> From: "tOM Trottier" <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> On 6 Jun 2017 at 13:12 re:"Re: [OM] Donald. (Duck)..."
>
>> The Swiss context is somewhat different. For its size, the country has a
>> huge army with little to do since nobody has bothered them since Napoleon,
>> so they spend their time hiking around the mountains with their guns.
>
> Huge army. No invasion. Coincidence?
I find Switzerland to be fascinating for so many reasons. Their “inverted”
governance is refreshing. Much power goes to the Gemeinde (municipality), all
the way down to immigration policy. Cantons (states or provinces) have a lot of
power, too. The Federal government is actually quite weak. This means that
certain areas have become havens for rich immigrants who lust after that red
passport, paying millions to the local government for the right to live in safe
seclusion.
The Swiss military is interesting in its own right. They have universal
conscription (for men, at least), and you serve in the reserve for life, unless
you become disabled. You must maintain and keep an automatic weapon for your
mandatory annual time in the reserves, which your employer is required to pay
for. (Handguns are not allowed.) Your military record and the politics of the
military are very important for getting and keeping a job.
It’s a highly regimented society. At least when I lived there, doing laundry on
Sunday was not allowed. We thought it was a joke, but one Sunday, while hanging
laundry, an old lady on the next balcone was wagging her finger at us and
making “tsk” sounds. A few weeks later, and our employer had a talk with us
about how to behave as a “guest” in their country. He was a bit embarrassed at
having to do this. This means: 1) we got turned in, and 2) someone in the
government found it important enough to contact our employer and have them “do
something” about it.
On the other hand, during the year I was there, they only had five murders, and
they were all foreigners. We had just come from New York City, a similar-sized
population that could have five murders A DAY sometimes!
I brought my roller-blades with me, which were looked down upon to the extent
that a bus (run by the PTT, their post office system) tried to run me off the
road! When I told the story at work, a colleague said (only half-jokingly),
“Well, have you paid your tax on those?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Anything that is not mandatory is not allowed. And anything that *is*
mandatory is taxed.”
The Swiss are great at ragging on themselves for this, telling such jokes
often. Q: “Why does Switzerland have so little crime?” A: “We have six million
policemen!” (Out of a population of six million, at the time.) It is said that
Alexander Solzenitsen said, after a human rights conference is Geneva, that he
couldn’t wait to get back to the Soviet Union, where he felt he had some
freedom.
On the other hand, the Swiss, while earning a reputation for stiff formality,
are kind and honest. You had to push a button to get change from our coffee
machine at work, which means that sometimes, someone would put in 50 rappen,
get their coffee, and forget to get their change, leaving the digital display
showing “0.15”. As a typical American, I would think, “My lucky day!” and put
in 20 more rappen to get a coffee.
So I was mollified one day when I went to the machine, and there on the table
beside it was 15 rappen with a note: “Someone forgot to take their change.” A
different place, indeed.
All this was brought back when someone on mu43 was asking about what lenses to
take on a Switzerland visit, prompting this article and photos:
https://www.mu-43.com/threads/alpine-lens-choices.92215/page-2#post-1028876
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
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