Desperate people are swarming out of Africa and struggling to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe — many are dying in the hazardous crossing. The Italians have been over-extended, trying to rescue these people, and now the UK has decided not to support search and rescue operations in the area.
The British refusal comes as the official Italian sea and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, is due to end this week after contributing over the past 12 months to the rescue of an estimated 150,000 people since the Lampedusa tragedies in which 500 migrants died in October 2013.
The Italian operation will now end without a similar European search and rescue operation to replace it. The Italian authorities have said their operation, which involves a significant part of the Italian navy, is unsustainable. Despite its best efforts, more than 2,500 people are known to have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the start of the year.
This is tragic. These are human beings — desperate, ambitious human beings who aspire to a better life. Yet apparently some people want to treat them as cockroaches.
I had never heard of Katie Hopkins before, but here is my introduction to this terrible woman.
Read her column on page 11 of yesterday’s Sun.
Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants. That was The Sun’s headline, written apparently without concern.She then refers to migrants in Calais who try to board trucks heading to Britain as
a plague of feral humans.She proposes an Australian approach to migrants on boats.
They threaten them with violence until they bugger off, throwing cans of Castlemaine in an Aussie version of sharia stoning.She says we don’t need Save the Children
encouragingmigrants to make the journey.What we need are gunships sending these boats back to their own country.
Alright, who cloned Ann Coulter?
This must be Awful Britons Day. Take it away, Nigel Farage!
Prime Minister David Cameron’s bombing of Libya has "directly caused" migrant disasters in the Mediterranean Sea, UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said.
His comments came as hundreds of people are feared to have drowned after a boat carrying up to 700 migrants capsized.
Mr Farage told the BBC he did not have a "problem" offering refugee status to "some Christians from those countries".
I wonder what he thinks of certain noisy atheists who have been trumpeting the UKIP cause?
I wonder how “feral” Katie Hopkins would be if she were in as desperate a situation as the refugees.
Oh, but that could never happen – she’s a real individual, dontcherknow, not an indistinguishable cockroach.
Sorry, I feel sick.
And that in the same day a fishing boat with an estimated 700 refugees capsized in the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile in Germany PEGIDA keeps existing, refugee homes are burning, fascists threaten politicians so they step down, fearing for their family.
But still, still, still they’re not the worst.
Katie Hopkins is not the worst.
The worst are our allegedly non-racist, non-fascist governments that simply let those people drown.
BTW, if you’re European, go check where the nearest refugee home is and what you can do to help. Germany, for example, doesn’t hand out toothbrushes and toothpaste to children, letting their teeth rot.
Since she’s already said she’ll leave the country if Labour win the elections, she should probably start thinking about who’ll take her.
The reason why it would never happen is because someone like her would never survive being in such conditions…privilege and entitlement don’t get you fed when things are bad…
What a disgusting, horrible human being….
The “pull” argument lends to a very simple solution: simply have a brutal civil war. Then the boat people will stop coming!
Today, 700 migrants feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck: “…If confirmed, Sunday morning’s accident means that at least 1,500 migrants have died so far in 2015 while on route to Europe — at least 30 times higher than last year’s equivalent figure, which was itself a record. It comes just days after 400 others drowned last week in a similar incident.”
She’d go cannibal before the food had even run out.
Operation Mare Nostrum ended last year. The first article you cite is from 27 October 2014.
In fact, it’s possible that the horrifying number of victims these past months is due to that operation ending.
The second article is recent, though. From yesterday.
Over here in The Netherlands, a group of refugees who were not granted asylum, are on the streets. They are moving from place to place. Police took away their tents. The Netherlands are denounced repeatedly by international human rights organizations for how badly asylum seekers are treated, and our government is quarreling about it should provide these people with at least bed, bath and bread.
re. Katie Hopkins
Doesn’t UK have hate speech laws?
This is just the beginning, an early a blip on the radar portending the massive population displacements to come this century due to climate change.
Will Europe absorb millions of refugees fleeing uninhabitable, uncultivatable N. Africa? Or India millions of flooded-out Bangladeshis?
Why hate feral humans? Oh now I see, to be considered domesticated, one ought to be from a christian household, a sheep of Mr. Christ. Oh, it will takes books grander than bibles, korans and gitas to recount the abuses of the domesticated men. Anyway Jesus is dead, long live the hate!
adamthepenguin
The irony is always lost on those people. They hate, hate, hate immigrants,they hat, hate, hate the EU, but they love living abroad, making use of the privileges the EU grants them. But that’s different. Somehow.
Recently on Twitter somebody posted a grafic about how many Brits are living abroad in the EU. A UKIPer responded that those people are not immigrants but expats, which is the name for a white european immigrant, basically.
She seems to be under the impression that she’s civilised. Makes me sick.
Unless you are a Pole in Britain, a Roma basically anywhere in Europe, or numerous other examples.
You’re right and I was unclear
@adamthepenguin #5:
They’re even using that in their ads now — https://twitter.com/billybragg/status/589451102598344706
blf, Giliell
Sure, there are other prejudices mixed in, as well as classism. It’s like with all instances of privilege.
I am white so I wouldn’t be harassed as a Roma would be, I’m educated, relatively well spoken and if I moved I wouldn’t go penniless so I would probably be relatively well treated on basis of class, but I’m also Eastern European, from ex Yugoslavia which would have its own drawbacks.
Statements like that need to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Unfortunately, as an Australian, I’ve got absolutely no credibility on the issue. It would be great to live in a country that wasn’t the go-to example for inhumanity to desparate people.
Aaaaaand once again the actions of my government disgust me. Cameron has always been a crypto-racist, rightwing twit with an authoritarian streak a mile wide. The forthcoming election won’t help much either, since unfortunately Cleg and Miliband are just more of the same, and Farage is even worse
As for that nauseatingly bigoted arsehole Hopkins, there’s your introduction to the British brand of bigoted arsehat; they aren’t as flamboyant as the American strain, but sadly we have them in quite some quanity.
—————————————————————————————————————————
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought @ 12;
Technically the UK does have hate speech laws, but they are typically weakly enforced. Our anti-defamation laws, on the other hand, are some of the most excessive in the world, making it very risky to call a prominent bigot a bigot, because if you suceed in establishing hate speech they will likely get no more than a slap on the wrist, but in the much more likely event that they sue you for defamation, your life could easily be ruined.
That is the UK ‘justice’ system for you.
And currently on German TV they’re discussing how saving refugees on the sea simply encourages those who make money with those refugees.
*puke*
Giliell,
I’m genuinely curious : do they propose a solution?
Oh yes, internation camps in northern Africa. They’re not calling it that, but that’s what they want. Or simply use the marine to send the ships back to Africa. Because, you know, we cannot afford to help them!
Turkey is currently hosting 1.7 million Syrian refugees and the EU is still lecturing them on human rights…
Ah, so the solution to all problems: “make it not be our problem any more”. Nice.
I’d never heard of Katie Hopkins until last week when my English cousin posted this to Facebook, responding to her attack on depression-sufferers: https://jrbarlow.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/an-open-letter-to-katie-hopkins/. Damn you PZ, I was hoping I never had to hear about her again. (I should mention that my cousin is an awesome person, judging by the sorts of things she says on FB).
KH’s Wikipedia entry paints a picture of a “professional celebrity” whose only talent is self-promotion by way of saying outrageously horrible things. Definite candidate for the “B” Ark.
PS in response to the headline: registering a refusal on behalf of Canada.
Don’t mention the St Louis.
That insufferable talkshow just ended and it ended with a guy who’s decided that he just can’t take it anymore and who’s therefore starting his own rescue mission in the Meditarranean.
First thing he did was to say “let us do a minute of silence for those 1000 people who just drowned”.
You should have seen the German audience wiggeling. You should have seen the host trying to shut him up.
1 fucking thousand people dead and standing up for a fucking minute is asking too much. I just can’t anymore.
In 50 years, we will teach our children in school about the brave people of Sea Watch and a few others and parade them around like we do now with the Geschwister Scholl and the Weiße Rose in order to make it look like we weren’t all horrible.
Katie Hopkins is a failed reality TV candidate who very quickly realized a business plan to get her regular work and constant notoriety (as has worked with a few UK reality stars once the buzz fades a week after the programme ends). Although a typical right wing snob in attitude – almost nothing she says represents her actual opinions. She actually has herself trademarked and has a company of writers who scour ANY story so she can say something offensive on Twitter (which has now translated to various well paid clickbait columns and opinion pieces). Her mission statement is to become the most hated woman in the UK and retire off the proceeds. Most of the stories she doesn’t even read. She’s effectively a spam troll link generation device.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
It’s even worse: Katie Hopkins already lived as on immigrant herself, in the United States. Of course, that’s probably totally different. As said above, white Western Europeans or Americans are ‘expats’ others are ‘immigrants’ or ‘migrant workers’.
This whole situation is a mess. Europeans gloat about the political situation in the US, but in Europe it is not much better; extreme right-wing parties (as in actual fascists with a thin veneer of respectability) get 15-25% of the vote, and more so-called ‘moderate’ right wing parties parrot the same talking points in fear of losing voters to the former. Exemplified in rietpluim’s comment regarding the situation in the Netherlands in which the ‘moderate’ right VVD is so afraid of losing votes to the fascist PVV (yes, a party calling itself the party of freedom but which party platform consists of destroying as much freedoms as possible) that they are willing to deny even the most basic needs to asylum seekers (eg a food and a place to stay). IN the mean time people get hurt, but nobody seems to care that much.
Giliell,
That’s horrifying, but not really surprising. 150 people die in a plane crash, and the whole of Europe seemed to be in mourning, 1000 people die and we get some lazy news coverage and a general attitude of mostly indifference. I wonder, will the heads of state visit the disaster area?
Mitchell and Webb’s take on the woman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF4CZDhVBF4
from 18.00 mins in.
Giliell #30
Fucking hell.
zenlike 32
It’s very simple, really: immigrants go to other countries to work; expats go to other countries to not work. They’re the ones who have connections to get a lucrative sinecure somewhere, or else enough money to live high on the hog somewhere expenses are lower without even pretending to have a job.
The main difference is that Europe at least has parties that aren’t parroting fascist talking points.
Where is the Islamic ummah to help these desperate people ?
How is it that Muslims choose secular-atheistic Europe when seeking refuge?
How strange to risk the dangerous sea-crossing to Italy – steeped in centuries of Christian cultural traditions – in preference to an overland journey to oil-rich Arabian and Gulf states with Islam’s holy sites and all the comforts of Islamic law.
I’m looking forward to the Saudi rescue plan to help out these needy people -regardless of their national origin or religious preference.
Asylum seekers are people awaiting a decision on their status, the people who you are talking about have gotten a decision, they did *not* qualify for asylum, and now find themselves trotted about, being abused as stage props by ethically challenged left wing activists who have problems understanding the concept of not qualifying for asylum. The average dutch person has a hard time understanding how it’s even possible that people who did not qualify are still in their country, given their governments rather famous rigidity whenever it’s dealing with it’s existing population.
Nobody wants to take responsibility for the thousands of drowning people, nor for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants leading insulated existences under religious oppression with almost no social mobiliity and poor education after migrating decades ago. Most definately not the left, they can’t even bear the thought that their naiveté is cashed in on at a rate of millions of euros a week by human traffickers and assorted criminals. So, don’t even try getting them to answer for themselves when it comes to the treatment of existing immigrants, they’ll all point in unison to ordinary people, who are all terrible racists, and not ever hurt one bit at all these last decades because of immigration policies. Not one bit sir.
Well, I don’t think it’s that simple. Sure we should just let anyone come here who wants to – after all, they want to. And we know how well we treat people with darker skin. Then they become disenchanted, and blow up marathon races.
But after all, in the name of diversity, we NEED MORE TERRORISTS!
wcorvi @38
Well, you’ve hit on the problem that actually needs to be solved. Maybe we should work on that instead of spewing rhetoric about immigrants becoming terrorists. Extra irony points for doing so on the 20th anniversary of a particularly awful terrorist attack carried out by a white guy born in the USA.
krambc, #36
It’s almost like they want to live in a better place and hope for a better life for themselves and their families.
So is there any end to this? Shall all of Africa empty into the rest of the world? Or any third world area doing the same?
Must we take in refugees forever? In a comparable situation, though it has slowed lately, Mexicans come here, often to stay–what is Mexican policy on immigration? It’s illegal. How do they treat Central American immigrants? They beat and kill them. Or ship them home. Do we have no right to control our borders and the makeup of our population? The same goes for Europe. Why the rise of right wing parties there? Partly because their liberal governments refuse to face the problems of unlimited immigration. Too bad it’s not liberals dealing with this.
Anyone hear dog whistles and dishonest argumentation?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Wow, there sure are some generous, empathetic commenters showing up!
There will never be an end to people wanting to flee terrible living conditions as long as there are terrible living conditions. If we were in the same place, we would do the same thing, if we could find a way.
Much of the suffering these people are trying to escape is a direct result of policies that rich countries have maintained. Even if it weren’t, helping people in need is what decent people do, even if it hurts. And this doesn’t hurt.
Right wing parties are rising because, unfortunately, some people are ignorant, willfully ignorant, or just plain assholes.
That’s the real money line right there. The implication is in so many other places with NIck up there, but that is where it is clearest.
Reminds me of the term “demographic winter”. You know, kind of like the opposite of “demographically symbolic”. Or in other words, “keep America as white possible”. There’s pretty much no way that the sentiment ISN’T racist.
41:
Yes.
“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” – FDR
Seems like someone has activated the Asshat Signal again. Someday I’m going to find where that damn thing is, grab a bag of rocks, and smash out its lantern.
nickdangerthirdeye
Not problems of unlimited immigration, but problems of trying to pretend immigration isn’t happening while at the same time bemoaning the fact that there are so many immigrants. If big numbers of immigrants are entering a country, especially if they are refugees without any possession but hope… you have got to have plans to deal with them. And I don’t mean plans how to show them the door as quickly as you can.
Right wing parties enter the show where there is general dissatisfaction, and that exists largely because of income inequality, poverty and debt. Immigrants are just convenient scapegoats, shoehorned into the role of the “big bad” to, on one hand, shift the blame and on the other, shift the focus off other problems. Oh, and of course there’s some racism and xenophobia mixed in there as well.
What, you were expecting things to be simple?
Example: small county, not particularly desirable as anything but the front hall to bigger and better. Number of Chinese people is so little I can’t even find them on the census information because they’re somewhere in the “other” percentage. Random number I found online is 2000 (we’re a really small country).
And yet… when there was sort of a small wave of Chinese shops and restaurants opening, people started complainign about all these thousands of Chinese people coming to take our jobs. They’re taking over! Look, I even saw two eastern Asian-looking people on the tram. Oh noes!
Seriously.
People move about. For reasons. Europe has programs to encourage people moving about… but of course just desirable people. I can’t even explain how horrible it is that I “deserve” to move to Switzerland if I wanted but some poor refugee who maybe lost half her family, faced possible death to come… she doesn’t “deserve” it. Fuck that.
“They threaten them with violence until they bugger off, throwing cans of Castlemaine in an Aussie version of sharia stoning”
Throwing cans? No. Outright torture is what is happening. Children are being sexually abused, refugees denied medical care, physically and mentally abused and forced to live in conditions most Australians wouldn’t tolerate for a dog.
krambc the racist@36
Have a look here, scumbag. There are around 5 million refugrees from Syria in nearby mostly Muslim (or in the case of Lebanon, half-Muslim) countries. In Lebanon they make up over 1/4 of the total population. The total going elsewhere is in the tens of thousands.
Well it could be that contrary to your stereotype, most Muslims would prefer to live under secular law in democracies, whatever their flaws, than under Shariah or in absolute monarchies.
Because there are plenty of racist shits like you willing to vote for them.
krambc
1. You mean like those 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey?
Stop lying. The muslim majority countries around Syria are taking the overwhelming majority of the refugees.
2. Maybe, just maybe, economy has something to do with it.
3. That’s not even an argument. Whether other countries are failing people, too, has absolutely no bearing on the morality of the EU failing the refugees.
Unless you want to model your humanism and human rights approach after Saudi Arabia.
+++
dutchdelight
Bullshit. They’re not being abused by “left wing activists”. They’re being abused by the police.
And yes, people with a shred of decency understand that the current asylum regulations are broken. Legality is not an argument about morality. If you want to deport somebody who came here as a war refugee at the age of 6 when Yugoslavia was torn up in wars because now the place they haven’t been to in 20 years and where they don’t soeak the language, you’re cruel and racist.
Yeah, the Netherlands, famously known for its authoritarianism.
More bullshit. Or should we just call it by it’s name: lies.
Most immigrants in Europe are well integrated. The increased religiosity is a rather recent development, caused by the racism and rejection of the white majority populations. I give you a hint: It’s not German muslims who think that muslim and German aren’t compatible. It’s non-muslim Germans.
It’s not the naivity of the Left. It’s the cruel politics of the centre and right which closed the borders and took all safe and legal ways to reach Europe.
buuuhuuhuuu. The nasty immigrants took my job I didn’t qualify for in the first place. And after we Europeans built our countries with colonialist exploitation, after we bombed people out of their homes, after we trained and financed terrorists we are now asked to pay a fracture of the costs our behaviour caused.
That’s so unfaiiiiiiiiiiiir
+++
wcorvi
are you fucking aware that the people who blew up the Boston marathos were, in fact, Caucasian?
On the very day of the Oklahoma City Bombing, this comment really blows it out of the water.
++++
nickdangerthirdeye
You know, there’s a very sensible solution to this:
Combat the causes. Stop killing the African economies with highly subsibized agrarian products, support groups that do actual development work, stop destabilizing their political systems, stop bombing them. In short, stop the “third world” (what a racist term) from remaining poor and underdeveloped. Because people don’t leave their homes for an unsure future in strange countries because they don’t have anything better to do on a Friday afternoon.
Yes, as long as there are refugees. Easy answers for easy questions.
And that’s an argument for what exactly? See comment above about Saudi Arabia.
Hey, where did I hear that before? Oh, right, history lessons…
There is no fucking “unlimited immigration” in Europe. The amount of refugees currently living here is minimal when you look at their proportion of the general population. Are there actual problems? Yes there are, but it’s not liberals refusing to deal with them, it’s right wing and centre bowing to the fascists and claiming “we don’t have any money”.
Funny thing, whenever we are going to bomb a country, money’s there in abundance.
+++
And as a counter meassure to all the fucking racists around, I’m going to sort through the kid’s wardrobe and send the stuff she no longer needs to the refugee home. Also bought toothpaste and toothbrusher for children. Because fuck, they’re human beings
Are people seriously coming here to argue in support of Katie Hopkins? Jesus tapdancing christ!
#43, chigau
For all that The Register is a ghastly redtop tabloid stocked with climate denying assholes, they had* the occasional moment of wit , which seems apt here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2007/11/20/giuliani_eye_o_sauron_thumbsup/
* no idea if they still do; I don’t read it anymore.
This issue honestly pisses me off so much. Our Foreign Office claims that it’s unsustainable to help with the search and rescue operations, because making the crossing safer means more people will attempt it. This is patent, transparent bullshit. These people are desperate, do you really think they are getting on those boats thinking “Oh it’s fine; this crossing may be incredibly dangerous, but if the boat capsizes then I have a fairly good chance of being picked up by the Italian Navy before I drown. I mean, they’ll ship me back to Libya, where I will be detained in a place more akin to a mediaeval prison than a modern migrant detention centre, but hey, at least I (probably) won’t be dead!”? Of course they’re not. This is just another attempt by the tories. to save money at the expense of real people’s lives. It’s made all the more insulting by the fact they support scrapping the S&R mission in favour of what they call “border protection”. They won’t spend money actually attempting to save people’s lives, but by god they’ll spend it on keeping them out of the EU! Fucking arseholes.
Hopkins is fucking pondlife and a national embarrassment. She appeared on the Apprentice and now seems to think that people care about what she has to say, and so uses social media and her column in a shitty Murdoch tabloid to insult and demean damn near everyone who isn’t a middle-to-upper class WASP. Farage… well, you know about Farage already. He’s the respectable face of British racism with aspirations of running the country.
Giliell, No. 53, I mostly agree with your comments, with one quibble: While I agree that the long term solution to refugees is to attack the root causes, in this case the cause — the Libyan civil war — isn’t going to be fixed by any of the things you mention. That’s because the cause is a group of religious nutjobs spreading terror and horror throughout large portions of the Middle East, something for which the West can’t really be blamed. That’s going to continue until ISIS is defeated on the battlefield; they’re not going to listen to sweet reason. So while I loathe military interventionism as much as the next person here, this may be one situation in which the only way to make things better is by eliminating ISIS by force. The West certainly has an interest in doing so if the cost of not doing so is the continued influx of refugees and an occasional disaster at sea.
#56, Thumper:
The whole “we’re actually saving lives by eliminating the sweet, sweet incentives for dangerous ocean crossings” is exactly the argument that the current Australian goverment uses to justify its barbaric policy.
Nickdangerthirdeye #41
My bolding. That bit is rather telling.
@ gondwanarama #58
Oh, is that who they’ve been taking lessons from? Abbott and his mates? That explains a lot. Not that the Tories needed much help to be vile; they’ve been instituting policies that place money above human lives and happiness the whole bloody parliament, this is just a slightly more blatant example than normal.
@ eeyore #57
What have ISIS got to do with Libya and the Libyan civil war?
Thumper, gondwanarama, exactly. They want people to die so as to be a disincentive of more people coming over. Appalling.
I was not even going to reply to the dishonest right wing shitheads who started whining about the left and liberals, Giliell‘s reply is spot on. Except I want to add that the right wingers sound a lot like bullies: “Yes we make horrendous policy choices, but it’s all the fault of the left! They made us do it!”.
dutchdelight, I wonder, what do you think of the PVV? What do you think the Netherlands should do with those people that did not qualify for asylum? Just let them starve in the streets? How have you ‘suffered’ from those immigrants?
@dutchdelight #37 – Screw your dictionary definitions. There is a minimum level of decency that everybody is to be treated with, no matter his or her status. In the Netherlands, even child molesters and mass murderers are better off. It is a fucking embarrassment that we’re even debating whether people are entitled to bed, bath and bread.
eeyore
Pray, who fucked up Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 15 years? Not to forget Libya. What weapons is Daesh using? Why do so many people from Western Europe (not recent immigrants but 2nd, 3rd generation AND a huge amount of converts) go there and murder the populations?
That whole clusterfuck isn’t a moncausal simplistic good vs evil thing.
Oh, and should I mention children in refugee detention? That’s right, The Netherlands put children in prison for no reason but being here, with the blessings of the “liberal” party who’s afraid to loose votes to Wilders!
Never heard of her PZ? You are lucky. I seem to remember she first appeared on a UK reality show, The Apprentice. After she was fired from that we in the UK thought that was the last we would hear of her. Some chance……!
I don’t read The Sun. It’s a gutter-rag that’s been virtually banned on Merseyside for the last 26 years. No newsagent there would dare stock it, since their lying demonization of Liverpool football supporters following the Hillsborough disaster. Thus the first I knew of this Katie Hopkins creature and her vile comments was when I was asked to sign a petition to get her removed from her job as a Sun columnist.
If you go to http://www.change.org you can find the petition on the front page. Worth signing I think.
Giliell, this whole clusterfuck is as close to a simplistic good and evil thing as you are likely to find. A truly evil group is engaged in bloodletting, terror, massive child abduction and rape, slave trading, butchery, and religious violence. Whatever fucking up of the Middle East we may have done pales in comparison, and is a vile false moral equivalency. The only appropriate response to ISIS is this: “You are evil. Put down your weapons or prepare to die.” And sometimes yes, it really is that simple.
None of which is to deny that we had a hand in fucking up the Middle East. But that’s like blaming Northern carpetbaggers for the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow. No, evil people are responsible for their own evil, even if they had help.
@eeyore #67 – “Whatever fucking up of the Middle East we may have done pales in comparison, and is a vile false moral equivalency.” No it doesn’t, and no it isn’t. Go educate yourself.
nickdangerthirdeye,
As a non-white person living in what people like you would prefer to be a mostly white country, I extend to you the offer of a resounding Fuck You.
@eeyore
“Evil” is a purposefully simplistic term, and killing a bunch of people is unlikely to solve the problem, especially since that’s at least partly what caused the problem in the first place.
It’s absolutely undeniable that ISIS cause an incredible amount of harm to an incredible amount of people and we need to try and find a way to stop them without fucking up the region even more, but I’m rapidly becoming a bit sick of people assuming they sprang up out of the Earth overnight.
And I’ll ask again, since you didn’t answer last time: what on Earth have ISIS got to do with Libya and the Libyan civil war?
@71: well, obviously, it involves Those People and it’s Over There.
#67, eeyore
It took me a moment to realise you were referring to ISIS here. Helpfully, the ‘massive child abduction and rape’ bit was the main giveaway.
But good vs evil? Lets have a brief think about the attitude of the US to its non-white, non-western-european-descent citizens (or worse, non-christian citizens). About the ethnic makeup of its prison population, and the amount of valuable manual labor that population provides, and how much choice those people have in the matter. About the fact that it has the biggest, richest, most technologically advanced army in the world who can kill people with drone-fired rockets across huge areas of the world with complete impunity, without the slightest possibility of accountability or oversight. Its attitude to torture, or incarceration without hope of trial, appeal or timely release, because they’re at war, don’t you know. The governments it has toppled because of ideological differences, the replacement regimes that they supported, and how well that’s worked out for everyone a decade or two down the line.
No, it is more that the islamic state is so deeply unpleasant that they can make literally anyone else seem better by comparison.
ISIS should be stopped, and hopefully the ‘good guys’ who spent so much time, money and effort over the past 30+ years bringing about the environment that let ISIS flourish will actually, finally, do some good.
The police is doing their job, just like city hall is, the ones not doing their jobs are the politicians, who democratically agreed on rules for immigration, and then don’t actually follow up on them, at the detriment of the refugees that are being allowed in, the tax-payers, and the attitude towards foreigners in this country in the social groups hit hardest by mass immigration.
That’s a really sad story, i suggest you tell it to the people who didn’t want to commit to making the procedure last 2 years tops, and have spent the last few decades building out a tax-payer funded army of lawyers and caseworkers whose mission it is to find the holes in our policies and abuse them to delay decisions as long as possible, throwing thousands of asylum seekers into black holes of uncertainty for years. All because the left isn’t racist and really cares for people, remember that folks.
Good job showing of your prejudice and racist stereotyping there. All is ok as long as you’re on your ideological hobby horse right? I this where i ask for my grandfathers bike to be returned?
@anym #73 – “No, it is more that the islamic state is so deeply unpleasant that they can make literally anyone else seem better by comparison.” – That is brilliant. QFT!
rietpluim, thumper, anym, we can spend time talking about the historical causes of ISIS, al Quaeda, and the rest of the problems of the Middle East, and we can also spend time talking about the historical causes of Hitler, the KKK, and the Spanish Inquisition, but the bottom line for all of them is that however they got here, they need to be stopped. Almost all of the bloodletting in the Middle East is Muslim on Muslim, and has been for a very long time, and the whole area was a shitbox long before we got there. None of that excuses some of the truly awful things we did there, but there are limits on how much blame shifting you can do away from the people who are causing the carnage now.
Or put another way, if the Charles Manson family has broken into your house, do you express your condolences to them over whatever historical factors made them the way that they are, or do you simply use whatever force is necessary to keep them from stabbing, strangling and shooting innocent people?
@eeyore #76 – That’s ridiculous. Nobody is suggesting to offer IS condolences. But we must take care that our actions do not contribute to the rise of another IS or Al-Qaida. I do not see that wisdom in the current policy. It’s always a combination of looking the other way, supporting dictatorship, and throwing bombs.
Tell me dutchdelight, do you read anything else besides PVV propaganda and the Telegraaf?
I suspect this not to be true. It’s certainly true that the vast majority of Islamic extremism affects other Muslims, and that the number of dead caused by the Syrian civil war is pretty fucking high, but I doubt very much that the total number of dead is that much higher than the cumulative total killed as a result of the two Gulf wars, the Afghanistan war, bombing campaigns in Libya and bombing campaigns against ISIS in Iraq/Syria, and Israeli foreign policy. That’s just a gut feeling and I am of course open to being proven wrong; do you have any figures?
Are you ever going to explain why this is at all relevant to Libya and the situation with the drowning migrants, or am I wasting calories typing?
I should also point out that I never suggested that ISIS were blameless. But we have to acknowledge the circumstances that lead to their birth or we risk simply worsening the situation. Going in and blowing a shit load of people up is what caused ISIS in the first place; how on Earth could it make the situation better now?
#76, eeyore
I don’t believe anyone has suggested that ISIS be treated with tolerance, or that their actions be forgiven given the context of their origins. Please don’t try to turn critics of your ‘good vs evil’ position into straw bleeding heart liberals.
What a reek of fear and bigotry in here. Nasty, acrid stink of wannabe fascists. Sickening.
The PVV is useful in the sense that they manage to move the overton window to some place more sane. And they provide entertainment in politics.
People who didn’t qualify should leave, it’s really not complicated or harsh, just very clear and straightforward.
I’ve not particularly suffered from immigrants, except maybe running into the occasional garage holder that desperately wanted a >3k repair paid in cash, and then proceeded to make racist comments about Polish workers who are evading the tax authorities. Oh, and i guess more generally, the lowered standards of education, an overworked health system, religiously motivated pimps specifically preying on native dutch girls i know when they are most vulnerable (read: near the entrance of institutions dealing with “problematic” kids). Nothing you wouldn’t have heard before.
I happen to have a job that is not very likely to be taken over by new arrivals unless they are “knowledge workers”. Just like most people here i’m guessing, that’s exactly why i’m pointing out that for large groups in our societies, that doesn’t always hold up, this isn’t a mostly academic discussion for them, they don’t get to choose where they live, or work, in the same way as more financially successful people can.
Yea, ’cause why have words mean things right? No need to thank me though, It was my pleasure to point out you were misrepresenting the situation.
The minimum level of decency our politicians supposedly agreed on was deportation after rejection. They can have all the bed/bath/bread they want, but not in NL, all they need to do is cooperate with the immigration service. and they’ll even get some money to land on their feet.
The idea that this is a discussion about bed/bath/bread is one of the misunderstandings on the left, this is about why we have an expensive and extensive immigration service when people who are rejected are just let loose in dutch society instead of returned to their place of origin or the nearest safe airport.
@CaitieCat #83 – You forgot “stupid”. Racists never seem to understand the difference between refugees and migrant workers.
Thumper: There’s a group in Libya that claims allegiance to ISIS; they’ve been in the news beheading christians lately (because, of course, that moves more copy than when they behead muslims). All of these groups have been around a long time, changing their name from time to time to keep up with the latest uber-bad. What became ISIS was AQIM before, but Al Quada’s time in the spotlight has gone. Now everyone who looked up to AQ looks to ISIS instead — for instance, Boko Haram also claims allegiance now.
Tossing bombs can stop military advances, but those are somewhat secondary to political successes. These groups thrive where the central authority loses legitimacy due to its inability to help local people. The groups offer simple solutions to complex problems — just kill the infidels and everything will be better. The more violence the better, it serves to distract the locals from their own problems.
(Wait, who is my second paragraph about?)
@zenlike
For the non-dutch readers, this is pretty much the accusation of racism again, but now in dogwhistle form.
Never read either. Nice try though, very hard on the facts i noticed. Good job!
@dutchdelight #83 – “Yea, ’cause why have words mean things right? No need to thank me though, It was my pleasure to point out you were misrepresenting the situation.” – No you didn’t. I wrote that they were not granted asylum in the very first sentence. Learn to fucking read before lecturing somebody.
For shame, Europe. This is almost American in its callousness.
Farage is correct at least on the intervention in Libya — violent British destabilization again, the story of the past 200 years. The UKIP has also stripped a lot of voters from the Tory hard-Right, so with their electoral system the Conservatives won’t govern in their own right, if at all. Bigoted wackos sometimes have their uses.
@rietpluim
You do understand everyone can just scroll up and see how you mention that NL gets “denounced repeatedly by international human rights organizations for how badly asylum seekers are treated”, in the middle of two references to a group of people who are not asylum seekers?
@dutchdelight #90 – Yes, I do. Do you understand that 1) they are, in fact, seeking asylum and 2) their case is just an example of many cases for which the Dutch government is denounced? Geesh why are racists always so stupid.
eeyore@76,
Nice diversion away from the plight of the refugees and the western share of responsibility for that plight. Well done!
Where “more sane” of course means “more racist”.
dutchdelight@86,
Ah, so you came by your racism without help from the PVV and the Telegraaf.
Oh hey, this is a racist talking point in the Netherlands, too? Interesting. We’ve had 4 or 5 high-profile cases of gangs of Asian Muslims, normally of Pakistani heritage, grooming mostly white-British underage girls. Add racism, a dash of paedophile hysteria, and some completely unevidenced extrapolation, and hey presto! Another stick to beat all the Muslims with. Apparently they only preyed on white-British Christian girls, which is demonstrably untrue, and were motivated by race and religion, which doesn’t make any sense. But there you are.
How did the Dutch version come about?
“We” being the UK. Sorry.
dutchdelight, I wouldn’t call it a dogwhistle, I am openly accusing you of supporting racist policies and talking points, which would indeed make you racist. Your entire screed here is exactly a copy pasta from PVV propaganda, which, for non-Dutch readers is indeed a party pushing a fashist ideology.
dutchdelight #90
Just out of curiosity, what do you think asylum seeker means?
Turns out rietpluim is just another fascist. Smearing people in response to being corrected on the facts. Great skeptical thinking here.
In other slightly better news, it looks like the European politicians are finally getting of their collective asses and trying to address the problem. Of course, this tragedy was forseeable, and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, so still no cookies for them.
How can this be solved and avoided in the future? On that part I agree with them: there is no magical solution for this. But direct action on mitigation and a collective effort to minimize future tragedies is needed and a moral, if not legal, duty of Europe.
Turns out dutchdelight is jus another racist who doesn’t know what the word fascist means. No surprises there.
@zenlike #98 – Also in the news today: The Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation wants to change treaties with African countries. The Netherlands are now a tax haven. It would be good for the continent if companies start paying taxes.
@pentatomid #99 – Neither does he know what the words “facts”, “skeptical” and “thinking” mean.
@thumper
“How did the Dutch version come about?”
Mostly due to some immigrants preying on native girls, justifying their actions through religious dogma and presumably the thickening of their wallets, knowing a victim, following the news.
All pretty racist stuff, amirite? Don’t those racists just make up the darndest things.
@Thumper
Just out of curiosity, what do you think racist means?
So much racism, where do I start?
dutchdelight
The so-called “I’ve just been following orders” defense. I think that was ruled out as a defense about 60 years ago…
Really, this shows that you’re just a dishonest bullshitter. See how 20 years turn into a “2 years process”?
I don’t know what’s worse, that you’re that dishonest or that you thought you’d get away with it. But let’s talk about those “2 year procedures and armies of lawyers” for a moment.
People claim asylum because their lives are in danger. If you err on the side of deporting, a dismissal can lead to death and torture. Don’t you think that there should be some safeguards against deporting people to certain death?
As for “throwing asylum seeker into uncertainty for years”: Nobody throws them. Those people are fighting tooth and nails to stay. Nobody forces them to appeal, they are doing it themselves.
Buahhahahaha. Cupcake, does the word “irony “mean anything to you? First of all, “racist stereotyping” of Dutch people is impossible. Stereotyping is possible. Prejudice is possible. But apart from that, the joke sailed over your head. In case you didn’t know, the Netherlands are kind of known as a liberal hotbed. At least if you smoke pot.
Nope, you dishonestly claimed that there are “hundreds of thousands of immigrants leading insulated existences under religious oppression with almost no social mobiliity and poor education after migrating decades ago. ”
That’s a claim of fact. It’s also bullshit. Apart from that, what does “driving around big European cities” tell you about integration? Nothing. Yep, there are people who look differently. Women wear headscarves. Grocery shops sell delicious goods from all over the world. Multiple languages are being spoken. That’s not an indicator for lack or integration, it means there’s no assimilation, but dishonest racists like you always conflate those things.
Who said anything about working class? I didn’t. Racism is all over society. Also, those muslim Germans are in the overwhelming majority working class. Again, shows that you’re just a dishonest racist shitbag.
So, how can a syrian war refugee get to the Netherlands? EU citizens aren’t the issue here.
Wait, it’s the lefts fault that they couldn’t implement policies that could have prevented the bloody wars in Middle East and that they couldn’t implement immigration policies that would have prevented the drowning of thousands? The person constantly blaming people here is you. Now you even blame people for not having been able to do the things you deem wrong.
Isn’t it funny how it’s now the fault of the undocumented immigrant, whom you want to deny food and shelter, but not of the person who hires that immigrant. Sure, there’s somebody who cannot work legally, who has to work illegally or they starve, who is at the mercy of a criminal employer, with no rights at all, but this is NOT to blame on the employer who exploits the unocumented immigrant, but to blame on the person who has absolutely no choice.
1. You’re still reaping the benefits of European colonialism.
2. You are still benefiting from the economic exploitation of the global South that is happening today.
3. You were most certainly around when the last round of imperialist wars was unleashed upon the Middle East.
Did you sleep during history lessons?
The Taliban were trained and financed by the west, foremost by the USA, to fight against the Soviets. Bin Laden himself was the CIA’s darling for a long time. Saddam Hussein was supported by the West in order to fight Iran. Ben Ali and Mubarak were Europe’s best pals, mostly because they kept all those immigrants away.
Hysteria. Rich. Coming from the “hundreds of thousands of isolated immigrants” doomsayer.
1. That word, it does not mean what you think it means.
2. That word, it really doesn’t mean what you think it means.
3. The word you’re looking for is “facts”
Until this post I didn’t do so. But you’re right, you’re a racist. I’ve shown that you are.
See above.
You know, that word “racist”, you’re throwing it around like a creationist uses “evolution”: You have no clue what it actually means, but you’re using it anyway, believing in your own imagined superiority so much you think it gets you some gotcha points.
@Gilliel #104 – The Netherlands are a liberal country, except for refugees I’m sorry to say. There is no real appeal. When the immigration services refuse asylum, the court is allowed to overrule the decision on formal grounds only. This means that evidence of threats to the refugee’s life is dismissed beforehand. And still the bigots keep complaining about legal advice refugees are given. Refugees are not even granted basic rights.
Anyway, here’s the answer to PZ’s question: send us Katie Hopkins, and we’ll treat her the same as we do most refugees.
rietpluim
I know, that’s why my comment was in reply to Dutchfascist’s claim that the Dutch authorities were known for a “famous rigidity whenever it’s dealing with it’s existing population.”
dutchdelight @ all-over-the-place
I’ll be brief, ’cause I dislike being long-winded. Haven’t got enough wind in me I guess.
You’re right. Liberals are racist. The left is in general. So are the fascists. So is the right. So is the working class. See a pattern?
Humans are racist. It takes conscious, explicit effort to counter the natural human tendency towards racism. The left in general at least acknowledges this through efforts like affirmative action / positive action and others. The rights’ general response to the fact is to shout “I’m Not Racist.”
What does your favourite political hobby-horse do to counter the facts of racism?
@ Dutchdelight #102
I never actually said it was made up, any more than the British cases were made up. I do however have an issue with it being used as ammunition to try and paint all Muslims as paedophiles, or to pretend that Islam is somehow incompatible with Western society, or indeed to pretend that it is any worse than any other religion.
#103
Ah, answering questions with questions, eh? Well, it depends on the context. Originally it referred to the pseudo-scientific theory that humanity could be divided into distinct racial groups, and distinctive racial traits were determined by hereditary factors; the implication being that some races were inherently superior to others.
In the context of sociology, racism refers to a kind of racial hierarchy which lends privilege and opportunity to some while causing the systemic oppression of others based on nothing more than their perceived race. Anything which contributes to this pervasive idea could be termed as racist.
In a more every day sense, here in the UK racism generally refers to any prejudice against or stereotyping of others based on their race, ethnicity, nationality or religion, or the perception thereof. It is this latter sense in which I am normally using the word.
Now, would you care to answer my question?
It’s not my fault that some people try to give hope to immigrants who are unlikely to make it through the process, and then fail, wasting years of the lives of destitute people looking for a better and stable future. There was the political opportunity many years ago to trim down the process to a maximum of two years, yet this never made it through the left wing cabinet of the time, and so, examples like yours will keep happening. Also, the caseworker and lawyer industry surrounding asylum seekers is still firmly in place.
Yes, that’s what we have a immigration department for, to evaluate applicants and grant asylum to the ones that qualify according to the rules set by the politicians. The ones that don’t qualify are supposed to be sent where they came from, or the nearest safe airport, with some cash in hand courtesy of the netherlands. What a bunch of racists eh.
No shit. You know who also fight tooth and nail to stay? Every single other asylum seeker. Turns out, not one of them says, meh, ok, later then! Baffling isn’t it?
The ivory tower is a great place to be right? Tell this story to the single native dutch employee working in the supermarket/field/factory/greenhouse among newcomers. It happens every fucking day. What an elitist shitbag thing to say. Do you even interact with your less fortunate countrymen?
While you live on in blissfull denial that doesn’t cost you anything, and make some more baseless assumptions about me, i’ll just mention that in most of these instances this concerns women.
You might not know this, but people don’t get to choose where they are born.
I checked just now, and i can confirm, i am not actively exploiting anyone, nor looking to benefit from exploiting anyone. You sound like you want to talk to one of our political representatives.
Yea, i remember that, Balkenende went there himself, shot everything to pieces, and added some new territories to our motherland. Good times.
Gotta go, maybe more later.
Ah, so not planning on answering the question, then?
Dutchdelight
Bullshit. Bullshit and bullshit.
The case I was talking about was of approved assylum seekers who had built up a life here and were then deported because their countries of origin had been declared “safe”.
They’re, of course, infallible. Therefore asylum seekers don’t need any ways to object and demand re-evaluation. I think that’s a wonderful system and we should implement that for Dutch citizens as well: no appeals ever.
And here’s to “making assumptions about people”. What do you think I am and what do you think where I come from?
So, what besides of your loud claims do you have? Any studies, facts, etc? Or just your “driving through a big city”?
No shit, Sherlock. Yet you’re the one here who claims that people should have different rights depending on that. So you want all the rights, but no responsibility whatsoever. Spoiled brat.
Your ignorance is baffling. Listen, shit for brains, it’s not our fault that you don’t understand history, economics, sociology, politics or English.
+++
Oh, btw, here’s a nice little study about how all those immigrants take away our resources NOT.
Thumper, 79, when you say “the cumulative effects” of the Gulf War, are you only talking about people who were actually killed by Americans, or are you also throwing in all of the Iraqis who were killed by other Iraqis in the violence that followed? Because when one Iraqi straps a suicide bomb to his chest and blows up a marketplace full of other Iraqis because he disapproves of their particular stripe of Islam, I can’t for the life of me see how that’s the fault of the West. If you’re making a butterfly effect argument that every bad thing that happened following the first Gulf War was the fault of the West, then I simply disagree with your premise.
And here’s what my view really boils down to: Don’t sugar coat the bad things the West did, but don’t make them worse than they are either. That entire region of the world has been rocked by hatred and religious strife for centuries, and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t be rocked by hatred and religious strife if the West had never shown up. And shifting the discussion from the horrible things ISIS (and other extremist groups) does to the sins of the West simply robs ISIS of moral responsibility. Like the child who was abused, and then grows up to be an abuser, it is possible to both acknowledge what made him that way, while at the same time saying he needs to be stopped. The two views are not mutually exclusive.
Spends working days on Internet complaining about how his tax money is wasted on immigrants.
Nick, 92, not a diversion; the subject is how to prevent there being more refugees. And the thing I find most disheartening about all of this is that there should never need to be any refugees. The entire world has plenty of resources for everyone. Refugees are not usually the result of natural disasters; they are the result of horrible, reprehensible, despicable human behavior. And just saying, “We need to help the refugees,” while true, doesn’t attack the root cause of the problem. Eradicating ISIS would be a step in the right direction.
eeyore #57
Libya still has a government based in Cyrenaica and another one in Tripolitania. Even if all ISIS soldiers and supporters disappeared overnight, there would be a Civil War going on in Libya. Same thing in Yemen and Syria, I’m afraid. Maybe it would lead to an end of overt military combat in Iraq, though.
Update on the tragedy:
A survivor reports that there were up to 950 people on board the ship. With only 28 survivors,…. just take a moment to think about that number .
Another boat crashed today – three dead.
There is also two or three more boats that seem to have sent a distress signal.
(source)
@117 ….and that many of the passengers had been locked in the hold, ie. no chance to escape the ship as it sank.
@rietpluim
Just couldn’t resist making stuff up about someone who doesn’t agree with you eh? Good job fascist, carry on.
I guess dutchdelight never wears cotton shirts made in Bangladesh. All pure Dutch wool handknitted by native Dutch grannies. Their drink neither tea, nor coffee, nor do they consume chocolate or fish that has been fished off the shores of Africa. Their electronic devices have not been put together in Asia and do not contain rare earths mined in Africa. We have found the one moral person. Unfortunately, they are also a racist.
@dutchdelight
Or, back in reality, the illegal immigrant took an unregistered job, is kept out of the administration and paid in cash and then the company where he works goes on to put other companies out of business.
a) give legal status to an immigrant, so he will not have reason to avoid contacts with law enforcement,
b) enforce employment laws incl. minimum wage, enforce tax code.
Do you need some other problem to solve?
@Giliel
And i told you it’s a sad story, am i responsible for the performance of immigration services and the politicians running the show or something? You are pretty sick in your head if you think that i’d applaud such decisions. Might have something to do with your projection of racism on anyone who disagrees with you.
I was pleading for an inaccurate immigration system apparently. Good find, if we’re counting your personal fantasies.
I only have your words to go on, if you choose to repeat inaccurate and discriminating ivory tower arguments, you’ll get responses to suit.
No, just driving through a big city and judging people on their appearance, like a real racist, exactly like you assumed. I’m just making it up, don’t try looking it up. You don’t care about the actual people anyway. Besides, the last thing you’d want is a racist enlightening you on the fate of immigrants that the left forgot.
That will be a good read if the actual report is in there somewhere, thanks! The PVV here tried to get the government statistics buro to do some calculating on the topic of mass immigration these last few decades, but that hasn’t happened yet. It was a very racist thing to request apparently. I can’t wait to find out if it’s detailed and interesting or whether it’s just another attempt by the usual suspects to hide the true costs among FUD.
@tarhim
a) Anyone can apply and you’ll get your chance just like anybody else. Are you suggesting rewarding people who cheat the system? What about the people who did follow the rules then?
b) Thanks mr. genius, now have them actually go out and do that.
I’m glad you got to feel good about yourself today.
dutchdelight,
As tarhim noted, the situation is:
How can you even speak about everyone having the same chances and then the immigrants cheating the system in that kind of situation?
The business is cheating the government and at the same time using the opportunity to avoid other regulations and restrictions that are supposed to protect workers’ rights. I don’t want immigrants to be used and abused like that, but I don’t want the same to happen to the fifth-generation native either.
Are you deliberately missing the point now?
Can anybody parse what our current resident racist is saying? I cannot even make it out anymore. It looks like they’re by now arguing against their own words that you could see that there are “hundreds of thousands of not integrated immigrants by driving through big cities”.
I still don’t see any links to data, studies, statistics, etc.
@dutchdelight #119 – Please reread our debate to see who is making up stuff about who. I just lost interest arguing with you, because it’s no use obviously. So I decided to ridicule you. You may think it’s not a very good joke, but I don’t give a shit about your opinions anymore anyway. Please go on calling me a fascist for pointing out that I already mentioned the facts that you pretend to have revealed. And please go on how you are not a racist for wanting to violate refugees’ rights even further.
@dutchdelight
Are you interested in getting the problem solved or in dishing out abstract justice? Also, who is cheating the system and how people who did follow the rules suffer when you just legalize everyone?
I am, to the amount I am capable of. It’s not much but its orders of magnitude more constructive than bitching about damn immigrants that are stealing jobs instead of go and die in a war.
@Giliell
Thank you! Such a great honor, coming from you.
Unfortunately for you, i do actually check up on stuff i acquire for myself or for projects i work on. Did you know there are tech companies building their devices/equipment with conflict-free materials? I’m sure I don’t always end up doing it right though, i’m happy to take corrections. So anyway, i stand by my previous statement.
@rietpluim
I don’t care much for what the resident fascists are saying either, so we’ve got that.
beatrice
I think I got it now: You and I, we’re the real racists. Or better said fascists. Because we’re operating under the false assumption that the immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers are, you know, people. That’s giving them ideas, like they are, you know, people, and that people are entitled to certain things. And that’s just cruel.
@Beatrice
You are confusing things, not me. Just giving illegal immigrants legal status after the fact is a not an option, they don’t get to cheat the system further after having broken the rules already, they can follow the same route every other immigrant takes, file a request with the immigration authorities.
You people seem pretty desperate to not get basic things, all those projections must be hard to seperate from reality.
@Gilliel
It’s clear you get off on believing you are special, much more concerned with the well being of your fellow man and woman then the people you don’t agree with. That’s pretty bog standard dehumanizing behavior towards your perceived foes (also people), i’ll let you wallow in that.
@dutchdelight
NO U.
In what way switching immigration switch to “free for all” is cheating, exactly?
@dutchdelight
Are you interested in getting the problem solved or in dishing out abstract justice? Also, who is cheating the system and how people who did follow the rules suffer when you just legalize everyone?
Oh wait, you’ll lose an excuse to kick them out.
I am, to the amount I am capable of. It’s not much but its orders of magnitude more constructive than bitching about damn immigrants that are stealing jobs instead of go and die in a war.
dutchdelight,
The problem with jobs that we were talking about is much broader than just immigrants working off records. I tried to engage more than one side of it, instead of just harping about immigrants being bad wrong not good people.
When the system is rotten and determined to screw over helpless individuals, I fully support those individuals in giving the system the finger. I’d buy them a beer afterwards.
I think this is the right moment for something a little more light hearted (but not a lot, I cried during the movie):
On The Bride’s Side
and an article about it:
These Guys Faked a Wedding to Smuggle Refugees and Filmed It
(it’s really a great documentary, if you ever get a chance to see it. One of the refugees was one of a small number of survivors from another shipwreck near Lampedusa. The rest don’t have much happier stories)
Let’S add “dehumanising” to the long list of words dutchdelight doesn’t understand.
Waiting for “Gutmensch” to pass by…
We could learn a thing or two from Israel or how to make migrants’s suffering somebody else’s problem:
sorry, forgot source:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4649166,00.html
On the related note, is there any EU country which treats refugees decently?
@tarhim
No, flipping “the immigration switch” to free for all is not cheating, that’s just insane… I’ll wait that one out thanks. I’d love to see some rich nation state with extensive financial buffers try that and then maybe lead the world by example though.
@dutchdelight
<blockquote?I’d love to see some rich nation state with extensive financial buffers try that and then maybe lead the world by example though.
Oh teh poor bankrupt netherlandball, such unresourceful.
But hey, let’s replace flipping the switch with one-time amnesty for the purpose of this exercise. How is this cheating?
Let’s say that The Netherlands is hit by a spacerock that changes the whole country into north sea exactly up to the borders of Germany and Belgium. Who exactly should do this first, and why… enlighten us.
You suggested legalizing illegal immigrants, i told you they can queue up like the rest and submit to the policies set by the politicians like everyone else trying to immigrate. I hope you enjoy your fixation with the word cheating as long as it lasts though.
Also, as labour and their leftwing buddies get into power once in a while, they try their hardest to institute general pardons. Last one was in 2007 i remember correctly.
@rietpluim
You just don’t strike me as one. You’ve earned your fascist badge fair and square toppertje.
Is there any indication that dutchdelight has anything that remotely resembles a working definition of what “fascist” means? It seems to me that they heard the word once, found out that it was a grave insult ans then kept using it….
@dutchdelight
Why, everyone, of course.
Hey, you are the one who started using that word. I just rolled with it.
Oh dear. The rhetoric of ‘European shame’ for the inability to patrol and rescue over the whole of what are actually rather challenging waters, and quickly develop continent wide infrastructures to deal with something the EU was never set up to deal with has led to an inevitable conclusion. Direct military action by European troops against the
peopleevil bastards who are actually guilty of putting other people into leaky excuses for boats (and charging them money for it). In other words, invasion and policing by Europeans on non-European soil.Did we ever discuss this properly? I think Europeans may be far too quick to accept this solution. Having already accepted the proposition that they carry the primary responsibility for safety on the Mediterranean, it will seem quite natural that they must be able to exert control over the access to it. I’m not convinced that this rhetoric, which seems so virtuous, is actually benign.
tarhim @141 – On the related note, is there any EU country which treats refugees decently?
As far as social support is concerned I believe that in the UK refugees have similar rights to help and support as other UK citizens. This is not true of asylum seekers (waiting for a decision on their application) who have extremely minimal support rights.
On the other hand, it would be a mistake to suppose that UK citizens in difficulty or distress are ‘treated decently’ as matters currently stand. So I guess the answer is no, nobody in this European country is treated decently if they find themselves in difficulty or distress. It isn’t a safe place for anyone who is vulnerable, even if it isn’t as drastically dangerous as the places most refugees are coming from.
Anne Fenwick, the UK treats its refugees appallingly, there’s at least one person around here who blogs about it (but in my med-fogged brain, I can’t remember who, I’m sorry, hopefully someone else here knows whom I’m speaking of). The centres where refugees and asylum seekers are detained are havens for all the usual authoritarian abuses: assaults, rapes, appalling food, inhumane treatment all-round. If I’ve heard of this way over here as an “expat” in Canada (I call myself immigrant, but I’m one of the “good” kind), it’s hard to imagine how you don’t know about it over ‘ome.
I’ve mentioned before, I worked for a company recently that had 15 employees including myself. I was the only native speaker of English; my colleagues came from Vietnam, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, a few from Tunisia, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Uruguay, and the UK (that’s me). Everyone spoke three languages at minimum, most four or more. We had Muslims, Christians, atheist me, a couple of other quiet nonbelievers. That’s modern Canada.
We (aim to) educate incoming kids in their own language where possible, as well as in English, encouraging them to maintain their cultural and linguistic ties while incorporating Canadian values.
Our advantages? Much space, of course – though most of our immigrants remain urban. A country with a good economy and services (overall, and relatively speaking), and with a reasonably welcoming approach to new Canadians.
And no, in no manner am I claiming that Canada is miles out ahead of the pack on this one either. As mentioned, the St. Louis is a national stain that shouldn’t be erased. But we do take in a quarter of a million immigrants a year (not quite 1% of the population, give or take), and our largest city is now more than 50% born overseas. And we get along pretty damn well.
Now, if we could only get around to treating the only truly non-immigrants* in the country as human beings, we’d be on to something, but that’s another topic.
* The ones who were here before Canada was a concept, let alone a nation.
Giliell
Welcome to Australia. It’s been like that for 14 years and counting here.
If you can stand it, you can watch part of the “Go Back To Where You Came From” series run by SBS. It was gripping – and heart-wrenching – to watch when it was first aired. Of course, you can’t participate in the social media part of it now. But it’s worth watching just the introduction of the participants at the outset and trying to work out who will and who won’t modify their views in any way – and which way they’ll go.
http://www.sbs.com.au/goback/video/2/series-1-episode-1
Anne Fenwick
It actually looks like the Italian “Mare Nostrum” worked quite well. They patrolled close to the African coast so they could rescue people before they were on sea for days in bad conditions. The current “mission” is close to the European side and therefore ineffective.
The whole “Mare Nostrum” cost 150 millions a year and the EU claimed “they couldn’t afford to support Italy”. They’re holding a summit now on some thing or other and it costs 300 million but hey, that’s money well spent.
The “let’s solve this problem in Africa” seems to be the currently favourite idea among the conservatives who don’t actually care for the people but about the image of the EU. They’re discussing “centres in Africa” (we all know that Africa is a country and that therefore there isn’t an issue with there being multiple countries with different governments and different levels of stability involved) where people could claim asylum so they could check “already there”. Yeah, because that’ll stop desperate folks from trying to cross the sea.
Basically, it’s a call for eradicating national sovereignity and neo imperialism in North Africa (and you can call me a cynic, but there’s more things there Europe would like to have. For example all that space with lots of sunshine…)
As for your question, I think Sweden is still the best of the bunch.
Oh, look.
Calls for the destruction of ships. Of course they don’t say how they know it will be used to ferry people over the Mediterranean, so I guess they’ll just preemptively destroy fishingboats and small ferries, taking away even MORE people’s source of income. Everything to keep the migrants from our doors.
@ eeyore #113
I didn’t say “the cumulative effects”, I said “the cumulative number of dead”, i.e. the total number of dead killed as a direct result of those wars and campaigns.
I agree, but it should be noted that you originally did not say “the West”, you said “non-Muslims”, which is why I included Muslims killed as a result of Israeli foreign policy.
Good thing I’m not, then.
Of course they’re not, and I never said that they were. I merely said that a) we cannot merely instigate more military action, since that at least contributed to their birth in the first place so how on Earth could it help now? and b) I don’t see what this has to do with African migrants attempting to cross from Libya to Italy in order to enter the EU or c) how it has anything to do with my government purposefully allowing those people to drown.
@ Numerobis #85
I do apologise; I completely missed this. My bad.
Thank you for that, I now see why eeyore thinks ISIS are relevant (I disagree; any group can claim affiliation to any other) but I still don’t see the relevance. The migrants attempting to cross are not, generally speaking, from Libya; Libya merely acts as a gateway to the EU by virtue of being the easiest country for citizens of wartorn nations to get to that is relatively close to an EU country that is relatively easy to enter. It’s stability, or lack thereof, is not really the issue here.
Exactly. A lack of central government creates a power vacuum which can be filled by militant groups, and a population that is generally pretty pissed off with “the West”, since they only see “the West” as some abstract amalgamation of the US and the UK which is constantly dropping bombs on them, their friends, and their loved ones, allows for easy scapegoating and, as the media like to phrase it, “radicalization”… though I’m not sure exactly how “radical” it is to dislike someone who is constantly bombing you.
It’s infuriating that more people don’t see the parallels.
A refugee’s testimony
Note the quote: “How is it that my life here (Berlin) is worse than under Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship?”
#KatieMustGo – Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Giliell,
I’m curious about how they could accomplish something like this… it looks like an act of war.
I mean “hey folks, don’t mind us, we’ll just stroll into your port and destroy a couple of ships”.
What country would like to adopt Katie Hopkins?
Katie Hopkins is a Christ figure — the one who tells the truth. I am so pleased that she sticks in the throat of you politically correct tyrannical bigots, who are the main opponents of human welfare. Should illegals drown in the Mediterranean? Of course they should, but only she has the guts to say it.
Cannot tell if Thomas Hood is serious or mockery. Which says something.
So much lack of self-aware… Brain can not deal… abort, abort!
anteprepro, #160
His Facebook page says one of his favorite authors is Poe. Not sure how to interpret that.
Does that sound like something Christ would say? Or more like something a tyrannical bigot would say? Or perhaps I’m engaging in a false dichotomy?
Christ was a tyranical bigot, so, maybe…
They went by the ‘nym of Walton.
Moral Imbecile @159: Katie Hopkins is a Christ figure
Would that be the Christ who said:
Because that sounds like he’s talking to the Katie Hopkins (and, while we’re on the subject, Theodore Beales) of the world.
(Note: I have no idea whether there ever was a person called Jesus who ever said anything like the above. Just taking the texts at face value….)