Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
Regarding ICSD's points:

Multiculturalism, aka an integrated identity, is something for which to strive. Assimilation, at least in academese, is the term used to denote the immigrant being forced to discard their parent culture and adopt the new host culture. Ideally, we would want them to embrace both as an integrated whole or at least "code switch" in an appropriate fashion so that they can enjoy both their culture of origin and the dominant culture of the community to which they have come. Of course, this level of benign integration is the most challenging. I suspect that you are using "assimilate" in this latter fashion.

There are huge problems with economically challenged immigrants, particularly when they come from a culture that has a fairly different set of values. I want to be clear, though, that race has nothing to do with it. The whites from Italy and Ireland in Hell's Kitchen, or Southie, or the Five Points were just as quick to form gangs and embrace hooliganism and "getting even" violence as were the Chinese in Chinatown in San Francisco or the Cubans in Miami. And we are all well aware that you don't need immigrants to form gangs or beget groups of hooligans and street thugs.

Two things that have to be considered:

Slowing the rate of immigration to a level that spurs economic growth but does not greatly surpass the rate of employment growth in the host economy. Lack of opportunity has always been associated with criminality.

Enhancing the police ability to suppress such things -- though be aware that suppression will involve police abuses as well since suppressive strategies feature a more overt and prominent role for police officers on the streets of the community. Also more costly on the tax payer.

In practice, multiculturalism has resulted in ghettos. It's like Communism: nice idea, never works in practice.

Take a moment to think and it's obvious why - because nobody has two cultures, they may have a blended culture, but not two cultures within them. The political doctrine allows different groups to form their own cultural units within a society, this weakens the overall cohesiveness of the society and what happed to Kad is the logical result.

Kad: I don't think it was a "hate crime" I think they just attacked you because you weren't "one of them".

Which frankly, is a daft situation for a Swede to be in in Sweden.

Same applies to the bronzes on the War memorials here - the way we're brought up, you'd basically have to be a socio-path to be able to do that - but a foreigner doesn't care about our cult of rememberer, so he can steel a 100-year old figure of Christ or the plaque listing the names of the Fallen without feeling anything.