Do Liberals believe in Multiculturalism or Integration? - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Modern liberalism. Civil rights and liberties, State responsibility to the people (welfare).
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#14777621
Pants-of-dog wrote:You did not reply to my previous post:

Pants-of-dog wrote:"So when you say that modern immigration is mass migration, you are arguing that immigration over the last decade has made UK society and culture unsustainable
I do not see that."


I accept that this is the way it seems to you.
Last edited by jakell on 19 Feb 2017 11:42, edited 1 time in total.
#14777627
Pants-of-dog wrote:It seems to me that when people use the phrase "mass immigration" it is merely a placeholder for some sort of bad immigration that is responsible for wrongness and badness, instead of an actual thing that can be analysed rationally.


The problem is that is that this subject is extremely radicalised in both sides of the spectrum.

If I were to define "mass immigration" then I would say that it exists when migrants are greater than what a country can process. Immigration into Greece passed this threshold several times the past decade, having more arrivals than the amount that authorities can register, resulting in a breakdown both for the country and the immigrants themselves. When this happens it becomes a crisis that cannot really be fathomed unless witnessed & experienced. It has severe consequences on the treatment of migrants as authorities start operating under punitive assumptions making life for immigrants extremely painful both legal and illegal. Every country has a threshold on the amount of migrants that she can process and later successfully absorb, if this threshold gets broken and crisis develops things start getting ugly.

For the sake of both the country and the migrants themselves, these thresholds should not be surpassed and the inflows should always remain at levels that a country can handle. In Europe & the ME where the distances between Turkey and Europe are literally metres away, the management of the inflows can only take place with the support of all the countries in the Mediterranean beach.
#14777628
Pants-of-dog wrote:Can you explain how immigration has created an unsustainable dynamic in the UK?


I think you mean 'mass immigration' there, not immigration

Possibly, with our leaving of the EU, and we gain control of our borders, we may claw our way back to sustainable levels again. (Un)sustainability is about extrapolation though, so nothing had been created.

I think you know the answer to this, almost everyone with a brain knows about 'too much of a good thing'. I gather that you are Marxist though and therefore are ok with an 'unsustainable dynamic' until your aims are achieved.
In other words.. stop bullshitting me.
Last edited by jakell on 18 Feb 2017 17:23, edited 1 time in total.
#14777629
jakell wrote:I think you mean 'mass immigration' there, not immigration

Possibly, with our leaving of the EU, and we gain control of our borders, we may claw our way back to sustainable levels again. (Un)suitability is about extrapolation though, so nothing had been created.

I think you know the answer to this, almost everyone with a brain knows about 'too much of a good thing'. I gather that you are Marxist though and therefore are ok with an 'unsustainable dynamic' until your aims are achieved.
In other words.. stop bullshitting me.


Please note that you have not described how immigration (mass or otherwise) has created an unsustainable dynamic.
#14777630
noemon wrote:If I were to define "mass immigration" then I would say that it exists when migrants are greater than what a country can process. Immigration into Greece passed this threshold several times the past decade, having more arrivals than the amount that authorities can register, resulting in a breakdown both for the country and the immigrants themselves. When this happens it becomes a crisis that cannot really be fathomed unless witnessed & experienced. It has severe consequences on the treatment of migrants as authorities start operating under punitive assumptions making life for immigrants extremely painful. Every country has a threshold on the amount of migrants that she can process and later successfully absorb, if this threshold gets broken and crisis develops things start getting ugly.


A nice expansion on what I meant by 'unsustainability'. A word I like to use because it speaks to a bigger picture than mere politics eg ecology and economics.

Of course, anyone can claim that they 'don't see it'.
#14777632
jakell wrote:Possibly, with our leaving of the EU, and we gain control of our borders, we may claw our way back to sustainable levels again. (Un)suitability is about extrapolation though, so nothing had been created.


Et tu Brutus? This has been shown to be wrong on many levels.

Net migration in the UK is around 450,000 a year, 200,000 from the EU and 250,000 from the rest of the world. EU migrants, the bulk of them are temporary, either students, or transferred workers. The UK being outside of Schengen has never relinquished control of its borders and due to the privilege of the Channel, it has never had to deal with migration waves that it could not process. In the UK immigration order has never broken down, that is UK authorities have processed successfully and either denied or allowed entry for all those that they deemed valid. The UK has to accept EU people indeed but as you can see these people are less than non-EU coming in and even before the EU, the UK had visa-free agreements with the other European countries anyway, the EU did not create a new situation she merely institutionalised previous custom.
#14777634
This is why I said "possibly", and a very tenuous possibility too. It was more about showing how Pants' 'unsustainable dynamic' (not my term) was based upon extrapolation and therefore can't be pinned down to the extent he would wish when things are subject to change.

There's also a 'possibility' that, with our leaving of the EU, our attitude to borders in general will alter too, ie it could have a knock-on effect.
#14777638
The problems sourcing from immigration in the UK that I have personally identified are 2:

1) The Polish and Eastern European strain on social benefits, this is an issue that could indeed be blamed on the EU at least up until Cameron got concessions that would have allowed the UK to treat EU welfare recipients differently than UK recipients, proving that the EU does respond to sincere requests. Though it should be noted that this issue has been made larger than it actually is and that if you see the total contributions of EU workers in the UK instead of looking at the Eastern European ones specifically then one sees that EU workers contribute more in national insurance payments than the welfare they collectively receive. So even though some EU workers in the UK do indeed game the system, the aggregate EU body does not.

2) The Muslim enclaves in specific areas like Bradford for example which is the most obvious example but not the only one. This is an issue that is not relevant to the EU in any way. I don't know what kind of solutions can applied in such cases but for starters the UK could for example take over the administration of mosques and make the mullahs and imams public employees, appointed by the state, accountable to the state and paid by the state. The cost in my opinion is justified to streamline Muslim centres in the UK. The UK is free in terms of the EU to deal with this subject as it pleases.
#14777805
I think you know the answer to this, almost everyone with a brain knows about 'too much of a good thing'. I gather that you are Marxist though and therefore are ok with an 'unsustainable dynamic' until your aims are achieved.
In other words.. stop bullshitting me.


Marxists are against mass immigration not for it. Mass immigration is a capitalist plot to push down workers wages and weakening unions by importing loads of surplus labour. That is why you have mass immigration in capitalist nations like the US or Germany but you didn't get it in the Soviet Union for example.
#14777809
Pants-of-dog wrote:If enough immigrants from a certain culture congregate in one place and develop their own mini-economy, then multiculturalism will also increase.


True, but solidarity would also decrease. The left should have learned after Tony Blair that you can't get rid of racism through social engineering.
#14777811
Associating the left with Tony Blair. :lol: The most right wing leader of the Labour party in its history. A guy well to the right of some of the Tory leaders of three generations ago (Harold MacMillan for example).
#14777821
Decky wrote:Marxists are against mass immigration not for it. Mass immigration is a capitalist plot to push down workers wages and weakening unions by importing loads of surplus labour. That is why you have mass immigration in capitalist nations like the US or Germany but you didn't get it in the Soviet Union for example.


I usually tend to put aside ideas of 'plots' as there we are entering conspiracy theory territory. I do enjoy conspiracy theory as a way of exercising critical faculties (and they can be fun), but I prefer to consider simpler options first.
BTW, this is a nice counterbalance to ideas of Cultural Marxism, but to me it looks like a rather hasty attempt at mirroring.

At least you allow that mass immigration can be a 'thing' though. Putting aside ideas of plots we could consider why people choose to emigrate to where they do, and I would say that it will be simply those places where they will have a more comfortable personal lifestyle with better prospects for their descendants, which will usually be the more wealthy countries, ie the capitalist ones.
Last edited by jakell on 19 Feb 2017 12:40, edited 1 time in total.
#14777824
Believe what you want man but you are talking nonsense. There is no reason for a Marxist to be pro immigration. All it does is reduce working people's living standards. That is the exact thing we want to stop not the thing we want to create. You are the conspiracy theorist.
#14777826
Pants-of-dog wrote:If enough immigrants from a certain culture congregate in one place and develop their own mini-economy, then multiculturalism will also increase.

Donald wrote:True, but solidarity would also decrease. The left should have learned after Tony Blair that you can't get rid of racism through social engineering.


It would have been more accurate for Pants to say tribalism will increase. 'Multiculturalism' is a utopian exercise in wishful thinking that started to be employed in order to obscure the failure of integration.
I regard it as a useless non-word in the same way that 'racism' is now pretty useless too (mainly through overuse and misuse).
#14777918
Donald wrote:True, but solidarity would also decrease.


Not necessarily.

The left should have learned after Tony Blair that you can't get rid of racism through social engineering.


Yes, you can.

Donald wrote:Blah blah blah, I'm from North America, deal with it.


Yes, you are from one of the countries that has been most successful with multiculturalism.

jakell wrote:At least you allow that mass immigration can be a 'thing' though. Putting aside ideas of plots we could consider why people choose to emigrate to where they do, and I would say that it will be simply those places where they will have a more comfortable personal lifestyle with better prospects for their descendants, which will usually be the more wealthy countries, ie the capitalist ones.


Yes, and they got rich by exploiting thise countries from where migrants originate. This is, of course, still happening with the ongoing military interventions in oil rich countries.

jakell wrote:It would have been more accurate for Pants to say tribalism will increase. 'Multiculturalism' is a utopian exercise in wishful thinking that started to be employed in order to obscure the failure of integration.
I regard it as a useless non-word in the same way that 'racism' is now pretty useless too (mainly through overuse and misuse).


No, I used the correct word.

I have no idea why people think multiculturalism can never work, when it has.
#14777930
Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, you can.


This is very bold of you to say. Would you be able to expand on this a bit more?


Yes, you are from one of the countries that has been most successful with multiculturalism.


I don't really look at it that way. I see Canada as being uniquely adept at avoiding problems that surmount in Europe or America. The last thing we should do is develop an exceptionalistic attitude toward Canada's official multiculturalism. We should view it as an institution that can easily be strained and become vulnerable to outside instability.
#14777931
Donald wrote:This is very bold of you to say. Would you be able to expand on this a bit more?


Yes, but I doubt that I will.

I don't really look at it that way. I see Canada as being uniquely adept at avoiding problems that surmount in Europe or America. The last thing we should do is develop an exceptionalistic attitude toward Canada's official multiculturalism. We should view it as an institution that can easily be strained and become vulnerable to outside instability.


Why?
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