European Migrant Crisis

[US 41]

Any thoughts on this?

My personal thought is that Hungary is 100% in the right. They are an independent country that has the right to protect their borders. Hungary arrested 29 migrants the other day and confirmed that one of them was a wanted terrorist. At least Hungarians will be able to sleep at night. Their government is doing what's best for their people. I would hate to live in Croatia or Serbia right now. I wouldn't feel so safe if I was in one of those countries.

Addition to the previous: Croatia is now sending trains of refugees to the Hungarian border and encouraging them to enter Hungary. If I was Hungary I would be p*ssed. Croatia created their own mess. Now they are going to have to live with it. Croatia is now the perfect example of why you don't let thousands of so called refugees into your country. The scarier fact is Croatia has no idea who some of these people really are (terrorists acting as a refugee).

[ET21]

Whole cities are being abandoned, could almost have a post-apocalyptic/I Am Legend look in 10 years if no one returns to sections of the Mid East and Syria

[AlexandriaVA]

Any thoughts on this?

My personal thought is that Hungary is 100% in the right. They are an independent country that has the right to protect their borders. Hungary arrested 29 migrants the other day and confirmed that one of them was a wanted terrorist. At least Hungarians will be able to sleep at night. Their government is doing what's best for their people. I would hate to live in Croatia or Serbia right now. I wouldn't feel so safe if I was in one of those countries.

Addition to the previous: Croatia is now sending trains of refugees to the Hungarian border and encouraging them to enter Hungary. If I was Hungary I would be p*ssed. Croatia created their own mess. Now they are going to have to live with it. Croatia is now the perfect example of why you don't let thousands of so called refugees into your country. The scarier fact is Croatia has no idea who some of these people really are (terrorists acting as a refugee).

Not quite. They gave up some of those rights when they became party to the Schengen Treaty. Issues with frontiers of the Schengen Zone are supposed to take place at the European (i.e. Strasbourg or Brussels) level rather than national level.

It would be akin to Texas taking its own border initiatives, despite the fact that immigration and border policies are solely a federal (Washington DC) prerogative.

Europe indeed has an agency to deal with these issues: http://frontex.europa.eu/

Serbia has already had plenty of issues dating back to the 1990s. I doubt many migrants intend to make Serbia their long-term home. In fact, Serbia will go down in history as one of the most infamous hosts of state-sponsored genocide ("ethnic cleansing") during their problems in the 90s. Southern European countries have no issue killing or banishing non-natives to the margins of their societies.

[english si]

Not quite. They gave up some of those rights when they became party to the Schengen Treaty.

Indeed, but none of the borders that Hungary are blocking are Schengen ones, but external Schengen ones, which the rules say should be borders. The borders that Denmark, Austria and Germany (in that order) are. Austria and Germany especially funny as they attacked Hungary (and in Germany's case Austria) for bringing in some sort of policing of the border just days before they do it.

The Romanian and Croatian borders are EU, and there's meant to be free-movement of EU nationals (and Swiss, Norwegian, Icelandic and those the various microstates), but like the UK-French border, it's still a border and an ID check is perfectly acceptable.

There's some key things to bare in mind:

1) The Dublin treaty, which is still the international law regarding Schengen and EU and such things is that all refugees and economic migrants entering the region get processed in the first country they enter and then can move within the region (EU-plus for refugees, Schengen for economic migrants) once the paperwork comes through. Hungary was seeking to follow the law and got treated as a bad guy for doing so!

2) The country of entry is often Greece or Italy, both bankrupted by Brussels bailouts of bankers (via the country's Governments) and the Euro being awful for periphery economies the moment stuff goes wrong, but the EU/Schengen provides no money as they see the border as a Greek/Italian issue. Italy used to have boats rescuing migrants in the Med, but the other countries (or rather the EU) cut the supporting funding and now they have boat (they might have recently regained a second).

3) Other than the UK, which gave lots of money to Lebanon and Turkey to support them handling refugees, and Italy (which is always very generous in granting refugee status) the major European players have ignored the plight of people until they arrive in their jurisdiction (or international waters in the case of the Med). I'm not saying "we shouldn't have gone to war in Libya, and should have in Syria" (because that's quite funnily silly that we intervened in one place, and that was wrong, and didn't in another but is also wrong for the same reasons, despite the conflicts being broadly similar), but "where's the Franco-German aid spending?"

4) Germany's population, despite having the most internal European migration, and a fair few Turkish immigrants, is declining rapidly due to very low birth rate. It can take in 250k refugees/year because if it doesn't (and it needs twice that number to counteract the population decline - assuming they will all stay within the borders, which they won't), it's economically dead within 25 years.

5) The EU's proposal of quotas to balance the load is nonsense - either you have quotas, or you have free movement of people / open borders (not quite the same thing). You can't have both.

6) The EU/Italian policy of any boat found in the Med outside African/Asian territorial waters encourages boats. An Australian policy of actively turning around those seeking to enter Europe illegally (while obviously dealing with healthcare needs*) will mean that you won't get photos of dead toddlers on beaches, nor people smugglers being who decides who gets in. Because the people smugglers will be out of business if the people they are smuggling have very little chance of getting where they want to go, and the migrants will stop risking their lives to jump the queue.

Europe indeed has an agency to deal with these issues: http://frontex.europa.eu/

Ah, the agency that stopped the aid boats in the Mediterrainean while still encouraging the people smugglers that their livelyhood is worth it and killed thousands of people fleeing Libya this year.

Also, the agency that is screaming blue murder at countries for enforcing the regulations it creates is hardly something worth treating seriously!

I doubt many migrants intend to make Serbia their long-term home.

Many of them arriving at the Hungarian/Serbian border have come from the former Serbian empire (Macedonia, Kosovo). Those from Asia (and, actually, Macedonia/Kosovo) could have gone to Schengen/EU Greece - while it's a basket case, getting registered there opens up the rest of Europe to the migrants. And almost everyone, nearly including myself, forgets Bulgaria, with it's land border with Macedonia and Turkey and it's EU membership...

*and taking refugees from recognised refugee camps in the affected areas, providing an alternative route that is legal, safe and easy.

[SP Cook]

These people are economic migrants acting under the cover of a claimed refugee status to gain entry into the western world.  Most were quite safe living in Turkey, and Saudi Arabia and other muslim countries have offered to take in as many as wish to go there.  None really do, because moving from one culture to another is an implicit admission by the migrant that the culture of the place he or she is moving to is superior to his or her own.  Which is, obviously, correct.

The problem for the West is that many, if not most, of these people, unlike previous generations of immigrants, do not wish to explicitly admit what they implicitly do.  They wish to remain committed to their non-Western ways.  They want the fruits of the West, but do not understand, or admit, that these fruits are the product of Western society.   The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture. 

Send every one of these people home.  Give the males 18-55 a rifle to take with them, so they take up any grievance with their own country's government themselves directly.

[US71]

These people are economic migrants acting under the cover of a claimed refugee status to gain entry into the western world.  Most were quite safe living in Turkey, and Saudi Arabia and other muslim countries have offered to take in as many as wish to go there.  None really do, because moving from one culture to another is an implicit admission by the migrant that the culture of the place he or she is moving to is superior to his or her own.  Which is, obviously, correct.

The problem for the West is that many, if not most, of these people, unlike previous generations of immigrants, do not wish to explicitly admit what they implicitly do.  They wish to remain committed to their non-Western ways.  They want the fruits of the West, but do not understand, or admit, that these fruits are the product of Western society.   The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture. 

Send every one of these people home.  Give the males 18-55 a rifle to take with them, so they take up any grievance with their own country's government themselves directly.

Give me your tired,  your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Offer void where prohibited

MB886

[english si]

Saudi Arabia ... have offered to take in as many as wish to go there.

Nope. They've taken zero refugees. Outside of one week a year they have air conditioned tents outside Mecca that can house 2 million. But the funders of ISIS don't want any of those fleeing them, naturally!

And Turkey, lets be honest, is not safe at all for Kurds (Kurdistan, on the other hand is, but is in an active state of war with Turkey) or that friendly to those who aren't Muslims.

[SP Cook]

And Turkey, lets be honest, is not safe at all for Kurds (Kurdistan, on the other hand is, but is in an active state of war with Turkey) or that friendly to those who aren't Muslims.

Yeah.  Which is why having a lot of people whose culture tells them to not be "that friendly" to people who practice other religions, or no religion at all, in Europe is a bad idea.

Modern Western values are alien to these people.

[english si]

Yeah.  Which is why having a lot of people whose culture tells them to not be "that friendly" to people who practice other religions, or no religion at all, in Europe is a bad idea.

Yes, let's deport most of Europe out of Europe!

Got to love the mental gymnastics of you basically employing the same philosophy as Turkey to the refugees there - the "we don't really want them as they are different to us". And imputing the crimes of Turkey against the refugees to the refugees was a nice touch of clueless bigotry.

Modern Western values are alien to these people.

Indeed, they (the refugees) actually understand tolerance of others, living with (rather than parallel but segregated from) other cultures, etc, etc.

Xenophobia and bigotry seem to be modern Western values - from you and others demonising those who don't live in the West, from the EU (which is basically "we Europeans have to club together against those nasty Russians, Chinese and Americans - its fundamental principle is to get closer to each other to exclude everyone else), from the cultural Left constantly demonising those who don't conform, etc, etc

[US 41]

Yeah.  Which is why having a lot of people whose culture tells them to not be "that friendly" to people who practice other religions, or no religion at all, in Europe is a bad idea.

Yes, let's deport most of Europe out of Europe!

Got to love the mental gymnastics of you basically employing the same philosophy as Turkey to the refugees there - the "we don't really want them as they are different to us". And imputing the crimes of Turkey against the refugees to the refugees was a nice touch of clueless bigotry.

Modern Western values are alien to these people.

Indeed, they (the refugees) actually understand tolerance of others, living with (rather than parallel but segregated from) other cultures, etc, etc.

Xenophobia and bigotry seem to be modern Western values - from you and others demonising those who don't live in the West, from the EU (which is basically "we Europeans have to club together against those nasty Russians, Chinese and Americans - its fundamental principle is to get closer to each other to exclude everyone else), from the cultural Left constantly demonising those who don't conform, etc, etc

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from. Christian nations shouldn't have to put up with people that don't like / want to kill them. Plus we don't even know who these people really are. Some are terrorists looking for easy passage to Europe.

[AlexandriaVA]

I was reading your responses and then I noticed you're from western Indiana. Are there many Muslims in your community?

I ask because out here on the east coast (DC area), we manage to integrate large amounts of Muslim migrants without much of any issue whatsoever. And I can attest that no Muslim migrant has yet to try to kill me or impede on my Western Judeo-Christian lifestyle.

The only crime that our recently-immigrated Muslim colleagues are guilty of are harming my waistline with their fried falafel sandwiches and hearty kabob dinners.

[Zeffy]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from. Christian nations shouldn't have to put up with people that don't like / want to kill them.

That's an extremely broad statement. Plus, last I heard, a large amount of European nations are becoming a lot less religious these days...

[english si]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from.

Indeed, so surely Christian nations ought to take the refugees fleeing that persecution?

Christian nations shouldn't have to put up with people that don't like them.

Muslim nations shouldn't have to put with people that don't like them too?

Plus we don't even know who these people really are. Some are terrorists looking for easy passage to Europe.

Sure. Hungary is right to close its borders and process the migrants. However that doesn't mean that Europe shouldn't take genuine refugees (and not just Christian ones).

Both you and SP Cook go "these countries taking in refugees aren't friendly to Christians, therefore we shouldn't let the persecuted Christians seek sanctuary in the West, because they aren't friendly to Christians". It's totally insane logic.

Plus, last I heard, a large amount of European nations are becoming a lot less religious these days...

France is only slightly more friendly to Christians than Turkey, and less friendly to Muslims. And I'm not just talking about the fascists being the second largest party - the mainstream politicians cannot understand religious people, and the recent terror attacks happened as the authorities made no attempt to understand that people do not sign up to their secularist fundamentalism.

[Brandon]

^^ IIRC, France has been very secular for quite some time, since the Revolution.  Much more so than most European counties, including the UK.

[mgk920]

These people are economic migrants acting under the cover of a claimed refugee status to gain entry into the western world.  Most were quite safe living in Turkey, and Saudi Arabia and other muslim countries have offered to take in as many as wish to go there.  None really do, because moving from one culture to another is an implicit admission by the migrant that the culture of the place he or she is moving to is superior to his or her own.  Which is, obviously, correct.

The problem for the West is that many, if not most, of these people, unlike previous generations of immigrants, do not wish to explicitly admit what they implicitly do.  They wish to remain committed to their non-Western ways.  They want the fruits of the West, but do not understand, or admit, that these fruits are the product of Western society.   The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture. 

Send every one of these people home.  Give the males 18-55 a rifle to take with them, so they take up any grievance with their own country's government themselves directly.

Give me your tired,  your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Offer void where prohibited

MB886

I highlighted the operative part - if they are not "yearning to breathe free", then I want nothing to do with them.

I have a deep and what I believe is a very reasonable fear that this is one of the greatest Trojan Horse ruses in the history of invasive warfare.  I don't see it ending well.



Mike

[AlexandriaVA]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from.

Curious statement, since the Syrian government (where many of the migrants are coming from) protects its Christians:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/syria-christians-assad.html

"Christian service has flourished remarkably in Syria. We regard Syria as a model Arab country when it comes to freedom of worship."

[AlexandriaVA]

I have a deep and what I believe is a very reasonable fear that this is one of the greatest Trojan Horse ruses in the history of invasive warfare.  I don't see it ending well.

Better start building your bunker!

[mgk920]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from.

Curious statement, since the Syrian government (where many of the migrants are coming from) protects its Christians:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/syria-christians-assad.html

"Christian service has flourished remarkably in Syria. We regard Syria as a model Arab country when it comes to freedom of worship."

The problem is that since that article was written (2011), major areas in the country's north have fallen to people who have other ideas.



Mike

[Pete from Boston]

The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture.

Whatever, Disraeli.  Western hubris like this wrecked half the globe already.  The "failed cultures" here should better be called "failed empires," where the West still absolves itself of the arbitrary lines drawn to serve its needs rather than local populations', per its usual M.O.

We continue to reap what we have sown, and with our massive collective blindness to history we keep a-planting, figuring next time our overseas democracy-  business-building ventures won't come back to punish us.

[mgk920]

The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture.

Whatever, Disraeli.  Western hubris like this wrecked half the globe already.  The "failed cultures" here should better be called "failed empires," where the West still absolves itself of the arbitrary lines drawn to serve its needs rather than local populations', per its usual M.O.

We continue to reap what we have sown, and with our massive collective blindness to history we keep a-planting, figuring next time our overseas democracy-  business-building ventures won't come back to punish us.

Allllll right.

So what would YOU do about it?



Mike

[AlexandriaVA]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from.

Curious statement, since the Syrian government (where many of the migrants are coming from) protects its Christians:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/syria-christians-assad.html

"Christian service has flourished remarkably in Syria. We regard Syria as a model Arab country when it comes to freedom of worship."

The problem is that since that article was written (2011), major areas in the country's north have fallen to people who have other ideas.



Mike

And soon enough Assad's government will re-consolidate power. The recent Russian-American talks (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/world/europe/us-to-begin-military-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html?_r=0) concerning Syria portend that very outcome.

Obviously if you look hard enough in the Muslim world, you will find bands of guerrillas who are militantly anti-Christian. But there are few, if any, recognized governments which have policies of killing Christians.

[mgk920]

Christians are persecuted (imprisoned and/or put to death) for their faith where these migrants are coming from.

Curious statement, since the Syrian government (where many of the migrants are coming from) protects its Christians:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/syria-christians-assad.html

"Christian service has flourished remarkably in Syria. We regard Syria as a model Arab country when it comes to freedom of worship."

The problem is that since that article was written (2011), major areas in the country's north have fallen to people who have other ideas.



Mike

And soon enough Assad's government will re-consolidate power. The recent Russian-American talks (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/world/europe/us-to-begin-military-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html?_r=0) concerning Syria portend that very outcome.

Obviously if you look hard enough in the Muslim world, you will find bands of guerrillas who are militantly anti-Christian. But there are few, if any, recognized governments which have policies of killing Christians.

I pray for success in that endeavor.

I also recall reading that Pope Francis stated a few days ago that he carries a small cross with him that was previously carried by a Priest who was gruesomely martyred by the ISIS guys.

Mike

[Pete from Boston]

The West needs not import the victims of failed cultures, rather it needs to export its culture.

Whatever, Disraeli.  Western hubris like this wrecked half the globe already.  The "failed cultures" here should better be called "failed empires," where the West still absolves itself of the arbitrary lines drawn to serve its needs rather than local populations', per its usual M.O.

We continue to reap what we have sown, and with our massive collective blindness to history we keep a-planting, figuring next time our overseas democracy-  business-building ventures won't come back to punish us.

Allllll right.

So what would YOU do about it?



Mike

A good start would be to stop with the fictions about this being "those people" and "their cultures" that are the problem here.  And take a good hard look at the long-term net benefit of over a century of cheap-gas-fueled foreign policy.

This isn't going to happen, of course, because "Western culture" has a paramount profit imperative, and as we all know, maximum profit requires a source to exploit, and a "failed culture" is an easier scenario in which to do this than a strong one.

[corco]

I don't want to get too much into this, but I'll say that here in Montana, we have no minorities. I was up in Alberta (which is probably the very closest you can get in a region anywhere in the world to being in America without actually being in America) a couple weeks ago and there were people with brown skin that were clearly practicing Muslims selling me things. Perhaps incredibly, I was able to complete these business transactions without a hitch and continue on with my life in exactly the same way I would have if they were white Christians. I may have had to pay a tiny bit more attention to what they were saying because they had accents, but that's about it.

Somehow Canada is able to welcome refugees at a high rate relative to their national population, and their very societal fabric doesn't collapse. I'm confident that in America, the greatest and wealthiest country ever to exist on Earth, we can figure out how to do the same. As citizens of the greatest and wealthiest country ever to exist on Earth, we spend an awful lot of time being paranoid about the world around us. We should be coming from a position of confidence, not one of fear- we are the greatest and wealthiest country ever to exist on Earth. A couple million refugees that make up a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket of the world's population, shouldn't be enough to rattle us.

Leave the fear to countries that don't have our resources. We're America. Let's be confident in ourselves, our country, and our resilience to maintain our identity while growing with an evolving world. 

America has never been a country that hides from change. We grab it by the horns and work it out (it may take a while, we may make a few wrong turns) and arrive at a new stasis that preserves the key parts of our identity while acknowledging the realities of the world. That's why we're stable and that's what makes this country great. We can go as far as going to war with each other, but at the end of the day we work it out and we grow and evolve. That's what America always has been about, and that's why I'm proud to live here. I don't want to live with a bunch of sissies that bury their heads in the sand at the prospect of inevitable change. 

[Pete from Boston]

Leave the fear to countries that don't have our resources. We're America. Let's be confident in the ourselves, our country, and our resilience to maintain our identity while growing with an evolving world. 

America has never been a country that hides from change. We grab it by the horns and work it out (it may take a while, we may make a few wrong turns) and arrive at a new stasis that preserves the key parts of our identity while acknowledging the realities of the world. That's why we're stable and that's what makes this country great. We can go as far as going to war with each other, but at the end of the day we work it out and we grow and evolve. That's what America always has been about, and that's why I'm proud to live here. I don't want to live with a bunch of sissies that bury their heads in the sand at the prospect of change.

So very well put.