Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[heydaralon]

Fully agree with your last point.

I'm sick of the hyphenated shit.

I love using hyphens, even when they are not necessary.

[heydaralon]

I was making that point about refugees when GCF was saying that they were vetted by intelligence agencies. I said that was nearly impossible, for the reasons you listed. We are in agreement on this point. I don't know your stance on all this migration, but aren't you kind of making my case for me that Europe has no idea who they are letting in?

As far as your point about the refugees versus asylum seekers, what is the timeline for their return to their own country? When the civil war ends? When the middle east stops being a poor, dangerous place to live? Call me crazy, but I don't think thats going to happen soon, if ever. Also what happens if the war in Syria ended tomorrow? Would they just tell all the migrants: "Hey you should go home now!" Would the migrants listen? Would they start being deported by force? I have no idea, but based on the way the EU is set up and the violent blowback from migrants who wanted to stay, it seems like a difficult task.

I'm making the case that no one can know who they let in when it comes to refugees. And making the case that I don't really care if they don't know. I think it was Dick Cheney who made a comment once about how torture was justified if there was just 1% risk of a terrorist bombing a US city. Well, I don't give a shit about 1% risk of rape or terrorism, or even 99%. Insisting that one must fundamentally change society, change one's values because of even a guarenteed threat... means one never really believed in one's values in the first place. I believe in helping refugees, to an extent. "Even" if they're Muslim.

The parameters for who can get asylum or not, are pretty strict. Being from "the Middle East" isn't going get you asylum. People are already being shipped back to Iraq. And you do realize that all those sweet, sweet Scandinavian welfare benefits will stop materializing after their asylum is rejected, right? And yes, just google "refugees sent home", daralon. They are sent home. Outside of Greece, it's not like there's as many of them now as there were two years ago.

The EU is not a state, doesn't have a unified immigration policy. What they tried to make a deal about was that each country should accept a certain amount of refugees. That fell through... hard. Then they made a deal with Turkey for them to keep most of the Syrians in their camps withing Turkey. It seems to be holding, but you never know with Erdogan.

In essence, the "refugee crisis" that was the news a couple years ago, is over. Economic hangovers will last some time, I suspect.

Well, it looks like you just answered the question I asked in my previous post.

[BjornP]

The point about the 15 year olds was directed at GCF, when we were discussing that earlier in the thread, he brought up the point about a different approach to it.

Here's a question: If Turkey is not a warzone, why can't the Syrians and others fleeing conflict simply stay there? I realize the Turks probably wouldn't like it, but it seems to me like that if they made it to Turkey, they are out of immediate harms way. Any further travel does seem like economic opportunism to me. I just looked up that Turkey has about 2.5 million refugees. What if Europe simply gave them funding to set up more refugee camps on their soil, in exchange for aid or more favorable trade terms or something? It would not be perfect, but it would be better than the current situation.

That's what we're currently doing. Giving Turkey lots of money to keep those millions of refugees in Turkish refugee camps. Probably not just money. Notice how relatively silent most European leaders have been about Erdogan arresting journalists, judges and anyone else suspected of being in league with the Gülen movement?

Also I just realized from your post that I am using different terms, than you. I am probably carelessly interchanging the terms migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker. With that in mind I am just trying to describe an overall trend of people from North Africa and the Middle East attempting to get into Europe.

Are you from Sweden? You mentioned they were turning people away and starting to send people back. What kind of numbers are we talking about here? I'm glad they are doing it, but I don't really understand the logic because these people are fleeing the Syrian civil war, which is the reason they are supposedly in Europe. If the war is still ongoing, why are they being sent back?

I'm from Denmark, Sweden's neighbour to the south, connected by a bridge.

As for why refugees are being sent back: Not all the refugees that came through Europe were from Syria or otherwise war-torn countries:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/08/02/1-a ... countries/

Numbers and news on the subject from various countries:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/worl ... .html?_r=0

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/703 ... ered-plane

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/729 ... iterranean

The migrant crisis was created both by the Syrian Civil War creating millions of refugees fleeing Syria, but also by the breakdown of central government in Libya, which under Gaddafi had made a deal with European leaders about controlling immigration. Then Greece could no longer handle all the refugees from Syria, and refugees from all sorts of countries simply tagged along because nothing brings a smile to a human smuggler's face than a nice, little war.

[heydaralon]

The point about the 15 year olds was directed at GCF, when we were discussing that earlier in the thread, he brought up the point about a different approach to it.

Here's a question: If Turkey is not a warzone, why can't the Syrians and others fleeing conflict simply stay there? I realize the Turks probably wouldn't like it, but it seems to me like that if they made it to Turkey, they are out of immediate harms way. Any further travel does seem like economic opportunism to me. I just looked up that Turkey has about 2.5 million refugees. What if Europe simply gave them funding to set up more refugee camps on their soil, in exchange for aid or more favorable trade terms or something? It would not be perfect, but it would be better than the current situation.

That's what we're currently doing. Giving Turkey lots of money to keep those millions of refugees in Turkish refugee camps. Probably not just money. Notice how relatively silent most European leaders have been about Erdogan arresting journalists, judges and anyone else suspected of being in league with the Gülen movement?

Also I just realized from your post that I am using different terms, than you. I am probably carelessly interchanging the terms migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker. With that in mind I am just trying to describe an overall trend of people from North Africa and the Middle East attempting to get into Europe.

Are you from Sweden? You mentioned they were turning people away and starting to send people back. What kind of numbers are we talking about here? I'm glad they are doing it, but I don't really understand the logic because these people are fleeing the Syrian civil war, which is the reason they are supposedly in Europe. If the war is still ongoing, why are they being sent back?

I'm from Denmark, Sweden's neighbour to the south, connected by a bridge.

As for why refugees are being sent back: Not all the refugees that came through Europe were from Syria or otherwise war-torn countries:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/08/02/1-a ... countries/

Numbers and news on the subject from various countries:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/worl ... .html?_r=0

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/703 ... ered-plane

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/729 ... iterranean

The migrant crisis was created both by the Syrian Civil War creating millions of refugees fleeing Syria, but also by the breakdown of central government in Libya, which under Gaddafi had made a deal with European leaders about controlling immigration. Then Greece could no longer handle all the refugees from Syria, and refugees from all sorts of countries simply tagged along because nothing brings a smile to a human smuggler's face than a nice, little war.

thanks for the links. I have been reading about Turkey for the last hour or so.

[Montegriffo]

This fear of Islam and vilification of Muslims is a coping mechanism which helps people to see the images of desperate fellow humans in countries like Syria and enable them to refuse any kind of aid to them. If you can tell yourself that these are vile rapists and evil terrorists then you can excuse yourself of the responsibility to help them in any way and avoid the guilt which comes with that rejection and unwillingness to do the right thing.
I'm proud of the way Europe has handled this crisis, there may have been mistakes made and risks taken but at the end of the day the right thing has been done.
To help those afraid to do the right thing there is an unending stream of dishonest reporters ready to print half truths and lies about the scale of problems such as Sharia law and no go zones. This means the frightened masses can excuse their cowardice in the name of ''preserving'' their superior culture.
There are camps filled to the brim in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon which have far more refugees than they can cope with yet those poor 3rd world countries can find it in themselves to help while super rich successful countries just write a check but refuse to let any Muslims seek shelter.
Maybe it is because Europe still remembers the chaos and deprivation which followed WWII that allows them to ignore the risks and do what is morally right.
Shame on anyone who jumps on every example of rape or murder carried out by a Muslim ( refugee or not) in order to excuse their own cowardice.

[Zlaxer]

Or maybe it's because they're tired of being run over by trucks and raped.

So Money and GCF, do you approve of the way Islam treats women? Should the West assist the spread of such an ideology? Do you think the spread of Islam will have a positive effect on the world?

You both state we need to save the Mussies from their horrible third world shit holes....but what you continue to fail to address is that Mussies ain't adopting the ways of the West - which means that they will turn the west into the same type of environment that you are saying we should save them from.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Or maybe it's because they're tired of being run over by trucks and raped.

So Money and GCF, do you approve of the way Islam treats women? Should the West assist the spread of such an ideology? Do you think the spread of Islam will have a positive effect on the world?

You both state we need to save the Mussies from their horrible third world shit holes....but what you continue to fail to address is that Mussies ain't adopting the ways of the West - which means that they will turn the west into the same type of environment that you are saying we should save them from.

Of course not. Nobody approves of the mistreatment of women. However that's not an uniquely Muslim thing. Go drive through a trailer park some time.

And this current wave of refugees has only been going for, what, 5 years? Less? Nobody is going to integrate that fast, and they never have. Time will moderate this, as it always have.

Side note: why in the fuck are 'progressives' giving time-honored advice on Americanism to 'conservatives'? Our society is upside-down.

[Zlaxer]

Assimilation should be instantaneous when it comes to how one treats one's neighbor...you keep making excuses for why Mussies keep driving over pedestrians and throwing acid on women...That's seriously fucked up.

There's too many incidences for you to claim that such behavior is isolated to a few outliers....


When was the last time 100's of trailer parkers went out into public and committed mass gang rapes of women at a mall?

[Zlaxer]

Why haven't "moderate" Muslims split from the main sects.....Protestants had no problem leaving the Catholic church when the clergy was horrid...

[SuburbanFarmer]

Why haven't "moderate" Muslims split from the main sects.....Protestants had no problem leaving the Catholic church when the clergy was horrid...

That took 100 years, a royal declaration by an insane monarch, and millions dead in religious war.