How many Syrian refugees should Australia take?

[Mugwump]

^ Too much in there to deal with fully, but I do think it is unfair to suggest that anyone who questions public spending levels is somehow conniving at child abuse. It's just nowhere near that simple. Lots of things contribute to variations in child abuse, but I suspect the largest is family breakdown and drugs of various kinds. Where poverty contributes, as it surely does, the largest single cause today is probably high housing costs, which are hugely influenced by immigration, by tax policy and debt creation by banks ; and job insecurity which is caused by globalisation and an uncompetitive economy.

On the matter of dealing with root causes in Koln, I agree - but the root cause here is that it is nearly impossible for Germany to integrate and smoothly transition 1.1 million people from a very different culture. It's the proportional equivalent of 300,000 refugees arriving in Australia in one year. That would cause chaos in Australia too, however good you think we may be at integration.

You comment that "I am posing a strategy of dealing productively with a world heading to 10B highly-interconnected humans whose wealth and maladies reach out anywhere and everywhere and will increasingly do so, as per the nested hierarchy of costs I sketched at the top"

That strategy seems to be to allow them to move to the rich world if they want to, and to get rid of the oil economy. The former seems to me no sustainable strategy at all, and the latter seems to me necessary but likely to cause enormous instability if it happens at pace.

I'd suggest that the only "strategy" in an age of globalisation is to set an example of what good government and a competitive economy looks like, and to expect people to develop their nations using those principles in their context. History suggests that this may - slowly - be happening, from Asia to Africa. It may be disrupted, however, by large state sectors and the corruption and misallocation they often engender, and by antique and misogynistic beliefs rooted in the 6th Century. The New Left seem to be keen on both of these, alas.

[pietillidie]

First, the point is about costing child abuse to illustrate the real-world effects of remote decisions on everyday life, a point of empathy with Morrigu, as explained. (And, as shown, it is a mainstream view that financial stress has real-world epidemiological effects).

But the point was to make an effort to bridge the nested hierarchy of often remote costs from the far to the near.

Second, you know there's a difference between a hastened and concerted transition to new energy and a chaotic quantum leap. You could ask what the timeline or expected sequence might look like, instead of caricaturing a view widely held if not outright assumed by cookies much smarter than me.

Third, when you say something like, "The strategy seems to be allow them to move to the first world", it's just not my view at all. There's no " seems" about it. It's about playing a role as best you can to contribute to the whole.

No one wants to solve problems by creating new problems. Push things and work hard to make them happen, but don't rob Peter to pay Paul. Germany is *still* doing very well, despite incidents. Germany is *still* one of the foremost economies on the planet. Germany may have to wind back its shouldering of the burden of global people movements, despite its courage. Others may have to step up and take some of the load, as fellow EU beneficiaries. But that doesn't change anything; all that says is a learning process is underway, not that Germany is falling into the sea, which by any serious measure it isn't.

The parameters of my thinking have been explained ad infinitum; first, we act like mature adults and interface and persevere in the face of complexities, rather than setting up an oppositional scenario that pushes those associated with the term "Muslim", namely 1.75B people and growing, from the hills of Azerbaijan to the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, onto a defensive all-or-nothing war and hatred footing.

We focus on the core of what we teach universally and know most about economic development, namely that economic opportunity breaks down authoritarian structures and decentralises power into a workable tension of competing parties. We start with the historical centres of enmity and animosity, represented at present by Saudi Arabia and Iran, and introduce new forces of pluralism through economic opportunity. Not ideology, not religion, not side-taking, not dictator propping up. Plural economic forces that allow people to sort through things as indigenously as possible (not blindly - we still have to protect ourselves).

That way, the war and chaos, and cyclical factional bloodletting, has an end game other than just a new tyranny lording it over a different suppressed, angry set of peoples.

By breaking the back of the centralising, tyranny-sustaining old oil economy, we encourage transition to new industries as we did in every other country we helped either rebuild or develop, from Germany and Japan, to Korea, Taiwan and on.

Why do we reflect on our development work in Asia positively, but don't think that enormous region, from North Africa to Russia, is worthy of the same development effort? This is unacceptable; back in the day we specifically and openly warned against the natural resource curse, and actively encouraged industrialisation in Asia. No, but not in this other great world region.

What's the mental block there? What changed? What horror mindset took us from the development of Asia to the imprisonment of the oil economies? Folks from the Middle East don't bow enough in Confucian deference?

Screw this new backward, inward, paranoid view of the world. Instead, we harness the growing tide of opinion concerned with pollution in Asia to help underwrite the transition away from fossil fuels. We harness the universal sense of disgust with the decline of wonders such as the GBR through pollution, and vile pockmarks and headless mountain tops across once attractive landscapes to rid the planet of dirty fuels and exotic oil and gas extraction, and so on. China lifts its internal consumption as it needs to; these once imprisoned oil economies help bring down inflation in a new wave of development, and so on

Bringing it back to our own economies, just look at the race towards self-driving electric cars right now. Tech and old auto companies are clamouring over themselves to get in on the action because transport is being transformed at lightning speed as we speak. This is not science fiction; it's already at the stage of advanced real-world trials. Even drones are being regulated as we speak. The pieces of the puzzle are being revealed weekly in this one area alone.

And that's just one person's part-time effort to poke through the dilemmas and escape the confines of student union hour with Tony Abbott and Mark Latham! The leading by example you refer to is an inheritance that is already with us; we have to at least act as if we believe we can get things done intelligently in the world - especially things we've done before, like help stimukate and support economic development elsewhere.

[David]

This is concerning:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/german-police-arrest-211-after-far-right-riot-in-leipzig?CMP=soc_567

[pietillidie]

^Yes, a night of smashing shop fronts - let's hope it was irony missed.

And people worry the Cologne incident showed signs of coordination In fact, I sensed some linguistic oddities about the mention of the group in Cologne being "coordinated" in news reports, as if that phrase had been emphasised purposely, or reporters had been primed with it.

The far greater coordination, of course, comes from the German far right, with four people just charged with domestic terrorism:

Germany charges 4 with forming far-right terror group that planned attacks on refugees
http://uk.businessinsider.com/germany-charges-4-with-forming-far-right-terror-group-2016-1??r=US&IR=T

[pietillidie]

One theory that ISIS is purposely damaging relations by wanting their minions to be identified as fake asylum seekers. Just as likely to be one of those imaginary plausible ideas said because it could be that I hate so much, too.

More importantly, the Turkey attack is an example of how you can't shut problems out on a small, interconnected planet, but rather have to engage and deal with them productively. Note the estimated 3000 Russians, as well.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/istanbul-suicide-bomber-registered-as-refugee-before-attack/ar-CCtDVO

[Wokko]

[pietillidie]

^Hang on, that's not fair comment given one was on NYE and was ad hoc, while the other was an announced protest.

[Wokko]

Of course it's fair. This wasn't mere incompetence on the behalf of German police but an active cover up. Europe is so afraid of appearing 'racist' they sacrifice the most vulnerable to the barbarians and do little to nothing to remedy the situation. Thankfully Germans are standing up to this nonsense, unlike their British comrades in Rotherham.

As usual, Rita nails it. I hear more from her than from Bolt lately, has he retired or something? Passed on the torch?

*edit* Holy giant picture Batman : Let me find the text.

THE ideologues of modern feminism have plumbed new depths of hypocrisy in the past week.

If there was ever any doubt that the feminist movement has been hijacked by unprincipled cowards more concerned with their own moral vanity than equality between the sexes, there shouldn�t be now.

One would�ve thought that the loudest segments of the sisterhood, who write obsessively about imagined rape culture and victim blaming, would be eager to examine the very real and sickening sexual brutality visited upon hundreds of women in Germany on New Year�s Eve by hordes of entitled men.

Feminists� silence on issues such as forced marriages, female genital mutilation, honour killings and wholesale subjugation of women in Muslim countries is nothing new, but they are now silent on incidents occurring in the Western world.

Gang attacks on women in Germany and other parts of Europe by newly-arrived Muslim migrants, some of whom view women as nothing more than objects, have barely raised a ripple among feminist activists who can be relied upon to become enraged over the most trivial offence.

A crowd had gathered between the train station and the town�s cathedral to celebrate and watch the fireworks. Among the crowd were hundreds of men described as Arabic or North African in appearance who launched �co-ordinated attacks� against terrified young women.

The men attacked in groups, surrounding a victim or victims, preventing onlookers and police from seeing what was happening within the mass of bodies. The women were groped and assaulted and many also had their possessions stolen.

When police attempted to clear the crowd, they were attacked with fireworks and taunted.

Veteran officers said the attacks were unprecedented and that they�d never seen such disrespect for authority. One of the attackers is reported to have told officers: �I am Syrian; I must be handled in a friendly manner. Mrs Merkel invited me here.�

More than 150 women have filed criminal complaints, including at least two cases of rape. So far federal police have identified 32 suspects, 22 of them asylum seekers.
Police officers survey the area in front of the main train station and the Cathedral in Cologne.

A police officer told the Cologne Express: �These people have been in Germany for only a few days or weeks. This is the truth, even if it hurts.�

So what was the response of the Cologne�s feminist mayor to the deranged rampage by a thousand-strong mob of predatory males?

She advised German women to change their behaviour so as to lessen the chance of becoming a victim. Mayor Henriette Reker indulged in a spot of victim-blaming by imploring women to keep men �at arm�s length� and to adopt a �code of conduct� when out.

Reker has been rightly condemned for her comments but not by feminists, whose bizarre alliance with Islamists is like turkeys praying for Christmas.

The German episode is reminiscent of what occurred in the UK town of Rotherham where more than 1400 girls and women were subjected to sexual abuse for more than a decade by gangs of men.

The abuse of girls as young as 11 was all but ignored by authorities because the victims were mainly white and the perpetrators mainly Pakistani. Authorities feared they would be seen as racist if they pursued complaints.
People gathering in front of the main railway station in Cologne.

German police officials have also been heavily criticised for attempting to cover up the NYE attacks. The day after the rampage an official press release from Cologne police described the celebrations as �peaceful�.

The media hasn�t escaped scrutiny either. Former interior minister Hans-Peter Freidrich was among those who blamed it for burying stories that paint asylum seekers in a negative light.

�It�s a scandal that it took days for the media to pick up the reports,� he said.

However, current interior minister Ralf Jaeger seemed far more concerned about a backlash against Germany�s open border policy. He said: �What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting women.�

That warped view was backed by feminists here who either refused to acknowledge the attacks occurred or that the background of the attackers may be relevant. Just as they did after Rotherham.

The few who were shamed into commenting used their platform to label those concerned by the Cologne attacks as racist. That�s what passes for critical thought among local frightbats who view the migrant perpetrators as bigger victims than the innocent women they assaulted.
Police arrest a man as people gather in front of the main railway station in Cologne.

Meanwhile Forbes senior journalist Frances Coppola posted a comment alleging a vast conspiracy: �I suspect anti-immigration people of organising the Cologne sex crimes. Fastest way of getting borders closed.�

But the Cologne attacks were far from isolated; there were similar attacks on NYE in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Berlin.

The Scandinavian experience has shown what can happen when a nation effectively imports �rape culture� by allowing mass migration from countries that view women as second-class citizens.

Figures released last year reveal the incidence of rape in Sweden has tripled in the past decade, with Muslim men significantly overrepresented in the statistics.

These are issues that should be discussed openly, particularly by feminists, but the culture of denial and appeasement sees debate silenced and those asking uncomfortable questions condemned as bigots.

Institutionalised political correctness is a danger to women.

RITA PANAHI IS A HERALD SUN COLUMNIST

rita.panahi@news.com.au

@ritapanahi

[pietillidie]

^Here I am trying hard to find facts, and you think that "nails it"? No, it's just an uncautious guess which will be forgotten if wrong, and glorified if right.

Nothing justifies police standing about doing nothing, and no one can explain how several hundred complaints from the creepy and threatening to the very serious can happen under police and security watch, and cameras, in a major public space in the heart of town on NYE.

There is a bizarre ring to the police behaviour, and a distinct use of the term "coordinated attack" being used across the media reports. But there's nothing to make me believe one plausible right or left conspiracy theory over another.

I do find the lack of video footage of assaults odd in such a location in this day and age, I must say. Perhaps police are sitting on them while conducting investigations, but it still baffles me why there's not more footage available.

Sticking to only the facts, a mob was left to get drunk and out of hand, and police looked on because they couldn't get numbers and didn't want to spark more serious violence, being unaware of the assaults taking place in the midst of the crowd.

Or, another report seems to indicate the police cleared the area earlier, then seem to have left to deal with other calls, after which the situation worsened again and most of the assaults took place.

Ignoring conspiracy theories for now, something like that would be a more neutral reading at this point.

[Morrigu]

Firstly I think Pi's post about the gender imbalance is not only spot on but deserved more consideration and discussion - for this is indeed a major problem and will continue to have a negative impact on the communities of Europe - regardless of any well intentioned education programs!

Secondly trying to cover up crime especially crimes of a sexual nature and who is committing them has backfired badly on the countries - Sweden Germany et al that have done this - give them the benefit of the doubt perhaps they were well intentioned and were trying to contain anti migration sentiment - but what they have neglected to factor in to their attempted deception is that the ordinary folk who deal with such things - the police, the doctors, the nurses and especially the victims have voices and the communities " know" that what is being fed to them by their elected officials and the media is bollocks!!

I actually read what you posted PTID ( not the child abuse stuff cause that is just white noise) and I note that the vast majority of suspects identified to date ( and that number is tiny compared to the ACTUAL number of offenders are Moroccan and Algerian and many are illegal not asulym seekers and they are most certainly not from a war torn ravaged Syria or refugee camps !

And I can tell you as fact that whilst the NYE assaults are in the news because of the sheer number - there are many many others that have gone unreported - I still have a pretty good network of colleagues and friends who had lofty ideals ( I did once) but experience is slowly hardening hearts!

And yes sexual assault is not a new thing and it is not exclusively committed by migrants with an affiliation however tenuous with the religion of Islam - BUT there is a massive issue with their ideology and attitudes towards women especially Western women - uncovered meat I think was the phrase one of their esteemed leaders in Australia said after a gang rape spree by members of his flock - second generation I think they were so programs education etc etc are no guarantee of attitudal change.

If the fools who run these countries think they are helping anti migrant feeling by concealing or excusing crimes committed by asylum seekers and migrants illegal and legal they are seriously wrong - all it is doing is fuelling anti migrant feeling as people feel they are being lied to by their elected officials and in many cases know what they read it not the truth and cannot understand why they as citizens are not being afforded the protection that they should be.

Stop pussy footing around - a crime is a crime - end of - don't give a rats about their immigration status!!

So I say again round up the guilty jail them if they are citizens and if they are not jail them and then deport them.

[pietillidie]

^I don't necessarily disagree with that in some respects, Morrigu.

But I do also worry about the hangeronners being treated as sub-human; that permanent underclass, as unseemly and unlikable as they may appear or even be, need to be managed as part of a comprehensive process. Not the same as genuine asylum seekers, but not as human trash, either.

[Mugwump]

^ Agreed, Morrigu - but there are many more people wanting to follow in their footsteps.

We need to get control of our borders, stop encouraging people-smuggling, and where we do choose to let in migrants, do so in a controlled way - preferring families with children over single men, skilled over unskilled, and those without strong religious or ideological affiliations (as far as that can be ascertained).

[HAL]

By "we" do you mean you and me?

[pietillidie]

Having carefully followed the language of the Australian asylum seeker debates, and now analysing the language of the Germany situation, I think I can better pinpoint where my extreme discomfort with a lot of the present discourse and behaviour is coming from.

The problem is, with the refugees you get a vague transition from supposed "valid/pure" to "invalid/impure" in the language.

This ambiguity has become a cover for an extremely dark dehumanisation, hidden behind gender and law and order concerns. The language oozes with contempt.

The desire to resolve the discomfort of the blurred lines is natural enough, but under the wrong conditions, it starts to slide into the realm of social cleansing.

For an intro on social cleansing, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cleansing

Whenever you see terms of impurity start to coalesce around a group, or if you start using such terms yourself, you have to start asking hard questions.

There is a natural tendency to conflate the ambiguous with the impure or corrupted in human psychiatry, thus religion and its ceremonies. But the degree of contempt, and the breaking down of rational safeguards which maintain the humanness of others, can become extremely dangerous.

So, now this group of "invalid" "animals" have spread like a "disease", "groping" and "violating" and "thieving" with their "filthy" hands and "swarming", "animalistic" behaviour.

The only response is to "round them up", "clean up the streets", "hunt them down" and "dump them" back where they belong over the border.

Now, if instead of that I was hearing a plan for working with, say, Algeria and Morocco to start building opportunity for its peasant underclass, and unemployed males in particular, so that we can start working with these people and stabilising their lives, and building a more coherent class for them, and so on, I would be all ears. (Again, the only respectable voice in the debate, Merkel, has actually mentioned as much).

But, all I am hearing is the language of impurity and social cleansing, including sexual impurity, sexual degradation, sexual violation, gendercidal repulsion, disease, pestilence, and such.

Moreover, other important standards are being tossed aside to make way for this cleansing impulse. One of the tenets of dealing with crime is rightly not blaming the victim. But, in this case, the right-wing violence against refugees is regularly being justified on one or another basis. This is also something you would expect to accompany a cleansing discourse.

It's definitely quite a challenge when you do get underclasses with undesirable behaviours, because the normal sets of rules don't seem to apply, making one feel threatened, and such. And underclasses are also often very physically unclean, openly opportunistic and shameless by the usual cultural norms, and such.

But, again, the front-seat driver of the brain usually overrides those natural reactions, and we support working with such people for the good of them as fellow humans, and the good of the social whole.

[Mugwump]

^ Some of that language is indefensible, but it is not widely or continuously used by most people. It sounds like a straw man to me. "Groping" has been widely used, because that is apparently what happened. "Sexual violation" is another word commonly - and broadly accurately - used by those on the receiving end, and I think they have more right to use that term than others have to suppress it.

As for right wing violence against migrants, then indeed that should be heavily policed, prosecuted and punished ; but the authors of it are those that abandoned border controls and abandoned their working-class to the dog-eat-dog, low-skill, higher crime and low-wage economy that will be fuelled by a million low-skilled and desperate people.