Euro migrant crisis

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/europe/europe-migrant-crisis/index.html

People from the middle east, mostly Syria are fleeing to Europe because of war and poverty. People are dieing just trying to cross the Mediterranean. The EU is trying to solve the crisis while other countries are closing their borders.

 

[AnOminous]

Shit like this is why I keep saying to let in women and children but not the men.

It makes sense to prioritize families, intact if possible, but people with children in general. Parents are less likely to be violent criminals and have a motivation to obey the law not to be separated from their children. They have also shown that they don't simply abandon their families to die while saving their own skins.

 

[Cosmos]

Shit like this is why I keep saying to let in women and children but not the men. I know some women are jihadists/terrorists sometimes but they don't usually go around raping people. There's not even a crime directly comparable to gang rape women can do, imo.
Plus it'd please both the racists and politically correct. It's a win-win.

It makes sense to prioritize families, intact if possible, but people with children in general. Parents are less likely to be violent criminals and have a motivation to obey the law not to be separated from their children. They have also shown that they don't simply abandon their families to die while saving their own skins.

Again, YES. You two have got it! You've both got common sense, something the leaders of Europe apparently don't. Women (especially women with children), children, and families absolutely deserve top priority. Unfortunately, despite all of the "most refugees of women and children" propaganda the media's been pushing, the UN itself reports that women and children combined don't even make up half of the incoming refugees.

Also, women are so poorly valued in the Middle East that many (not all, of course, but many) men don't have that big of a problem with leaving their mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and nieces in a war-torn country with a huge terrorism problem, even though they'll likely be very vulnerable without any healthy, strong men to protect them. There's an article (I know it's from the Daily Mail, but the video is very real) that describes how angry the women left behind are at being abandoned. "Who will free us? Who will protect us?" and "It is wrong to leave your country" are just some of the sentiments expressed. Do we really want men who would abandon their families in our countries? Who have such a low view of women that they're seen as not worth protecting when the going gets rough?

"Women and children first" seems to be a purely Western concept, for the most part (although there are exceptions). Because honestly, when I look at that part of the world, all I see is a culture that places men- specifically Muslim men- before all else.

And to reiterate something I said earlier, oppressed minorities (especially Christians, Yazidis, and Shiites) need to be higher priority than Sunni Muslims. It's not fucking religious discrimination, it's because ISIS is literally waging genocide on these minorities and they need are help far more than a 25-year-old Sunni Muslim man who will be fine if he keeps his head down. But literally every time this point comes up some whiny liberal will go on about religious discrimination and how of course bigoted conservatives want to place Christians above Muslims.

The people in charge have too much sensitivity and compassion and not enough common sense and rationale. Feels > reals has no place in politics.

 

[AnOminous]

It's not fucking religious discrimination, it's because ISIS is literally waging genocide on these minorities and they need are help far more than a 25-year-old Sunni Muslim man who will be fine if he keeps his head down. But literally every time this point comes up some whiny liberal will go on about religious discrimination and how of course bigoted conservatives want to place Christians above Muslims.

Asylum should be a case by case decision, and it should be based on whether the person faces legitimate threats. It's simply a fact that those religious minorities are in far more danger than members of the majority religion.

Not that some Muslims might not face similar issues, i.e. Shia in a majority Sunni area, but they also fall into a category that really should be scrutinized for ties to terrorism. Similarly, they also might fall into exceptions to the general asylum rule for those who are, themselves, perpetrators of the very kinds of action they claim to be escaping.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Shit like this is why I keep saying to let in women and children but not the men. I know some women are jihadists/terrorists sometimes but they don't usually go around raping people. There's not even a crime directly comparable to gang rape women can do, imo.
Plus it'd please both the racists and politically correct. It's a win-win.

Terrible idea. Gay men are among the most acutely affected by ISIS. Additionally, we just imported a female jihadi from Saudi Arabia who helped shoot 14 people in San Bernadino. So, this plan doesn't achieve anything more than reinforcing "male disposability" and other objectionable aspects of reverse-sexism. If ISIS knows that's who we're taking, then that's who they'll send.

Anominous's idea of allowing in families may prove to be wholly less sexist, but I don't really think we should be letting anyone in, because these people subscribe to a religion at odds with the crown Western jewel of secularism that we need to protect at all costs.

Sorry, but Islam is a shit religion. Not that others are much better, but Islam has the enhancement of taking their scriptures to the most extreme. I don't need these people bringing the problem home and coming for me in 30 years. Your country is fucked up because this religion of yours is deplorable and contemptable garbage. Your belief system is not equal to ours; it's clearly and objectively worse, and there's nothing of value you're bringing to our culture.

Hopefully this will make clear that while I may hate belief systems, I do not hate people. So here's the Katsu refugee plan. You renounce Islam, you can come in. That's my plan. Assimilation. Secularism has propelled the United States to be one of the strongest countries in the world and enabled the diversity that people on the far-left tout. You're not going to have that anymore when the majority of your country is touting the benefits of Sharia law.

 

[AnOminous]

Sorry, but Islam is a shit religion. Not that others are much better, but Islam has the enhancement of taking their scriptures to the most extreme. I don't need these people bringing the problem home and coming for me in 30 years. Your country is fucked up because this religion of yours is deplorable and contemptable garbage. You renounce Islam, you can come in. That's my plan.

Too bad it's completely unconstitutional and wouldn't work because no actual terrorist wouldn't pretend to convert. Dying in jihad would make up for any lying on the way.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Too bad it's completely unconstitutional and wouldn't work because no actual terrorist wouldn't pretend to convert. Dying in jihad would make up for any lying on the way.

Oh, I never said my plan was constitutional. It's an ideal. The legal alternative is to slam the door, for everyone, which is what we should've been doing for decades before Islam regressed so rapidly to the stone age.

 

[melty]

Terrible idea. Gay men are among the most acutely affected by ISIS. Additionally, we just imported a female jihadi from Saudi Arabia who helped shoot 14 people in San Bernadino. So, this plan doesn't achieve anything more than reinforcing "male disposability" and other objectionable aspects of reverse-sexism. If ISIS knows that's who we're taking, then that's who they'll send.

Anominous's idea of allowing in families may prove to be wholly less sexist, but I don't really think we should be letting anyone in, because these people subscribe to a religion at odds with the crown Western jewel of secularism that we need to protect at all costs.

Sorry, but Islam is a shit religion. Not that others are much better, but Islam has the enhancement of taking their scriptures to the most extreme. I don't need these people bringing the problem home and coming for me in 30 years. Your country is fucked up because this religion of yours is deplorable and contemptable garbage. Your belief system is not equal to ours; it's clearly and objectively worse, and there's nothing of value you're bringing to our culture.

Here's the Katsu refugee plan. You renounce Islam, you can come in. That's my plan. Assimilation. Secularism has propelled the United States to be one of the strongest countries in the world and enabled the diversity that people on the far-left tout. You're not going to have that anymore when the majority of your country is touting the benefits of Sharia law.

Families, women, children and gay men and trans individuals.
Imo, from a global perspective rape and slavery are far larger issues. If ISIS wants to send all female jihadists to Europe? Fine. Is that supposed to be worse? It'll take longer to gather them up and and in the meantime the amount of women and children raped and killed in Europe and the Middle East goes down significantly. Sounds fine to me. Let the male terrorists stew in Syria and kill each other because they're the majority of the group.

 

[AnOminous]

Oh, I never said my plan was constitutional. It's an ideal. The legal alternative is to slam the door, for everyone, which is what we should've been doing for decades before Islam regressed so rapidly to the stone age.

They haven't regressed, they were already there.

If we hadn't spent the last half of the last century fucking them over in every way humanly imaginable, though, they'd still be busy attacking each other instead of us.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Families, women, children and gay men. Maybe trans individuals.
Imo, from a global perspective rape and slavery are far larger issues. If ISIS wants to send all female jihadists to Europe? Fine. Is that supposed to be worse? It'll take longer to gather them up and and in the meantime the amount of women and children raped and killed in Europe and the Middle East goes down significantly. Sounds fine to me. Let the male terrorists sit in Syria and kill each other because they're the majority of the group.

Still got a lot of Christian men getting killed by ISIS as well, so at that point you're basically taking the radfem position of letting men in general kill each other off.

The real test we need, although it's not legally permissible like noted above, is whether or not the incoming refugees are 1) prepared to live in a society with secular values, and 2) believe in it enough such that they won't press to change this decades later. The clearest way you can tell this is by one's belief system...the tenets written in the scriptures of the religion they identify as.

We're facing an uncomfortable truth few will want to cop up to: that believing in the Quoran because it proscribes the death of enemies of Islam is no different than believing in Mein Kampf because it proscribes the death of enemies of Nazism. The screening test we apply to refugees should issue no sanctity to the idea of religion, and simply verify whether or not these people are prepared to live in and defend a nation with Western values based on the things they believe in.

 

[AnOminous]

The screening test we apply to refugees should issue no sanctity to the idea of religion, and simply verify whether or not these people are prepared to live in and defend a nation with Western values based on the things they believe in.

This would be value neutral and somewhat workable. It still wouldn't deal with the issue that trained terrorists are going to know what they'll face when they enter the country and will attempt to deceive any test you can devise. There needs to be proactive screening that involves something other than taking people at their word. People lie.

Someone planning mass murder is not going to be squeamish about a lie.

 

[melty]

Still got a lot of Christian men getting killed by ISIS as well, so at that point you're basically taking the radfem position of letting men in general kill each other off.

The real test we need, although it's not legally permissible like noted above, is whether or not the incoming refugees are 1) prepared to live in a society with secular values, and 2) believe in it enough such that they won't press to change this decades later. The clearest way you can tell this is by one's belief system...the tenets written in the scriptures of the religion they identify as.

We're facing an uncomfortable truth few will want to cop up to: that believing in the Quoran because it proscribes the death of enemies of Islam is no different than believing in Mein Kampf because it proscribes the death of enemies of Nazism. The screening test we apply to refugees should issue no sanctity to the idea of religion, and simply verify whether or not these people are prepared to live in and defend a nation with Western values based on the things they believe in.

This is admirable and all but this really isn't the time for it. They can barely house these refugees, how are they supposed to test them extensively? Plus, cutting out most of the male migrants would make something like this far more feasible.
The Titanic is sinking. Who gets off the boat first?

 

[KatsuKitty]

This would be value neutral and somewhat workable. It still wouldn't deal with the issue that trained terrorists are going to know what they'll face when they enter the country and will attempt to deceive any test you can devise. There needs to be proactive screening that involves something other than taking people at their word. People lie.

Someone planning mass murder is not going to be squeamish about a lie.

There are ways to do this, but they cannot rely on the home country's government as their background check infrastructure is surely decimated. Glenn Beck has touted verifying Christian refugees by sending agents to their church to verify that they are who they say they are; anything similar to that could work for other demographics, but in the end, you're faced with the issue of applying broad strokes and rejecting one demographic in favour of another. Which in the case of non-immutable traits like belief systems, may not be morally or ethically objectionable.

This is admirable and all but this really isn't the time for it. They can barely house these refugees, how are they supposed to test them extensively? Plus, cutting out most of the male migrants would make something like this far more feasible.
The Titanic is sinking. Who gets off the boat first?

Why should a woman's life mean more than a man's? More disturbingly, why should a man be held to a gender-based expectation of fighting for his country? I'd sooner slit my own throat than fulfull such an obligation.

When faced with such a time-limited issue as "getting people off the Titanic", the only ethically defensible thing to do is a random drawing. That definately won't keep our country as secure as simply slamming the door, or applying a beliefs-test.

 

[melty]

Why should a woman's life mean more than a man's? More disturbingly, why should a man be held to a gender-based expectation of fighting for his country? I'd sooner slit my own throat than fulfull such an obligation.

Because the vast majority of crimes committed by these refugees are by male refugees. Why is okay to condemn someone for being Muslim or being Syrian or just being Middle Eastern, but it's not okay to bring gender into the equation?
The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men. If any other subgroup were responsible for such a high proportion of violent crime, they would be immediately vilified and shunned.
But when it comes down to it, people avoid it and turn it into a race issue. It's not men, it's black people, or muslims, or whatever immigrant group they don't like. Or it's "humans are shit."
I'm not saying women aren't capable of so much violence. But right now, they really aren't having quite the impact in that area.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Because the vast majority of crimes committed by these refugees are by male refugees. Why is okay to condemn someone for being Muslim or being Syrian or just being Middle Eastern, but it's not okay to bring gender into the equation?
The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men. If any other subgroup were responsible for such a high proportion of violent crime, they would be immediately vilified and shunned.
But when it comes down to it, people avoid it and turn it into a race issue. It's not men, it's black men, or muslim men, or whatever immigrant group they don't like. Or it's "humans are shit."
I'm not saying women aren't capable of so much violence. But right now, they really aren't having quite the impact in that area.

There is a key difference in claiming a belief system; the belief system is not an immutable trait.

Maybe I'm injecting too much personal bias. Being trans, I hate being defined by my sex and being made to live up to the thing I hate being so much. I would certainly find it ideologically crushing to be made to pay for the crimes of a sex I've worked so desperately hard not to be. Which I guess pits me firmly in the "trans" camp and is ultimately a red herring to the whole argument of whether or not real men and women should be let in. But that's a large part of why I can't defend imposing collective responsibility and gender expectations onto one sex or the other.

 

[Cosmos]

We're facing an uncomfortable truth few will want to cop up to: that believing in the Quoran because it proscribes the death of enemies of Islam is no different than believing in Mein Kampf because it proscribes the death of enemies of Nazism. The screening test we apply to refugees should issue no sanctity to the idea of religion, and simply verify whether or not these people are prepared to live in and defend a nation with Western values based on the things they believe in.

"The screening test we apply to refugees should issue no sanctity to the idea of religion"

Bingo. These refugees need to understand right off the bat that, in the free world, no beliefs are sacred. Nobody has the right to force their beliefs on others, especially through the use of force.

The Muhammad cartoons are a great example. It's not just about the terrorists that actually take the initiative to murder the cartoonists; Muslims fucking riot all around the world whenever Muhammad is depicted in a mocking way, or even at all. The same thing goes with other media that are mocking of Islam; another recent example is the "Innocence of Muslims" controversy (read the article, it's insane). Like, people actually die and get seriously wounded, that's how hard people riot. It would be like if Christians in numerous countries flipped the fuck out every time Jesus or Christianity as a whole were mocked on Family Guy, which is practically every other episode.

It's even on the nonviolent end; Muslims organize massive protests whenever things like the Muhammad cartoons and Innocence of Muslims happen. They demand that the offending media be censored, because the Prophet is the most perfect human to ever exist and besmirching him will damn you to eternal hellfire. I normally try to avoid making generalizations, but I'm comfortable with saying that on the whole Muslims are extremely sensitive to any and all criticism about Islam and will act out on it, either peacefully or through violence. They're told that Islam is the one true religion and ideology and is the literal Word of Allah; blasphemy is one of the worst sins a person can commit and is punishable by death. So while basically every other group on the planet can handle criticism and mockery of their sacred and deeply-held beliefs without lashing out in a significant way (most of the time all you'll get is an rambling, poorly-punctuated rant), Muslims consistently have a problem with it. It's not just enough for them to follow Islam's rules, everyone else has to, too.

For fuck's sake, can you even imagine what would happen if someone made a Book of Mormon-style musical about Islam? The Mormon Church brushed it all off and didn't make a big deal out of it. I don't even know how many dead bodies would be the direct result of a musical about Islam.

 

[AnOminous]

Why should a woman's life mean more than a man's?

It's not a question of whose life is more valuable or "means" more in some existential sense, but who is more likely to be a terrorist. Sex and family status are likely to be somewhat correlated to this, and with enough predictive ability that they should probably be one of many things taken into consideration in the case by case analysis that is necessary in such decisions.

The federal government probably has broader discretion to use such criteria, which would be subject to the strictest of scrutiny when applied to citizens, when deciding whether to admit aliens, who don't necessarily have any right to enter the country.

Under customary international law, though, nations are obligated, to some degree, to provide asylum to those fleeing genocide, torture, and some other hazards. This has to be weighed, though, against every nation's right to exclude undesirable aliens who present a danger to those to whom the government holds primary responsibility: its own citizens.

For those it isn't obligatory to admit, a state is entitled to take all kinds of things into consideration, such as the threat posed by aliens of unknown origin and background, as well as whether or not they would make a worthy addition to the country, and to favor those who by reason of education or otherwise, are likely to end up being a net positive.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

Because the vast majority of crimes committed by these refugees are by male refugees. Why is okay to condemn someone for being Muslim or being Syrian or just being Middle Eastern, but it's not okay to bring gender into the equation?
The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men. If any other subgroup were responsible for such a high proportion of violent crime, they would be immediately vilified and shunned.
But when it comes down to it, people avoid it and turn it into a race issue. It's not men, it's black people, or muslims, or whatever immigrant group they don't like. Or it's "humans are shit."
I'm not saying women aren't capable of so much violence. But right now, they really aren't having quite the impact in that area.

If you're going to judge purely on gender than why not purely on race too? I think it's a slippery slope if you don't judge people as individuals because while men are more violent it's usually against other men and like Katsu said men who are known to be gay are going to be likely targets for fanatical religious groups such as ISIS.

 

[Dark Mirror Hole]

:/ Angela Merkel has been crowned 2015's Person of the Year by Time Magazine:
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel-choice/

 

[QI 541]

:/ Angela Merkel has been crowned 2015's Person of the Year by Time Magazine:
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel-choice/

The previous German leader they chose caused the deaths of millions. Can Merkel surpass her predecessor?

 

[Lorento]

:/ Angela Merkel has been crowned 2015's Person of the Year by Time Magazine:
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel-choice/

You've got to be fucking kidding me.