Immigration... yet again

[Ed Anger]

Canada turned you from a worthless eggplant into a delicious, juicy porkchop.

Are you trying to seduce me Mrs. Robinson?

I need an "A".

[dps]

But seriously, I'm generally cool with immigration as long as it's controlled.

Is that even possible?

All it takes is the political will to do it.  Well, first you have to have political consensus on what form of control is appropriate.

I'd say that our current immigration law in the US generally reflects a pretty broad consensus on the form of control;  the problem is that we don't enforce the existing law, and haven't for a considerable time.  And as I say, the reason we don't is that the political will to enforce it isn't there--partly because it's an easy issue for demagogues on different sides of the matter to latch onto which creates a disincentive to address the matter on the part of non-demagogues;  but also, while most people will agree that there's a problem, I think there's also a pretty broad consensus that it's not a high priority.

[Camerus]

To my mind, there needs to be some set of (high) standards when deciding to allow immigrants in to your country.  Those standards should be based primarily on educational background, and a desire to adopt the values of the new country at least to a certain degree (though this is of course difficult to gauge).  Country of origin should not be directly relevant (although I reckon we would find more immigrants from certain countries able to pass this test than from others).

I'm not sure how absorbing a mass of uneducated, backwards people represents progress or presents a net benefit for our civilization.

[Jacob]

All it takes is the political will to do it.

That's like saying "all it takes to win a war is to defeat the enemy."

[Duque de Bragança]

And Ibrahimovic may be a good player, but consider this: He only sparingly applies his talent in our national team, and he currently lives and plays in Spain. By current swedish standards of what constitutes a swede, he is no longer swedish but spanish.

Cool, can we naturalize him then? He'll come in handy for the World Cup. 

The self-satisfied little fucker doesn't perform to anywhere near his real standards when he deigns to participate in the national team, so as far as I'm concerned, you're welcome.

Sounds like Cristiano Ronaldo 

[Alatriste]

To my mind, there needs to be some set of (high) standards when deciding to allow immigrants in to your country.  Those standards should be based primarily on educational background, and a desire to adopt the values of the new country at least to a certain degree (though this is of course difficult to gauge).  Country of origin should not be directly relevant (although I reckon we would find more immigrants from certain countries able to pass this test than from others).

I'm not sure how absorbing a mass of uneducated, backwards people represents progress or presents a net benefit for our civilization.

Trouble is, educated groups in emigration countries are by definition a minority, and they are the people least likely to emigrate because they switch from being elite to being foreign immigrants: the supply of them is scarce unless something pushes them towards emigration (for example, Palestinian and Lebanese doctors are relatively frequent in Spain and many of them belonged to the Christian communities there) Further, while there is a demand for educated immigrants, it's far smaller than the demand for unskilled and low skilled workers: waiters, cleaning ladies, cooks, bricklayers, plumbers...

History teaches most immigrants were always uneducated and poor, hence probably backwards too. If they weren't they wouldn't have left their country! There are exceptions, of course, but the supply of highly educated exiles like Frederic Chopin was strictly limited and most were political exiles that brought problems of other kind with them (and not all uneducated immigrants were free of political reasons either... )

But I think the problems are being enormously exaggerated. To put the things in perspective, Germany has received 3,000,000 Turks and at least other ten millions immigrants from other countries, France probably has received roughly 6,000,000 North Africans, Great Britain at least 2,000,000 from her old Indian Empire... if they just voted according to their ethnic roots the political landscape would change radically, but they show a complete lack of group or political conscience.

In my opinion what we are seeing is the equivalent of Italian anarchists or Irish Fenians in America 100 year ago (groups generally depicted in modern movies as romantic freedom fighters, but in fact could be extremely violent terrorists, for example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing).

[Sheilbh]

On turn of the century anarchists I think the best literary depiction of terrorism is still 'The Secret Agent'

[Slargos]

if they just voted according to their ethnic roots the political landscape would change radically, but they show a complete lack of group or political conscience.

So Swedish immigrants are unique in this perspective?

Because if you look at the densely settled immigrant neighbourhoods in the part of Stockholm I live in, for instance, they average above 60% socialdemocratic or communist, whereas the municipal average is 40%.

Stockholm is generally a blue city (to clarify, blue means right, not left) whereas the immigrant neighbourhoods are predominantly red.

I'm sure this is just a fluke and has nothing to do with the generous handouts the socialdemocrats sprinkle over our new countrymen.

[Warspite]

On turn of the century anarchists I think the best literary depiction of terrorism is still 'The Secret Agent'

[The Larch]

if they just voted according to their ethnic roots the political landscape would change radically, but they show a complete lack of group or political conscience.

So Swedish immigrants are unique in this perspective?

Because if you look at the densely settled immigrant neighbourhoods in the part of Stockholm I live in, for instance, they average above 60% socialdemocratic or communist, whereas the municipal average is 40%.

Stockholm is generally a blue city (to clarify, blue means right, not left) whereas the immigrant neighbourhoods are predominantly red.

I'm sure this is just a fluke and has nothing to do with the generous handouts the socialdemocrats sprinkle over our new countrymen.

Well, if you're a good representative of the company they'd have in the other side of the fence, I can see why they don't flock to your loving embrace. 

[Martinus]

On turn of the century anarchists I think the best literary depiction of terrorism is still 'The Secret Agent'

We need to stop using the term "turn of the century" for that. "Turn of the century terrorism" was 911.

We are not in the 20th century anymore, Dorothy.

[Sheilbh]

We need to stop using the term "turn of the century" for that. "Turn of the century terrorism" was 911.

We are not in the 20th century anymore, Dorothy.

We're still in the turn of the century, so we can't use that phrase yet

[Alatriste]

if they just voted according to their ethnic roots the political landscape would change radically, but they show a complete lack of group or political conscience.

So Swedish immigrants are unique in this perspective?

Because if you look at the densely settled immigrant neighbourhoods in the part of Stockholm I live in, for instance, they average above 60% socialdemocratic or communist, whereas the municipal average is 40%.

Stockholm is generally a blue city (to clarify, blue means right, not left) whereas the immigrant neighbourhoods are predominantly red.

I'm sure this is just a fluke and has nothing to do with the generous handouts the socialdemocrats sprinkle over our new countrymen.

While native Swedes, on the other hand, no matter how poor, unqualified, unemployed and/or uneducated, would never, ever, vote for the party that better serves their interests, right? 

Whatever.

Anyway, what I mean is this: Immigrants are voting for the same parties Swedes (and Germans, and Frenchmen) do. Have you ever heard of an Islamic party, moderate or radical, getting seats in any national parliament in Europe? Do you understand how many seats would get, for example, the German Turks if they 'voted Islam'?

Immigrants and their descendants could create Islamic parties and vote for them... but they don't. That strongly suggests that fundamentalism is attractive only for a very tiny minority... and even more, that immigrants feel represented by our parties and don't feel the need to organize their own.