EU to launch military operations against migrant-smugglers

[The Romulan Republic]

To Grumman:

Nearly all of them, I imagine, though I don't wish to assume that. However, not all of them will wish to go and not all of those who would want to go will be able to.

And like I said, the EU has hundreds of millions of people. While it may be bullshit, Wikipedia puts the population of the EU at more than 500 million people.

Also, while I was looking up the EU on Wikipedia, I saw that the EU's motto is "United in diversity" and their anthem is the Ode to Joy. To say that and not welcome immigrants for any reason other than necessity is profound hypocrisy.

Edited.

[cosmicalstorm]

I don't think it's a good idea to move those immigrants to Europe. It would literally be better to airdrop that money on Africa along with condoms and leaflets with family-planning info.
And the EU and US could do well to remove all trade protecting bullshit taxes we place on goods from Africa and whatever else we do to fuck their local economy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Integration is simple. You have the same rights as everyone else and can have whatever culture/beliefs you want as long as you follow the law (which should not favour any group but protect the right to live your life as you wish so long as doing so does not hurt anyone or infringe on their rights). If you don't, we chuck you in jail or deport you following due process like any other criminal. In other words, equality.

Its not a complicated issue. All it requires is a bit of open-mindedness and some courage and integrity from governments. Which I guess is asking for a lot, but there's nothing wrong with grand aspirations.

That's equality, not integration. What happens when an ethnic/religious community views homophobia as a cultural/ethnic trait?

People have the right to believe stupid, offensive things. But if they start going out and killing the gays or something like that, well, like I said, they can go to prison.

What it seems you're saying is that immigrants need to adopt certain beliefs. My answer is why? Can a society not handle more than one way of thinking?

It just seems that in Europe and especially in the UK, there is a much greater requirement for more social interaction as a community than places like the US. Ethnic enclave is viewed as a more problematic issue in Europe, especially when the second generation of migrants have problems accepting the "social norms" of the wider community.

While people are obviously going to have to interact with the rest of society and must, always, be accountable to its laws, perhaps it is Europe's problem if they are unwilling to tolerate different cultures.

It's not as simple as following the law and live out your life as an individual or as part of an ethnic enclave. There's a level of expectation that migrants could bond with the local community as well.

Perhaps that would happen more readily if Europe welcomed them without demanding that they think a certain way.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think it's a good idea to move those immigrants to Europe. It would literally be better to airdrop that money on Africa along with condoms and leaflets with family-planning info.
And the EU and US could do well to remove all trade protecting bullshit taxes we place on goods from Africa and whatever else we do to fuck their local economy.

Air dropping family planning information might seem just a tad condescending. But the tax reform stuff sounds reasonable.

[cosmicalstorm]

Overpopulation is a very real problem. Too many young and unemployed men = trouble.
Moving them to Europe wont make a difference. Thats like thinking we can solve overpopulation with space elevators. The math does not work out.

[madd0ct0r]

Bill Gates has spearheaded a lot of work on this. Checkout myth 3: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-A ... etter-2014

[ray245]

People have the right to believe stupid, offensive things. But if they start going out and killing the gays or something like that, well, like I said, they can go to prison.

What it seems you're saying is that immigrants need to adopt certain beliefs. My answer is why? Can a society not handle more than one way of thinking?

Because certain kinds of bonds needs to be in place if people want to avoid a us vs them mentality? Having some (but not necessary all) kinds of belief that could be shared by others is part of the process of building social identity. If not, you are essentially ending up with a plural society which can be problematic for nations built on democratic and social welfare principles.

While people are obviously going to have to interact with the rest of society and must, always, be accountable to its laws, perhaps it is Europe's problem if they are unwilling to tolerate different cultures.

The point is the migrants and their subsequent generations must see the local population as part of their community as well. It's not just about interacting on a purely economic basis. Saying it is Europe's problem to tolerate culture isn't going to do anything if both communities could not see themselves as being part of a larger community.

Perhaps that would happen more readily if Europe welcomed them without demanding that they think a certain way.

Well, look at all the problems facing the Turkish-German population and integrating them.

[Broomstick]

Truth is I don't have a clue on how to deal with the African demographic situation. I think it's going to cause many instances of famine, civil war and disease. Possibly a real pandemic sooner or later.

Truth is that no one else has an answer, either and yes, a lot of people will wind up dead.

Why do you think the US sent people and materials and money over to Africa to fight ebola? Because no one wants that shit to go global. Why do you think ISIS and Boko Haram keep making the news? Because no one wants that shit to go global.

No one has come up with a humane way to deal with the multiple problems of just too damn many people on one continent. Add in a relatively low tech level and it just gets shittier.

Which is not to imply Africa is one seething cesspit – it's not, there ARE nice places in Africa. Which you seldom hear about, because they aren't having war, famine, and disease. The difference is that they have either 1) lower population densities, 2) higher tech levels, or 3) both.

One of the biggest causes of problems in Africa (though not the only one) is overpopulation. Problem is, no one has a humane or ethical way to solve that problem, at least not from the outside, and from the inside limiting births takes too damn long.

I'm a bit annoyed by the migrant debate though, everyone is pretending that there is some really nice happy way to handle this, when there is no nice way to fix it.

Who is doing that here? Or are you referring to the world in general?

And all this while Europe has a really dysfunctional way of integrating these people who have already made it here.

Arguably, the US and Canada are better at immigrant integration than Europe and we still have very real problems with it.

I think that a lot of this problem would be solved by recognizing that freedom of movement/emigration is a right for anyone who's not carrying a highly dangerous and contagious disease or a suspected or convicted criminal.

That's a great theory. I'm not convinced real-world it would work so well. What do you do when 10 million rural Chinese decide to move to your country because they like the no restrictions on number of children and higher minimum wage?

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose you could have a cap to take into account shear physical necessity. But it should be pretty damn high.

See, I can't begrudge some poor person from a place like Syria trying to come here, because they're a person, they deserve a shot at a good life, and if I was in their place I'd probably be doing the same fucking thing.

[Broomstick]

Oh, I'm agreement there - my entire family is descended from refugees. Thank Og American took them all in.

The Irish came over in the 1860's fleeing hunger in Ireland
The Germans came over... well, I don't know why Grampa Rausch came over, only that it was sufficiently serious for him to stow away on a ship at the age of 14 and never talk about it or go back.
The Russians came over - well, see Fiddler on the Roof for a very, very sanitized version of why they came over. And those that didn't make the trip utterly disappear from history by 1939.

Hell, I don't think any of them had either passports or visas, either.

I want the US to welcome today's newcomers at least as well as they welcomed my family (which wasn't always wonderful - I mean, no one tried to kill us or used the legal system to oppress us, but we still faced a lot of prejudice, like most immigrants).

I still don't have any good answers on this one.

[Zaune]

What it seems you're saying is that immigrants need to adopt certain beliefs. My answer is why? Can a society not handle more than one way of thinking?

I sometimes wonder if the one I live in can, truth be told.

[AniThyng]

What it seems you're saying is that immigrants need to adopt certain beliefs. My answer is why? Can a society not handle more than one way of thinking?

I sometimes wonder if the one I live in can, truth be told.

I honestly wonder how much time some of you have spent with people from a culture that is dramatically different from yours on a fundamental level. It's easy to claim to be tolerant and accepting when the people you are tolerating and accepting are the most willing to accommodate your way of thinking. It becomes MUCH HARDER when from the very get go they hold viewpoints like abortion is a sin, homosexuals are perverse deviants and religion is sacrosanct.

I mean it's all well and good to say everyone will be treated equal - break the law, you go to jail. What are you going to do when they vote to change the law as is their democratic right and the new law is now more restrictive and maybe even immoral?

[LaCroix]

The EU is huge. As numerous as the immigrants are, they are not so many compared to the EU's population. The EU has hundreds of millions of people, and they're talking about resettling just 5,000 as if that's some big deal? Fuck them. They can take more than 5,000 desperate human beings. They just don't want to because of the whining of Right wing bigots. Again, fuck them. Cowardice and hypocrisy.

Edit: And I'm not letting the US and Canada off the hook too. I can say without exaggeration that I would welcome the Canadian government deciding to resettle a few thousand of these people in my hometown should any of them wish to come here.

Before you continue, keep in mind that the EU already takes in a LOT of people. For example, Austria, with 8 million inhabitants is taking ~4000 of these immigrants per year, not counting "normal immigration" from Eastern EU states (and that migragration is already a big demographic problem inside the EU, on it's own). So 1 asylant per 2000 inhabitants. That's twice as much as the US lets in per capita (US has let in about 80000).
Germany (80 mil inhaitants), has granted asylum to about 140000 people - that's 1 per 500 inhabitants.

People with virtually no economic skills that could be applied, while the EU is going through a really bad phase with unemployment numbers soaring, already. Apart from lingual and cultural incompatibilities - I have a friend who married an African refugee, and I can tell you that that guy is having a really hard time dealing with our culture, and dealing with his co-refugees hating him for not adhering to their culture, enough, on top.

Tl;dr - The EU is already letting a really huge number of people in. But the more we let in, the more word of mouth spreads and the more are trying to get here. As unpopular as that might be, at some point, you have to react to immigration that gets out of control and close the door.

edit - I am the son of an asylum seeker (Hungarian refugee), too. I know both sides of the story, but at some point, a human refugee wave becomes a problem to any nation.

[cosmicalstorm]

I work in a multicultural area and I dont like it. The majority of mid east immigrants I've come to know are openly hostile towards jews, do not accept that women deserves equal rights, and these are people who are well integrated into society. The vast majority are not that well integrated. Most of them clearly hold values that would be equal or worse to what you would find in the bible belt of the US. Look at the PEW polls if you think this is a bullshit statement. I think Europe will get in a lot of trouble over the multiculture experiment and I wonder how this will combine with automatization that magics away simple jobs that would have otherwise provided an entry into society for uneducated people.

[ray245]

I work in a multicultural area and I dont like it. The majority of mid east immigrants I've come to know are openly hostile towards jews, do not accept that women deserves equal rights, and these are people who are well integrated into society. The vast majority are not that well integrated. Most of them clearly hold values that would be equal or worse to what you would find in the bible belt of the US. Look at the PEW polls if you think this is a bullshit statement. I think Europe will get in a lot of trouble over the multiculture experiment and I wonder how this will combine with automatization that magics away simple jobs that would have otherwise provided an entry into society for uneducated people.

The problem is targeting the conservative migrants mostly from Africa and the Middle East would easily create a siege mentality for the migrants, which further complicate the problem. Although one thing I find interesting about US culture towards migrants is the US have a very clearly defined notion of what being an American is, which migrants can easily adopt and be part of. Europe on the other hand, while being more liberal in general than the US, seems to have a much greater difficulty in informing migrants what does it actually meant to be an EU citizen. Being socially liberal and tolerant seems to be more of an implicit idea than an explicit idea.

Migration is a two-way process, which does require active participation on the migrant part to try and integrate with the ideas. There must be some sort of mechanism to ensure individuals from migrant societies can escape from peer-pressure to conform to those ideas.

Even in a more multicultural society like Singapore, it took decades and enforced deconstruction of ethnic enclave before we can reduce social tensions between different ethnic community. Things like ensuring every minority remains a minority in every flat and school for instance were utilised to form some sort of shared experiences.

[AniThyng]

That statement about America vs Europe is interesting I think because we come back to which is more racist - insisting that immigrants must make an effort to conform to and become "anericans" even if it costs then some of their culture or just allowing immigrants to instead become an entire community apart that happens to share the same space.

what happens when your immigrants reject the local culture in favour of their own? Well then you get Malaysia and its continuing ethnic tensions. Even I myself am appalled by how bad my Malay has gotten despite being educated in it. Only spending time with Malays willing to speak to you in English ( or obligated to, anyway) can do that...but yeah no I'm not going to allow my country to subject me to Islamic style law, and being part of an emigrant community 27% strong partly allows this. One can see how one does not have to be a right wing bigot to be concerned that having so large a voting population that is not integrated can be destabilizing for one's society.

[Broomstick]

That statement about America vs Europe is interesting I think because we come back to which is more racist - insisting that immigrants must make an effort to conform to and become "anericans" even if it costs then some of their culture or just allowing immigrants to instead become an entire community apart that happens to share the same space.

While the US does "require" certain concessions from immigrants, they aren't necessarily the same concessions that a particular European country requires, and Europe certainly does impose on the immigrant just as the US does.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

That statement about America vs Europe is interesting I think because we come back to which is more racist - insisting that immigrants must make an effort to conform to and become "anericans" even if it costs then some of their culture or just allowing immigrants to instead become an entire community apart that happens to share the same space.

what happens when your immigrants reject the local culture in favour of their own? Well then you get Malaysia and its continuing ethnic tensions. Even I myself am appalled by how bad my Malay has gotten despite being educated in it. Only spending time with Malays willing to speak to you in English ( or obligated to, anyway) can do that...but yeah no I'm not going to allow my country to subject me to Islamic style law, and being part of an emigrant community 27% strong partly allows this. One can see how one does not have to be a right wing bigot to be concerned that having so large a voting population that is not integrated can be destabilizing for one's society.

The difference is that the USA is a lot larger and has a lot more land. So it's possible to start up your own community in some place and no one will give a fuck. Europe is different. People live a lot closer to each other.

There's plenty of racism here and there in the USA, even today really. And in any case, from my own personal observation, people still do keep to themselves a lot, unless they are used to mixing with the bulk of the Americans.

[ray245]

That statement about America vs Europe is interesting I think because we come back to which is more racist - insisting that immigrants must make an effort to conform to and become "anericans" even if it costs then some of their culture or just allowing immigrants to instead become an entire community apart that happens to share the same space.

what happens when your immigrants reject the local culture in favour of their own? Well then you get Malaysia and its continuing ethnic tensions. Even I myself am appalled by how bad my Malay has gotten despite being educated in it. Only spending time with Malays willing to speak to you in English ( or obligated to, anyway) can do that...but yeah no I'm not going to allow my country to subject me to Islamic style law, and being part of an emigrant community 27% strong partly allows this. One can see how one does not have to be a right wing bigot to be concerned that having so large a voting population that is not integrated can be destabilizing for one's society.

It really does go back the point of what kind of society do you want to construct. You could easily create some sort of plural society where economic interaction is the means which different communities interact with each other, or you have to create a more melting pot society which dissolve any major difference between ethnicity. More importantly, is how do you ensure that the democratic process will not be hindered by radically different communities with entirely different ideas of what society ought to be. In a tightly packed community like Europe, especially one with a much greater welfare system, the political system essentially live on the idea that the community could think of itself as one.

I don't think even the most xenophobic society would dictate migrants to give up their way of life completely, and things like material culture is generally tolerated to a degree.

The difference is that the USA is a lot larger and has a lot more land. So it's possible to start up your own community in some place and no one will give a fuck. Europe is different. People live a lot closer to each other.

There's plenty of racism here and there in the USA, even today really. And in any case, from my own personal observation, people still do keep to themselves a lot, unless they are used to mixing with the bulk of the Americans.

It's extremely human to stick closer to your ethnic group when you are in a more alien environment. You can easily see a large number of international students doing this at universities, even though it is supposed to provide them a much bigger platform to interact with the local student population. It certainly doesn't help things when some international students adopt reverse-racism because of their experiences.

While the US does "require" certain concessions from immigrants, they aren't necessarily the same concessions that a particular European country requires, and Europe certainly does impose on the immigrant just as the US does.

Well, it seems that the American migrant culture generally absorb people into its melting pot to the extend no one can even recall the Germans being the largest "ethnic" community in America. Whereas Europe seem to have slightly more problems doing this to the same degree.

[Broomstick]

Americans somewhat pride themselves that anyone can become an American. In practice maybe not so much in all cases, but ancestry and appearance is not as great a bar to becoming "fully American" as it might be in becoming "fully Whatever" somewhere else.

On the other hand, the tendency of later generations to be monolinguists is not a positive in this context.

More physical space is an advantage to some extent... but it's the big cities that are most tolerant of newcomers. Then again, the most conservative asshats tend to avoid the cities.

[cosmicalstorm]

How many thousand boat-refugees per day does this equal?

[Thanas]

Well, some positive development:

After several weeks of getting savaged in the press the German Navy has agreed to send the Berlin and the Hessen to the med ASAP in order to help with the refugee crisis. The ships are to depart as soon as retraining and replenishing is complete. The Berlin will serve as a sort of mobile hospital ship to treat refugees gathered up by the Hessen.

It is not much, but probably all we can spare right now given the state of the Navy.