It's almost like the working class is being exploited by owners of capital and the means of production.
Nobody should have to work more than 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.
My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.
Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.
"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.
You’re committing a fallacy of association and then attributing that fallacy to the parent comment. Not great.
“Fascists blame everything on immigrants...” is the logical equivalent of what they said. They did not describe that opinion as fascist.
> We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America.
What do you think the word blame means
There has been one incident during the Syrian war where Angela Merkel said "wir schaffen das" but there was no coordinated grant of immigration rights in any way. And these were mostly legitimate refugees from the Syrian war.
Europe hasn't forgotten that many of us once were refugees not too long ago.
It's a problem because the right-wing keep blowing it out of proportion, but it's only based on racist underbelly feelings.
My Bangladeshi parents were in London in 2023 and they were shocked by the number of immigrants. My mom was very upset because it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun. They’re retaining their differences, they’re participating in politics in ethnic blocs, they’re raising their kids with their own culture and values. It’s the opposite of what her generation had hoped for—London becoming more like Dhaka instead of Dhaka becoming more like London.
Maybe they're posting about it on the Costa de Sol though?
Surreal comment. Tourist: "There are soo many tourists here"
> it blew up the idea that the immigrants would act and talk exactly like British people who just happened to be less sensitive to the sun.
Was that ever a requirement for immigration?
Of course they're not going to 'act and talk exactly like British people'.
> You’re also letting in the wrong kind of immigrants.
Yes, South African racists are a much better demographic.
> You don’t want to take refugees, who are generally people who are forced by external circumstances rather than internal motivation to leave their homelands.
As a grandson of people who were at some point refugees: this is utterly despicable.
It did not appear from your comment that this was a person in the west socialized to think like that but another immigrant who thought like that. Which makes it a completely irrational response. The fact that they weren't tolerant themselves of others like themselves is what makes it utterly surreal.
If there is one thing I'm proud of for NL (and I can't speak for the UK, I haven't spent enough time there but I have spent enough time in Canada to have some idea of how things work there) then it is that for the most part people here get along. The only issues that we still have is a lot of latent racism in small towns and concentrations of crime (across all cultures) related to drugs and such. The people that want to blow this out of proportion are the ones on the far right, typically their main reason for their stance is that they are afraid that new entrants are going to compete with them for social security. And to some extent they have a point.
But refugees should always be permitted to flee from wars, famine, natural disasters and whatever else can happen to people outside of their control.
The way you phrase it suggests that the crime problem is independent of immigration, which is just false. For example, children of two foreign born residents are 5 times more likely to be criminals than children of two native Dutch people. The people have every rational reason to oppose immigration if such a rise in criminality is the outcome.
> The way you phrase it suggests that the crime problem is independent of immigration
Not really. It’s still possible to “blow this out of proportion” even if the distribution does not factor along immigration status.
> The people have every rational reason to oppose immigration if such a rise in criminality is the outcome.
It’s not rational to respond to a 5x prevalence (simply using your figure for the sake of argument) as if it were 10x or 100x, and that seems closer to jacquesm’s point.
I don’t see a way around this and Europe is suffering because they don’t seem to want to accept this reality.
We just have a problem with an aging demographic but this is a temporary problem.
Unless we nuke the pension systems in Europe it's not a temporary problem, but rather one for the next 15-20 years.
We have serious issues like housing shortages but if we kicked out all the immigrants we still would have, just a few percent less. This is the problem with that narrative.
And life isn't all about who has the most money, that's a US-Centric view. The poorer countries in Europe are better places to live at the moment and cost of life is lower there too. Besides, those 'entitlements' really add to our quality of life. We don't have to worry about going bankrupt over a medical issue.
It's very telling of the US to always consider everything some kind of race or competition. Whereas we're not trying to win but to live together. Really if I make enough money to live comfortably without having to waste all my life at the office I'm doing well. The US has never had this kind of balance.
If anything Europe is getting too American. Too few people are holding too much of the wealth, this is why people are protesting.