5 ms·

> Maybe actually try and address the concerns AfD supporters have I suppose you're German and you're familiar with the failed attempt of Friedrich Merz trying

> Maybe actually try and address the concerns AfD supporters have I suppose you're German and you're familiar with the failed attempt of Friedrich Merz trying exactly that with his CDU? The trick populists use is that you make something seem to be something everybody would want, of course, and demand for it to be implemented, without having actual solutions. How do you address a party demanding that the government should stop poisoning citizens with chemtrails? [1] Would you agree that Germany needs to restrict "uncontrolled immigration"? I would. Who wouldn't?! But wait. What's "uncontrolled"? Who gets to decide on the definition? If we had a definition, do we actually have uncontrolled immigration, and if we do have it, what exactly is the problem with it, and why would we want to solve it? But see, they're not in the problem-solving business. They don't care. They're in the "stir up fear and promise we have a solution" business, which is a very successful business model. If 20% of your population believe that there's 5G in your vaccine and the government wants to kill half of your friends, you need to fix other things, like lack of education. A ban on a malicious actor trying to game the system might be a temporary hack to win time. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-staatskanzlei-muss-sich-nach-kleiner-anfrage-mit-chemtrails-befassen-a-5d295473-0a4c-4cda-a958-2e9ef1b61f6d https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-st...

memefrog 3y ago
The main parties in Germany refuse to engage with AFD's concerns about the massive influx of fake refugees.
- purerandomness 3y ago
  They also refuse to engage with AfD's concerns about chemtrail poisonings. [1] Just so we're on the same page, could you give me a definition of what a fake refugee is, how many fake ones Germany currently has, a statistic of the development of fake refugees vs. genuine refugees over the last 5 years, and the mechanism by which the fake ones (not the real ones, of course) cause harm to Germany that needs fixing? If you could provide that, and truly no main party in Germany is currently engage on that data, I'm voting AfD next time. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-staatskanzlei-muss-sich-nach-kleiner-anfrage-mit-chemtrails-befassen-a-5d295473-0a4c-4cda-a958-2e9ef1b61f6d https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-st...
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > Just so we're on the same page, could you give me a definition of what a fake refugee is The more common term is "fraudulent asylum seeker". It's defined as anyone that fabricates something about their background in order to qualify for refugee status. This could be any number of things, but the most common are: * lying about persecution. For instance saying the government wants to kill you, when in reality there is no such threat. * lying about country of origin. Like saying one is fleeing Syria when in reality they are economic migrants from peaceful countries. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/the-men-who-pretend-to-be-syrian-refugees-greece/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/the-men-who-pretend-to-... * lying about age. Some countries have more permissive rules for minors, so adults lie and say they are children. Poland studied this, and found about 40% had lied about their age: https://www.polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/2019-09-18/niemieccy-eksperci-zbadali-nieletnich-imigrantow-40-proc-z-nich-okazalo-sie-doroslymi-mezczyznami/?ref=kafle https://www.polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/2019-09-18/niemieccy-eks... The fact that some governments aren't bothering to try and detect asylum fraud means there's no available data. But that doesn't mean it's not happening. It's like a company that has no sexual harassment reporting mechanism claiming no harassment happens because it has never had any reports of harassment.
    - purerandomness 3y ago
      Perfect, now we have a common definition. So let's see: > Poland studied this, and found about 40% had lied about their age in the refugee wave 2007-2018. You might not be able to read Polish, so I'll help you understand this article. It refers to a German investigation (your link is just a Polish news outlet citing the German investigation) done by the University Hospital of Münster. They found that 234 cases [1] (that's the 40%) in 12 years, of all cases that were reevaluated had lied about their age in order to get better chances at asylum approval. However, they only included cases for re-evaluation that were already looking suspicious. It's not "40% of migrants lie about their age". The "study" was not published or at least isn't online. So let's see what happened. The Merkel administration had to deal with a surge of asylum seekers. Some of them claimed false ages to get a better chance in the approval process. Some courts and Jugendämter in Germany noticed that. People at UKM in Münster re-analysed some suspicious looking cases, and talked about methods for improvement of age determination. Wouldn't you agree that the system worked? A problem was diagnosed, and measures were introduced to solve the problem. Now, the AfD's trick is to not tell their voters what's happened since then: The numbers for people seeking asylum went downhill after 2016, so the problem didn't exist anymore, at all [2]. What we're dealing with now are mostly war refugees from Ukraine. Now, AfD's trick is now to convince people that the amount of fake refugees in itself is problematic, without giving specific numbers, and without telling how it's problematic, and why. They make it seem as if it's a real problem that exists, and as if it's being ignored (it's not, as we see by the scientists trying to solve it) [1] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-09/studie-minderjaehrige-gefluechtete-gutachten-alterspruefung https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-09/studie-minderjaehri... [2] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/76095/umfrage/asylantraege-insgesamt-in-deutschland-seit-1995/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/76095/umfrage...
Manuel_D 3y ago
There are indeed concrete complaints and proposals to curb fraudulent refugee claims: Children have priority, but men routinely lie about their age. Some 40% of purported children refugees turned out to be adults. Similarly, many claimed to be from Syria fleeing warzones, but turned out to be economic migrants from countries at peace looking for a better job. I'm not German and I am pretty much on the opposite of the political spectrum as AfD. My parents went to the US after the communist insurrection in Cuba, and I'd much rather have more permissive legal avenues to immigration in America. But what I'm not a fan of, is undemocratic measures like banning political parties because of a more conservative approach to refugees. Banning political parties is the destruction of democracy, not it's preservation. If members of AfD are actually trying to undermine democracy, charge them with insurrection or whatever the appropriate crimes may be. Remember, the Reichstag Fire Decree was ostensibly passed to protect German democracy, too.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
> But wait. What's "uncontrolled"? Who gets to decide on the definition? If we had a definition, do we actually have uncontrolled immigration, and if we do have it, what exactly is the problem with it, and why would we want to solve it? That could be construed as disingenuous. Freedom of movement means that migration within the EU is not controlled. In 2015 Germany effectively let in everyone from the Middle East on the grounds of welcoming "Syrian refugees". Since then we're seeing throughout the EU an effectively uncontrolled flow of immigrants who are not prevented from entering and who have understood that the first thing to do on arrival is to claim asylum. So this is pretty much uncontrolled. Controlled immigration (legal non-EU immigrants) is also high. Today, I believe that 20% of the population in Germany is first generation immigrant. A problem is that we've seen (like everywhere in Europe and on other issues as well) that the debate is being poisoned by reducing it between a correct, civilised, acceptable opinion ("Immigration is great and chance") and a fascist, Nazi, extremist, bigotted, uneducated opinion (pretty anyone who says there is too much immigration and that it is not controlled enough). I think this explains both the AfD's rise and the proposed approach against them.

memefrog 3y ago

The main parties in Germany refuse to engage with AFD's concerns about the massive influx of fake refugees.

purerandomness 3y ago
They also refuse to engage with AfD's concerns about chemtrail poisonings. [1] Just so we're on the same page, could you give me a definition of what a fake refugee is, how many fake ones Germany currently has, a statistic of the development of fake refugees vs. genuine refugees over the last 5 years, and the mechanism by which the fake ones (not the real ones, of course) cause harm to Germany that needs fixing? If you could provide that, and truly no main party in Germany is currently engage on that data, I'm voting AfD next time. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-staatskanzlei-muss-sich-nach-kleiner-anfrage-mit-chemtrails-befassen-a-5d295473-0a4c-4cda-a958-2e9ef1b61f6d https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-in-sachsen-st...
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  > Just so we're on the same page, could you give me a definition of what a fake refugee is The more common term is "fraudulent asylum seeker". It's defined as anyone that fabricates something about their background in order to qualify for refugee status. This could be any number of things, but the most common are: * lying about persecution. For instance saying the government wants to kill you, when in reality there is no such threat. * lying about country of origin. Like saying one is fleeing Syria when in reality they are economic migrants from peaceful countries. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/the-men-who-pretend-to-be-syrian-refugees-greece/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/the-men-who-pretend-to-... * lying about age. Some countries have more permissive rules for minors, so adults lie and say they are children. Poland studied this, and found about 40% had lied about their age: https://www.polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/2019-09-18/niemieccy-eksperci-zbadali-nieletnich-imigrantow-40-proc-z-nich-okazalo-sie-doroslymi-mezczyznami/?ref=kafle https://www.polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/2019-09-18/niemieccy-eks... The fact that some governments aren't bothering to try and detect asylum fraud means there's no available data. But that doesn't mean it's not happening. It's like a company that has no sexual harassment reporting mechanism claiming no harassment happens because it has never had any reports of harassment.
  - purerandomness 3y ago
    Perfect, now we have a common definition. So let's see: > Poland studied this, and found about 40% had lied about their age in the refugee wave 2007-2018. You might not be able to read Polish, so I'll help you understand this article. It refers to a German investigation (your link is just a Polish news outlet citing the German investigation) done by the University Hospital of Münster. They found that 234 cases [1] (that's the 40%) in 12 years, of all cases that were reevaluated had lied about their age in order to get better chances at asylum approval. However, they only included cases for re-evaluation that were already looking suspicious. It's not "40% of migrants lie about their age". The "study" was not published or at least isn't online. So let's see what happened. The Merkel administration had to deal with a surge of asylum seekers. Some of them claimed false ages to get a better chance in the approval process. Some courts and Jugendämter in Germany noticed that. People at UKM in Münster re-analysed some suspicious looking cases, and talked about methods for improvement of age determination. Wouldn't you agree that the system worked? A problem was diagnosed, and measures were introduced to solve the problem. Now, the AfD's trick is to not tell their voters what's happened since then: The numbers for people seeking asylum went downhill after 2016, so the problem didn't exist anymore, at all [2]. What we're dealing with now are mostly war refugees from Ukraine. Now, AfD's trick is now to convince people that the amount of fake refugees in itself is problematic, without giving specific numbers, and without telling how it's problematic, and why. They make it seem as if it's a real problem that exists, and as if it's being ignored (it's not, as we see by the scientists trying to solve it) [1] https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-09/studie-minderjaehrige-gefluechtete-gutachten-alterspruefung https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-09/studie-minderjaehri... [2] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/76095/umfrage/asylantraege-insgesamt-in-deutschland-seit-1995/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/76095/umfrage...

Manuel_D 3y ago

There are indeed concrete complaints and proposals to curb fraudulent refugee claims: Children have priority, but men routinely lie about their age. Some 40% of purported children refugees turned out to be adults. Similarly, many claimed to be from Syria fleeing warzones, but turned out to be economic migrants from countries at peace looking for a better job. I'm not German and I am pretty much on the opposite of the political spectrum as AfD. My parents went to the US after the communist insurrection in Cuba, and I'd much rather have more permissive legal avenues to immigration in America. But what I'm not a fan of, is undemocratic measures like banning political parties because of a more conservative approach to refugees. Banning political parties is the destruction of democracy, not it's preservation. If members of AfD are actually trying to undermine democracy, charge them with insurrection or whatever the appropriate crimes may be. Remember, the Reichstag Fire Decree was ostensibly passed to protect German democracy, too.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

> But wait. What's "uncontrolled"? Who gets to decide on the definition? If we had a definition, do we actually have uncontrolled immigration, and if we do have it, what exactly is the problem with it, and why would we want to solve it? That could be construed as disingenuous. Freedom of movement means that migration within the EU is not controlled. In 2015 Germany effectively let in everyone from the Middle East on the grounds of welcoming "Syrian refugees". Since then we're seeing throughout the EU an effectively uncontrolled flow of immigrants who are not prevented from entering and who have understood that the first thing to do on arrival is to claim asylum. So this is pretty much uncontrolled. Controlled immigration (legal non-EU immigrants) is also high. Today, I believe that 20% of the population in Germany is first generation immigrant. A problem is that we've seen (like everywhere in Europe and on other issues as well) that the debate is being poisoned by reducing it between a correct, civilised, acceptable opinion ("Immigration is great and chance") and a fascist, Nazi, extremist, bigotted, uneducated opinion (pretty anyone who says there is too much immigration and that it is not controlled enough). I think this explains both the AfD's rise and the proposed approach against them.