I particularly mean states like Germany Sweden Denmark Netherlands that are thought to be more liberal.
I have been reading some articles and comments by people there who are eager to show how welcoming and not-bigots they are.
You obviously don´t consume much of the actually local media, since those are (unfortunately) filled mostly with the negative opinions. If there´s a protest against a refugee center, the media will make damned sure to overemphasize the against camp while usually completely ignoring those showing up to show their support. Controversy generated by loudly screaming xenophobes gets more views than people calmly showing up to help others.
But have they really thought about the long term consequences of having such a huge influx in such small countries and the personal sacrifices they have to make?
The numbers we´ve been getting in the Netherlands are almost ridiculously small. We´ve only had something like 23-25.000 refugees come into the country in 2015. Even with these relatively small numbers, there´s lots of people in the country throwing up a lot of fuss about these ´record´ numbers. But people with a bit of a longer memory, or the ability to do some basic googling, will quickly realize that despite all the doomsayers, history has shown us that these numbers are by no means problematic. In the 90´s we had many more refugees come in, more than twice as many in some years than in 2015. The sky didn´t fall as a result of those years, and it won´t as a result of 2015. Nor did we have to make any personal sacrifices back then, and we´re not really finding ourselves having to make any now. We could easily take in many times the refugees we do now without having to make any serious sacrifices. All of the worries that people express about what taking in immigrants/refugees is supposed to cost a society tend to be shown to be bunk by independent studies. It just isn´t the problem people think it is.
As more keep coming the countries will run out of space and people will living in a crowded condition they are not accustomed to.
This is honestly a nonsensical argument. The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the western world, and despite lots of people shouting that we´re too full, basic math and observation shows we´re anything but. Despite being one of the most urbanized countries in the world with one of the most developed infrastructure networks around, only 13% (highest in the EU) of the country´s surface consists of artificial surfaces (ie, built-up areas like roads, railways, and buildings). And our cities are actually relatively low density in lay-out. We have a population of 17 million people. If the country was truly full, with a built-up area of 100%, and we increased the urban density to that of a dense but perfectly liveable urban area like Manhattan, we could comfortably fit almost a billion people. Obviously this is an extreme and implausible scenario, but it demonstrates the inanity of people claiming we´re full. We´re not even remotely close to being full.
Someone might find her scholarship has gone to a refugee because the latter needs it more; that job has gone to a cheaper migrant; that allotted housing taken away; higher taxes; maybe even welfare slashed to pay for refugee resettlement.
Commonly voiced fears, but not evidenced by the facts. Study after study shows that immigration does not lower wages, and the rest of that just sounds like completely fictitious hypothetical situations that we have no reason to think have actually happened or will do so in the future in any structural sort of way.
There will be conflict over what the migrants expect from their new lives and what the state can actually give them. There is bound to be conflict between the host states' cultural mores and the refugees'.
Well sure, but so what? Why should that be an excuse to keep people out? Why should immigration happen only on the condition that it be trivially easy? Friction between groups of peoples happens even in perfectly homogeneous societies.
How long before ordinary citizens feels they are sacrificing too much and jettison their current ideals?
About five minutes, as history keeps showing us. There´s going to be people who will declare that society is sacrificing its ideals and prosperity as soon as an immigrant so much as looks them in the eye. We´ve seen this behavior happen time and time again throughout the centuries. It was ridiculous in the 17th century. It was ridiculous in the 18th century. It was ridiculous in the 19th century. It was ridiculous in the 20th century. And it´s ridiculous in the 21st century. It is not rational or reasonable, despite the many attempts to rationalize what is at its core just a knee-jerk reaction, and I for one don´t feel particularly compelled to kowtow to their paranoia. And they, for their part, will mostly either froth at the mouth and call me a racetraitor (or something along those lines), froth at the mouth and desperately try to convince me for a while before doubling down in order to quiet the cognitive dissonance going on in their heads, or will come around to my way of thinking in time.
