Most Europeans believe their countries are more polarised than 10 years ago
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
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?
You can't have a cake and eat it.
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The trouble with this is that, as currently demonstrated around the world, you need to keep killing increasingly large numbers of people to maintain this level of control. The argument for apartheit South Africa was always this, and it was a terrible idea. It was the argument for tanks on the streets in Northern Ireland and the argument for tanks on the streets of Hungary in 56.
It doesn't matter because it doesn't justify apartheid, just shows that you don't need to murder lots of people. Having bad countries outsource key government roles to good countries doesn't need to involve any sort of tiered citizenship or segregation.
Current murder rates seem high and are likely underreported. (For instance, Guatemala won't record a homicide if the person doesn't die right away but is helped by aid personnel.)
Further, apartheid isn't a case of what I'm proposing. They were running their own country for their benefit, not as a humanitarian/client setup.
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.
The culture I live in isn't perfect, but lets try and make sure any changes we make are in the right direction.
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.
What are you saying, exactly? Don't dress it up with $20 words... you're literally saying "Those Others are different from us. Ick!"
All of these ended in great violence, and once the killing was over, a much higher degree of segregation. (Arguably what's going on in Syria is still the endgame of Ottomans disintegration.) Not wishing to repeat this historical experience does not seem crazy to me.
Do you have other historical examples? Or you prefer to just imagine sunshine and rainbows forever?
(This includes not making an underclass out of people who are already citizens, either!)
For example, the best thing that could happen to the US underclass is for unskilled labour to become expensive. If slaughterhouses and gardening firms and nail salons had to all bid for the same supply of local labour, they would bid the price up. But instead these industries are heavily reliant on imported labour. (Their owners will speak of a shortage but, as HN well knows when it's programming jobs, they mean a shortage at the price and docility to which they are accustomed.)
At no point did she claim it was a default approach But i will bite...why not? Tech changes tend to be adverse to change in many organizations, why not policy?
"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.)
(I do get that there are justifications given that framing...)
Here's a more forthright approach: The problem with your argument is that it goes about half a level deep and doesn't hold up to even the most elementary criticism. Specifically, I was pointing out that human constructs are a fundamental element of human existence; they are how we negotiate existing alongside one another. So, trying to argue against something solely because it is a human construct makes about as much sense as arguing that somebody is evil because they were born in February.
The notion of real border control is barely 100 years old.
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."
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.
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).
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.
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.
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...
Why ? Because that makes a lot of sense given the economic changes they're trying to make happen.
This isn't a "one or the other" kind of thing. Yes, there are people who oppose mass immigration, but Russia also has a habit of trying to destabilize European countries by supporting nationalist/anti-immigration groups.
Speaking frankly, it’s patronizing bullshit.
That's life, I guess.
Isn't that the definition of a good compromise?
I mean, each EU country is fighting to get itself the best deal, to bolster its position over other EU states. There is no way to make it so that everyone (or even the majority) is happy, when the definition of "happy" is "much more than you could possibly get".
The Commission is not instated by God Almighty or by hereditary laws: it is nominated by democratically-elected national governments. The Council does not spring fully-formed from the head of Zeus: it is made of democratically-elected governments. The European Court of Justice was not created by the Pope 1000 years ago: it was created by democratically-elected governments through treaties. And so on and so forth.
The fact that such governments are then able to sustain the fiction that they have no say in EU matters, is more a reflection of the poor state of critical thinking in voters across the continent than an indictment of EU's "democracy level", whatever that might mean... unless we assume that a process is democratic when it agrees with one's opinions, and completely tyrannical when it doesn't.
Isn't it much simpler to believe that there are people who organically disagree?
And if the goal of the conspiracy is to sow discontent and weaken relations, and if a disagreement requires two opposing viewpoints, aren't both sides equally responsible for the weakening?
In that case (embarassingly obviously) it's the 3rd party's fault, not either of the two disagreeing parties.
oh, come on, this is ridiculous. The russians may be somewhat evil, I concede, but the problems that we europeans have are not their fault, but ours.
It's sad to see such xenophobic comments on HN. Please stop blaming every Russian for what Putin and his friends do.
They are taking loans from Russians banks because all French banks have refused to give them loans and has closed all their accounts. If you're inclined to believe conspiracy theory, remember that Macron has worked for banks before...
>In return, Russian state media openly supported her in the French election
And the support given by various American politician to Macron doesn't count? The article is pretty hypocritical.
{Over at the Monkey Cage blog, Lucan Ahmad Way and Adam Casey recently summarized some of the most prominent cases of Russian meddling in Europe }
Let me quote it for you:
>But it’s not at all clear that Russia’s efforts made any difference
>And even in these, a closer look shows that Russia’s actual influence is far from clear.
>But there are reasons to be skeptical of the claim that Russia swung the election for Trump.
>[Russia] hasn’t gotten much for its efforts — and these efforts have often backfire
The mainstream and social media can amplify negative sentiments, which propagate between people. This leads to a bad assessment of reality.
That's why I believe media people - both mainstream and social - are being dangerously irresponsible my sharing every possible polarizing bullshit to maximize ad clicks. And I mean "dangerously" as in "could cause significant loss of life at some point".
Consider the US's Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe post WW2. Western nations must partner in a concerted effort to build up Middle Eastern nations, rather than funding destructive and chaos inducing wars and revolutions.
(Also, given it's an on-line poll, I have some doubts about whether the sampled population is representative in any way.)
(Also, there's selection bias involved, including self-selection if the poll was voluntary. I generally don't trust voluntary opt-in polls much, as it's too easy to get bullshit results from them, and I don't often see people even realizing this.)
EDIT: the poll authors do claim that their results are representative of the nation in some countries:
"16 of the 27 countries surveyed generate nationally representative samples in their countries (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and United States). Brazil, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey produce a national sample that is considered to represent a more affluent, connected population. These are still a vital social group to understand in these countries, representing an important and emerging middle class."
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/bbc-global-survey-wor...
Being able to speak the language within your first year in a new country helps integration and lessens the us-vs-them feeling. Ideally people wouldn't mind hearing a different language, but unfortunately we're not that tolerant yet.
The rich countries want cheap workers,
Because I don't think I've ever heard a politician say out loud that they want cheap workers.
By the time said workers are old, and their kids (who aren't mentally comparing to the village their family) are unhappily unemployed... well that's decades later, you don't get elected by worrying about such things.
Also this workers are working hard jobs in agriculture or constructions, with bad conditions, the citizens would not accept to work this job, for the agriculture obs I am not sure if even with bigger pay the regular citizens would want to work hard physical jobs outside in the bad weather.
Not sure what you're talking about. I'm been to Italy and Germany many times and never felt unwelcome for not speaking their language.
EDIT: Before you respond that "immigration policy etc etc", notice that the post I was responding to was talking about interations between individuals (using phrases like "ideally people wouldn't mind hearing a different language"), not policy.
Maybe this is what he means by the distinction of living/visiting?
Again, on which immigrants are we talking about here? Could you be specific?
I have no idea what the motive for not taking any of these actions is, but whatever it is it'd probably apply to any other delay or transition you could come up with - unless it was forced on the UK I guess.
We absolutely do. You need to look at "no recourse to public funds" (something that causes significant harm).
See also many of the Windrush generation being refused benefits, or forced to repay benefits:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/22/government-a...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/20/dwp-sent-win...
The current benefits regime is brutal to everyone, and there's extra brutality for migrants.
The top of the divided list is Serbia, which has still not fully healed from its own civil war. Then you have Italy, whose problems probably mostly relate to the financial crisis fallout.
Next is Hungary, which is on the classic path of fascism by rallying against external and internal percieved enemies and anti-semitism: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/george-soros-u...
The UK being divided over Europe is hardly new, but the salience of the issue has been driven up by the press systematically misreporting it. There are also questions of the centralisation of power which aren't going away.
Poland has an ongoing constitutional crisis which seems to be a straightforward concentration of power by the right: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/2...
Spain is also a victim of the financial crisis, but the important issue there is Catalonia.
Of course there could be example of anti-semitism from the gov in Hungary, but I don't think that's the case of the linked article.
Longer: https://www.ft.com/content/ed901d78-38c4-11e8-8b98-2f31af407...
"Each year, pro-government crowds rally on March 15, the anniversary of Hungary’s 1848 nationalist uprising against the Habsburg yoke. This year as usual Orban spoke of what it meant to be Hungarian — and not Hungarian. “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.” The Wandering Jew is back in Hungarian politics.
For the FT, I couldn't read it since I don't have a subscription. Still the quote provided does not specifically talk about the “Wandering Jew” stereotype.
Of course I agree with you that the criticism of Soros by the government could lead to act of antisemitism as shown by the tags (of which we have no pictures in the articles), but this act of the government does not seem anti-Semitic.
Italy is a victim of austerity first and foremost. We could recover like everyone else on the eurozone, but got instead crushed by the eu imposing restrictive budgeting measures in the most critical times http://bruegel.org/2014/10/austerity-tales-the-netherlands-a...