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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
Here in Sweden I have a female colleague who got harassed on a street or hit on in an very unpleasant way 3 times in the last 1-2 years.
All 3 times it was an obvious non-European-looking immigrant, according to her.
Given how only ~15% of this city's population are non-European-looking immigrants, the perceived math about "how probable it is that this guy is dangerous" is pretty bad towards immigrants from different cultures.
It will be hard to change her mind about it after such personal history.
Also when this my colleague told us this story, another female colleague said she experienced something similar and she's not surprised.
They are both immigrants too, btw, but from Europe.
Though these are just personal stories of two people, so take it for what it's worth.
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On June 13 2024 22:14 Uldridge wrote:
Sadly, many seem to be deeply racist and use the "they're taking our jobs and replace us and how can they ride around in these types of cars and are on average more violent/criminal and are benefiting from the welfare state way more than natives etc.." excuse to validate themselves.
This mostly comes from people that are from communities that are deeply shielded from other cultures other than their own, whatever their culture even means. If they see one brown person on the street they experience great discomfort.
The other day someone told me that 80% of a city (with the most immigrants) was immigrants. I had to bring this person down to reality, but overestimation fallacy/bias whatever it is, is a real and problematic thing.
This kind of condescending discourse about far-right voters is a broken record at this point. Not taking seriously the problems they point to will only lead to bigger support for right-wing populism. The rise in gun violence, drug dealing and organized crime in general in Sweden as a direct result of non-European immigration is so obvious it is ridiculous. Not even the left-wing parties try to deny it anymore. 10 years ago we had perhaps 4-5 shootings per yer in Sweden, now we have around 150 (101 and counting so far this year).
ZeroByte13 is also right about immigration and sexual assaults. In fact, the vast majority of convicted rapists are non-European immigrants. 80% of all rapes outside of the home are also committed by first-generation immigrants here, fyi.
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Organized crime and firearm violence is mostly the result of rich Europeans using cocaine and designer drugs. And since those are highly illegal, organized crime has a full monopoly on it. It basically means free money for organized crime. Has nothing to do with immigration. Except that immigrants with low social status often are used as their grunts. The problem is not regulating hard drugs. AND, rich white people using cocaine and paying big money for it, fueling organized crime.
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Drug use isn't up though. Try again.
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Drug use doesn't need to go up for organized crime violence to go up. Organized crime violence happens when they start fighting each other for control of the trade. There's no correlation between violence and the amount of drugs they smuggle.
And yes, drug use is up in most western European countries.
And the group responsible for the most crimes are male youth who themselves were born in Europe, but their parents or grandparents were immigrants. So that's not an immigration problem. That's an integration problem.
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On June 13 2024 22:54 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2024 22:14 Uldridge wrote:
Sadly, many seem to be deeply racist and use the "they're taking our jobs and replace us and how can they ride around in these types of cars and are on average more violent/criminal and are benefiting from the welfare state way more than natives etc.." excuse to validate themselves.
This mostly comes from people that are from communities that are deeply shielded from other cultures other than their own, whatever their culture even means. If they see one brown person on the street they experience great discomfort.
The other day someone told me that 80% of a city (with the most immigrants) was immigrants. I had to bring this person down to reality, but overestimation fallacy/bias whatever it is, is a real and problematic thing. This kind of condescending discourse about far-right voters is a broken record at this point. Not taking seriously the problems they point to will only lead to bigger support for right-wing populism. The rise in gun violence, drug dealing and organized crime in general in Sweden as a direct result of non-European immigration is so obvious it is ridiculous. Not even the left-wing parties try to deny it anymore. 10 years ago we had perhaps 4-5 shootings per yer in Sweden, now we have around 150 (101 and counting so far this year). ZeroByte13 is also right about immigration and sexual assaults. In fact, the vast majority of convicted rapists are non-European immigrants. 80% of all rapes outside of the home are also committed by first-generation immigrants here, fyi.
I don't talk condescendingly. I challenge them in their view. I try to understand where there problems come from. I listen to them.
Ridiculous overestimations need to be brought back to reality so they can reflect themselves about why they thought of those numbers in the first place.
Immigration causes friction, who could've known!!
Integration is a far better approach than ousting.
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On June 13 2024 23:23 Suibne wrote:
And the group responsible for the most crimes are male youth who themselves were born in Europe, but their parents or grandparents were immigrants. So that's not an immigration problem. That's an integration problem. Well, if you let in more immigrants than you can integrate or you let in immigrants who don't want to integrate - one could say it is an immigration problem too.
I.e. don't take in what you cannot handle or more than you can handle.
On June 13 2024 23:48 Uldridge wrote:
Integration is a far better approach than ousting. Integration works with people who want to integrate, what about others?
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Why do you think ten years is enough for integration to take place? Who are you to say what the speed and effectiveness of assimilation actually is/should be?
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I am a voting citizen. That is my right to say what level of immigration is enough and what speed of integration is sufficient. And just like millions of other EU citizens, I exercise that right by voting.
And before anyone accuses me of something. I never in my entire life have voted for the far right.
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You're not heterosexual enough
You're not manly enough
You're not assimilating fast enough
You're not non Moslim enough
You're not white enough.
Sure. I can understand that sentiment. It might even be backed by good arguments. But not even giving it a decent try and just shutting the door is where we clash. Human beings deserve shelter, food, water and basic infrastrucrure. Where you come from, doesn't really matter. I firmly believe humans more or less try to find harmony where they reside because stirring up shit will simply get you kicked out or punished. But 'not doing it fast enough or not doing it the way I want it be done', is not really a rabbit hole Ilike engaging in, even though, to get to the bottom of it all, it seems like one has to
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On June 13 2024 21:06 Suibne wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2024 20:30 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The two posts above are perfect examples on why these parties are growing.
"I have a problem with immigration".
"No actually you don't, you have a problem with [long winded explanation that basically boils down to voters being idiots]."
I am saying the opposite. I am saying they are NOT idiots. When the economy is poor, they vote their economic interests. When the economy is good, they vote their values. They are not idiots. They are racists. Russia is pushing immigrants across the border because immigration makes voters vote for the far right. And the far right is proPutin. Because the war on woke and owning the libs is more important than anything else to them. I actually think we need to start limiting immigration. Even if that hurts our economy. Because immigration is destroying our democracy. And not because we don't have housing, or can't afford the social services. No. We cannot take up this many immigrants because part of our electorate is simply too racist. They will support a fascist who promises to expel foreigners before they accept immigrants. And these may then come into power. And we only need fascists in power once to lose our democracy forever.
This is imo a take that assumes the advancement of the far right is a far more natural development than it really is. When there's a strong far right in a country you'll usually also find that a lot of the system promotes far right views and legitimizes them. This would also happen if immigration was different.
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On June 13 2024 21:39 Gorsameth wrote:
I could be wrong, maybe I am looking for reasons to explain the move to the far right that doesn't end with "25-30% of people are just deeply racist"
Because what do you do about that?
I have some bad news for you.
Back in 2010 when the anti-immigration party had just gotten 5,6% and people were losing their minds about it I read the yearly SOM-paper.
It's an interesting and large study done every year since 1990 examining the opinions of the Swedish people on a very wide variety of issues and trends in society.
One of the reoccurring questions is a statement: "Receive fewer refuges to Sweden."
2010 42% thought that was a good, or very good idea. Only about 25 % thought that was a bad, or very bad idea.
At the time this was historically the most positive Swedes had ever been about refuges btw.
Swedes actually grew more positive about refuges until about 2015 when we had our refuge crisis and then the acceptance tanked.
![[image loading]](https://i.postimg.cc/CL3FDdd9/som.jpg)
ibb.co
Today 56 % of the population thinks it's a good idea to receive fewer refuges, only 20% thinks it's a bad idea and 24% are undecided.
The point is, there was never a majority for immigration. Only a very vocal minority. And peoples views on refuges (which I think we can assume usually translates to immigration in general) didn't change that much even though the anti-immigration party kept on growing.
What changed was that people grew more and more tired about being ignored for decades. The real shift in Sweden then came when politicians did exactly the opposite of what they wanted and that shift can be seen in both opinions because people perceived it as a real problem and in election results.
This is not a new issue. People are just tired of being ignored on this.
Migration was never a top tier issue for most people and with only about 25 % voting against immigration it still isn't. But it's getting there because people are tired about bullshit "explanations" (that change every now and then) about how they vote or think. They are tired about politicians not doing anything about an issue where the public opinion has been crystal clear for a loooooooooong time.
They are tired about being called racists (now meaning a person who doesn't agree with a liberal/leftist view on migration). To be fair most people don't even care that much about it anymore.
The truth is that the people shouting about racism and the far right is a fairly small but very vocal minority. The best course of action would be to realise that it's not 25% of the population being racist and 75% sharing their views but almost the exact opposite.
And if they want to save democracy after realising this they should sit down like adults with their opponents and start discussing how to address the issues that people want to solve.
Edit: I don't know why my graph wont load.
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On June 13 2024 21:39 Gorsameth wrote:
I could be wrong, maybe I am looking for reasons to explain the move to the far right that doesn't end with "25-30% of people are just deeply racist"
Because what do you do about that?
I think it may be easier to say: When people are experiencing financial hardship and quality-of-life-anxiety, they care a lot less about other people. It is a basic survival instinct. Let's say adding 1 immigrant to Sweden adds "100 points" of quality of life improvement to the immigrant and takes away "3 points" of quality of life improvement from the native Swede who is experiencing financial hardship and quality-of-life-anxiety. That Swede is going to say "well then fuck off and go home". It is a basic human instinct that will always exist.
Rather than them being racist, it may be more accurate to say they give zero shits about some random foreigner's hardship when they are still not being taken care of themselves.
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What's the alternative?
Immigration is a byproduct of a larger systemic problem, which is that people don't want to have children because their standard of living is becoming too high. I don't see how you solve that by "listening to the people".
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Being racist (using Europe as example) is when you don't want to see African or Middle-East immigrants while being perfectly fine with, say, Polish or Baltic immigrants with the same job / education / attitude.
If you are happy to see more of high level specialists immigrants regardless of their origins, but not happy to see immigrants without education/job, again regardless of their origin - it's perfectly reasonable and it doesn't make one a racist, even if historically most of the former are white (or Asian) and a big % of the latter are not.
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On June 14 2024 02:19 Uldridge wrote:
What's the alternative?
Immigration is a byproduct of a larger systemic problem, which is that people don't want to have children because their standard of living is becoming too high. I don't see how you solve that by "listening to the people".
I promise I am not playing devil's advocate, but this conversation has made me wonder: If the core mechanisms of income inequality are so deeply entrenched and so closely controlled my enormously powerful billionaires, is it possible that income inequality has a higher chance of being reduced by simply cutting off the pipe of immigrants? Forcing society to reshape around this labor coming from existing citizens, paying them and training them appropriately, and letting the pieces fall where they will?
What if immigration is such a fiery and emotionally charged topic that it has a better chance of improving income inequality than hopelessly trying to directly address income inequality?
I know this sounds like a dumb sophist bullshit question. But maybe I am just so jaded at this point that I'm losing my mind. But I think it is reasonable to wonder if the western oligarchy has become so entrenched and powerful that there aren't any realistic direct paths to eroding their power.
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On June 14 2024 01:16 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:<snip for length>
Thank you, always insightful to hear other peoples opinions, esp when backed up by numbers.
But how do you sit and talk with an opponent who wants to disregard the constitution, a whole host of laws and treaties and the basic principles of human rights?
I believe there is plenty of room for cooperation and compromise between the more traditional left and right, but when your dealing with the far right, is that possible? Is that a course we as a society would want to take?
We have it here in the Netherlands with Wilders dropping some of his more extreme positions in order to seize power but you'll have a hard time convincing me that is a good thing, Either he is faking it and will still try to push as much of it through as he can while he now holds power, or he never believed anything in the first place and will say and do anything to get a hold of power. And I think the latter can actually be more dangerous then the former.
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On June 14 2024 02:17 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2024 21:39 Gorsameth wrote:
I could be wrong, maybe I am looking for reasons to explain the move to the far right that doesn't end with "25-30% of people are just deeply racist"
Because what do you do about that?
I think it may be easier to say: When people are experiencing financial hardship and quality-of-life-anxiety, they care a lot less about other people. It is a basic survival instinct. Let's say adding 1 immigrant to Sweden adds "100 points" of quality of life improvement to the immigrant and takes away "3 points" of quality of life improvement from the native Swede who is experiencing financial hardship and quality-of-life-anxiety. That Swede is going to say "well then fuck off and go home". It is a basic human instinct that will always exist. Rather than them being racist, it may be more accurate to say they give zero shits about some random foreigner's hardship when they are still not being taken care of themselves. That was my initial point, they aren't voting far right because they specifically hate foreigners but because they want their own lives to improve and think throwing out foreigners would fix that.
But I'm being told that isn't the case and from the little research I have done on it since it would seem that is to be the case, people voting for the far right in our national elections last year were, according to research, not voting for economic reasons but are actively voting for their stance on immigration.
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Being racist (using Europe as example) is when you don't want to see African or Middle-East immigrants while being perfectly fine with, say, Polish or Baltic immigrants with the same job / education / attitude.
If you are happy to see more of high level specialists immigrants regardless of their origins, but not happy to see immigrants without education/job, again regardless of their origin - it's perfectly reasonable and it doesn't make one a racist, even if historically most of the former are white (or Asian) and a big % of the latter are not.
100 % this.
On June 14 2024 03:02 Gorsameth wrote:Thank you, always insightful to hear other peoples opinions, esp when backed up by numbers. But how do you sit and talk with an opponent who wants to disregard the constitution, a whole host of laws and treaties and the basic principles of human rights? I believe there is plenty of room for cooperation and compromise between the more traditional left and right, but when your dealing with the far right, is that possible? Is that a course we as a society would want to take? We have it here in the Netherlands with Wilders dropping some of his more extreme positions in order to seize power but you'll have a hard time convincing me that is a good thing, Either he is faking it and will still try to push as much of it through as he can while he now holds power, or he never believed anything in the first place and will say and do anything to get a hold of power. And I think the latter can actually be more dangerous then the former.
You don't have to cooperate or talk to far right politicians but you do have to talk to their voters.
Start by realising that it's not one big monoblock of racists/fascists. Some are, most are not. This is clear from opinions being stable or even improving over time while these parties grow rapidly.
Stop calling them names and take them seriously. Find out what your voters want, find out what the other sides voters want. Likely a large part will overlap. Find common ground. Tell the loudest most rabid voices in your own party to be civil or shut up.
Make firm commitments and keep them. Don't fall in the trap of saying "we want this" and then go "oh no it's actually impossible due to X law". Politicians are supposed to change laws and find solutions.
Basically do democracy like it's supposed to work. If a large part of voters want X they will get X. It's just a question if it comes packed with X+Socialism or X+Fascism.
Don't have to peel of all of their voters but from statistics you can obviously get *most* of them.
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There's an insightful book that explores why many people have been voting for populist parties in recent years called "The Road to Somewhere" by David Goodhart. This article from "The Guardian" summarizes it pretty nicely.
Synopsis from the publisher:
Several decades of greater economic and cultural openness in the West have not benefited all our citizens. Among those who have been left behind, a populist politics of culture and identity has successfully challenged the traditional politics of Left and Right, creating a new division: between the mobile ‘achieved’ identity of the people from Anywhere, and the marginalised, roots-based identity of the people from Somewhere. This schism accounts for the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, the decline of the centre-left, and the rise of populism across Europe.
David Goodhart’s compelling investigation of the new global politics reveals how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests, in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration.
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EPT
