[quote]lixy wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
lixy wrote:
That would be a constructive debate.
Yes, but we first have to assess what the problem is, right? You yourself weren’t aware of the scale of the problem. I see the discussion and defining of the problem as progress.
I believe the problem was defined by the OP.[/quote]
Yes, and discussing it provided some clarity on the issue. We all learned something - even you.
I live in England. People who come here to live should accept our culture, beliefs and traditions. If they do not like this then they should go back to their own country.
There should be no part of this country that is not British, there should be no part where members of other conutries are the majority.
Only people who can offer something of value should be allowed entry in the first place.
It sounds like this has been a real eye opener for you BB. Are you going to vote in any elections while you are there?
It is a real disaster what the Labour party has done this time in power. What amazes me is how they have been able to make the immigration problem worse than it was the previous time they held power back in the seventies. Back then immigrants from the former colonies were British subjects and came in using British passports.
Because they were British subjects with British passports when they set foot in Britain they didn’t feel like they needed to fit in when they got to Britain.
When Margeret Thatcher came to power in the late seventies she put an end to the pratice of giving away passports and immigration stayed low for the eighteen years of Torie rule.
Joe D. has it right and lixy is being his usual disingenuous self. One can’t talk about these issues freely in Britain, the PC police are ready to pounce at the slightest dissent and lable people racist. Most people don’t want to be seen as racist because it’s not socially acceptable and there are speech laws to be afraid of so they are cowed into silence.
So no lixy, the British can’t just have an election and put an end to what is happening. Any politician who says he is going to do something about immigration is going to be branded a racist by the PC police. Besides elections for a new government are not mandatory until 2010.
When the election does come immigration is going to be the political minefield that no candidate dare mention and issues of race and ethnicity are even more volatile. Noone can talk about it or get something done about it. This is why people think the country could erupt into violence.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
So no lixy, the British can’t just have an election and put an end to what is happening. Any politician who says he is going to do something about immigration is going to be branded a racist by the PC police. Besides elections for a new government are not mandatory until 2010.
When the election does come immigration is going to be the political minefield that no candidate dare mention and issues of race and ethnicity are even more volatile. Noone can talk about it or get something done about it. This is why people think the country could erupt into violence. [/quote]
OK. I’ll ask you the following then: What’s the concerned citizen to do?
Obviously, they can’t change the imperialistic past of the Kingdom. And Have they no chance of influencing the course of the country on an issue that apparently bugs a lot of Britons?
Who constitutes this “PC police” you speak of? Is it funded by the taxpayer? Is it grassroots? Is it under the control of some foreign or corporate lobby trying to further their own agenda?
If the UK is a functioning democracy, then the system should self-correct. If not, well, you’ll have to substantiate that before we can move ahead in the argument.
Since we have quite a few Brits on this board, I’ll take the opportunity to ask your opinion on the arms deal with the prince Bandar Bin Sultan and the recent judgement of the High Court. I find it unbelievable that the man issued threats of violence (i.e: terrorism).
“Ministers advised the Attorney General and the Director that if the investigation continued those threats would be carried out; the consequences would be grave, both for the arms trade and for the safety of British citizens and service personnel. In the light of what he regarded as the grave risk to life, if the threat was carried out, the Director decided to stop the investigation.”
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/714.html
From the same ruling, it appears that the British government bowed, said uncle, licked his toes and danced like a monkey for his pleasure.
[i]"The defendant in name, although in reality the Government, contends that the Director was entitled to surrender to the threat. The law is powerless to resist the specific and, as it turns out, successful attempt by a foreign government to pervert the course of justice in the United Kingdom, by causing the investigation to be halted.
The court must, so it is argued, accept that whilst the threats and their consequences are �??a matter of regret�??, they are a �??part of life�??.
So bleak a picture of the impotence of the law invites at least dismay, if not outrage. The danger of so heated a reaction is that it generates steam; this obscures the search for legal principle. The challenge, triggered by this application, is to identify a legal principle which may be deployed in defence of so blatant a threat.
However abject the surrender to that threat, if there is no identifiable legal principle by which the threat may be resisted, then the court must itself acquiesce in the capitulation."[/i]
Just imagine the reaction if a Venezuelan or Iranian had done the same.
I mean, last I checked, it was Wahabis that blew up the tube, cars and keep threatening the country. How is it that the Al-Sauds aren’t held accountable? Why is it that the US and UK kisses their ass when clearly the country is at the root of a lot of evil? They put women in jail for getting behind the wheel, they have ZERO religious tolerance, etc.
I found this utterly outraging.
Trivia: 40 of the 75 richest people in the UK are foreign.
Regarding non-assimilating groups, this one takes it a step further:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjk1OGYxYjhkMWQ1NzgyN2E2YmRhYTY3Nzc1NzQ5MmE=
[quote]Sifu wrote:
It sounds like this has been a real eye opener for you BB. Are you going to vote in any elections while you are there?
It is a real disaster what the Labour party has done this time in power. What amazes me is how they have been able to make the immigration problem worse than it was the previous time they held power back in the seventies. Back then immigrants from the former colonies were British subjects and came in using British passports.
Because they were British subjects with British passports when they set foot in Britain they didn’t feel like they needed to fit in when they got to Britain.
When Margeret Thatcher came to power in the late seventies she put an end to the pratice of giving away passports and immigration stayed low for the eighteen years of Torie rule.
Joe D. has it right and lixy is being his usual disingenuous self. One can’t talk about these issues freely in Britain, the PC police are ready to pounce at the slightest dissent and lable people racist. Most people don’t want to be seen as racist because it’s not socially acceptable and there are speech laws to be afraid of so they are cowed into silence.
So no lixy, the British can’t just have an election and put an end to what is happening. Any politician who says he is going to do something about immigration is going to be branded a racist by the PC police. Besides elections for a new government are not mandatory until 2010.
When the election does come immigration is going to be the political minefield that no candidate dare mention and issues of race and ethnicity are even more volatile. Noone can talk about it or get something done about it. This is why people think the country could erupt into violence.
[/quote]
Agree with most of this, and most of what Joe D. wrote on the first page. But you’re kidding yourself if you think the issue is a Labour vs. Conservative one. On all the big issues the Conservative Party is merely a pale shadow of Labour. They offer the same policies, maybe just slightly stronger rhetoric. Nothing will change re: Europe, immigration and every other issue of British sovereignty were Cameron to win an election.
Labour is most certainly not going to do anything different in regards to it’s already disastrous policies, especially immigration. The Tories offer the possibility of change and they are the most likely to win the next election.
Gdollars I don’t think you fully appreciate the level of fanaticism that Britains PC establishment has achieved. It doesn’t take much to be accused of racism in Britain. The British don’t have adult dialogue about issues of race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, etc… because of it.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Labour is most certainly not going to do anything different in regards to it’s already disastrous policies, especially immigration. The Tories offer the possibility of change and they are the most likely to win the next election.
Gdollars I don’t think you fully appreciate the level of fanaticism that Britains PC establishment has achieved. It doesn’t take much to be accused of racism in Britain. The British don’t have adult dialogue about issues of race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, etc… because of it.
[/quote]
And because there’s no First Amendment over here, you can be prosecuted for expressing “incorrect” opinions.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Labour is most certainly not going to do anything different in regards to it’s already disastrous policies, especially immigration. The Tories offer the possibility of change and they are the most likely to win the next election.
Gdollars I don’t think you fully appreciate the level of fanaticism that Britains PC establishment has achieved. It doesn’t take much to be accused of racism in Britain. The British don’t have adult dialogue about issues of race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, etc… because of it.
[/quote]
The Tories do no offer any meaningful possibility of change. Cameron is Blair Lite, I thought that was obvious by now. On multiculturalism, political correctness, British sovereignty…they bow down to the same idols.
I think I do fully appreciate the level of fanaticism about political correctness in Britain. And I think it’s heavily tied into the loss of national identity/pride, i.e. post-Sixties shame and apologies for imperialism. The thing you’re missing is that Cameron and the rest of the Tories come from that exact same establishment, and as I said, have the same pieties.
When Lixy wonders about how in a democracy the politicians can ignore the will of the people, that’s how. When you have a political class that operates largely in an echo chamber, faces an apathetic and uninformed electorate, and an opposition that offers no serious divergence, that’s how unpopular policies continue (see Iraq War, mass immigration in both Britain and the US, the EU treaty in France, etc.).
By the way, you ever read Peter Hitchens? http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Labour is most certainly not going to do anything different in regards to it’s already disastrous policies, especially immigration. The Tories offer the possibility of change and they are the most likely to win the next election.
Gdollars I don’t think you fully appreciate the level of fanaticism that Britains PC establishment has achieved. It doesn’t take much to be accused of racism in Britain. The British don’t have adult dialogue about issues of race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, etc… because of it.
And because there’s no First Amendment over here, you can be prosecuted for expressing “incorrect” opinions.[/quote]
I don’t think it’s quite that bad, but the bill about prosecuting hate speech against religions was scary.
Of course, I don’t know the British situation that well, but I bet there are many analogs here in America.
For one thing, this Immigration issue, at least here in America, does not break down well into classical Left vs Right politics.
On the Right, you have middle class Republicans (like the ones here on T-Nation) who oppose lax immigration laws for some of the reasons already stated here. However on the Right you also have many of the BIG capitalists who are for the cheap labor force it provides. Now, if the saying, “Bullshit walks, money talks” is applicable here, then guess who wins…the Big Capitalists. Of course there are also the Libertarians who are going to argue for the free market and not oppose lax immigration laws.
On the Left, you are going to have some on the Left, who want to protect working class jobs and salary, that are going to oppose lax immigration. On the other hand, you will have some social liberals and anarchist types (the latter a very small number here) who will support lax immigration laws.
Also, I can certainly sympathise with the OPs feelings. Even though I am on the Left and will put into a slot because of that by certain people, a lot of cultural differences with immigrants really annoy the hell out of me. Some of it is big. Then some of it is really small shit…everytime an Indian co-worker wobbles his head side-to-side when I am talking to him, I just want to take out a fucking machete and decapitate him 
That’s really petit, I know, but over time these small things DO get on your nerves and you might as well be honest about it.
Some of this-the small annoying stuff-is nothing new. I grew up in a small coal town in West Virginia and one heard stories about how in the early part of the 20th century, you could go into a beer hall and here 15 different languages being spoken. In order to break working class struggle, the bosses used to pit Czech workers against Italian workers. Poles against Germans, etc, etc. Of course, if you go there now, this kind of tension hardly exists.
My point is that maybe we are just going through an immigration wave and are annoyed -like our forefathers (here in America anyway)- by the clash of civilizations but that over time this problem will be dissipated as groups become more integrated.
On the other hand, I am not sure about that. Is this a novel situation? Are these groups mentioned (Pakistani Muslims, etc), the groups children also going to be resistant to integration that there is a permanent, antagonistic culture in our midst? Or are the children going to be seduced by democracy and liberal values and throw off their parents reactionary perspective?
I was going to mention the potential legal ramifications of saying the wrong thing but decided not to.
The vote to reinstate the sixteenth century blasphemy law in order to appeal to the muslims was a good example of just how fucked up labour’s policies are. That bill passed the house of commons and had been sent to the house of lords for final approval. Then the London bombing happened and that put the kibosh on it.
Think about this. Labour was about to take Britain all thge way back to the sixteenth century until Alqaeda stopped them. In a round about way those terrorists did the country a favor. It is twisted. Your enemys usually don’t do you favors. Before the London Bombing the last time for Britain was when Hitler stopped his army from rolling into Dunkirk.
Entheogens there are certain aspects where Britians immigration issues differ from Americas. The biggest difference is much of Britains immigration originated from it’s former colonial empire.
After world war two the break up of the British empire was not entirely peaceful. Back when labour was importing people from the former colonies they didn’t give a damn if they hated the English.
The American melting pot is a bit of a myth. You really have to consider who is being added into the mix. All the European groups were former members of the Holy Roman Empire. They had a common history that went back thousands of years. Racially they were so similar that they can all blend in.
The Eastern European immigrants to Britain will melt in. Their kids will grow up speaking English with a British accent and when they will celebrate christmas etc… how are you going to tell?
Other groups no thought was ever given to them ever fitting in. Making people citizens before they even got on the boat to Britain made it so they had no sense of a need to assimilate, to try and fit in. That is how multiculturalism arose.
In America an immigrant has spend five years assimilating before they can become a citizen. That is why America isn’t a fractured society like Britain.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
In America an immigrant has spend five years assimilating before they can become a citizen. That is why America isn’t a fractured society like Britain.[/quote]
Thanks for the information, Sifu. Actually, I would say in most cases obtaining citizenship takes an even longer time than five years here in America. Anyway, are you telling me that it takes a short time to get citizenship for immigrants coming to Britain from former colonies? How long?
Before Margaret Thatcher (Torie) changed the law, citizenship was automatically given to everyone in the former colonies who applied for a British passport.
Before Thatcher, Labour governments used to send agents out to recruit people to emigrate to Britain.
Before Thatcher, Labour used the law to engage in a practice called gerrymandering. If you take a train trip across East London you will see block after block of highrise council flats. They are all filled with immigrants or their descendents and they are filled along ethnic lines. The ethnic make up of a block will depend upon where a boat was arriving from when the buildings were newly built. That’s why East London is a giant ghetto. Labours greatest fear is that Essexman will turn Torie again.
The Tories under Thatcher were the ones who ended the practice of passing out passports. That is why I am saying that they offer the best hope to the British of ending the damage that labour has wrought.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Before Margaret Thatcher (Torie) changed the law, citizenship was automatically given to everyone in the former colonies who applied for a British passport. [/quote]
This is a severe misrepresentation of historical facts.
Anyone interested in the subject, have a look at this timeline:
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Before Margaret Thatcher (Torie) changed the law, citizenship was automatically given to everyone in the former colonies who applied for a British passport.
Before Thatcher, Labour governments used to send agents out to recruit people to emigrate to Britain.
Before Thatcher, Labour used the law to engage in a practice called gerrymandering. If you take a train trip across East London you will see block after block of highrise council flats. They are all filled with immigrants or their descendents and they are filled along ethnic lines. The ethnic make up of a block will depend upon where a boat was arriving from when the buildings were newly built. That’s why East London is a giant ghetto. Labours greatest fear is that Essexman will turn Torie again.
The Tories under Thatcher were the ones who ended the practice of passing out passports. That is why I am saying that they offer the best hope to the British of ending the damage that labour has wrought.
[/quote]
Today’s Conservative Party is not Thatcher’s. Not even close.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Before Margaret Thatcher (Torie) changed the law, citizenship was automatically given to everyone in the former colonies who applied for a British passport.
This is a severe misrepresentation of historical facts.
Anyone interested in the subject, have a look at this timeline:
Bullocks.
Legislation had allowed people from the Empire and Commonwealth unhindered rights to enter Britain because they carried a British passport.