Exactly.

Here in the Netherlands people grow tired of the ever growing lust for EU power and the ever increasing amount of EU laws and rules. When we do get a chance to speak out like in the recent referendum about associating with the Ukraine, people's "No" vote is just ignored (like the vote about the EU constitution was ignored). Most people I know don't like the sanctions against Russia because they impact our economy, they don't like doing business with Erdogan, they don't like TTIP. But people are ignored by the politicians in the middle. So people start voting for less traditional, more polarized right or left (here that would be Geert Wilders, very anti EU) and Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals (oh yes we have that), who are very anti TTIP, bio-industry and globalization.) It just feels like those lefties and righties are better at listening to us and the middle parties are listining to the every growing group of bureaucrats from the EU. Maybe because the "extreme" left and right have much less affiliations and friends in the EU and in large corporations.

To me, the EU adds a lot of politicians who are not chosen democratically, and are thus beyond the reach of normal citizens. They are however nicely within the reach of lobbyists.

Demagogues will always find fertile ground when bashing the EU. It's been a long time since anyone has come out and defended it in a positivist way e.g. guarantor of democracy, free movement of labor, etc.

In the current British debate leading up to the referendum, major campaigners in the 'Stay In' campaign rarely defend the EU, and rather take the line that the UK should stay in the EU despite all it's problems.

What was the turnout at the referendum in the Netherlands?

Part of the problem is that a lot of the reasons that those who are most pro-EU have for wanting to stay are at the same time a bit icky.

E.g. the EU has for a long time acted as a better guarantor for human rights in the UK than the UK parliaments. But going out and saying people should vote to remain in the EU because it ensures EU law will overrule the elected UK governments on human rights isn't going to help win a majority to remain. It's a bad situation to be in where you have to choose between more devolved power and protection of human rights.

Similarly, free movement of labor isn't big selling point to those who aren't already convinced. Those who aren't already convinced aren't seeing this as an opportunity for them to go out and work elsewhere in Europe, but as an opportunity for people from poorer parts of Europe to come to the UK and take their jobs.

> E.g. the EU has for a long time acted as a better guarantor for human rights in the UK than the UK parliaments.

Genuinely curious, when has this come up in the recent past?

How is the EU a guarantor of democracy? Our national governments are far more democratic than the EU. Free movement of labour isn't necessarily something that's good for working people, particularly at the lower end of the income distribution, as that means competition from people who are willing to work for much lower wages.

You know that goes both ways? You're also free to move to a different country where you get paid better. Now you might not want to do that, because you want your kinds to grow up in $country or some other valid reason but it's wrong to paint this as something singularly bad for the working class.

Realistically, how does the ability to move to Poland help the person working in a local car repair shop? Is that hypothetical worth the risk of getting fired in favour of a cheaper worker? What about the job prospects of his/her kids? Free movement of labour helps the owner of the repair shop, not so much the workers.

Freedom of movement is not just about moving to Poland, but also from Poland, as literally millions of workers have done to richer countries.

That's the point...

Go work in a car repair shop in France if they pay better, that's how you profit. Thousands of Polish people moved to the UK and took jobs there.

Imagine a conversation between a pro-EU politician and this car mechanic.

P: Vote for me! Free movement of labour is great.

C: Why? Then I will face competition from people who are willing to work for very low wages, and so will my kids.

P: Yea, but then you can move to France with your family!

C: Ok but I don't want to move to France. I don't speak the language. My friends and family are here. My kids go to school here. And why would wages be better in France, anyway? I'll face the same competition there.

Can you see why this may not be very convincing? On the other hand, imagine a conversation with the owner of the shop:

P: Vote for me! Free movement of labour is great.

O: Indeed, I'll be able to hire cheaper workers.

At this point your appealing to emotion, not reason. Even if individual car repair man is not leaving for France, if many leave to take better paying jobs in France supply is lowering in his home country, which should lead to higher prices (or lower unemployment)

I think the better counter argument is brain drain, it's certainly not advantageous for a country if many of its most skilled citizens leave. Personally, I think it's just wrong to build berries of any sort for your citizens to leave the country.

We are talking voters here. Its appealing both to emotion and logic.

There is plenty of logic of being sceptical when Danes aren't getting jobs at their normal rates because they are being underbid by eastern european workers taking work in their countries while Danes moving to eastern europe won't get the same benefit.

The major problem with the EU is that the expansion towards underdeveloped countries happened too fast.

It's one things when countries are fairly equal, but the difference between the north and the south and the east and the west is quite staggering.

This is all part of why people are skeptical. Both because it's logical to be so and because they are being emotionally afraid about their future.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with the fact that it's a hard sell. The original comment I replied to was stating opinions as fact, not arguing it's hard to convince people of it.

I'm speechless.

That depends on who you are. If you are eastern european and move to Denmark you take the jobs no one wants often way below the "minimum wage"

I think you may have missed my point - I was simply pointing out no one on the "pro" EU side has a positivist story to tell. You may not find those particular arguments convincing, and I chose them at random for arguments sake.

I think many countries joined the EU for different reasons apart from the ones I have suggested above. Despite all the austerity thrown at the Greeks, Cypriots, and other countries their willingness to stay in has remained as strong as ever - why?

And if the answer is handouts, then I'm sorry I don't think that's the whole story. Greece is now so indebted it'll take generations to solve.

The Treaty of Lisbon requires that EU member-states have an executive responsible to a directly-elected Parliament.

The EU has a directly elected Parliament.

The EU has a slightly complicated executive. There is the Council of Ministers, which proposes legislation and which appoints the Commission. The Council is made up of democratically elected politicians (notably, politicians who do not have a direct personal mandate -- appointees to upper houses, for example, are generally excluded from direct personal participation in the Council). The Commission, which generally implements legislation passed by the Council and the Parliament, is chosen by the Council of Ministers and must be approved by the Parliament.

So the Commissioners are somewhat remote from the voting, but are responsible to two sets of directly elected politicians: those forming national executives, and those directly elected to the European Parliament.

There are plans to have the equivalents of Commissioners directly elected on a pan-European basis, however this requires unanimity among the 28 member-states, and that has not yet been achieved.

There are also plans to have more proportional national-parliamentary representation in a future version of the Council. In part this is because there are broad coalitions and complex national structures in a few member-states. Already there is an expectation that ministers show that they speak for the majority of their national parliaments on key matters (e.g. in formal QMV settings). These rules were adopted by elected politicians in the 28 national governments.

The Parliament suffers from MEPs not being very close to their voters -- the electorates are larger (much larger in some proportional representation cases) and they have less direct influence over purely local and personal matters than national or regional politicians. But they still campaign, and some MEPs are better than others at being close to their electorates.

The Commission has the disadvantage of being responsible to two different bodies: the Council and the Parliament, either of which can remove them. For a variety of reasons, a huge number of MEPs represent non-governing parties strongly opposed to some of their national governments' goals. Commissioners are also often former politicians in the party "opposite" the one in power in their home nation-state. (This is an alternate source of pressure by elected politicians to make sure the Council reflects something broader than the narrow interests of the various governments of the day, to the extent that those are mainly aligned party-wise or philosophically, which is not the case on numerous issues).

Freedom of movement within the EU is something supported by the vast majority of elected politicians across Europe -- in the national parliaments, in the national governments that those parliaments directly choose or support, in the European Council (which is, again, those same national governments), and in the European Parliament (directly elected). Criticism of Freedom of Movement should not really centre on being somehow undemocratic, or at least not more undemocratic than all the member states themselves.

Returning to your question, the Treaty of the European Union requires member-states to guarantee your access to your MEP (representing you where you live within the EU) and to local elected officials (again, where you live) as well as to elected members of the national parliaments in the member-state(s) of your nationality (wherever you happen to live). This is a very active area of European law (there are some cases before the ECJ where the Commission and others are supporting nationals of member-states they do not live in with respect to their right to access to members of parliaments of those member-states) and generally taken seriously.

So the EU is a guarantor of your right to complain to several democratically elected officials about their support for free movement of labour within the EU, and to vote on that basis if you wish (e.g., during EP elections or elections in your home state(s)).

32.3%

Thanks. Does that seem like a representative number of the Dutch population?

You know what they say.. average voter enthusiasm can go up and down, but freaks always show up.

The EU should actually be more democratic, giving more direct power to the people, but have you ever wondered why it isn't? The main reason is that national governments WANT the "government" of the EU (the Commission) to be an intergovernmental entity, IE a bureaucracy they can control, and not a government that responds directly to the people of Europe.

The solution should be pretty obvious: let the people of the EU choose the commission directly with their vote.

You are right that lot of those people don't benefit from globalization and struggle with finding jobs etc. but:

> They are not racist or facists. They are just afraid of the change that is hitting them and have no other way of expressing this fear. In Europe and in the US.

No, they are racist. Even if you can explain their racism, it's still racism. There is always some explanation but it's still a move to the right. If you look at the language the AfD is using for example, you realize it's intentionally close to pre-WWII Nazi propaganda.

That was true for the original founding of the parties but thats not why they keep growing. This is important to understand.

The parties are right wing and racist, they also gain votes from people who just want to be heard and think all other parties are too much like the current ones.

The anti-establishment sentiment is so bad that it also rewards whoever shouts the most outrageous things; if you call them out on it, you're obviously part of the establishment.

They are racist, and are being rewarded for racist statements (e.g. Wilders getting a crowd to shout "Fewer Moroccans! Fewer Moroccans!", or Trump's Mexican wall or keeping muslims out of the US).

You have nothing to back that claim up.

You are grouping a bunch of very different people into one group the very thing liberals are normally quick to react to when it's done by the right.

You are part of the very reason there even is a right wing.

But each to their own of course.

I'm convinced that a big reason for them to keep growing is that it gets more and more acceptable to provide simplistic and right wing answers to the problems.

You are wrong then and will continue to miss the most important thing. People are loosing their belief in the future and their ability for prospering and so they are simply looking for someone who take their concerns serious. The left used to do that.

Or if you insist on you own interpretation. You should instead ask yourself why more and more people buy into that view. The answer to neither of them are racism or fascism.

But the right doesn't take their concerns seriously, they offer no solutions whatsoever. They just shout outrageous, unrealistic oneliners.

The right exploits their concerns, which is easier to be perceived as addressing them when no one else is even acknowledging them.

Very well put.

The left ignores them completely. So they are grasping for every straw they can.

They offer the solution of stopping for the influx of immigration. One of the key issues many in europe see.

Just ask the unions. They are increasingly fighting against the cheaper labour in ex. construction undermining the salaries of their own national members.

The left have no response to that what so ever.

But immigration _isn't_ a key issue, it's not the cause of these peoples' troubles. They get told that, so that they can be provided with simplistic solutions.

Globalization is the problem, technology making jobs obsolete is the problem, natural limits to growth of world economy are the problem, climate change and energy crunch will be huge problems for them soon. But those are hard to explain and much harder to solve, so the idiots win.

Edit: Sorry, I read "refugees" when I saw you mention immigrants. Cheap labour from inside the EU is a real problem.

The right has one simply solution which actually in the short run is the most rational one.

Stop immigration.

I am sure calling someone an idiot just because they represent another view than you is under your own normal level too.

You aren't an idiot just because you are skeptic towards immigration. National Conservative is a totally fair position to take.

There is racism in some quarters, but there are also plenty of people who are just opposed to the free movement of people on selfish grounds.

Just as one example, the FPö, which just very narrowly lost the Austrian elections, was literally founded by nazis. They explicitly promote an ethnic-nationalist Austrian identity at the expense of any notion of cosmopolitanism or post-nationalism. Their frequent talk of Heimat is not all that different from the blut und boden of earlier times.

If this isn't right-wing identity politics, I don't know what is.

It's important to realize that while Germany went throughout an extensive period of "Denazification" after WW2, Austria did much less so.

This process is probably the main reason even today Germans tend to be rather averse to warmongering and nationalism. It's only been a few years since Germans have become comfortable with publicly displaying German flags in support of German sports teams again -- the phenomenon was so strange to us Germans that it actually gathered a lot of media attention within Germany.

I'd even go so far as to say that the differemce om Denazification in the American zone compared to the Soviet zone is one of the reasons far-right parties are doing better in former East Germany than in former West Germany to this day (although the economical consequences of the fall of the German Democratic Republic and the lower population density likely play a bigger role).

While Austria was subject to Denazification its role has always been seen as more of a conspirator: it wasn't Austria that created the Third Reich, Germany annexed Austria and made them subject to the Third Reich. That Hitler himself was Austrian is treated as nothing more than an interesting factoid -- after all his rise to power started in Munich, which is in Germany (or at least Bavaria -- which btw has been politically dominated by the right-of-center Christian Social Union for decades) after all.

As a German I can't possibly say what Austrians think of their role in the Third Reich but from a German perspective it seems to boil down to "that thing Germany did and got us involved in". There certainly doesn't seem to be the same level of cultural guilt and political paranoia.

So? Doesn't mean they plan a genocide or aggressive expansionist policies... Japan has been doing something similar for years, only there it's apparently not called "right-wing politics"

"Right-wing identity politics" does not automatically equate to genocide or expansionism. However, historically, nationalistic states usually exhibit a widespread "if you're not one of us, then you're at best a nuisance" attitude. Mid-20th-century Germany, Japan, and Italy are just the most obvious examples.

Lebensraum was about unifying a diaspora of German speaking people into one collective country.

These people want racially based geopolitical partitioning. The ones with a diaspora and victimhood narrative certainly advocate for an aggressive "homeland of the x people" where racist law keeps it that way.

TOOT-TOOT! Fact-checking police: (...)Lebensraum was an ideological element of Nazism, which advocated Germany's territorial expansion into Eastern Europe(...) As the very name says - "living space"

You seem to be correct!

My mistake! I know what I described was a Nazi policy but after reading wikipedia, Lebensraum wasn't the name of it.

Thank you for the education and correction

Since when was planning genocide a pre-requisite to be considered right-wing?

We're not talking about possible genocide or expansionism, I was simply responding to:

> The "moving to the right" analysis is wrong both in Europa and in the US.

As for Japan, Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party are widely regarded as nationalist/center-right/right both within Japan and without. There's nothing controversial about this characterisation.

The unified Europe was originally a nazi idea. Can we please move the intellectual level up a bit?

The European Union was pretty much created to prevent Germany from starting another war (or more generally: to maintain peace in Europe).

The nazis wanted to "unify" Europe only in the sense that they wanted to annex all European nations and exert unlimited control over them. They weren't interested in creating a European identity, they merely wanted Germans to rule all of Europe (but not make Europeans Germans -- after all Europe was full of untermenschen they wanted nothing to do with).

In other words "unifying Europe" under the doctrine of Lebensraum basically meant conquering more territory for Germans to settle (and enslaving, deporting or exterminating the local population as necessary). Unless you're saying the EU wants to literally do that, the comparison is hyperbolic at best (and defamatory at worst).

Yes you are completely right. It wasn't meant as a serious argument. It was a reaction just as silly as then one it was answering.

You say that, but I've seen this argument presented as serious criticism of the EU before, so Poe's law aside I guess it's worth refuting.

Yes I have seen that to. Just as I have seen serious arguments trying to turn current voters for right-wing companies into nazis.

Thats what I was reacting to by putting just as ridicules a claim out there.

"Originally a nazi idea"? ROFL. Just to pick a previous example, what about Napoleon?

Sure Napoleon too. And there were other parties before the parties we talk about here proposing the same things.

The point of of course is that if that is was nazist is the argument, completely ignoring the current context and reality then it's not really worthy of anything but equally retarded attempts to morally paint something s you don't have to actually make a case.

Maybe I completely misunderstood you then... were you writing against the argument that uniting Europe was "Originally a nazi idea"?

I was writing against the argument of trying to use Nazism in the argument we have here. Which someone tried his way with.

Of course it's true that the Nazis wanted something very close to the EU. It's been used by many opponents of the EU as an argument against it.

But of course it's a retarded way to argue because the current EU is not founded on nazism or nazist ideas.

My main thesis was that most political analysts are wrong in their attempt to make the increasing popularity of the right wing parties a question of racism, fascism etc.

Many of the parties originally gained their support with some of these voters but they have since then mostly developed into being simply National Conservatives.

And so their voters are not so much voting as racist but as skeptics when it comes to immigration especially from countries that are culturally far from their own.

They fear that a continued influx will destroy the culture and their nation. They just want to be left a lone so to speak.

Thats a very different sentiment than the nazis looking out for a specific race to exterminate.

There is one nagging thread remaining: the theme that ones' own culture is elevated over all others, and deserving of first-class treatment. As an American, with neighbors and friends from all over the globe making my culture a mixing pot of music, food, work ethic, church and leisure, I am always puzzled by the European idea that somehow their culture will be destroyed by letting new neighbors live in their city. A century and a half after being settled our local cities all have strong cultural identities with their ancestral pioneering families. From city-wide events, to cultural centers and musical venues, to celebrations of food traditions. I can sample all this because I live among folks from all over the world. Without threatening my own history.

Thats because Europe have a very different system for supporting immigration.

In the US it's up to you to basically take care of yourself from day one.

in the EU you benefit from the social welfaresystem from day one.

In Europe you are made a patient so to speak, in the US you are made a provider. Europe doesn't have millions of people living their under the radar participating in the economy. Instead most immigrants and refugees gets paid by the system.

Further more the US is a big big big continent. Europe isn't yet it has more people than the US.

So this is not about being afraid this is about the rate, the quantity and the cultural change.

I read somewhere that this different means that the US get the 80% most self-sufficient immigrants while EU gets the 80% least self-sufficient immigrants which make sense when you think about the very different demand the US puts on your for self-sustaining your life.

> the theme that ones' own culture is elevated over all others, and deserving of first-class treatment

Isn't this one of the themes that make Trump such a successful candidate in the USA right now? There are people who have that have that attitude in Europe and the US (and, I guess, everywhere). Unfortunately, that attitude is on the rise both here and there, AFAIK.

I get that you're not a native speaker so you're probably not doing this intentionally, but casually throwing around the word "retarded" can sound offensive and juvenile, and will certainly discourage people from engaging with your arguments in good faith.

I am well aware of the meaning of the word.

In the original argument you made and which I was answering were trying to make connection between people who vote for right wing parties and nazism.

I am saying that both are retarded argument. Both the one I am responding to which you made and the one I am making.

I am only making it to show how absurd kind of argument it is that you are making.

Call it what you want.

> Of course it's true that the Nazis wanted something very close to the EU

Even that isn't remotely true. The Nazis wanted an empire based on military conquest, with the imposition of the will of the "superior Arian race" on the other "inferior races"; the territories where those inferior races lived should have been colonized by Germans (lebensraum) and the original inhabitants should have become slaves, be relocated elsewhere, or just be exterminated.

Can you tell me which part of this is close to the EU?

There is nothing in nazism that is about unifying the EU, just as there is nothing in right-wing skepticism that is about a superior race.

Thats the point. Just like the fact that the nazis did have a dream of a unified europe also politically doesn't have anything to do with the EU we see today, the fact that some right wing party was started by someone with nazi sympathy does not mean thats why people vote for them today.

I don't know how to make the argument much clearer to you.

The technique of assuming a point prior to actually establishing it, is a cheap one. It's also transparent.

Please read the context it was made in.

I am not assuming anything. I am simply providing an argument just as silly as the one I am responding to show how useless that line of argumentation is.

Yeah well no. All these parties have fear based platform, xenophobic agenda and authoritarian sympathies.

The real reason they are opposed to EU is not that their politicians somehow shun power, but because humanitarian values of current European legislation are in the way.

They are definitely originally built on that, but that's not why they keep adding voters. This is where most analysts go wrong and why they are surprised every time there is an election in Europe.

It's about fear of change, about being left behind. Not out of choice but out of lack benefit from technology, globalization etc.

They are not benefitting from it so why should they keep voting from it?

There's hardly anyone living in EU who did not benefit from technology and globalization. We're not talking Haiti here.

Your remark about fear of change though is quite apt.

Not that kind of benefit, but you already knew this :)

The one that affect their personal lives. Jobs, education, cost of living, what they have compared to others.

"Fear of change" is a negative frame. Maybe they know what change causes and simply don't want it.

Then their numbers wouldnt be increasing.

They certainly would. People often make new decisions about what they want.

People dont just change positions that radically. We are talking about normal voters who used to vote left or even social liberal and conservative.

They never even consider race. They vote the parties because their lifes are affected negatively what you and i see as opportunity. If you dont understand that you dont understand why trump and right wing increases their supporters and you will continue to fight the wrong battles.

You seem to have it all figured out. I wish you well.

Absolutely, and these parties are posing as a solution to whatever the current problem happens to be (populism).

People looking for simplification, maybe because they are unable to understand more complex situations, tend to go for the shallow, simple-looking, party.

And people who are well educated seems to like complex systems for the sake of it. The world is literally filled with academics who loved and proposed complex systems to the detriment of the rest. It should come as no surprise that a combination of EU and the recent influx of refugees and immigrants is causing a reaction when people don't feel they get heard.

But isn't this is precisely what we would normally consider right-wing? A percentage of the population that is going through tough times or big changes is looking for a leader that will improve their lives, often uniting against a common "enemy" like the jews, kurdish people, immigrants, capitalists, communists, muslims, whatever.

Right-wing extremists might have a different meaning in the US, but thats how I think it is commonly understood in Europe.

That's more or less a description of the left-wing in the U.S. but with a different list of enemies.

"Left wing" in the US means at least center/center-right in the rest of the world.

Most, if not all, of these parties seem to make a point of scapegoating immigrants and refugees (and certain religions). In fact, that seems to be their main point. Trump is no exception. Sounds pretty far to the right to me.

At least in Poland, the nominal "right-wing" party (Law and Justice) does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country, seeing how badly the attempts at integration went in many other European countries.

"does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country" - OH well, in that case...

Any sorry for the sarcasm but "not wanting" and "leaving them to die" is a difference. Of course nobody wants to spend resources on refugees. But if someone prefers letting them die because integration is hard, then this is "right-wing".

The recent immigration wave in EU is not really about people who would be "left to die" if they weren't taken in.

They are generally not fleeing from immediate danger, and they select their target countries of migration based on perceived chances of making a living (by work or by social security) and having a community where one could live (usually one's own countrymen). The perception of where one can make a living is received from often fanciful messages in social media that are of course frequently quite wrong.

On the way, they pass through countries that are safe enough for them to stay. Countries that are safe for anyone to take holiday. Millions of people from EU have holiday in Turkey and Greece each year, for instance. Migrants come through these countries. They are certainly not being killed in Turkey, for instance, but they want more than that.

This doesn't mean that the migrants are bad people. They are looking for a better life, just like any of us would do. They come from many, many countries that are run badly. I can't blame them for wanting to emigrate. And the availability of Internet and improved economical resources and improved connections have made migration more feasible than ever, particularly with the European taxpayer paying the bill at the receiving end through the asylum process.

But the asylum mechanism meant for protecting persecuted individuals is largely being misused in this process. The public perception of the whole thing being a scam is strengthened by well-meaning but unwise poses and statements of politicians that later make them look ridiculous.

For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. We were told that they were here because otherwise they would be killed. They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back.

That's what I call ineffective, and this kind of things gets voters mad. Calling these voters "right wing" or "Nazis" is not going to help. They well merely think: "I'm a reasonable person and they call me right wing; I guess the right wing is reasonable people then".

> For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. ... > They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. > Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. > They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back.

You have any sources for that? I'm trying to imaging someone fleeing by risking their lives and paying with all their savings and then return because they didn't like the weather. This sounds like right wing propaganda to me. And whether people consider themself as reasonable or not doesn't matter. It matters whether they are.

Use an online translator of your choice for the following:

Deutschlandfunk (public broadcasting): http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/rueckkehr-in-den-irak-fluechtl...

Tagesschau (public broadcasting, left-leaning): https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/rueckkehr-irak-101.html

Zeit (most widely read German weekly newspaper, centrist-left): http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2016-03/fluechtlingsk...

Explicitly no right-wing media, far from it in fact.

Just google around. This is factual. You are not a refugee if you are fleeing several countries. An economic one sure, but it's a very different thing then.

This is why there is an increasing push to add more money to surrounding areas so they can provide better help locally.

> You are not a refugee if you are fleeing several countries

It is pretty odd to me to assume that someone who has given up everything and spent all their money to leave, and thus has demonstrated a willingness to go to extremes to get away from their original situation, will cross a border and suddenly decide "hey, no point in seeing if we can get it better if we go a bit farther".

In other words, while I'm sure there are purely economic migrants who haven't suffered all that much hardship who try to take advantage of the refugee stream, it is possible to both be a genuine refugee fleeing for your life and also quite reasonably want to find the best possible place to live once you've managed to get away from the worst risk.

Not least because it is also about dealing with horribly poor information about where they might have the best chances at being allowed to stay.

If we want people to stay closer, then it needs to feel to people arriving in e.g. Turkey, like staying in refugee camps there is a reasonable choice.

Of course people do want to move on and go farther.

It's just that then they are no longer in immediate threat of death or persecution (if they ever were) and thus not covered by the refugee conventions.

To counter this, the people smugglers teach (sell) stories to be told to the authorities in receiving countries.

Again, if I were among the migrants, I might very well do the same. Move on, try to adapt, do whatever is needed to be allowed to go on. I've talked to many migrants (mostly young men or boys) and they've almost all been reasonable kids with interesting though sad stories. But they were not being threatened for their lives by the nasty Swedes behind Torneå river whence they came from.

One boy who I invited for a cup of tea after a football training, for instance, was 17. He was born in Afghanistan but moved with his family to Iran at the age of 4. He lived there for almost 10 years, as a second class person (non-citizen, no right to go to school, no proper health care, despised by the locals). Then they moved on to Turkey, then to Greece (which was not nice at all, people were kept in detention), then through Balkans to Austria where he spent a year. Then migration through Germany, Denmark, Sweden. Now he's moved on again, looking for his place in the world.

Not an easy life,but it's hard to say what we really could do to the whole of Afghan diaspora who lives like this. Welcoming everyone isn't going to work, even if I want to be friendly and reasonable to anyone I meet.

> It's just that then they are no longer in immediate threat of death or persecution (if they ever were) and thus not covered by the refugee conventions.

I think we mostly agree. Though they would still (assuming they were at one point in immediate threat of death or persecution) be covered by the refugee conventions. It's just that they have no immediate right of asylum or refugee status in countries they subsequently travel to.

This is an important distinction. Someone coming out of Syria that then goes through multiple countries, is a refugee. They don't cease to be a refugee if they travel on to, say, Germany. But the refugee treaties regulates which states are legally obliged to consider an asylum application and which may choose to just tell them "no, you have to go back and apply somewhere else".

The problem, is that these treaties does not take into account human nature, nor do they take into account the tremendous burden they impose on the immediate neighbours of countries like Syria. And so they will not work, and it is not realistic to assume they will work without huge investments in actually making it undesirable to continue on by giving people a reasonable shot at something better closer.

Btw, in US terminology, none of the people migrating to Europe are refugees. Only quota refugees are refugees there; spontaneous asylum applicants are not.

Thats not the point.

A refugees who flees war only need to go to the closest safe area and they are away from the imidiate danger that make them refugees.

Those with most money are those who can afford moving the furthest away.

In most cases it's actually the men who travel all the way to ex Scandinavia and leave their wife and kids behind. They do this because they know they can get them reunited later on.

The people who really have no money are stuck in the nearest refugee camp. I certainly don't hold it against those with the means to try and make a better future for themselves far away from their homelands but that does not mean you just accept everyone.

Then you just end up like Sweden and frankly not even the Swedes are happy about that right now.

They only need to. But it makes little point for them to settle for that if they are able to get further.

The point is not that we should encourage them to go on, but that dismissing those who go on as not really refugees fail to acknowledge human nature.

If you've taken crazy risks to flee, it makes no sense to stop at the very first point where you're no longer at immediate risk of death if you e.g. believe you have a better chance to be allowed to stay in a different country, or if you believe you have better chances at a normal life if you go on. Whether or not those beliefs are right.

I did not suggest we should "just accept everyone". Just that the idea that continuing on is an indication of whether or not someone is genuinely a refugee is flawed.

And thats all fine it just brings them out of the category you where trying to put them in.

> You have any sources for that? I'm trying to imaging someone fleeing by risking their lives and paying with all their savings and then return because they didn't like the weather.

Of course it is not just the weather, or climate to be exact, but it's a fact that many of the people really had no idea of what the winter is in Northern Europe. Some people adapt, some don't. Particularly if one happened to come to the very North in the winter, the sun rises at 10 am or later and goes down at 2pm or before, and it is cold. Not at all easy to adapt. Some do, many don't.

But along with it there is the realization that unlike promised, there are no jobs that one could take, and all of the receiving population is not as friendly as in the social media clips that feature Angela Merkel or other EU leaders saying "welcome refugees". The food is really different as well, and this is difficult for some people.

So quite a number have decided to go back. These are not rejected asylum applications, these are withdrawn applications. People kiss the ground when they get back to Baghdad.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/finland_flies_103_former_asylum_seeker...

And yes, I do think it is quite a shame that so many people have spent their savings on chasing a dream that was not true. It's also a shame that people smugglers have made fortunes with this. I think they are worse than drug lords, in fact. They are individuals who shamelessly make false promises of an Eldorado and take $5000 or $1000 for a hazardous trip, and actually give advice that gets people killed.

For instance, people in rubber boats en route to Greece or Italy are advised to puncture their boat when they spot the EU sea rescue boats. This is so that they cannot be turned back (as if the rescuers would do that) and they have to be picked up immediately.

So, you bet everything on the card that the rescue boat picks you up. But this instruction does not take into account that the rescue boat may already be full. The boat won't take more than its capacity, so this greedy advice -- which makes sure no one comes right back to tell his tale -- ends up with people floating in the water without their boats. The rescue may take time, people drown or die of hypothermia.

But some people surely make a lot of money out of this. People smugglers, as well as "respectable" corporations that set up, maintain and service the shelters (paid by tax money, run by people with political connections, maintained at the minimum standards.)

This is an amazing explanation, thanks!

Is not helping people starving or dying of Malaria in Africa/Asia right wing too? Both are some serious maladies affecting people very far from us, with whom we have nothing in common.

As for the Syrians, they'd had to cross something like 6-7 borders before they even reach Poland. It would make just such much sense to ship them to US or Canada or Argentina.

EDIT (probably a clearer way to make my point): Once the Syrians flee from the war zone to for example Turkey, their life is no longer in danger. So, them going from Turkey to Poland is not about saving lives, and cannot be posed as a moral argument.

Argentina is no stranger to Syrians, including an infamous president - Menem.

I'm living in Berlin. We could probably met in person later today if we want. Yet, reading your comments make me realize how little we have in common. I'm pretty sure I'd find plenty of Syrian people I would feel more connected to. I don't think the geography has anything to do it, neither how many borders are in in between.

And regarding Malaria, we should help as well. But that's imply not the point. You making it about this is typical derailing we see from all the right wing populists.

Ultimately it's not about "feeling connected to" but about identity and interests - people are wired to preserve the interests of their group (nations) above others.

Multiculturalism can work ok in rich and safe bubbles (such as some areas of Berlin), but my guess is that it will break miserably when put under a true test, such as a war. As Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire, it's a scenario we need take into account.

Poland wants and relies on help from the EU, that includes Germany. A lot of polish people benefit from the schengen system and the ability to work abroad. However, Poland tries to opt out of a significant chunk of the shared burdens of the european union, and one of those burdens is that the european union does have an asylum policy that accepts people that are threatened in their _home_ country - not countries that they've been fleeing through. It's a legacy of the world wars and the nazi genocides which saw a lot of people incapable of fleeing because no country would accept them - and IMHO - the embodiment of one of the most important core value of the often proclaimed christian tradition: Compassion towards others in need.

Given that Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire (well, if you count the Kaliningrad enclave as sharing a border), I question the wisdom of opting out. If you're afraid of a war, I'd be more concerned about making friends than alienating them.

Nice to hear propaganda repeated word-for-word. What shared burdens is Poland opting out (outside of refusing to go down with Merkel?) The environment? We had one of the most rapid improvements when it comes to allround pollution. What happened when there were talks about unified gas/oil price? Ever heard of Nord Stream? The migrants don't even want to be here. Are we going to force them to stay? Put them behind tall fences?

I can't even.. That we are discussing on this platform with people all over the world and your position is that Multiculturalism can't work. Seriously? And on a larger scale Poland move to the right is irritating a lot of Europeans. I would be worried about your EU status and how this affects you and your neighborhood.

According to studies done by Piketty, there's not a single case in the world where a backward country have opened themselves to global trade and it allowed them to rise to the first-world country status, while there are examples where it was achieved via protectionalism - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. Knowing that, I think leaving the EU might do us good in the long term. (As for me personally, I tend to work remotely for US companies anyway, so in either case I won't be affected.)

As for the cultural differences, my intuition is that this forum is not that diverse - not in fundamental ways. For example, how many people here condone religious dictatorships or sex with 9 year olds? And these are the kind of people who can settle in my multicultural neighbourhood, if I start letting them into the country.

You are confusing two different discussions here.

The refugees we talk about are hardly people who hang out on HN.

Multiculturalism works when there is time to adopt new cultures into your own. Sudden influx is going to create obvious conflicts when the cultures are that different.

And I say that as someone who is pro multiculturalism. But I am not ignorant to the consequences if done too fast.

The primary issue of why integration attempts went badly is that there were practically none. Take the german example: In the beginning, people from turkey were accepted as Gastarbeiter with the expectation they'd return to turkey within a year or two. It took more than 20 years until the realization dawned that people that came to germany to work started building a life won't just pull up their roots again and return without a trace. That's how we ended up with the largely exclusively turkish chunks of Berlin. Similar things happened in France with the people from the old french colonies in the Maghreb: Push them off to the banlieue and best forget about them. Belgium the same - Molenbeck, afaik the Netherlands did fare no better. Not a shred of an active attempt at integration for decades. It's not a surprise this failed.

However, if you look at the demographics in europe we either need to get better at integrating people from other countries and cultures or we need to get more babies - because there are no other options (barring any sudden development on the AI/Android front). I doubt forcing women to get more children is a viable option. Banning all abortions as Poland tries to is not going to help. This problem may not be as obvious in Poland as it's in Germany, but they're already suffering from brain drain - the young and educated move away from eastern Poland. Things will only get worse - so it's not a question of want or not want. We - as in all of us europeans - will have to deal with immigrants one way or another. And we can do it as unprepared as germany was in the 60ies/70ies or we can learn from that debacle and try to improve on that.

The part about no support isn't really true, at least in the Netherlands. There has been an endless stream of government programs, and billions upon billions of euros invested, which unfortunately had only a small effect. So I have little hope that the current immigration will go significantly better. I don't know if there's a magic trick, but if there is we certainly haven't yet figured out how to perform it. Even in cases that seem very successful the results aren't as good as you'd hope. The mayor of the second biggest city in the Netherlands is Moroccan, and he has said that he will not allow his daughter to marry a native dutch man. The theory that it's all about not enough support doesn't explain the fact that there are lots of successful groups of immigrants, like the Chinese. They have high employment rates and low crime rates. Therefore I don't really like the talk about the failure of multiculturalism.

The studies show that second generation of migrant (from Asia and Africa) women don't have that many more children than Europe's natives (contrary to what the populist anti-migrant propaganda is pushing) - in most countries the difference was on the order of 0.3 - 0.5 children per woman if I remember correctly.

Poland tries to address the fertility issue in a different way - we're letting in lots of Ukrainian migrants (currently there's 500k of them working legally in Poland, with probably another 500k working illegally). They are a much better match, as their language, culture, values and even parts of history are close to ours.

To me this is hypocritical.

- In WW2 polish were often refugees themselves. Something apparently now forgotten. Quick googling suggests that thousands of Polish people ended up in non-Christian countries like Iran (22,000) and India (10,000). - Poland and other eastern Europe are some of the biggest Schengen beneficiaries, that a common asylum system is part of that contract is often ignored. - In the Breit debate Poland is accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants while at home they're anti-immigrant themselves. - Eastern Europe wants military help to defend against a possible Russian threat but ignores how countries like Greece are completely overwhelmed with this crisis.

In the end, the impression one gets is that Poland only wants European solidarity when it benefits them. As soon as it might get expensive for them, they much rather stay out of it. I look forward to the arguments, when the EU goes forwards with linking some of its subsidies to the number of refugees taken in.

In WW2, polish armed forces were an active participant fighting for the Allies, so the preservation of some of the polish civilians in Ally-controled territories was not a humanitarian help, but merely a part of the bargain.

Not sure about Poland being Schengen beneficiaries (how to even compute that)? As for Poland profitting from the EU in general, I think it's hard to compute - we are receiving large handouts in exchange for completely opening our markets to western capital - which have crushed 99% of polish businesses, which won't probably ever reach the first-world standards (i.e., due to open market policies, we probably won't ever have something like polish Intel or Toyota,). It's a great deal for western capitalists (their multinational corps get to conquer yet another market), much less so for people of either western countries (whose taxes pay for the handouts) or Poland.

I don't know about Poland accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants, do you have any sources?

The Greece is overwhelmed due to EU's total ineptness in protecting its borders combined with the stupidity (maliciousness?) of EU's leaders, (see Merkel's Willkommenskultur). I agree that we (Poland) are partially responsible for the immigration crisis, in that we didn't call for stronger border defense for EU when the alarming signals started coming (years ago) - but there are countries in EU which are either much more influential than us or much closer to the problem, and they did nothing either.

One last point - the current instability in Syria is rooted in colonial exploitation of the whole region by England and France. Unlike them, Poland never messed those people up, why should we clean up the fallout?

Addressing your points in order:

- So the polish people needed favours to liberate their own homeland? That's worded a bit strong but seems like it sums up your argument.

- The schengen point was invalid, I was mixing it up with freedom of movement. My bad.

- For the scapegoating, see this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/1204...

- Calling for tougher border controls is one thing, but what is the alternative? Let people drown in the mediterranean? Leave them in Turkey, a country which already hosts 2 million of them?

- Yes, England and France (and in more recent history the US) have a significant history in that part of the world with ramifications to current events. I think the UKs position in this matter is also complete crap, but that doesn't excuse other countries for not doing anything to help.

Yeah sure. They went so badly that Polish people flock them

Fun fact: Italy's Berlusconi used to scapegoat Romanian emigrants for everything, look how right wing they swung now.. yes, not at all

Italy is exceptional in the sense that official Catholic positions are hugely influential. This pope adopted a very strong stance on refugees' rights and is fairly liberal on gay rights, hence why right-wing parties struggle to build a coherent "God, country, family" narrative.

It's incredibly funny how the most liberal worldview currently exposed by a head of state comes from a millennial theocracy.

(Edit: it should be noted, however, that on workers' rights the current Italian government is very much on the right. It's basically a centrist administration with papal influence.)

The average Trump voter in the primaries made something like $72,000. While not wealthy by any stretch, they're surviving globalization better than blacks in this country, who voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.

The false narrative in the media is the one where they try to rationalize Trump's rise through the story of poor whites instead of acknowledging their complicity in normalizing his racism and fascism.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-...

You are right that people are fed up with the classic center parties. But this does not explain why the angry people in Austria vote for the far right FPÖ instead of the Green party.

The hatred for immigrants/muslims/other minorities is crucial. That's what people are voting for. If they were truly sceptic about globalisation or outsourcing of labour, they would vote green.

It's not a hatred it's a skepticism towards what it will do to their country. If anything they are national conservatives and their jobs and lives are those mostly effected by immigration.

And no green and skepticism towards globalization is only skin deep. They don't like pollution and they don't like large corporations who destroy the earth.

But thats not what the "right-wing" voters are worried about. They are worried about jobs. Jobs that the green party wants to destroy by adding taxes to the factories they work in.

So your analysis is simply wrong. Nothing in the green movement is antiglobal.

I know we're on hacker news but I don't quite get how you put "technology" in these lists. The trend in Europe is very, very obviously about the immigration crisis. Which, if not racist, is at least a nationalist issue.

Globalization is a popular issue because it can also mean that national interests are overpowered by international pressure. But you'll also find resistance for that on the left (because the left never liked globalization in the first place).

Technology as in those who understand and can work with technology benefit from it. The rest are left behind so to speak.

There is more to this than globalisation.

You can't just bring a bunch of muslims who have never been to the west into a liberal christian society and expect it to work out on it's own, the EU has failed miserably on this front, and people are afraid and angry. If you are a poor Eastern European with a wife and a daughter, all you see is that instead of the EU helping you out of poverty, it is brining in people from the east who will rape your wife and daughter and live off of your taxes and then kill you. After the rapes in Germany and the massacres in France, you cannot just tell people "well, shit happens".

To put this into a more rationale perspective: the left wings have failed the people, now the people are starting to turn to the other extreme.

The way I see it: you need a balance between right and left wing.

I think you're correct that the definition of what is "left" and "right" doesn't really account for the current political climate. This is why I think the parties are due to realign, at least in the U.S.

It's also worth noting that up until now, the American right has focused on limiting the influence of the national government. In contrast, the right wing in Europe has few issues with big national governments. The extreme right in Europe might even want to reintroduce their respective monarchies. That is to say the word "right wing" doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. However, Donald Trump seems more in the vein of a European right-winger, which new and surprising in U.S. politics.

The appeal of the far right, as with the far left is that they're not the "Establishment"

The so called "centre" has moved away from trying to craft balanced policy without leaning too far one way or the other and have instead chosen simply to serve the hopes and dreams of the political and business elite. They do not represent the left, or the right. They represent a new point on the political spectrum that I see as the new aristocracy.

The racists and facists have always been there. But now that both sides of the political spectrum are rejecting the centre by backing new political movements, they've found a new voice and we can hear them again.

But the fact is that they ARE racists, fascists and authoritarians. Why do you think they choose Trump in US instead of Bernie who promises all the right things but is not racist or why are all far right parties in Europe full of Neo Nazis?

>But the fact is that they ARE racists

Not necessarily, many of them are fine with Africans, Muslims, Jews and so on (I know I'm lumping race and religion into one here). They just want them to stay in their own country, if they insist of preserving certain parts of the culture. You want a country rules by Sharia that's fine, with most of these parties, as long you don't try to do it in their country.

I mostly view it as how apartheit wanted to be viewed: Tolerance and acceptance of each others culture, but clearly separated, in this case in countries.

BTW, the people who purport those views also think being trans equals being a pedophile. So, I don't really have much respect for their views in general being that I'm trans myself. If they want me to listen to their concerns then there's some ground rules they must follow: don't play games with civil rights. If that basic rule can't be followed then I'll never listen to a Trump fan or conservative, ever. Also, if these clowns win the election I'm definitely leaving the country (probably for Canada only since I know some people up there in software development). All I can say is that my essential liberty is not negotiable no matter how much angry white suburbanites think it is. They want my ear, my taxes, and my time they better give me a good reason beyond threats of violence from their side (implicit/explicit/actualized).

They also want them to "stay in their own country" if they were actually born in the same country as they are. They think people belong in Africa if their skin colour is dark. It's pure racism.

What if they want them to stay in their "home" country due to their culture? It's pretty much always the culture of immigrants that's in focus, but never their colour.

That's political correctness. Those people are able to judge what someone's "culture" is based on how they look, or where their family came from two generations back.

I see. I prefer to view it as the apartheid deserves to be viewed: as racism.

Bernie speaks to the looser in them, Trump to the winner.

It's really that simple. Trump give them hope, let them see themselves again as someone with the potential to be something again.

Bernie basically says. You already lost but I am going to make your suffering a little less problematic.

Trump is specifically popular with men.

Nothing groundbreaking in that.

The realignments in the US are complicated, but the movement to the right goes way beyond just reaction to globalization and technology. At least three things have happened (imo): 1) both the public and the government have become far more politically polarized, 2) the net change from polarization has still been to the right, and 3) the government has become more openly authoritarian.

It's Even Worse Than It Looks by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein[1][2] makes a really good case for (1) and (2). That has been going on for around 50 years now, since the (end of) Carter and (start of) Reagan administrations. The Democrats lost a 40-year streak of Congressional control to the Republicans in 1992, eventually evolving into the far-right obstructionist Congressional Republicans of today. In the meantime even the liberal Democrat presidents became more conservative on their overall policies (excepting a few social issues like LGBTQ issues) - Obama's healthcare reforms being similar to conservative proposals from the 1980's and Clinton famously saying that the "era of big government is over."

For (3) you have the new executive powers to wage war without Congressional approval (e.g. the AUMF under Bush and Libyan intervention under Obama), bipartisan expansion of warrantless surveillance by both parties (wiretapping under Bush and Snowden revelations under Obama), extrajudicial assassination programs, etc etc. Under the typical US understanding of the terms, this would all certainly be considered "right wing." For the public's part, you see way more widespread support and acceptance for the policies than you did during e.g. Vietnam or even WW2 (opposition to entering the war and the Lend-Lease program, etc).

There has been some occasional reversal towards the center, with e.g. Sanders, Obamacare, Occupy Wall Street, some other examples, but overall the US has been going net right since at least Jimmy Carter. I'd say the opposition to free trade, unless it really steamrolls into something bigger, is currently just another short-term reversal to the center, set against a continual bull market for the political right.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/d...

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-10-14/thomas-man...

I think you're right when you say that a big sector of the population has been ignored. Normal, working families are asking 'hey what about us?', but why hasn't a corresponding political movement arisen to answer to those demands? A movement that doesn't echoes past ideologies like fascism?

And it is not correct to say that 'right wing' parties are not racist or fascists. It is, as you know, a spectrum, from the regular, peaceful working person feeling ignored, to the outright neo-fascists and xenophobes. It is a sad situation that this spectrum encompasses such different people.

Until a humanistic right wing emerges to answer peacefully to legitimate demands, present-day right wing parties will keep propagating and mirroring hate and racism.

Wow. You've described xenophobia word by word and still claim that it's not.

Congratulations on getting the "cynic of the day" award.

Sorry. If you vote for Trump then you are supporting his racist stance and divisive agenda.

And if you vote for Hillary you are supporting her lust for war.

Thats not a fair way to talk about voting. It's a cheap attempt to try and make a blanket moral statement to render everything else others would say morally wrong.

People can be anti-immigration and not racist.