EU Immigration Crisis Megathread

[The Brain]

Honest question:  Have there been any cases of women being groped at evening concerts prior to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Not that I'm aware of, no.

[Zanza]

And in Europe this is all academic debate: regardless of assimilation being possible or not, dumping this cultural challenge in this size on the general population was an absolutely fucked up idea. RIght-wingers will take over governments everywhere, and we will be fucked, and especially the Muslim population will be fucked.

This is the real danger. The constant fearmongering only helps the right-wing parties. Legbiter suggested that Germany would need Stahlhelm back. This is one of the organizations that actively fought the first liberal democracy in Germany and eventually helped the Nazis to destroy it. Can a quarter million Syrians damage our society? Not really. Can a third of the French voting FN, one in ten Germans voting AfD or people suggesting we need paramilitary fascist groups again? Yes, for sure.

Should that mean we no longer help those in need and apply our constitional protections for human rights anymore, but instead bow to the extremists, xenophobes and fascists to appease their prejudices and anxieties? No, we should not.

Germany is a liberal state and should stay a liberal state. That means foreigners coming here have to integrate. That also means we need to protect against domestic opponents of our liberal values.

[Duque de Bragança]

Kind of a chicken and egg situation here. There would be no significant FN voting without unchecked mass immigration of hard to assimilate migrants.

[Tamas]

Also, Americans: the EU is not a single mass of 300 million being able to absorb refugees due to sheer size differences. It's not how it works

FFS UKIP made a career out of blaming everything on a few hundred thousand white Christian East europeans ruining everything.

[Berkut]

Tamas, your basic argument seems to be not that immigrants are a problem, but that assholes will say immigrants are a problem because they hate them, so we should do what the assholes want so that they can't say they are unhappy.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It was actually pretty good here till the East Europeans turned up 

I find them(UKIP) far less worrying than the FN though, 15% of the British vote and half of them just wanting to stick two fingers up at Brussels. In the recent elections in France it was looking like FN vs The Rest.

[frunk]

Also, Americans: the EU is not a single mass of 300 million being able to absorb refugees due to sheer size differences. It's not how it works

FFS UKIP made a career out of blaming everything on a few hundred thousand white Christian East europeans ruining everything.

According to 2010 data from Wikipedia there were 31.4 million non-EU immigrants for a base population of 500+ million.  Are you saying that the 1+ million from the past year are completely unable to be handled?  I agree it's a big logistical problem, but to make it a political one is fear mongering.

[garbon]

Also, Americans: the EU is not a single mass of 300 million being able to absorb refugees due to sheer size differences. It's not how it works

FFS UKIP made a career out of blaming everything on a few hundred thousand white Christian East europeans ruining everything.

The US wasn't either in the 1800s.

[Valmy]

The US wasn't either in the 1800s.

Yeah and you didn't see us form any far right anti-immigrant parties...



A fine sentiment but it was too late for the Native Americans by that point

That is the flag of the 'American Party' aka 'The Know-Nothings'

[Solmyr]

then the Roman Empire parallels could be germane

I see what you did there.

[Syt]

What's with the reverse Ns on the flag?

[Martinus]

I think about the hundreds of thousands of Chinese that immigrated to the US in the 1800s. A totally alien culture, as alien as probably existed at that time.

What happened in the long run?

100% assimilation. Complete and total, and their descendants today are as American as American can be - and American culture to the extent it changed at all changed in a completely positive way. Now we have hot Chinese-American women and fucked up American-Chinese food.

The process might be messy, but the outcome is clear and a win for "our" side.

The problem is that in most European states the concept of national identity is based on ethnicity. Think of it as our "gun culture". We hoped by this time people will be enlightened enough and it will go away. It didn't. Now it's a quagmire because it is dysfunctional but impossible to remove.

[Berkut]

The US wasn't either in the 1800s.

Yeah and you didn't see us form any far right anti-immigrant parties...



A fine sentiment but it was too late for the Native Americans by that point

That is the flag of the 'American Party' aka 'The Know-Nothings'

You are missing the point.

We are not saying that American is super awesome and we don't have dumbasses.

We are saying that despite the dumbasses saying the exact same things people are saying now, THEN, it all turned out not just ok, but more than ok.

Hence, please Euroes (and current dumbass know nothing Americans, for that matter),

a) Don't be a dumbass, and
b) Don't listen to the dumbasses, and
c) Don't be anti-immigration on the basis of fears that they are going to destroy your culture in place of their own.

[Malthus]

What's with the reverse Ns on the flag?

They flagmakers knew nothing. Including which way the letter "N" goes. 

[Syt]

I thought they maybe pinched some И from Russian immigrants.