I must reply to Grunt - his image of Norway is heavily distorted:
Climate: Only Northern Norway is arctic. Where I live, we rarely have snow during winter. The temperature is only slightly colder than, say Denmark, Germany or UK.
Sweden: Any Norwegian can freely take residence or work in Sweden if he thinks that is a better place. And vice versa. Some move, for a time, but not many.
Gypsies and Romani: Transgressions has been made by the Norwegian government, but that is history. For many years now, gypsies in Norway have had many special benefits, like free villas and Mercedes cars.
Sami (Lapps): Transgressions has been made, but again, that is history. Now, the Sami have their own parlament, their own programs on TV and radio, their own schoolbooks etc.
"Skin heads beating exchange students to death": I've never heard about this. Though, there have been some racial motivated murders recently.
"Kidnapping of children of minority groups only to be placed in government homes and abused or experimented on": This never happens today, but I've heard of such incidents back in the 50ies.
"Lobotomies and such performed on minority members": Same thing. Happened in the 50ies, but not any more.
"They are just finishing paying off the relatives of the Jews they helped the Nazis murder": That's true. But we find the similar pattern in most European countries.
"I guess we all have our Quislings in the closet. I guess he is among the most famous of Norwegians, though most have probably never heard of him. Had Benedict Arnold taken over and helped kill all the blacks in the USA I guess he would have been a blot as big as Norway's toady.": This is a gross distortion of history. The Germans occupied Norway in April 1940. The king and the Government fleed to England. Quisling and his right-wing party was sympathetic towards Germany and made an arrangement with Germany in order to establish a national goverment to ensure Norwegian interests. Without Quisling's efforts, the fate of Norway could easily have been much worse. But Quisling had no hand in the deportation of jews. This was handled by German officers and Norwegian police, which was directly controlled by the German occupant authorities. The Norwegians who parttook in this did not know anything about the true destiny of the jews; they were told that the jews only were relocated to a new home in Poland or Ukraine. After the Allied victory Quisling was made a scapegoat for all the transgressions made by the Germans and sentenced to death. In aftermath, the name "Quisling" became synonymos to "Judas" to most Norwegians. Now, Quisling is only recognized by historians and neo-nazis.
Personally, instead of picturing USA as a nation of JWs, I think that the lifestyle of modern Norway is a copy of the American lifestyle. Norway is flooded with American films, TV soap, games, toys, sigarettes, soft drinks, hamburgers, sports equipment and clothing. Young Norwegians include American words and slang in their vocabulary and don't even know the Norwegian equivalents.
