The point is that Syrians are used to living in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. They're used to living in a place where they don't shove their religion down other people's throat. Officially, Syria under the Assad's was secular. They'll fit in just fine in secular Europe.
Maybe they theoretically could; but with the numbers you're taking in a large fraction are bound to wind up joining the unemployed and impoverished underclass, living in ghettos where there's little secular civil society for them to fit into. Their kids' life-experience is unlikely to teach them to fit in just fine in secular Europe.
2. They're just refugees. It sucks being a refugee and I want to help.
Send a donation to a relief agency. You can help more refugees per krona by helping Jordan put them up than by putting them up in Sweden.
I refuted this point in the very post you're replying to. But thanks for trying.
Are you referring to "Historically almost all immigration is only a net benefit to the recipient country. This is true for all migration. So I don't think we'll lose any money on it. I have argued for it in this thread."? That's not refuting the point; that's just asserting that I'm wrong. Your earlier argument for it was that the U.S. didn't lose money on Cubans and "The only difference is that one group is Christian, and the other Muslim." It's mind-boggling that you're able to talk yourself into believing something so absurd.
4. Historically almost all immigration is only a net benefit to the recipient country. This is true for all migration. So I don't think we'll lose any money on it. I have argued for it in this thread.
It appears your government knows you're wrong about that. ...
Sweden slams shut its open-door policy towards refugees
‘We simply can’t do any more,’ prime minister says in announcing Sweden’s asylum regime will revert to EU minimum...
“We are adapting Swedish legislation temporarily so that more people choose to seek asylum in other countries ... We need respite,” Löfven said, criticising the EU for failing to agree to spread refugees more evenly around the bloc.
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Source)
Note that this is hardly the first time the Swedish government has criticized the other EU countries for not taking their fair share of migrants. It's been doing that for years. Your government regarding asylum seekers as a burden goes back at least to 1997, when it signed onto the Dublin Convention.
The question is, why? If all migration is only a net benefit to the recipient country, why on earth has your government been trying to talk the rest of the EU into redirecting that net benefit away from Sweden?
They're doing it for racist reasons. It's got nothing to do with actual reality. In Sweden we have a racist political party called Sweden Democrats. ... This new policy is a desperate attempt to halt the Sweden Democrats from getting higher ratings.
1994: Sweden Democrats' vote = 0.3%
1997: Sweden signs Dublin Convention.
1998: Sweden Democrats' vote = 0.4%
2002: Sweden Democrats' vote = 1.4%
2006: Sweden Democrats' vote = 2.9%
2010: Sweden Democrats' vote = 5.7%
2014: Sweden Democrats' vote = 12.9%
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Source)
The whole point of the Dublin Convention is to disincentivize the flow by having EU countries put up a united front against host-nation shoppers. So your government decided asylum seekers are a burden, not a net benefit to the recipient country, no later than 1997. They did not do that out of intimidation by the Sweden Democrats' electoral successes.
I think it is wrong and I think it is misguided. All the numbers and research shows that this policy is a mistake.
I.e., Cubans are good for America.
That's an ad hominem argument. Do you think ad hominem arguments are logical?
The SD wouldn't be getting 12.9 of the vote if your mainstream parties had shown any willingness to compromise on their insanity, or even any willingness to discuss the matter civilly and refrain from using ad hominem arguments against the "unwashed masses" whenever your mainstream parties tell them to believe something that sounds ridiculous to them and they "no longer blindly obey and respect figures of authority".
Incidentally, if you'd abolish your anti-democratic party-list election method and adopt the Finnish version of proportional representation, your people wouldn't be put in the position of having to vote SD in order to be listened to just because the rest of the parties' bosses agree among themselves to leave your immigration skeptics nowhere else to turn. Party discipline would be shot; dissident politicians within the main parties could take their case to the voters instead of being answerable only to their bosses. Your political elites have no one to blame but themselves for the SD's rise in the standings.
No, the refugees in Sweden aren't working. The reason is that it is illegal for them to work in Sweden. We have cops who's job it is to try to catch refugees getting jobs and stop them. It's a bizarre law and a counter-productive law. It's a law that everybody loses from. This law needs to change. I hope it will soon. because the current situation is quite literally like burning money for no reason. As well as cruel against the refugees. As well as cruel to Swede's who have now gotten lots of people who can work, but aren't allowed to. Stupid.
God yes!
So what's your theory? That taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and supporting them on welfare and stopping them from getting jobs isn't going to result in an exception to your rule that "all migration" is only a net benefit to the recipient country? That you still won't lose any money on it? That limiting the inflow is still a misguided mistake, even though they aren't producing anything for your country, provided the fact that they aren't producing anything
is your fault?
Whose fault it is does not change the consequences of a massive largely unemployed immigrant underclass with nothing better to do all day than listen to radical preachers. First fix your stupid cruel policies that stop refugees from working. Then enact some serious programs to create jobs for them. Then wait for all those policy changes to have their effect and actually bring refugees' unemployment rate down to normal levels for a prosperous country. Then, only then, reopen the spigot.
There seems to be this insane dynamic in this debate, this crazy assumption that Europe's choices are either
(1) Be nice to the migrants you have, and bring in many more,
or else
(2) Be mean to the migrants you have, and stop bringing more in,
which is a very odd assumption to make when your actual practice is
(3) Be mean to the migrants you have, and bring in many more.
Your government appears to be full of people who think giving a refugee a welfare check instead of a job counts as being nice to him. It's not nice. Wring out your ideology-soaked brains and switch to
(4) Be nice to the migrants you have, and stop bringing more in.
It's a bizarre law and a counter-productive law. It's a law that everybody loses from. This law needs to change. I hope it will soon.
Yes. So stop telling the "unwashed masses" they're racists and start telling them what your plan is for getting your imbecilic government to change the laws that are filling your country with ghettos.