Let's have a debate about immigration (1 Viewer)

[jane]

Keep out the bad immigrants who want to play loud music and steal our money and let in the good ones who want to clean our McBurgermacs and appreciate Twink

What about the ones who appreciate Supermacs and want to clean Twink?

 

[egg_]

Debating *good* policies and *bad* policies are what we can do. Debating the resulting relevant issues we can also do, but really, staying close to the policies, not to be pedantic but because there are already enough glaring inconsistencies and contradictions to keep us busy for decades.

I don't think you answered my question.
How are we to decide what's good and what's bad? Is the only mark of a bad policy inconsistency and contradiction?

 

[Deleted member 3435]

Give Ireland back to the apes.

 

[RSJ]

The posts in this thread are faaaaaaaaaaaaar too long. Could we not have a more concise debate? Like with bullet points and diagrams?

 

[egg_]

We want it to be fair and transparent, obviously, because we want ALL policies everywhere to be fair and transparent. We want to do things that don't deprive people of self-determination because that is one of the tenets of modern democracy. Without it, you have a society where some people are not allowed to exercise their humanity to its full, and others are, and they are categorised by their national origin.

.. or maybe you did answer my question, if the above means that we should only judge immigration policy by its impact on "them", and not by its impact on "us". Does it?

edit: "them" meaning, as before, anyone who doesn't live here RIGHT NOW and "us" meaning anyone who does

edit 2: no, that doesn't work ... ah, you know what I mean

edit 3: Say all current immigrants, legal and illegal, became citizens tomorrow, and "us" then means "citizens" and "them" means "immigrants-to-be"

 

[jane]

I don't think you answered my question.
How are we to decide what's good and what's bad? Is the only mark of a bad policy inconsistency and contradiction?

No, but then I guess I'm not really sure what you're asking. I'm saying that bad policies are bad for a bunch of reasons, and a bad immigration policy that makes life difficult for immigrants makes integration difficult and thus makes life difficult for Irish people. Good immigration policy makes everyone's life easier because it makes integration easier.

It's quite difficult to debate, however, when all parties haven't come to the table with some knowledge of what the policies are and how they might work in real-world situations.

This is another reason the immigration debate isn't inclusive enough and can't really happen properly. Immigrants seem to be among the few who actually know policy -- we have to -- and yet we're seen as having 'an agenda' in the debate and thus our opinions (I don't mean in your eyes, or on Thumped, I'm speaking more generally) don't count for as much.

How are we to decide if a policy is good or bad? Most policies are bad. They are poorly thought-out, they barely get debated in the Dail on maybe a fraction of one of the 90 days a year they sit. If you read the Dail debates, in fact, you can see that there actually *are* politicians -- some of them, I daresay, members of Fianna Fail -- who go in and really hand it to the ministers about how their crappy policies are ruining people's lives. Yes, even foreigns! But at the end of the day, these maverick TDs don't get enough public support, so they go along with the ministers.

If you look at the difference between Micheal Martin's comments and those of other TDs, the other TDs cite policy AND how that policy affects people in both positive and negative ways. Michael Martin spouts policy and rhetoric and nothing more.

But if you need evidence that government policies are bad and are poorly thought-out and should be viewed with suspicion, just look at 99% of the policies they've passed, relating to anything. Not very smart or forward-thinking, and certainly not putting priority on the needs of all the average Joe, regardless of national origin.

 

[MDR]

The posts in this thread are faaaaaaaaaaaaar too long. Could we not have a more concise debate? Like with bullet points and diagrams?

Insight (and insults) have the canny knack of concision.

 

[jane]

.. or maybe you did answer my question, if the above means that we should only judge immigration policy by its impact on "them", and not by its impact on "us". Does it?

edit: "them" meaning, as before, anyone who doesn't live here RIGHT NOW and "us" meaning anyone who does

edit 2: no, that doesn't work ... ah, you know what I mean

edit 3: Say all current immigrants, legal and illegal, became citizens tomorrow, and "us" then means "citizens" and "them" means "immigrants-to-be"

No, what I mean is that by seeing the impact on one group ('them', however that may be defined) as something that doesn't affect the other group ('us' however that may be defined) is to perpetuate an us/them divide.

Bad policy affects everyone, either directly or indirectly. Inequities are bad for everyone.

To take it out of the realm of immigration, look at something like health policy. Private health insurance means that private patients get seen more quickly, which is great for people who can afford it. But public patients might die because the private patient skips the queue (even if that private patient doesn't see it as skipping a queue). It doesn't mean that the private patient doesn't deserve to live, or vice versa, but that the policy is broken.

Most people agree that the best policy is one where the chances of having to choose one life over another are reduced to almost zero (ideally, to zero!). Instead, the value of life in the current system, no matter how caring doctors might be or how sincerely they want to help their patients, is reduced to an economic equation. The private patient doesn't deserve to die any more than the public one does, but it's a failure of a bunch of policies on a bunch of levels that mean that these people are not equal in the eyes of the health system. A lot of people don't give a fuck, and for a lot of them, it's because that policy doesn't affect them personally.

But let's say you've got someone with private health insurance, and her best mate is a public patient, and because she can't get a scan in time, her cancer isn't caught early enough, and what was a perfectly treatable condition ends up being fatal.

That's an example of how inequalities are bad for everyone. You might have rights and privileges, but bad policies affect you, too.

 

[egg_]

It's quite difficult to debate, however, when all parties haven't come to the table with some knowledge of what the policies are and how they might work in real-world situations.

Haha, well it's difficult to have a discussion about something with someone who wants to talk about something else, as both yourself and myself are finding on this thread

Gotta finish something before I go home, I'm sure we'll continue this some other time

 

[Corey]

They're also rampant catholics.

Immigration is bad.

Catholics???

Back on the boat. All of you.

 

[jane]

The posts in this thread are faaaaaaaaaaaaar too long. Could we not have a more concise debate? Like with bullet points and diagrams?

 

[RSJ]

I see. Well in that case, i'm agin it.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Oh and egg the banks you talk about have fuck all to do with civilized society they're just there to make as much money as they can off of you.

Banks have never hid behind their ideals of making as much money as possible. There's plenty other businesses that do exactly the same.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i think i have a couple of kevin burke lps, i could bring them to the party/ceili

kevin burke and [SIZE=-1]Micheal O'Domhnaill - Promenade. its ok.

its Joe Burke the accordion player i was thinking of earlier. i have some of his, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the fiddle player[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] sean maguire. "Two Champions" captures them together live in the Rustic Inn in Abbeyshrule.
[/SIZE]

 

[broken arm]

How are we to decide what's good and what's bad?

http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/policy_tools/

 

[Vinnie]

I dont know if an extreme right wing goverment is a price I'm willing to pay for open borders.

 

[Franco]

kevin burke and [SIZE=-1]Micheal O'Domhnaill - Promenade. its ok. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]its Joe Burke the accordion player i was thinking of earlier. i have some of his, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the fiddle player[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] sean maguire. "Two Champions" captures them together live in the Rustic Inn in Abbeyshrule. [/SIZE]

Kevin Burke was on Nationwide this very evening.

I saw him a few years back with Ged Foley and it was amazing.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Kevin Burke was on Nationwide this very evening.

I saw him a few years back with Ged Foley and it was amazing.

get OUT of here!

 

[egg_]

How are we to decide what's good and what's bad?

http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/policy_tools/

I meant more ... how are we to decide whether out an immigration policy is a good one or a bad one if we don't know what we want it to do? Are there things about our society we think are good and we want to keep (and are there things the good things depend on that we need to keep), and other things we think are bad and want to change, and other things we don't care about one way or the other? Seems to me the only way to judge a policy is by how effectively and humanely it serves our goals.

Or, rather, my goals. I'm sure everyone else's are different to mine.

 

[broken arm]

Seems to me the only way to judge a policy is by how effectively and humanely it serves our goals.

Or, rather, my goals. I'm sure everyone else's are different to mine.

policy goals are often multi-faceted and diffuse as are policy impacts. Most evaluation is based on econometrics and the more soft issues of how human a policy intervention is can be harder to define/measure. There are tools available that try to look at broader issues such as sustainability and cultural criteria (i.e. multi-criteria analysis)

For the record, I'm not a policy expert by any means but I have a research interest in policy impact assessment.

There are interesting tensions in this discussion between liberal/non-liberal views and potential unitended impacts of policy decisions driven by particular ideology.

i.e. liberal policy leading to brain drain from developing economies and non-liberal policy leading to stagnation.