Hacker News Reader

Comment by ido | Hacker News Reader

    I am not against immigration but I think Europe should 
    be seriously reconsidering non-western immigration as 
    it will simply clash.

I don't get why you want to filter them by "non-western"? I have arab, african, indian & east-asian friends here in Berlin that I am sure are net-postives for society. Why not set the filters to something more directly related to what you want to achieve? Such as education level, having a job offer waiting, no criminal record, etc (Germany's blue card program already does more or less that).

View on HN

> Why not set the filters to something more directly related to what you want to achieve?

Fine I'll bite: draw cartoons of you-know-who, see if they still integrate so seamlessly.

Its the elephant in the room.

There's assholes everywhere, in any group, so also there's immigrant assholes. Not letting immigrants in doesn't help with the assholes problem.

And also not every non-westerner is a Muslim, and not every Muslim is religious/cares about someone drawing Muhammad.

What you're trying to say is Muslim immigrants have trouble integrating in secular European society.

But that has been a problem with immigration for years. In Australia in the 50s/60s the same thing was said about Italians and other post-war immigrants.

The first generation works hard and busts their ass to get their kids a good education and into professions and business. They also have more of the attitudes of the society they left (conservative etc).

The second and then third generation adopt their local society's attitude. This leads to inter-generational clashes.

Radical propaganda leads to radicalization to the same endpoint, whether Islamist or Christianist or (in Israel for example) Judaist, or in India, Hinduist.

That radicalization is what is causing the current lack of assimilation. It is dangerous because it is driven by having an in group and an out group. It doesn't matter which religion it is, the radicalization, the precepts (male domination, female subjugation, attacking non-cis genders, non-hetero sexuality etc) are all the same.

> The first generation works hard and busts their ass to get their kids a good education and into professions and business.

That's how it used to be back in the day, but it doesn't seem to be how it works nowadays in countries to which migrant-smugglers explicitly recruit customers based on those countries' unconditional social benefit payments.

> The second and then third generation adopt their local society's attitude.

See the above; and thus...

> This leads to inter-generational clashes.

...thus, inter-cultural clashes, rather than inter-generational.

Comparing Italians with muslim immigrants from war torn countries is far fetched. Italians are all over the world and have integrated just fine. Nobody is more European than people from countries like Italy, Austria, Germany, France.

Because its obviously not about what makes sense ... you don't seem to know but your friends just don't fit our awesome western culture.

I really hate the term "culture" by now.

No, it's just the fact that some part (not all of it) of the economy has become zero sum, primarily low skill labor. When people get screwed in a zero sum game they want someone else to get screwed instead.

It's not surprising. It's completely obvious.

The thing is, in Germany the people voting for the far-right party are actually doing fine economically and so are their friends.

I do agree that parts of the economy are not working properly. And still we can't seem to get ourselves to vote for different politicians that might do something about it. Yeah that means stuff changes and change and new things are scary, but not fixing those things would be worse.

I think you are deceiving yourself by restricting your dataset to those in your circles. Of course there are many smart and productive immigrants in Germany from all over the world.

I said I am not against immigration, but shutting it down for a period or restricting heavily might be worth it due to the potential risks that exist long term.

There's no real harm in trying that for Germany's voters, and by doing so you will also keep the far right wingers at bay.

I feel like you are dancing around the issue, which is: why do you care if the migrants are "non-western" rather than of they are educated or have an in demand profession? Correct me if I'm wrong but are you saying you'd prefer blocking a Syrian doctor from immigrating than a French unskilled worker?

I don't want to block the French unskilled worker and I don't need to, as the EU exists and allows for him/her to move to Germany if desired. As for the Syrian doctor - sure that is a pity if strict immigration keeps such individuals out. However, going the formal route with work permit application etc exists as well. It won't be easy but resourceful people will find a way.

> but shutting it down for a period or restricting heavily might be worth it due to the potential risks that exist long term (...) by doing so you will also keep the far right wingers at bay

So that means that the people in Germany that would vote for right-wing parties are the problem, not the immigrants themselves, no matter how well they behave. I agree with that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com