Paris
- Thread starter 13thforsworn
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Also, to FD and Regis, sorry your social circles are filled with morons.
Well, I wouldn't have been if you hadn't said that. If anyone has a bad time cause of this now, it's your fault.
France did, but the Germans just drove around.
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Danny
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I think legitimate refugees are not responsible, but when you allow unchecked immigration from a war zone, without any checks in place, it is entirely unavoidable that some of the bad guys will come too.
But that has nothing to do with the refugees. And in fact there are plenty of checks, like, a lot of them. The refugees have to apply for refugee status and go through specific channels and sign so much paperwork to actually enter a country as a refugee that it's incredibly difficult for a terrorist to get into the country under the guise of a refugee. Seriously, that's why you see terrorists using work visas, student visas, and various other identifying documents because they're far easier to obtain and don't come with the stigma that being a refugee does. In fact, the passport found on one of the shooters from the attack that identified them as a refugee was fake, intended to try and trick people and cause fear that the refugees were "invading" these countries with intent to harm.
The truth of the matter is that the refugees are comprised mainly of women and children, and of those children, 40 percent of them are orphans. All signs and evidence point to the fact that the terrorists are not using the wave of refugees to sneak into countries. There are far easier ways to do it.
I mean this sincerely when I say that it is incredibly unlikely that any terrorists are among the refugees. If anyone wanted to commit a terrorist act, there's far easier ways to do it that hide you much better than being a refugee ever would. Don't allow ISIS/ISIL the chance to make you think the refugees are dangerous in any way. They're no more dangerous than any normal man, woman, or child are, yet their circumstances are incredibly different from that of the normal man, woman, or child.
The truth of the matter is that the refugees are comprised mainly of women and children, and of those children, 40 percent of them are orphans. All signs and evidence point to the fact that the terrorists are not using the wave of refugees to sneak into countries. There are far easier ways to do it.
I mean this sincerely when I say that it is incredibly unlikely that any terrorists are among the refugees. If anyone wanted to commit a terrorist act, there's far easier ways to do it that hide you much better than being a refugee ever would. Don't allow ISIS/ISIL the chance to make you think the refugees are dangerous in any way. They're no more dangerous than any normal man, woman, or child are, yet their circumstances are incredibly different from that of the normal man, woman, or child.
Danny is technically right. There is statistical evidence that accepting refugees increases the incidence of terrorism in the host country. According to this study from 2008, a 1% increase in refugee population in a country increases the incidence of terrorism by 18%.
Req is also right though, it's very difficult for a terrorist to come in legally as a refugee thanks to the paperwork. The real reason for the increase in terrorism caused by accepting refugees is that a very, very large majority of refugees suffer from serious mental illnesses such as PTSD, which combined with the socioeconomic struggles they will have in their new country can lead them to committing acts of terrorism. Not saying people with PTSD are terrorists, but PTSD and other illnesses have been known to cause people to do horrible things.
But again, greater good and all that jazz, rather save innocent people and accept a terrorist or two than turn them all away.
But I stand by the point I made earlier that I'd rather let a minuscule amount of terrorists in than turn away millions of innocent people. I also don't know how well this study discriminates between forms of terrorism. For example, terroristic acts committed against the refugees but not the host country's population should be counted differently, yet I don't recall that study saying it counted those differently.
Req is also right though, it's very difficult for a terrorist to come in legally as a refugee thanks to the paperwork. The real reason for the increase in terrorism caused by accepting refugees is that a very, very large majority of refugees suffer from serious mental illnesses such as PTSD, which combined with the socioeconomic struggles they will have in their new country can lead them to committing acts of terrorism. Not saying people with PTSD are terrorists, but PTSD and other illnesses have been known to cause people to do horrible things.
But again, greater good and all that jazz, rather save innocent people and accept a terrorist or two than turn them all away.
Any argument you have here is gonna boil down to whether or not a government should support its own people above others. And while I am pretty much evil, I'll never vote for anyone that'll sell me out to help some other bumfuck country. Its all about the big D (dunsparce).
I guess I have a really tribalistic morality. I come first, my people come second and the rest of the world comes third. I kinda assume that everyone thinks that way, but I'm starting to realize that's not the case.
Well it's not only a case of seeing all lives as equal rather than valuing "us" over "them", it's also that there are far more completely innocent people who will never cause any problems than there are terrorists or potential terrorists. If you see all lives as equally valuable, the answer is blatantly obvious, but if you don't you should still consider how many more lives are being saved.
But you're totally right to have that feeling of "us" over "them", most of the world would be hypocritical if they faulted you for it. It's in our nature. But one day we'll have moved past that I hope.
But you're totally right to have that feeling of "us" over "them", most of the world would be hypocritical if they faulted you for it. It's in our nature. But one day we'll have moved past that I hope.
The main problem there is that it's not, y'know, a one-to-one correspondence or anything. If France has twenty thousand refugees, and those refugees "caused" about a hundred and fifty deaths, that's more than a hundred refugees taken out of some hellhole of fire and sand for every French death. If your checks-and-balances come up that much in favor of the refugees and your reaction is still "Fuck 'em", you're either pretty shitty at math or kind of a racist.
As I noted above, the numbers behind the situation seem to indicate that it's pretty well worth it unless you inflate the value of [insert nationality here] lives to some arbitrarily large degree for entirely emotional reasons.
Tirin, I've gotta tell you something. You're a weird motherfucker.
First off, when ever you quote only part of something I said, my response always winds up being whatever I said after the part you quoted.
Second of all, you're the only person I've ever met who seems to be fundamentally Utilitarian. Human worth isn't a quantifiable number and it kinda scares me that you think it is.
It's not about the numbers to me, ya dig? I am biologically compelled to favor my own people over others. I don't think that's arbitrary.
Also, I'm not racist because "refugee" isn't a race...
First off, when ever you quote only part of something I said, my response always winds up being whatever I said after the part you quoted.
Second of all, you're the only person I've ever met who seems to be fundamentally Utilitarian. Human worth isn't a quantifiable number and it kinda scares me that you think it is.
It's not about the numbers to me, ya dig? I am biologically compelled to favor my own people over others. I don't think that's arbitrary.
Also, I'm not racist because "refugee" isn't a race...
I'm with the "save more people" side of this. Just because someone lives in the same country doesn't mean I favour them over another human. I haven't met over 99.99% of people in my country and 99.99% of refugees. I would want to try and save people even if it meant risking the lives of a smaller number of people.
But it is a quantifiable thing. When you talk about favoring lives of people in your country over lives of people from other countries, you have to answer the question "well how many foreign lives outweigh one 'native' life?" Would you condemn 1,000 people from Syria to die if it would save 1 person from your country? Maybe you don't know, but do you know if there is a number of Syrians that is too many to condemn to save that single person? You probably think there is a number, but what is it? You aren't meant to answer that question precisely; the exact numbers aren't important, but they are important for illustrating that there must be a line.
Human worth is entirely quantifiable - just like everything else, so long as you put enough thought into it. As FD noted, you're literally quantifying the worth of one group of humans against another group of humans by making your decision on this. You've got a lot more to be worried about by your own unconscious valuing of human life than you do about my actively doing so.
If your best reason is "I am because my biology says so", that's pretty arbitrary. It's also a goddamn lie, since evidently other people disagree with you and thus don't feel any similar biological compulsion.
If "Syrian" is an ethnicity (it is), and you're comfortable with tens or hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees dying versus the risk of a few hundred American lives, I'm pretty comfortable with calling you a racist 'cause somehow I doubt you'd be too worried if it was a bunch of French or German refugees.
I figure that being a politician is no different from any other job. We pay them to keep the peaces and wot not. Their first and last duty is to US. I don't think of them as special or anything, I think of paying taxes as a transaction, and i'd better be happy with the service. So it's not really the in government's right to decide to help out other peoples.
That's how I think of it, anyway.
You're right. Those kinds of thought experiments are sorta intended to mess with a person's moral compass, and they're the reason some have turned to Utilitarianism.
All things considered I'd probably let 'em in, but they'd have to go through some kinda screening process first. I think that pays the refugees some basic human dignity and is also fair my the people.
Soooo... when you say "your people," what are you referring to? Other individuals who happened to be born in the same section of the map as you? Because there's nothing genetically/biologically distinct about being "American." There is some evidence showing that people are biologically predisposed to favor other people of their own ethnicity, true, and especially people of their own family, but Americans don't have anything to do with that because you're an entire nation of assorted refugees. Odds are, you'd need one of the biggest kinds of Crayola crayon packs just to get enough color variety to distinctly mark every part of the world map that "your people," here referring to you specifically, can be traced back to. As for biological imperative to sympathize with other people born within the same national borders as you were, that clearly and demonstrably isn't something that naturally exists.
I'm confused. Do people really believe that immigration anywhere is actually letting refugees in without any sort of screening process at all?
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Danny
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-opens-its-gates-berlin-says-all-syrian-asylum-seekers-are-welcome-to-remain-as-britain-is-10470062.html
So basically, you say "I'm from syria, and I'm running from the bombs", and Germany says, "here's a European passport, have fun!".
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Danny that's from August when this issue first landed on the radar and Germany quickly rescinded that policy. That also has nothing to do with screening, it just meant they would accept them at all. Without that there would be almost no way for a Syrian refugee to get to Germany, and only countries along the Mediterranean would accept asylum seekers. This also meant that any Syrian who was granted asylum would be barred from traveling to Germany (or any other nation in the EU). This was basically Germany saying "We accept refugees" not "We accept ALL refugees"
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