Ehm, who then? You seem like you would know.
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Truck plows into market in Berlin killing 12, injuring 48. Suspect shot dead in Italy
- Thread starter Ensirius
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TTOOLL
Member
Sad situation and I don't see how people can deny this as being a consequence of letting a large group of people entering your country. There will be bad people in the flock. I'm not saying to stop immigration, but are people ready for the consequences?? As somebody said earlier in this thread, the left need to be sincere with this very complex moment. Immigration nowadays is not something simple to deal with, terrorism risk is a big deal. Facts like this attack prove it.
Alx
Member
What was true a few years ago is still true today. Prejudice is still morally wrong, even if statistically it may be more often on the mark today. And fighting prejudice plays a big part in defusing the current situation.
His Majesty
Banned
My condolences to the family and relatives, truly awful news.
GHG
Gold Member
Immigration is not the problem. Mass and unvetted immigration is the problem. History has shown that when done right, immigration more often than not has a huge number positive effects on society with very few negatives that cannot be overcome.
The biggest problem we face is the fact that politicians seem to be in this "all or nothing" mode when it comes to tackling policies such as immigration, it's going to get us nowhere and if the "nothing" crowd gain in popularity it will potentially make things worse. There is a middle ground and it needs to be found ASAP. Creating an "us vs them" mindset plays right into ISIS's hands unfortunately and people really need to start being smarter about this. At times like this it shouldn't be "immigration or no immigration", "left vs right", "racists vs non racists", "us vs them". When there are internal conflicts within societies it only makes them more vulnerable to external conflict. Everyone needs to put their differences aside and group together in order to come up with a solid plan to try and tackle this issue.
People need to wake up and realise that ISIS want the far/alt right in power in western countries. They will do what they can to make it so by increasing the frequency of their attacks in the lead up to election times. They want it so that all Muslims currently residing in western societies become further alienated to the point where they can become persuaded to become radicalised. That then allows them to have more "soldiers" on the ground in the territories they want to cause terror in. Everything that is going on politically at the moment is exactly what they want.
RIP to all the victims and I hope that those that have survived recover as well as possible to live healthy lives.
The biggest problem we face is the fact that politicians seem to be in this "all or nothing" mode when it comes to tackling policies such as immigration, it's going to get us nowhere and if the "nothing" crowd gain in popularity it will potentially make things worse. There is a middle ground and it needs to be found ASAP. Creating an "us vs them" mindset plays right into ISIS's hands unfortunately and people really need to start being smarter about this. At times like this it shouldn't be "immigration or no immigration", "left vs right", "racists vs non racists", "us vs them". When there are internal conflicts within societies it only makes them more vulnerable to external conflict. Everyone needs to put their differences aside and group together in order to come up with a solid plan to try and tackle this issue.
People need to wake up and realise that ISIS want the far/alt right in power in western countries. They will do what they can to make it so by increasing the frequency of their attacks in the lead up to election times. They want it so that all Muslims currently residing in western societies become further alienated to the point where they can become persuaded to become radicalised. That then allows them to have more "soldiers" on the ground in the territories they want to cause terror in. Everything that is going on politically at the moment is exactly what they want.
RIP to all the victims and I hope that those that have survived recover as well as possible to live healthy lives.
CyclopsRock
Member
I'm pretty sure the amount of people actually arguing against immigration of specialized skilled personel, students on student visas etc is close to irrelevant. Illegal immegration absolutely needs to be brought to as close to 0. That absolutely has to be stopped, period. You can still do what the UK or canada does and take in people directly from the warzones after they've been vetted (and focus on families, not primarily young males).
Average of the 5 most recent polls listed here:
CDU - 34,5%
SPD - 21,9%
Linke(far left) - 10,4%
Greens - 10,7%
AfD - 13,1%
FDP - 5,1%
There's literally 23,4% between CDU and AD right now. Even if you add a big polling-shame-factor AfD won't be above something like 18%. And even if they were - until they reach a blocking minority and other coalitions(CDU-SPD-Greens) are still available, everyone will continue to keep ignoring them.
Alx
Member
I'm not claiming to have a solution to solve the problem, but it's quite clear that said problem feeds on clash of cultures, and prejudice in general (and on both/all ends) makes such clash more frequent and intense. So yes reducing prejudice would be a move in the right direction, even if it won't obviously be enough to solve everything.
GHG
Gold Member
The problem is the fact that this isn't the case. Look at Brexit for example. There are a large number of people who voted "leave" because they genuinely thought that immigrants were decreasing their chances of getting jobs.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Good post. Immigration of people who want to work in gainful employment and do their best to contribute to society is an overwhelming positive. Too often it's a question of "all or nothing", because politics. Also trades like electricians cannot be called 'unskilled' jobs. When I think 'unskilled' it's something anyone can do with minimal time and effort. A lot of Eastern European tradespeople out here who are definitely good at their jobs. Plus if Brexit was a question of lack of integration EU migration is the best kind of migration, then.
that moment when you realize states make the same amount of background check as internet websites.
Tell us who will win instead.
SPD? (a more left-leaning party)
Or will the AfD suddenly get from ~12% to over 50% because of this?
His Majesty
Banned
Despite her handling of the refugee crisis Merkel will still win but she will have to adapt her rhetoric to the new situation and shift more to the right.
Which she is already doing by the way.
Which she is already doing by the way.
Just watch out AFD is gonna make up 40% in the next 6 months.
With an unauthentic, obviously just pandering-because-of-the-election possible burqa ban which as a single individual measure accomplishes exactly nothing.
GlamFM
Banned
That´s bullshit. But even if it were true that would not suffice to win since the AfD will never find a partner for a coalition amongst the established parties.
And since I don´t see Germany swinging further to the left (SPD), Merkel is gonna win this thing quiet easily.
Let's hope so. Losing Merkel would be disastrous for the European project. She needs to use this to enforce better border controls in Greece using European military like they are doing partially on Sea.
I think he was being sarcastic. And if that really happened, which there is no chance of, then they wouldn't need a partner as they'd have an absolute majority then with above 50%.
Calm down. I was being sarcastic.
There is 0.00% chance anyone but Merkel will be chancellor next year
GlamFM
Banned
My sarcasm detector is rebooting.
ClosingADoor
Member
"Enforcing" the border at sea for the EU means more ships that just bring over people, because according to the rules when you find those guys at sea you need to drag them over to the EU and can't sent them back.
I don't see how we can enforce the borders for Greece (and Italy). Or maybe you mean from Greece to the rest of the EU, although that would be very unfair to the Greeks to have them handle everyone in their country.
Centers on islands, as has been suggested by the austrian foreign minister and more and more are inclined to agree. (Of course not as a singular measure, but also allowing legal immigration through other ways and increasing monetary aid in the troubled regions themselves a lot). As well as a strict no-illegal-immigration stance because as long as going on the dangerous journey of trying to cross the mediterranian means (either dying or) getting a free ticket into the EU people will just keep coming.
Salty Rice
Member
0% is really unrealistic. Got that from a poll?
SuperBanana
Banned
GAF said Hilary had the same percentage.
"GAF"(I wouldn't generalize) says a lot of things and Germany doesn't have a two party system
Stallion Dan
Member
No, I'm an electrician, I studied for years for it, yet find myself getting undercut by immigrants who price themselves below even minimum wage. Cannot compete with that.
They get away with it because they happy to live 10 in a caravan, or sleep in their vans.
But it's especially bad because they don't even know the proper standards in UK, an electrician from eastern EU is OK to work in UK as an electrician despite the regulations being different on many things. The amount of callouts I get to fix some dodgy work has increased a lot over the years, and the amount who don't get a health and safety check signed off on and don't tell the occupants they did the work for is unreal. (They don't get it done because it wouldn't pass.) If their house burned down or worse someone died due to dodgy electrics, they'd have no house or life insurance willing to pay out.
I'm not against all immigration but current system sucks. Need competency tests or something and a change in law to prevent undercutting too far.
In my opinion it's not really a question about lack of integration or not. But rather changes that those immigrants bring. Positive, negative doesn't really matter. What does if it's sudden or gradual. When you have controlled migration meaning small but steady flow of people coming. That change is slow and "safe".
On the other hand when the same migration is controlled with policy "open the gate". That same change becomes threatening. To quick to much. Ordinary people feel uneasy and tensions arise. In no small part Brexit happened because UK opened it's borders to the eastern workforce while being unprepared for the numbers of people willing to take the offer.
I don't think anybody honestly can say that poles in UK for example are not integrating well.
But the rational argument can be made that to many of them arrived in such a small time frame that they shaked the landscape to much. And UK citizens didn't have the necessary time to simply adjust and accustom.
We have similar situation now with migration from middle east and Africa to Europe. Sadly with poisonous ideology attached...
Considering her party has 15-20% over the next party (SPD) and currently the only coalitions with a majority would be merkel + spd or merkel + greens there is no way anyone but her will be chancellor
Wouldn't compare a two party system to a multi party system like germany but please tell me how the SPD will somehow make up the 15% difference to Merkel or how the AfD will make up 40%
Germany isn't a bipartisan system
Salty Rice
Member
Never underrest the silent people. If anything Brexit and America should show you that nothing has a 0% in these times.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
The annoyance within GAF amongst some when mentioning H1B work visas tells me that some people still object to skilled immigration despite it not really harming society in many ways when they think it means more competition. Doesn't matter if you studied hard to learn the skills to be able to do that job. And who knows, good things have happened once or twice politically in 2016 (lol). Didn't expect van der Bellen to win by a strong margin. I expected Hofer to just about win.
I mean of course there has to be some balance. If there already are no/not enough skilled jobs to fill and an overabundance of native skilled workers for those jobs then it doesn't make sense to add foreign skilled workers for these jobs on top as well. In other areas there's a big lack of skilled personal and special foreign workers are more or less required and it makes much more sense.
GlamFM
Banned
Trump & Brexit were always a close race.
Can´t compare that to the situation here.
It´s not close at all.
RedSparrows
Member
Yeah, they show you that nothing should be taken for granted, sure, but 'unexpected things happening in contexts I am familiar with' does not automatically translate to 'I think unexpected things will happen in a context I have no familiarity with'.
States have similarities, but they also have numerous cultural, electoral, political and structural differences that play out in myriad ways.
'Brexit is Trump is Brexit' is lazy and only pays attention to one aspect of the story.
Brexit and America have all been within 5-10% of each other. Margin much larger in germany. As i said even if Merkel wouldn't be chancellor the next chancellor would be left leaning. Far right would have to make up 40% because no one will form a coalition with them.
Unlike Brexit or the US election this isn't a binary choice.
SporeCrawler
Member
You know nothing of german politics
There are two scenarios where merkel will loose this election
1. Red-Red-Green wins majority and forms a coalition
2. CDU shafts merkel
2. will not happen. And 1. is unlikely
you know what? The people that were going to vote for afd probably voted linke last time. Also every party except Afd sipports merkels refugee policy and you dont see them at 30% . It means that most of the germans do agree with the refugee policy of merkel
More news at eleven lol
It really doesn't and afaik there's polls saying that more than a majority is not content with the refugee policy. Preventing far-right-parties does in no way mean you support the opposing parties in all their positions. In Austria in the recent presidential election one of the biggest reasons people voted for the green candidate(who got 53%, green part itself is at 12%) was to prevent the right-wing populist candidate.
Mr. Giggles
Member
What's to say really...
Salty Rice
Member
Thats 100% not true. If there would be just a decision for or against it instead of elections the majority would vote for no.
Close the border between Greece and Turkey using troops as Greece cannot handle that on their own and let people apply there, immediately bring everyone back that doesn't comply with refugee status for the ship sailers, arrest the smugglers and sink their ship on shore so they cannot be reused. We are making it harder for actual war victims because we cannot or dare not send back the others ready enough.
GlamFM
Banned
During this entire refugee crisis Merkel did the right thing (opening the borders to refugees) but always did a terrible job at explaining why it is the right thing to do.
People are in fear right now, this morning more than ever, and telling the german population that the police will now be wearing bullet proof vests will not put the fears to rest.
She could have said that they are running background checks on all refugees who came into the country without ID for example.
Anything that shakes the feeling that the same thing could happen again tonight.
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