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[hector13]

Disproportionate means abnormally high or low, conveniently ignoring the content of the point in favour of semantics.

It's not ignoring the content of your point, it's rejecting it
Disproportionate does not mean all

In the very next sentence, though, Covenant then suggests public policy might limit refugees based on these figures. Strikes me as a bit silly to essentially punish the entirety of a group based on the actions of a few.

Seems a bit silly to think people who don't want to live with higher violent crime are punishing refugees for having security concerns; the EU has conflated being an open door doormat with being humanitarian - a dangerous confusion

And furthermore - higher immigration rate increases the segregation between immigrants and natives, which increases poverty and crimerate.

We're not talking about normal immigration here, though, we're talking about refugees.

Criminality is correlated more with socioeconomic status than anything else (so age, education, and employment) and I agree, normal immigration requires policy that controls for that kind of thing.

PPE:

Yet when unintegrated migrant groups commit a disproportionate amount of crime, they are not to blame for it; instead it is the poorly-performing schools they are forced to attend, the lack of money in their pockets, and ultimately, the invisible yet apparently omnipresent 'systematic racism of modern society' that is apparently the real culprit.

Or it's just the fact that lower socioeconomic status is an indicator of higher crime. Perhaps the consideration should be on why they're not integrated and how to fix that? Best indicator for integration is employment. Creating more jobs'll also help the indigenous poor. Bonus.

Refugees, though, aren't normal immigrants. Immigrants are going to somewhere; they have a destination in mind. Refugees are fleeing from something; they just want to gtfo.

Refugees commit more crimes. That's a problem. They don't commit crimes because they're refugees though, so to punish all the refugees because a small number are committing crimes is patently ridiculous. They need to be integratred.

Integration doesn't happen right off the bat, though. It takes a long time. Stupid policies like Swedish police fearing doing their job because they might be seen as racist doesn't help. All that's going to do is make it feel like the authorities aren't going to do anything if a minority commits a crime, so vigilante justice is the way to go. Not a good idea.

Making them feel welcome is a start. Make sure they know the local language, provide them with an education (involving civics) so they can find a job or go onto further education. Get them involved in the local community. It's hard work and not every refugee is going to take to it. That doesn't mean the rest should be abandoned because of them.

[Erkki]

Refugees dont need to be integrated. They need to be given basic standards of living and other help and returned when conflict that made them refugees has been resolved. But is there discussion on solving those problems? Is there discussion on those tens of millions in need of help who werent able to pay a human smuggler and flee to Europe?

I doubt more than a thousand or two out of the over one million arrived to Europe will go back. Europe should not be world's social service office. Nor should the taxes I pay. Saying this should not be racism.

[hector13]

Refugees dont need to be integrated. They need to be given basic standards of living and other help and returned when conflict that made them refugees has been resolved. But is there discussion on solving those problems? Is there discussion on those tens of millions in need of help who werent able to pay a human smuggler and flee to Europe?

I doubt more than a thousand or two out of the over one million arrived to Europe will go back. Europe should not be world's social service office. Nor should the taxes I pay. Saying this should not be racism.

What if the refugees find jobs and pay taxes?

[Silverthrone]

[In Response to Covenant]

Heh... Thank you. I'm always rather hesitant towards posting things like that. It does make me wonder if I am going hysterical, and that I am causing a scene or being pathetic. It is, after all, effectively a grown meatball crying on the internet. But, after a while, it becomes so much that you have to offload it somewhere. It is, after all, the things that I can see. It is one way to cope, writing about it. It is a great, big, cleaning whinge. It is also one way to react and relate to the memes, as it were, many of which are quite hurtful, but many others are mainly hurtful because of the truth in them. It is giving one's impression from the thick of it, and I like to think that it could help.

I do agree. My class background means that I have heard both the worst (and the best) about the poor. However, in the reaction to Donald Trump's victory, it has gotten downright uncomfortable. In such an environment, it is hardly a wonder that they are prepared to support a candidate strongly out of spite and tiredness.
I did not mention it in the post, but the worst part of the integration failure and the unwillingness to ask any sort of blame from migrants that will not 'play nice' is that they are taking space and resources from the migrants that do play nice, the migrants that would be an asset, and would need the protection most. Further, they also end up having to share the backlash against those groups that will not behave themselves.

As for the last, well... Thank you. Those were kind words. A lot of people maintain that a country is just an imaginary thing, something ungenuine, and not something quite worth bothering with. I disagree. I think that a nation state matters precisely because it is an idea, an imagination. Administration, safety and the rule of law is not a natural state, it is the result of hard work to maintain it, and it is frightfully difficult to build. I know that I my homeland is simply the patch of earth that I happened to be born on, but I quite like it. It is part of me, and I am part of it, and it is an idea and an entity worth keeping, worth protecting, or at the very least, worth continuing to support.
I am not a cultural relativitist. I believe that this place is one of the better societies on earth, at least in so much as it suits me (like it should, for I am native to it), and I think that it should stay that way.

[martinuzz]

Just don't make the mistake we made here in the Netherlands with the Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Instead of integrating them, we segregated them by subsidizing Turkish tea houses, Moroccan community centers, Turkish elementary schools, and added muslim prayer rooms to all our larger workplaces.

In the end, in every streetcorner, the Moroccan and Turkish people can find a place to segragate themselves from their Dutch neighbors, and reinforce their own cultural history.

What's absurd is, there's no community center for Dutch. If I go to the government and ask cultural subsidies to open a community center for Dutch culture, in a neighborhood that does not have one (mind you, hypothtical, I have no wish or intention to do such a thing), they'd call it unthinkable, or call me white trash and deny it. If I go to the government and ask for subsidy to open a Turkish community center in a neighborhood that lacks one, I'd have a very good chance of getting that, no questions asked. Government way too scared of being accused of racism if they deny

So what we've got here is a recipe for segregation. One of the most telling facts that mark it, is the fact that even of the 3d generation migrant's children (of whom both parents are born in the Netherlands, so they're autochtones by definition of law), a lot still speak Dutch with a strong Turkish / Moroccan accent. The only times they spoke Dutch in their youth was at highschool. Outside of that, their football team, their chess club, their homework study group, all organised by and at their little havens of segregation.

First step to integration, is to stop supporting segregation under the guise of being progressive. (IMO, they should stop the subsidies for all those things I mentioned, and instead use the subsidies to open cummunity centers without ethnic denotation, just for everyone)

[Baffler]

Refugees dont need to be integrated. They need to be given basic standards of living and other help and returned when conflict that made them refugees has been resolved. But is there discussion on solving those problems? Is there discussion on those tens of millions in need of help who werent able to pay a human smuggler and flee to Europe?

I doubt more than a thousand or two out of the over one million arrived to Europe will go back. Europe should not be world's social service office. Nor should the taxes I pay. Saying this should not be racism.

What if the refugees find jobs and pay taxes?

If nothing major changes politically, the war in Syria will likely be over 2 years from now. I wonder what they'll do then?

[hector13]

Refugees dont need to be integrated. They need to be given basic standards of living and other help and returned when conflict that made them refugees has been resolved. But is there discussion on solving those problems? Is there discussion on those tens of millions in need of help who werent able to pay a human smuggler and flee to Europe?

I doubt more than a thousand or two out of the over one million arrived to Europe will go back. Europe should not be world's social service office. Nor should the taxes I pay. Saying this should not be racism.

What if the refugees find jobs and pay taxes?

If nothing major changes politically, the war in Syria will likely be over 2 years from now. I wonder what they'll do then?

Who is "they"? Refugees already in Europe?

[Baffler]

Who is "they"? Refugees already in Europe?

The German government. They eventually made a lot of the refugees from the Yugoslav wars go back to Bosnia (it's interesting to see how similar what everyone was saying then is to what everyone is saying about Syrian refugees now,) but the Germany of the late 90's isn't really the same as the Germany of today.

[martinuzz]

Do note that there's a big difference between Dutch Turkish / Moroccan immigrants and current day refugees.
The Turks and Moroccans never were refugees. Their grandparents and great-grandparents (we're up to generation 4 now, at least for Turks, less so for Moroccans, who are mostly up to generation 3) were actively recruited from Turkey and Morocco by our manufacturing industries back in the '60s and '70s.

[hector13]

It's sad how much of a rarity statements like this have become. I feel that way about my own country, and I wish that everyone else in the world felt it about their own countries as well. We should all take pride in ourselves and our heritage, and work to continue them and improve them, rather than sacrificing them on the altar of progressivism to gain a few more virtue points.

You do realise the only thing that it takes to maintain your heritage is to, you know, share it with people?

[martinuzz]

German intelligence services have arrested one of it's own employees, after finding out he is a muslim extremist who was planning an attack at the secret service's headquarters in Cologne, according to German media.
The BfV admits they have arrested a 51 year old man with German passport and brought him in for questioning, but refuses to comment on plans for an attack.

Die Welt reports that the man has admitted to planning attacks during interrogation.

The man had been recruited in 2016 to infiltrate islamic circles in Germany, but lead two lives. He didn't arouse suspicion during his training and field assignments, but all the while, he was gathering internal intelligence secrets. On the internet he had contacts with several other islamists with whom he shared plans for the attack, and state secrets.

This got him caught redhanded, when one of the islamists he contacted was actually another BfV agent. According to the media, this was 4 weeks ago. Since his arrest, digital information about the secret service's activities have been found in the man's posession.

[smjjames]

Are you talking about Germany's version of the secret service or are you talking about the Secret Service, the one that protects the POTUS? Because damn, that's a heck of a breach.

[martinuzz]

Germany's version, the BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz)

[Loud Whispers]

Normal day in Germany

[Sergarr]

Wait, Germany has intelligence services? Then why do they act so dumb all the time? *rimshot*