I think people get confused into thinking that democracy is about voting when it is should be about reducing prolonged concentrations of power, because of the innate tendency for it to be abused and hoarded. So to support your point, if your culture does not support the concept of good "democratic" governance, and no one strives for the institutions and constitutions to support it, you might be better off with a benevolent dictator, for as long as they last before a not-so-benevolent one.
> I think people get confused into thinking that democracy is about voting when it is should be about reducing prolonged concentrations of power
Voting is the definition and core mechanism of democracy: Government by the consent of the governed, to protect their rights, their lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
What's bizarre is, probably in a place where you have the benefits of centuries of overwhelming success, your extreme attempts to redefine it.
cui bono?, other than dictators. What has worked better than democracy?
> if your culture does not support the concept of good "democratic" governance, and no one strives for the institutions and constitutions to support it, you might be better off with a benevolent dictator, for as long as they last before a not-so-benevolent one.
Which culture? Democracy has been an incredible success all over the world - unprecedented success in history in most places it's taken hold.
Yours are the old propaganda of dictators - our 'culture', that undefined nonsense people cite for their prejudices, isn't compatible. The question is, why do you take up their cause?
They also love that you are sitting on the sidelines distracted, criticizing, rather than acting as a democratic citizen.
Even avoiding things like gerrymandering, are voters choosing politicians or are politicians choosing voters?
Do candidates send out emails asking for you to talk to your friends, or do they ask for more money? Do candidates have principled stances founded on an underlying philosophy, or do they focus on issues that are emotional in order to drum up support.
I think "why do candidates ask for money" is a very very important question to ruminate on as is "why are we talking about abortion and race rather than health and housing"?
Before a general election there is a primary and before a primary there is fundraising. In order to succeed in a primary, in general, you have to do OK at fundraising. Fundraising is not dissimilar to an election and it happens before primaries. This means money votes first, which is why it feels like we have a "democracy" approved of by those with money, we literally do.
It's very imperfect - like every human institution ever - but still democracy has enormous power. Why do you think so many invest so much trying to manipulate voters? What are they spending the money on?
Also, fundraising is a signal of democratic appeal. Some fundraise with mass collections of smaller donations.
Still, I agree that money has too much influence. So what do you think, as a democratic citizen, should we do about the influence of money? It's our country. The moneyed influences love that you are distracted, on the sidelines, debating rather than acting.
Some of those cultures that apparently celebrate gay people were also chemically castrating them not that long ago, and also have a lot of locals who still hate gay people and cannot wait to get back to the old ways.
The rise of the far right in Europe and USA might challenge your idea of fixed regional cultures quite soon.
*)limiting ILLEGAL immigration, emphasis on the word illegal.
Nobody in Europe has a problem with LEGAL immigration, but the left wing parties and MSM keeps ignoring this and sweeping illegal immigration along the legal immigration banner to drive the narrative that Europeans are racists who hate all immigrants in order to justify (social) media censorship and restrictions on free speech to fight the "right wing extremist nazi" boogie man, which ironically, actually fuels the swing towards the extremist right wing, because the regular public discourse and communication channels for criticizing illegal immigration in public are censored/disabled.
A lot of people in Europe absolutely have a problem with legal immigration, with asylum seekers particularly maligned.
Specifically, the rise of far-right parties in Scandinavia, Germany and France is very much a reaction to legal immigration from Arab and African countries. The argument is not "they're stealing our jobs", but "they're abusing our welfare benefits, driving up crime and raping our women".
Is an asylum seeker really legal if their claim is a stretch and they are in fact just an economic migrant? Seems like an arguable category that should be treated separately. Though I agree there appear to be plenty of people in Europe who want to restrict legal immigration too. Is this taboo there now too?
Yes. You answered your own question. A person who is her legally is here legally. If their claim is denied (and I'd argue in many cases the bias would be towards denying valid claims then the other way around) and they refused to leave then they'd be an unathorized immigrant without legal right to stay in the country. But before then they are explicitly there legally.
Taking words out of context generally never forms the basis of a good argument. For example here you cropped out the commission of immigration fraud, which leads me to doubt you accurately answered my question. In the US at least, such behavior can lead to punishments well beyond denial of the application. Are you saying in Europe it is fair play? Either way of course the point relevant to the thread is whether people are justifiable in viewing such applicants as illegal vs legal.
Having your amnesty application rejected (whether the court judged fairly or too harshly) is not in any way or shape fraud. Law is complex and many refugees and asylum seekers don't fully understand the law. Even hoping it applies to you optimistically would not be fraud. Fraud is only when you purposely lie to try to gain the right to stay here. Such things happen but not nearly as often as anti immigrant people claim. Something that seems to happen more often is anti immigrant politicians lying and trying to break the law in order to restrict immigration such as by withdrawing TPS by claiming unsafe countries are now safe(so people can be deported)
Indeed fraud certainly is lying. And sure they might also be rejected for other reasons like being a convicted criminal. In the US we also have "willful misrepresentation", which I will count with fraud informally. But my comment, again, specified economic migrants. They know they are economic migrants. The fraud is to claim otherwise on one's application in the name of "hoping optimistically" that this other story will suffice. It sure is hard to maintain focus on this point.
The vast majority of cases are not declined for fraud/wilful misrepresentation. They're declined because they don't meet standards for asylum (or at times because the judges are being pushed to deny regardless of what the law says or means) or because they didn't have proper representation or enough time to prepare and have to face a broken immigration system. Hell we don't even have enough interpreters. Many of those claiming asylum speak less common languages like Mayan languages
Funny how you don't often hear this kind of argument made for estimating the prevalence of tax fraud. And there the risk vs reward calculation is much worse. I would trust more common sense arguments. People who respond to economic incentives are economically motivated.
You're getting this backwards. Claiming most asylum refusals are due to fraud without anyevidence is the opposite of common sense
Also having an economic as well as other reaspns to immigrate does not mean someone isnt a qualified refuge or or not facing persecution or are committing fraud.
Taxes are complicated just like our immigration system. Many people make innocent mistakes every year, most people don't want IRS to come down as hard as they can on every innocent mistake by treating it as fraud without any proof. They expect corrections and if necessary small fines.aw
"Any evidence" is a low bar. Obviously there's evidence of many kinds. The point here regarding common sense is the evidence of human nature when it comes to lopsided risks versus rewards, and widespread knowledge of this imbalance. Legally proving fraud is obviously difficult in a world where there is almost no paperwork to go on (save what the applicant chooses to provide), and hardly worth the effort when the government can just stop investigating when it looks doubtful and reject the application for the same practical result. In the US most applicants are rejected and aside from obviously-suspicious ones who skip their hearing, the most common reason is literally that their fear isn't found to be credible. Also, a person who has multiple motivations but only lists the ones that would benefit them has lied by omission.
1) Not all asylum seekers are legal immigrants. Legal means you have obtained an entry visa before crossing the border.
2) Even huge amounts of legal asylum seekers can end up straining the already thin welfare state, so it's only normal that taxpayers paying for the welfare state, ask their politicians "where are you goanna house all these newly arrived asylum seekers when even citizens and taxpayers are struggling with housing?" or "how do you know all those unvetted people you're letting in aren't criminals or if they're compatible with our culture and values so that we and our children can feel safe in public?"
So when politicians provide no answers to those questions, how are you surprised voters aren't taking this well and choosing the extreme right?
1) no it means legally seeking asylum under the legal process
2) Maybe build more housing? Maybe hire some of the new immigrants to build more housing. They're not unvetted because they are going through a vetting process. Statistically we know most aren't criminals.
I don’t think that anyone minds immigration of highly educated people from advanced civilized countries that have aligned values and respect local cultures.
But illegal and legal immigrants from other countries mainly consume taxpayer resources and spread crime and violence.
That is absolutely not true. Whoever you heard that from is lying to you. Local citizens cause way more crime than immigrants. Maybe think about where you are getting your news from, because it is bullshit.
So? If non-Western immigrants cannot integrate and earn a decent income and instead resort to crime, that to me is still an argument that we should stop importing them.
There's plentiful of studies done, sending the same CV under the name "Ahmad Jusuf Muslim" and "Petter Petterson" (or something along these lines), the 2nd name will be called for interviews way more often than the 1st name.
You not acknowledging there's a racial bias just makes you a racist.
Maybe because people have been duped so much in the last 10+ years to know that the loaded statement of "more immigration" from the government only means legalizing more ILLEGAL immigration, driving them to hate all forms of immigration because the governments have proven themselves useless at enforcing border controls and depurations of those who brake the law.
That's the result that you get when you maliciously sweep ILLEGAL immigration under the same political banner used for legal immigration, as the liberal European governments have done, so you end up hurting the image of legal immigration as well but this is the fault of politicians, not the people whoa have suffered form illegal immigration and have next to no channels of changing this other than voting far right.
Ummm... At least in the US, they are absolutely not worried about law breaking at all. Look who they just elected president? "Law and order" is basically dead here.
When you use a list of tattoo elements to identify "Venezuelan gang members" and that list is also matched by the cheap options on the wall of any random tattoo shop, you tend to get a lot of false positives.
I just find it fascinating how some people are perfectly fine with rich criminals, but want to get rid of the poor criminals. It makes me wonder what their real motivations are.
Is it? A thug might occasionally steal your wallet. Rich criminals make sure you will not get cure for whatever illness you will surely get as you get older.
You are far more likely to be killed by a citizen than an illegal alien, and even that chance is tiny compared to an automobile death. You've been lied to by people trying to manipulate you for their own political power. Don't get suckered by then. They are not your friend.
That same far right might challenge your idea of the far right. E.g. Germany's AfD is headed by a lesbian in a relationship with a Sri Lankan, and the party enjoys disproportionate support by gay men:
In a world where Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, the Nazi Party's stormtroopers, was openly gay, and Reich uniforms and Hugo Boss feature heavily in gay iconography ... that would suprise us why?
You might be missing the point. They can be all of those things you say (and I very much agree with you) but they can still be very dangerous. In fact, perhaps their banality is a key part of what makes them so dangerous.
You bring up a good point in that at one point it is also about ensuring the quality of materials and construction processes so that everything lasts by default. On top of that, repairability is another factor. I have a fancy kettle that I am sure will not last five years, and I regret buying it.
That’s because Europe overall is declining fast. However the rest of the world is rising fast and the next ten years should be interesting from this alone.
You make good points, thanks for sharing. May I also add onto your speculation by saying that Brexit was a symptom of bad governance in general, and the energy crisis is a symptom too.
Using your analogy, it's absolutely unknowable to bacteria, and therefore absolutely unknowable to us. Random is perhaps the most intellectually honest way of describing it, since it is widely accepted that randomness is a feature of relatively uncomplicated systems.
What is called as 'Random', I will term it as 'free will'. In case of a human training an AI, free will be of the human and in case of creation of universe free will be that of the 'intelligent designer'
at least for human it is definitely not 'free will' as it is influenced by everything that has happened to it before and would not have made the same choices, if it had been influenced by other things in another way.
