EU Immigration Crisis Megathread

[Valmy]

Acting morally is not done out of self-interest? 

Ok. Acting moral with regards to what principle is not done out of self-interest?

[The Brain]

To me it makes sense to keep these two issues separate.

1. How can we enrich ourselves?

2. How can we help others who are in desperate need?

It seems unlikely to me that treating them as the same issue is good for any of them.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Valmy quoted an article which said that the refugees could be the basis for economic growth in Europe and Valmy concurred on this. Crazy Ivan said that he disagrees.
I find the theory that they'll be a significant econimic benefit questionable and would rather expect them to be an economic negative - at least in the midterm.
I also find the general idea that Europe needs more young people understandable from a demographics perspective, but right now there are 23 million unemployeds and many of them young people in the EU, so I am not sure if the main obstacle to economic growth in Europe right now is lack of workforce. Adding to that workforce right now will likely not have a net positive effect.

So the I find the whole economic argument why we should take in refugees implausible. I do think that there are other good reasons to take them in though.

I agree. By selling a moral issue as a self-interest issue we risk losing both. This is about helping people in need - this may be in a long term "enlightened self interest" but in a short term it's about using our resources to help people who need our help (and are in a much worse situation than we are) - I suppose this is time to show that Europe is really a part of Christian culture (even if it evolved into the Enlightenment).

I'm not opposed to taking in refugees, I am however, opposed to all of them staying forever. That's not going to work. These people need to go back to rebuild their own societies. One of the reasons, if not the main reason, why experts in the field of refugee-handling more often than not are in favour of harbouring refugees as close to their countries of origin as possible.
And then there's the matter of integration in the host-societies for those people who are allowed to stay. The belgian "Dienst Vreemdelingenzaken" (the part of the state that deals with the influx of migrants, asylumseekers, familyreunion, etc..) calculates that every request/acceptence needs to be multiplied by 6 (through followup-migration) on average. Depending on how long this goes on that's a lot op people. I'm not quite sure Belgium can keep handling that given the sorry state of public finances, height of taxes and overburdened social services, coupled with the reality that the integration of the past few migrantwaves (the one between 2002-2008 resulted in a population rise of about 800K, on a population that was then a bit in the 10 million) is quite dismal.

edit: and the way all of this is handled now, alongside with a few decades of political correct finger-wagging and abuse of the concepts of asylum-seekers vs. economical migrants, is pissing away popular goodwill towards the people in need, the concept of asylum and the EU. All at once.

[Martinus]

To me it makes sense to keep these two issues separate.

1. How can we enrich ourselves?

2. How can we help others who are in desperate need?

It seems unlikely to me that treating them as the same issue is good for any of them.

This.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I suppose Crazy Ivan meant a state like Austria-Hungary, Belgium or Yugoslavia, which were/are multi-national in that they were nation states of more than one nation understood in an ethnic sense. That's a completely different beast from the likes of the US or Canada, which have one dominant national culture but one that is not based around the concept of ethnicity.

yeah, that fits the bill. But the multinational was of course quoted. Valmy has, since then, cleared up the use of the term in the post I quoted.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I am not sure what he meant by "multinational".  Perhaps he meant multi-ethnic.  If he did he is clearly wrong.  But perhaps he meant something else?

more than enough multi-ethic countries that are basically shitty places to live and that have one or more ongoing conflicts of an ethnic nature.

[Zanza]

I don't understand the argument that immigration in nations that have flat or negative birth rates is bad for the economy.

Europe has high unemployment as it is, so lack of workforce is not an issue except for some specialists, which are unlikely to be found among the refugees. The negative birth rate is not the cause of Europe's current economic malaise. At most you could say it stifles long term investment. As it happens underinvestment is an issue, but higher state consumption to feed refugees won't change that and will not spur relevant private investment and the minor value-add is negligible. So asylum is not bad for the economy, it does not add anything either so and will distribute the available wealth among more people.

[Malthus]

I'm not opposed to taking in refugees, I am however, opposed to all of them staying forever. That's not going to work. These people need to go back to rebuild their own societies. One of the reasons, if not the main reason, why experts in the field of refugee-handling more often than not are in favour of harbouring refugees as close to their countries of origin as possible.

This only makes sense if the cause of them leaving is a temporary one. I'd love to believe that ISIS is a temporary problem - but with exactly zero appetite in the West for taking them on directly (at least, so far) as long as they keep their massacres, slavery, etc. in their own territory ... that seems a trifle optimistic.

After all, the whole UN "Palestinian Refugee" infrastructure (including oodles of 'experts') are in favour of keeping the Palestinians in "temporary" camps around their country of origin ... and look how well that's worked out for them.

In contrast, one might add, the Israelis have taken in an approximately equal number of Mizraim (Middle Eastern Jews) from the rest of the ME, and instead of putting them in camps awaiting a highly unlikely return - they have attempted to integrate them. Now, they are Jewish, which adds an element of commonality, but culturally ME Jews and Ashkenazim (Jews from Europe originally) are nothing alike. There have of course been plenty of problems with this approach, but I dare say it is nothing as compared with the problems ME countries have had because Palestinians have been kept in "camps" for decades.

[Malthus]

I suppose Crazy Ivan meant a state like Austria-Hungary, Belgium or Yugoslavia, which were/are multi-national in that they were nation states of more than one nation understood in an ethnic sense. That's a completely different beast from the likes of the US or Canada, which have one dominant national culture but one that is not based around the concept of ethnicity.

A slight correction: Canada is expressly a nation founded on two dominant cultures/ethnicities: British and French. This is both a historical fact and literally hard-wired into Canada's Constitution. A great deal of Canada's internal political issues are caused by the fact that, while "English Canada" has in effect given up on maintaining as dominant its British heritage and embraced a "multi-ethnic" immigrant culture, "French Canada" has not.

This change in English Canada is relative recent, though.

[Valmy]

To me it makes sense to keep these two issues separate.

1. How can we enrich ourselves?

2. How can we help others who are in desperate need?

It seems unlikely to me that treating them as the same issue is good for any of them.

This.

I guess I fail to see how speaking on the value of immigration does that.

Europe has high unemployment as it is, so lack of workforce is not an issue except for some specialists, which are unlikely to be found among the refugees. The negative birth rate is not the cause of Europe's current economic malaise. At most you could say it stifles long term investment. As it happens underinvestment is an issue, but higher state consumption to feed refugees won't change that and will not spur relevant private investment and the minor value-add is negligible. So asylum is not bad for the economy, it does not add anything either so and will distribute the available wealth among more people.

Hey weren't you the guy justifying austerity and other conservative economic policies by the fact Germany was a shrinking country whose economy was doomed to contract?

[Josquius]

I wonder how Liberland is fairing amidst the border scuffles.  Haven't heard anything from them in a while.

[The Larch]

I wonder how Liberland is fairing amidst the border scuffles.  Haven't heard anything from them in a while.

AFAIK Croatian police has been blocking access there since the summer, so don't count on them doing much. And the founder seems to be more involved in travelling the world giving conferences and participating in events rather than in doing anything on the ground.

[Valmy]

Wow first I have heard of Liberland. European Libertarians take it to the next level.

[Zanza]

Hey weren't you the guy justifying austerity and other conservative economic policies by the fact Germany was a shrinking country whose economy was doomed to contract?

I do advocate reducing our state debt due to the forecasted demographic decline and I also think aging society explains why German consumers have such a high savings rate. Not sure I support conservative economics as I am not sure what that is. And I have no idea how any of this is relevant.

If we wanted to counter the economic effects of demographic decline with immigration, we should hand out passports at university graduation ceremonies in foreign countries.

Taking in traumatised victims of civil wars without qualifications seems at best to be a very long term way to counter it and certainly not the one with the most obvious positive economic impact.

I find using a pseudo economic argument to justify a good deed disingenuous and unnecessary.

[Martinus]

Hey weren't you the guy justifying austerity and other conservative economic policies by the fact Germany was a shrinking country whose economy was doomed to contract?

I do advocate reducing our state debt due to the forecasted demographic decline and I also think aging society explains why German consumers have such a high savings rate. Not sure I support conservative economics as I am not sure what that is. And I have no idea how any of this is relevant.

If we wanted to counter the economic effects of demographic decline with immigration, we should hand out passports at university graduation ceremonies in foreign countries.

Taking in traumatised victims of civil wars without qualifications seems at best to be a very long term way to counter it and certainly not the one with the most obvious positive economic impact.

I find using a pseudo economic argument to justify a good deed disingenuous and unnecessary.

Yup, it never helps to justify your policies (however well-meaning) with lies - because when the lie is disproven, the entire policy is tainted.