Dutch elections

[Crazy_Ivan80]

In the UK just look at how much attention asylum seekers get despite being such a tiny amount of immigration numbers.
For the group who really see immigration as the key issue there tends to be little room for nuance or reality. This is why moderates tend to just concentrate on other things.
I do believe that's where the key lies- getting people to give a shit about the serious problems.

mass migration is of course a serious problem, and a detriment to society if the type of migrants is wrong.
We've seen in the past few weeks what the results of that are.

[DGuller]

My theory is that about 30% of any given human population are xenophobic bastards. The internet has given them a voice and helped them organise. This places great pressure on traditional centre-right and centre-left parties as they are fighting to get a majority when only 70% of the votes are in play.

My theory is that the left is very good at creating silent majorities, or at least silent significant blocks, by putting labels on anyone wanting to challenge some of their ideas.  That is very effective at stifling speech, but that also blinds them towards discontent that their policies generate.  Then they inevitably get surprised that legitimate xenophobes get a lot more support than expected, because not-quite-xenophobes have no other way to express the opinion that as citizens they should have a right to express.

In my personal life, several times I've been surprised that the people I would assume to be woke progressives actually turn out to be anti-woke liberals like me, but I only find that out after they feel safe to vent to me.  The sooner the left realizes that they have a hand in the success of Trumpists, the sooner we'll be rid of that scourge.

[Josquius]

Ah yes. The old I'm only a racist because the left called me a racist.

I honestly hear "you just call everyone who disagrees with you a racist" and the like far more often than I hear somebody actually being called a racist.
Like the fishing for being called stupid this seems to be another thing the populist right love and they'll jump to the protestation before they've even had the insult.

In the UK just look at how much attention asylum seekers get despite being such a tiny amount of immigration numbers.
For the group who really see immigration as the key issue there tends to be little room for nuance or reality. This is why moderates tend to just concentrate on other things.
I do believe that's where the key lies- getting people to give a shit about the serious problems.

mass migration is of course a serious problem, and a detriment to society if the type of migrants is wrong.
We've seen in the past few weeks what the results of that are.

Mass migration isn't a thing in the modern western context.
We've seen... What in the past few weeks that shows this thing that isn't happening is bad?

[Threviel]

What we have seen in Sweden is demands for religious legislation, which is horrendously bad, due to mass immigration.

We have seen a sharp uptick in anti-semitic actions which is bad and due to mass immigration.

We have seen increases in poverty, which although a global net positive is a local negative, due to mass immigration.

We have seen state resources diverted to supporting mass immigration instead of lowered taxes or better health care or whatever. Every refugee in Sweden costs something like £7.000 each year for the rest of their lives. They are a huge financial burden.

We have seen a lack of housing due to mass immigration.

We have seen upticks in familial violence, honour culture which is entirely anathema to our society, due to mass immigration.

There are lots of negatives for the "indigenous" population with mass immigration and denying that is why the racist parties are growing in popularity.

There are also positives, but I'm not entirely convinced that they are greater than the negatives from a utilitaristic perspective.

All this is valid for Sweden, I don't know about countries with functioning integration policys.

[DGuller]

Josq, you couldn't have missed the point harder if you tried.  You can't measure the number of threats being perceived by counting the number of threats being executed.  Here is a hopefully exaggerated hypothetical: if Trump comes to power in 2025 and has 1000 supporters of Democrats publicly executed, would it make much sense to go "I hear much more often people saying they'll be executed for supporting Democrats than I hear about people being executed for supporting Democrats"?  If you're concerned about being unfairly called a racist, you probably will be avoiding things that will unfairly get you called racist, but you wouldn't be happy about it.

I think a lot of people are clearly feeling threatened into not expressing their opinions, and you don't need to have a threat executed on you personally to start censoring yourself.  There are many bad outcomes to democracy from that, but the one most relevant to this thread is that there is a misperception on the left about electoral support for certain issues, so you underestimate the blowback.  You may think that only racists oppose you, because people who are not racists are the ones most scared of being called a racist and thus will not express their opposition publicly.

[Admiral Yi]

Ah yes. The old I'm only a racist because the left called me a racist.

I honestly hear "you just call everyone who disagrees with you a racist" and the like far more often than I hear somebody actually being called a racist.
Like the fishing for being called stupid this seems to be another thing the populist right love and they'll jump to the protestation before they've even had the insult.

I watch a lot of cop cams.  You're a racist is handed out like water on those.

[Grey Fox]

All this is valid for Sweden, I don't know about countries with functioning integration policys.

Housing remains a problem. The rest is pretty good.

I wouldn't classify any immigration into Canada to be mass immigration.

[Tamas]

Mass migration isn't a thing in the modern western context.

I mean, my first thought was to agree but then I was thinking... if by mass migration we mean something like 4th-5th century movements, then obviously we do not have big single mass of people breaching the frontier and taking over towns by force, but in terms of the relative number of people with "alien" cultures starting to mingle with the local populations... when we talk about that age of migration we casually summarise several decades in half sentences because that's all the detail we have. so who knows the effects don't compare? If your country went from next to zero to several percentage of the total population for people of X foreign origin within your life time, are you not allowed to consider that a major change just because it happened over a longer-than-instantaneous period? Obviously the correct reaction even in that case is not racism and bigotry, but I do feel like sometimes the cross-cultural tensions are dismissed too much out of hand by the Left.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

People like josq are, in the context of mass migration, part of the problem.

Belgium has gone, in my lifetime,  from less than 10% people with foreign roots to over 30%. That's actually worse than the 5th century great migrations

[Sheilbh]

I mean, my first thought was to agree but then I was thinking... if by mass migration we mean something like 4th-5th century movements, then obviously we do not have big single mass of people breaching the frontier and taking over towns by force, but in terms of the relative number of people with "alien" cultures starting to mingle with the local populations... when we talk about that age of migration we casually summarise several decades in half sentences because that's all the detail we have. so who knows the effects don't compare?

Yes - and on that "mass migration" point I do always think it can be slightly undermining. I know people mean well when they say England's always been a country of migrants (which I'm not really sure is true, I think it's just something we've picked up from America) and then give examples like the Vikings. I'm really not sure it helps the argument they think they're making

[HVC]

I mean, my first thought was to agree but then I was thinking... if by mass migration we mean something like 4th-5th century movements, then obviously we do not have big single mass of people breaching the frontier and taking over towns by force, but in terms of the relative number of people with "alien" cultures starting to mingle with the local populations... when we talk about that age of migration we casually summarise several decades in half sentences because that's all the detail we have. so who knows the effects don't compare?

Yes - and on that "mass migration" point I do always think it can be slightly undermining. I know people mean well when they say England's always been a country of migrants (which I'm not really sure is true, I think it's just something we've picked up from America) and then give examples like the Vikings. I'm really not sure it helps the argument they think they're making

The Normans overstayed their tourist visa

[Tamas]

I mean, my first thought was to agree but then I was thinking... if by mass migration we mean something like 4th-5th century movements, then obviously we do not have big single mass of people breaching the frontier and taking over towns by force, but in terms of the relative number of people with "alien" cultures starting to mingle with the local populations... when we talk about that age of migration we casually summarise several decades in half sentences because that's all the detail we have. so who knows the effects don't compare?

Yes - and on that "mass migration" point I do always think it can be slightly undermining. I know people mean well when they say England's always been a country of migrants (which I'm not really sure is true, I think it's just something we've picked up from America) and then give examples like the Vikings. I'm really not sure it helps the argument they think they're making

I never thought of it that way but you have a point.  Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, inspiring stories indeed. 

At least in Hungary you can point to German settlers who came invited (well, from 18th century onwards invited by a German monarch, but not before that).

[Josquius]

Josq, you couldn't have missed the point harder if you tried.  You can't measure the number of threats being perceived by counting the number of threats being executed.  Here is a hopefully exaggerated hypothetical: if Trump comes to power in 2025 and has 1000 supporters of Democrats publicly executed, would it make much sense to go "I hear much more often people saying they'll be executed for supporting Democrats than I hear about people being executed for supporting Democrats"?  If you're concerned about being unfairly called a racist, you probably will be avoiding things that will unfairly get you called racist, but you wouldn't be happy about it.

I think a lot of people are clearly feeling threatened into not expressing their opinions, and you don't need to have a threat executed on you personally to start censoring yourself.  There are many bad outcomes to democracy from that, but the one most relevant to this thread is that there is a misperception on the left about electoral support for certain issues, so you underestimate the blowback.  You may think that only racists oppose you, because people who are not racists are the ones most scared of being called a racist and thus will not express their opposition publicly.

If you're worried about being called racist for saying something then
1: you need to consider whether not being insulted is more important to you than saying what you want to say. I certainly don't give a shit about the insults that come my way for my views.
2: you need to consider whether what you want to say might actually be a bit racist?

I understand what you're saying here but I don't think it lines up with reality at all.
I'm speaking about contexts here where people are saying far right shit. They're not self policing for fear of teh woke. They're just coming out and saying Muslims are bad and should be reported.
They then jump to "you just call everyone who disagrees with you a racist!" - often before anyone has said so.

For the broader  real world...maybe it's the circles you move in but I've definitely not noticed people being afraid to say shit in line with the populist right. Quite the opposite. I know some who are actually decent guys but they spout typical far right talking points to sound tough.
Back when brexit was going down despite the vote share in my home town being less than 60-40 you never heard anything from the remain side :when I spoke up about it I saw why, lots of outright threats came my way.

People like josq are, in the context of mass migration, part of the problem.

Belgium has gone, in my lifetime,  from less than 10% people with foreign roots to over 30%. That's actually worse than the 5th century great migrations

I would say people like you are the problem.

The trouble with this "x% increase in people with foreign roots!" take is it always assumes/implies they're a monolithic mass, an orgsanised invasion, rather than big a super diverse bunch.

[Threviel]

Thinking about it there a lots of things that's bad or annoying because of refugees.

Swedish comparable school results are in the gutter in comparison to similar countries. Natives are some of the best pupils in the world.

There are something like 400 000 unemployed, but we have a serious lack of workers necessitating foreign workers for unskilled labour work. Recently the government stopped visas under a certain level making lots of companies raise wages due to not getting local labour. At the same time those 400 000 get unemployment benefits or social aid.

When we had our kids relatives couldn't visit at the hospital at all, due to experiences with the behaviour of immigrant families.

Non pig-meat is often locked up in super markets due to theft.

We are not allowed to see our kids medical records from age 13, causes lots of issues when the kids have Down's or something like that, due to immigrants abusing their teen kids.

and so on, lots of daily minor annoyances, not proven to be caused by immigration, but strongly implied. It's no wonder really that people are going anti-immigration.

I have been struggling with this for a few years. Trying to find good arguments that Sweden should help and aid refugees and have a generous immigration policy, but from a utilitaristic perspective there are precious few arguments. The only argument that's strong is the humanist one, we are rich and we should help others. From almost every other perspective mass refugee immigration is a disaster. It's good for them, but it's not good for us. And once they become us it's bad for more of us. 

It seems, from a factual standpoint, that the fucking racists were right all along, just for the wrong reasons.

I have good faith that we'll ride this out as a society and come out better in the end, but I'm more and more starting to believe that that end will not be in my lifetime.

[Josquius]

See. These don't sound like problems with immigration.
They are exactly of the sort of problems moderate parties should be really focusing on rather than just falling for the far rights attempt to blame everything on immigration.

Take housing for instance. In the UK population growth rate in recent degrades has been broadly similar to the 50/60s.... Except we didn't have such a problem in the housing system then.
Why? We built houses. We didn't sell off social housing. We didn't have the same setup of predatory buy to let land lords.
I completely understand why immigrants make a great scape goat for housing. It all seems so logical. More people = fewer houses available.
But this ignores the fundamentals that more people also means a bigger economy which means more capacity to build houses... If the government actually tried to solve the problem that is rather than just doing the politically convenient thing and blaming immigration.