John Wilkes Booth

i'm not saying you can never have immigrants from alien cultures. i'm saying mass immigration from an alien culture is going to be problematic. if you have a small number of muslim immigrants from the middle east, as we do here in america, there isn't really much of a problem. notice that america has a lot less of an issue with islamic extremism than europe does. this is because we aren't importing entire communities at a time. yet we do have this issue with latin american/mexican immigrants in certain border states for the reasons i listed earlier. it comes down to scale. if you import too many people from a certain culture, you are creating a barrier to assimilation. or rather you are lessening the incentive for them to assimilate.

the article doesn't go against my viewpoint at all. my viewpoint is that cultural cohesion matters in a society. it is you, the proponents of open ended multiculturalism, who are debunked by the situation in turkey. it has nothing to do with democracy: the turkish govt isn't the one being hostile to the refugees. it is the natives who are expressing nationalist sentiments. it is a cultural/ethnic dilemma. just as i stated before.

Cuthbert

It's nothing to do with that, and it's not shit, but this isn't the thread to discuss that.

John Wilkes Booth

good for you. doesn't change the fact that you have imported violent crime on a massive scale. that's a statistical fact, not a matter of opinion.



you want to be charitable? maybe try improving the situation in syria rather than importing poverty and crime into your own country.



you asked why they are culturally more similar and i answered you. you're just playing games at this point.



i just gave you a factual example of a gang that was started in the united states by 2nd generation haitian immigrants. i can give you many more such examples. you are the one being naive by pretending that some ethnic-specific gangs that arise in multicultural societies aren't a direct result of ethnic tension in said societies.

Unknown Soldier

That's the whole point though, the mass immigration that you're referring to is an overblown issue that is nowhere near as bad as the European press would have you believe. Sure there are probably more muslims here now than before, but there are also more Africans and Eastern Europeans as well.

I also disagree with your final point about barriers of assimilation, a more alien culture just takes more time and I think you put too much of an emphasis on the importance of religion in terms of immigrants having problems adapting here, all immigrants if they're religious have their own places of worship and a certain amount of freedom.

If you were student of history, you'd probably be aware that Turkey has pretty much been at war with all its neighbours, most of its neighbours hate Turkey and in turn Turkey probably isn't too keen on them either.

Charitable causes is not something that countries in that part of the world undertake that often, so its no surprise that Syrian refugees are exactly going to be welcome there.

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The Batlord

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your entire argument, just your "Muslim countries should take in the Syrian refugees" one. Your own source revealed that one of those countries, which you specifically cited, may actually an undesirable place for them to emigrate. The fact that your own source kind of disproved your Turkish argument reveals you to be (understandably) ignorant of the facts of the region, and for all we know there could be different reasons why even a religiously conservative Muslim wouldn't be welcome in Saudi Arabia or Iran.

All I'm saying is that if you don't know what's actually going on, then maybe you shouldn't be putting forth a solution.

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John Wilkes Booth

well my most basic position is that it is irresponsible to import a lot of people into a country without any regard for the demographics or the cultures involved

so as such i started my argument with the question of why don't muslim countries take the refugees because it seems as if there is a foregone conclusion that someone has to take them. so i was saying if anyone is going to do so, the first in line should be those who are closest to the syrians culturally and geographically.

i was ignorant of the fact that the turks had taken in such a large amount, though i was not ignorant of the reasons why massive amounts of refugees will cause problems. my prediction was that ethnic and cultural differences will be the source of the tension. this was true in turkey. so the situation in turkey basically played out the way i said it would in europe, for the very reason that i said it would in europe. in fact believe i made the point early on that saudi arabia and turkey would be smart for not taking in the refugees, when i was arguing with frownland. so the article did not "disprove the turkish argument" it just put it to the test.

now, you point out that the turks are being hostile so maybe turkey is an even worse place. i would say that since they took 1.7 million and nobody else has, that's a faulty conclusion. pushing that many refugees on any country is going to cause problems.

you're right when you say i shouldn't demand the middle eastern countries take in the refugees. i'll take that back... i think i only said that in a one off post, but i was mostly using that part of my argument to point out the absurdity of importing these people to western countries instead - if their own neighbors won't even take them then why would we?

that's not to say the solution is that the muslim world should take the refugees... maybe they don't have to. maybe the refugees have nowhere to go and should go back to syria. at the end of the day, nobody knows everything about the situation. so following your logic nobody should be proposing any solutions.

also note that the reason there is a tension in turkey is because the refugees are arab. a fact that i did overlook when i said turkey... which is not arab. so that was my mistake in mentioning turkey. but it only adds to my point of the importance of cultural solidarity in a society.

John Wilkes Booth

if you were a student of history you'd probably be aware that you could say the same thing about european nationalities

The Batlord

And I'm not disagreeing with that. I was there (televisually) when the riots in France occurred, and I've heard many of the same stories about Muslim immigration to Europe that you've probably heard that make it sound like there is at least SOME problem with Muslim immigration to Europe. I'm simply pointing out the issue with your proposal for Middle Eastern countries taking in the Syrian refugees. It may very well be a better solution, but it's obviously not as clear cut as you thought it was.

Fair?

It certainly seems logical, but the world is a complicated place. I'd rather get them back to their homes, but **** is what it is, I guess.

Again, I wasn't attacking your basic premise, just your solution.

That doesn't logically follow. They're neighbors. It may simply be that that many refugees pushing and shoving to get out of Syria means that 1.7 million managed to squeeze through despite the wishes of Turkey.

Again, that doesn't logically follow. "If their own neighbors won't even take them then why would we?" implies that their is something intrinsically undesirable about Syrian refugees that is of equal consideration to any country. As your own source pointed out, Turkey has its own specific reasons for not wanting to take in Arabs that do not necessarily apply to any other country.

Considering how much of a cock up our politicians make of world matters, then I wouldn't say that's unreasonable, at least as far as being qualified goes. But at the very least, if you're going to put forth that culture clashes are an argument against taking in the refugees without any thought of consequences, then shouldn't you do some research on the problems that it could cause for the countries you're saying should take them?

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John Wilkes Booth

what i'm saying is that i wasn't really trying to propose that muslim countries take the refugees... that wasn't even my point. i was trying to point out the different ways we treat western countries vs the rest of the world. we assume the western countries should be humanitarian but don't ask as much from people much closer to them. and the reason that theyre having problems in turkey isn't so specific to turkey... it's basic ethnic tension. turks vs arabs. no different than any other culture vs arabs. when i asked why not turkey, saudi, etc... that was a rhetorical question. i know i did say in one post that the muslim world should take all the refugees, so i'll take that back. cause it isn't even an important part of my stance.

Unknown Soldier

There really isn't much point in trying to debate anything with JWB as those YouTube videos finally prove, if you're going to use YouTube vids made by self interest people, you're hardly going to present an objective and realistic scenario to the topic that is being discussed.

JWB seems to have a real issue with immigration which of course is his opinion which he's entitled to, but he seems to know absolutely nothing about how it actually works in Europe and ends up just flaming threads. The guy's never been to Europe and just watches the news and videos, and also says he speaks to certain people which is all pretty vague anyway.

It's a bit like me after watching the news about America, hijacking one of these gun related threads in America here and stating that America is full of gun crime, shopping mall and school murders, snipers picking off victims and serial killers roaming the land etc and if I or somebody from outside of America said that, it would be sure to flame the thread.

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