Norway- Liberal Utopia?

My mom has been a big-time Norway groupie ever since a high-school foreign exchange trip put her in touch with her midwestern scandinavian heritage. Our house growing up had lots of varnished wood things, straw animals, troll art, and other Norwegian knick-knacks, and around the holidays we always ate lefse, rice pudding, and funny little crackers spread with smoked fish and brown goat's cheese. Whenever we were hiking in the mountains of Washington State my mom would give a joyful sigh and exclaim, "Ah, this looks just like NORWAY!" We even hosted a Norwegian exchange student named Knut for a whole year while I was in highschool. I've personally never been there, but I have to admit, it seems like a pretty nice place.

Portly documentarian Michael Moore, who is reviled by the right wing but seems like a pretty good guy to me, was also impressed with Norway, as revealed in this short documentary. It's been around YouTube for a while, so maybe you've seen it before.



One thing that isn't quite perfect about Norway is that they're one of the three countries left that still kill whales on a regular basis. (The other two countries are Iceland and Japan.) Personally, I don't think that extremely rare, long-lived, intelligent animals should be killed for food. Especially not whales, which are some of the rarest, longest-lived, most-intelligent non-human animals on earth. It's also impossible to kill whales humanely...



In conclusion: Norway, A+ on the social justice for humans, but F- on the treatment of marine life.