4328

Yeah, I think this is a good breakdown of what’s occurring in many places, at least partially. It’s not about where they come from, just that people are generally scared of, and against, poor people.

4329
  1. Mass immigration reduces integration
    Integration: Adoption of language, laws, social conventions of the host country. This is different to assimilation of the immigrant culture by the host culture. Instead I see it as a reduced chance of peaceful, friction-less co-existence.
  2. Mass immigration typically means poor immigrants
    This causes a variety of problems:
    Immigrants will collect in poor areas
    Increased competition in the job market in the poor area
    Increased pressure on government supplied services such as housing, medical services, transport in the poor area
  3. Cultural appropriation of the area
    (I think this is the one that will be highly contentious)
    This means that original natives, who were perhaps born and raised in the area gradually no longer recognize it. Their shops and restaurants change to match the immigration influx. They can no longer hear their language spoken in the street. They no longer recognize their own home. I don’t think this is an entirely positive outcome. I struggle to argue that it’s a terrible, terrible thing. Change always occurs and we have to adapt to it but I still feel that something precious is lost by this cultural appropriation.
4330

Please provide sources and data other than you driving through Korea-town.

4331

I’d be happy to but I cannot. I’m not an expert on immigration. I am merely describing my point of view.

To be honest my original argument was much more about:
Immigration control is a complex subject, worthy of much debate. It shouldn’t be entirely and instantly dismissed as racism.

4332

That’s true, but it means that the vast majority of people who voted for Brexit to control immigration don’t begin to understand it; in which case, what was their motivation? I mean, you can’t have it both ways, it can’t be that people have good defensible reasons to oppose immigration and that it’s really complicated and people don’t really understand it.

4333

But if you don’t have any data to support that point of view, then why is it your point of view?

4334

I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he’s basically saying that mass migration is cultural suicide, and that is a very, very racist thing to say.

His posts about immigration feel oddly like the fake ones by “real Democrats” who voted for Obama twice, but then couldn’t stomach what Democrats did to Bernie and voted for Trump instead. I mean, yeah, maybe that happened, but you’re not a Democrat, it’s just something you say.

4335

Many Leave voters were also in poorer areas. It’s possible some are feeling the effects of mass immigration?

I don’t see why these two things are mutually exclusive.

I hold points of view on many things that I don’t have immediately supporting data for. I don’t know what else to say…

(facepalm)
Thanks for calling me a racist after I just spent two hours trying to explain why it’s a terrible thing to immediately discount views you don’t agree with as racist :)

4336

Because if they don’t understand immigration they can’t have defensible, rational positions about it. That’s what it means not to understand it. So their opinions come from somewhere else, which is to say: they’re emotional, not rational.

(Their opinions might turn out to be right, but that’s an accident, not a rational process.)

4337

I concede the point.

4338

I didn’t immediately discount your views. I carefully considered your cultural argument that “us” is superior to “them”, and concluded that it is racist.

4339

A brief scan of the last 500 years of British history - especially our habit of, er, emigrating across the globe with what some might say was a little too much enthusiasm - might suggest we shouldn’t really complain about immigration for a century or two.

4340

I kinda feel you you walked in and said “with all due respect…” and thought that because you started with that that we’re not able to call you on the shit you said after.

Just because you say you’re not a racist doesn’t mean you can come in here and parrot all the things racists say (with eerie accuracy) and not be called on it.

4341

Man, that’s less than the Polish population of the Chicago metro area, where I’m from. If this is a problem, you’ve obviously never had a good kolaczki.

It’s about 1.5 million, of which over 900k speak polish.

4342

It’s all well and good to say that disliking immigration is not a fact based feeling, but this isn’t the Dara O’Briain bit about the fear of zombies, enough people get the fear and in a democratic society eventually the government will have to do something about it.

Ergo, Brexit.

4343

In terms of lawbreaking etc, what do you mean? Is there data to that point?

In terms of language and social convention, well. The latter are just conventions (probably better sitting in your final bucket below), and the former remains contentious on this island. Befriending some very pro-nationalist Scots, and seeing their attitudes to their own language was quite a culture shock to me, and changed how I think about what language in the UK really means.

  • Mass immigration typically means poor immigrants

Okay. Well, see above posts on social rather than racist prejudice.

I think you’re right in that it will be contentious. Others have already voiced the point that suggesting one culture (and merely in the sense of language or food or other innocuous things) being superior to another is already troubling, and I suspect you’re troubled by it yourself.

But I’ll just ask: which culture? Are you immersed in our native musical traditions? Do you regularly go Morris Dancing? Do you speak your local area’s dialect, fluently? This country has a lot of cultures, and people are very rarely so integrated with any of our oldest ones (which are often not even so old!).

4344

As i pointed out the exact same complaints were leveled against polish immigrants in the US. The exact same suggestions were made, that they were poor, uneducated… That they refused to assimilate.

Exactly the same thing was said about the Irish and Italians.

And those fears and suggestions were never true. Those groups all assimilated fine.

So we are left with this:
The reasons given to be fearful of immigration, are not rational. They are not based in fact. They contradict historical experience.

That means that the rational course of action is to reevaluate those beliefs and fears surrounding immigration

4345

An awful lot of people are demanding evidence from draxen, or else he’s a racist obvs, but somehow don’t feel obliged to provide any themselves.

The biggest problem with the arguments for immigration is that they’re about averages. Neither immigration or its benefits are smoothly distributed. The Eastern European immigration surge (that turned immigration into a top-two importance polling issue) happened in clusters, for reasons that were partly explainable and partly random. There were towns and small regions where health and adult education services were massively overstrained by increased use, and where day rates for an awful lot of self-employed people in construction and maintenance dropped by up to 50%.

There are plenty of people who felt genuinely harmed by EU migration. There are plenty more people who saw (or heard about, or heard completely false rumours about) how others were hurt and don’t want it happening to them.

As electors in a democracy, I think it might be understandable if they feel angry about this thing that happened to them without any consultation.

As electors in a democracy, I think they’re entitled to have a say in how much and how fast their country should change.

4346

Sure, you’re right of course. I just wanted to suggest that everyone with the option to go avail themselves of a good kolaczki.

Also hi light how the complaint is nonsensical since Chicago has a larger Polish population in a much smaller geographic and population size region. Like, seriously, drive down Cermak or North Avenue and you’ll go by streets where all of the signs are in Polish. Though a majority are Polish and English.

It’s no big thing.

4347

This is very similar in style to the “on average, immigration helps the economy” argument.

Yes, after three generations or so, immigrant groups integrate (and enrich society in the process). In other words, “just wait for 50 to 100 years and it will all sort itself out.” Most people aren’t interested in waiting that long.