Germany. SPD coalition with CDU/CSU leaves party youth out? What it means for Poland?

In grinding poverty, with little or no access to education and healthcare, and living on less than a pound a day.

Better to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak and use that money wisely.


'Our' culture? You're American.

Most of that is due to AFricans making choices according to African values (colonialism made little difference in the long run). I don't see why Europeans have a duty to relieve Africans of their bad choices... unless you believe in the white man's burdern (IME many soi disant progressives do)

@jon357

Our culture, the one shared by Americans, Canadians, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, and Europeans. Women gaining equity in society, the right of homosexuals to live their lives free of discrimination and to marry who they want, respect for the rule of law and the democratic process; these are the things I care about.

What is the solution in your mind then. The whole of the underdeveloped world cannot fit into Europe. Do you subscribe to any school of thought as a road map that will attenuate this problem, or just prefer to cast aspersions and make snide remarks? You're an ostensibly educated and well read man, so I'm assuming that you have given these things some thought.

Even if you said "Yes, the whole of the underdeveloped world should fit into Europe," that is at least taking a position, and then an honest discussion can follow.

But European culture is not just connected to the ideas of a bunch of 18th century lawyers and plantation owners, which seems to inform your whole view of what society is.

There are many other influences - Dutch / Swedish social democracy, the huge flows of refugees after the wars, different religions and even Islam / Africa has a deep influence in places like Spain, Hungary and Sicily. You won't understand our responses to the problem unless you take these factors into account.

As for solutions then you also need to consider the root causes - wars (some started by the US), climate change (Tthe US now refuses to join common.efforts), the Middle East (whether its Iran, Syria or Israel the US seems intent on worsening the problem), overpopulation ( the US cuts funding for birth control ). Yet you lecture us about common values

Well I appreciate your input as always. I think what you've pointed out is accurate, but also points out that Europe is not a monolith. So with that said, while the Nordic countries and Germany are free to engage in that sort of immigration policy, the idea that it should be imposed on the rest of Europe, and particularly central and Eastern Europe who have no such history of colonialism is distasteful to me. And while surely many first world nations played a part in destabilizing some of these countries, the blame does not rest squarely on their shoulders, but is in fact shared by their corrupt leadership as well. My disagreement is with the idea that allowing massive influxes of people whose cultures may pose a threat to many of the cultures within Europe is a real solution to the problems that plague many of those countries. I don't think its a long term sustainable solution, and certainly some of the countries within Europe are within their rights to act in their own self-interests as any sovereign nation would. It's also troubling that many of these migrant communities harbor very unsettling views (based on Pew Poll research, and some other academic research) towards women, infidelity, homosexuals, freedom of speech, human rights, and Jews. Just as a for instance, Dr.Aslan from the University of Vienna found that of the newly arrived migrants in Austria, 44% felt that using violence against an unfaithful female spouse was appropriate. The research has also found that these communities are becoming more insular, and more radical, not less as I would have expected with being exposed to a diverse society that prides itself on progressive liberal ideas. I worry what these sort of toxic ideas mean for the future and everything that these societies have worked for and achieved. Do you acknowledge that these are at least valid concerns?

Our president seems to want more "immigrants" from Norway coming to the States. Hope he doesn't mean the type like Anders Breivik!
:-)

@SigSauer


Indeed, only a few, if we consider the total number of refugees we are talking about.

To be honest, I find it quite ironic that crime is mentioned as a reason against migration on a Polsih forum. Because if we go by that, we would have to immediately terminate free movement for Eastern Europeans, since there has been a noticeable increase in crime since Eastern Europe joined Schengen. Buglary has become a large problem, and many suspects are Eastern Europeans (often organized in large bands). Polish criminals invented a particulary despicable trick, which they used to swindle thousands of old people in Germany out of their savings. Just google "Arkadiusz Lakatosz". There have also been several high profile murders commited by Polish people in Germany. Yet nobody uses this against Polish people.

If you allow immigration, there'll be naturally criminals among them, it is a risk you take. Nobody claims that former politicians are now responsible for every crime Eastern Europeans commit in Western Europe. And nevermind that Eastern Europeans also on average, have views regarding LBGT-rights, democracy et. al that are in contrast to Western European ideals.


This is not surprising, those people are from countries which do not practice these values, and you do not leave your socialization behind once you cross a border. This can be corrected with time, but you need to be patient, but people can change once they are given an alternative.


Poland participated in the destabilization of Iraq. That makes it also partly their responsibility.


This is not an immigration policy, but a refugee policy.


One essential principle of the EU is solidarity. Poland has been and still is a country that demands solidarity from its' partners, be it financially or against Russia. Yet other countries ask for assistance, it refuses, not with any legitimate arguments, (since taking in 1000 refugees would surely not overtax Poland) but on principle. This is a very dangerous developtment, because it undermines any attempt to find a common European policy decision. We can already see the consequences. So far it has mostly weakened Poland, e.g. Southern European countries like Greece and Italy have sided against them on issues, but we might see other problems too.


Those are valid concerns, but they can and are being adressed. That being said, I fail to see how taking in a reasonable amount of refugees could pose a danger to Poland's values. Even if they were to accept 10k a year, surely you must agree that those group could never become a significant group in Poland.

No. There is not a shared culture between those groups. Between us Europeans and you Americans, there's a huge gulf, which is growing year on year. Trump may spout impotent rhetoric to fool the proletariat about building walls; in Western Europe that is not going to happen.


There is little point 'taking a position' on the inevitable, or discussing European matters with a non-European who has no direct connection with our continent.

So there are talks about repatriation after the end of hostilities? Why didn't anyone say so?

The libtards in Europe have been working on this project for years, headed up by France and Germany and have been quite Successful up to now, Britain is also joining in aint that right jon.

Once that silly word appears, it shows the rest of your sentence as an irrelevance.


If any of that made sense. 6pm in Poland already?

No. It's inevitable only your diseased imagination.

Of course if you're right then it's the end of most European culture as the new arrivals are unlikely to find enough affinity with opera and symphonies and ballet and art museums to keep them going. It would probably also be the end of multi-party democracy as the places the arrivals are coming from are all run on tribal and or clan grounds.

But I guess the street food will be nicer and there won't be so many icky women in public showing their hussy legs and hair and faces.

@Tacitus

That is quite a bit for me to unpack tonight Tacitus, so for the sake of brevity let me say, I think some of those goals are noble and indeed those issues I pointed out may very well be corrected over time. However, I think the price being paid right now is too high. Even if only a small number of Europeans are impacted by terrorism, rapes, murders, and assaults resulting in grievous bodily injury by migrants, it's a number too high. It's very easy to look at those numbers and say they're insignificant given the larger picture, but those numbers represent real citizens being victimized by foreigners that in many cases do not have a legitimate right to asylum. I view them as preventable crimes, whereas I don't view the free movement of people within European nations equally, because those people are already European citizens with a right to be on the continent.

The injuries sustained by the 'relatively small number,' of people are life changing. I don't know whether or not you have ever had the misfortune of seeing gruesome injuries to human beings in person, but they are not something you easily forget, and you look at those 'statistics' much differently once you have.

@Jon357

Ok, your continued condescension is so unnecessary and I wonder how in gods name you get on with people in the flesh with such a poor attitude, or if you were raised properly and know how to speak to people at all. Let me start with the fact that I am 100% European by blood, and that within a few months I'll be married to a Polish citizen, which means that within a few years, I, myself, will BE a Polish citizen. Ergo, I have every right to opine on these matters, and not LEAST of which is the fact that it's MY country's blood and treasure which guarantees European security, so sod off.

Everything changes, and geopolitics are going to be very interesting soon.


I'm sure you'll survive.

Oh dear jon using Harrys tactic of baiting, throwing in belittlement and accusations of alcoholism now are we?.

Now Jon remember the saying " if the cap fits wear it with pride".

Getting BACK on topic.

There is now a ray of light starting to shine, some people in Europe are starting to wake up to the damage caused by years of liberal social engineering, sadly it is the youth that have been targeted, we don't want this disease spreading into Poland.

you're a philistine....

We could try discussing the issues and arguments based on their merits. Identity politics is for the intellectually weak. "Your argument has less merits because you belong to x,y,z group." It is the worst sort of sophism to claim an argument invalid simply because of the background of the person delivering it. Let's all try to avoid personal insults and identity politics in our discussions please.

Occurs a lot here.

And the thread's still going on about migration, despite that not being the topic, and despite there being several other threads on that topic.

The original post does have the look of a Russian trolling operation about it. The challenger in the current Czech election, Jiří Drahoš (an excellent candidate) has apparently fallen victim to a lot of that.

Case in point:

theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/czech-presidential-election-knife-edge-milos-zeman-jiri-drahos

It will be interesting to see whether the SPD agrees to form a government, as of right now the situation is hard to predict.

Zeman is an absolute disgrace. He's come out and said that he's going to reappoint Babis as PM if he loses, even though Babis has just had his immunity stripped from him and is facing criminal charges. Zeman is also despised by the Czech diaspora, as he only got 7.5% in the first round from them.

From a Polish perspective, Drahoš is the man to vote for, as he's the one that grew up in an area with a strong Polish minority. He's also a religious man and was never a member of the Communist party there, unlike Zeman.

Extremely so, isn't it. Hopefully in the end they'll take the most moderate option, however the German major parties are often very slow to make decisions - if there's a coalition coming, the horse-trading over roles will be complkicated and arrived at after many semi-public squabbles.


Putrid and an opportunist.

Jesus........a left wing circle jerk.....Enjoy the echo chamber fellas, there is no such thing as a dissenting opinion.

@CMS and @Tacitus I enjoyed the well reasoned responses and helping me to see things from your perspective, and for being respectful in all of your responses, I can't say the same for some of the regressed adult man children that responded.

Zeman is left wing, actually. Drahoš is the one who is religious and strongly supports the Euro-Atlantic axis.

[moved from]


In Germany we have the same problem...an ever increasing number of people who can't be arsed to vote at all.

That always helps the fringe parties, they have it much easier to motivate their follower to leave the couch when it counts than the mainstream parties.

That's why political parties like the AfD in Germany have the potential to become a real danger to democracy.

Bullshit, AfD saved democracy in Germany, we had a one party regime before AfD was voted into the Bundestag.

Indeed, it is no coincidence that the AfD is the strongest in Eastern Germany where the election turnout is relatively low.

Easy, he is just a typical Liberal that is stigmatizing his enemy with such propaganda.

The Other is not the one who calls our democratically elected government a regime though.

What are you talking about? You had a one party system before 1989, and even then there was more than the SED on the ballot. Since reunification you have the same political system as the West Germans.


And before that it was the CDU, SPD and Die Linke...