Tired of having to say things like, “Socialism only works in a homogeneous society, and besides, look at the immigration problem,” when liberals trumpet the Scandinavian countries as a model for human society?  Kyle Smith has an antidote for the belief that all is well in Europe’s northern regions.

Danish happiness?  A modern exercise in gaming surveys.  Universal healthcare?  Make an appointment to have an obstruction removed from a child’s eye.  And why does Finland lead the continent in murder and suicide?

Read the whole thing, but the ending is too profound not to quote:

… The dead-on satire of Scandinavian mores “Together” is a 2000 movie by Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson set in a multi-family commune in 1975, when the groovy Social Democratic ideal was utterly unquestioned in Sweden.

In the film’s signature scene, a sensitive-apron wearing man tells his niece and nephew as he is making breakfast, “You could say that we are like porridge. First we’re like small oat flakes — small, dry, fragile, alone. But then we’re cooked with the other oat flakes and become soft. We join so that one flake can’t be told apart from another. We’re almost dissolved. Together we become a big porridge that’s warm, tasty, and nutritious and yes, quite beautiful, too. So we are no longer small and isolated but we have become warm, soft and joined together. Part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes life feels like an enormous porridge, don’t you think?”

Then he spoons a great glutinous glob of tasteless starch unto the poor kids’ plates. That’s Scandinavia for you, folks: Bland, wholesome, individual-erasing mush. But, hey, at least we’re all united in being slowly digested by the system.

(Via Instapundit.)