America has almost nothing to do with this whole refugee thing anyways aside from kind of playing a small to large role in the sequence of events that directly led to it happening a little maybe. I mean I think some in the government are trying to take another... what, 50k refugees? Doesn't really amount to much in a country of hundreds of millions. They can just learn about being broke in the first world.

blah blah blah

you just want a monopoly on "what it's like in europe" cause you live there

but you are just as self interested as the people who made those videos, so why the hell should i believe you over them?

btw you brits do comment on american gun crime and american issues all the time... who the **** are you kidding?

you think you know more about the ethnic gangs in the town i am from than i do, even though you've likely never even heard of them before. you're just a simple hypocrite, my friend.

the fact is you want to argue from a position of authority because you lack the ability to actually back up your arguments. so you'd rather just state "immigration isn't a big deal" as fact and have nobody question it cause you're the authority on "what it's like in europe."

but there are some things which are simply a matter of fact, which can't be dismissed as media bias. such as the extremely high violent crime rate in london. yet you want to wave your arms and dismiss it with "well i haven't had anyone take a shot at me." well, as long as it hasn't affected you personally then i guess it doesn't matter, does it you silly twat?

Who would be more qualified on discussing racial issues in the USA, you or me?

Because it's in your interest to believe these videos and it suits your agenda.

You've completely missed the point and we can sum this up here and now.

Yes Brits go on about gun crime and its related problems in the USA all the time, but its pretty obvious that they're wrong as most don't even live there so how would they know what it's really like?

Do you live in Europe or have spent any time here? Do you know the day to day problems that really go on here in its big cities? I doubt it but you're naïve enough to believe what YouTube videos tell you.

Now if you'd spent some time here and were speaking with some kind of knowledge about what actually happens here, I'm sure more people would have time for you on this forum.

That's just it no I don't and I'd trust your knowledge more on them than I would my own, BUT what I do know quite a bit about is Latin American gang culture within its own countries, as I've spent a lot of time over the years in Latin America.

i'm not discounting the value of living in a place... but if you were to raise points on the racial situation in america and my only response was "nah ****'s fine trust me i live here," then you would be an utter fool to take that argument seriously.



it's in your interest to dismiss these videos and it suits your agenda. see how easy that is? this is why i'm not taking you seriously.



incorrect. in some respects they're right. the high number of guns in america is correlated with our unusually high homicide rates. the only place where brits are wrong is in failing to understand how impossible it is to change anything that is in the bill of rights (2nd amendment). that has nothing to do with them not living here and everything to do with them simply being uneducated on the american constitution.

i take youtube videos with a grain of salt... but when i see reports like this i don't just dismiss them without a valid reason to do so. you must know very little about this world if you only trust things that you see in person and never get any information from the news.



yet you didn't trust my knowledge, you told me the gangs were imported when they weren't. some are imported and some are native. zoe pound literally started out in miami directly because of ethnic tension and mistreatment of haitians in that community. no amount of backpacking through south america is going to change that, my friend.

ms-13 is mexican gang that is imported. same with sur-13.

MLK on the other hand is a guatamalan gang in south florida that does not exist in guatemala and arose mostly because guats were often targeted and were vulnerable as a community because they are largely illegal and can't go to the cops when they are robbed.

Source?


MS-13 started in L.A.

imported from LA then... i just mean it's not locally based. but the gangs which actually commit the most murders where i'm from are mostly locally based. gangs like the crips and bloods and ms-13 rarely make the news. top 6, zoe pound, etc do.

i will look for the source it's been a while... it's pretty well known though. i remember becoming aware of it because of the gun debate, actually. the striking statistic was that london crime rates were about 4x higher than NYC in almost every category besides murder... which was not even a fraction of nyc. indicating a correlation between guns and our homicide rates

Sounds pretty vague and probably very dependent on how different places record violent crime.

it is possibly overblown... i can't find the article i was thinking of... this book cites similar stats though

https://books.google.com/books?id=hw...20york&f=false

either way my basic point is that importing 3rd world immigrants often translates to importing poverty and crime... hardly a controversial notion, i think

and so when the biggest, most multicultural city also has relatively high crime rates... well that is hardly too surprising. but it's cool that you guys have nice parks and ****...

Yup.

United Kingdom:

“Violent crime contains a wide range of offenses, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.” (THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1.)

United States:

“In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.” (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

the stats above refer specifically to rape, burglary and robbery. if our friends in london have ambiguous definitions of these crimes then that's just another reason not to trust the british.

It looks like it's becoming a waste of time really trying to get through to you, so I'll make it really easy for you to understand:

US: Lives in Europe and knows it pretty well, has a decent awareness of its political and social issues. Once went to New York as a teenager which doesn't really count and what knowledge I have of the USA is mostly from the press and TV. So I take my American knowledge with a pinch of salt

JWB: Lives in the USA and only he knows how well he knows it and has a decent awareness of its political and social issues. Has never been to Europe and what knowledge he has mostly comes from press, tv and YouTube videos. But he treats this European knowledge as almost undeniable fact.

Nobody is stating that there are not racial issues connected with muslims here, just the fact that it needs to be put into perspective. The so called turf war that you're referring to in the video is from an undesirable area of East London , which since the 1960s has always been an area of racial tensions. The area is a small area in the whole East London area and East London is roughly less than a quarter of the whole of London. The city has a population of 8.5 million which kind of means that this whole scenario is of little interest to the people that live here and there are far greater problems here than this. If it wasn't for the press here, nobody would have any idea that this stuff was going on.

Finally nobody is stating that people that don't live or know a place, shouldn't have an opinion about it as nobody would discuss anything. But a certain amount of caution is needed.

I could easily post YouTube videos about gun crime in the USA, but how accurate would that be? But if I wanted to troll or flame a thread it would be a good way to do so.

let me make it simple for you:

it is fine to draw on insight from living in the place to inform your opinion, and it's fine to cite your own experience in an argument, although this is anecdotal evidence and as such comes secondary to things that you can cite an actual source for.

this isn't what you are doing. you are operating under the false assumption that living there makes you an authority on the subject, and that you don't need to back up your arguments with any facts or reason.

here is the problem with this: you're not the only person who lives in the UK. and you're not the first person from the UK i've ever spoken to. and at the end of the day... you're just some guy on the internet. i have no inherent reason to believe anything you say. you could be full of **** for all i know. so i judge what you say based on the merit of your words, not based on your self appointed authority on the topic.

so i take what you say with a grain of salt. just as i do the vice news videos. because you are just as likely to have an ideology and an agenda. and really you haven't demonstrated to me that you really have anything meaningful to say on the topic.

also, i've met other people from the UK who differ from your point of view. when i tell you this, you will just dismiss them as biased the same way that you will dismiss me. because it doesn't align with your own point of view. similarly, when i inform them of your assertions, they will dismiss you as biased. see the dilemma, my friend?

What I clearly see is that you're constantly trolling and flaming and you were recently banned for this.

So In the interests of the forum I'm asking the mods to lock down this thread, firstly to stop you trolling it and secondly believe it or not to stop you getting into even deeper water. I also apologize to Trollheart for helping to send his thread off the rails.

stop being such a crybaby. i haven't insulted you any more than you've insulted me. if i get banned for anything i posted in this thread then i am simply not fit to post here.

this discussion started off with me stating some of my thoughts on immigration and refugee policies and the way that demographic changes can be problematic. i had several people say they agreed with what i was saying, and it was pertinent to the OP. it only recently devolved into a pissing contest between me and you. you should own your piece in that and stop acting like a victim.

I'm a first generation eastern-european immigrant living in Germany.
I've grown up with fellow eastern-europeans, as well as arabs, turks and africans, all in a very diverse neighbourhood in our very diverse city.
So I'd say I know a thing or two about european multiculturalism first-hand.
I pretty much agree with what JWB says, a huge part of the problems faced from immigration are problems fuelled by cultural differences and it seems weird how people always try to downplay that, just because it makes us uncomfortable.
Sure, JWB is being edgy again here and there, but most of what he said in this thread is spot on.

You were talking about violent crime, now you're lumping burglary into the conversation. Not very conclusive.

^alright, maybe violent crime isn't the best term. that doesn't negate the stats i did provide, does it? i'm not saying they're conclusive but you seem determined to dismiss them either way. i was initially referring to an article i saw a long time ago that i can't find. i think it had to do with violent crime. but basically, once again, the only reason i was bringing up the crime rates was as part of the assertion that importing large numbers of poor immigrants usually = importing poverty and crime. the kinds of crimes involved are really a secondary detail.

but once again these stats are mainly used to demonstrate that criminal elements exist in london etc yet they have a much lower homicide rate because they don't have guns. it runs contrary to the common talking point that if people didn't have guns they would murder just as often with other weapons like knives, bats, etc. usually areas that have high crime in the states likewise have a high murder rate... but in london this isn't the case.

i can't seem to escape being edgy... it's just in my blood i think. cause i honestly haven't said anything in this thread for the sake of controversy.

and i'd add that i don't have first hand experience with european multiculturalism... so what i say about it is admittedly based on 2nd hand information coupled with my first hand experience with american multiculturalism. because there are similar issues here. minus the religious aspect, for the most part.

but there are some basic things i've seen which would make me nervous if i were over there. like the fact that the muslim community there is producing guys like anjem choudary, who is given a platform to preach radical islam and openly advocate the subversion of the existing system in favor of a shariah based caliphate. or stats that say a worrying % of british muslims hold somewhat radical views. Many British Muslims Put Islam First - CBS News

do i think they will get their caliphate...? not really... but my line of thinking is why on earth would you want to import this kind of idiocy into your country?

and contrary to what some think, i don't have a beef with muslims in general. the muslim immigrants in the states are not an issue, and most of the muslims in europe probably aren't either. but there are too many extremists to not find that worrying.

in comparison... we have a problem in the united states with homegrown christian extremism... if these people were largely coming from immigrant communities and the religious radicalism in general was a reflection of the cultures they were imported from, yea i think that would be an issue. unfortunately they're from here so we're stuck with them.

I see both pros and cons with the refugee crisis.

1) Pro: Europe (particularly Germany) are headed into demographic decline, which isn't good for GDP growth, the refugees in Germany will help boost the demographics in the long run, therefore GDP & European standard of living as well.

2) Con: Electorally, studies have shown that ethnic ridings tend to place a high value on pro immigration policies when it comes to voting, and it doesn't take much of a shift in the demographics, before parties have to cater to these riding in order to win.

So in short, you end up having a continuous open door policy on immigration, which is fine ,so long as it doesn't adversely impact the standard of living of the native born population.

This is of course the great xenophobic fear, and why the far right is experiencing a renewal across Europe.

I just was looking for a source. You gave me one that doesn't really jibe with your claim.

I've never had the feeling that you were in any way xenophobic and islamophobic and it's scary how it's impossible to have a discussion about multiculturalism and related topics, without having those accusations hurled at you.

i don't have the source i was thinking of. so i gave you one which made very similar claims. it doesn't account for every single type of crime, i will concede that point.

I wasn't looking for it to account for every single type of crime, I was just looking for it to support your claim, which it didn't.

well i guess i'll just amend my claim to rape, burglary and robbery instead of "violent crime". since as you said.. there are problems with comparing "violent crime" in general... so it is actually better to compare specific crimes.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...her-violent-c/

so you're right to correct me using the term "violent crime." beyond that though my point is the same.

It's called political correctness and it's rooted in totalitarian theology, it basically resulted in my departure from supporting the left.

I questioned immigration on this forum solely from an economic perspective, and although I never had any accusations thrown at me, I was left with the distinct impression of uh oh....something's wrong with William, better step away from him.

I've even re thought my whole analysis on economics and immigration, and in terms of GDP growth it might be a good idea to erase the Canadian & Mexican borders ,and have a North American Union like the EU in the long run....(so I'm currently in favour of this, though my mind may change tomorrow.)

Nevertheless, every time I posted something in favour of Trump, I can't help but think people are thinking "He must be for the wall" when that is the furthest thing on my mind on why I was supporting him.

so i'm trying to find the actual stats for london and ny... the most recent annual data i could find for ny was 2013, but the london stats are for the last 12 months

............| murder.|rape..|.robbery|.burglary
london....|107......|5331..|..21,968|..71,541
ny..........|335......|1112..|..19,170|..16,606

Metropolitan Police Service - Crime Figures
Crime in New York, New York (NY): murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, arson, law enforcement employees, police officers, crime map

i can't do "assault" because london doesn't list that. the closest thing they have is "violence against the person", which janz noted is vague. that figure is at 212,240 annually, while ny lists 31,767 annual "assaults." obviously these terms probably have different meanings so they can't really be compared... for whatever reason they don't have any stats on what we would consider "assaults" in london so there's nothing i can do about that.

It's not that it's being downplayed, but you can't have selective immigration where immigrants from different cultures will get along nicely, otherwise you'd end up with a very linear racial program which prejudices against certain groups. The whole process unfortunately for immigrants is a tough one and the melting pot in which they're thrown is just part of the process and can't be changed, as immigration out of necessity is never going to be easy.

Now of course we have some serious problems in the wake of the Paris attacks, as people think, well, if these guys had not been let in to France/Europe in the first place, they wouldn't have been in a position to carry out those atrocities.

It's a hard one to argue against, even given my stance on immigration. I know the chances are it's a tiny percentage, that most of the immigrants are genuine, but even so, it only takes two or three people to get together, plan, and cause absolute carnage...

Except all or almost all of the people who committed the Paris attacks weren't immigrants.

Well they were. They weren't born in France, they emigrated there. So they're immigrants. Aren't they? I mean, names like they're putting out on the news, they're not French names surely...

*facepalm*

My first name is French but that doesn't mean that I emigrated from France. You can be born in a place without your parents changing your last name to be more fitting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...paris-attacks/

They weren't immigrants. The attackers they've identified were born in France and Belgium. I'm sure they aren't only people born in those places who don't have ethnically French names.

Are there any reports as to the "social status" of the attackers? Were they the kind of ghetto middle easterners who are oppressed by the gendarmes, educated extremists like the 9/11 attackers, or what?

Well I know one of them was definitely on their watch list, not that it helped them stop him. The brother of this one that's supposedly still on the run is making all sorts of claims, like the guy was supposed to blow himself up but had a last-second change of heart, and he'd (the brother) like him to surrender himself as he says he would rather his brother was in jail than in a cemetery.

I must say, I feel the reverse. What are French jails like anyway? They stormed the Bastille, you know, and they were just peasants! :laughing: Seriously though, I doubt they're like the American supermax or whatever yaz have over there.

I don't even know what this post means.

It's pretty clear, man. You must be really wasted. :laughing:

@ Frown and Jansz: what you say may all be true, but unfortunately it's all in the perception. People in France are more likely to trust a neighbour named say Dupont or Chevalier than they will one named maybe Abdullah. Remember what happened in WW2 with the Japanese Americans? People are bound to start re-evaluating people they know who have Middle Eastern names, and that's definitely going to bleed into the recent goodwill towards immigrants, and change people's mind, especially in France and Belgium. It will probably also, as Batty mentioned, give some extra weight to the nationalist/far right parties in Europe, as they use this as an excuse, be it informed or not, to deny "bloody foreigners" entry across their borders.

Yup. So what was your point?

Yes, of course these attacks will rile up the xenophobes. I think everyone is well aware of that, but to echo Frowny: what was your point?

I think the point is clear. I was urging countries like ours to take in refugees, and now it would seem that there's going to be a rethink on that. People (govts) will be looking at this not so much from a humanitarian standpoint, but from a security issue. It's terribly sad for all those who have been displaced, and it changes the whole game as everyone's mindset will now be turned towards protection of their populace rather than offering shelter, which is something you can't blame them for, but it's sad either way.

Not so much a point as a comment, an observation on the impact the Paris attacks will have on the refugee crisis.

Been thinking about this a lot since the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings yesterday, where one of the dead was a cop. The shooter, of course, is a Wonder Bread White Christian (WBWC from here on out) dude who's mad that women have rights over their bodies. And that one of those rights is terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

(life begins when you suck in air for the first time IMO. It's ****ing whackjob to think that a piece of sperm merging with an equally gross piece of female mucous equals immediate life.)

More FB posts this morning from WBWC about how Syrian refugees will destroy this country. It's all about TERRORISM!!!

Wish I could force every single one of these bigots to come to terms with the fact their ancestors and peers have murdered so many more people than any Muslim extremist could ever hope for.

****, Eric Rudolph was basically a pussy suicide bomber. As was Timmy McVeigh. The ****ing irony is killing me.

Columbus?
Custer?
Italian Mafia?
Irish Mafia?
KKK?
Skinhead Gangs?
Biker Gangs?

etc.

There's nothing wrong with bringing in as many refugees as you can handle, the issue has always been the vetting process. Are we bringing in families/people that simply want to leave because of the state their country is in, or are we bringing in basically anybody from those countries without really questioning who it is?

The latter seems to be the truth from what I gather.

Whilst I would never be against humanitarian efforts to help those in need, you do have to draw a line. If you are bringing in so many people that your own economy cannot sustain it, there's a problem. Regardless of the race or religion that these people are, you simply cannot just open the floodgates and hope all will be well.

I don't want to get deep into the subject of Islamist extremism because it seems to be quite a touchy area around here, but I will say that you cannot ignore the very real problem that the religion seems to bring wherever it lands.