DSQ said:
Tinybear said:
And yet again, if you're American and replying to this, understand that the situation in Europe is quite opposite of the one in the US. Americans screaming "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" are usually just jerks, brainwashed fox news watchers, or racists. In Europe, there is more of a 20/80 blend of racists and actually concerned people. (well, that depends a bit on definitions of racism and the location).
I am not a racist, but I'm not a believer in the whole hippie philosophy that "everyone can change" either. If a person is raised in a culture where beating the wife is a normal thing, and having absolute authority over the family is self explanatory, I doubt that person will change at age 30 from being a violent semi-psychopath to a friendly wife respecting individual just because we show him that it's what we want him to become.
Tell that to Jimmy Boyle.
He is a scottish artist who when to prison for murder and when he came out became a respected artist.
There is a saying that: "if you fly with the crows you get tarred with the same brush"
witch means that if live around bad people you will get blamed for there actions. This is a really good way of analysing your little essay there.
You say that forced immgration you done all sorts of bad things to you city. My dad is an Immagration lawyer and TRUST ME immagration is never'forced'. You are implying that the higher crime rate among somalian and middle easten immagrants. This may be true, although crime rates are a flawed way of measuring such a thing.
If we went by you standards and stopped all immagration you would be punishing all those who need to come or those who have done nothing wrong.
An exaple is in my community, Black carrbian in the UK, we have one of the highest crime rates and lowest schools scores. From what your saying the government in my country should just give up on people like me since we are all stupid apparently. But because they didn't I got into University.
If we judge a whole group of people by the action of a few, everyone loses.
Nomatter the context, making blanket policies that affect everyone for the actions of a few should be one of the last solutions to a given issue. However, we can't afford to let political correctness or being afraid of inflaming ethnic or religious tensions stop us from making beneficial decisions for society. I'm an American and my political leanings are socially liberal and economically leftist, but that doesn't mean that I favor pretending that issues of ethnicity, culture, and religion can't play a part in social problems.
People seem to paint these issues as only having two extremes "Kick them all out" or "Let them all come and do what they please", but that is a fallacy, often perpetrated by advocacy groups. There's nothing wrong with crafting median solutions.
Since I believe in providing comprehensive social services to all legal residents of a nation, I recognize that we can't simply let anyone waltz over whenever they please with their hands out - we need control and information for how to budget for those services. No nation should discourage immigration entirely, but I have no issue with requiring certain things of immigrants, culturally and otherwise.
Though today in America "White" people nomatter their heritage generally think of themselves as American first, and rightly so, this evolved because our ancestors came over and for a time were NOT considered "White Americans", by the original English colonials. English, Irish, Polish, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Swedish etc... all came over and integrated, keeping certain aspects of their heritage but learning English and generating a shared culture. Such is the case of many non-white immigrants from other nations as well. It was rather institutionalized that you had to learn to assimilate or people would make it very difficult for you. As a response to the often overzealous actions of a few that led to prejudice, developed nations including America have instituted a "softer" policy, but that has created its own problems.
The developed world now has the problem of immigrants from developing nations that are not forced to assimilate, so they don't - which causes increasing problems with regards to language, cultural values. In an attempt to curtail past prejudice, we've allowed the "Melting Pot" to evolve into a "Chunky Stew", where there are relatively insular communities that are distinct, which weakens the nation as a whole. Europe is dealing with their own problems of this nature, such as those listed in this thread. There's a lot of hypocrisy and just plain greed occurring.
My feeling is that if you are going to immigrate to ANY nation, especially if you want the services of that nation, you should be willing to assimilate into the culture. As an American, many of us have pondered the whole "Maybe it would be better if I move to Sweden!" seeing the problems of the past decade with respect to various liberties. If I did so, I would have no problem attempting to learn Swedish and certainly wouldn't expect that I be able to keep the kind of firearms collection that I am able to in America, for instance.
Many countries, especially those in the developing world are rather intolerant of anything that threatens their culture. Take for instance the United Arab Emirates - despite the shiny new buildings and obscene wealth, there is a very rigid class structure and tons of draconian laws that foreigners must abide by, yet Emirati males basically avoid. If I want to move there to do business and not pay any taxes, I need to realize that I'm going to be tortured if I get caught with marijuana, there's a good chance I'm going to jail if the wrong people see me display affection to a woman, my internet is going to be filtered etc... Citizenship is nigh impossible to obtain if not born to an Emirati father and one MUST be Muslim - The government has no problems monitoring you to make sure you're "fitting in" and acting Islamic enough. All this is basically considered a luxury granted to White Europeans - if you're a poor South Asian or Southeast Asian, you're basically considered the property of your employer. Most Middle Eastern Gulf states have similar policies, to varying degrees.
Yet, when these people come West for a visit or to immigrate, they demand that their customs be honored. I believe that people should be free to practice any religion of their choosing, but if you come to England and beat your wife, you should be tried under English Common Law, not Sharia Law because "Its okay where I come from". If I went to Dubai with a small bag of cannabis, how well would it work to say "I live in a medical marijuana state, so its legal"? I'd be seeing the inside of a prison cell for years, unfairly, unless I had connections. This is the crux of the issue today with immigration.
We have immigrants who simply don't respect the cultures and values of the host country. Rarely in a developed nation is it ever requested that an immigrant give up their native culture, but simply assimilate and merge the two. Yes, there are cases where there are collisions of aspects unable to mix (such as acceptable discipline of one's spouse) and in those cases the immigrant should defer to their new home's policy. Basically, if you want the benefits of immigrating to a new nations, you should be willing to "pay" by following certain rules, within reason. Its not too much to ask to ask immigrants to America to learn English for official business, and treat items offered in other languages as a courtesy instead of demanding that they be served in their original language. If you're in a quaint European village with a local aesthetic that all buildings must conform to, you're welcome to build a mosque, but shouldn't balk if required to keep its design within building regulations. When there are whole insular communities of immigrants (many of which, illegal) who act in a ruinous manner and commit crimes (See Roma/Gypsies in Europe), it shouldn't be considered an evil racist act to curtail that immigration and deport those involved in such crimes. One problem that immigration rights advocates seem to have is seeing these things as black and white - deporting criminals and canceling social services to illegal immigrants is the same as kicking down the door of a legal permanent resident who's contributing to society simply because his surname is Gonzalez. This weakens and divides support for legal immigration.
Developed "Western" nations are seemingly held to a different standard by much of the developing world - they're supposed to open their borders, open their wallets, and acquiesce to immigrant cultures, despite the fact that many cultures are unwelcoming if not outright hostile to non-natives in their own right. This needs to stop. A balance should be struck between a host country asking for reasonable assimilation and newcomers bringing their native culture - thus, everyone benefits.