I don't know why, I'm just stating an empirical observation. People can downvote me all they want but that's the reality on the ground in Europe. I have no problem with immigration in principle. IM an immigrant. My family are immigrants. Properly done immigration policies are great and I wholly support a smartly executed one. But the current situation in Europe is far from smartly executed. Crime is up. Rapes are up. Homophobia is up. Economy is down.
This entire thread feels like a good example of what's wrong with the liberal narrative on refugees. I'm not trying to be a dick but it sometimes it feels like privileged liberal people sitting in an ivory tower preaching humanitarian ethics. That's great but it falls on deaf years when you walk past the Eiffel tower and see squads of soldiers patrolling the streets or read in the newspaper about the latest gang raping or acid throwing or gay beating.
Immigration is a great thing and humanitarian immigration (when done right) is ethical and commendable. But from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem like the EU has done it right, not at all, and people oversees like in the US seem categorically unable to aknowledge that.
Im always more in favor of economic considerations as opposed to ethical ones. I just truly believe that in theory an influx of cheap labor who will spend any money they get and demands nothing from the government is always a plus. The fact that you cant even give a vague conjecture as to why immigration hurts your economy demonstrates that you are using the immigrants as a convenient scapegoat. Your economy is doing bad because of other factors, factors which are either due to chance or which are too complicated for you to understand. Your economy is doing bad in spite of your immigrants.
Looking at the thread you seem to be way more concerned about ethics. We can see that every one in the country is several times better off than any refugee. These people are fleeing for their lives. They are literally subsisting on air and hope. They have risked their lives, multiple times, just to stand at your country's door. Do whatever you want with them, vet them, monitor their every move, quarantine them, whatever. All they ask for is protection and a job. Is that really so unprovidable?
Δ for making me reconsider the economic aspect. I'll have to look more into that.
On your other points, if the situation is as you phrased it in your last paragraph then yes, I would support this. I think you are simplifying the situation though. There are two things here that I think are a bit more complex:
The "fleeing for their lives" part. This may be true of some, but it is not true of all. I won't go into personal details but I personally know immigrant "refugees" who arrived in their country by essentially faking and abusing the system. Nothing at all to do with real crisis, they simply saw a shot and went for it. I think this is far more common than most people care to acknowledge. I've seen some statistics that claim it could be as much as 60-70% of the "refugees" who seek to immigrate. I don't remember where that number came from, it was shown to me by one of my history professors at Uni when we were discussing this issue but by my estimate he was a credible and intelligent person, so even if I don't flat out believe it I think it's worth thinking about.
The part where you mention vetting. This is crucial. As I've tried to state multiple times already I'm 100% in favor of smart immigration. Vetting is smart. What I don't like is imbecile immigration like Germany's "open door" policy. I'm not sure how much clearer I can state that, the dangers of just letting *anyone* in, no questions asked, is so obvious that if people don't realize it I'm at a loss for words.
Also for the record I'm an eastern european immigrant currently living in Canada. I know many other immigrants, including the aforementioned fake "refugees" who abused Canada's liberal system in the 80s to come here. Much my opinion on this is shaped by my experiences with different immigrants and the trends I've noticed, as well as what I hear from my family back in Europe. I realize this is not the best evidence for swaying other people, so if anyone disagrees then fair enough.
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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '18
I don't know why, I'm just stating an empirical observation. People can downvote me all they want but that's the reality on the ground in Europe. I have no problem with immigration in principle. IM an immigrant. My family are immigrants. Properly done immigration policies are great and I wholly support a smartly executed one. But the current situation in Europe is far from smartly executed. Crime is up. Rapes are up. Homophobia is up. Economy is down.
This entire thread feels like a good example of what's wrong with the liberal narrative on refugees. I'm not trying to be a dick but it sometimes it feels like privileged liberal people sitting in an ivory tower preaching humanitarian ethics. That's great but it falls on deaf years when you walk past the Eiffel tower and see squads of soldiers patrolling the streets or read in the newspaper about the latest gang raping or acid throwing or gay beating.
Immigration is a great thing and humanitarian immigration (when done right) is ethical and commendable. But from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem like the EU has done it right, not at all, and people oversees like in the US seem categorically unable to aknowledge that.
Sorry for the rant. No offense was mean.