IMMIGRATION thread

[Viking]

Blaming Montmorency for not understanding your argument is a distraction since you could have made a good argument anyway.

Indeed, it's just that it doesn't affect my life particularly negatively if Montmorency does not follow my line of argument; so I lack the incentive to put a great deal of effort into it.

Did you consider that a lot of regions in Africa etc. had functioning societies before colonialization?

So?

And that e.g. former French colonies are still under a "pretty heavy" influence from France?
In other countries the local economies are destroyed by cheap imports from western mass production that they cannot compete without without buying really expensive technology from the west for which they have to take really heavy loans from the west and so on.
And then fisher boats take away all their fish because hey, we gotta look out for our profits.
But of course this is the fault of Africans for not having invented the nuke first and not having nuked the Europeans away when it was still socially acceptable.

The governments have armies. If there are foreign agents you think are exploiting your country, expel them - by force if necessary. Put policies in place to become as self-reliant as possible and import only from friendly countries as far as possible. Unite with other countries with similar problems in order to force opposing elements to take you even more seriously.

But I expect you are retelling common myths, anyway - or can you produce evidence that this is the fundamental cause for poverty in all or most poor African countries?

[Husar]

So?

Might be a strong hint that the current problems could be related to such an outside factor. Unless you want to claim that the effects of 100-400 years of foreign meddling and rule should have completely disappeared after a few months.

The governments have armies. If there are foreign agents you think are exploiting your country, expel them - by force if necessary. Put policies in place to become as self-reliant as possible and import only from friendly countries as far as possible. Unite with other countries with similar problems in order to force opposing elements to take you even more seriously.

Why don't you just say "Everybody be reasonable and nice already!"
http://thisisafrica.me/france-loots-former-colonies/

How are they going to pay their armies if France shuts off their access to their money?
A lot of these armies are also not too well trained, have low morela and/or are busy fighting some warlords.
Add to that that the government may be corrupt but is not easily changed by an unarmed population, the rebels are hardly better or even much worse, food is really hard to access (often on purpose as hunger is used as a weapon) and then some Euroweenie comes and says "man up, be reasonable"....yeah, because it's easy to say from a comfy chair...

But I expect you are retelling common myths, anyway - or can you produce evidence that this is the fundamental cause for poverty in all or most poor African countries?

Can you prove that it is the fault of the refugees? Can you prove that the countries are democratic enough that the citizens are to blame? And if not, can you prove that the citizens are not trying hard enough to change this?

[Viking]

Might be a strong hint that the current problems could be related to such an outside factor.

Or that the current rulers are incompetent.

Why don't you just say "Everybody be reasonable and nice already!"

They are in successful countries. That is: they don't do corruption and take up arms against the state for spurious reasons.

How are they going to pay their armies if France shuts off their access to their money?

Solution: don't send money to France, keep it yourself and pay the military. That's my personal method, too; I never send any money to France.

A lot of these armies are also not too well trained, have low morela and/or are busy fighting some warlords.

Driving out foreigners tends to be easy peasy. Just turning the locals against them goes a long way.

Add to that that the government may be corrupt but is not easily changed by an unarmed population, the rebels are hardly better or even much worse, food is really hard to access (often on purpose as hunger is used as a weapon) and then some Euroweenie comes and says "man up, be reasonable"....yeah, because it's easy to say from a comfy chair...

And now you just listed up a lot of internal elements causing problems. That takes us back to where I started off.

Can you prove that it is the fault of the refugees? Can you prove that the countries are democratic enough that the citizens are to blame? And if not, can you prove that the citizens are not trying hard enough to change this?

I am not blocking their citizenship because they haven't done enough, but because letting them have it is not going to fix much, and may destabilise Europe itself. What I would instead like European politicians to do, is to make an intelligent effort on contributing to fix these countries. If France is as evil as you claim, then telling France to stop being evil would be a good start.

[Montmorency]

Viking, I don't think you understand what I'm commenting about in your posts.

If it is realistic for the inhabitants to create a functioning country, then they are failing as long as they aren't actually doing that. Blaming outside forces for their lack of success is then a distraction since they could have succeeded, anyway.

This statement is so vague as to have no meaning. I'll take the liberty of putting a better-specified argument in your mouth, which is just that African countries from which refugees/illegal immigrants into Europe commonly emigrate have some endemic ecological, structural, and cultural problems that contribute to the pressure to emigrate (e.g. violence, corruption, shortage of work, food, other resources, etc.); it is not a complete explanation toward accounting for these problems to say that international political or economic interaction is what simply contributes toward or perpetuates these problems or their conditions.

Further taking into account that everything interacts and covaries, we see that the world situation is dynamic and no institution or people anywhere act or exist in a vacuum distinct from others such that some parties could unilaterally shift certain policies to produce an immediate and dramatic effect on the aforementioned issues (besides, you know, OWG ).

Put that way, I would agree, since it applies as well to Western countries and whatever problems you may identify in them.

[Viking]

Viking, I don't think you understand what I'm commenting about in your posts.



This statement is so vague as to have no meaning. I'll take the liberty of putting a better-specified argument in your mouth, which is just that African countries from which refugees/illegal immigrants into Europe commonly emigrate have some endemic ecological, structural, and cultural problems that contribute to the pressure to emigrate (e.g. violence, corruption, shortage of work, food, other resources, etc.); it is not a complete explanation toward accounting for these problems to say that international political or economic interaction is what simply contributes toward or perpetuates these problems or their conditions.

Further taking into account that everything interacts and covaries, we see that the world situation is dynamic and no institution or people anywhere act or exist in a vacuum distinct from others such that some parties could unilaterally shift certain policies to produce an immediate and dramatic effect on the aforementioned issues (besides, you know, OWG ).

Put that way, I would agree, since it applies as well to Western countries and whatever problems you may identify in them.

The point is the principle that can be summarised with this analogy: if your goal is to cross a street, sufficiently strong wind can make it difficult, but as long as it isn't too strong, you can actually cross it. Even if you could write an entire doctoral thesis on how much harder it is to cross it with the wind in place, as long as you can cross it, you can.

It's not about saying that people are lazy or stupid, but that if they all co-operated, they could do it. If a large enough group realised this, they could actually succeed in changing the country for the better (as per the the 'realistic' criterion) (and as social media penetrates deeper and deeper into Africa, this also becomes a more realistic scenario).

History is full of examples of systems that were torn down by the people living under it; both peacefully and not so peacefully. To talk about complexity and covariance is to miss the point.

Very much possible, and why is that so?

For example because some people in that country did not have the foresight to prevent these people from getting into power.

Is it reasonable to stick to and even propagate a system that directly aids or at least profits from the instability of other societies and then wonder why these other societies are doing so bad?

Huh?

Did you even read the article? How many of the refugees sent their money to France?

I was talking about the state.

Yes, North Korea is only doing so well because it drove out all the foreigners.

No one said all foreigners should be expelled. Look to Cuba and Venezuela for more successful examples of countries who are in opposition to the "imperialists".

You keep ignoring that a lot of these internal problems only came to be through external influences.

Nope, I showed how these problems of external origin can be fixed or weakened. The fact that they are not is because the country's leadership is incompetent; they either can't or don't handle the problems they should be handling, and are more interested in enriching themselves and their families. They aren't failing because they face foreign demons that are too strong, but because they are hardly trying at all.

And why then do you seemingly blame the refugees for the problems in their countries?
I agree that Europe cannot take all the refugees but you sounded as though you were saying:
"Well, it's got nothing to do with us, let's seal our borders and wait until they fix their own mess."
If that was a misunderstanding then please elaborate

I don't blame them, but it is their country and their mess, and therefore it makes sense that they should attempt to fix it, per common sense. It is their countrymen that are killing each other and taking bribes, not French raid parties pillaging and burning villages.

[Montmorency]

The point is the principle that can be summarised with this analogy: if your goal is to cross a street, sufficiently strong wind can make it difficult, but as long as it isn't too strong, you can actually cross it. Even if you could write an entire doctoral thesis on how much harder it is to cross it with the wind in place, as long as you can cross it, you can.

It's not about saying that people are lazy or stupid, but that if they all co-operated, they could do it. If a large enough group realised this, they could actually succeed in changing the country for the better (as per the the 'realistic' criterion) (and as social media penetrates deeper and deeper into Africa, this also becomes a more realistic scenario).

I can't tell if this is gibberish or just outlandishly-naive.

[Viking]

I can't tell if this is gibberish or just outlandishly-naive.

It's straight forward logic, and why you don't get the message is beyond me. Methinks you are reading things into my posts that are not there.

[Husar]

Or that the current rulers are incompetent.

Very much possible, and why is that so?

They are in successful countries. That is: they don't do corruption and take up arms against the state for spurious reasons.

Is it reasonable to stick to and even propagate a system that directly aids or at least profits from the instability of other societies and then wonder why these other societies are doing so bad?

Solution: don't send money to France, keep it yourself and pay the military. That's my personal method, too; I never send any money to France.

Did you even read the article? How many of the refugees sent their money to France?

Driving out foreigners tends to be easy peasy. Just turning the locals against them goes a long way.

Yes, North Korea is only doing so well because it drove out all the foreigners.

And now you just listed up a lot of internal elements causing problems. That takes us back to where I started off.

You keep ignoring that a lot of these internal problems only came to be through external influences.

I am not blocking their citizenship because they haven't done enough, but because letting them have it is not going to fix much, and may destabilise Europe itself. What I would instead like European politicians to do, is to make an intelligent effort on contributing to fix these countries. If France is as evil as you claim, then telling France to stop being evil would be a good start.

And why then do you seemingly blame the refugees for the problems in their countries?
I agree that Europe cannot take all the refugees but you sounded as though you were saying:
"Well, it's got nothing to do with us, let's seal our borders and wait until they fix their own mess."
If that was a misunderstanding then please elaborate.