Refugees, Immigration, and Other Complexities (split from News)

[Dashenka]

Passengers were stuck for 14 hours in the Eurostar service from Paris to London because illegal migrants had climbed on the train and the tracks.

http://news.sky.com/story/1545202/eurostar-fiasco-as-migrants-block-tracks

I wonder how much longer Europe can sit on their hands and do nothing at all about this problem.

[gaggedLouise]

Passengers were stuck for 14 hours in the Eurostar service from Paris to London because illegal migrants had climbed on the train and the tracks.

http://news.sky.com/story/1545202/eurostar-fiasco-as-migrants-block-tracks

I wonder how much longer Europe can sit on their hands and do nothing at all about this problem.

Yep, and the main central train station at Budapest seems to have become one of the flashpoints of the crisis. Yesterday it was locked down by police for a few hours around noon after it had been thronged with immigrants from the Near East aiming to catch a train ride north, looking to ultimately get to Germany, Sweden or - Britain..

After a while they opened the station again, but with entry checkpoints to aim to keep non-EU immigrants out.  Later on there were people demonstraing against the police outside, but no real bloodshed I think. Hungary is channeling most of the flood of refugees and immigrants coming up from Turkey and the Balkans. Apart from Greece which cannot handle anything much and is so far south, Hungary is the first stop on the road inside the inner core of "Europe land" (with the passport-free Schengen zone and fast international trains) , it's where people all want to get through, and saying that the cabinet, politicians and police in Budapest are frustrated with this is the understatement of the year.  :P

Of course, the horrible incident where seventy hidden refugees perished in a packed delivery truck that stood parked beside the motorway from Budapest to Vienna has only heightened pressure.

I personally think Germany and Sweden are doing the right thing by essentially treating anyone fleeing from Syria or IS as valid refugees, no matter what with the slow and fussy international bureaucracy, but we can't go it alone for very much longer. And there needs to be a shared EU response both to the migrant crisis in Europe and to the zones of unrest on the other side of the Mediterranean, which is feeing the flow in so many ways.

[Dashenka]

So being at risk for getting flamed at...

You cannot flee your home country, demanding that another country will just welcome you, give you a house and a job.

It took me miles of paperwork to be allowed to settle in the UK and work in the UK. Those immigrants from Africa cannot just demand they get the same thing, just because they are refugees. That is discrimination.


If they are fleeing the war, why not go to Algeria? Or Egypt? Or stay in Greece or accept what Italy is offering you.

[LisztesFerenc]

If they are fleeing the war, why not go to Algeria? Or Egypt?

  Why would Algeria and Egypt be more oblidged to take in refugees from other countries? Because they are closer? Because their skin colour is more similar? The West is better equipped to handle refugees, with our infrastructure and resources. Why they don't stay in Italy is a fair point, but Italy won#t be able to take all the refugees. There's also the unfortunate fact that a lot of refugees are fleeing problems created by the West, such as the Taliban and general destabilization leftover from the colonial era.

[Dashenka]

Well the way I see it there are two types of refugees.

The honest ones, who just flee the war or unrest and who are willing to go back to their country once it settles down.


The other ones, are the leeches. They flee their own country, hoping and demanding western countries will take them in, put them in a good house with income support funded by the government. These people do not go back when the war is over and will keep upsetting their new countries.

UNLESS... they are willing to integrate, learn the language and do a spot of work. Unfortunately, as a lot of countries can agree with, there is a rather big group that refuse to do any of that but at the same time demand a lot of stuff.

I'm all for helping people but not at all cost. Help is free, up to a point.

[gaggedLouise]

So being at risk for getting flamed at...

You cannot flee your home country, demanding that another country will just welcome you, give you a house and a job.

It took me miles of paperwork to be allowed to settle in the UK and work in the UK. Those immigrants from Africa cannot just demand they get the same thing, just because they are refugees. That is discrimination.


If they are fleeing the war, why not go to Algeria? Or Egypt? Or stay in Greece or accept what Italy is offering you.

Nobody's talking about giving them a house for free; at the point when they are getting processed in Berlin, Paris or Gothenburg it's more like low-cost barracks, disused schools converted into living quarters or rapidly built apartments. or regular refugee camps, like the one at Calais near the Eurostar line. The "immigrant dole" they receive from the authorities is extremely meagre and often we're talking about families with children.

If they want a house they will have to earn it by their own work, I'm sure they understand that. The authorities here are not giving away any houses or apartments, not even to the natives (except in rare emergency cases). I see beggars sitting outside food stores and those kinds of places every day around here lately, it's the same in Stockholm and Berlin. I don't think those guys are getting their pockets filled by the local town council.  :-(

Greece and Italy have no resources for now, no money or political muscle to help them, nor has Romania, Macedonia or Algeria. It's a hard situation, but if we don't want hundreds of thousands more to get killed on the ground in Syria, Libya, Iraq or Somalia, or some of them to get trafficked as hookers or slave labour, or really starved, we simply have to help them. Sending them back across the Med or back to Greece or Turkey will solve absolutely nothing.


EDIT: Also, I don't think most of those who fled the wars in Africa and Syria will remain here forever after those wars have come to an end and things look better at home. But that's going to take several years in some of those regions.

[Oniya]

Refugees tend to end up 'where they can get to'.  It's not necessarily a conscious decision to go to Place A as much as it is a desperate need to leave Place B.  Sometimes they get rerouted from one destination to another - this sort of thing happened in WWII.  Sometimes they are preyed upon by the unscrupulous who say 'Sure, we can get you set up in Place A for - how much cash do you have on you, by the way?'  This sort of thing happened (and still happens) in various Oriental countries.  Arrival at Place A in either case often doesn't go well, for obvious reasons.

When you moved to London, you had time and resources to set up for your eventual 'landing'.  When explosions are going off across the street, there is only time to grab your family and possibly some belongings and run.

[Dashenka]

I would agree were it not for the hundreds of migrants waiting at the Channel Tunnel to leave France and get into the UK.

That is a conscious decision to get to the UK, literally at all costs.

[gaggedLouise]

I would agree were it not for the hundreds of migrants waiting at the Channel Tunnel to leave France and get into the UK.

That is a conscious decision to get to the UK, literally at all costs.

I see what you mean Dasha, but I don't think you can blame them overmuch for "not getting the big picture" of conditions elsewhere in France plus politics. Most of those people likely just know very limited French or none at all, they are kept at the camp almost 24/7 so they have next to no contact with ordinary Frenchmen or even with countrymen living in France. Most of them don't read French or English newspapers anything much I figure. The Paris region (where many near easterns and African immigrants live) is like 200 km to the south-west, so getting *there* by legal methods from Calais is a no-go for most of them, and they cannot buy a train ticket either way (because I bet most of them don't have any valid national ID documents of the sort you'd need to book such a ticket, and you can't just jump on the Eurostar like you board a local train, can you?).

95% of those people don't have any way of checking anything much about what the legal procedure is for trying to immigrate to Britain or Germany,where to live in different parts of France,  or to train for a job or even set up a small business of their own at the refugee camp. They're pretty much stuck and they want to get out.  Of course they want to get to London!

[Iniquitous]

So you think they should stay in their country and die? I can understand the extremely long and drawn out process to become a legal citizen if they were just leaving because they want to live in another country, but these people are refugees. Displaced because their own country is imploding and remaining there would see them and their family dead. The two situations are not even comparable.

[Dashenka]

They've crossed the entire continent to get to the Channel Tunnel. Surely they'll find their way back to Paris if they had to.


And as I said, I'm all for helping them but up to a certain point. That is NOT the same as saying they should stay in their own country. Just because they are refugees doesn't make them more important than other people who are waiting for homes in the UK, or anywhere in Europe.

I got a friend in the Netherlands who's been waiting for a house to live in because she cannot stay in her current house. Everytime she is about to have one, refugees get the house because 'they need a place to stay'. The Dutch government (and many, many other countries as well) treat their own people as lesser subject in order to house those refugees.

THAT is wrong in my opinion.

[gaggedLouise]

They've crossed the entire continent to get to the Channel Tunnel. Surely they'll find their way back to Paris if they had to.


And as I said, I'm all for helping them but up to a certain point. That is NOT the same as saying they should stay in their own country. Just because they are refugees doesn't make them more important than other people who are waiting for homes in the UK, or anywhere in Europe.

I got a friend in the Netherlands who's been waiting for a house to live in because she cannot stay in her current house. Everytime she is about to have one, refugees get the house because 'they need a place to stay'. The Dutch government (and many, many other countries as well) treat their own people as lesser subject in order to house those refugees.

THAT is wrong in my opinion.

Well, I just find it hard to relate to that because the authorities here (in Sweden or any Nordic country) don't give away any houses - at most, they might pay the rent for an apartment as part of a sustenance income support ("poverty dole"), and you'd have to reapply for that every few months, but that would not mean finding an apartment, the city council pushing them past anybody else in the queue ir even setting up a meeting with a landlord. It's only about assuring that someone who does have a running lease on a flat doesn't get kicked out into the street because they can't pay the rent.

And I dare say it's the same in most places in Germany or France. In the UK I've heard there is this system with "council flats" where a low-earning family is granted a flat for themselves by the town and can keep it for decades, so it's really like it's theirs, but I don't think any other country does that these days. It's an old system in the UK, and those flats are mostly old and located in bulk in special low-cost built quarters of a town.

So I don't really know what kind of "promise of a house" your friend was cheated on in the Netherlands. Immigrants and refugees don't enjoy any quick-fix "right to have a house for free" anywhere in Europe as far as I know.

[eBadger]

Speaking from a nation largely founded by refugees (which even we seem to constantly forget about) I contest the idea that they are a bunch of lazy leeches. 

UNLESS... they are willing to integrate, learn the language and do a spot of work. Unfortunately, as a lot of countries can agree with, there is a rather big group that refuse to do any of that but at the same time demand a lot of stuff.

This is a large part of the immigrant paradox.  Locals want to give them little or nothing to work with, and are somehow surprised when they don't prosper into contributing citizens; or, when they do, decide they were given too much, too easy. 

Refugees tend to end up 'where they can get to'. 

This isn't just about geographic location, either - particularly in today's interconnected world.  Perhaps they have family in the UK, and want to connect with the only people in the world they know; perhaps they speak some English, and know they will be more comfortable and successful in a country where they can communicate; perhaps they simply aren't being all that welcomed in France and are under immense pressure to move along.  Note that refugee camps aren't really known for healthy living and safety. 

You cannot flee your home country, demanding that another country will just welcome you, give you a house and a job.

Actually, I think there is some notion of a basic human entitlement to the necessities of life, which every country and person should respect on some fundamental level.  Under the threat of violence, starvation, and persecution that the IS represents that should not have to be demanded.  I rarely like to speak in absolutes, and there is certainly a great deal of discussion that needs to occur about addressing the causes of emigration and sharing the burden, but I believe it is basic morality that children should not be left to starve or men and women to be murdered because we want to save a few tax dollars for another iPad. 

[Dashenka]

So I should stop trying to stick to the rules of my UK visa and stop waiting for three more years before I can get my British citizenship. I should just wear shambles, come on a train and claim I'm a refugee from a country that wants me dead, which being Russian, sort of is a valid point.

I'd get everything I got now and worked hard for, for fuck all other than being a migrant refugee.

I know I'm putting it mildly black and white but I don't see how that is fair in any way, shape or form.

[Iniquitous]

I was reading an article earlier this morning about the Syrian refugees coming into Michigan and what they get when they get here.

Each family receives a $900, one-time stipend upon arrival in the United States. The majority of the money goes towards rent; the rest goes towards basics like food and toiletries.

I suspect that every other country is similar in what they give to refugees.  If the UK is giving out houses, then it is because of the outdated system the UK has.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/syrias-suffering-families/syrian-families-escape-war-new-life-michigan-n419692

[gaggedLouise]

So I should stop trying to stick to the rules of my UK visa and stop waiting for three more years before I can get my British citizenship. I should just wear shambles, come on a train and claim I'm a refugee from a country that wants me dead, which being Russian, sort of is a valid point.

I'd get everything I got now and worked hard for, for fuck all other than being a migrant refugee.

I know I'm putting it mildly black and white but I don't see how that is fair in any way, shape or form.

Gee, it's hard news to me that there would be such a thing as a pipeline for getting a house or a job for free in London.  ::) The city on the river is one of the most expensive places to live, or to find an apartment, in all of western Europe. Many people coming to London to studý or work (on a regular visa) share an apartment in a suburb and pack themselves together four or five in a place of, like seventy square meters. If you're strangers or semi-strangers, that means next to no privacy - and still they'll pay a few hundred pounds each of them, every month. I'd be super surprised if refugees or people on short-term immigrant visas are given an apartment of that size all or themselves, for a family of two adults and a kid or something.

**


*looks around for purple deities* Thread breakout, please?

[Dashenka]

I never said a free house. But there are people who need houses just as much as the refugees do. These houses are cheap in rent. To put refugees in them when your own citizens need them as well is just stupid.

[Blythe]

*looks around for purple deities* Thread breakout, please?

Will split it to a new topic in a sec~

[Blythe]

And should be split now for it's own topic--I think I got everything that needed to be in here. Carry on, folks.  :-)

[eBadger]

So I should stop trying to stick to the rules of my UK visa and stop waiting for three more years before I can get my British citizenship.

Are you in immediate and acute danger of starvation or death?  These aren't people who are going to spend the next three years chatting on the internet, they're trying to avoid being dead.  Fair is not always equal and yes, you should be stuck waiting while their basic needs are seen to. 

By all means, though, if you think it's the easy way then head to Syria and make your way from there. 

To put refugees in them when your own citizens need them as well is just stupid.

Or basic morality.  'Need' is so very open to interpretation. 

[Dashenka]

Okay my friend is in a wheelchair, she lives in a flat, 7 high and has lost her job. She needs a cheaper house on the ground floor.

Sorry miss, we had one but we gave it to a Syrian family who needed it more than you do, cause you can go to hell while we help Syrians first, because they are much more important.


Yeah that's morality. Good luck explaining that to my friend...

[Iniquitous]

She has a place yes? Granted, it is inconvenient and she is in need of a cheaper place she can afford.... but the refugees have NOTHING. I'm sorry - I would put a displaced homeless family above someone who already HAS a place.

[LisztesFerenc]

Okay my friend is in a wheelchair, she lives in a flat, 7 high and has lost her job. She needs a cheaper house on the ground floor.

Sorry miss, we had one but we gave it to a Syrian family who needed it more than you do, cause you can go to hell while we help Syrians first, because they are much more important.


Yeah that's morality. Good luck explaining that to my friend...

  As a general rule, any policy is going to suck for someone somewhere, and finding such an individual does little to demerit the policy. For example, I don't find it inherently unreasonable that your friend, who I assume is single, subside on unemployment/disability benefits for an extra 6 month or so because priority was given to a family with young children. She should get a flat eventually, and she was always going to wait. The immigration crisis means she is going to wait a little longer, which sucks, but so does turning away desperate families with even less options than she has. Maybe her friends or possibly could help her, an option the immigrant family does not have for example.

[Vekseid]

   There's also the unfortunate fact that a lot of refugees are fleeing problems created by the West, such as the Taliban and general destabilization leftover from the colonial era.

This is a really fucked up statement, considering just why the these powers were subjugated in the first place.

There is a way out of the cycle of violence. 'Pure tolerance' is not it.

She has a place yes? Granted, it is inconvenient and she is in need of a cheaper place she can afford.... but the refugees have NOTHING. I'm sorry - I would put a displaced homeless family above someone who already HAS a place.

She votes.

There is certainly a way for both her and the genuine refugees to be taken care of, but that does not seem to be in the interest of the ruling parties in Europe at this time.

I wonder why.

[LisztesFerenc]

This is a really fucked up statement, considering just why the these powers were subjugated in the first place.

There is a way out of the cycle of violence. 'Pure tolerance' is not it.

  I don't quite get what you mean by this, or why you think pure tolerance somehow relates to what I said. Why was my statement fucked up?

[Dashenka]

And that is where we have a difference of opinion :)

I think somebody who worked her whole life, paid taxes, has been an asset to her community and her country should be given priority over refugees from a different country.


You probably disagree. Fair enough. :)


I'm not saying they should sent the immigrants back. Shelter them in a refugee camp until you got a more permanent solution for them.

[LisztesFerenc]

I'm not saying they should sent the immigrants back. Shelter them in a refugee camp until you got a more permanent solution for them.

  But a permanent solution...is going to be a house. And they are going to get it instead of a British citizen whether they get it immediately or after spending 2 years in a refugee camp.

[Dashenka]

A permanent solution is to end the war or the terrorists and send them home.

Guess I'm the only one who sees sheltering immigrants as a band aid on a shark bite. There is a much deeper problem that should be addressed but alright.

Can't blame politicians for not having vision like normal people have right? They're only human.

[LisztesFerenc]

A permanent solution is to end the war or the terrorists and send them home.

  So they stay in a refugee camp just until we sort out Africa and the Middle East? So many will spend their entire lives in the camp. Wouldn't giving them a house and a chance at becoming productive British citizens be a better long term plan? What happens if we end one war and a new one starts, or a new terror group emerges?

[Dashenka]

If by 'we' you mean the US... than no. God no.

You stay away from anything diplomatical, cause the only diplomatic solution the US has, is to arm the country, or bomb it.


If the rest of the world gets involved, if the reasons why people join IS are solved, if we listen to what the people in those countries are saying, IS would be wiped out in a few months. No more new recruits is the end for IS.


But yes, refugees being allowed into a country is a privilege, not a law. Don't overstay your welcome.

[Vekseid]

  I don't quite get what you mean by this, or why you think pure tolerance somehow relates to what I said. Why was my statement fucked up?

It's fucked up because you are advocating continuing the cycle of violence. British and other European citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with why these people are suffering must now suffer because 'of the West's actions'?

How long do you think this will be tolerated?

There is a reason why fascism - by whatever name it may hide under - is on the rise.

[Mithlomwen]

If by 'we' you mean the US... than no. God no.

You stay away from anything diplomatical, cause the only diplomatic solution the US has, is to arm the country, or bomb it.

Dashenka, please refrain from making sweeping generalizations like that. 

You take offense when members make similar generalizations regarding Russia, so it is not okay to make generalizations regarding the U.S.

[Dashenka]

It's fucked up because you are advocating continuing the cycle of violence. British and other European citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with why these people are suffering must now suffer because 'of the West's actions'?

How long do you think this will be tolerated?

There is a reason why fascism - by whatever name it may hide under - is on the rise.

Yes that. I was afraid it would land me in troubles saying it like that but that is what I mean. Why should my friend wait six more months in a house she really can't live in because half way around the world there is a group of dimwitted idiots displacing their own people.

I know it sounds cruel and hard but it's the truth.

Dashenka, please refrain from making sweeping generalizations like that. 

You take offense when members make similar generalizations regarding Russia, so it is not okay to make generalizations regarding the U.S.

You are right. I apologize. Shouldn't have said that.

[LisztesFerenc]

It's fucked up because you are advocating continuing the cycle of violence. British and other European citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with why these people are suffering must now suffer because 'of the West's actions'?

  How is accepting refugees advocating a continued cycle of violence? How is accepting refugees violent? I wasn't even advocating anything in the statement you quoted, just laying out how difficult the situation was due to the West's involvement in the Middle East, making it a little hard to say "your country, your problem" when the problem was caused by Western meddling. And, kinda. Sure the average British citizen has nothing to do with colonialism, but they also have very little to do with Britain's economic standing, and yet they reap the benefits of that freely. The West, mainly the USA, but other powers like Britain and France are not blameless, has a long history of meddling in Africa and the Middle East. I believe that if you are lucky enough to be born into a Western nation and inherit all the social, financial and political benefits, you should also inherit some of burden of dealing with the continued fallout from exploitation and interference your country rendered onto others, especially when it was these misdealing that contributed to the wealth the country enjoys today. We armed the Taliban and made it what it is today, so we cannot now flat out refuse to house refugees displaced by them.

Yes that. I was afraid it would land me in troubles saying it like that but that is what I mean. Why should my friend wait six more months in a house she really can't live in because half way around the world there is a group of dimwitted idiots displacing their own people.

  Because the borders drawn by Britain heavily contribute to the problem? Or helped arm the group that displaced them. Also that's another generalization, which you just apologized for doing in the sae post.

[Dashenka]

  How is accepting refugees advocating a continued cycle of violence? How is accepting refugees violent? I wasn't even advocating anything in the statement you quoted, just laying out how difficult the situation was due to the West's involvement in the Middle East, making it a little hard to say "your country, your problem" when the problem was caused by Western meddling. And, kinda. Sure the average British citizen has nothing to do with colonialism, but they also have very little to do with Britain's economic standing, and yet they reap the benefits of that freely. The West, mainly the USA, but other powers like Britain and France are not blameless, has a long history of meddling in Africa and the Middle East. I believe that if you are lucky enough to be born into a Western nation and inherit all the social, financial and political benefits, you should also inherit some of burden of dealing with the continued fallout from exploitation and interference your country rendered onto others, especially when it was these misdealing that contributed to the wealth the country enjoys today. We armed the Taliban and made it what it is today, so we cannot now flat out refuse to house refugees displaced by them.

  Because the borders drawn by Britain heavily contribute to the problem? Or helped arm the group that displaced them. Also that's another generalization, which you just apologized for doing in the sae post.

I'm sure my friend would love to benefit a little less from the 'Western wealth' if that means she can actually get a house she can live in.

The normal civilians never asked for the Taliban to be armed or for their governments going to fight a war everybody knew they couldn't win. I'm not talking of only the US. The EU jumped in as well, knowing the war couldn't be won. The civilians never asked for that, yet they are now the ones who have to deal with it.

[LisztesFerenc]

I'm sure my friend would love to benefit a little less from the 'Western wealth' if that means she can actually get a house she can live in.

The normal civilians never asked for the Taliban to be armed or for their governments going to fight a war everybody knew they couldn't win. I'm not talking of only the US. The EU jumped in as well, knowing the war couldn't be won. The civilians never asked for that, yet they are now the ones who have to deal with it.

  The refugees never asked for it either. Given the quality of live Westerners enjoy, I find inconveniencing them to be the preferable approach.

[Dashenka]

As I said, I'm all for helping and sheltering them. Just not at the cost of the local population.

[LisztesFerenc]

As I said, I'm all for helping and sheltering them. Just not at the cost of the local population.

  So Britain fucked up their country before they were even born because drawing practical borders would have been too much like hard work, helps arm a violent, de-stabilizing paramilitary force that drove them from their homes, then agrees to help them, as long as its not to the cost to the local population? I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure growing up in a refugee camp will leave some mental scarring on a child, which seems like a rather high price to pay to avoid bothering the locals.

  Its a difficult situation sure, because I am aware that Britain's first duty is to its own people regardless of past crimes, but I feel that a little inconvenience for someone who has a house but could do with a more appropriate one might be in order for the family that has no home.

[Dashenka]

So imagine this.

You have a wife, children, maybe a dog or a cat. At some point it all goes wrong. You lose your job, your wife leaves you, you have to pay allemony and dog gets hit by a car and needs surgery.

You need to sell the house and need a smaller, cheaper place. Every day you spend in your big house will cost  you a lot of money.

Finally you get that nice, small and affordable house offered, only to be told the next day that it's going to be given to a newly wed couple from Syria or Iraq, simply because they need it more than you do.



You'd sit down and go.. Oh well... that's fair. It's not their fault they had to flee?

[LisztesFerenc]

So imagine this.

You have a wife, children, maybe a dog or a cat. At some point it all goes wrong. You lose your job, your wife leaves you, you have to pay allemony and dog gets hit by a car and needs surgery.

You need to sell the house and need a smaller, cheaper place. Every day you spend in your big house will cost  you a lot of money.

Finally you get that nice, small and affordable house offered, only to be told the next day that it's going to be given to a newly wed couple from Syria or Iraq, simply because they need it more than you do.



You'd sit down and go.. Oh well... that's fair. It's not their fault they had to flee?

  Probably not, but then I would be under extreme emotional duress, and therefor would not be thinking too clearly. We generally don't let the victim choose the punishment for the accused for similar reasons.

  Plus I'm pretty sure once you get the house, you actually get the house. You wouldn't actually know you had been passed up in favour of someone else. And if you did, that's a flaw in the system and has nothing to do with immigration.

  So, got an argument other than an attempt to be emotionally manipulative?

[Dashenka]

  So, got an argument other than an attempt to be emotionally manipulative?

No.

[LisztesFerenc]

  Fair enough. I personally tend to be weary of stances that can only be supported by such measures.

[Dashenka]

OK.

[eBadger]

I'm sure my friend would love to benefit a little less from the 'Western wealth' if that means she can actually get a house she can live in.

I feel the expectation to get a house from the government defies that logic. 

As I said, I'm all for helping and sheltering them. Just not at the cost of the local population.

That version of help and shelter seems to define not helping them at all. 

It's fucked up because you are advocating continuing the cycle of violence.

I, too, am completely confused as to how 'integrating refugees instead of letting them die of starvation and exposure' continues the cycle of violence. 

Finally you get that nice, small and affordable house offered, only to be told the next day that it's going to be given to a newly wed couple from Syria or Iraq, simply because they need it more than you do.

So, I would have to keep living in a big house I'm not paying for? 

[LisztesFerenc]

I feel the expectation to get a house from the government defies that logic.

  Well done, I was looking for the right words to say that, I just could quite get them.

So, I would have to keep living in a big house I'm not paying for?

  More likely you've been evicted for not paying rent and are needing to stay with either family or friends or something. Which as I said sucks, but is an option available to you and probably not the refugees.

[Vekseid]

  How is accepting refugees advocating a continued cycle of violence? How is accepting refugees violent? I wasn't even advocating anything in the statement you quoted, just laying out how difficult the situation was due to the West's involvement in the Middle East, making it a little hard to say "your country, your problem" when the problem was caused by Western meddling.

I call you out for this and you run straight back to it.

Do you know why 'the West' (including Russia, here) bitchslapped the Ottoman Empire?

Of course 'the West' is far from innocent. Guess what? No modern nation is. The modern nation of Turkey rests atop a mountain of a solid fraction of a billion skulls. Even though they're genetically not even Turk for the most part. Or Arab. Not even by male descent.

The issue isn't directly with the refugees. The problem is threefold.

1) A lot of people - almost exclusively young, frustrated men - are trying to illegally piggyback on the refugee system, straining it further and running up crime rates, particularly a certain very emotionally charged one.

2) On top of this, the housing situation in London specifically is ridiculous. No relief is being provided to the actual citizens of the country who make up these nations. Many homes stand empty in Britain. It is fully possible for them to take care of both, but they don't.

3) Rather than focusing on the actual issues at hand, you, and people like you, are blaming people who themselves have committed no wrong, and saying they should just accept it.

Do you have the slightest inkling of just how toxic this is? You are creating class distinctions between nations. Do not create class distinctions between nations. It is a bad idea and does not end well. If you cannot absorb them fully, without stressing your own population, you cannot afford to host them.

And, kinda. Sure the average British citizen has nothing to do with colonialism, but they also have very little to do with Britain's economic standing, and yet they reap the benefits of that freely.

No, they put in their life's labor and moral ethic into creating their society. They have very much to do with Britain's economic standing. They are emotionally, financially, and most importantly, politically invested in their nation. They vote.

The West, mainly the USA, but other powers like Britain and France are not blameless, has a long history of meddling in Africa and the Middle East.

And you ignore just why that meddling came about. Yes, most individuals in the Middle East and North Africa had nothing to do with what their leaders did.  The citizens of what was once the Ottoman Empire an the various pirate states paid for it.

I believe that if you are lucky enough to be born into a Western nation and inherit all the social, financial and political benefits, you should also inherit some of burden of dealing with the continued fallout from exploitation and interference your country rendered onto others, especially when it was these misdealing that contributed to the wealth the country enjoys today. We armed the Taliban and made it what it is today, so we cannot now flat out refuse to house refugees displaced by them.

The only people who clearly benefited from Britain's rule over the world were the ultra-rich. For the rest of British society, it looks more like a wash. The same is true of pretty much all exploitation of other nations, with perhaps the singular exception of the US/Canadian expansion into what was relatively underpopulated territory. The vast majority of the wealth in the 'West' is the mere fact that wealth does not need all that much protection. That is very much a cultural thing, and not one dependent upon exploitation.

Passing this sort of blame onto the citizenry, making them pay for something they did not profit from, do not see themselves as profiting from, all the while the upper crust eats off of golden plates, is, well, rich.

And is only going to continue the cycle of violence once they start electing people who agree with them.

[LisztesFerenc]

I call you out for this and you run straight back to it.

Do you know why 'the West' (including Russia, here) bitchslapped the Ottoman Empire?

Of course 'the West' is far from innocent. Guess what? No modern nation is. The modern nation of Turkey rests atop a mountain of a solid fraction of a billion skulls. Even though they're genetically not even Turk for the most part. Or Arab. Not even by male descent.

  So no nation should attempt to atone for its past crimes/misdeeds because all nations are guilty of something at some time? I'm not saying the British never did anything good, a lot of Indians are proud of the legal system the British gave them, as well as other administrative aspects that remain to day, but the fact remains there was a darker side to colonialism that to this day effects the people who live in those regions.

1) A lot of people - almost exclusively young, frustrated men - are trying to illegally piggyback on the refugee system, straining it further and running up crime rates, particularly a certain very emotionally charged one.

  Got a source for that? I want to understand just exactly what "a lot" and "almost exclusively" actually means.

2) On top of this, the housing situation in London specifically is ridiculous. No relief is being provided to the actual citizens of the country who make up these nations. Many homes stand empty in Britain. It is fully possible for them to take care of both, but they don't.

  No relief? That seems hyperbolic. Council estates and social housing are a thing, even if the Welfare state was/is being reformed to fit with budget cuts.

3) Rather than focusing on the actual issues at hand, you, and people like you, are blaming people who themselves have committed no wrong, and saying they should just accept it.

  Why is these mutually exclusive? Why can't I believe that we should solve the problems that drove the refugees out, but also at least try and house them whilst we do, because it could take a while to sort the region out?

Do you have the slightest inkling of just how toxic this is? You are creating class distinctions between nations. Do not create class distinctions between nations. It is a bad idea and does not end well. If you cannot absorb them fully, without stressing your own population, you cannot afford to host them.

  So accepting refugees is toxic, but leaving them unable to provide a safe home for themselves or their children isn't? Also if you are saying Britain doesn't need to house non-British people, are you also creating class distinctions between nations?

No, they put in their life's labor and moral ethic into creating their society. They have very much to do with Britain's economic standing. They are emotionally, financially, and most importantly, politically invested in their nation. They vote.

  Yes they keep the economy running, but they didn't create it in the first place. Also the last election had a 66.1% turnout rate, so just under two thirds.

And you ignore just why that meddling came about

  Why we fucked up a country is slightly less important than the fact we fucked it up. Good intentions are always nice, but if you ruin someones life you should probably do something about that, even if it was an accident.

The only people who clearly benefited from Britain's rule over the world were the ultra-rich.

  So social housing, free healthcare, education, a grant and loan to go to university and the knowledge that I can get a job seeker's allowance isn't benefiting?

The vast majority of the wealth in the 'West' is the mere fact that wealth does not need all that much protection. That is very much a cultural thing, and not one dependent upon exploitation.

  So colonialism contributed nothing to modern Britain's wealth?

[Vekseid]

  So no nation should attempt to atone for its past crimes/misdeeds because all nations are guilty of something at some time? I'm not saying the British never did anything good, a lot of Indians are proud of the legal system the British gave them, as well as other administrative aspects that remain to day, but the fact remains there was a darker side to colonialism that to this day effects the people who live in those regions.

Colonialism did not spring up unprovoked overnight. British Colonial rule in India was very much a 'by the consent of the governed' affair.

  Got a source for that? I want to understand just exactly what "a lot" and "almost exclusively" actually means.

Wikipedia has a pretty solid collection of non-right wing nutjob sources.

Which itself is part of the problem. It's not like I can source Breitbart, the Daily Mail, or other wingnuts, but at the same time, if these are the only places people can turn for this sort of information, then these become the sort of sources of information that people will turn to. It is not healthy.

An in the Daily Mail's case, they are openly fascist. It's not remotely hyperbole to say fascism is on the rise as they become more trusted.

  No relief? That seems hyperbolic. Council estates and social housing are a thing, even if the Welfare state was/is being reformed to fit with budget cuts.

'being reformed to fit with budget cuts'. Cute.

  Why is these mutually exclusive? Why can't I believe that we should solve the problems that drove the refugees out, but also at least try and house them whilst we do, because it could take a while to sort the region out?

You can believe whatever you like.

The results of the policies you advocate are not dependent on what you believe.

There is an easy answer, of course. Tax the rich appropriately enough to fund it all. But that isn't going to happen.

  So accepting refugees is toxic, but leaving them unable to provide a safe home for themselves or their children isn't? Also if you are saying Britain doesn't need to house non-British people, are you also creating class distinctions between nations?

Giving people of one nation x while denying x to people of your own nation is toxic, yes.

People are not okay with this. Telling them they should be okay with this does not convince them that they should be okay with this, it in fact makes them feel antagonized and even less okay with this.

  Yes they keep the economy running, but they didn't create it in the first place. Also the last election had a 66.1% turnout rate, so just under two thirds.

I'm not sure what the point of this statement is.

  Why we fucked up a country is slightly less important than the fact we fucked it up. Good intentions are always nice, but if you ruin someones life you should probably do something about that, even if it was an accident.

To be perfectly frank, a part of me doesn't think this is an accident at all. It really does feel like there are figures in the world whom are attempting to drum up conflict between Muslims and, well, everyone else.

  So social housing, free healthcare, education, a grant and loan to go to university and the knowledge that I can get a job seeker's allowance isn't benefiting?

This entire argument was from Dashenka pointing out that a friend of hers was being denied some of this.

  So colonialism contributed nothing to modern Britain's wealth?

To the average modern British person? No.

To old and 'new' money? Certainly. But they aren't paying for this and you're not asking them to.

[eBadger]

The vast majority of the wealth in the 'West' is the mere fact that wealth does not need all that much protection. That is very much a cultural thing, and not one dependent upon exploitation.

Are you claiming that political destabilization has nothing to do with the legacy of colonialism, limited markets, export of wealth and centuries of efforts to remove power from local leadership and exacerbate regional and ethnic conflicts to facilitate foreign control?

British Colonial rule in India was very much a 'by the consent of the governed' affair.

That's...an interesting reading, sure.  But we're talking about the middle east, which - when Britain and France specifically had the opportunity to grant self rule, were expected by the locals who had fought for them to do so, and were being heavily influenced by others to do so, chose instead to partition the region up as spoils of war. 

Do you have the slightest inkling of just how toxic this is? You are creating class distinctions between nations. Do not create class distinctions between nations. It is a bad idea and does not end well. If you cannot absorb them fully, without stressing your own population, you cannot afford to host them.

I'm at a complete loss how that last sentence doesn't define a class distinction.  There's a "cute" frosting of wistful self-excuse, but this is a pure rationalization of 'they aren't us, so we don't need to do anything for them'. 

They are emotionally, financially, and most importantly, politically invested in their nation. They vote.

I am again unsure how the British right to vote makes it okay to let children from less free countries starve. 

Complaints of fascism aside, what do you think should be done to deal with the refugee situation?

[Dashenka]

Complaints of fascism aside, what do you think should be done to deal with the refugee situation?

Stop them from coming into Europe.


Tell them Europe can't handle it anymore and threaten to arrest them and sent them back.

[LisztesFerenc]

Stop them from coming into Europe.


Tell them Europe can't handle it anymore and threaten to arrest them and sent them back.

  1. They are people who frequently drown, starve or die of thirst trying to get to Europe. You really think threats will stop them when the previous hasn't? To say nothing of how exactly you plan on telling the refugees this. Are you going to advertise in their favorite magazine?

  2. I thought you said you were fine helping them (as long as they didn't cost the local populations)? Now you just want them flat out sent back, which is potentially a death sentence?

[Dashenka]

There's plenty of land nearby where they can go other than Europe. If it's safety they want, go to Saudi Arabia or Jordan. Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, all viable options.


These people don't just want to get to safety, they want our wealth. They don't see how much they disrupt normal life in Europe for people who had nothing to do with their shitty situation.

Germans are already complaining about their country being full and with their past, most Germans are VERY carefull in publicly stating this. It has come to a point that even the most conservative of Germans are beginning to get restless as Germany is expected to house 1 million refugees this year alone.

Who's going to pay for that?

I'm still all for helping but on our terms, not on their terms as storming train stations and disrupting our lives.

[LisztesFerenc]

There's plenty of land nearby where they can go other than Europe. If it's safety they want, go to Saudi Arabia or Jordan. Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, all viable options.

  Which the possibly exception of Saudi Arabia (whose economics I don't even pretend to understand. Apparently there's no taxes because the state owned oil industry funds everything?), all those nations would appear far less capable of handling an influx if refugees than Europe. Why should they take them in? Because they are closer? Because their skin colour is more similar?

Germans are already complaining about their country being full and with their past, most Germans are VERY carefull in publicly stating this. It has come to a point that even the most conservative of Germans are beginning to get restless as Germany is expected to house 1 million refugees this year alone.

The numbers appears to be contest est. Human Rights Watch says: "The latest estimate of the numbers of people using irregular means to enter Europe this year via the Mediterranean or the Balkans is approximately 340,000"

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/03/refugee-crisis-isnt

[gaggedLouise]

Dasha, please, seriously consider: from 1918 and into the twenties millions of Russians fled west to get out of a home country that had become violently hostile and oppressive to them, for all sorts of reasons, and where you could get shot in the head or sent to a camp just for your opinions or who your parents were. Plus the economy and foodstuffs situation was largely in chaos. It wasn't that different from what people in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Sudan are fleeing from today.

You of all people should be able to see the parallel. Okies, those Russians didn't ask for any support when they arrived in France, Germany, Britain or America, but that was because the idea of a government being morally obliged to help refugees in emergencies like that simply didn't exist at the time. If there had been anything like today's rules in 1920, you'd have had tens of thousands of Russian refugees lining up for some kind of kick-off help and a roof over their heads in Paris and London at the time.

Some of those who fled from Soviet Russia did have a personal or family fortune to pay their way, bribe officials and support them, but most really didn't.  Some had *lost* their family savings, their home and their job during the revolution and the civil war. Millions of those people arrived dirt poor. Just like with many Syrians and Asians today, right?

[Dashenka]

Yes but what about the rest of the people who got into the country as refugees in other ways than the Balkans or the Med. If these were the first and the last refugees into Europe okay, but they are not and will not be last.


This isn't about 1920's or 1940's or whatever, this is about now. The countries these are fleeing too, cannot cope with these large numbers of immigrants at once. Also there is no control over who is coming and where they are going.

There is no regulation, no control, no nothing.

Am I the only one seeing this as a potential risk? Let's say these people end up in Germany or France or fuck knows where.... Nobody knows they are there, they are not getting money because of this. They get hungry and desperate and will need to find ways to get food.

I'm not saying all will end up like this but even if 1 percent of that very low 340.000 people ends up like that, you got 340 potential rapists, robbers, murderers or petty thiefs running around in Europe.

But we only wanted to help them. Good luck explaining that the their victims.


If they come in, controlled and in orderly fashion so that the government know where they are, how many there are, etc, my concern would be a lot, LOT less than it is now.

All this does now, is fuel the right wing extremists even more, make them even stronger and as a result, drive an even bigger wedge between 'the west' and muslims. But I guess I'm the only one who sees this so...

Let's agree to disagree.

[LisztesFerenc]

Am I the only one seeing this as a potential risk? Let's say these people end up in Germany or France or fuck knows where.... Nobody knows they are there, they are not getting money because of this. They get hungry and desperate and will need to find ways to get food.

I'm not saying all will end up like this but even if 1 percent of that very low 340.000 people ends up like that, you got 340 potential rapists, robbers, murderers or petty thiefs running around in Europe.

But we only wanted to help them. Good luck explaining that the their victims.

  Again, appeal to emotions. Its also very hard to explain to a victim that their attacker/abuser will walk because of insufficient evidence. That doesn't mean we should abandon trials.

[Dashenka]

Well okay let's leave out all emotions then. But do warn me the moment the world stops caring about emotions please? I need some time to off myself...

Open up the borders and let everybody get in. Let's deal with the results of it later on when it becomes an issue. For now, close your eyes, sit back and enjoy the ride. It's not going to be a pretty one trust me.

I'm done with this.

[LisztesFerenc]

Well okay let's leave out all emotions then. But do warn me the moment the world stops caring about emotions please? I need some time to off myself...

  You don't have to pretend emotions don't exist, just avoid arguments that rely on situations in which me (or anyone else you are debating) either being under a lot stress or is in an emotionally charged situation. It's fine for you to raise concerns about whether our infrastructure can handle an influx of immigrants and raise concerns about integration and crime. However it becomes emotional manipulation when you ask me to explain to a victim why it happened to them.

  Similarly, it is fine for me to raise the argument that it is humane and this important to offer aid to suffering individuals. But if I were to ask you "Imagine you/your child was an immigrant fleeing from ISIS having lost everything, would you want a chance at a new life in Europe for yourself/your child?" its becomes an attempt to emotionally manipulate you.

[Dashenka]

If you say so.

[Oniya]

This would be the reason not to debate in that fashion.

[gaggedLouise]

Yep, the reason I pointed to Russia after 1917 is because that situation was fairly similiar to what's happening now in several ways - people fleeing from a violent autocracy and civil wars, often without any way of making safe arrangements for their new life in the west before they left - and it was an ongoing situation over several years. And okay, because it's a time Dashenka has some familiarity with - it's her country. But after that I made a point of not saying "imagine it had been you fleeing the Cheka and they had killed your mom..." and so on. Every story of a refugee is unique in that way; it was just the general outlines I wished to bring in.

And given a bad choice, I'd say I do prefer 340 possible rapists here in Europe to millions more people in the south risking to be killed, a hundred thousand more women sold as slaves and their sons put in Quranic schools or turned into boy soldiers, plus millions more people starving...in those countries in the Middle East. It really is freaking bad enough as it is, locking the borders on them everywhere is just not a civilized thing to do.  :-(

[Dashenka]

First of all, the 'good luck explaining that' was never meant personal. If I would be personal you would know, trust me.



Secondly, I agree it's not a civilized thing to do to close the borders but where do you draw the line? There is a couple million more people in those countries. Do we let them all in unconditionally?

[eBadger]

Stop them from coming into Europe.

Tell them Europe can't handle it anymore and threaten to arrest them and sent them back.

Fair enough, your opinion is valid, although it seems like a rather casual way to actively participate in sending millions of people to starvation, murder and subjugation. 

It does, however, legitimize any action they take to not die.  Such as acts of terrorism, or creating NBC weapons, or outright war and murder to obtain resources.  And few societies, given the choice to kill or be killed, choose a quiet death. 

Secondly, I agree it's not a civilized thing to do to close the borders but where do you draw the line? There is a couple million more people in those countries. Do we let them all in unconditionally?

Is there no middle ground between leaving them to die and unconditionally granting admission?

[LisztesFerenc]

First of all, the 'good luck explaining that' was never meant personal. If I would be personal you would know, trust me.

  Okay, what about when you asked me how I would feel if after losing my wife and having my dog run over, whilst needing to pay alimony I couldn't afford I then lost out on a nice affordable house to a refugee couple. Was that not meant to be personal either?

Secondly, I agree it's not a civilized thing to do to close the borders but where do you draw the line? There is a couple million more people in those countries. Do we let them all in unconditionally?

  Somewhere above 0. I don't believe we are at breaking point yet. There will be some difficulties and some logistical problems as they are settled, but I don't buy the idea that at thiss tage we will bankrupt ourselves housing the refugees.

[Dashenka]

Is there no middle ground between leaving them to die and unconditionally granting admission?

Not if you have no idea where they all are.

Somewhere above 0. I don't believe we are at breaking point yet. There will be some difficulties and some logistical problems as they are settled, but I don't buy the idea that at thiss tage we will bankrupt ourselves housing the refugees.

So the breaking point has to get there first? Western Europe will have to be divided to the bone and on the brink of civil war before we say enough is enough?

Great option. I'm moving back to the free sovereign nation of Russia the day that happens...

[LisztesFerenc]

Not if you have no idea where they all are.

  Britain survived the Polish immigration, despite the government at times being clueless about the actual number. Besides, if we want to know where they are, we can process them and get them into the system, and the problem will be solved.

So the breaking point has to get there first?

    No, I never said that. I don't have too much confidence in the foresight of European society and politicians, but I like to think they will be able to tell somewhat in advance when we can feasibly no longer handle a new influx of immigration, so the breaking point would never have to reached, Civil War can be avoided and everyone will be happy and we can even repel those alien invaders.

[Dashenka]

  Britain survived the Polish immigration, despite the government at times being clueless about the actual number. Besides, if we want to know where they are, we can process them and get them into the system, and the problem will be solved.

    No, I never said that. I don't have too much confidence in the foresight of European society and politicians, but I like to think they will be able to tell somewhat in advance when we can feasibly no longer handle a new influx of immigration, so the breaking point would never have to reached, Civil War can be avoided and everyone will be happy and we can even repel those alien invaders.

Did they? Then why did UKIP get so big? Because everybody's so happy about the Polish?

[eBadger]

Not if you have no idea where they all are.

Nothing can be done about immigration without knowing where every refugee is?  I don't follow your logic at all. 

[Dashenka]

I do apologise.

[LisztesFerenc]

Did they?

Yes, and a lot of studies suggested the net economic result was beneficial: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11210078/Shouting-about-the-economic-benefits-of-migration-isnt-the-way-to-persuade-people.html

Then why did UKIP get so big?

  A lot of factors. Anti-immigration sentiment was one certainly, but so was the euro-skepticism vote, their patriotism and likely the personality of their leader.

[gaggedLouise]

Did they? Then why did UKIP get so big? Because everybody's so happy about the Polish?

Surely British society hasn't cracked open yet under the weight of some Polish low-cost workers, plumbers and students...?


Many of the UKIP folks would blame anything bad on the Poles, Arabs, Turks and other immigrants.

[Zakharra]

 I can honestly say I am with Dashenka on this. A country is responsible to its citizens first, second and third. Refugees, as sad as their story might be, should have NO expectation of receiving any aid other than the bare basics, and to be held in camps if need be. The host nation should not be required to house or care for them as good as their own citizens are, and there comes a point when that nation has a right to say; 'nope. No more. We've taken all we are willing to. Go away' to any new refugees.

LisztesFerenc: Britain at that time could absorb hundreds of thousands to millions of Polish (or any) immigrant/refugees at that time because there would have been more work for them to find. Nowdays much of the work many poor people used to/could do is now done by a few people on heavy machinery. There simply are not the jobs for them to have, so they put a greater strain on the nation.

    No, I never said that. I don't have too much confidence in the foresight of European society and politicians, but I like to think they will be able to tell somewhat in advance when we can feasibly no longer handle a new influx of immigration, so the breaking point would never have to reached, Civil War can be avoided and everyone will be happy and we can even repel those alien invaders.

Why should it even get to that point anyways? As sad as it is for the refugees, the EU should not be required to take in millions of undocumented refugees 'just because'. Even for humanitarian/ethnic reasons. Pardon my language, but fuck that reasoning. Humanitarian and ethics don't mean shit with the security and safety of a nation and its citizens when you're asking/demanding that they take in tens to hundreds of millions of foreigners. No one knows how many refugees the EU could take and if people like you had their way, the EU would likely blow past that limit by a couple of million because you'd rather be humanitarian and helpful, even to the extent of infringing upon the quality of life of your own citizens.

As for turning the future refugees back, even if it means they will die, too bad. That's life. There comes a point when a nation HAS to say; 'no more' or it will cease being a nation with a unregulated or unrestricted influx of refugees. If you bring in too many foreigners at once, you have a very high risk of losing your nation when the characteristic culture and society of that nation changes. Throw in several million refugees that have a hard time adapting to Western cultures and you have an explosive mix.

[Dashenka]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34142512

Happening now.

I rest my case.

In other news the White House stated the migration problem was a European problem, the US would not get involved in, but that Europe would have to remind themselves this was about human beings.


So the U.... *bites tongue*

I'm going to leave this conversation. Those migrants are perfectly safe and sound in Hungarian shelters but they refuse to go there because it's not what they want? Well I got news for them, a couple hundred of kilometers east of where they are, there are people trapped in bombed cities with nowhere to go who'd be desperate to get in a Hungarian refuge camp because that's where they are safe.

[LisztesFerenc]

Those migrants are perfectly safe and sound in Hungarian shelters

  Ummm, you got a citation for that?

  Because
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33091597
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/annabel-tremlett/hungary's-future-antiimmigration-antimulticulturalism-and-antiro
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/hungary-pm-death-penalty-work-camps-for-immigrants-viktor-orban

  I am very confused as to how you can associate "Hungarian" and "Safe for immigrants". Unless the game is "name two things that are polar opposites". Government sponsored anti-immigration campaign, violent attacks against those seen as immigrants and our nutjob PM proposing work camps for refugees. Yeah, I can't see why they'd like to pass up this sweet deal either.

Why should it even get to that point anyways?

  It won't, I shouldn't have even addressed the possibility.

[Dashenka]

There is no war, there is food and there is water.

I'm not going into any discussion any further. They should be thanking God that they're safe from whatever it was they were fleeing from and that Europe has so welcomingly accepted them. Now they begin to demand stuff already?

I'm done. Goodnight.

[LisztesFerenc]

There is no war, there is food and there is water.

  There's more to life than that, like work, education and safety, and they are not selfish for wanting those in addition to food and water, especially since without work your supply of food and water is by no means guaranteed.

[eBadger]

Refugees, as sad as their story might be, should have NO expectation of receiving any aid other than the bare basics, and to be held in camps if need be. The host nation should not be required to house or care for them as good as their own citizens are, and there comes a point when that nation has a right to say; 'nope. No more. We've taken all we are willing to. Go away' to any new refugees.

What are the "bare basics"?  I don't think anyone here is arguing for the rest. 

There comes a point when a nation HAS to say; 'no more' or it will cease being a nation with a unregulated or unrestricted influx of refugees. If you bring in too many foreigners at once, you have a very high risk of losing your nation when the characteristic culture and society of that nation changes. Throw in several million refugees that have a hard time adapting to Western cultures and you have an explosive mix.

The current number of refugees in Europe is less than .1% of the US population.  All of them would be about 3%.  Does that affect your concern about losing national characteristic?

get in a Hungarian refuge camp because that's where they are safe.

Refugee camps are safe now?

[Dashenka]

What are the "bare basics"?  I don't think anyone here is arguing for the rest. 

The current number of refugees in Europe is less than .1% of the US population.  All of them would be about 3%.  Does that affect your concern about losing national characteristic?

Refugee camps are safe now?

Europe isn't one country. It's a lot of countries each with their own national characteristics. England is being swamped by Polish, who open up Polish shops, we get Polish newspapers, etc etc. These immigrants don't spread out over Europe as I've proven in my link because they only want to go to the rich countries in Europe, so they get much more than the 3%


Yes. Refugee camps in Hungary are safe. Full stop.

  There's more to life than that, like work, education and safety, and they are not selfish for wanting those in addition to food and water, especially since without work your supply of food and water is by no means guaranteed.

They want work? Get in line.... As do millions of Europeans in their own country. I don't know if you have noticed but unemployment in Europe is still quite high.

[gaggedLouise]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34142512

Happening now.

I rest my case.

(--)

I'm going to leave this conversation. Those migrants are perfectly safe and sound in Hungarian shelters but they refuse to go there because it's not what they want? Well I got news for them, a couple hundred of kilometers east of where they are, there are people trapped in bombed cities with nowhere to go who'd be desperate to get in a Hungarian refuge camp because that's where they are safe.

I saw that on the BBC earlier tonight, and I understand the refugees who poured on that train in Budapest had been told that the train was bound for Austria, which is where they all want to get as a next stop to Germany. All day there had been no trains at all exiting Hungary, the regime is trying to keep a no-exit ring at the borders while they're building a physical border fence in the south to block access. Normally Budapest is a busy international train junction, but the desire of the regime to keep the refugees contained has stopped all rail traffic in and out of the country.

So when the train stopped at that camp site in  Bicske, 25 miles outside of Budapest, and police went on the train to force them off, it's not hard to understand they saw themselves getting betrayed, double crossed. The reason they want to get out of Hungary without registering there, just moving through as fast as possible, is because they know the Hungarian government doesn't want anything to do with them and is more than likely to drag its feet on any kind of care forthem or handling their papers.

The Hungarian cabinet seems intent on just "sitting out" the situation to the point where they can deport the refugees back south and activate their border fence. I think most people would have fought being taken off that train in a place no one had been told they were going to. Especially if one has fled from a war and knows how easy it is for troops to stage some kind of hoax with dangerous consequences.

Edit: I'd agree with Ebadger: refugee camps are not safe, especially not when those who run the country blatantly don't want those people around and are treating them and their conditions as a kind of bargaining chip vs the governments of other EU countries. Hungary is not just in a standoff against the refugees, but also a standoff with Germany and other EU countries

[LisztesFerenc]

Yes. Refugee camps in Hungary are safe. Full stop.

  Got a source for that? Because this would sugegst otherwise:

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/06/30/hungarian_police_contain_riot_in_overcrowded_refugee_camp_/1155174

[Dashenka]

They're fighting at each other now? I guess that only strengthens my point doesn't it?

[LisztesFerenc]

They're fighting at each other now? I guess that only strengthens my point doesn't it?

  If you ignore the overcrowded keyword, then sure it does. If you don't, then you in fact see that refugee camps aren't save, because they are overcrowded with leads to a loads of other problems.

  Also this is news to you? Then how come you were able to flat out claim that camps were safe when you apparently hadn't done much research on the topic.

[Zakharra]

What are the "bare basics"?  I don't think anyone here is arguing for the rest. 

Possibly not here, but I know on other forums, there are some who are. And it's sad. They expect and demand that the EU and USA takre in as many refugees as we can bear, even if it financially impacts us and lowers our quality of life.

The current number of refugees in Europe is less than .1% of the US population.  All of them would be about 3%.  Does that affect your concern about losing national characteristic?

IIRC, about 10% of the population of Mexico currently resides in the US. That's about 10mmillion people and isn't counting the illegals and refugees from points further south. But we're talking about Europe, and that is a significant number they are taking in. It might not seem like much now, but if the open door policy keeps up, that number will increase by several factors since more will come and keep on coming. Unless you slam the door in their face and use force  of some kind to make it clear they aren't wanted or welcome, they will keep coming.

The only alternatives I see are either opening the doors fully, in which case you will lose your country in about 10 years since basically unregulated immigration will let in a huge influx of people,  or you slam the door shut and let them deal with the consequences (even if it means starvation and death. Of course they could always stay and try to fix their nations..), or the last option, the US or EU invades and takes over their home nations and runs them. Annexation/colonialism v2. Stay there for the long term (20-100 years) and fix their countries and give them a decent culture that won't make their countries into third world shitholes (religious or secular) if/when the US/EU leaves.

[Iniquitous]

Meanwhile, while we sit here bickering back and forth over this, 11k people in Iceland have offered to open up their homes to Syrian refugees. Their homes. Not refugee camps, not giving them houses. Take them into their own homes.

Seems to me they understand that we are all brothers and sisters. That we should all be willing to help each other.

http://time.com/4018241/iceland-syria-refugees/

[Caehlim]

I don't know about the European refugees camps but here's what's going on in the Australian ones.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/nauru-detention-camp-guards-filmed-themselves-getting-sexual-favours-from-refugees-10333733.html

[gaggedLouise]

Several top-flight German football clubs of the Bundesliga are actively joining the effort to help the refugees to a good start, to empower them and to fight budding racism. Of course, Germany is the one big player within the EU that really embraces the challenge of taking in these refugees and migrants.

I'm hoping to see the same kind of spirited, creative efforts by football clubs here in Sweden, which has stood by the side of Germany and is receiving as many refugees set against the number of people living in the country.

[gaggedLouise]

In a final bid, several hundred refugees have left Budapest's international train station this afternoon to walk on foot to Germany, up the Danube. It's a hundred miles to the Austrian border and twice that distance again through Austria before one would arrive in Bavaria. The Hungarian government have stated they won't be letting them through the border to Austria, that's perfectly legal and the way it's supposed to work, and many of these people might not even have passports from their old countries anyway.


The same day, the Hungarian parliament voted for extended powers on the job to the police, and stricter control on immigration.  :-X

The rationale behind those refugees not wanting to get registered or encamped in Hungary is, like before; if they are regged as having arrived there first and get formally processed there, they wouldn't be able to apply for permission to stay in Germany or some other country thatäs more sympathetic to them. At least that's been the line on the paperwork so far, though Ms Merkel said the other week that Germany is aiming to disregard that rule and treat any refugees arriving in Germany from the south and east as if they had no earlier "arrived in the EU" registrations.

[eBadger]

Amazing to see the good and bad in the world.  I wish the US were more firmly among the former, half as eager to rush to the rescue as the attack. 

Edit: A thing worth reading. 

They're fighting at each other now? I guess that only strengthens my point doesn't it?

If they're suffering peacefully in a camp, it's because they're content and should stay there; if they're rioting because of horrible conditions, it's because they're horrible people and should stay there. 

This sort of 'logic' just comes across as apologetic rationalization and no, it completely destroys your point. 

[Lustful Bride]

Was gonna put this in news but thought it would probably be better to put it here.

US Gives the UN $26.6 million to aid in the migrant crisis.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-latest-us-giving-un-dollar266-million-to-help-migrants/ar-AAdWjak?li=AA54ur&ocid=HPCDHP


I have a question though, why does it have to be given to the UN? why not the countries facing the crisis? Or is it a thing of jurisdiction/helping properly divide the funds?

[Caehlim]

I have a question though, why does it have to be given to the UN? why not the countries facing the crisis? Or is it a thing of jurisdiction/helping properly divide the funds?

Well I think it's a way of minimizing bureaucratic costs. I mean, you spend $26.6 million dollars and lose maybe 20% of that in paying for all the bureaucracy to track it and make sure it all gets where it needs to go, assess effectiveness, follow up on problems, etc. Handle it through the UN and all those departments are already in place.

[Lustful Bride]

Well I think it's a way of minimizing bureaucratic costs. I mean, you spend $26.6 million dollars and lose maybe 20% of that in paying for all the bureaucracy to track it and make sure it all gets where it needs to go, assess effectiveness, follow up on problems, etc. Handle it through the UN and all those departments are already in place.

Ah okay.

[Dashenka]

https://www.facebook.com/PVVStemmers/videos/1636236099948046/


Judge for yourself... Immigrants at the station in Hungary, throwing away fresh water.

[Caehlim]

Judge for yourself...

What's it a video of? I don't really like clicking on video links without knowing. Edit: If you don't mind my asking that is.

[Dashenka]

Immigrants acting ungrateful :)

[gaggedLouise]

Come on, Dasha.  ::)

1) It's not exactly fair to pick out a few immigrants in one location, where they have been stuck for several days under a lot of stress, and colour everybody else with what those few are doing.

2) It makes an effing difference to anyone whether you feel you're in the hands of people you trust or people/cops/a regime you don't trust. The cops at the station had been firing tear gas at some of the migrants yesterday, fighting them too, and the whole strategy of the cabinet had been to keep the immigrants contained and stop them from getting out of the country at all cost. You can't blame them for wanting to hit back at the cops and getting highly exasperated.

Or perhaps, feeling angry and looked at by ordinary travellers who are well dressed, healthy and free to go wherever they want as they pass by the immigrants, almost at talking distance but without a shared language (I bet none of those immigrants speak Hungarian and most likely, few of them speak German which is a big  second language in Hungary). It would be like sitting in a huge circus cage on display.

[eBadger]

Judge for yourself... Immigrants at the station in Hungary, throwing away fresh water.

What are you trying to claim?  That they're simply too stupid to understand that humans need water to survive? 

It's a clip of food and water being handed out to immigrants on a train, some of which is refused/thrown back.  No audio, no context, no reporting.  It's interesting, but ultimately fairly pointless on its own. 

And indeed, further research indicates the refusal is part of a hunger strike.  I'm still trying to track down some reliable, comprehensive description of the conditions at the camps, but have come across mentions of lack of water, lack of food, poor shelter, and very long stays.  And, apparently, the Syrians consider them worth starving themselves to avoid. 

[Dashenka]

My point is that they are ungrateful. If I'd flee a war torn country I'd be happy with ANYTHING the country I upset gives me.

But as we've seen, I'm probably the only one here who thinks that.

[Vekseid]

I'm assuming Dashenka linked this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L3eSbpETf8

Can't judge by one video. Okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEcwoXVtF7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6G1MxMeX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbTSdUdQeLY

(The Calais video here is longer, the migrant dumps the food given to them a bit after 8:20)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYMc8vySVNI

[Caehlim]

So logically I see three real possibilities here.

1) These refugees are displaying the range of behaviour and emotions typical within human beings responding to the stresses and stimuli of their experiences. In other words anyone would act like these refugees in the same circumstances.

2) There is some unusual selection pressure that has resulted in especially unreasonable and uncooperative people being included in the refugee population in unrepresentative numbers.

3) These people are intrinsically inferior to westerners. Edit: (Included for completeness and because some people would argue this. I'm not suggesting anyone here is saying this).

...

if 1) Then people should show more empathy for people acting just like they would.
if 2) Then perhaps someone can explain that phenomenon.
and I don't think anyone wants to support 3.

Am I missing some alternative?

Edit 2: I should note that I'm assuming that the population of this group is a large enough sample size to assume a statistical representation is most likely to result.

[Dashenka]

The reason isn't important?

What do they expect? To get the presidential suite in the local Hilton with salmon and kaviar for breakfast and a 6 course meal for dinner?


This is what Europe sees. This is what the common man in Europe sees about these immigrants. A few days ago we saw dead children washed up on a beach and everybody went all soft, now we get to see this and everybody hardens up again.


These immigrants don't really look as desperate as they say they are. These just look as if they want to get more and more.


To balance things out, Europe isn't exactly doing everything in their power to find a solution for this. Some countries want to force a number of refugees to every country, some countries don't agree with that.

What will happen when the majority of those refugees will be told they cannot go to Germany or the UK but instead have to go to, say Slovakia or Croatia. But the real question is, are they really desperate enough to accept they will have to go there, or will they settle for nothing less than the best they can get. I know where I'd put my money.

[Vekseid]

They're not all refugees. Some of them paid money to be smuggled out, and are economic migrants - not refugees. They had life enough in where they originated to raise three thousand euros and abandoned it for a possibly safer life in Europe. This has actually been going on for a couple of decades now.

Jordan is housing 1.5 million refugees. Turkey 2 million. Vastly outnumbering the support Europe is providing. What we're seeing is the fraction people who aren't satisfied with the prospect of life in those countries, so... Europe gets shit like this. The most ungrateful of the ungrateful. No, it's not representative of Syrians or Muslims, but that's how people are going to take it.

[Dashenka]

No, it's not representative of Syrians or Muslims, but that's how people are going to take it.

The link I posted is from the PVV website. Right wing extremists in the Netherlands. The comments are all how terrible they all are.

I'd to say again that I have no problem in helping honest refugees. It's our duty as humans to help other humans in need. These people, that turn away food and water... no not turn it away, THROW it away, are not in need and do not deserve my help.

[gaggedLouise]

The link I posted is from the PVV website. Right wing extremists in the Netherlands. The comments are all how terrible they all are. 

That's what they would say, isn't it? Like saying (or making the implication) that "anyone from a Muslim country is a fanatic Quran thumper who will want to introduce Sharia law in your country if they get in". It's not as if you can expect reason from the PVV.

I'd to say again that I have no problem in helping honest refugees. It's our duty as humans to help other humans in need. These people, that turn away food and water... no not turn it away, THROW it away, are not in need and do not deserve my help.

It happened in a really special situation, and I figure they had some reason to want to stand firm against the Hungarian police - they don't trust those forces. Even if it meant going on hunger strike or jumping past some picket fences.

[Caehlim]

Economic migrants after the £36.95/week they'd receive in the UK?

If Europe went asylum mad and just took in the entire lot of refugees in Jordan and Turkey then it would be 0.4% of their population. Something no one is asking them to do.

Right now Turkish police just finished assaulting a peaceful Gay Pride parade with water cannons, tear gas and pepper-ball rounds.

Right now Jordan is accused of condoning official torture by amnesty international.

I don't want to live there either.

[Dashenka]

That's what they would say, isn't it? Like saying (or making the implication) that "anyone from a Muslim country is a fanatic Quran thumper who will want to introduce Sharia law in your country if they get in". It's not as if you can expect reason from the PVV.

I don't support this, or ANY Right extremist parties. Let that be very clear :)

[Caehlim]

I'm just going to drop out of the conversation for now, I'm feeling a bit too stressed to really deal with politics and debate.

Sorry for the drive-by discussion.

[Iniquitous]

The reason isn't important?

What do they expect? To get the presidential suite in the local Hilton with salmon and kaviar for breakfast and a 6 course meal for dinner?

They want to pass through Hungary and go to Austria and Germany. That is ALL they want. The only thing they want from Hungary is to be allowed to go through that country. Period.

If I do not trust someone, I am not going to accept anything from them. Be it food, water or a tent in a compound. As has been pointed out, these people do not trust the Hungarians and they are reacting just like the rest of us would if we were put into that situation - and I'd call anyone a liar if they tried to tell me that they'd accept being forced to stay/go somewhere they have no desire to be/go.

Dashenka, it really comes across as you cherry picking what you post and a refusal to even -consider- any other side of this. If you truly have no issue with helping those that need it, as you have claimed, then why are you not appalled at how they are treated in refugee camps? Why are you not appalled at how some people shout that they are inferior to us Westerns and spew hate for them?

I would gladly open my home to a refugee family if it meant sparing them some tent in a refugee camp or a cramped gymnasium where they are treated no better than animals in a pound. I don't expect everyone else to be willing to go that far, but some compassion for these people and some understanding for their reactions when they are stressed and frustrated would be a good start.

[Vekseid]

Economic migrants after the £36.95/week they'd receive in the UK?

Look at the videos I posted. Do they look like the world's most enlightened possessors of foresight, to you?

If Europe went asylum mad and just took in the entire lot of refugees in Jordan and Turkey then it would be 0.4% of their population. Something no one is asking them to do.

Right now Turkish police just finished assaulting a peaceful Gay Pride parade with water cannons, tear gas and pepper-ball rounds.

Yeah, I'm sure the migrants not satisfied with Turkey have gay rights on their minds.

Right now Jordan is accused of condoning official torture by amnesty international.

This is a complete red herring, and insulting to Jordanians for the progress their country has made in the past decades. They are a nation of six million people, integrating a refugee problem of one and a half million  with relatively little fuss. Give them some credit. What they are doing is nothing short of amazing, even counting the fact that they are a neighboring country with shared culture.

If I do not trust someone, I am not going to accept anything from them. Be it food, water or a tent in a compound. As has been pointed out, these people do not trust the Hungarians and they are reacting just like the rest of us would if we were put into that situation - and I'd call anyone a liar if they tried to tell me that they'd accept being forced to stay/go somewhere they have no desire to be/go.

And the video where a man holds his wife and child to train tracks?

And how does this explain their behavior on Lesvos?

[Dashenka]

They want to pass through Hungary and go to Austria and Germany. That is ALL they want. The only thing they want from Hungary is to be allowed to go through that country. Period.

If I do not trust someone, I am not going to accept anything from them. Be it food, water or a tent in a compound. As has been pointed out, these people do not trust the Hungarians and they are reacting just like the rest of us would if we were put into that situation - and I'd call anyone a liar if they tried to tell me that they'd accept being forced to stay/go somewhere they have no desire to be/go.

Dashenka, it really comes across as you cherry picking what you post and a refusal to even -consider- any other side of this. If you truly have no issue with helping those that need it, as you have claimed, then why are you not appalled at how they are treated in refugee camps? Why are you not appalled at how some people shout that they are inferior to us Westerns and spew hate for them?

I would gladly open my home to a refugee family if it meant sparing them some tent in a refugee camp or a cramped gymnasium where they are treated no better than animals in a pound. I don't expect everyone else to be willing to go that far, but some compassion for these people and some understanding for their reactions when they are stressed and frustrated would be a good start.

But Germany can't handle them all. That is the whole point. They all want to settle in the rich countries. I understand that but they have to understand their position themselves. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Germany, the Uk, Austra, the Netherlands who are struggling to make a decent living. These people want a job and a government supported house. These countries cannot handle the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming through their borders on a yearly basis.

So they have to spread the load evenly over Europe. But those refugees refuse to stay in Hungary or Slovakia or whatever.

I'm appalled at how they are treated in refugee camps because there is no alternative.

And I'm sorry, refugees throwing away food and water that is gifted to them by a country willing to help them, have no rights anymore. Hungary and other European countries are showing their goodwill to help them and what do they get? The refugees want more, more and more. When my nan baked cookies and I had all of them but one, getting angry when nan ate it herself, was called greedy and impolite. It's how I was raised.

[Iniquitous]

And the video where a man holds his wife and child to train tracks?

And how does this explain their behavior on Lesvos?

I'd call that an act of desperation based upon the situation. People do stupid and irrational things when they are desperate.

But Germany can't handle them all. That is the whole point. They all want to settle in the rich countries. I understand that but they have to understand their position themselves. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Germany, the Uk, Austra, the Netherlands who are struggling to make a decent living. These people want a job and a government supported house. These countries cannot handle the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming through their borders on a yearly basis.

Agreed, one or two countries cannot take them all - however, if in the same situation, you would want to make it to a country that is "rich" for a better life than one that cannot provide you with the life you want for yourself and your family. And answer me this - are you in the mind of every single person trying to get into these Western countries? No? Then please stop making generalized assumptions. Some may want that government subsidized house and free handouts. Many more want to just settle in, get jobs and support their families. You cannot judge the whole lot based upon some and it is extremely frustrating that you keep doing this.

I'm appalled at how they are treated in refugee camps because there is no alternative.

Yes there are alternatives. Icelanders have shown that.

And I'm sorry, refugees throwing away food and water that is gifted to them by a country willing to help them, have no rights anymore. Hungary and other European countries are showing their goodwill to help them and what do they get? The refugees want more, more and more. When my nan baked cookies and I had all of them but one, getting angry when nan ate it herself, was called greedy and impolite. It's how I was raised.

They are not throwing away the food and water because they want more/all. They are demonstrating their unhappiness with the situation in one of the few peaceful ways they can. It's not greedy when you aren't accepting anything. I'd rather they refuse food and drink peacefully than turn violent because Hungary refuses to allow them through.

[gaggedLouise]

I don't support this, or ANY Right extremist parties. Let that be very clear :)

I didn't suspect you would - or rather, I know that you don't.  :-) It just looked a bit confusing with Veks's comment on those scenes and then your reply to him. - My bad.

[Dashenka]

They are not throwing away the food and water because they want more/all. They are demonstrating their unhappiness with the situation in one of the few peaceful ways they can. It's not greedy when you aren't accepting anything. I'd rather they refuse food and drink peacefully than turn violent because Hungary refuses to allow them through.

Unhappy about what?

I'm sorry but this is the infuriating part for me. They get accepted INTO THE COUNTRY! No war, no IS, shelter, food and water and they have the bold guts to be unhappy?!

How many people in Hungary or other countries in Europe have to get their food from charities because they can't afford it themselves? They see their country give food and water to refugees, who then throw it away. I don't give a damn what the reason is that they throw food away that they have been given out of charity. If you don't want it, then starve for all I care.


Do you really think these people who are unhappy about Greece, Italy, France and Hungary want to go to Iceland? No they don't. They want to get to Germany or the UK, because those countries are rich.



If I had been a political refugee from Russia and I took a boat to the US and I get off the ship in New York. The US accepts me, and puts me into a shelter. I then start complaining about how terrible it is and out of spite, misery, narrowmindedness or protest, I throw away food and water that has been given to me.

That is NOT NORMAL! Whatever your situation is, this is NOT normal behaviour.

[Caehlim]

Yeah, I'm sure the migrants not satisfied with Turkey have gay rights on their minds

I wasn't going to continue with the debate but I do just want to address this point. While my arguments were vague and over emotional, I'm not sure I really deserve the sarcasm there. But yes... Minorities are hit disproportionately hard by events that displace people and GLBTQA people are the targets of violence in lawless regimes/conflict zones.

Example: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/i-was-sure-id-be-raped-or-killed-i-was-terrified-my-life-as-a-gay-syrian-refugee-who-had-to-flee-isis-10484304.html

Edit: Actually now that I think about it I was sarcastic first about the economic migrant issue, so that's a bit hypocritical. Sorry. I do still want to bring the above issue to your attention though. (It's late, sorry I'm rambling I'm really going to stop posting here and go to bed before I just trail off into gibberish)

[Iniquitous]

Again, you are assuming. And do you know what they say about assuming?

It makes an ass out of you and me.

You do not know what their reasons are for wanting to get to Germany or the UK. They may have family there already established for all you know. The father who buried his wife and two children? His ultimate goal was to get to Canada where his sister is already a citizen. She was going to sponsor the family.

You paint every single one of these people as leeches and moochers yet you are utterly incapable of knowing what is going on in their minds. It is really sad to see the hate you spew towards them - and I feel sorry for them because so many people are like you. Refuse to even consider that these people just want to get settled and make it on their own.

And I call you out on your claim to want to see these people helped. I do not get the impression that you care one whit for these people. The tone of your posts comes across that you'd rather they stay in Syria and die than inconvenience you or anyone else in the western countries one little bit.

I can't and won't claim to know what the answer is to this situation. What I do know is that putting them in cramped camps with just enough to survive on (if that) is not the answer. I know that emotions are running high on both sides of this issue. Those that are truly refugees cannot stop to think about the countries they are trying to get to - their lives were/are at stake and, even you would put your own life above the somewhat foggy economics of a country you were trying to get to. The only thing that matters to them is getting to somewhere safe and being able to have a life.

And that brings up something else you have continued to ignore. There is a difference between surviving and having a life. A large difference. And you cannot fault anyone for wanting more than just survival.

[Vekseid]

I'm not sure if you watched the videos, but the ones accepting food/water aid and the ones seizing/destroying it were not the same people.

[kylie]

     Paul Mason has a column I found interesting about the Syrian refugee crisis and a touch on Western economies.  Among other things, he says the West economically speaking, needs immigrants -- a rather large number of them.

The OECD’s central projection is that, to stand a chance of avoiding stagnation, the EU’s workforce will have to add 50 million more people through migration by 2060 (a similar number is needed in the US). The Paris-based thinktank says if that doesn’t happen, it is a “significant downside risk” to growth. What this means should be spelled out, because no politician has bothered to do so: to avoid economic stagnation in the long term, Europe needs migrants.

      And ironically, it has been economic failure in the West which has tended to lead to fascist parties gaining influence.  I presume this is perhaps, when certain political figures go constructing scapegoats of these populations that many working class people know little about?  That has often been the case, or at least a significant part of the case, with Republicans as well in the US.

Consent for inward economic migration is fragile and falling – as evidenced by the sudden rush by politicians and tabloids to reclassify the Syrian exodus as a special case. Even if populist resistance to migration stops short of fascism, and even if anti-migration parties are disempowered by the electoral system, their existence highlights a failing consensus. And that is, in turn, founded on economic failure. The Eurozone has produced an arc of stagnation and discontent along its southern border. There is mass unemployment in the very countries that have become the first port of call for migrants and refugees.

       Now, I do think it's curious what the very assumptions of constant growth in the West might be anyway.  Veks says do not make classes out of nations, but that is pretty well what the international "system" (and in some particular ways, the Western international system with its very literal gunboat diplomacy foundations) has largely been about.  We don't talk about "post-colonial" and "development" and "Asian tigers" and the like because we live in a classless world. 

      While it is true there have been a few very unsavory parties out there such as the Taliban and various abusive more uniformed regimes, it's also true that the West, and Russia I'd add for the sake of catching everyone, have been happy to use them as proxies in their own Great Games and the like onward up to the 21st century.  And have also been quite happy to run in demanding brutally skewed and sometimes downright rapacious treaties.  Or in some cases encouraging them to spend on infrastructure/endless construction and "market reform" that has often enough been so lovely for foreign business but so horrible for domestic economies in the long run.  Though some countries have done it to themselves quite a bit domestically too, just to keep it fair (contemporary Japan is also probably a half-decent study on overpowered domestic construction industry manipulating politics, not that they have suffered like some).

      Dash is correct that many putatively "developed" countries are not taking care of their own people very well either, but this only shows that the distribution of wealth and resources is unfair for everyone.  Perhaps if managers did not always assume ten times the income of common workers (or is that around the going rate in Western Europe?  I'm not sure) or hundreds of times (which is the going rate in the US), and perhaps if a grossly rich handful did not have nigh half the wealth of some countries, then it would be much more practical for say, Western countries (among others!) to put programs in place to integrate all these immigrants (which their economies need anyway) more humanely.  Oh, but that might shave a point or two off corporate profit margins.  Can't have that now, can we.  We can't even have that when the banks have visibly screwed over the country and the world, while continuing to take the same old bonuses.  Of course we can't have that to help regular people...  ::)

[Oniya]

I caught this on the CNN news feed today:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/04/news/refugees-island-billionaire/

This guy is apparently trying to purchase an island in the Mediterranean, and hire on refugees to employ them to build their own houses, schools, and a hospital - essentially creating a new nation for them from the ground up.

[kylie]

     That's interesting.  It does make me wonder what's being done with all the unused land, in some areas (such as said Greek islands) and real estate capacity in others (such as the US where the homeless and displaced have, at least occasionally, managed to occupy it).  What is it being held for?  Speculation investment?  National prestige?  Symbolic messages, such as the Greeks not wanting to appear 'soft' or 'too welcoming' -- and countries premised on 'Every good person here works their butt off all their lives and wholeheartedly believes that is the only proper way to live, really you know, see that's why we're so much better than the rest of the world'?? 

      So many resources, such tight fists. 

      I also wonder if some countries aren't fearing there may be a catch:  When do we hit the point where the Western growth model will be threatened because the ratio of barely paid working class to uber wealthy finally becomes too huge?  It isn't as if all the immigrants are taking the highest paying jobs.  But someone "has" to keep filling the struggling bottom with new waves of weak to expendable, if people say they want growth.  Eventually, when there's a downturn or another wave of social dislocation as 'too many of these immigrants come from the wrong culture', more surveillance and policing might kick in or there might be some other fundamental crisis in state politics.  But isn't that the price of persistent pursuit of growth?  Capital is fluid, but now labor has to be fluid too.  What if culture, both domestic and immigrant political cultures, are not nearly so fluid after all?

[gaggedLouise]

I caught this on the CNN news feed today:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/04/news/refugees-island-billionaire/

This guy is apparently trying to purchase an island in the Mediterranean, and hire on refugees to employ them to build their own houses, schools, and a hospital - essentially creating a new nation for them from the ground up.

Hmm...there used to be some half-cheeky suggestions in the German press that Greece should sell a couple of scenic islands to Germany, the UK and other creditors to pay with the most sellable items they have in a country that's otherwise broke....I think that was one or two years ago.

I figure the Egyptian mogul's proposal is fairly hard to fit into international law - you can't actually establish a country and make yourself the president by *buying* the territory.  :P If he wanted a formal lease on the island for a limited time, but not full sovereignty, it would look a bit more in order, but what would happen when he passes away? I bet he doesn't want a lease of just twenty years or the like, so the land rights would go over to his son, that's what he would like to see if there was a lease - and that's something Greece or Italy would likely find stiff to accept.

Then it's true there is lots pf land (in other countries than Greece) that might get used more productively if it wasn't sort of defined by not being close to the capital in that country, or not close enough/*too* close to a major industrial and commercial hub. Some areas just seem to land in a perpetual backwater because they're framed as part of the wrong nation, or in the wrong kind of grid.

[kylie]

I figure the Egyptian mogul's proposal is fairly hard to fit into international law - you can't actually establish a country and make yourself the president by *buying* the territory.  :P If he wanted a formal lease on the island for a limited time, but not full sovereignty, it would look a bit more in order, but what would happen when he passes away? I bet he doesn't want a lease of just twenty years or the like, so the land rights would go over to his son, that's what he would like to see if there was a lease - and that's something Greece or Italy would likely find stiff to accept.

      I suppose the states might be thinking of a few particular objections:

     1) What the linked article cited, they would somehow appear 'too welcoming' and it would perhaps somehow encourage more refugees than they wish to show up somewhere or other.  (As if that weren't happening pretty much already at quite visible locations, and regardless of them not approving??  But anyhoo, they say they're worried about it.)

     Possibly 2) Yes, is this a sort of messing with the map of borders and loss of sovereignty although...  I wonder, if we looked closely, how often borders have actually been redrawn in such small ways in say, the last century.  I don't really know.  Which leads me to suspect it could be a bit more of:

     3)  They may be imagining that hey, any viable island where this guy could think of putting a small port and a hotel of any sort, eventually some corporation or interest or other that are more chummy with our party/friends, or who may have even more money to toss in someday when the world is still more crowded... 

...  OR something similar: perhaps let us wish happily in some lovely economic boom as opposed to the recession and that ugly visual mess of the refugee crisis here now, there will be more competing offers yet...  So perhaps it's best to just hang on to all these little parcels, however remote, and speculate that someday they could be still more valuable.  And perhaps that someday, the country could make such a deal and keep it all more closely under a familiar national/cultural thumb and not appear to be helping 'the wrong people' at the same time.

      I don't see anywhere in the linked article that Sawiris, the Egyptian has said he intends to keep the island indefinitely.  In fact, it says he calls it a "temporary" arrangement.  So I think it's an open question what time frame he would propose exactly.  The concern might be more a feeling of, if he is the official manager and his stated purpose is to accommodate 100,000 or 200,000 people, wait, we don't approve of how they arrived in the first place -- "They are not vetted" and they appear, de facto, to be a sort of domain with their own culture and rules. 

     Given the choice, I wonder if the Italians and Greeks might not prefer to keep the refugees as dispersed as possible.  That's pretty much been the direction of new 'lower-income' housing vouchers in some American cities too:  They are planned in ways that end up breaking up poorer communities, providing a new map where the city can say, "Seeee, no more visible poverty problem blighting our fabulous downtown or historic inner city" while communities where people used to help each other get by and maybe find some political solidarity in a place, get broken up and scattered.

[eBadger]

Unhappy about what?

I'm sorry but this is the infuriating part for me. They get accepted INTO THE COUNTRY! No war, no IS, shelter, food and water and they have the bold guts to be unhappy?!

...

That is NOT NORMAL! Whatever your situation is, this is NOT normal behaviour.

In Hungary, they're being placed in cramped camps rife with crime, lacking water, food, and sewage, potentially for years, with little hope of anything but abject poverty afterward.  The camps are, quite literally, far worse than any prison in the US. 

Germany has announced itself dedicated to helping them integrate. 

Is it normal behavior to want to avoid years in a horrible prison, both for you and your family, in favor of reaching a place where you can have a chance at a normal life?  Watching your children go to school rather than go through trash looking for something to eat.  Would you thank those jailers for intercepting you?  What would you do in that position?  (Those are actual questions for you, Dash). 

As mentioned, I think it admirable the refugees aren't turning to violence.  A hunger strike is extreme, but also a peaceful response.  They aren't demanding money, handouts, or such - they just want to be allowed to go free.  Sort of like the country they initially fled from, because from what I'm seeing being incarcerated in Hungary isn't any better. 

[Dashenka]

I don't know what I would do. But if my homeland is ravaged by war and I barely escaped with my life, I'd like to think I'm not going to be too picky about where I end up as long as I'm alive. That's how I'm raised.

Be gratefull for what you got because the alternative is having nothing at all.

[kylie]

Be gratefull for what you got because the alternative is having nothing at all.

    Granted it's relative...  But that can also be the sort of logic that leads people to believe it's completely reasonable for handicapped, elderly people to live high up in buildings with no elevators.  "Life is tough for everyone.  It could be worse.  Who are they to complain?"

    The alternative would be to try to set standards and maintain them, get politics in order to pay for them for a much larger number of people.  But well that might seem 'too expensive' for everyone who's been taught that no one 'deserves' to live below the 10th floor unless they've worked 60 hours a week for 40 years in the same town, same job, regardless of what anyone else has tried to do to take advantage of them anywhere (including there).  Though I think when you look closely at the populations even where people have been taught such things?  There are huge differences in status and privilege (often some real ugly abuses too) inside them just hiding under such presumptions of 'everyone paying their dues.'

[Dashenka]

    Granted it's relative...  But that can also be the sort of logic that leads people to believe it's completely reasonable for handicapped, elderly people to live high up in buildings with no elevators.  "Life is tough for everyone.  It could be worse.  Who are they to complain?"

   

Except they pay taxes and rent and health insurances. So it's not reasonable at all.

[kylie]

       Didn't say it was.  I said people would justify it using about the same sort of language and logic.

[Dashenka]

So an immigrant who's turning away food and water should have the same rights in their new country as a local resident who's been paying taxes, rent and has been living there for all their life?

If that's the kind of argument people use, they're pretty fucked cause it's not a very strong argument that will find much back up in said country. :)

[gaggedLouise]

So an immigrant who's turning away food and water should have the same rights in their new country as a local resident who's been paying taxes, rent and has been living there for all their life?

If that's the kind of argument people use, they're pretty fucked cause it's not a very strong argument that will find much back up in said country. :)

If we're talking of the right not to get beaten up by the police, the right not to get thrown into a camp in whatever location when he doesn't even want to be inside the country, only wants to get through and out - then I'd say yes. And those are the issues these immigrants were facing in Hungary - at least the ones in your examples. Why would you trust someone who has just fired tear gas grenades at you and everyone you're with? And who has shown you they are not interested in any cooperation (and who speaks a language nobody in the group understands)? He's got a police badge, but so what?

The regime is using those people as a pawn in its own tactical games against a couple of other European cabinets, and I find that very unworthy.

[ladia2287]

I'm reminded of something that happened here in Australia in the early 2000s. Can't remember the exact year, but it's a well known scandal.

Our then-Prime Minister, John Howard, against the protests of the majority of Australia, set up a system where refugees (which he decided were 'illegal immigrants') would be thrown straight into prison upon arrival. I remember there being much horror among the population when it was revealed that the conditions in these "detention centres" were worse than the prisons we send our own criminals to.

And then a certain photograph was found either by the media or by John Howard's spin doctors. All the photograph showed was a group of people chest-deep in water with a rickety fishing boat in the background. John Howard told the nation for weeks that it was illegal immigrants throwing their children overboard, and that they were such horrible people and this was why he was implementing such a 'strict' immigration policy.

And then a few weeks later the truth came out. The fishing boat was the boat they were trying so desperately to get to our shores in. It was sinking rapidly. All of the occupants were desperately trying to get off the boat in the hopes that they wouldn't be trapped and drown with it. No one was throwing anybody overboard at all; they were simply trying to stay alive until help came.

So I'm sceptical of accusations that the refugees currently attempting to travel through Europe are 'ungrateful' or that their presence is in any way detrimental to the local population. No matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides though.

Not saying that the refugees in this instance are in the right, nor am I arguing for the authorities. I don't know enough either way. I'm just saying that a few seconds of video or a few lines in a newspaper does not prove whether or not someone deserves a better life. We all deserve to feel safe.

[kylie]

      Another aspect that struck me about Mason's column is the simple idea that perhaps Europe can't control the flow of refugees very well.  And once the tide reaches a certain number, that's it, the people are there (though perhaps more for some countries than others?) and the society is going to deal with them one way or another.  The question is how.  And if you can't move them out in droves near equivalent to the rate they are now starting to come in, then the society is going to change somehow as a result -- again, how.

1.  You can do what the West has done to some extent already, however haltingly, and provide working papers and the understanding that certain areas of the city will be open to these people (many of them being rather destitute to begin with), with the understanding that they will be the newest pool of cheap labor and often, takers of less desirable or less safe jobs, until however many years it takes for their work and/or economic trends to lift them up.  The only questions with this is, how many lower-tier workers does each country really need in the current economic mess, and will these populations and/or their hosts all manage to get on with whatever regimes are concocted to police the numbers that actually do show up now that they're swarming out of places like Syria?  Or will there be some fundamental change or crisis that follows in the wider host society?

2.  You can deport some of them -- but how many can you really round up and pay to move at once? -- and see how many try it again or hope they pick some other Euro country to try...  Though do this hard enough, and there may be some problems of conscience given all the perils of the recent immigrants' entry in the first place.  It's hard to sell the idea that they should really be excited to live in neighboring countries with totalitarian governments, issues with immediate terrorism and religious violence galore, lax labor laws to speak of, and sometimes rather brutal ways of 'controlling' unapproved populations.

3.  You can integrate them in some way that actually improves and levels the basic allowance for both them and the disadvantaged in the host population.  Which in the long run might solve a number of problems.  But everyone from the filthy rich down to the poor who have been "waiting their turn for this long, see what a good citizen suffering makes me even though I might have been marginally abused for years in the process!" will take offense at this in the short term.  It also works better if your neighbors are adopting similarly egalitarian policies, while in Europe the trend right now seems more toward fragmentation?  Sigh.

4.  What have I maybe, missed?

[eBadger]

I don't know what I would do.

So you're not certain you'd fall over yourself in appreciation while struggling to survive in prison, but you can't conceive why these people aren't?

That's how I'm raised.

I was raised to protect my child and provide for her future. 

Except they pay taxes and rent and health insurances. So it's not reasonable at all.

By this logic, anyone visiting a foreign country - where they don't pay taxes - lacks any rights at all.

Also, you've made a big issue of your expectation to move to the UK, and have begrudged the notion that refugees might get that ahead of you.  Please explain why you should have any expectation of rights or fair treatment in a foreign country and these refugees shouldn't, because so far the only reason you've given is that they are poor and in fear of their lives, and you aren't from a third world country. 

[Dashenka]

So you're not certain you'd fall over yourself in appreciation while struggling to survive in prison, but you can't conceive why these people aren't?

I was raised to protect my child and provide for her future. 

By this logic, anyone visiting a foreign country - where they don't pay taxes - lacks any rights at all.

Also, you've made a big issue of your expectation to move to the UK, and have begrudged the notion that refugees might get that ahead of you.  Please explain why you should have any expectation of rights or fair treatment in a foreign country and these refugees shouldn't, because so far the only reason you've given is that they are poor and in fear of their lives, and you aren't from a third world country.

I pay taxes, I adapt to the British culture and the language. Had I been a refugee, I'd have accepted what was given to me.

[eBadger]

You pay full taxes before moving there?  Are the refugees exempt from taxation?  Are they unwilling to adapt? 

You didn't address the visitors issue; after all, the refugees you're most offended by aren't trying to settle there, they're trying to get out. 

[Mithlomwen]

I pay taxes, I adapt to the British culture and the language.

Who's to say that the refugees won't do the same in whichever country they plan on settling in? 

[Caehlim]

Going to share this video in case it's useful to anyone reading this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVV6_1Sef9M

[LtSurge]

If they are fleeing the war, why not go to Algeria? Or Egypt? Or stay in Greece or accept what Italy is offering you.

Considering there are hundreds of miles between UK and the more troubled areas of Africa/Arab states, it's reasonable to speculate that these people are after the benefits the system provides in the UK, beyond simple relocation and getting out of harm's way.

[kylie]

    Dash, have you watched the news on Egypt lately? It is not the most peaceful place either. It has become rather notorious for police brutality and military crackdowns.

   Greece is also in something of a swell of rightist and anti-immigrant sentiment, too.

     Once you are pretty much uprooted, it can be less than appealing to settle for replaying nany of the same problems with even less resources and in a foreign country, if you have any choice. People will shop around for better things.

[LtSurge]

    Dash, have you watched the news on Egypt lately? It is not the most peaceful place either. It has become rather notorious for police brutality and military crackdowns.

   Greece is also in something of a swell of rightist and anti-immigrant sentiment, too.

     Once you are pretty much uprooted, it can be less than appealing to settle for replaying nany of the same problems with even less resources and in a foreign country, if you have any choice. People will shop around for better things.

As refugees it wouldn't make sense for people in those areas to stick around the troubled nations, anyway, rather than spread out all over Europe(not just the UK/France), where these dictators have no power.

However, this will not ultimately solve the problem of these foreign lands. And most people who have grown up in one society will likely not easily integrate into another. A massive influx of unskilled people who don't share the education, cultural identity or political values of one nation may further destabilize it.

Something has to be done about these oppressive regimes in the middle-east and Africa so these people can go back home in peace. However, when has western intervention really succeeded in these human theaters? And if, hypothetically, we got rid of all these regimes, who is to say other oppressive regimes won't simply take their place?

We got rid of Taliban, then we got Al-Qaeda. We got rid of Al-Qaeda, then we got ISIS.

Interventionism doesn't work, and allowing every unskilled person to live here permanently and consume social services at no cost to them may push our economies to the brink of collapse.

[Dashenka]

Greece is also in something of a swell of rightist and anti-immigrant sentiment, too.

If those 'refugees' keep behaving the way they did in Hungary, a lot more countries will follow their lead.

[consortium11]

     Paul Mason has a column I found interesting about the Syrian refugee crisis and a touch on Western economies.  Among other things, he says the West economically speaking, needs immigrants -- a rather large number of them.

Being entirely cynical, the West needs the right sort of immigrants.

Norway did a detailed study on the financial cost/benefit of immigration which came to the conclusion that the average non-Western immigrant cost the state around $650,000 over the course of their life (while Western immigrants are a net benefit). It should also be noted there's a significant variation among the groups even within the non-Western bracket; for examples, Somalians cost about twice that. Denmark found similar results with non-Western immigrants leading to significant losses. In every study I'm aware of non-Western immigrants have a vastly lower employment rate then either Western immigrants or the existing population; to use Sweden's statistics as an example under half of all non-Western immigrants are employed while 87% of the existing population are.

I picked out countries like Norway, Denmark and Sweden specifically not just because they have statistics avaliable but because on paper they're some of the countries where it should be easiest for immigrants to assimilate and start working. To take Norway specifically, there is free education, highly subsidized childcare, a vast economy per capita and a very low unemployment rate which should be near perfect conditions for new immigrants to get (and stay) in the labour market.

The basic issue is this; not enough non-Western immigrants work when they emigrate to Western countries. Thus they as a demographic not only don't contribute to the state (as they don't pay taxes related to employment or contribute to productivity) they are an active drain on it as they claim state benefits (which is only exacerbated as they grow older and claim more benefits). The hope would be that even if first generation immigrants are a short term cost their children will end up contributing but there's little evidence to show that's the case (and it should be noted that because as a demographic non-Western immigrants have more children while claiming more benefits this actually exacerbates the short term costs). Non-Western immigrant communities largely end up getting stuck in a cycle of poverty and benefit dependency that means they remain an ongoing drain rather than benefit.

Now, this isn't a "they're all lazy and sponging off us!" rant, although I'm sure some do go to countries with that mindset (considering the economic migrants in this current situation who are hellbent on getting to Germany and its more generous welfare system). This immigrants tend to be poorly educated and lacking in employable skills in Western economies. But as mentioned above with regards to Norway, even when a system which provides about as good an opportunity to improve your skills and find employment exists participation rates are still shockingly low.

So when people argue that Western countries (especially European ones) need more immigrants from the evidence we have what they're actually saying (whether they want to or not) is that we need more immigrants from other Western countries.

[kylie]

If those 'refugees' keep behaving the way they did in Hungary, a lot more countries will follow their lead.

     I dunno, I think you're picking on a rather minor thing personally, as your main argument is more of a rhetorical people should take whatever they're offered by the system anywhere and be thankful it isn't worse.  Maybe no one should ever try for anything better then either.  I have no idea where that ends.  You don't seem to appreciate that the Western citizenship model of "paying one's dues" is also the system that says, oh my elderly person in wheelchair can't really pay all that many dues these last few years, and we don't have to support her with benefits of much quality either.  (And that's before we get to the question of do we support the initially handicapped and ill, etc.)  But you want us to feel sympathy for her because she isn't taken care of first just because she's 'one of ours' etc.  If we stepped back from paying dues and talked about how many resources are around and filling some basic needs without bloating the very top of the economic pyramid, then it wouldn't likely be such a massive struggle as it is.  And I would bet there would be a fair chunk left over in much of the West that could go toward integrating refugees in much more stabilizing conditions.

      In addition, there are competing arguments for where the anti-immigrant sentiment comes from.  Many cite the huge unemployment figures which have plagued Greece for the last few years, even before the latest rush of people out of North Africa and Syria.  We've already had our discussions elsewhere perhaps about how much of that is down to the national government, and how much is down to them being locked into Euro fiscal policy which really doesn't suit them.

      And the Greeks have also done a few things that I could imagine, if I were an immigrant, I might be rather legitimately outraged at them too, and less than eager to play into a narrative of oh, look at the kind tiny token gestures after all that has happened.  For instance...

A Greek court acquitted two men accused over the shooting of migrant farm workers who were demanding unpaid wages and gave two foremen suspended sentences in a ruling that prompted outrage from unions and rights groups on Thursday.

Twenty eight migrants, mostly Bangladeshi, were wounded when foremen at a strawberry farm opened fire on about 200 immigrant workers who were protesting for back pay in the southwestern town of Manolada in April last year.

The court in the southern city of Patras on Wednesday acquitted the farm owner and a supervisor and handed down prison terms of seven and 14 years for two foremen on charges of causing grievous bodily harm. The sentences will be suspended pending an appeal hearing, court sources said. The ruling in favor of the owner and supervisor cannot be appealed.

[kylie]

I picked out countries like Norway, Denmark and Sweden specifically not just because they have statistics avaliable but because on paper they're some of the countries where it should be easiest for immigrants to assimilate and start working. To take Norway specifically, there is free education, highly subsidized childcare, a vast economy per capita and a very low unemployment rate which should be near perfect conditions for new immigrants to get (and stay) in the labour market.

I'm more concerned there with first, whether the countries could find work for people to begin with.  If they have made it too difficult for people to get in and work at all, isn't that a problem they have created for themselves? 

     By focusing on select countries, you're also limiting the pool so that we don't have similar data on other countries.  Or to put it another way, closer to what you seem to be saying anyway, we can't know exactly what would happen in other countries if they don't make it possible for immigrants to try there.  (Though I'm still uncomfortable because you've stepped back from providing comparative information for what we do have, however qualified that might have to be.) 

     I feel we shouldn't simply assume the work and social cultures of Germany and the Scandanavian countries are all that similar without investigating them all.  The needs of some Euro countries may be quite different from others, too.  Consider just for one example, this comparative aging chart.  In 2040, picking the more visible dark blue line for each country, around 23-25% of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian populations will be over 50.  However in Germany, the number is closer to 33%.  It would seem to me that this suggests Germany may be more in need of young laborers, even relatively less skilled ones, to provide service jobs or manufacturing - or whatever it needs that the elders are not going to be supplying.  The Scandinavian countries have small populations and a lot of open space; Germany has packed urban areas stretching over much more of the country.  I haven't checked, but is the pension system completely comparable either?  Etc. 

So when people argue that Western countries (especially European ones) need more immigrants from the evidence we have what they're actually saying (whether they want to or not) is that we need more immigrants from other Western countries.

I'm doubtful it makes practical sense to read it that way.  If Europe as a whole needs that many people -- which is how I understood the report to be paraphrased -- then it's still a net loss doing what they're doing (i.e. restricting immigrants in principle to port of call countries which don't seem to want so many, or turning many away outright) unless they get them from -- where?  They generally don't take them from the U.S. without super specialized skills as it is.  Who does that leave that would be allowable under their policy, considered 'Western,' and not a let loss for Europe?  I don't imagine it's much easier for Aussies to get in, though I could be wrong?  Perhaps some Brits, if Britain wasn't being counted in the figure, but I suspect they were included in that definition of Europe.   

[LtSurge]

     I dunno, I think you're picking on a rather minor thing personally, as your main argument is more of a rhetorical people should take whatever they're offered by the system anywhere and be thankful it isn't worse.  Maybe no one should ever try for anything better then either.  I have no idea where that ends.  You don't seem to appreciate that the Western citizenship model of "paying one's dues" is also the system that says, oh my elderly person in wheelchair can't really pay all that many dues these last few years, and we don't have to support her with benefits of much quality either.  (And that's before we get to the question of do we support the initially handicapped and ill, etc.)  But you want us to feel sympathy for her because she isn't taken care of first just because she's 'one of ours' etc.  If we stepped back from paying dues and talked about how many resources are around and filling some basic needs without bloating the very top of the economic pyramid, then it wouldn't likely be such a massive struggle as it is.

Plenty of private charities exist to help people, and the western governments have established social safety nets(though I don't agree with government welfare programs as they are often used as emotional appeal to justify taxation, seizing of earnings to support a Welfare state). However, these programs work off of LIMITED RESOURCES. How do you expect to feed a hundred people in your house, if you barely make enough money to feed thirty? Hypothetically speaking. The mathematics aren't in favour of a dramatic increase in mouths to feed without economic strain.

Let's not forget that the bulk of these people aren't old or frail. Otherwise they wouldn't have made it very far into Europe.

[kylie]

      Mathematically, assuming what.  If people don't change policies, lots of things are impossible.  Preventing mass starvation.  Stopping global warming.  Avoiding recessions every ten years or sooner.   Stopping the American class system from increasingly mimicking the 19th century.  Show me fixed resources assuming people had some political will, and that's another question.  Or start more from Dash's point of view and excuse the lack of will to begin with by finding someone outside to blame.  But there's a whole lot of wealth tied up in the West to be accounted for before someone can prove it's mathematically "impossible" to take care of some people.  And they have to be given serious conditions where they can integrate and work in more than one or two countries people feel are 'best' at this moment politically, before they can be expected to find a whole lot of steady work.

[Oniya]

But there's a whole lot of wealth tied up in the West to be accounted for before someone can prove it's mathematically "impossible" to take care of some people. 

As an example of this - in the US, there are more empty houses than homeless people.  Mathematically, it's possible to take care of our own and then some.

[Zakharra]

 There's a difference between having to care for others and being required to do so. It seems that many here seem to think the EU and US is required to take in tens to hundreds of thousands to millions of refugees (whatever that means now. The term seems to have been broadened to mean -anything- now). Yes, by dint of the wealth the West has, it can theoretically take care of tens of millions of refugees if it wanted to. But this is completely discounting the societal, cultural, economic and emotional cost. The numbers that are starting to flood in to Europe are only increasing, and if it keeps doing so and Europe doesn't start turning them back, there's going to be a large cultural/social disruption.

Consortium11 states it well, the West needs the right -kind- of migrant, and much of what is coming isn't the right kind (ie educated and able and more importantly, willing to adapt to the new culture). The newcomers need to adapt to their new nation (whether they are there permanently or temporary), what they shouldn't do is make ethnic enclaves that don't change and refuse to assimilate into the culture of the nation around them.  The locals are getting frustrated and its showing as hostility to the incoming refugees/migrants/illegals because the locals don't want -that- many of the strangers pouring in. Especially ones that have a very different culture and very likely do not speak their language.

The EU and US can and should take in some, but the main problem is the numbers that have shown up and are expected show up.It's very likely going to be millions to tens of millions in the next few years, especially if the ones coming in now are able to get a decent deal. THAT is what will stress the system and there will be a backlash against the newcomers when there is an apparent never ending flood of refugees/migrants/illegals.

[Caehlim]

(whatever that means now. The term seems to have been broadened to mean -anything- now).

"A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."

This has been the legal definition since 1951.

[Dashenka]

     I dunno, I think you're picking on a rather minor thing personally, as your main argument is more of a rhetorical people should take whatever they're offered by the system anywhere and be thankful it isn't worse.  Maybe no one should ever try for anything better then either.  I have no idea where that ends.  You don't seem to appreciate that the Western citizenship model of "paying one's dues" is also the system that says, oh my elderly person in wheelchair can't really pay all that many dues these last few years, and we don't have to support her with benefits of much quality either.  (And that's before we get to the question of do we support the initially handicapped and ill, etc.)  But you want us to feel sympathy for her because she isn't taken care of first just because she's 'one of ours' etc.  If we stepped back from paying dues and talked about how many resources are around and filling some basic needs without bloating the very top of the economic pyramid, then it wouldn't likely be such a massive struggle as it is.  And I would bet there would be a fair chunk left over in much of the West that could go toward integrating refugees in much more stabilizing conditions.

It's not an argument, it's an observation. People always only see the bad things. The images of infants washing up on the shores are forgotten. All 'they' see now is pillaging, plundering and raping immigrants. Whether or not this is true, the immigrants have caused most of this themselves.

      In addition, there are competing arguments for where the anti-immigrant sentiment comes from.  Many cite the huge unemployment figures which have plagued Greece for the last few years, even before the latest rush of people out of North Africa and Syria.  We've already had our discussions elsewhere perhaps about how much of that is down to the national government, and how much is down to them being locked into Euro fiscal policy which really doesn't suit them.

      And the Greeks have also done a few things that I could imagine, if I were an immigrant, I might be rather legitimately outraged at them too, and less than eager to play into a narrative of oh, look at the kind tiny token gestures after all that has happened.  For instance...

True as all this might be, the Greek are in their own country, suffering from enough problems themselves. The last thing they want, or any country, is a group of violent, ungratefull immigrants.

[Oniya]

I live in a town with a lot of refugees.  The schools send home important announcements in multiple languages, however the most poignant thing I have heard is that there are two men who literally go door to door among the Nepalese community to help with these announcements because the adults are not able to read even their native language.  The children are learning English and assimilating into the community - they are flexible and in the stage where learning a new language is easy.  There are ESL classes for adults at the schools and churches, but transportation and scheduling can be an issue - as is finding someone skilled enough to teach these classes.

[LtSurge]

"Mathematically assuming what"
Mathematically, assuming Economy. Financial systems. Resource extraction. Agricultural output. GDP.

Countries that have their own financial crises aren't going to be helped by a massive influx of unskilled people who demand to be cared for.

Food isn't an infinite resource, I hope you know. And neither is it free. The government doesn't just magic wealth and prosperity into existence. It uses forceful coercion to extract money from its citizenry to fund its various social services... and to my knowledge, a lot of illegals are making use of these services whilst not paying back into the system(because they are unskilled and cannot hold jobs for whatever reason, or they get paid under-the-table)

If this is the trend I can only see an expansion of the welfare state and more pressure put on the middle-class to survive.

[Oniya]

Food is indeed not infinite.  That's why headlines like these are so unsettling.

Although the tomatoes that grew in my compost pile would make a case for food being a bit closer to free than many would suspect.  I bought one tomato, consumed most of it, and got six more from the one slice that sprouted.

[gaggedLouise]

Responses are kind of heating up here in Sweden too (where immigration and refugees has been a hot topic for the last couple of months). A local politician representing the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, got into the following hot-water exchange on Facebook. To get the geography right, Denmark is poised between Germany and Sweden and the several miles long bridge across the Öresund strait is the main gateway into Sweden for trains and cars from the European mainland

Gunilla S: /politician/: "Denmark and Germany are cutting down on their daily handouts for refugees - but not Sweden, hell no. Of course they wanna go on to Sweden! Won't some persons step up on the Öresund bridge with machine gun in hand?"
*** (name masked by the newspaper): Where did you get those supposed facts about support money on the German side? And what do you propose those people should do with them machine guns?
Gunilla S: "You must be extremely thick. End of discussion!"
*** : "Shouldn't you be the one on the bridge waving that machine gun, Miss?"

After those lines hit the news, said local politician blanked her lines and pleaded that she had been "swayed by a state of affect". ^_ ^

She is however also a lay juror at the local town court (nominated by her party). A senior judge at the court hinted that it could prove difficult for her to continue after that outburst. ;)

[LtSurge]

Food is indeed not infinite.  That's why headlines like these are so unsettling.

Although the tomatoes that grew in my compost pile would make a case for food being a bit closer to free than many would suspect.  I bought one tomato, consumed most of it, and got six more from the one slice that sprouted.

Oh? You're growing tomatoes? Neat! I'm growing lemons using just about the same method you did

[consortium11]

     I'm more concerned there with first, whether the countries could find work for people to begin with.  If they have made it too difficult for people to get in and work at all, isn't that a problem they have created for themselves?

Sweden and Denmark have unemployment rates at 7.8% and 6.3% respectively, well below the EU average of around 9%. Norway's is around 4%, one of the lowest across the entire EU. Low unemployment rates indicate that it's relatively easy to get a job. In addition to use Sweden as an example, if you look at the list of professions where they have labour shortages you'll see lots of construction and industrial jobs (as well as old standbys like waiters and chefs) which are jobs where a lack of higher education or great language skills aren't necessarily a huge drawback and thus are common professions for immigrants to go into when they first arrive (in the UK for example the construction sector is largely dominated these days by Polish and other Eastern European workers). But there's still this massive unemployment rate among non-Western immigrants.

By focusing on select countries, you're also limiting the pool so that we don't have similar data on other countries.  Or to put it another way, closer to what you seem to be saying anyway, we can't know exactly what would happen in other countries if they don't make it possible for immigrants to try there.  (Though I'm still uncomfortable because you've stepped back from providing comparative information for what we do have, however qualified that might have to be.)

I was focusing on those countries because on paper they should be the best countries for an immigrant to arrive in and quickly become a net contributor to the economy. I can bring up others... in the UK it is estimated that immigration from outside the EU between 1995 and 2007 cost £120 billion, in France it ends up costing around 26 billion euros a year with immigrants being twice as likely to be unemployed as the existing population and in Spain it's at roughly 25 billion euros.

I feel we shouldn't simply assume the work and social cultures of Germany and the Scandanavian countries are all that similar without investigating them all.  The needs of some Euro countries may be quite different from others, too.  Consider just for one example, this comparative aging chart.  In 2040, picking the more visible dark blue line for each country, around 23-25% of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian populations will be over 50.  However in Germany, the number is closer to 33%.  It would seem to me that this suggests Germany may be more in need of young laborers, even relatively less skilled ones, to provide service jobs or manufacturing - or whatever it needs that the elders are not going to be supplying.  The Scandinavian countries have small populations and a lot of open space; Germany has packed urban areas stretching over much more of the country.  I haven't checked, but is the pension system completely comparable either?  Etc.

To maintain Germany's current age ratio would, following current demographics, require increasing the population from 82 to 490 million and the arrival of 261 million immigrants over the next 90 years (that's around 2.9 million a year). Even if all those immigrants became net-contributors to the economy that doesn't strike me as a realistic option (for comparison since WW2 Germany's population has only increased by around 15 million in 60 odd years). In addition Germany currently has a fairly low demand for low skilled workers to begin with (and I'd note the point above about the sectors that have labour shortages in Sweden). Frankly I'd also hold Germany up as a good example of why the "use immigrants to fill the low skill manual labour jobs market" position is a weak one; they did exactly that in the 1960's and 70's with Turkish workers during the Wirtschaftswunder. Today those Turkish immigrant communities (and their children) are stuck in an economic underclass with low levels of employment, income or integration.

I'm doubtful it makes practical sense to read it that way.  If Europe as a whole needs that many people -- which is how I understood the report to be paraphrased -- then it's still a net loss doing what they're doing (i.e. restricting immigrants in principle to port of call countries which don't seem to want so many, or turning many away outright) unless they get them from -- where?  They generally don't take them from the U.S. without super specialized skills as it is.  Who does that leave that would be allowable under their policy, considered 'Western,' and not a let loss for Europe?  I don't imagine it's much easier for Aussies to get in, though I could be wrong?  Perhaps some Brits, if Britain wasn't being counted in the figure, but I suspect they were included in that definition of Europe.

On a technical point Australians do have somewhat of an easier time emigrating to Europe, generally going through the UK.

But frankly, you've accurately summed up the issue with the "we need more immigrants" position. The immigrants we "want" (for lack of a better term) to make up for an aging population with longer life spans and low(er) birthrates are those who are net contributors to the economy and from the demographic evidence we have that means Western or EU immigrants, not those from outside the EU or the "West". It also doesn't mean low-skilled workers... not only are there limited opportunities (even noting the point about Sweden above) but that's a market largely filled by Eastern European immigrants who are more likely to return to their country of birth in their old age and thus put less pressure on the welfare state. If the immigrants coming from outside the West and/or EU were all highly skilled experts who could quickly get into the job market and required minimal financial support by the state then the position would be strong... but they're not.

The position that we need more immigrants to save us only works if it's the "right sort" of immigrants... but there aren't enough of them.

[Caehlim]

On a technical point Australians do have somewhat of an easier time emigrating to Europe, generally going through the UK.

Being part of the commonwealth doesn't help all that much. It's great if you want a short visit (technically I don't even need a visa to do that), but they don't give us the same latitude in living and working there. My sister is married to an Englishman, constantly struggles with organizing to continue to stay in the country and still hasn't been able to obtain citizenship yet.

I mean yes, we've got a bit of name recognition going on when we say we're from Australia and I think we get some subconscious leeway from immigration officials (especially after ticking the white and speaks English boxes). However when they started exiling the Irish across the waves to their new prison colony they never really planned on allowing them to come back.

[kylie]

I was focusing on those countries[western Scandinavia] because on paper they should be the best countries for an immigrant to arrive in and quickly become a net contributor to the economy. I can bring up others... in the UK it is estimated that immigration from outside the EU between 1995 and 2007 cost £120 billion, in France it ends up costing around 26 billion euros a year with immigrants being twice as likely to be unemployed as the existing population and in Spain it's at roughly 25 billion euros.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure if absolute cost per year should be enough to sway people from bringing in refugees.  How much of a relative cost is that, really?  What else have those countries done with similar sums of money recently?  Granted there's always someone who says 'not one dime of mine' for this or that and it seems easy to say that if "that" is funding for someone labeled as a different group somehow at the start.  But that may still be more a political will problem than a simple feasibility statement.

     Perhaps for some comparison, here's an argument that Canada for example could afford to catch up with say, German levels of immigration -- at least, by a fraction.  This speaks to both how cheaply (relatively!) immigration can be subsidized, and what might be possible when people do have the will and not just a spirit of "no one rides for free in my great country, everyone should suffer as I have all their life!" 

Contrary to popular perception, the government of Canada pays very little to support refugees arriving in Canada. Financial support can be provided for up to one year or until they find work, whichever comes first. In Ontario, a single refugee could receive up to $781 per month for a year, in addition to a one-time allowance of $905. Germany calculates that they spend slightly more, about $11,600 (in Canadian dollars) per new refugee. Increasing our refugee intake by a factor of 20 would cost approximately $2.2 billion a year.

That might sound like a lot, but it works out to $63 per Canadian. The parties would only need to give up a few of the boutique tax credits they are sprinkling across the country. Better yet, the government could pledge to match whatever the public promises up to a maximum of $1.1 billion. This would cut the cost in half and force Canadians to put up or shut up. When this approach has been used in the past, to address an overseas natural disaster for example, the public has been extremely generous. We might surprise ourselves.

Frankly I'd also hold Germany up as a good example of why the "use immigrants to fill the low skill manual labour jobs market" position is a weak one; they did exactly that in the 1960's and 70's with Turkish workers during the Wirtschaftswunder. Today those Turkish immigrant communities (and their children) are stuck in an economic underclass with low levels of employment, income or integration.

Again that's fair enough if you assume nothing else can/should ever change to deal with the present situation better...  But Germany doesn't generally use the same logic to drive policy and thus just kick the Turkish community out, either (as far as I know, though some rightists might prefer to).  The United States is more or less aware that the Black population, or take the Filipino population in Hawaii, or some of the Native American population in quite a few states, or much of the Latino population now are not making huge financial headway... 

     All of these are de facto economic underclasses.  The existence of underclasses -- and state interest in having them -- isn't a result of "generous" immigration policy.  That's just rhetoric the far right trots out whenever they think they can get some votes and rally the people against a handy scapegoat/distraction, particularly when the overall economy is suffering and the middle class is getting dragged down too.  But the Western economic models generally require an underclass; the only question is how many is too many to be merely as 'flexible' (i.e. to fill the quota of expendables) as the market wishes. 

    If you really have a problem with encouraging underclasses as such, then perhaps adopt a model that distributes wealth more equally than what we have (here's Europe just for example, have talked about the US enough elsewhere).  Then it's more convincing to argue about how relatively affordable or not taking in more people on subsidies is, in some larger picture of what's feasible.  Governments have already been funding the policy of encouraging underclasses for a very long time.  While there might be some limit to just how many people a country can take in on some basis or other, it's odd to say they don't want to fund what they are otherwise funding until we have a really convincing reason for drawing the line in some particular place.

[kylie]

... in the UK it is estimated that immigration from outside the EU between 1995 and 2007 cost £120 billion...

      A technical curiosity btw.  If this is the number from the same source in question (it appears very close on the figure), then it seems like it's become the subject of some debate. 

      Aside but it's quite a contradiction:  Others have looked at the same time period and come up with a (slight, few billion) positive fiscal impact for immigration into the UK.  Though they were looking more at people from say, Eastern Europe and I might doubt that refugees from Syria would have quite as much to start with on average.

Dustman and Frattini say it is misleading to use the £118bn figure as the Telegraph and Mail have done. As they point out, this is based on the cost of all immigrants living in Britain between 1995 and 2011. This isn’t migrants who arrived in Britain in the late 1990s and 2000s but all the non-UK born people living in Britain at that time. More than 90% of them will have arrived in Britain long before 1995, including Britain’s large long-settled Asian and Caribbean communities who were born abroad.

The authors say that, for example, the calculation will include people who came to Britain in 1950 but only what they paid into the state and took out in benefits and public services after 1995.

The authors say this doesn’t tell us anything about how much these people have cost Britain in net terms because it ignores their contribution during the first 45 years of their residence.

[Dashenka]

Denmark shut down it's train system to and from Germany because 3.000 immigrants had stormed the trains. When they were stopped to be registered, they refused to get out because they wanted to get clear passage to Sweden and did not want to be registered in Denmark.

About hundred left the train to be registered.

This is no longer Hungary or Greece we are talking about. This is Denmark, in a recent survey, the same country that got choses as one of the happiest places on earth. Yet still these immigrants refuse everything.

I wonder how much longer you all can keep protecting your beliefs that these 'refugees' are really that. They are leeches, leeching off the system of Europe. Really desperate refugees would have gotten off the train and get registered before travelling on to Sweden, as they should and like these 100 actually did.

There is just so much wrong with this whole 'refugee' stuff and it goes beyond just the immigrants. It's a collosal fuck up of the US, the UN, the EU and every other humanitarian organization all over the world. When there is a war to be fought, the US dive in headfirst, when there is a country invaded by the big bad guy, NATO dives in headfirst.

When there is Ebola in Africa, nobody gives a fuck. When countries in Europe get swamped by so called refugees, nobody gives a fuck.

Sigh....

[Iniquitous]

When there is Ebola in Africa, nobody gives a fuck. When countries in Europe get swamped by so called refugees, nobody gives a fuck.

Sigh....

Generalizations again. The US DID send troops to Africa to help in the Ebola crisis. We also had American doctors there. Might want to research a little more instead of letting your hatred for the US completely blind you.

[Dashenka]

Generalizations again. The US DID send troops to Africa to help in the Ebola crisis. We also had American doctors there. Might want to research a little more instead of letting your hatred for the US completely blind you.

It wasn't my hatred against the US, it was my disbelief at humanity in general.

[gaggedLouise]

Well, clearly this is something that could keep going for a long time, it's not like the flow of people from Africa and the Middle East is going to let up quickly. The "hardline solution" would be for some western countries to just set up their own colonial banners in some of the countries where there is a war or serious unrest now, such as Libya, Syria, Mali and Sudan/South Sudan, or some indigenous dictators who could keep the situation in check like Qaddafi used to do, but that's not really practicable anymore...or morally acceptable for most people.

[kylie]

      You can't "leech" (lovely demonizing, dehumanizing word there btw?) off something that isn't there anymore, or is less there, to be had in the first place. 

Many refugees are reluctant to register in Denmark, where a centre-right government has cut benefits.

      Plus, the Danes are trying to restrict their movement apparently on behalf of other states, which (not for the first time in all this) doesn't bode well for the whole 'borderless European area' concept unless there is some solution to the crisis appearing soon.

       Personally, I find the whole notion of being beholden to the official "country of entry" concept a little odd.  Who benefits really?  You would think, Austria or some countries with few borders to the outside, but with all these differential policies in practice maybe it's not that simple.  If it's an economic union, why not make some central authority on immigration with a more uniform policy?  Just don't make it a corporate contract like they did with patrolling the Mediterranean and repatriating people found there; that's been a disaster already. 

[kylie]

     Meanwhile, there are arguments that Russia and Iran are quite active in support of Assad, including supplying weapons and proxies, possiby in ways that might draw out the refugee crisis longer.  The article isn't very specific about exactly what relationship is being assumed between these involvements and the refugee numbers, though I'd guess the general 'the longer Assad keeps at this, the longer the nasty stuff happens' principle could be involved. 

     For Dash: I'd be more open to claims of "not refugees", at least from Syria, when I hear fewer reports of cities being bombed, Isis blowing up monuments and trying to enforce some extremist idea of sharia law and general sexual abuse, chemical weapons being deployed and impoverished Turkish border camps swelling with people who can barely seem to get even if they're likely to be stranded.

some 4m Syrians had fled their homeland since the conflict began there to 2014. Meanwhile, the EU's entire 2014 asylum influx accounted for just 0.03% of its population as a whole.

          The same Economist article notes, among other things -- Eek.  Edit, I read the wrong column.  They list acceptance rates and Denmark's rate is pretty high, but their absolute numbers are pretty low.  Then again their population is low to begin with, so they have let in quite a few compared to that.  All this being said...  It still makes sense to me if immigrants can keep up with the fact that popular sentiment is not running so much toward likely letting them in, as it used to be?  And again, if that's the case, they might not want to stop there and risk being deported now?  (Or perhaps they'd rather go to Sweden, which has a higher absolute population of immigrants accepted lately?  It's a thought, and it also would seem to make it more likely that some recent refugees would know someone there already.)

[gaggedLouise]

      You can't leech off something that isn't there anymore, or is less there, to be had in the first place. 

      Plus, the Danes are trying to restrict their movement apparently on behalf of other states, which (not for the first time in all this) doesn't bode well for the whole 'borderless European area' concept unless there is some solution to the crisis appearing soon.

       Personally, I find the whole notion of being beholden to the official "country of entry" concept a little odd.  Who benefits really?  You would think, Austria or some countries with few borders to the outside, but with all these differential policies in practice maybe it's not that simple.  If it's an economic union, why not make some central authority on immigration with a more uniform policy?  Just don't make it a corporate contract like they did with patrolling the Mediterranean and repatriating people found there; that's been a disaster already.

It would have been considerably easier to manage if there had been a real "United States of Europe" with common taxation, armed forces, social, educational and workplace policies - if such a structure had existed for real all across these 28 countries and had been in charge instead of national governments being at the top, these operations would have become more streamlined and simpler to handle. At least from the point of view of bureaucrats, agency chiefs - and the police. But there isn't quite that kind of hard executive White House, Federal Cabinet and Pentagon at the centre. Not nearly so. Germany has taken the lead because it has more economic clout and more people than anybody else, but it's a pygmy in military terms and really doesn't want to be seen to force the rest of Europe their way, for some obvous historical reasons...

Yes, there's a steady lack of people taking charge on this, and I think that's to do with the EU itself: what does it mean that it styles itself  "union"? State union? Fiscal union? Some of the political people and some others really would like to move towards a truly unified space, a real "USE" (United States of Europe), but there's never been a clear mandate from below for it and everyone knows that in many member states, most people are against the idea, including the middle classes. No party in power in Paris, London, Stockholm, Rome or Prague would campaign for "let's move closer to a real union, let's build a Euro-Washington" at home. It's like, we're not gonna sell our national sovereignty for some kind of slogan.  :P

So there's a real contradiction here. The problem with a flood of refugees and migrants and a few wars going on quite close to Europe is a trans-European problem, it's not something that a single country could carve out and solve for itself, this is widely understood, and some politicians and some business people would want a firmer top structure to the EU to drive unified, streamlined solutions - but that won't wash with most ordinary people or even any governments: they want a final right to negotiate and to have their own way within their own country.

I bet some top politicians and diplomats will have swallowed quite a bit of pride over working out the plan that was presented the other day: to bring in 160.000 refugees ("real" refugees, by any standard) from camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, and distribute them across Europe. Those refugees would be on top of the ones who are already on the move and essentially every country would be obliged to take their quota - a country could opt out on some of those refugees with special reasons but it would cost the government quite a high fee. That is not always going to be easy to sell at home.

The feuding between neighbours like Austria, Hungary and (non-EU) Serbia or Sweden, Denmark and Germany over immigration policies and other stuff are the kind of turf fights that a firm top command would have forced down if there was one. But there isn't. Brussels or Berlin aren't able to do that except in the dreams of certain politicians and thinkers, and that's a continuous back story to the whole saga, though I guess it's not easy to see to non-Europeans.

[kylie]

      Oh no I didn't think there was central control on the policy really...  I just wondered if it might make a certain pragmatic sense by now, if there were more of it. 

      For whatever particular motives, Angela Merkel seems to think so too (same Economist article).

Speaking in Berlin on Monday, Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, called for a unified European migration policy, with refugees "fairly" distributed among EU member states. (She also noted that those migrants without a right to stay in Europe should be returned home.)

[gaggedLouise]

Mmm, yes, I figured you'd be clear that we're not one third of the way to a USE yet, absolutely! Just wanted to address this underlying constitutional and political issue because I think it brings an added bit of confusion, and something politicians themselves really don't like to admit to.

The European commission is a *sort* of Euro-government but it doesn't come close to the executive authority and ability to take decisions for everybody below that most national cabinets have.

[Dashenka]

Meet Europe's least favourite woman... Petra Laszlo...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPs4kyBr7g



At least she got fired.

[gaggedLouise]

Well, Germany and Austria have decided to return to normal border control after a few days when tens of thousands of people passed through - especially according to the police, the flow was getting close to the limits of what one could manage. They will still be allowing people over of course, but with more checks. This presumably means more migrants getting bottled up in Serbia and Hungary.

There's no question that there's a need for some kind of coherent political solutions.

[Caehlim]

There's no question that there's a need for some kind of coherent political solutions.

I don't think anyone on either side of the issue, whether you're for or against refugees would disagree there. It's obvious that the current situation just isn't working and I don't think anyone is happy with it.

[Dashenka]

That's what I've been saying from day one. But everybody got all emotional over seeing the drowned babies and then just opened the floodgates and let them run freely throughout Europe.

Germany's reaching the limits of what they can handle or have already reached it. Now that we got that point, suddenly everybody agrees it should be limited and all.

Why now?

Why not a month ago? Am I the only one who could see this coming?

[Caehlim]

That's what I've been saying from day one. But everybody got all emotional over seeing the drowned babies and then just opened the floodgates and let them run freely throughout Europe.

Germany's reaching the limits of what they can handle or have already reached it. Now that we got that point, suddenly everybody agrees it should be limited and all.

Whoa, you're getting a bit ahead of yourself there I think. There's a big difference between saying "Wow, we should have had a co-ordinated, well-organized and international approach to this issue" and saying "Wow, we should have had Dashenka's co-ordinated, well-organized and international approach to this issue".

[gaggedLouise]

Yeah, I understand Germany hasn't said they are not letting more people in - they're still committed to accepting a six-figure number of migrants and refugees through this year. They're putting up a closer control at their borders, but they're not putting up any kind of iron wall.

[Dashenka]

Whoa, you're getting a bit ahead of yourself there I think. There's a big difference between saying "Wow, we should have had a co-ordinated, well-organized and international approach to this issue" and saying "Wow, we should have had Dashenka's co-ordinated, well-organized and international approach to this issue".

What's the difference?

[Caehlim]

What's the difference?

I think you may have inadvertently fallen into a False Dilemma approach, in which the only two possibilities are 1) The present handling or 2) Your proposed handling. Just because someone criticizes the present handling of the situation doesn't mean that they endorse your proposed handling of the situation.

For example and this is incredibly broad strokes so please don't bog down in details here, but I believe that an international effort should have been raised before these people even left Turkey, both taking large numbers of refugees off Turkey's hands and giving some aid money from the international community to assist them in handling the remaining number. This is different from both the present method and your suggestion, thus making a third option. There would be many other possibilities as well.

[Dashenka]

All I said before was to regulate the flow of immigrants, which is exactly what countries as Germany and Austria now want.

So what I said a week orso ago and what the politicians say now, is the same. Only I was sooner to see it.

I'm all for the hold responsible those who are resposible in the first place. But blaming NATO/US/Europe for destablizing the Middle East doesn't help the refugees.

[Caehlim]

Ah, so you weren't responding to me. Your "That's what I've been saying from day one" came immediately after my post so I assumed it was directed to what I had said, rather than the German police whom Louise quoted in an earlier post. Never mind, I see where we went astray from one another.

[Dashenka]

Yes it was a response to the countries finally taking action, not your post :)

[Caehlim]

Yes it was a response to the countries finally taking action, not your post :)

Apologies for my egocentrism there. :)

[Dashenka]

No worries :)

[gaggedLouise]

*bows out of the thread for now*

[TheGlyphstone]

I saw this on a Chipotle cup, of all things  - it's apparently also making the rounds on Tumblr, but it made me think (as it is supposed to). We're debating this issue on an Internet message board, which automatically puts us at a certain level of separation and detachment from the refugees we're discussing. It's hard enough to put yourself in someone else's shoes when those shoes aren't worn through with holes or crusted with dirt or even stained with dried blood; we can look at all the factors and issues and complications rationally from an outside perspective.

I am thinking about the fragility of civilization. Look around you, at the building you are in, the road you travel on. What you see was made by people who agreed that they would get up in the morning and go to work and nobody would shoot at them or fire mortars at them; there would not be checkpoints at which they could be taken out and never seen again; that there would be food in the shops, and water in the taps, and shoes to buy and to wear. People who believed that the place you go to sleep tonight will be here tomorrow.

I have started to think of humanity as family.

There are now fifty million refugees in the world today, more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And at some point, for each one of those people, the world shifted. Their world, solid and predictable, erupted or dissolved into chaos or danger or pain. They realized that they had to run.

You have two minutes to pack. You can only take what you can carry easily. You are going to have to walk a long way. You hope that somewhere, someone is going to take you in. I have started to think of humanity as family: a family that quarrels, but which must, when things get hard, put aside old arguments and divisions, and care for each other. Sometimes someone needs somebody to take them in, and that’s the function of family. It’s time to care.

You have two minutes to run. What will you take with you?

[Euron Greyjoy]

What gets me is that European birth rates are so low compared to the migrants, that Europe will be no longer European. Not to mention we don't even know who these migrants are. For all we know they could be members of ISIS or other extremists. Though perhaps more repulsive is the fact it only encourages more Rotherhams to happen, as no one wants to be called a racist, xenophobe, or islamophobe. Even if they wanted to press charges on a criminal it would be hard, with such a large influx to hunt down the perpetrator(s).

[Garuss Vakarian]

Im all for helping the migrants, as long as we properly vet them, to ensure that they are actually people fleeing persecution and not A; Isis sleeper's, as most footage show a vast majority of the migrants are young men in their 20's and 30's. Men of fighting age. I mean, look at them, almost all those guys are healthy, fit, and well fed. and B; 20/30 year old men pretending to be migrants for government aid. I am not trying to make assertions here. But the news is not properly covering this event, as they only show the migrants in a sympathetic light, and refuse to show them stealing, attacking, denying charitable aid, rioting, and chanting "Allahu Akbar FUCK YOU!"

Heres radicals throwing away free food and water given to them out of charity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e6sIl5whsg

Riot in Lesbos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iq6Yxx6GxY

Chanting Alahu Ahkbar and Fuck You:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHX8SZ7awg

Here in this video, a man who quite frankly is a dick tore pages out of the kiran and threw them into the toilet. What resulted was 20 migrants chasing him, breaking down his door, and assaulting him. As shameful as the man was, a lynch mob is not an appropriate response to religious intolerance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJIDgTKc6k

This video is one of the more crucial to show as it has a lot of clips and such to reveal. I will copy and paste the posters description, as he explains what is in the footage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQbe4Of9SD4

"Take a look at all images on TV! Most of refugees are men!!! Young men!!! Which normally should defend their country, not to runway!!! Look at them! How aggressive they are! They come here in Europe to fight!? Do you want these people as neighbors?


Hungarian Police Battle with Muslim Protesters in Migrant Camp Debrecen City

Hungarian police have fired tear gas to subdue hundreds of people fighting each other and throwing rocks in an overcrowded camp for migrants in the eastern city of Debrecen, authorities have said.

While African Muslims leaks into Europe through Italy, Balkan Muslims leak in through Hungary. And with it comes Afghanistan-style Islamic riots. Meanwhile, in lack of EU’s willingness to effectively defend its borders, Hungary has decided to build a 200 km long, 4 meter high fence on the border to Serbia…

…A conflict of a religious nature between two refugees (a turkish and an afgan) at the Debrecen camp was allegedly behind the riots that happened on a nearby road on Monday afternoon. About 100 migrants staying at the refugee camp in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, started throwing stones at cars passing by on road 471 and beating the vehicles with sticks, according to eye-witnesses.

Later, police said one officer took a hit from a stone and was slightly injured. Police appeared in raid gear and managed to drive the refugees back into the camp, behind a fence where they remained in a line, facing police and shouting, the correspondent said. The conflict turned violent after 2.30 pm when two refugees engaged in a row over religious (islam) matters, the local county police said.

The argument turned heated and “hundreds of others” joined in, including a man who allegedly “stamped his feet on the Koran”, police said, citing eyewitnesses. Another witness said one refugee took the other’s Koran, which contained 200 euros hidden among the pages. Police spokesperson Erika Demeter said the refugees blocked the nearby highway, lit rubbish bins and threw stones at cars passing by."

Now I aint saying dont help. But it is clear that a lot of Migrants are not as they appear. So as such we should be careful, methodical, and deliberate in who we let in. Those who need help, and not the 20 something year olds that are well fed and obviously in healthy good shape with six packs. Isis declared they were sending men to pretend to be migrants so they can be let in massive numbers into the us and europe, does anyone really think that was an idle threat? And by the number of healthy, angry, and strong young men among those migrants. Dam straight they are using this humanitarian crisis to their advantage. We should be careful, less we pipe in a few thousand battle ready radical's. Again, not saying we dont help. Im just saying we should administer realistic caution.

[kylie]

Im all for helping the migrants, as long as we properly vet them, to ensure that they are actually people fleeing persecution and not A; Isis sleeper's, as most footage show a vast majority of the migrants are young men in their 20's and 30's. Men of fighting age. I mean, look at them, almost all those guys are healthy, fit, and well fed.

So are a lot of immigrants from Mexico to the US if I'm not mistaken.  So what.  Does that make them all terrorists?  I'd also like to see sources besides "footage" -- footage from whom?  The only footage you seem to be choosing here is whatever shows upset people fighting.  Are we to believe that's a representative sample of all the immigrants?   

and B; 20/30 year old men pretending to be migrants for government aid.

Again, sources.  Or are you denying there's a huge civil war over there someplace?  That couldn't possibly have anything to do with the "vast majority" either now could it?

I am not trying to make assertions here. But the news is not properly covering this event, as they only show the migrants in a sympathetic light, and refuse to show them stealing, attacking, denying charitable aid, rioting, and chanting "Allahu Akbar FUCK YOU!"

Are you saying that anyone from the Near East who shouts "Allah Akbar" must obviously be some fundamentalist terrorist?  You might better research that.  I believe the term is used pretty generically against any sort of perceived injustice.

Now I aint saying dont help. But it is clear that a lot of Migrants are not as they appear. So as such we should be careful, methodical, and deliberate in who we let in. Those who need help, and not the 20 something year olds that are well fed and obviously in healthy good shape with six packs.

Cause 20-ish year olds in good shape don't get thrown in Damascus prisons and killed with indiscriminate gassing and barrel bombs.  They only come to bomb you and pretend to be fleeing.  Is that the idea?

Isis declared they were sending men to pretend to be migrants so they can be let in massive numbers into the us and europe, does anyone really think that was an idle threat? And by the number of healthy, angry, and strong young men among those migrants. Dam straight they are using this humanitarian crisis to their advantage.

That's damn with an n, if you care, as opposed to the Mosul Dam.  :P  Seriously, though...

      Again, there are lots of young men in the Near/Middle East period.  I seem to recall it's the demographics of the place.  There are lots opposing or fleeing the Syrian government, the Egyptian government, and perhaps more as well.  I'm not sure how easy it is to thoroughly "vet" all of them; this isn't people sitting around the US with their whole histories on the web for the NSA to leisurely peruse in no hurry at all.  At the same time, I can imagine a few basic questions being asked. 

     What I can't imagine is a Donald Trump style, hundreds of thousands should generally be rejected or all the young men must be suspect sort of logic.  There are consequences, both humanitarian and political, to turning back whole swathes.  It's probably not the best economic move for Europe to go wholesale like that, it's not entirely clear that one can seal all the points of entry very effectively, it may lead to more deaths in the Med or crime and protests in overcapacity camps almost under the noses of regimes many were trying to escape, and it may also make the messy assumptions that many are violently anti-Western slightly more of a reality more as a result. 

       As far as the videos from Hungary and the like, you go on about media coverage not being even...  You don't cover much about what the politics and policing are like in Hungary for immigrants, though.  Doesn't look like you're interested in finding very much balance yourself.  There might be a few reasons they don't want to be seen accepting help, or be held up in much of any association whatsoever in Hungary.  I'd feel quite a bit of contempt and unease in such situations too.

      The Hungarian PM is pretty much known as a far right, anti-immigrant figure.  Wonder what sort of policing he generally employs.  In any case, his police have been busy trying to essentially detain and deport immigrants.  They probably want to get the heck out of there as fast as possible, except every interaction could be taken as an EU excuse to declare them 'Hungarian responsibility' where it's known that Hungary wants to send them back.

[Sept. 3]
In Budapest, there has been a two day stand-off between police and thousands of refugees, with authorities refusing to let unregistered immigrants leave the country, and immigrants determined to reach Germany, where authorities have accepted tens of thousands of asylum applications...

Detractors dub Orban a dictator – Viktator - a cynical opportunist who has built a political career on whipping up xenophobia while slowly stifling dissent. US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain branded Orban a "neo-fascist dictator" in 2014, after Hungary sought closer ties with Vladimir Putin's authoritarian Russia...

Orban's politics took a new direction, and in 2007 was the given the Economist's "politics of the gutter award", for his "cynical populism and mystifyingly authoritarian socialist-style policies".

      McCain and The Economist think he's dirty and iron-fisted.  These are not exactly the most liberal and humanitarian of all possible critics talking.

      I've been over it before in this thread, but the reception also isn't that grand politically, nor are the chances of staying in Europe, for immigrants who find themselves trapped spending very much time in Greece these days.

[Caehlim]

most footage show a vast majority of the migrants are young men in their 20's and 30's.

Actually 51% of refugees are children, for adults males and females are evenly balanced. Source: UNHCR Global Trends.

[Garuss Vakarian]

Lol, ok that is tottaly unfair and you know it. (Edit:Not to seem mad, it just feels like an unfair thing to say.) I am not calling them all terrorists. I am saying that Isis doesn't send idle threats, and such a move would make complete and tactical sense on their part. Therefor we should have a air of CAUTION. I never said fuck the migrants. I said we should have, at the very least, some caution. Even if it is something as small as a identification process. Especially since it is obvious quite a bit are using the crisis to obtain free government aid. (Joke ahead) But know what, by all means. Let's accept literally THOUSANDS of people we do not know and have not checked out into our country. Because that makes sense. No seriously, let's open that door wiiiide open, without any caution or security what so ever. After all, a regime that video tapes it's self committing diabolical murder', and goes on social media to tell any one they can indoctrinate to attack their fellow Americans, are surely bluffing when they say they will use this crisis to send thousands to the US and European countries. It's not like they use the kindness and political correctness of the United Nations to their advantage time and time again right? Joking aside, am I really such a bad person for saying we should be careful? Or are we so progressive, so politically correct, so afraid of being racist that we will risk national security because we dont want to look bad? Im not saying we be dicks or inhumane, but identity searches would suffice substantially. All I want is for us to actually LOOK at who we are bringing in. And not greet with open arms those, whom surely have many among them that wish to stab our backs as we hug it out all humanely. (Edit:That was another joke.) Isis is a villain, and like any of histories villains. They have, as any other radical Muslim regime, and will prey upon the kindness of their enemy. Edit: So basically I WANT to help. I just want to be sure I am helping those that really need it.

Again, sources.  Or are you denying there's a huge civil war over there someplace?  That couldn't possibly have anything to do with the "vast majority" either now could it?

See, I dont blame you for asserting this. The news is not covering the whole truth to you. They are leaving out the fact that many of these men have been found to not even be from Siria. In fact, quite a number of ID's from different countries have been found scattered and discarded along the roads. Many of these young men are not escaping the persecution, they are trying to take advantage of the government aid they would receive in Europe and here in the states. I am not pretending there is not a crisis, I KNOW there is. Think I am not paying attention? There is, and they are fleeing. But not all are, in fact it is to be assumed by logic a LOT are not as they say they are. So, as I said.  Bring them in, but have CAUTION. I dont want my tax payers money to go to some one who is not escaping persecution, and does NOT need the aid. I do recognize the civil war. As well as the terrorist actions and extreme religious intolerance of radical Muslims. Honestly, am I such a bad guy for saying we should Vet and be careful who we pull in? Especially as much that we are not being shown, suggests we should be careful. A lot of these people are RIOTING. Causing problems, stealing, and other such things. I understand they are in need. But to just bring them in willy nilly will bring the same chaos they are showing in Greece, Hungary, etc over here.

Are you saying that anyone from the Near East who shouts "Allah Akbar" must obviously be some fundamentalist terrorist?  You might better research that.  I believe the term is used pretty generically against any sort of perceived injustice.

Lol, are you asserting I am racist? It is actually the FUCK YOU part of their chant I refer to as being dumb. They are saying fuck you to people helping them.  How ridiculous is that? I can see where you got that idea. But hey, heres an actual lesson I know I can give you. Hanlons Razor: Do not attribute to malice as which can be easily attributed to Stupidity/ignorance. ^^ Helps a lot in conversation. And helps to keep myself from having knee jerk reactions. It helps a lot to remember that some times a person may not mean what you thought they said, or that they may not have worded things right, or that they genuinely didnt know. It not only better helps your side of the argument but also helps to keep things civil. And if things turn un civil, it would allow the observers to aid you. As they can see your clearly right/civil.

Cause 20-ish year olds in good shape don't get thrown in Damascus prisons and killed with indiscriminate gassing and barrel bombs.  They only come to bomb you and pretend to be fleeing.  Is that the idea?

Tell me what mass migration of persecution in history have you seen where roughly 80 percent Edit:meant most of the men, not that 80 percent are male. I shouldnt bring in nub=mbers, im bad with them. :P lol.

Where most men are healthy young men that could very well be fighting to defend their own people. Tell me, what one have you seen in history where most were not malnourished and weak, with extreme lack of water and food due to the migration and persecution? As I am certain what the answer is, you can imagine why it is perplexing for most to be healthy young men, that are NOT malnourished, and are aggressively inciting violence. (Which the news, conveniently, wont show you here in the states.) Now, this is not a fact and merely a assertion based on logic. So let's agree to disagree. The fact of the matter is we can not know. I can be right, I can be wrong. But it is the uncertainty that matters. And is why we should have a secure line to the US, not a wide open door.

Edit: Also making tweets. Lol, I have seen on a few articles and a youtube video that there are even some of these fake refugees making selfies and tweets about it.

Caehlim: Sorry if you thought I said that most are males and few are children and women. What I meant was, a majority of the males are young and healthy. Of which can easily be fighting. And as of which I must reference once again, the fact that there are many id's and such being left behind. As sickening as the thought may be, there is quite a large number that seem to, out of logical assumption, be following the migrants in order to obtain government aid. IE; money and free housing. If you wish I can link you to the video, which made me aware of much that which our own News networks are NOT showing us. Since as I said, much of what is happening is not being shown. Because our progressive culture wants to paint them all in a sympathetic light. And as sympathy should be given, we should not be blinded purposefully to the fact that there is lot's of violence in the wake of these migrants. As well as many literally spitting in the face of foreign kindness.

Edit: Here I found a news article on it myself. People are actually pretending, and that is my main concern any way. Isis can and would be dealt with if they make it over here. But I dont want at all to help some low life preying on the pain of others to get literally an easy way into america. With free housing and such on top of it. http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/refugee-crisis-in-europe-something-fishy-among-migrant-flood-as-discarded-id-papers-appear/story-fnh81p7g-1227515922792

[Garuss Vakarian]

That's damn with an n, if you care, as opposed to the Mosul Dam.  :P  Seriously, though...

Lol, sorry for posting twice but. Just noticed this, xD . Good one, it was pretty funny. To me at least.

[kylie]

Lol, ok that is tottaly unfair and you know it. (Edit:Not to seem mad, it just feels like an unfair thing to say.) I am not calling them all terrorists.

When you keep going on that way about "the vast majority" without qualifying much, it sounds pretty close to me.  What % did you mean to focus on with that term, then?

I am saying that Isis doesn't send idle threats, and such a move would make complete and tactical sense on their part. Therefor we should have a air of CAUTION.

Perhaps, but that can be played various ways.  There is Donald Trump: We should be cautious, so send them all back -- which was curiously said just the other day and here you are with this.  Perhaps just coincidence, but the language is rather similar.  Made me wonder a little.

      There could be the version:  We should be cautious, and I don't trust them much generally as a people or a broader demographic collection (something like, oh "the vast majority" or just 'many of the many people coming in from the Middle East lately'), say partly because you may (and you did say you do) think some/however many of them are not really in need but merely taking advantage somehow unfairly.  Now that's actually something that's probably been said many times about immigrants both legal and illegal in the US, and also just about anyone with any sort of difference to be seen really throughout history in many different situations....

       To which I could say, big deal:  It was often wrong then too.  On the security side, it was at least partly in overlap with the kind of domestic rhetoric that got so many Japanese-Americans locked up during World War Two -- the notion that if hardliners from Japan said all good Japanese would follow the Emperor, then of course recent immigrants from Japan (of whom there were already plenty inside the US) would all necessarily be made of that same idea and part of the project, whether by active conspiracy or merely by calls of culture and conscience upon them.  On the economic side, people seem to have gotten on and either 1) rather integrated, with considerable abuse and hard labor in the meantime, the minorities that were once considered dirty and cheats (Irish, Italians) or 2) kept them serving a low rung of the economic ladder under all sorts of pretenses for the most part (Blacks) -- but only a certain fringe now says we should have denied or expelled any of those wholesale.   

      Anyway, part of what worries me is that one can simply say vaguely, we should be cautious -- but often when that's said with sweeping terms like "the vast majority" and the like, the underlying message is closer to wink, nudge, let's make it damn near impossible in practice for most of these men to get in.

I never said fuck the migrants. I said we should have, at the very least, some caution. Even if it is something as small as a identification process.

      Oh, maybe I missed it in all the threat rhetoric...  But I don't actually recall much discussion of any identification process in what you had before?  What I do recall is repeated sweeping generalizations and suppositions about so many able-bodied men.

Especially since it is obvious quite a bit are using the crisis to obtain free government aid. (Joke ahead)

It feels a little weird to me that one moment you claim to be worried about being bombed, and the next it's all about the budget or economy?  Just saying.  Something's strange.  Or are you just fishing for as many disparate pins as you think might somehow include a good one, or somehow add up to a vague 'lot'?  But these are pretty different types of concerns to be juggling this way.  Clear and present danger of mass casualties, or monetary cost assessment.  Which are you really doing.

But know what, by all means. Let's accept literally THOUSANDS of people we do not know and have not checked out into our country. Because that makes sense.

And you apparently didn't notice that I said, I would expect a few reasonable background questions might be asked.  I'm just a little worried with the way the rest went on at length, that you might perhaps be much happier if the questionnaire kept people locked away for a pretty long time rather than allowed in at all.  How many of these young people coming out of a civil war that's lasted for years do you think we'll have super clear information on that would satisfy you, really?  Again, I am not saying do no checks...  I'm just doubting whether you really want many people to even have a realistic, timely chance to pass at all -- that's given the way you phrase the rest of your concerns.

After all, a regime that video tapes it's self committing diabolical murder', and goes on social media to tell any one they can indoctrinate to attack their fellow Americans, are surely bluffing when they say they will use this crisis to send thousands to the US and European countries. It's not like they use the kindness and political correctness of the United Nations to their advantage time and time again right? Joking aside, am I really such a bad person for saying we should be careful? Or are we so progressive, so politically correct, so afraid of being racist that we will risk national security because we dont want to look bad?

(And also re: a bunch of stuff that follows that.)  See above, but I wonder if you wouldn't be uneasy with that fellow who once said "Those who would prefer security over liberty deserve neither."  At some point, you take some risks having a country of immigrants too.  Though it might make me feel better if it wasn't so simple for virtually any adult to pick up almost military-grade weapons without a background check in the US...  Oh, but you might be worried there will be ten thousand box cutter incidents? 

      Actually, if you look up Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation, women were also quite involved in arms smuggling if not outright fighting.  Women have been effective suicide bombers in Iraq, and I think Afghanistan (it's been a while since I've heard a lot from there but I seem to recall) and Israeli-occupied areas/Jerusalem (not sure which side of the border exactly).  So if you take your logic that all the men of age etc. are such heightened threats for scrutiny simply because they could perhaps fight, then maybe you should just be consistent and say everyone will have to be held up extra long searching for years of information on people whose government is trying to kill many of them and whose cities have been destroyed over the last few years.  Again I wonder, how far is this going to go. 

      And when you start adding that 'just btw' you're also (or is it perhaps more? who knows) concerned that you think too many people might have it too easy after entering the country wherever you're focusing?  Then I begin to suspect you could be more interested in finding any rationale available to keep as many out as possible -- because it sounds like you might well have had that concern anyway, without need for any civil war or refugee crisis to be seriously considered otherwise.     

See, I dont blame you for asserting this. The news is not covering the whole truth to you. They are leaving out the fact that many of these men have been found to not even be from Siria.

I'm sorry if you are dyslexic or something, but I'd honestly be more convinced you were reading much seriously documented stuff about this, if you could spell Syria.  Citing someone might also help.  But I believe we have been over this question before in this thread, and I'm not very convinced by the thrust of that argument.  Just one of the easy answers is, Syria is just one example among several places in turmoil that people are currently entering Europe from.  There are a lot of political refugees from several sources these days.  Not being from Syria, wouldn't make those that aren't any less imperiled (and then, we could still debate the numbers perhaps).  And there is also a long (and less than rosy) history of industrial states accepting a good many immigrants who were known to come for economic reasons, too. Portes discusses this well.

The most common nationality by far of those currently arriving in Greece and Italy is Syrian. Other common nationalities are Eritrean, Afghan, Somali, and Iraqi. In most cases they are fleeing civil war, violence and oppression. Those who do make it to the UK are highly likely to be granted refugee status or humanitarian protection. Legally and morally, they are not illegal immigrants, still less “bogus asylum seekers”. But that’s not the whole story by any means: a considerable number are from countries in west Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana. Here the motivations for most are likely to be primarily economic.

But this is not a new story. My own great-grandparents left Russia and eastern Europe for the US around the beginning of the 20th century. Jews didn’t have an easy time in tsarist Russia and, certainly by contemporary standards, they were a persecuted, oppressed minority. Equally, it would be naive to think that they weren’t in large part motivated by the desire to build a better, more prosperous life in the US. The same is probably true for many of today’s migrants: both push and pull factors are at work.

In fact, quite a number of ID's from different countries have been found scattered and discarded along the roads. Many of these young men are not escaping the persecution, they are trying to take advantage of the government aid they would receive in Europe and here in the states.

How many is quite a few for you and what does it imply?  It does seem quite a step down from "the vast majority" when you seemed to be worried about terrorism.  Absolute or relative numbers?  Sources?  And I probably won't fuss with it if I feel it's already been said and I'm repeating stuff that's been beaten around here quite a lot.  But I can't even begin with that.

I am not pretending there is not a crisis, I KNOW there is. Think I am not paying attention? There is, and they are fleeing. But not all are, in fact it is to be assumed by logic a LOT are not as they say they are. So, as I said.  Bring them in, but have CAUTION. I dont want my tax payers money to go to some one who is not escaping persecution, and does NOT need the aid.

How many do you think are which, or both?  You're playing shotgun with two different issues and it's hard to figure out what you think the reality is.  Is this an infiltrating army, a horde of freeloaders, a little of one and a lot of the other?  Or do you even care whether they cost more lives or money -- Is it all the same?  You seem very eager to shift between the two issues as if they're somehow interchangeable.  Or perhaps, they just don't have enough moving substance going on individually to be clear how it works.

Especially as much that we are not being shown, suggests we should be careful.

Can I say again you haven't talked much about the context and background of the few videos you've actually chosen to show as counterexamples?   You haven't bothered to go into what's going on in those places locally, that might obviously feed that unrest.  If everything hinges on things "not being shown," then at some point I'm going to declare empty conspiracy theory and go away.  UFOs are not being shown either.  Maybe they're actually invading too.

A lot of these people are RIOTING. Causing problems, stealing, and other such things. I understand they are in need. But to just bring them in willy nilly will bring the same chaos they are showing in Greece, Hungary, etc over here.

That thing about context.  Now if you propose that we do something a bit akin to what Greece and especially (to my understanding) Hungary have been doing, and treat refugees much the same as the US treats the current Black population?  Sure there will be riots.  We already get riots.  And there are very logical reasons why.

Lol, are you asserting I am racist?

Would you care to provide a quotation?  As far as I'm concerned, you just pulled that out of nowhere. 

      But now that you do that?  It might suggest to me that maybe you're holding onto something, which makes you very, very paranoid about the notion that people have, or might sometime, suggest you're being racist...  Cause otherwise I'm not sure where the heck you got this from. 

      All I said (in what I believe is the vicinity you were talking about before this very bizarre question) is I don't think you understand much about the phrase "Allah Akhbar" also being in more general use.  I'm no expert but I would be highly surprised if only fundamentalists ever use it; I think it's thrown around like various groups in the US toss references to Jesus, except probably much more often --  whenever someone is really upset with the state of affairs, I would imagine.  And the term is not racial as Americans talk of race.  It is a religious term. 

       Islam does have a broadly invoked concept of social justice (with a bit of moral outrage, sure) that has broader applications than the sorts of social prescriptions favored by Al Qaeda and Isis and the Taliban -- although reading enough of some people like Vekseid off in another thread, might just lead one to think there's little point looking it up.  At most, you can play Samuel Huntington writing Clash of Civilizations and imagine it as some unitary ethnic term that should somehow drive one group against everyone else magically...  But calling that race?  Islam is not a race.  No.  And even if it were: Saying you don't know something is not the same as calling you racist or whatever.  But you sure seem awfully jumpy about it.

It is actually the FUCK YOU part of their chant I refer to as being dumb. They are saying fuck you to people helping them.  How ridiculous is that? I can see where you got that idea. But hey, heres an actual lesson I know I can give you. Hanlons Razor: Do not attribute to malice as which can be easily attributed to Stupidity/ignorance. ^^ Helps a lot in conversation. And helps to keep myself from having knee jerk reactions.

Assuming that the only choices people have are malice or stupidity, sounds like a pretty knee jerk philosophy to me.  You've already made up your mind there could be 'no reason' you would ever believe for it, and now you're just looking for a culprit.  Look for people being motivated by something other than old cliches about hand that feeds you.  I don't have to accept anything from you if I think taking it is going to put me in a bad position for the next year or five, after I've just suffered for hundreds of miles for something different.  There are pressing modern ideas, like the one about the EU country that spends time caring for you, gets seen by the others as the one that gets to decide your fate -- and we already know what Hungary's most likely to decide. 

Tell me what mass migration of persecution in history have you seen where roughly 80 percent Edit:meant most of the men, not that 80 percent are male. I shouldnt bring in nub=mbers, im bad with them. :P lol.

It would help if you would bring in sources so we could compare notes about wherever all this is coming from and who said what about which group, where when.  Looking at UNHCR, there's nothing like that breakdown among registered refugees in Mideast countries listed (although I don't know details about who typically registers and how all that is run).

Registered Syrian Refugees
4,052,723

This figure includes 2.1 million Syrians registered by UNHCR in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, 1.9 million Syrians registered by the Government of Turkey, as well as more than 26,700 Syrian refugees registered in North Africa.
Regional demographic breakdown below is based on available data from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon
Last Updated 01 Oct 2015

Source - UNHCR, Government of Turkey

Demography
Male (49.7%)   Age   (50.3%) Female
8.9%      0 - 4      8.4%
10.8%      5 - 11      10.2%
6.6%      12 - 17      6.2%
22.2%      18 - 59      23.8%
1.3%      60 +      1.7%

      So I might venture one alternative explanation:  Many of the Muslim countries are more conservative (even more than the Deep South, sigh) and ranging from merely gender segregated to pretty gender discriminatory in quite a few areas.  That doesn't mean they are all Isis, nor are all  -- nor anywhere vaguely near majorities -- simply composed of would-be terrorists. 

      Maybe they aren't so often comfortable sending women without "protectors" when they can only afford to pay smugglers for some.  Maybe they prefer to place female relatives in more culturally familiar settings until they get established overseas.  And come to think of it?  If your own logic about security and gender suspicion stands, then other regional states might well be more accepting of women than of men also, thus making it eminently practical to place the women there while the men take more physical risks (often having to travel illegally or deal with unknown middle parties, often separated from what relatives they do travel with) and go off to look for jobs and places to stay abroad! 

Where most men are healthy young men that could very well be fighting to defend their own people.

Perhaps, if you believe it's their duty to be tortured and gassed.  This thing has been going on for years, the US has barely gotten involved despite talk of redlines and the documented use of chemical weapons, Isis has its own regional base more or less entrenched, and now Russia is even sending in planes to bomb everyone except the pro-Assad forces (how is that going to make life for the opposition/those just scrambling to get by in the cities Assad is already bombing?).  And to stay there at the very time when Europe is obviously trying to make it increasingly difficult for them to get in later.

Caehlim: Sorry if you thought I said that most are males and few are children and women. What I meant was, a majority of the males are young and healthy. Of which can easily be fighting.

You just said above that 80% are men.  Or was this about a different group somewhere?  (Again, not sure who/what exactly you're looking at...)

Edit: Here I found a news article on it myself. People are actually pretending, and that is my main concern any way. Isis can and would be dealt with if they make it over here. But I dont want at all to help some low life preying on the pain of others to get literally an easy way into america. With free housing and such on top of it. http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/refugee-crisis-in-europe-something-fishy-among-migrant-flood-as-discarded-id-papers-appear/story-fnh81p7g-1227515922792

Sounds like you were much more concerned about welfare programs, than about Isis all along.  I refer you back to others who have found that the majority are actually in trouble.  Or to parts of the conversation which have somewhat already been done about the economics rather than about terrorism so much.  Sure ask a few questions of arrivals, but I don't see good reason to act too much like the politics of Hungary or maybe, Pat Buchanan and more recently, Ben Carson or Donald Trump might suggest.

[Garuss Vakarian]

When you keep going on that way about "the vast majority" without qualifying much, it sounds pretty close to me.  What % did you mean to focus on with that term, then?

Sorry this comment partially confuses me. Did you mean Quantifying? As in;  When you keep going on that way about "the vast majority" without Quantifying much, it sounds pretty close to me. I can try to find a source, and numbers, but it is difficult for me. As I am primarily brought aware of this through youtube. As I dont wish to link any one such as Sargon here, I will pm you to the videos that brought my arguments to my attention. Since I feel it would more accurately show what I am trying to say. If you agree with it or not.

Perhaps, but that can be played various ways.  There is Donald Trump: We should be cautious, so send them all back -- which was curiously said just the other day and here you are with this.  Perhaps just coincidence, but the language is rather similar.  Made me wonder a little.

Oh fuck trump. lol, :P Frankly I am insulted you even considered id be with his brand of rhetoric. I dont want to turn them away, I just mean to say we should do things properly, with proper documentation. As you have to some degree, agreed.

Oh, maybe I missed it in all the threat rhetoric...  But I don't actually recall much discussion of any identification process in what you had before?  What I do recall is repeated sweeping generalizations and suppositions about so many able-bodied men.

Well the first post was me making the point that the news is not covering the crisis entirely. They are using a Blik in what they show and how they show it. (A Blick is a social lens, put simply.)  Though the fact remains that there are MANY not with proper documents, lot's of id's and documentation for other countries left alongside the roads and on top of it people actually shamelessly making selfies. The fact remains that there are many that are not actual refugees. Which sucks, a lot. I dont know how any one can be so low as to use anothers pain for self gain but then again. Say hello to human nature I guess.... None the less it boils down to my number one lesson to bring to anyone.  Hanlons Razor: Do not attribute to Malice of which can easily be attributed to Stupidity/ignorance. Not saying your treating me like im evil, but wanted to reiterate it as a reminder that as our opinions are different we shouldn't let our opinions reflect our views of each other as people. The reason I point this out now, is due to a lot of whats in your post questions my morality, and that is debasing me. Of which, is unfair. I care, I just think we should take some form of caution.

Plus we should prepare a bit better, I think since we declared we will be helping we should be already right on getting housing ready. At the very least some buildings/complexes or even land zones for them to stay until we can find appropriate housing. America is already a very tightly packed place. No where near as much so as china, but still packed enough that we should already be making plans on where to keep them until further accommodations can be figured out. This was actually just an Epiphany so do please tell me what you think? Or if you have any of your own theories on how we will house them, be it temporary or otherwise.

It feels a little weird to me that one moment you claim to be worried about being bombed, and the next it's all about the budget or economy?  Just saying.  Something's strange.  Or are you just fishing for as many disparate pins as you think might somehow include a good one, or somehow add up to a vague 'lot'?  But these are pretty different types of concerns to be juggling this way.  Clear and present danger of mass casualties, or monetary cost assessment.  Which are you really doing.

What? Lol, I cant be concerned of both :P ? , I am not worried about being bombed. Isis doesnt really work that way. Your the one that jumped to bombs ye racist xD Jk Jk. Joking aside, your trying to assert I dont know anything when in reality I am pointing at the clear reality. Some are very much likely, Isis. That is a reality, and one reason we really should be careful. And others are very much likely to be taking advantage of the crisis, as has been proven, as quite a few, not a whole lot, have been caught trying to lie their way into other countries. It's sad, but true. Any way it is not an economy thing, it is a figure of speech when I brought up tax payers money. With the lying migrants, it is more a matter of morality. And how sickening it is to think people can be so selfish as to use this for a profit.

And you apparently didn't notice that I said, I would expect a few reasonable background questions might be asked.  I'm just a little worried with the way the rest went on at length, that you might perhaps be much happier if the questionnaire kept people locked away for a pretty long time rather than allowed in at all.  How many of these young people coming out of a civil war that's lasted for years do you think we'll have super clear information on that would satisfy you, really?  Again, I am not saying do no checks...  I'm just doubting whether you really want many people to even have a realistic, timely chance to pass at all -- that's given the way you phrase the rest of your concerns.

*Face palms* Oh dear, lol. Im so sorry you let this confuse you, I thought I made it clear I was speaking entirely in jest. I know you did it. My comment was no pass gainst you or aggression towards you, I was entirely trying to get a snicker out of you. I didnt mean to make you feel as though I ignored your points, couldn't be any further from the truth. This is actually good that we are talking in such a civil discourse because a proper debate is about listening to the other side's points with the understanding that they may teach you something, or that you may teach them something. It's all about learning and personal growth. I am glad your actually making a propper debate. So please dont feel I am ignoring you, I sincerely am listening to your side, with an open mind to be swayed the other way. As I am certain as well, you are doing the same.

I'm sorry if you are dyslexic or something, but I'd honestly be more convinced you were reading much seriously documented stuff about this, if you could spell Syria.

Please explain to me what relevance my spelling error has? It is obvious you knew what I meant. So why not just leave it at that and simply move on? I dont believe the way some one spell's a word has any relevance towards their point. Nor does their ignorance make any difference towards their opinion, if they couldn't ACTUALLY spell it. Just becouse someone does not have let's say a 4th grade education, does not mean their opinions are not valid. Nor does it mean what they have to say is beyond consideration. However I would understand if this comment, was a joke, as you did do so with my misspelling of damn as dam.  And yes actually, I am dyslexic. It is a real issue for me, I still make my B's, 2's, and 4's backwards when I write on paper but at least for the B's it makes my signature entirely unique as my last name is Burns. ^^

 

How many do you think are which, or both?  You're playing shotgun with two different issues and it's hard to figure out what you think the reality is.  Is this an infiltrating army, a horde of freeloaders, a little of one and a lot of the other?  Or do you even care whether they cost more lives or money -- Is it all the same?  You seem very eager to shift between the two issues as if they're somehow interchangeable.  Or perhaps, they just don't have enough moving substance going on individually to be clear how it works.

Never suggested they were interchangeable, as I am clearly down the middle, as both are quite possible. It is not a one or the other kind of thing. It could be one, none, or both. Therefor it doesnt make me ignorant to think that some could be isis as well as some could be lying. However if you feel differently please do explain to me why I am wrong. After all as I said before. Hanlons Razor. I could very well be ignorant on the matter, and not some Trumpian with an agenda. *Grits teeth and sheds a tear.* T_T You compared me to trump. lol. Jk Jk. None the less I do care, and to question if I do is further Debasing. I never questioned your moral standing, so why question mine? This is a logical discussion, not a moral one. I wont question your morality, please refrain from continuing to question, and debase my morality.

 

Can I say again you haven't talked much about the context and background of the few videos you've actually chosen to show as counterexamples?   You haven't bothered to go into what's going on in those places locally, that might obviously feed that unrest.  If everything hinges on things "not being shown," then at some point I'm going to declare empty conspiracy theory and go away.  UFOs are not being shown either.  Maybe they're actually invading too.

For one: I clearly provided context as to every video. Explaining what the Migrants were doin and as to why. (Say for denying charity, I dont know why they did that.) I implore you to look at my first post once more, as much of the videos have context written around them. You just must not have noticed due to the brief nature of the comments, and how I did little to make them obvious. For that I apologize. Now, none the less. Im certain that if our own news networks would cover these events you would see English subtitles, and I wouldn't have to be showing them. But as our news refuses to cover them, sadly we are both at a loss. And at an impasse here. But I assure you that the legitimacy of these videos are valid, I am not grabbing some random riot from somewhere. Not some random event 2 years ago. These are Syrian Migrants tossing aside charitable donations, saying fuck you to people, lynch mobbing a intolerant bigot , Rioting and so forth. I can also provide a few more, most of which is thievery but that would be pointless as you clearly and understandably question their legitimacy. The fact of the matter is, and question it if you wish, that there is a LOT of things our news is conveniently ignoring for the sake of political correctness. There is information your not getting openly provided. Another case of our news trying to manipulate, right networks such as fox manipulating one way, others towards progressive ideologies. Either way, our news networks suck.

That thing about context.  Now if you propose that we do something a bit akin to what Greece and especially (to my understanding) Hungary have been doing, and treat refugees much the same as the US treats the current Black population?  Sure there will be riots.  We already get riots.  And there are very logical reasons why.

Nope, not proposing we do anything akin to greece or Hungary, if anything simple ID checks would suffice substantially since after all, thats all that really needs to be done. Unless our government wants to go as far as holding for questioning or something, which would be wrong. Now, For one, I believe the proper connotation is, African American. None the less, Please forgive me when I say this but, All lives matter. And there is clearly NOT any kind of wide spread miss treatment of african americans these days. Now if we talk police however, that is a different matter as the police department has in the past and still do look at race. Even African American and Latino cops do it. Hell, watch Straight Out Of Compton. It is wrong. I dont think all cops are racist however, as there are racist cops, not ALL are racist. But I do agree profiling is in fact a real issue. However profiling is not racism, it is simply ignorance. Now with that said, your bringing it up makes no sense. I find it troubling you said the BLM movement, and migrants, have logical reason to riot. As if it is no big deal that a riot breaks out. I DONT actually think you find riots 'ok' or anything, so dont get me wrong. I just think that you probably did not word that the way that you wanted to. Just remember, What happens in a riot. Public disorder, property damage, thievery, and assault. In what way is there a 'logical reason' to incite violence alongside a group of like minded individuals to rampantly assault, steal from, and destroy property, of which most individuals that are hurt from this more then likely had NOTHING to do with what made you mad in the first place. When the BLM movement rioted, they burned down buildings even, of which just belonged to people who want to live their lives. It is not ok to incite anarchy and damage the lives of people that did NOTHING to you. And let's be real, the community is not guilty of anything their law enforcement does.  So I think with that context in mind we can agree rioting is illogical, and irrational. All it does, is also hurt the people that had nothing to do with your pain, rather then just hurting the establishment your trying to attack. If rioters bring up a reason as to why, it is not logic, it is shameless justification for their own actions.

As well,  Your simply bringing something up that pulls off subject, and I dont really appreciate it as I feel the entire purpose of doing so was to walk me into saying something stupid. As more then likely, you probably just did that. Walked me into a conversation, that made me look stupid.

But yes I will provide context: The migrants rioted over religious intolerance. But again, how is a lynch mob, riot or assault at all an acceptable response to some one hurting your feelings? If that were true the world would not have as little order as it does.

Would you care to provide a quotation?  As far as I'm concerned, you just pulled that out of nowhere. 

      But now that you do that?  It might suggest to me that maybe you're holding onto something, which makes you very, very paranoid about the notion that people have, or might sometime, suggest you're being racist...  Cause otherwise I'm not sure where the heck you got this from. 

      All I said (in what I believe is the vicinity you were talking about before this very bizarre question) is I don't think you understand much about the phrase "Allah Akhbar" also being in more general use.  I'm no expert but I would be highly surprised if only fundamentalists ever use it; I think it's thrown around like various groups in the US toss references to Jesus, except probably much more often --  whenever someone is really upset with the state of affairs, I would imagine.  And the term is not racial as Americans talk of race.  It is a religious term. 

Islam does have a broadly invoked concept of social justice (with a bit of moral outrage, sure) that has broader applications than the sorts of social prescriptions favored by Al Qaeda and Isis and the Taliban -- although reading enough of some people like Vekseid off in another thread, might just lead one to think there's little point looking it up.  At most, you can play Samuel Huntington writing Clash of Civilizations and imagine it as some unitary ethnic term that should somehow drive one group against everyone else magically...  But calling that race?  Islam is not a race.  No.  And even if it were: Saying you don't know something is not the same as calling you racist or whatever.  But you sure seem awfully jumpy about it.

Your confused where I could have got this from? Ok now I am confused because, what else could you have been implying, when you said; "Are you saying that anyone from the Near East who shouts "Allah Akbar" must obviously be some fundamentalist terrorist? " I dont know about you, but it seems to be an implied statement. The implication that I am racist has NOTHING to do with the religious aspect of your comment, I dont think Islam is a race, I am not ignorant. The implication comes from the fact that you asked if I think anyone in the middle east that shouts Alahu Akbar is a terrorist. No, I dont think so. It in fact, in case you did not know what the words mean, means God Is Great. 

Sorry if I took it the wrong way but what else could you have meant? Further, your statement here seems entirely worded in such a manner as to aggressively break my guard. Assert I am worried about being racist, And debase me. I implore you, please stop. Ive been enjoying this debate. To debase in debate: Is to attempt to lower the moral character of someone. Make them appear less moral then the other party. And at numerous points, this one included. You have asked questions in which directly challenge my morality. Im not trying to sound like a broken record, but it is really not fair in a debate. And I am certain most would agree. Tell me, did I ever question your intelligence, morals, or beliefs? No. Please stop questioning my moral character. It is quite insulting, especially since I never questioned yours.

Assuming that the only choices people have are malice or stupidity, sounds like a pretty knee jerk philosophy to me.  You've already made up your mind there could be 'no reason' you would ever believe for it, and now you're just looking for a culprit.  Look for people being motivated by something other than old cliches about hand that feeds you.  I don't have to accept anything from you if I think taking it is going to put me in a bad position for the next year or five, after I've just suffered for hundreds of miles for something different.  There are pressing modern ideas, like the one about the EU country that spends time caring for you, gets seen by the others as the one that gets to decide your fate -- and we already know what Hungary's most likely to decide. 

Im sorry this confuses me a great deal. Hopefully this response makes it wholly clear, I actually have an open mind in these things. As anyone should. A debate should be open minded, one side willing to listen to the other, thats how learning is done! xD . Any way, What could I possibly need a culprit for? The migrants didnt do anything to me, I am not asserting any ails in my life to them. Im not thinking they are gonna take jobs or something dumb like that. Im stating clearly, we need to be careful. But I wont go into that again as at this point I think we actually agree there should be a simple documentation check. Which really is all I am saying when I say have caution, not trying to be as broad as you were afraid I was. No fears, no worries, not trying to say it in some broad arching statement left to malicious imagination and a maniacal laughter. I simply mean what you agreed is logical, documentation check. Now as for their own anger, I understand. But it doesnt change the fact that because there is a reason for anger, doesnt make it ok. It just meant there was an explanation, or excuse to their actions. Excuses dont make it right.

   

So I might venture one alternative explanation:  Many of the Muslim countries are more conservative (even more than the Deep South, sigh) and ranging from merely gender segregated to pretty gender discriminatory in quite a few areas.  That doesn't mean they are all Isis, nor are all  -- nor anywhere vaguely near majorities -- simply composed of would-be terrorists. 

      Maybe they aren't so often comfortable sending women without "protectors" when they can only afford to pay smugglers for some.  Maybe they prefer to place female relatives in more culturally familiar settings until they get established overseas.  And come to think of it?  If your own logic about security and gender suspicion stands, then other regional states might well be more accepting of women than of men also, thus making it eminently practical to place the women there while the men take more physical risks (often having to travel illegally or deal with unknown middle parties, often separated from what relatives they do travel with) and go off to look for jobs and places to stay abroad!

Well, good thing they are not all Isis, now I can breath happily. Lol. Joking aside, (Again sorry for being such a kidder >_<  . I know we should take this more seriously.). Never thought they were all isis. At this point actually we are beating a dead horse because no matter what I say I cant prove any are isis, just as you can not prove any are not. The fact remains, there very well may be isis supporters among them. Not that it matters, as long as we use proper documentation. Also it is not gender suspicion, my suspicions have nothing to do with males and everything to do with the actual threats isis made as well as the evidence pointing to there being fake immigrants. Yes, I made clear wording towards males, but it is not BECAUSE they are male, it is because everything else around the crisis warrants a deeper look. I in fact regret even going into males. So at this point I will not comment any further on that, and as such will ignore any other comments on it. As I dont want to continue talking about a ignorant comment of my own, that we all agree is ignorant and therefor now serves no further purpose to the conversation.

 

Perhaps, if you believe it's their duty to be tortured and gassed.

Or perhaps you feel it is your own duty to debase those you debate with? Again, I never used anything you said to twist and turn into more then it was, never grabbed anything and tried to make you look stupid or immoral. This kind of passive aggression is quite annoying, as it try's to devalue my arguments by making me appear shameful. How did my statement EVER come to me thinking they should all die horribly? Please explain to me how my comment states I want people to die. It was not a moral attack on their part but merely an observation that they are in fit, fighting, shape.

You just said above that 80% are men.  Or was this about a different group somewhere?  (Again, not sure who/what exactly you're looking at...)

Lol, and clearly edited it. Or are we conveniently going to forget I edited it? I put a line through the comment, and clearly admitted it's ignorance.
Heres that edit

80 percent Edit:meant most of the men, not that 80 percent are male. I shouldnt bring in nub=mbers, im bad with them. :P lol.

Sounds like you were much more concerned about welfare programs, than about Isis all along.  I refer you back to others who have found that the majority are actually in trouble.  Or to parts of the conversation which have somewhat already been done about the economics rather than about terrorism so much.  Sure ask a few questions of arrivals, but I don't see good reason to act too much like the politics of Hungary or maybe, Pat Buchanan and more recently, Ben Carson or Donald Trump might suggest.

HAHA HA HA, I clearly put the article there to show that people are lying that they are Migrants. But no, let's twist this. Let's make him look like he doesnt even know what he is concerned about, and try to assert he thinks this is a economic issue.  Again, it's not about economics. Just because the article goes into it doesn't mean that is what I was going for. I wanted to show that people are pretending to be migrants, as there ARE.  It is not economically a worry to me, merely a moral observation of character. It is sickening to feel that anyone can try to make a gain from their suffering. And the 'tax payers money' comment was a figure of speech. This comment again asserts that it is impossible to be concerned of both thing's. Such things are not a one way or the other thing. You can be worried about both! Though, Im not worried about both, but if I was that wouldn't be wrong. My concern is Isis, the lying migrants is more a moral observation.