"We should let refugees in, but we should avoid creating refugees" is also a consistent moral position, and perhaps a more obvious one.
(Also, as an American citizen, the fact that we're not absorbing a significant fraction of the refugees in Europe when we have the resources to do so is absolutely unconscionable. I now feel like every time I was taught "never again" in grade school, it was just virtue signaling and we're actually totally fine with it happening again.)
Sadly, it is reality. It is happening all the time all over the world - Democratic Republic of Congo makes American press maybe once a year but has been awful for 2+ decades.
And are instrumental in making it happen again.
Is it about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League ?
I agree that stabilizing the region is a better solution than taking in refugees. But stabilizing the region is much, much more difficult and requires time to work, during which individuals are suffering. The solution is to do both: resettle those in imminent danger, while providing aid and peacekeeping support to restore stability to the region.
Of course, the events in Syria have demonstrated, in my opinion, a serious apathy on the part of the west to actually providing that second point. What the US and NATO allies have done in Syria is the bare minimum, and in doing so has allowed dangerous groups to fester and grow, and created a massive humanitarian crisis. The attitude in certain circles seems to be that as long as the West doesn't get involved in this, they can't be held responsible for the outcome, while getting involved means the West owns the issue and any consequences. But the issue is already the West's responsibility, because we have the ability to act and choose not to. We bear some responsibility for what is happening in Syria, whether through action or inaction.
>But the issue is already the West's responsibility, because we have the ability to act and choose not to
I mean, that's your opinion, but I disagree with that completely. Syria, though, is far more complicated than a normal situation.
My opinion is that, when faced with a potential humanitarian crisis, we should evaluate our various options (including inaction) for what leads to the least casualties and highest quality of life for as many people, including secondary factors like the possibility of intervention inspiring terrorists. This model will be far from perfect, as it's impossible to determine true outcomes 5, 10, 20 years down the line, but it will be the best we can come up with. Then we pick the best option (which will often involve a judgment call), and inaction is treated neither more or less important than any other option. From a moral perspective, I think this is the best strategy available.
You raise an important point about optics and the opinion of the world abroad, but I frankly don't care. People can complain and rage against the West for it's policies and decisions all they want. All we can do is our best, and we should do so proudly and openly.
> People in Venezuela are calling for US airstrikes. Like seriously? After all the anti-US/West sentiment now when it comes up in your backyard you want us there? No thanks. Solve your own problems.
Everyone is deserving of help, even those that hate us, even hypocrites. If they are ungrateful, that's there prerogative. We don't do this for approval, we act because it's the best we can do.
I understand and accept that you disagree with my view, and that my view isn't the most popular opinion.
They're asking the US to go and kill their enemies as a favour.
Last year Venezuelans requesting political asylum passed China and is now the number 1 country. 3 years ago we weren't even on the top 10.
https://www.voanews.com/a/veneuela-china-us-asylum-requests/...
You may call it cultural dilution, but I call it cultural suicide. Safe zones should be established.
In any case, sure, call it "cultural suicide." I still think the death of a culture is an acceptable price to pay to avoid the death of even one individual.
And no, in the real world you don't get safe spaces.
'Culture' is a broad term, and encompasses the legal and government systems as well. When you say death of a culture, you probably have in mind things like traditional food, music, and clothes.
What about things like legal and social equality of the sexes, worker's rights, the right to free speech or a fair trial, socialized medicine, the educational institutions supporting all of this, and a police and legal system where corruption is rare? They're just as much a part of culture.
Different countries have different amounts of these cultural characteristics. Many lives, far more than one or a thousand, were lost fighting for them, or lost due to their absence, and few would throw them away as carelessly as you.
I think I do not see it as realistic that those things you mention are threatened by mass migration (whether of refugees or otherwise). As a concrete example, I live in Brooklyn, where there is a significant Jewish sub-community with their own cultural identity and in particular very conservative religious/political views. This community showed up in Brooklyn largely because they were part of the Jewish migration from eastern Europe in the early 20th century, escaping anti-Semitism there (so, this was not quite voluntary migration by people who chose America for American values). They're very successful in their own neighborhoods and absolutely maintain their own values, but don't seem to have had any effect on Brooklyn's liberal values or the culture at large; if anything we're one of the communities most stereotyped as liberal to a fault.
Usually when I see fears about cultural changes in European countries receiving migrants, that fear is expressed in racial or at most religious terms, and not in political terms. I see things like "your child will be going to school with Muslims," not "your child will be taught at school that the right to free speech doesn't cover blasphemy." Yes, you can argue in theory that the former could imply the latter. But that doesn't seem to be what's actually happening. (If it is, I'd appreciate being corrected!)
Also, at least as I see it, the lives that were lost fighting for legal and social equality of the sexes, worker's rights, etc. were almost universally not fights between European culture and non-European cultures. They were generally fights within a culture, and occasionally fights between different Western cultures (e.g., the US war for independence). I do not see people arguing against migration e.g. within the US or even between Western states, just from one particular racial/religious origin to any Western nation, whether or not that Western nation believes in legal equality of the sexes, socialized medicine, free speech, etc.