The fun thing is I knew exactly what you were going to link to when I read the title and saw there was a YouTube embed. And I thought "oh no, not this crap again".

For those who haven't seen it or don't feel like watching 4 minutes of Dutch sentimental music: it's a movie of a boy singing a love song as some guy (Paul de Leeuw) kisses him on the cheek a few times while looking suggestively at the camera. Of course none of it is serious, and the reason why he does it is to break the boy's concentration and introduce humor to an otherwise boring segment.

Let me first and foremost state that no opinion of any single individual should be ascribed to a group of people so easily. Even though this guy, a comedian who thrives on making his jokes as controverial as possible, is popular in the Netherlands, it does not imply that we as a group of people don't take pedophilia as a dead serious issue. This seems obvious, but ever since this (decade old) movie was "found" online, people have apparently been using it as an excuse to accuse the Netherlands of being so morally defunct that "even this" is tolerated and part of everyday life. It isn't.

THAT SAID, nothing is actually going on in this video and I have no idea why people are complaining about it. He is trying to make everything seem as ridiculous as possible. The lyrics of the song are oversentimental and hold no credibility when a child sings them. That is the sense he is trying to multiply by about a thousand by kissing the boy, even though it is so obviously just a dumb joke without there being any foul play. This is all part of De Leeuw's kind of satire that he has exhibited throughout his career. He makes fun of everyone and everything while simultaneously offering a platform for his guests to make a serious case about something. He's joked around with people with Down syndrome on-stage too, and yet he is one of the few people who really know how to properly communicate with them (one of his close family members has the syndrome too).

It's perfectly acceptable to not understand Paul de Leeuw. He has a type of humor that isn't easily understood unless you're a naturalized Dutch person who is familiar with the mannerisms of our society. Conversely, it's incredibly stupid to make dumb assumptions like Verne's based on a 10 year old clip from a TV show.

Also I made a big deal out of this because virtually every site that linked to this movie did too. There are actually genuinely a lot of people who see this movie as proof of the social decadence that liberal societies face. I need to set the record straight anyhow!

Hey Dada, what's going on with politics in there? I always thought Holland was the land of the happy-happy-folk, very liberal and all that. Now I heard that the far-right won the EU elections there and even better, the christian democrats or something like that which sounds very conservative to me, held they're position as the largest party. So, the land of liber where you can smoke weed and vote for the pedophile party has been governed by christian conservatives all this time?

The current batch of government is very bland, boring and increasingly impopular. It's also the fourth cabinet Balkenende (the current prime minister). Currently, the Netherlands is going through tough economic times which has greatly invigorated populists, who have amassed quite a large quiver of arrows. Things like statistics pointing out how children of immigrants have far more run-ins with the police, the perceived reverse racism in favor of Islamic peoples, and the high number of people seeking asylum have contributed to the growth of a populist movement run by a guy (Geert Wilders) whose program is tailored to suit exactly those who feel they need something to blame for it all. He's got socialist policies, liberal policies, an impressive array of one-liners in lieu of actual practical ideas, he wants to "start spending money on ourselves", and is extremely good at making himself a victim of the "left-wing church" that is "tearing this country apart". The problem here is that nobody really knows how to deal with him. Other parties have reluctantly decided to try and hit him as hard as possible, sometimes ad hominem, which appears to backfire more often than not.

It's expected that the same thing will happen as the last time we had a party like that around the start of 2000: they get elected to government, are completely inane and incapable of working together with other parties (they have NEVER compromised) and ultimately cause the cabinet to blow up. Trust comes by foot and leaves by horse, and soon they'll all be looking for new jobs.

That's in regard to the EU elections.

As for the Christian conservatives: yes, we have them, but they're extremely small and are only part of the government right now because the other two major parties needed a handful of extra seats to gain a majority and could not reach an agreement with other semi-large parties. They agreed to give up virtually everything they wanted to do and are extremely insignificant.

The largest party right now is the CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) which is actually very socially progressive ("central" here). To give you an idea, they support gay marriage and abortion.

By the way we never officially had a pedophile party in the Netherlands. It was a bunch of old guys who wanted to legally have sex with minors (most awkward press conference EVER). The process for starting a new party requires 10.000 signatures before a certain deadline and they got like 10.

since we're on the subject would you mind explaining something for me dada? you know what e.f.r.o. is right. my question is why is this primarily a dutch thing? like all the efro superstars are dutch. if you don't feel comfortable talking about it you don't have to respond.

I think you need to watch less internet and read more newspapers, young man.

Paul de Leeuw owns, the dutch own, the netherlands own

Thank you.

See? That's how you talk to me.