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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="merkurix"]
| beck's wrote: |
Western nations must strictly cut off all immigration from cultural groups who cannot or will not respect our fundemental values. Furthermore, immigrants who are already in the west and who show that they cannot or will not accept our values must be deported. We must do this to protect our values and way of life. Not to do so is to commit cultural suicide. |
If one applies this formula, then the only immigrants allowed into the U.S. would be first priority, whites from the English speaking Anglosphere, and second white Western Europeans. To everyone else, the country is closed.
[I think you mean Europeans whether they speak English or another European language would be more able to assimilate to the target culture, but I would argue the same would apply to many people from say Japan
or South Korea, so I wouldn't say just whites.
This opens up a whole can of worms. I mean BJWD is arguing that we should ban all Muslims from immigrating, because a certain fraction
would possibly commit terrorism. I understand that logic, but then you could then use that argument and say no to Mexicans and Jamaicans because they commit a higher percentage of crimes. It becomes a slippery slope. I am, as a I said, for more scrutiny of immigration of people from Pakistan, Jamaica, Mexico, and some regulation over immigration, because you want more desirables from certain countries and people from the Global South often do have problems of various forms and one must protect the target culture, but I don't believe in this wholesale ban.
Also, missing from the analysis is the fact that the United States, France, Israel, and Britain have contributed to the radicalization of the Middle East over the last 100 years. There was a time when a much smaller percentage of Egyptian women wore the head-scarf, now almost all do. Things weren't all the same. The OP posted this as part of this discussion in the line of thinking of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations.
It is not simply an innocent West clashing with an evil and vile civilization. This is not fact, this is one-sided. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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Adventurer wrote:
| Quote: |
| beck's wrote: |
Western nations must strictly cut off all immigration from cultural groups who cannot or will not respect our fundemental values. Furthermore, immigrants who are already in the west and who show that they cannot or will not accept our values must be deported. We must do this to protect our values and way of life. Not to do so is to commit cultural suicide. |
If one applies this formula, then the only immigrants allowed into the U.S. would be first priority, whites from the English speaking Anglosphere, and second white Western Europeans. To everyone else, the country is closed. |
I wouldn't lose sleep over that.
| Adventurer wrote: |
[I think you mean Europeans whether they speak English or another European language would be more able to assimilate to the target culture, but I would argue the same would apply to many people from say Japan
or South Korea, so I wouldn't say just whites.
This opens up a whole can of worms. I mean BJWD is arguing that we should ban all Muslims from immigrating, because a certain fraction
would possibly commit terrorism. |
Terrorism is not the real danger here. It is the unhealthy transformation that Muslims --- terrorists and "moderates" alike --- seek to inflict on Western societies.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I understand that logic, but then you could then use that argument and say no to Mexicans and Jamaicans because they commit a higher percentage of crimes. It becomes a slippery slope. |
Not a slippery slope. Taking step A does not necessarily lead to taking step B.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Also, missing from the analysis is the fact that the United States, France, Israel, and Britain have contributed to the radicalization of the Middle East over the last 100 years. |
No immigration policy can address this particular topic. A valid topic, Adventurer, but not relevant to immigration. Knowing why they're pissed might help with foreign policy, however.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| There was a time when a much smaller percentage of Egyptian women wore the head-scarf, now almost all do. Things weren't all the same. |
That time was primarily right after Western colonial rule had ended, leaving behind a thin veneer of Western, "cosmopolitan" mores.
| Adventurer wrote: |
The OP posted this as part of this discussion in the line of thinking of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations.
It is not simply an innocent West clashing with an evil and vile civilization. This is not fact, this is one-sided. |
That, too, is a topic for another day. Then again, discussing why they are angry, radicalized, and hell-bent on our destruction highlights again the reasons we should not allow them in. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:35 am Post subject: |
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| Leslie Cheswyck wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
If one applies this formula, then the only immigrants allowed into the U.S. would be first priority, whites from the English speaking Anglosphere, and second white Western Europeans. To everyone else, the country is closed. |
I wouldn't lose sleep over that. |
I wouldn't lose sleep either. But it would be an unnecessary and unfortunate step to take. If we'd prevented immigrants from Hitler's Germany, we would have never won WWII. It may be more difficult to sort out the good from the bad, but I believe it's to our advantage.
If you want to claim to be a liberal democracy, then you have to behave like one. Not like a closed off, provincial back water.
| Quote: |
| Terrorism is not the real danger here. It is the unhealthy transformation that Muslims --- terrorists and "moderates" alike --- seek to inflict on Western societies. |
And where's the evidence of such transformation? Some Muslim cab drivers not picking up seeing eye dogs or people with alcohol. A few foot baths being installed. What other accommodations are we being asked to make?
From the Pew Survey (see my other thread), we find that Muslims are less interested in having politically active houses of worship then Christians.
| Pew p. 8 wrote: |
| About half of Muslim Americans (49%) say mosques should keep out of political matters, while 43% believe that mosques should express their views on social and political questions. In a Pew survey in 2006, 54% of Christians said churches and other houses of worship should express their political and social views, while 43% disagreed. |
So it seems as though Christian immigrants pose a greater threat of "transformation" than Muslims do. But of course, we've already accommodated them and are used to it. So it's not a media event every time Christian influence is wielded.
I just don't see any reason to believe the threat you fear is in any way, shape, or form realistic. |
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beck's
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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Those, like huffdaddy, who don't see the threat of Islamism to be realistic should speak to the families of the victims of the Madrid, London and New York city attacks. They should visit ground zero.
They should learn more about the narrowly thwarted attacks on Toronto. They should find our how many millions of dollars Rushdie and his American publisher have spent on security since The Satanic Verses. They should ask Theo Van Gogh's family how they feel about the lack of a realistic threat.
They should wait a few years and ask the Muslim girls, who live in the west and who have had genital surgery, how they feel about their bodies being mutilated in the name of "culture" and with the tacit approval of liberals who espouse the belief that all cultures should be given voice in the west regardless of their barbarism. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
Those, like huffdaddy, who don't see the threat of Islamism to be realistic should speak to the families of the victims of the Madrid, London and New York city attacks. They should visit ground zero.
They should learn more about the narrowly thwarted attacks on Toronto. They should find our how many millions of dollars Rushdie and his American publisher have spent on security since The Satanic Verses. They should ask Theo Van Gogh's family how they feel about the lack of a realistic threat.
They should wait a few years and ask the Muslim girls, who live in the west and who have had genital surgery, how they feel about their bodies being mutilated in the name of "culture" and with the tacit approval of liberals who espouse the belief that all cultures should be given voice in the west regardless of their barbarism. |
Those who espouse the views of the terrorists are ignorant, but I must say what you wrote isn't balanced and doesn't contain enough of the picture. Let's deal with female mutilation which has already been dealt with. The majority of Muslim immigrants to North America are originally from the countries of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. They outnumber the rest and were once generally part of what was called Syria when Syria was larger in the early 1900s. The practice of genital mutilation is not associated with the Muslims of those countries. It is associated, in the main, with the Christians and Muslims of certain parts of Africa.
Islamism and Islam are two different matters. Al Qaeda type elements are a threat not only to Madrid, London, and Toronto, but also to Amman, Beirut, and Damascus, if they are of any concern. The real threat is extremism in the world coming from radical Christians in the U.S., Jews from Israel, and Islamic fanatics. It is not one simply.
That said, I do think there are dangerous elements among the Muslim populations abroad and in the Islamic states. There must be proper screening for them. There must be due to vigilance against fanatical elements. One must ensure that various immigrant groups whether Haitians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, or Muslims are absorbable and that there are programmes in place and in the case of the Muslim population enlisting some of its members to spy on the imams. It was a Muslim who helped the police in Toronto. And it was a British Muslim soldier who was almost killed by other Muslims in England and was saved.
So let us have some kind of balance. Aren't you being fanatical yourself and judgemental? You are saying that those who call themselves liberals believe that any cultural view should be expressed. That is simply not true. The Dutch make new immigrants watch videos showing their very liberal life style and saying they must accept it and should learn Dutch and assimilate. I agree with that for Canada and the U.S.
Last edited by Adventurer on Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Leslie Cheswyck wrote: |
| Actually, I like to think of myself as Gopher's sock. You thought so for a moment yourself, didn't you? But then you retracted it. Yeah I saw it. No, I do not flatter myself that I possess the same intellectual stamina as he. |
This screams sock.
| Quote: |
| Denigrating one poster simply for sharing the thoughts and opinions of another is a poor debating tactic (ad hominem). |
Not sock.
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| That is another thing I have noticed from a few of your posts. |
Eerily similar to gopher-esque rebuttals of mere mortals who would callenge him...
sock.
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Throwing 'sock' and 'lapdog' around... Grow up. Just do that. You need to do that.
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Sock.
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Speaking of lap dogs. Whose lap dog are you? You must be somebody's. Or are all your thoughts and opinions "original"?
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Sock.
4 - 2 for. We'll have to call "Sock" sans further evidence.
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| Anyway, thanks for the art lesson. I didn't know that about the statue. |
Embarrassingly, neither did I.
Last edited by keane on Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:26 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
| To admit them or to allow them to stay is a form of cultural suicide. |
I'd like to see a definition of this. I've read, seen, experienced, intuited nothing that implies culture is static, regardless of cause. Like language, it changes constantly and inexorably. How do you define what it is and what it should not become?
I reject this idea of limiting immigration based on cultural change out of hand. It is a meaningless construction since there is no one "culture" that is, was and will be.
It may seem trite, but apply that idea to the whole of North America and they simply would not exist as they do today. This should make my point crystal clear.
There are reasons to manage immigration, but cultural preservation, a fantasy, is not one of them. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| Leslie Cheswyck wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I understand that logic, but then you could then use that argument and say no to Mexicans and Jamaicans because they commit a higher percentage of crimes. It becomes a slippery slope. |
Not a slippery slope. Taking step A does not necessarily lead to taking step B. |
That is exactly what "slippery slope" implies: you may slip, not that you will slip, but the danger of it is real. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
Those, like huffdaddy, who don't see the threat of Islamism to be realistic should speak to the families of the victims of the Madrid, London and New York city attacks. They should visit ground zero.
They should learn more about the narrowly thwarted attacks on Toronto. They should find our how many millions of dollars Rushdie and his American publisher have spent on security since The Satanic Verses. They should ask Theo Van Gogh's family how they feel about the lack of a realistic threat.
They should wait a few years and ask the Muslim girls, who live in the west and who have had genital surgery, how they feel about their bodies being mutilated in the name of "culture" and with the tacit approval of liberals who espouse the belief that all cultures should be given voice in the west regardless of their barbarism. |
This is nothing more than fear-mongering. If you've a legitimate claim to make, make it, but don't hide behind fear.
There is no static culture. They all change and for myriad reasons. It's a non-issue and a red herring.
Using fear is bull. The percentages of people killed by terrorism is tiny. Virtually any threat to life one can think of is a greater concern in terms of numbers killed. If we completely alter our nation out of fear of 3,000 more dying, then why should we not reduce exposure to any and all carcinogens? Why aren't cars banned? Why do we allow people to have children given the numbers of incest and abuse cases?
And so on. Managing immigration in terms of economic security? Sure. In terms of helping to manage some illegal activities? Sure. But blanket refusal of an entire group because you are afraid?
I think not. See Franklin, B. on the subject of freedom vs. security. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="huffdaddy"]
| Leslie Cheswyck wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
If one applies this formula, then the only immigrants allowed into the U.S. would be first priority, whites from the English speaking Anglosphere, and second white Western Europeans. To everyone else, the country is closed. |
I wouldn't lose sleep over that. |
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| I wouldn't lose sleep either. But it would be an unnecessary and unfortunate step to take. If we'd prevented immigrants from Hitler's Germany, we would have never won WWII. It may be more difficult to sort out the good from the bad, but I believe it's to our advantage. |
We accepted the victims of Nazi Germany, not its agents. An important distinction. Perhaps a current equivalent would be for us to accept Egyptian and Lebanese Christians.
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| If you want to claim to be a liberal democracy, then you have to behave like one. Not like a closed off, provincial back water. |
We rounded up hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans in WWII. Deported some, too. Yet, we failed to slip into "provincial backwater" status. Didn't happen. So, no, we don't have to "behave" like a liberal democracy. Sorry, but there it is.
[quote="huffdaddy"]
| Quote: |
| Terrorism is not the real danger here. It is the unhealthy transformation that Muslims --- terrorists and "moderates" alike --- seek to inflict on Western societies. |
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| And where's the evidence of such transformation? Some Muslim cab drivers not picking up seeing eye dogs or people with alcohol. A few foot baths being installed. |
In France, in Britain, in Spain... etc. Granted, Muslims in the USA --- as your poll suggests --- are more content than their European counterparts, but as their numbers increase so will their demands and trespasses. Thirty, forty years ago few Europeans could have forseen what miseries Muslims had in store for them. So, for America only time will tell. But I trust they will find Americans far less accomodating towards their misbehavior.
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| What other accommodations are we being asked to make? |
In the long run: Sharia... bit by bit of course.
| huffdaddy wrote: |
From the Pew Survey (see my other thread), we find that Muslims are less interested in having politically active houses of worship then Christians.
| Pew p. 8 wrote: |
| About half of Muslim Americans (49%) say mosques should keep out of political matters, while 43% believe that mosques should express their views on social and political questions. In a Pew survey in 2006, 54% of Christians said churches and other houses of worship should express their political and social views, while 43% disagreed. |
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| huffdaddy wrote: |
| So it seems as though Christian immigrants pose a greater threat of "transformation" than Muslims do. But of course, we've already accommodated them and are used to it. So it's not a media event every time Christian influence is wielded. |
You must mean immigrants from Latin America. Yes, they pose another set of problems; i.e. a strain on public services, crime, etc. And we should address those problems. But it all seems so benign compared to Islamic jihad --- a part of which immigration is a major component.
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| I just don't see any reason to believe the threat you fear is in any way, shape, or form realistic. |
The numbers do look encouraging; this one in particular: 0.6% of total US population. What do we gain by raising that number? Let's ask the French. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| The only question I have of Leslie is, why don't you contribute more? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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Chuckling. No. Leslie and I are not the same poster. Am I certain that any moderator can easily verify this. I am, however, flattered by Leslie's kind words. I do not find BLT's paranoid and hysterical, indeed McCarthyist, response surprising in the least, either.
I only wish I possessed Leslie's intelligence and wit. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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I think the ship-'em-all-home/bar-the-door crowd show a shocking lack of faith in the attractiveness of our Western values. In fact, I think the carrot of our freedoms is a much more attractive (and effective) approach than the 'stick' of forced assimilation. Give things a century and the vast majority of recent immigrant descendants will be thoroughly Westernized. It will take longer if they are stigmatized, victimized and otherwise isolated and forced into defensive postures.
The question of the day really is: Why do so many anti-immigrants have so little faith in our way of life? What's wrong with our way of life that you see it as ultimately weak and failing? |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:24 am Post subject: |
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| Give things a century and the vast majority of recent immigrant descendants will be thoroughly Westernized. |
Give it a century and they will be the dominant ethnic group in many European states. I do not think the future of nations should be decided on the basis of such wishful thinking.
| Quote: |
| What's wrong with our way of life that you see it as ultimately weak and failing? |
Our culture and our way of life are sustained by the people who make up the nation. If, in a century, as you say, such people are replaced with people from completely different cultures, espousing completely different values, such nations will no longer be recognisable as European or Western, but instead Muslim. Moreover, in many urban areas, there is no majority culture to integrate into, which many Muslim are against in principle anyway. I merely accept that people from certain cultures will not integrate into Western society.
If English people immigrated on mass to Somalia (just attempt to imagine this absurdity) they would not integrate, they would live in seperate ethnic enclaves, and they would pass on their own distinct non-Muslim, Western cultural values to their children. If they ever came to dominate that nation, it would no longer be recognisably Somalian. Unless of course, you share Keane's belief that their is no such thing as distinct cultures, and that all references to English, or Dutch or Korean are merely geographical markers of where people reside.
I would not wish such a fate on them, and neither do I welcome the prospect of vast areas of my nation coming to resemble Dhaka, or Islamabad. |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:14 am Post subject: |
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Any culture has the right to perpetuate its culture. The most successfaul culture in history is the Anglo / American model. Through agressiveness and luck we have sequesterd to oursleves a greatly disproportionate amount of the worlds territoy and wealth.
What we didn't develop ourselves we adopted readilly fro others.
Those who we invite to share our system bounty and wealth shoulf be those who will not cahnge our essential character . We should not immolate ourselves one the totally stupid altar as an empire that must pass as all other have.
Technology and the poswer that comes from it will allow us to perpetuate our society if we don not import the seeds of our own destruction. If we need workers that we can't or won't supply ourselves a properly regulated guest worker program can xompensate. The very best of the guests can after they have left per agreement, be allowed to return as immigrants.
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