When in the UK the experience with gypsies and or travellers was not good and they are their own worst enemy as there are problems wherever they go they no tax and believe they can put their caravans on any land they fine empty and when they leave its covered in debris.
I was really thinking more of Gypsies in Eastern Europe. In the UK they are marginal "problem". In Romania / Bulgaria (where I lived for almost a decade) they are a significant minority, representing between 5 and 10% of the population.
The views there aren't much different to your quote above, although the difference is that they are not nomadic as in Communist times they were forcefully settled and given houses / flats. So they do pay taxes (as far as anybody does in those countries). It's a difficult subject, but my point is that they have no one arguing their cause. On the other hand their way of life really doesn't fit into our democratic model. So what do you do? Do you force them to live like us? Or let them get on with their lives, knowing it will cause friction when the two cultures clash.
Fact is many steal any which way they can, largely in an opportunistic fashion (I've seen this many times first hand). Fact is also they are hugely discriminated against as a race by the locals, who don't consider them to be a part of their country. Well educated and in other ways clearly not racist people will come out with highly racists comments about gypsies. Still, there has never been any real aggressive behaviour towards them. eg no vigilantes going round with guns... They are largely left to themselves.
In fact I find some actions hard to grasp. eg My mother in law asking me one day to cross the road so I didn't have to walk past some gypsies, another day giving a clearly struggling gypsy a meal on her door step.
Will we ever see a Gypsy in F1?