Europe are deeply subversive forces who are fully in support of mass immigration).
If things go well, they just need to hold out for a few years, until the situation in Germany and the rest of western Europe deteriorates to the point that the whole EU edifice breaks down.
Without a strong belief in G-d you end up like… contemporary Germany.
I’m afraid it’s gonna be a lot more than a few years. The German economy is holding up very well. France and the Nordic countries are headed for economic collapse but the German economy appears indestructible. Germans appear to have completely adapted to the rapefugee crisis so that isn’t gonna be enough to change things either.
It may very well be that the German people have simply decided to commit suicide and literally nothing will change their minds. But if that is the case then I don’t see the suicide being complete for at least another 30 years.
A lot of the people who are busy ruining Germany profess a strong belief in God (obviously I have no way of looking into their souls, but at least they claim that, and I see no reason to doubt it).
Anyway, the issue isn’t exactly whether one believes in God or doesn’t…it’s more about rejecting the encroachments of priests and bishops on the political sphere (which nowadays tends to happen mostly in support of mass immigration and other globalist causes).
@German_reader: True, Czechia has been heavily industrialized for over a century by now. However, half a century of Communism appears to have set it back a bit; indeed, its nominal GDP per capita is 2 or more times smaller in comparison to the same data for countries such as the Netherlands, France, Germany, Britain, and the U.S.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Indeed, my point here is that I expect Czechia’s nominal GDP per capita to approximately reach Western (French, British, German, Dutch, U.S.) levels by 2050 or so. 🙂
Until last year my other half (a Czech) and I had a property there. It’s one of the best countries for sure but, like everywhere else, it has its downsides.
Russian gangsters seem to run Prague but as long as you don’t get in their way they shouldn’t bother you. They seem to have corrupted the police though. Prague also has the non-whites – Vietnamese and Russian-speaking Orientals – but when it comes to the troublemakers among them, namely the Africans, there seem to be fewer today than there were from 2007-2014. Maybe the police have just cracked down on those pimping on Wenceslas Sq. or something. I’m guessing they eventually move on to the dumping grounds of Germany, the Netherlands, & the UK. I’ve never had a problem with Prague’s mostly multilingual Gypsies. There’s a substantial Ukrainian community in Prague that’s quite politically active, ie anti-Putin.
Last November//December I witnessed two public examples of men kissing one another on the lips in public – including at a Christmas market in Brno packed with children, with nobody but me seeming to care. They could’ve been isolated incidents but let’s face it once a non-Muslim country comes under American influence for a while it’s almost inevitable that public displays of homosexuality become not just the norm but sacrosanct.
Outside of Prague the cities aren’t that interesting. You’ve got Brno and Olomouc and maybe party town Ostrava but any foreigner is going to want to live in, or at least near, Prague. It’s still far cheaper and less vibrant than the main cities of Germany & Austria but more cosmopolitan, in a good way, than the cities of Poland.
Anatoly,
My wife and I were just there last month! We somehow were able to get our parents to watch the kids for two weeks. Not sure how we pulled that off. Anyways, my impressions of Czechia were very positive! Very good infrastructure. Highways were certainly high quality. Buildings were in very good repair. It was certainly a first world country. Also, even in Prague, the vast majority of the jobs (even lower skilled jobs such as hotel attendants, super market clerks, etc.) were filled by Czechs. Also, ll of the construction workers that I saw were Czechs. The only visible minorities that I saw (non-tourists) were East Asians. We went into a few villages too. They are definitely still lagging behind Prague but it seemed to be improving. My only complaint was the graffiti. My god the graffiti!
By the way, here are the recent growth rates for Central and Eastern Europe: https://www.ft.com/content/ba1301c0-4c54-11e7-919a-1e14ce4af89b
Highlights:
Hungary: 3.3
Poland: 3.5
Slovakia: 3.2
Czechia: 2.6
Considering that all of these countries have low levels of immigration, it is quite impressive. They all have low Gini coefficients. Growth is actually accruing to native born citizens.
It’s not just a meme that the Euro is basically Germany’s way to conquering Europe. The Euro is WAY undervalued relative to Germany’s economy. An independent Deutsche Mark would have a much higher value relative to the Euro. Whatever the Central and Eastern Europeans decide to do in the future, stay off of the Euro!
OT
Why do you have this annoying habit of replying to people without using the reply button? It makes it hard to track whom you are answering and following the whole thread.
The anti-Christian types here need to remember all religious/spiritual traditions whose vestiges endure in the current year are interpreted through the lens of liberal democracy. If you want an example in extremis , I would direct your attention to the large number of liberal apologists for Islam, a religion which endorses belligerent political violence in its founding text.
Yes, Christian institutions and leaders are fully on board with globalism, but they long ago subordinated their judgement to the liberal plain of reference. There’s plenty of Christian authors (like Chesterton ) who recognized the value of discreet national and local communities.
I think the key issue for these Eastern European countries (after continuing to resist immigration) is figuring out how to raise birthrates.
Lets cross one thing off the list. Banning abortion does not achieve higher birthrates (Holy Poland has a near total ban but mediocre reproduction). In my view, a healthy birth rate (lets say a TFR of 3 – 3.5 to give us a replacement level plus a generous cushion) is the product of of what a Hegelian might call ‘ethical institutions’. Nothing is more ethical than a society securing a its continued existence. What might ethical institutionalism look like when it come to the BQ (birth question)? In no particular order:
Cultural self -confidence/vitality plus an internalized sense of hope (early Nazi Germany and the immediate post WWII era in the Anglosphere were both marked by above average birth rates and a feeling their society was on the right track)
A state sustained economic architecture which makes having 2 + kids financially possible for Joe and Jess Average. This basically means a man should be able to provide for his family with income from a single job (remember that in developed countries, kids are a cost, not an appreciating asset).
The traditional family unit receiving the imprimatur of authoritative institutions and the general zeitgeist. The promulgation of a binding mythos which locates fertile couples between past and future generations as part of their identity. In other words, the semantic economy of a nation must be bound up with reproduction .
The protection of society from nihilistic and degenerate forces. Feminism is a birthrates killler, because few women can be career professional AND raise 3 kids. Faggotry in the general sense has a similar effect, not because gays suppress birthrates according to a biological logic (there have always been fags), but because modern culture worships the gay pride parade and what it represents – sex as a kind of gnostic expression of self-serving individualism where pleasure is the highest goal of a society. Sex becomes disentangled entirely from a superordinate psychological schema, and with it the future of the nation. In a viable society, none of the ‘properly basic’ foundations of the body politic may be brought into question, because simply by subjecting them to critical review, spiritual doubt is introduced into the minds of the populace. Why, we might even call it that a (((culture of critique))). (Recall that the Jewy androids in blade runner sought to tear down the human religion of Mercerism – )https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/04/philip-k-dicks-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-as-anti-semiticchristian-gnostic-allegory/ )
They dumped all their gypsies on Canada. Google it for yourself.
A few counter points to AK’s, which I largely agree with btw.
-People are noticeably more curt than in anywhere else in central Europe. Not necessarily negative, but will probably culture shock chatty yanks.
-The winters are unpleasant.
-It’s landlocked.
-It’s affordable for a reason; wages and salaries are still low, McJobs there pay less than the dole in western Europe.
-Richer Europeans have already been carpetbagging there for a while. Locals i spoke to when I was last there complained about large numbers of Italians doing it. Germans and Austrians probably blend in more.
Tsk. Germanized Slavs — sad, at times hideous. See also: Slovenians.
Kutná Hora, a city east of Prague, is also worth
visiting. Until the 16th century it was a competitor
to Prague.
IMHO, after Paris there is no city in Europe as beautiful
as Prague. To stand on the Charles Bridge and look at the
surrounding landscape is an esthetically overwhelming
experience.
I think the Western Slavs really lucked out when they
became part of the Western Christendom in the 9th-10th
centuries. In purely secular terms they got immediate access
to the cultural riches of Italy and France, and classics became
part of secondary education. All this applies, of course, to
all the countries of Central Europe, incl. Austria and Hungary,
i.e., a nominally Catholic bloc of countries between Russia and
Germany. This statement can be extended to apply to the Three
Seas nations (or the Intermarium) that also comprise Slovenia,
Croatia, and the Baltic countries. When Trump visits Warsaw in
early July, he will also attend the Three Seas Initiative Summit.
I think Trump feels he has more in common with the Three Seas
countries than with Western Europe, i.e., the former colonialist
countries that seem to be consumed by white guilt. The countries
of Central Europe never established overseas colonies – they were
often colonized themselves – and so have no reason to be plagued
by guilt. Although, let’s face it, it’s virtue by necessity. If Poland,
for example, were located where Holland is, it would’ve participated
in the colonialist orgy with the best of them.
One more thing – the Three Seas countries, all members of the EU,
also include Romania and Bulgaria, and have a total population
of about 110 million, one quarter of the EU 27. One topic at the Warsaw
Summit will be the Amber Road – an expressway connecting Estonia
to Greece, and passing through Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania,
and Bulgaria. Needless to say, Western Europe is not particularly
happy about that kind of integration on its eastern flank, and will
probably try to sabotage it.
Conspicuously absent is their largest trash pile in Europe.
A Czech joke:
What do an Englishman and Czech have in common?
They can both afford a holiday in Prague.
I remember reading in some historical essays that the Russian liberals of the 60s (Gorbachev and classmates) had a special affection for Prague, since it was the most liberal place to which they were allowed to travel.
Well, there were the massive and longstanding Couronian colonial intrusions in Africa and the New World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couronian_colonization_of_the_Americas
We once vacationed in Czechia. Wonderful vacation! Czechians remind me of Germanized Slavs with an Italian bent … the latter taking the bite out of and giving a decorative flare to their Germanization. The same for Austria, which suggests that Czechia’s culture was greatly influenced by the Austrians.
P.S. I noticed in the news that Czechia will likely pass on the Euro. They are also quick to learn the lesson that will ensure that that Czechia does not repeat the fiasco in Greece.
The historical center of Prague is just insanely beautiful. Not even Budapest, not even Riga, not even Санкт-Петербург can quite compare.
Anatoly,
Czechia is indeed a pretty great country, I’ve been saying this for a while. I’ve actually considered looking for a job there- they just launched a big initiative to increase science research funding, so there might be plenty of jobs opening up.
That said some of the reasons I like the CR might be different than you, so I’ll make some addenda.
1) The Czech political spectrum is actually quite Left-wing, though in a different way than western Europe. The KSCM is one of the few Communist parties outside the former Soviet Union to keep the name ‘communist’, and over the last few years their vote share has heald mostly steady while the Social Democrats’ has collapsed. The latest poll has them set (in the legislative elections later this year) to overtake the Social Democrats as the official opposition. And being the second largest party means more in Czechia than in Russia (since the winning party is probably only going to get 28% of seats rather than 60%). It’s interesting to note in this regard that Czechia was the only one of the former Warsaw Pact countries to democratically vote the Communists into power. (Well, Czechoslovakia, but IIRC the communists won in the Czech regions while losing in the less populous Slovakia).
It’s also worth noting in this context that the CR is the second most economically egalitarian country in the world, tied with Sweden and behind Denmark. (Back in the day, Czechoslovakia also had the lowest Gini index in the world after the GDR, although Belarussian SSR might have tied them, I’ve seen conflicting numbers for that).
2) The ethnonationalist party in the CR (the one that wants the Roma to all move back to India) is tiny and probably not going to get a single seat in the legislature. This is sort of the exception that proves the rule, since what this really means is that the mainstream political parties are already ethnonationalist / anti-migration to some degree, so the ethnonationalists haven’t been able to make any headway since their agenda is already largely being shared by the mainstream parties. Even the communists are against mass migration!
https://visegradpost.com/en/2016/04/21/interview-with-a-czech-communist-about-immigration/
3) I’m a (heterodox) religious believer myself, so I don’t share your idea that high levels of atheism is a good thing. That being said, I think it’s true that the Czechs do tend to have some of the good aspects of social liberalism without the pro-mass migration cultural liberalism of the west.
3) That being said, I can’t remotely see why you thing being in the Schengen zone, or lots of industrial robots, are a good thing. The first runs completely contrary to any sane idea of migration control (open borders within Europe isn’t much better than open borders outside it. Hell, I don’t even much believe in open borders within countries). And the second means furthering the stripping of fulfilling manufacturing and agricultural employment from people, which is one of the most serious problems of our time. Probably one of the four biggest problems in my book, along with mass migration, economic inequality and climate change. We need a world in which automation is controlled, regulated and limited, not where it’s embraced out of some deluded technophilic faith in ‘progress’.
They existed, but I wouldn’t call them either massive or longstanding. Exception that proves the rule.
Somewhat higher TFR would probably be a good thing in central Europe, but no, we definitely don’t want “fertility of 3.3-3.5″. Overpopulation is a real threat, and it isn’t just for Africa. I am as concerned by ‘Europe ceasing to be European” as the next man, but the solution there (both the one that seems more natural, and will be less of a strain on global resources) is to try to push Africa to lower their fertility rates, not to push Europeans to massively increase theirs.
We live in a world of finite resources, and we definitely don’t need (at a global level) more people, we need fewer.
Yea, although I’m nostalgic for the better aspects of communism, the Czechs ended up managing the transition to capitalism just about as well as it could be managed, avoiding the economic collapse and horrific rise in inequality that hit a country like Russia. They have a Gini index of around 24 or 25 today, second only to Denmark.
Hungary’s economic growth post-communism looks really weird: they didn’t really see a big increase or a decrease in GDP, so their growth rate plotted over time has barely a blip at 1989. They had a big rise around 2000, a big drop around 2007 with the financial crisis, and then up and down since then.
It’s worth noting that, Merkel and Macron notwithstanding, sentiment is moving against mass immigration in much of western Europe as well. We think of Denmark as a hotbed of cultural liberalism, but the Danish People’s Party (though they’ve never won an election) has actually been very smart about playing both major parties tactically against each other, pushing the conservatives left on taxes and pushing the social democrats to be conservative on immigration. (The DF is center left on economics and hardline on immigration, which underscores that there’s no necessary connection between leftism and liberalism). The end result is that even the Social Democrats leader, when asked whether Denmark should be a multiethnic society, said “no”. That’s quite a concession, and a big victory for the cause of those of us who want European countries to maintain their ethnocultural identities. Denmark also has some of the toughest immigration laws in Europe right now, including the law where incoming refugees have their jewelry confiscated.
Seems like a decent chance that in the next election, the Social Democrats might form a pink-brown coalition with the DF to get the center right out of power.
http://www.migrationnewssheet.eu/news/social-democrats-join-forces-with-anti-immigration-danish-peoples-party-to-demand-curbs-on-free-movement-of-nationals-of-other-eu-member-states
https://www.socialeurope.eu/2017/05/immigration-policy-turn-danish-social-democratic-case/
And then of course there’s Austria where the FPO, even though they haven’t won an election and have now lost their lead in opinion polling to the conservatives, have also been very successful at shifting the whole political spectrum to become tougher on immigration.
The situation, outside Germany at least, is not quite as bad as some pessimistically portray it.
Why is that a bad thing?
For both cultural and economic reasons, Canada (or the US) can accommodate the Roma better than the Czech Republic can. Having them move en masse to north America seems like a win win situation both for the ethnic Czechs and for the Roma. I doubt most of the Roma really prefer living in the CR to Canada, any more than the Czechs like having them there.
I recall Mark Ames describing Prague as boring and cargo cult feminism having made strong inroads there back in his eXile days.
That said, it’s been a lot of years since and that could have just been a phase.
You forgot to factor in the situation for Americans and Canadians. Not that I disagree, but I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about the prospect of Roma hordes if I was living in north America.
“Czechia”doesn’t make sense, it is an awkward, made-up term that will unlikely last. The native term “Cechy” would work better.
To answer your question: no, you don’t have an overly rosy view of Czechs. The country is experiencing something approaching a golden era with economy, demography, culture doing very well. In comparison to the failing and collapsing societies in the Western Europe, it is a kind of paradise (a bit Disneylandish, but real enough).
The incredible luck that the Central European countries experienced with being isolated after WWII (communism), is paying off today.
What I see in the West is rather obvious: they at this point fully realize that they have messed up, and that in most places it is not possible to correct the decades of bad policies with open borders and multi-culturalism. Their only hope – and maybe some traditional German schadenfreude and resentment – is to forcefully also destroy the Central European countries. So they are pushing the same crazy policies: “open your borders”, “accept migrants”, drop your “nationalist” culture, etc… It is unlikely to work, people understand what this all about. I would be willing to bet Central Europe will overtake the West within a generation in terms of living standards, stability, and even wealth (wealth always follows good life and safety).
Prague or London? Prague or Brussels? It is not even close.
Well, I live in North America and am a birthright American citizen (albeit one terminally disaffected with American society), so I’m not exactly wishing my problems on someone else here.
The fact is that America is 1) a richer society than the CR, 2) doesn’t have the specific history of antagonism with the Roma, 3) doesn’t have a distinct identity as an ethnic homeland or even a distinct majority ethnic group the way the Czechs do (“white” isn’t an ethnicity), 4) is much more individualistic and less tribalistic a place than the CR, 5) has a long history of welcoming and assimilating immigrant groups, and 6) has 33 times the population of the CR, so the effect of the Roma would be mostly diluted.
I think on balance the utilitarian case for having them move to America is pretty sound.
I vastly prefer Czechland, for aesthetic reasons, but I suppose it’s their call.
Let me fix that for you, please: “The Islamic invasion, outside Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, and the U.K., at least, is not quite as bad as some pessimistically portray it.”
Yes, the situation is as bad as it is portrayed.
The Roma would be much more diluted by moving to china or India, by your logic. Let’s do that. The Chinese wouldn’t put up with their constant thieving.
Weren’t they originally from India?
Courland itself was dominated by the German minority back then (actually until Latvian independence after WW1) with the majority Baltic speaking population being lower on the socio-political hierarchy.
Those colonial enterprises can therefore be interpreted as a specifically German thing.
England is already taking action to limit future immigration, at least as long as Theresa May remains in charge.
Conventional history is that Hitler was anxious to get a hold of Czechoslovakia in large part to get access to their industry, and in fact it was Czech industry that provided many of the tanks and weapons of the early Blitzkrieg in Poland and Western Europe.
I’m not aware of there having been an official name change. Czechia is less cumbersome than “the Czech Republic,” but it still sounds odd to me, I suppose because of its unfamiliarity.
The richest country in ex-Communist Europe is Slovenia.
lol at anyone getting their facts from Mark Ames, a sleazy loser if there ever was one.
Was there no other picture to use but an in-game screenshot?
On a side note up your anti-aliasing. You’re making my eyes bleed.
Nope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ
I think the way Germany has ended up has more to do with levels of trust and in-group preference than belief in the supernatural. Check out the percentages of people who answer “Yes” to the question “Can most people be trusted?” in the World Values Survey: http://imgur.com/a/RSzrt Unfortunately, Czechia wasn’t included, but you can observe the difference between northern Germanic countries and southern and eastern European countries.
What doesn’t make sense to me at all is China’s high percentage, which defies its reputation.
It seems way too late. I cannot imagine London and bigger cities ever changing back to actually being European. And any ‘action’ now runs into the unsurmountable chain migration dynamic. There are over 1 billion people in India, close to 200 million in Nigeria, etc… a significant percentage will inevitably at this point move to UK. They are coming and Theresa May is a blip. London as a European metropolis is gone.
(Somebody should ask Blair and the equally eager globalist Tories what were they thinking. And maybe hold them accountable, but that still wouldn’t change the reality.)
I agree with you it’s certainly too late for London, but Britain can serve as a cautionary example for the rest of Europe- the fact that Theresa May is limiting immigration now shows them that even the British are recognizing their mistake.
And of course there are parts of the UK which will remain majpority British for the foreseeable future, so maybe down the road some kind of partition will happen.
I hear the cautionary comments about ‘look at London and Paris’ daily in Central Europe.
Partitions are incredibly hard under the best of circumstances, with larger cities separating from more traditional country districts, it might be outright impossible. A more realistic approach would be to stop the mass migration immediately (when in a hole, the rule #1 is to stop digging), restrict family reunifications, student visas, etc… and try a 1-2 generations hard assimilation policies, with simply not allowing the ones refusing to adapt to stay.
But I don’t know that would ever be possible given the academia-media-culture dominance by the open-border enthusiasts, political difficulty, global backlash, and the fact that the rich and comfortable in general benefit from cheap labor.
So UK might just have no way out. Cutting one’s losses and trying Central Europe is not such a bad idea. But what a cosmic f…k-up!!!
Finally, we know where Karlin is going to resettle after Russia.
Those birthrates are scaring me to the point where I really wonder if at some point it won’t be possible to replenish entire countries and they will become empty of inhabitants.
That is so scary and nothing fictitious, it is happening!