Let's have a debate about immigration (3 Viewers)

[broken arm]

Immigrants 'damaging our society' is just one situation I can imagine where immigration would no longer be a force for good. Hey, maybe what I'm describing is ridiculous, but I don't really think so.

but you are a scientist no? would you not need to perform a randomised control test/trial to determine whether or not immigration can be acsribed to the damage to society. therefore you'll need baseline data on what our society (immigrant free) is and what condition it is in a point x in time. allow for a period of immigration within a section of our society. retest that section of society at point xx in time whilst using the the immigrant free control group as a comparative base on which to determine positive and negative additionality, displacement, deadweight and spillover effects...

or something

 

[whathappen?]

Well, as far as this Cultural argument goes I think it is important for the native population to educate themselves in the "ways " of the new people.It is equally important for the newbies to be aware of the various cultural practices here in Ireland.By culture I mean the totality of our every day life, NOT the diddlee doooo diiiiiii for tourists.

 

[1000smurfs]

My ideal immigration policy would be lots of mandatory interbreeding, so we'd all eventually come out with a healthy tan.

There will be one culture of just being generally nice. Everything else
would be a hobby, theme park or restaurant. A bit like New York but with
better manners.

I'm optimisic that this is fairly inevitable in the long run anyway, after a few tears and hopefully not much blood.

 

[1000smurfs]

Well, as far as this Cultural argument goes I think it is important for the native population to educate themselves in the "ways " of the new people.It is equally important for the newbies to be aware of the various cultural practices here in Ireland.By culture I mean the totality of our every day life, NOT the diddlee doooo diiiiiii for tourists.

They need to be trained in the fine art of walking the line beween:

drinking and drunkeness
having a laugh and slagging off
dont take things too serious and being too apathetic

 

[RSJ]

They need to be trained in the fine art of walking the line beween:

drinking and drunkeness
having a laugh and slagging off
dont take things too serious and being too apathetic

You say that like irish people have a good grasp of any of them

 

[evil bandit]

Ireland is shit, full of cunts and Johnny Foreigner is welcome to it.

 

[jane]

My random thoughts:

My two favourite reference points in life are music and football so I don't really see nationality as being a barrier to cultural diversity and i don't believe that a national culture exists.

I think it's inconsistent to accept the free movement of capital (something like €200 billion to ireland last year folks) and reject the free movement of labour.

We need some (proper) system for economic migrants and for naturalisation (i.e. they get a passport after a while) of long-time residents.

Don't be an asshole is good advice whether your an immigrant or not; people just think that they are more entitled to have a go at assholes who are immigrants. Although whether immigrants are nice people or not is kind of beside the point.

PS: no hate-filed responses please. I don't care what you think. (Addressed to everyone.)

What Ro said.

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.

I think immigration is like death and taxes, it just *is*. Getting bogged down with whether it's good or bad is kinda silly.

There's also the thing that happens where say, an Irish person acts like a prick, that person is a prick. A Nigerian acts like a prick and all of a sudden, the example of this person acting like a prick is used as 'evidence' to make negative generalisations about Nigerians. Or, a Nigerian does something sound, and every single Nigerian's soundness is measured against this one occasion of soundness.

I'm not even sure that people think they're necessarily *more* justified in having a go at foreigners, I think there's a sense of feeling a bit territorial, like where there's some inherent right to judge the behaviour and actions of foreigners -- whether good or bad.

 

[jane]

No

Maybe we'd need zillions more immigrants than we have for this to become an issue, but maybe someday we will have zillions more immigrants. Lefties (like myself) always argue that immigration is a positive thing, but it might not always be, and what then?

But this is only the case if the immigrants are still considered outsiders. People change as society changes. Societies change to accommodate new people or major changes, and as the society changes, the impact of immigration will diminish because new immigrants will be entering a society that is more diverse to begin with. The more there is an 'us' and 'them' attitude about immigration, the more difficult it is for people to integrate.

Although Ireland was always diverse, it's just that when a group feels under threat in some way, they unite over common threads like Irishness or whiteness or Catholicism or left-handedness or whatever and all of a sudden they don't look so diverse.

But I find the arbitrariness of the 'us' and 'them' approach to be starkly obvious. When I'm included in the 'us' it's for obvious reasons: white, English-speaking, non-Magyar/Slavic appearance, from a country with a long relationship with Ireland. But only when it suits. Legally, I am absolutely a 'them'. When I've got something other than tra-la-la-leee-wheeeee to say, there are a lot of people who say I have no right to an opinion. I'm an 'us' when things are great, and a 'them' when someone wants to make sure I stay in my place as a foreigner who is only good for economic reasons, not opinions.

The question people *should* be debating is: how can we make policies that fall in line with what's best for culturally diverse communities? The current policies just exacerbate the legal inequities that make people's lives much harder than they need to be. 99% of people are here for reasons other than the criminal, but the policies are in place to punish those 99% based on the actions that the other 1% may or may not commit at some point. So we all get the legal status of the detained suspect, despite the fact that there will *always* be a criminal element.

In short, immigration just *is*. Not good, not bad. Just *is*. Debating whether it's good or bad is a bit like sitting around a dinner table with the kids and debating with the husband/wife if they ever should have reproduced in the first place.

I mean, to see all this coverage of 'why are they here?', and 'we should send a load of them away' is very difficult for someone whose legal status here is already precarious. The reason the same question about "How come we can't debate immigration without being called racist?" is generally scoffed at is that this question is usually asked by someone who wants to know who let all the brown people in, and can't we take a few more rights away from them because they're getting too big for their britches, and why don't they just do what we want them to do and shove the rest?

GAH.

Sorry folks.

 

[broken arm]

i'm not sure if i can think of that doesn't have it's fair share of intolerant racist pricks....

 

[Space]

If people are so worried about losing "Irish" culture perhaps they should look at themselves and the rest of the native population and how we have assimilated(is that the right word?) British and American culture before giving out about other cultures coming and diluting whats left. Like for example how many people in the country can speak Irish, Irish dance, play trad, are part of the GAA etc etc? Maybe if the culture was really threatened by immigration more people would actually try harder to keep said culture alive. You can't blame immigration for our shortcomings.

Does anyone get what I'm trying to say?

 

[egg_]

I think it's inconsistent to accept the free movement of capital (something like €200 billion to ireland last year folks) and reject the free movement of labour.

Inconsistent? Au contraire, dude - if you think, as many do, that the free movement of capital might make you richer, and the free movement of labour might make you poorer, then it's anything but inconsistent to accept the former and reject the latter. The fact that they both start with "the free movement of" isn't all that important, don't you think?

I don't care what you think

Hmmph

 

[jane]

If people are so worried about losing "Irish" culture perhaps they should look at themselves and the rest of the native population and how we have assimilated(is that the right word?) British and American culture before giving out about other cultures coming and diluting whats left. Like for example how many people in the country can speak Irish, Irish dance, play trad, are part of the GAA etc etc? Maybe if the culture was really threatened by immigration more people would actually try harder to keep said culture alive. You can't blame immigration for our shortcomings.

Does anyone get what I'm trying to say?

Absolutely.

http://www.thumped.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=898999&postcount=54

I mean, if you wanna look at the insanity, look at the number of people who'll go on about hating the English and yet be willing to throw themselves off a moving train for Man U or Chelsea or whatever. There's a sense of picking and choosing foreign influence, like ordering off a menu. We'll take African music and dance but we don't want to deal with actual Africans. Maybe we can lock 'em up or ghettoise them and summon them for command performances at multicultural festivals.

Anyway, it's funny because -- and maybe it's because of the circles I travel in -- most of the Irish speakers I know are very lefty and very much not of the mind that the culture is any more under threat by foreigners as it ever was before there was any large-scale immigration.

There will always be 'folk' cultures and traditions. There'll just be shiteloads of new things that will be the future traditions and customs. There are traditions in the US among descendant populations that have nothing to do with the country of origin, but they're just as much traditions. I think it's kind of cool. That said, some of those 'traditions' that once united an otherwise culturally-diverse group of shared national origin also involve being completely fucking racist. Which is, perhaps, not so cool.

 

[therealjohnny]

Johnnystress, what the fuck do chicken ranches have to do with anything?

It's a metaphor

For aren't we all chickens? And is not Donegal ...ranchlike?


So to answer your questions

I don't know


I have however stumbled upon a cool setting on my echo pedal so i can play Sleepwalk

 

[egg_]

but you are a scientist no? ...

Are you taking the piss out of me?

Here's an example I thought of on the way home. Take an imaginary country, say Lilliput, where they don't have a well-developed banking system. Loads of Lilliputians come to Ireland and put their money in Irish banks, but they don't really trust the bank, and when there's rumours of trouble in the bank's finances they all withdraw their money at once, and the bank goes bang and everyone loses.

That's kinda what I'm getting at. I'm not saying Lilliputians are going to steal your money, but society depends on lots of behavioural conventions that are more than just people being nice to each other. The banking system, paying taxes, calling the cops instead of taking the law into your own hands, shit like that

I suspect I'm being too abstract with all this. I'm just trying to point out that a completely open-door policy might not be a good idea, but it seems no-one on here is arguing for a completely open-door policy anyway

 

[jane]

It's a metaphor

For aren't we all chickens? And is not Donegal ...ranchlike?


So to answer your questions

I don't know


I have however stumbled upon a cool setting on my echo pedal so i can play Sleepwalk

Some Donegaloids moved into my neighbourhood a few weeks ago and now all the cats have gone mental and there isn't a chicken left unfucked.

FOR SHAME. DONEGALOIDS BACK TO DONEGOLIA.

 

[egg_]

I think immigration is like death and taxes, it just *is*. Getting bogged down with whether it's good or bad is kinda silly.

Sorry, jane, but this just isn't true. We don't have a completely open-door immigration policy, and I suspect no country has - therefore there are all sorts of decisions to be made about whether to limit it or encourage it, and what we are trying to achieve (or avoid) by doing one or the other.

Will continue this tomorrow, gotta go now

 

[therealjohnny]

Some Donegaloids moved into my neighbourhood a few weeks ago and now all the cats have gone mental and there isn't a chicken left unfucked.

FOR SHAME. DONEGALOIDS BACK TO DONEGOLIA.

Cats just don't get us, chickens are sexually attracted to us


get over it!

we're proud!

 

[jane]

Sorry, jane, but this just isn't true. We don't have a completely open-door immigration policy, and I suspect no country has - therefore there are all sorts of decisions to be made about whether to limit it or encourage it, and what we are trying to achieve (or avoid) by doing one or the other.

Will continue this tomorrow, gotta go now

I didn't say 'open door policy', I said immigration exists is all, and it's quite meaningless to debate whether it's good or bad because it is just a fact of modern life. Comparing it to death and taxes is in the sense that too much taxation is bad and too little taxation is bad. But death and taxes exist. They aren't 'good' or 'bad' things inherently. They just *are*. Although in general there are more advantages to paying taxes than there are to dying.

And you don't have to tell me that there isn't an open door immigration policy. Believe me, the shite I'm going through at the moment and have been going through the past few years ,and the fact that the rules change every few months -- 'open door' is the last thing that could be suggested about Ireland. Right now, the policies run the gamut from 'incomprehensibly shambolic' to 'unrealistically draconian' and there are so few options for people that you're nearly penalised for trying to follow the rules (if you can even find out what they are).

A liberal policy of immigration will catch no more 'delinquents' than a draconian one. The only difference is that the draconian one punishes honesty and forces otherwise honest people to exploit loopholes just to continue living the life they'd made before a few penstrokes turned them from 'necessary addition to Irish life' into something bordering on the criminal.

I never said anything about an 'open door' policy, although I do believe in liberal policies. One really important issue is that the continual moving of the goalposts on people who are already living here really fucks things up for a lot of folks, both Irish and foreign-born.

 

[Vinnie]

If everyone dressed like the Ku Klux Klan and never ever spoke we'd never know where anyone was from

 

[jane]

Cats just don't get us, chickens are sexually attracted to us


get over it!

we're proud!

Is that why I saw yer man Daniel O'Donnell riding a Rhode Island Red like a bucking bronco, spinning his hat and woo-hooing like nobody's business?

Proud, my rear end. That was pure fucking braggadoccio.

TIRCONNELLIANS BACK TO TIRCONNEL.