7 ms·

I'm totally for migration, but at a level where we can adequately integrate the people we bring in. I want to make sure everybody has the support they need and

I'm totally for migration, but at a level where we can adequately integrate the people we bring in. I want to make sure everybody has the support they need and conversely I want the state to make sure the people coming in are acting in the best interests of the country. Is this really such a far-right fringe position to have?

ythn 9y ago
The problem is that proponents of mass immigration frame it as "either you are for mass immigration, or you are for the slaughtering/suffering/starvation/etc. of refugees in war torn areas"
- k__ 9y ago
  Which you basically are, but that's just life. You can't have a cake and eat it.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    No, you're not - there are plenty of options in between the current state of things and complete indifference to peoples' lives. Alternatives include accelerated immigration programs focused on refugees. Or a peace-keeping intervention in the war-torn places. The issue GP is pointing out is that this framing is basically shutting out any possible discussion. While myself I'm rather currently in favour of relatively lenient immigration policies, a lot of people I know personally are anti-immigration because they feel like we're being scammed with a bait-and-switch tactic - i.e. that we're told to accept war refugees, and what we get instead are economical migrants. Whether justified by evidence or not, I find those fears are something reasonable for people to have.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      > we're told to accept war refugees, and what we get instead are economical migrants How on earth would you tell the difference as a bystander? Or is it the case that the media are telling them to be afraid of "migrants"?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        I wouldn't. They wouldn't and can't. It's all what the media says and shows. I'm just reporting on what my acquaintances believe from what they see on the news / in their social media feeds / through third-hand stories and cherry-picked examples confirming stereotypes. It's all just perceptions from indirect sources, like 99% of social issues of today.
        candiodari 9y ago
        You perhaps wouldn't but for one thing, refugees come from war-torn areas. It is implied constantly, but never stated, by the government that the current flow of refugees come from Syria, fleeing the violence there. Reality: Syrian refugees are a tiny minority. Africans and people from central Asia are the large bulk of the immigrants (>80%) and they are most definitely not coming from war-torn areas.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Not at all. If my neighbor breaks his bathroom, he's welcome to use mine. But after a month, when his whole family is now frequently coming over, I will ask him to get a plumber. If he won't, I'll do it and lock my door. For many countries sending people to prime immigration target countries, the only visible fix is running their countries for them. Instead, the UN and other groups do the opposite. They run around singing about human rights, enabling lawlessness and crime to go on unchecked while decent citizens become frustrated, some of them escaping and contributing to immigration. In particular, Central America. I know many people that would be 100% onboard with defending and cleaning up their country. Instead, they all tell me they don't even carry a weapon, because using it will get them jailed with a short life expectancy. Meanwhile, pretty much every Guatemalan I speak with pines for the days of Rios Montt which kept things safe and clean. Yet is decried by the international community which doesn't have to live with the result of their choices. Fix the source, take a heavy hand. There's no need for the West to babysit people. Letting a tiny amount of people in to your own countries will accomplish little to actually relieve suffering. It's pointless and costly and not a real solution.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      > For many countries sending people to prime immigration target countries, the only visible fix is running their countries for them. Funnily enough, the current "immigration" fiasco in the UK is about the Windrush generation, who came over from Jamaica at the instigation of the UK which was running the country at the time. The UK is trying to retroactively undo this and deport them, including people who were born in the UK, despite the fact that they originally came over on British passports.
      - MichaelGG 9y ago
        Yes it was an obviously disastrous policy, as anyone should have been able to predict. Some politicians at the time accurately stated this obvious truth, and years later they've been proven right beyond a doubt. So right are they that critics even now only yell insults and demand censorship. Running a country for someone doesn't mean you need to give citizenship, residency, or even visas to them. It just means you do the math and see that it's obviously less suffering to remove some liberty and self-governance to improve the lives of millions. Over time, slowly give back bits of governance while retaining the right to override. Then take it from there. It takes some mental gymnastics to allow a situation where innocent people live in fear and can be robbed and killed without reprisals only to claim you've delivered "human rights" and democracy.
- pjc50 9y ago
  When a millon refugees walk across the border, what are the options? And what will the outcomes of those choices be?
godzillabrennus 9y ago
It’s probably a far right enough position that it’ll get you convicted of some hate crime in the U.K., just as some teen got convicted of one for posting rap lyrics online from American rapper Snap Dog. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-woman-found-guilty-posting-racist-snap-dogg-lyrics-article-1.3948046 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-woman-found-gu...
LoSboccacc 9y ago
same, I'm all for immigration and cultural interchange. however what we get is immigration and segregation. that's not a recipe for long term stability, especially with the southern states youth unemployment rate - whether is true or not that immigration impact the available job pool, the hundred thousands that arrive yearly plus the current job situation is bounded to breed resentment on both sides. can anyone blame either of them?
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  This is also a problem in the UK, we have ended up with insular parallel societies. I truly hope that time will fix this because its not looking good.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    It's a lot worse than it was in the 1990s and 2000s. It's definitely moving in the wrong direction and ... what exact reason do you have there is any change coming at all ? Meanwhile, the economic situation of the urban poor keeps getting worse (less pay for more work, more abuses, worse housing, ...) so in addition to creating these insular societies, the UK is also seriously upping the pressure on them. And before you say it, no it's not brexit (not that I'm claiming it's improving matters), it's been going on for decades.
minikites 9y ago
Why is "immigrants are harmful" the default approach?
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  Because not all cultures are equal.
  - mfoy_ 9y ago
    And you have a magic, unbiased ICopmparable<Culture>?
    - amiga-workbench 9y ago
      No, nobody does. The point is that nobody should tolerate and import values which would lead to an erosion of that very same tolerance. The culture I live in isn't perfect, but lets try and make sure any changes we make are in the right direction.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      Unbiased completely no, good enough yes. Oddly enough you can look at the Middle East and see two great examples which while are at odds with each other have more in common than with most of the rest of the of the region. Iran and Israel.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Can you really look at human history and think that, upon creating an underclass with a different religion and different phenotypic traits, somehow things will go well?
  - mfoy_ 9y ago
    >Can you really ... think that ... creating an underclass with ... different phenotypic traits ... will go well? What are you saying, exactly? Don't dress it up with $20 words... you're literally saying "Those Others are different from us. Ick!"
toasterlovin 9y ago
Seems pretty reasonable to me, but then I am also of the opinion that 0 immigration should be the starting point in discussions of immigration (rather than “as much as possible”, which seems to have somehow become the default position).
- pjc50 9y ago
  Hardly. Zero immigration or zero net immigration? I'm not sure people realise that the only countries that have that state are ones that are both so authoritarian that they can enforce it and so bad that nobody wants to live there. "Zero work visas" leads to even more egregiously stupid outcomes. No trade shows. No touring bands. ("Zero immigration" also means that if one of your nationals wants to marry a foreigner, they have to leave the country. And so on.)
  - iguy 9y ago
    net migration seems like an entirely irrelevant number here. It's something politicians speak of in the UK just because it's smaller. If the issue under debate is assimilation, then every native who departs increases the relevant ratio.
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  A perfectly reasonable default position to have, in my mind if you are going to bring outsiders in, you should probably do it for selfish reasons.
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  I believe the perception that the immigration policy is "as much as possible" doesn't reflect reality. Many in the west feel it is the humane thing to offer immigrants in war torn ME an opportunity for a better life considering the selfish meddling the West has been involved in WRT ME policy for the last 100 years (think Sykes-Picot, which carved the ME up for UK/France ends). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
  - 9y ago
mfoy_ 9y ago
Immigration is just a wedge issue-- a means to an end. The point is to use propaganda to pit half of the population against the other half. Divisive politics in a nutshell! As the saying goes, "divide and conquer."
- candiodari 9y ago
  I don't know how you can say this. Go and try to get a low end job in a European capital, and then come back with an answer to "do immigrants directly lower the quality of life for the urban poor ?". The answer, without any doubt, is yes. Now you could say that the economy must simply grow to compensate, but it hasn't been doing that for decades now. Exactly when will this happen ? Likewise, government support has been shrinking while taxes have been growing. Solve this problem and you make immigrants a solvable issue. Don't solve this and you might as well try to paint the sky a bright shade of green. Don't solve it for another decade, perhaps two and there will be civil war.
mtgx 9y ago
I also believe it's unfair to ask European countries to take immigrants running from wars mostly caused by the U.S. in the Middle East. It must be nice to launch wars worldwide, knowing there is an ocean separating you from the targets so you won't have to suffer any of the consequences for it (whether it's direct retaliation or having to take in the civilians running from the war - especially when the U.S. government seems to consider civilians living nearby targets as "collateral damage" or outright targets, with the whole 16+ year old male enemy combatant rule).
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> Is this really such a far-right fringe position to have? Yes. We live in a world were for wealthy people/orgs it's very easy and cheap to move money, products, raw material, energy, information and jobs across the world, travel for business and recreation, even obtain visas and relocate to poor countries (both legally or with small bribes). This 8 categories list almost everything that moves in the world with only one exception: people relocating to rich countries. That's incredibly difficult in comparison. Even if you have an advanced degree, good intentions, no criminal record, fluency in the local language, willingness to work even at lower salaries, you still need a company to do expensive paperwork to effectively authorize you to be there. If this does not sounds unjust enough let's not forget that people do not choose to be born in a wealthy or poor country. EDIT: The usual bunch of downvotes came in just after posting. Interesting.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  Regarding justice. There is no such thing. To borrow a pun from Terry Pratchett, there is "just us".
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  For the record I didn't downvote. Your comment has raised some interesting questions for me, would true freedom of movement would seem to undermine the traditional nation state and the will of its people? At the very least it would massively change what it means to belong to a nation, it could largely erase that belonging. It would be such a different world to live in, national identity is already a tough thing to quantify and reason about.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    It's well known that ultra-nationalist governments thorough history has been always very strict with both immigration and emigration. Also ideas (books, movies, even music...) can influence a country even more than immigrants. Unsurprisingly, heavy censorship is very common dictatorships. It's interesting to look at what rich and poor countries import and export ideas, ranging from academic research, literature, art to popular movies...

ythn 9y ago

The problem is that proponents of mass immigration frame it as "either you are for mass immigration, or you are for the slaughtering/suffering/starvation/etc. of refugees in war torn areas"

k__ 9y ago
Which you basically are, but that's just life. You can't have a cake and eat it.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  No, you're not - there are plenty of options in between the current state of things and complete indifference to peoples' lives. Alternatives include accelerated immigration programs focused on refugees. Or a peace-keeping intervention in the war-torn places. The issue GP is pointing out is that this framing is basically shutting out any possible discussion. While myself I'm rather currently in favour of relatively lenient immigration policies, a lot of people I know personally are anti-immigration because they feel like we're being scammed with a bait-and-switch tactic - i.e. that we're told to accept war refugees, and what we get instead are economical migrants. Whether justified by evidence or not, I find those fears are something reasonable for people to have.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > we're told to accept war refugees, and what we get instead are economical migrants How on earth would you tell the difference as a bystander? Or is it the case that the media are telling them to be afraid of "migrants"?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I wouldn't. They wouldn't and can't. It's all what the media says and shows. I'm just reporting on what my acquaintances believe from what they see on the news / in their social media feeds / through third-hand stories and cherry-picked examples confirming stereotypes. It's all just perceptions from indirect sources, like 99% of social issues of today.
      - candiodari 9y ago
        You perhaps wouldn't but for one thing, refugees come from war-torn areas. It is implied constantly, but never stated, by the government that the current flow of refugees come from Syria, fleeing the violence there. Reality: Syrian refugees are a tiny minority. Africans and people from central Asia are the large bulk of the immigrants (>80%) and they are most definitely not coming from war-torn areas.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  Not at all. If my neighbor breaks his bathroom, he's welcome to use mine. But after a month, when his whole family is now frequently coming over, I will ask him to get a plumber. If he won't, I'll do it and lock my door. For many countries sending people to prime immigration target countries, the only visible fix is running their countries for them. Instead, the UN and other groups do the opposite. They run around singing about human rights, enabling lawlessness and crime to go on unchecked while decent citizens become frustrated, some of them escaping and contributing to immigration. In particular, Central America. I know many people that would be 100% onboard with defending and cleaning up their country. Instead, they all tell me they don't even carry a weapon, because using it will get them jailed with a short life expectancy. Meanwhile, pretty much every Guatemalan I speak with pines for the days of Rios Montt which kept things safe and clean. Yet is decried by the international community which doesn't have to live with the result of their choices. Fix the source, take a heavy hand. There's no need for the West to babysit people. Letting a tiny amount of people in to your own countries will accomplish little to actually relieve suffering. It's pointless and costly and not a real solution.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > For many countries sending people to prime immigration target countries, the only visible fix is running their countries for them. Funnily enough, the current "immigration" fiasco in the UK is about the Windrush generation, who came over from Jamaica at the instigation of the UK which was running the country at the time. The UK is trying to retroactively undo this and deport them, including people who were born in the UK, despite the fact that they originally came over on British passports.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Yes it was an obviously disastrous policy, as anyone should have been able to predict. Some politicians at the time accurately stated this obvious truth, and years later they've been proven right beyond a doubt. So right are they that critics even now only yell insults and demand censorship. Running a country for someone doesn't mean you need to give citizenship, residency, or even visas to them. It just means you do the math and see that it's obviously less suffering to remove some liberty and self-governance to improve the lives of millions. Over time, slowly give back bits of governance while retaining the right to override. Then take it from there. It takes some mental gymnastics to allow a situation where innocent people live in fear and can be robbed and killed without reprisals only to claim you've delivered "human rights" and democracy.
pjc50 9y ago
When a millon refugees walk across the border, what are the options? And what will the outcomes of those choices be?

godzillabrennus 9y ago

It’s probably a far right enough position that it’ll get you convicted of some hate crime in the U.K., just as some teen got convicted of one for posting rap lyrics online from American rapper Snap Dog. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-woman-found-guilty-posting-racist-snap-dogg-lyrics-article-1.3948046 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-woman-found-gu...

LoSboccacc 9y ago

same, I'm all for immigration and cultural interchange. however what we get is immigration and segregation. that's not a recipe for long term stability, especially with the southern states youth unemployment rate - whether is true or not that immigration impact the available job pool, the hundred thousands that arrive yearly plus the current job situation is bounded to breed resentment on both sides. can anyone blame either of them?

amiga-workbench 9y ago
This is also a problem in the UK, we have ended up with insular parallel societies. I truly hope that time will fix this because its not looking good.
- candiodari 9y ago
  It's a lot worse than it was in the 1990s and 2000s. It's definitely moving in the wrong direction and ... what exact reason do you have there is any change coming at all ? Meanwhile, the economic situation of the urban poor keeps getting worse (less pay for more work, more abuses, worse housing, ...) so in addition to creating these insular societies, the UK is also seriously upping the pressure on them. And before you say it, no it's not brexit (not that I'm claiming it's improving matters), it's been going on for decades.

minikites 9y ago

Why is "immigrants are harmful" the default approach?

amiga-workbench 9y ago
Because not all cultures are equal.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  And you have a magic, unbiased ICopmparable<Culture>?
  - amiga-workbench 9y ago
    No, nobody does. The point is that nobody should tolerate and import values which would lead to an erosion of that very same tolerance. The culture I live in isn't perfect, but lets try and make sure any changes we make are in the right direction.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    Unbiased completely no, good enough yes. Oddly enough you can look at the Middle East and see two great examples which while are at odds with each other have more in common than with most of the rest of the of the region. Iran and Israel.
toasterlovin 9y ago
Can you really look at human history and think that, upon creating an underclass with a different religion and different phenotypic traits, somehow things will go well?
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  >Can you really ... think that ... creating an underclass with ... different phenotypic traits ... will go well? What are you saying, exactly? Don't dress it up with $20 words... you're literally saying "Those Others are different from us. Ick!"

toasterlovin 9y ago

Seems pretty reasonable to me, but then I am also of the opinion that 0 immigration should be the starting point in discussions of immigration (rather than “as much as possible”, which seems to have somehow become the default position).

pjc50 9y ago
Hardly. Zero immigration or zero net immigration? I'm not sure people realise that the only countries that have that state are ones that are both so authoritarian that they can enforce it and so bad that nobody wants to live there. "Zero work visas" leads to even more egregiously stupid outcomes. No trade shows. No touring bands. ("Zero immigration" also means that if one of your nationals wants to marry a foreigner, they have to leave the country. And so on.)
- iguy 9y ago
  net migration seems like an entirely irrelevant number here. It's something politicians speak of in the UK just because it's smaller. If the issue under debate is assimilation, then every native who departs increases the relevant ratio.
amiga-workbench 9y ago
A perfectly reasonable default position to have, in my mind if you are going to bring outsiders in, you should probably do it for selfish reasons.
18pfsmt 9y ago
I believe the perception that the immigration policy is "as much as possible" doesn't reflect reality. Many in the west feel it is the humane thing to offer immigrants in war torn ME an opportunity for a better life considering the selfish meddling the West has been involved in WRT ME policy for the last 100 years (think Sykes-Picot, which carved the ME up for UK/France ends). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
- 9y ago

mfoy_ 9y ago

Immigration is just a wedge issue-- a means to an end. The point is to use propaganda to pit half of the population against the other half. Divisive politics in a nutshell! As the saying goes, "divide and conquer."

candiodari 9y ago
I don't know how you can say this. Go and try to get a low end job in a European capital, and then come back with an answer to "do immigrants directly lower the quality of life for the urban poor ?". The answer, without any doubt, is yes. Now you could say that the economy must simply grow to compensate, but it hasn't been doing that for decades now. Exactly when will this happen ? Likewise, government support has been shrinking while taxes have been growing. Solve this problem and you make immigrants a solvable issue. Don't solve this and you might as well try to paint the sky a bright shade of green. Don't solve it for another decade, perhaps two and there will be civil war.

mtgx 9y ago

I also believe it's unfair to ask European countries to take immigrants running from wars mostly caused by the U.S. in the Middle East. It must be nice to launch wars worldwide, knowing there is an ocean separating you from the targets so you won't have to suffer any of the consequences for it (whether it's direct retaliation or having to take in the civilians running from the war - especially when the U.S. government seems to consider civilians living nearby targets as "collateral damage" or outright targets, with the whole 16+ year old male enemy combatant rule).

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

> Is this really such a far-right fringe position to have? Yes. We live in a world were for wealthy people/orgs it's very easy and cheap to move money, products, raw material, energy, information and jobs across the world, travel for business and recreation, even obtain visas and relocate to poor countries (both legally or with small bribes). This 8 categories list almost everything that moves in the world with only one exception: people relocating to rich countries. That's incredibly difficult in comparison. Even if you have an advanced degree, good intentions, no criminal record, fluency in the local language, willingness to work even at lower salaries, you still need a company to do expensive paperwork to effectively authorize you to be there. If this does not sounds unjust enough let's not forget that people do not choose to be born in a wealthy or poor country. EDIT: The usual bunch of downvotes came in just after posting. Interesting.

mfoy_ 9y ago
Regarding justice. There is no such thing. To borrow a pun from Terry Pratchett, there is "just us".
amiga-workbench 9y ago
For the record I didn't downvote. Your comment has raised some interesting questions for me, would true freedom of movement would seem to undermine the traditional nation state and the will of its people? At the very least it would massively change what it means to belong to a nation, it could largely erase that belonging. It would be such a different world to live in, national identity is already a tough thing to quantify and reason about.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  It's well known that ultra-nationalist governments thorough history has been always very strict with both immigration and emigration. Also ideas (books, movies, even music...) can influence a country even more than immigrants. Unsurprisingly, heavy censorship is very common dictatorships. It's interesting to look at what rich and poor countries import and export ideas, ranging from academic research, literature, art to popular movies...