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Something I find quite strange is that the choices are:
a) allow immigration, and have Muslims beat their wifes "here", with whichever definition of "here";
b) don't, and have Muslims beat their wifes "over there", wherever that might be.

I don't really see the difference. Is something bad when you see it, and fine when you don't? Will they not beat less their wife if they live in a free, economically advanced society like our Western ones? or in the worst case, won't their children be more like "us" "here" than "over there"?

(I live in Canada,btw. I would allow immigration without limits, even pay for transport if necessary, because I don't see how it is fair that we, the Western lucky few, have such good life conditions while many, elsewhere, live in an over-populated metaphorical hell -- and I don't see foreign aid as really helping anything.)

This is true. In Hungary, Jobbik is the third-largest party. These are deeply unpleasant people. In the Netherlands, the PVV is the third-largest party and was part of the coalition government until a few weeks ago - they want to make the Quran illegal to sell in the Netherlands, to close down all Muslim schools and to expel entire families of Muslim immigrants. Then you've got the likes of Lega Nord in Italy, with their quite racist stance on things and their bigoted statements. Not forgetting the popularity of the National Front in France or Vlaams Belang in Belgium and, yes, the surge in support of both the far-left and far-right in Greece. These aren't just fairly cuddly civic nationalist liberal types like UKIP - some of these are aggressively nationalistic parties with links to violence and hatred of ethnic minority groups. This is all happening because the EU - with the helping of national governments - has essentially denied the peoples of Europe a voice. There is no real democracy in the EU, and voting for our main political parties changes nothing, so people have started looking at other options in many EU countries.



So you'd be quite happy to see your larger cities end up looking like African countries' capitals? Because that's what will happen with unlimited immigration with a welfare state and a lax police force. All that will happen under your proposals is the natives voting en-masse for the far-right. Great if that's what you want.

You should check out some large European cities like Malmö, Paris or Amsterdam - then times that by ten.

Last edited by Tequila on 08 May 2012, 10:12 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I think that I can explain the logic (although I don't necessarily buy into it).

The logic is: the modern West is the best state of affairs that humanity has so far devised. Never before have so many people lived in such comfort and wealth, had so much intellectual and personal freedom, and made so much progress in the sciences and humanities. No matter what happens, we need to preserve the West from internal corruption. If the West becomes more barbaric, then we are going backwards. As long as the West remains as it is, it can serve as a model for other parts of the world to copy.

So, by this logic, it is better for them to beat their wives "over there". That way, it will not have a chance of becoming normalised in the West.

However, as I said, I don't really buy this logic. The problem is that the world is very interconnected, and the "West and the Rest" model doesn't really do it justice.

Another problem with this logic is that modern liberal society faces internal threats as well as external ones. The barbarians aren't "at the gates"; some of them are already inside the gates. And many of the most dangerous barbarians are not Muslims, but are in fact self-proclaimed anti-Muslim crusaders who claim to want to defend the West, and are willing to throw away Western freedoms in order to do so.

I don't know if I would be happy. Possibly not. But they will be happy by a larger margin than I will be unhappy. They are people, like I. (Btw, I live in Montréal, and per Wikpedia, it is already more populous than


The point is, if they are "here", they will probably adopt many of our cultural habits (and we theirs, but the good ones, in a synthetic process). In any case, I think the subordination of women in Muslim countries is a passing problem, and that what see now is more a reactive change to new realities than what has always been and always will be. The place of women in society is best encouraged by economic development and its subsidiary consequences (mainly on healthcare), not by crusading and hatred.

I agree completely about the last sentence, also.

True, they are people. But the self-preservation instinct must kick in. You look after yourself, and your own family, before thinking of others. It's what keeps us alive.

You wouldn't let all the criminals out of jail because they are people, and people must be free, would you?

I have a question, then: Are border collies more privileged than pit bulls? Do border collies need to "check their privilege"?

No, but I wouldn't put people in prison because they were born on the wrong side of the ocean, or on the other side of an arbitrary line.

I'm not saying my beliefs are practical in the short term. I just think they are ethical and right.

Please reread exactly what you have written in this post and think about it carefully.

You are correct, you were not using a very productive tone you were aggressive, judgemental and absolutist. If you don't want to take part in heated, aggressive debate then don't take part and certainly don't butt in to a conversation with heated aggressive posts and then complain when you receive the same style of posts back.

Perhaps you should consider the possibility that you are ignorant, which is why people are implying that you are ignorant. Do you really think that a 21 year old with zero life experience, that has never even visited Europe and hasn't finished school is qualified to lecture people about the details of their own countries because she has been to a few sociology lectures? Doesn't that strike you as outrageously arrogant? It really, really should.

I'd have Theo van Gogh or Pim Fortuyn answer that, but unfortunately, they were both assassinated in the past ten years - one for insulting 'the prophet', and one for targeting 'islam, the weak in society'. Geert Wilders now needs a small personal army and an armoured car to protect him, and can't stay at the same house for too long, because he receives a lot of death threats, so don't count on an explanation by him either.







Flirtation with fascism? I'm not all against it - the European Union needs to wake up and look at reality, something they've been bitterly lacking. It would be good for them to stop paying their employees ten thousand a month for doing absolutely nothing but moan about human rights elsewhere and saying we should be friendlier to immigrants while trying to pass legislation aimed at making surveillance of normal citizens here easier. These people are the enemy just as much as, and a bit more for forcing us to facilitate in, large groups of immigrants making life in inner cities living hell. We want to be able to close our borders and regulate our own immigration policies. You see, throughout most of the European Union, people have ideas similar to Switzerland's (taking measures against immigration and foreign cultural dominance), but are forced to have policies welcoming almost all immigrants with open arms.

I love how people from North America and the Pacific are still buying into the idea of immigration. I've discussed this issue with Australians before. Their logic made me cringe. It amounted to "because we receive mostly Indonesians, Chinese people and Europeans, immigration is alright." However, we've received Indonesians and Chinese people, and they're great. However, most of what we received was Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean or from Suriname, and they're not at all similar to those groups. They are, in fact, extremely over-represented in almost all types of crime, stick to their own group, are involved in organised crime very often (my charming Antillean neighbours, for example are secretive drug dealers who have a new car every few months and receive visitors with bags and suitcases for five minutes in the middle of the night), and don't hide their disagreement and resentment toward a culture we hold dear.

Although almost everyone in surrounding houses has complained of cars with loud music stopping in the street at 2 am, someone stepping out, entering their house, then loading bags into their car and speeding off. However, the police isn't authorised to do anything. They put a police van next to the house for a while, but the dealers had a tactic - they simply placed someone on guard who signalled their colleagues when the police van had left.

I daresay that, if genuine democracy was available in the EU, that Swiss policies would prove very popular. The SVP isn't the largest party in Switzerland for no reason. The Swiss are very outspoken about what they like and dislike, and they don't want mass, unfettered immigration or Islamic dominance any more than we do here in the UK.

Indeed, I favour leaving the EU and for the UK to take on a Swiss-style arrangement.

The Swiss are doing alright. They're not tied to extreme restrictions regarding immigration and integration. The government wanted to restrict immigration policies here, one of their most popular moves ever, but the European Union refused to allow that. I'm wondering why we're listening to them, as they've usually been wrong, and they're best at putting their heads in the sand on all issues. They're like some passengers on the Titanic, refusing to believe the ship was sinking even when they saw the bow going under. I hope the situation in Greece deteriorates so much the European Union loses its political credit and we can free ourselves.

Take the right to vote away from people who aren't rational, if you believe in an all mighty being, which nobody can see or confirm the existence of, that talks to you, whom you talk to and so on, then that is more or less grounds for being locked up for mental illness. Religion is socially accepted psychosis, simple as that.

Who is going to determine rationality? You? When did you die, go to heaven and become the Lord of the Universe?

ruveyn

Let's start from the proposition that what we are really talking about are the industrialized democracies in the world: the 20 or so countries that are both members of the OECD and full democracies on The Economist's democracy index. It's not a perfect set, because Italy and France, though "flawed democracies" are certainly immigration destinations, as is Israel, for different reasons. Similarly, countries like Japan, South Korea, though full democracies, aren't.

What do these countries share in common? Obviously economic prosperity and democratic government. And those are both very desirable qualities to have in a homeland. Pulling up stakes and moving your family to a new country is not an exercise to be undertaken lightly. So the decision is generally motivated by a combination of "push" factors (what makes your homeland undesirable) and "pull" factors (what makes your destination country desirable).

Now, immigration is a competitive market. Talented people from source countries often have fewer reasons to leave, and want greater assurances of a "soft landing" in their new country. So when an engineer from, say, Pakistan has a choice between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK or the USA, the issues may not simply be economic, but also cultural. What's the experience of being "brown" in Canada as opposed to the USA? How vibrant is the Pakistani community in Auckland as compared with Manchester? And perhaps the most important question of all--will I be able to bring my family with me, in time?

Economic growth is directly linked to population growth. In the "West" our natural fertility rates are below the population replacement level--so unless we can attract people from elsewhere who want to come and live among us, we doom ourselves to an economic demise through attrition.

It's all well and good to complain about the influx of different--and even inconsistent--cultures. But that's the price of prosperity. Forcing people into abandoning their cultures in favour of ours is simply going to persuade them that other countries are a better choice.

So use the public law to prohibit that which is objectionable. There is no place for so-called "honour" killings in a free and democratic society. But allow other cultural hallmarks (including language) to flourish as they will. In time, our collective prosperity is all the better for it.

So, basically the idea is to let British Pakistani Muslims invite as many of their brethren in from Pakistan as they like, whilst keeping up all their backward cultural practices (excepting "honour" violence) whilst continuing to scream at the native populace that even the slightest objections are racist? Sounds like a brilliant gameplan.

Has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps we neither want nor care for immigrants like these?

The same people who determine it when someone is forcefully committed to a mental hospital. I believe the definition of "psychosis" is "lacking contact with reality". I also believe that people who criticize science, and believe in the healing power of prayer should do without painkillers, antibiotics and other medical treatments.