There will always be extremists on both sides of the political spectrum.
The problem is quite simple: people swing more to one side or another if their voices are not heard.
The current boogeyman is the growth of the far-right in Europe. But that could have been prevented if the EU did not have an open-doors migration policy to start with. And to have listened to the people on other issues too.
Far-right mostly uses migrants as an easy scapegoats for any problem. In many countries I have seen migrants taken advantage of (worse work condition, employers not paying taxes, no healthcare provided, children have worse education, no insurance, etc).
I wouldn't even mind if they would be honest about what they claim (being nationalist), but I don't see any right wing party talking seriously about programs to encourage natality, reduce poverty or improve education. Blaming a generic category for your problems rarely solves said problems.
So, for me the boogeyman is talking about superfluous generic topics rather than solutions to problems I see: education, natality, energy, industry.
The far right are picking wedge issues not from principle, but from political expediency.
In the UK they've switched from attacking immigrants to attacking disability benefits, because the clampdown on immigration was effective (though they obviously are continuing to shout about immigration and immigrants).
So if the "open-door" immigration policy didn't exist, they would have picked something else as the wedge issue. They DGAF about immigration per se, it's just something that will rile up the base and get attention.
I think people want back to more historically normal levels of migration in general. Possibly less due to what one might consider an integration backlog due to rapid migration.
The illegal migration was an easy target for this since it's indeed the only thing some people are opposed to and it doesn't quite activate a big created class of people that have a migrant background.
> But that could have been prevented if the EU did not have an open-doors migration policy to start with. And to have listened to the people on other issues too.
I believe there are more nuances to this, then simply blaming it on immigration policies.
There are a lot of variables in place for why far right movements are and have been on the rise in the EU. And I certainly believe the issues could've been handled better by each member state.
Yes, immigration is a serious problem. Especially if member States doesn't increase budgets for handling said immigrants.
After all, why does immigration even happen in the first place? Aren't we as a western society responsible for the destruction and destabiliztion of the eastern countries?
To be honest immigration happened forever because people look for a better place to live. The able, hard working and entrepreneurial ones bring a lot to the countries they immigrate to. So, I do not see immigration as "a problem".
Additionally Europe's natality is not great, it needs people working. So many enterprises in Europe are happy with that.
Why is immigration presented as a problem? Because it is easy, does not affect directly any potential voter (I mean, if you say "rich are to blame", around half of the voters will not vote you, if you say "the poor are to blame" the other half will not vote you, but immigrants? No problem they generally don't vote) and because Europe has a tradition to seeing itself "above others". So if there are problems and you see dark people around, must be there fault, no? I really think they are (many) people that think like that (and I also met a couple)...
> To be honest immigration happened forever because people look for a better place to live. The able, hard working and entrepreneurial ones bring a lot to the countries they immigrate to. So, I do not see immigration as "a problem".
You allow onky the highly skilled ones who cannot reach their potential from where they come from.
> Additionally Europe's natality is not great, it needs people working. So many enterprises in Europe are happy with that.
False. No need for outside workers. There are about 500mm europeans, abs not all of them are old. You remove the benefits and all of a sudden you get a few tens of millions of able bodied people looking for work. Problem solved without importing people from other places.
> Why is immigration presented as a problem? Because it is easy, does not affect directly any potential voter (I mean, if you say "rich are to blame", around half of the voters will not vote you, if you say "the poor are to blame" the other half will not vote you, but immigrants? No problem they generally don't vote) and because Europe has a tradition to seeing itself "above others". So if there are problems and you see dark people around, must be there fault, no? I really think they are (many) people that think like that (and I also met a couple)...
Turn on the TV or read a newspaper to see how much crime is caused by wanton unchecked migrants invading Europe.
Even for places where we import migrant workers it does not take long until they start creating drug trafficking rings and resort to violence.
I am not blaming the poor. Europe has plenty of thise too. But at least we have cultural similarities and don’t resort to violence unlike the migrants that wash up on the shores of Europe, which conviniently all have smartphones ready to be used.
> Turn on the TV or read a newspaper to see how much crime ...
Amazingly on TV in Europe (watching 3 countries) I see how many women are killed by their partners (nicely born here), how politicians are (occasionally, mostly rarely) arrested for building mobster like organizations, how large enterprises (own by locals) avoid paying taxes.
The poor don't resort to violence? I wonder what blessed country are you in for the poor to afford to be nice. 30 years ago in the quite poor Eastern Europe (now part of EU, not that poor anymore) there was direct violence (sure, not concentrated like a terrorist attack) like mugging or rapes or just people beating others on the street because they "did not like how you look". All that without immigrants. So yeah, kind of hard for me to blame so much immigrants for all the violence.
And on that, 70s and 80s the was perfectly calm no? No terrorist attack IRA, ETA (found easy a reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ETA_attacks - 829 deaths), Italian mob and the like were "freedom fighters" probably...
I am definitely not for completely open borders. And immigration should be controlled. And some people should be deported. I just do not think it is the "largest" problem that it is presented, and I find discussing it avoiding other thorny, complex issues (energy, climate, education, etc.).
>To be honest immigration happened forever because people look for a better place to live.
I'd also want to go to SV, California, NY, Portland, etc as a better place to live, yet I need to do it legally, which I can't because of how hard getting a US work visa is, so I won't. Migration to the EU should be the same. Only accept people with a legal visa and nobody else. You're not entitled to be allowed to come in any country you want just because you want a better place to live. Those who do think otherwise, please open the doors of your house to everyone who wants to come in for a better place to live and take them in.
> The able, hard working and entrepreneurial ones bring a lot to the countries they immigrate to.
From various statistics from various EU governments you can look up, about half the migrants that they get via the open borders system are either unemployed or a general net negative to society, consuming more from the state via welfare than they contributor back via taxes. And that's when you don't even consider per capita crimes where migrants from some nations are overrepresented in jails per capita.
So how many are "hard working entrepreneurial ones" is the EU actually getting and does that offset the societal and lives lost due to migrant crime and terror attacks?
"Sure, your daughter doesn't feel safe alone at night and your wife got run over by a truck attacker, but just think of the GDP growth due to all the entrepreneurs that came with them"
Certain parts of the UK is using that exact same approach it seems like. They are gaslighting there own populace by bringing in immigrants to take over work that is being stalled by protests and the only people that are noticing are the people that are the activists.
>Especially if member States doesn't increase budgets for handling said immigrants
You don't need more budget for migrants, but less budgets for migrants, removing the welfare incentive so they stop coming.
Just be Like Singapore. They don't have a migration problem. It is really that simple. Stop funding NGOs that treat your welfare state like a charity for the entire planet to come and feast one. This is not part of the social contract of the welfare state, nor is it economically sustainable long term.
>Aren't we as a western society responsible for the destruction and destabiliztion of the eastern countries?
Who is this "WE" here? My and many countries in the EU didn't do anything to destabilize the word stage so don't try to pin this "original sin" on me and us. If some EU nations have some guilt they wish to wash due to their colonial past, it should be their consequences alone, but please don't drag everyone down with your sucidian empathy because this is how you guarantee the rise of the far right and how you destroy Europe.
They have a functioning society. And quite a high GDP.
You know, not all dictatorships are inherently bad. Look at the Gulf states: they have a high number of immigrants, but at the same time they don't have Germany's or France's problems. You do something there, you're jailed and after you finish your sentence you're on the first plane out. No drama, no years long court fights etc.
They are to blame because they allow people to cross their borders illegally. And in Spain's case, they're looking at giving them citizenship. And then they complain about crime.
> After all, why does immigration even happen in the first place? Aren't we as a western society responsible for the destruction and destabiliztion of the eastern countries?
1. My country never colonized any other part if the world.
2. This does not mean that say Germany or France must import millions of “migrants” because their ancestors made some terrible choices in the past.
3. If they want to import “migrants”, they should screen them and only import highly skilled to extrenely skilled ones.
