How long before Europeans resent refugees?

[Bomb#20]

What did you steal from them? And whatever it is you stole, how about you send it back to them with a letter of apology, a calculation of the interest on it, and a check? Incidentally, why have you been robbing gypsies? Do you steal from non-Gypsies too, or are Gypsies just a target of opportunity for you?

Just like Jews Gypsies divide the world into in-group and out-group. Out group is a fair target. It's of course more complicated than this. But as far as Gypsies are concerned I am out-group and am therefore guilty of stealing from them. Yes, this is something that needs to change. But it won't until Gypsies start being treated fairly from non-gypsies. We can either chose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

You're saying you want Gypsies to remain thieves. You don't actually want gypsies to remain thieves, do you? So why did you write what you wrote?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Just like Jews Gypsies divide the world into in-group and out-group. Out group is a fair target. It's of course more complicated than this. But as far as Gypsies are concerned I am out-group and am therefore guilty of stealing from them. Yes, this is something that needs to change. But it won't until Gypsies start being treated fairly from non-gypsies. We can either chose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

You're saying you want Gypsies to remain thieves. You don't actually want gypsies to remain thieves, do you? So why did you write what you wrote?

Just read it a couple of times. I didn't miss-write

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What did you steal from them? And whatever it is you stole, how about you send it back to them with a letter of apology, a calculation of the interest on it, and a check? Incidentally, why have you been robbing gypsies? Do you steal from non-Gypsies too, or are Gypsies just a target of opportunity for you?

Just like Jews Gypsies divide the world into in-group and out-group. Out group is a fair target. It's of course more complicated than this. But as far as Gypsies are concerned I am out-group and am therefore guilty of stealing from them. Yes, this is something that needs to change. But it won't until Gypsies start being treated fairly from non-gypsies. We can either chose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

They are treated as an out group because they steal. If they want a better reputation they have to earn it!

 

[Bomb#20]

If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

You're saying you want Gypsies to remain thieves. You don't actually want gypsies to remain thieves, do you? So why did you write what you wrote?

Just read it a couple of times. I didn't miss-write

I didn't say you miswrote. If miswriting were all it was I wouldn't have made an issue of it.

"If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is a lot like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". It presupposes a wrongdoing -- that "we" treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves. "We" is a first-person plural pronoun. It means "Some other people and I". What you wrote is therefore a confession to being one of the people who treats Gypsies as nothing but thieves. You are in effect thereby claiming first-hand knowledge of what motivates people to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves. Well, are you in point of fact one of the people who treats Gypsies as nothing but thieves? Do you in point of fact want Gypsies to remain thieves? I don't believe you are and I don't believe you do.

So why did you write "we" when English has a perfectly good third-person plural pronoun? What you actually meant appears to have been "If certain bad people I have in mind continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think they should be honest with themselves that the main driver for it is that they want them to remain thieves." If you'd written it that way then it wouldn't contain the false implication that you have first-hand knowledge of their motivation. And it wouldn't contain the rhetorical flourish of associating yourself with them, creating the illusion that you're criticizing your in-group. You're criticizing your out-group, just like everybody else who thinks up the nastiest and most irrational motive he can think of and imputes it to those he disapproves of.

The notion that the people who continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves do so mainly because they want them to remain thieves is ridiculous. It is not realistic human psychology, and it is not an evidence-based hypothesis. It's just ordinary out-group abuse. The people who continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves do so mainly because they were taught to treat Gypsies that way by their culture and never gave five seconds of thought either to whether some particular Gypsy they treated that way personally deserved it or to what impact treating him that way would have on his future inclination to steal.

It's the same reason I made an issue of your earlier post, when you wrote "Maybe they're taught to steal because they're taught that everybody steals from them? Which historically is true. What about the rest of us stop stealing from them for a while their culture might change?" Wrong! It is not "historically true" that everybody steals from Gypsies. Most people never stole anything from a Gypsy in their lives. If the reason so many Gypsies steal in Romania really is because their culture teaches them that all the ethnic Romanians steal from Gypsies, that means Gypsy culture is racist. That means their culture is teaching Gypsies to think of out-group members as interchangeable parts instead of individuals, the same way southern redneck culture in America teaches good-ol-boys to think of black people as interchangeable parts instead of individuals.

You don't normally appear to regard someone's racism as an extenuating circumstance; why do you treat the racism of Gypsies as an extenuating circumstance? If it's up to the ethnic Romanians to patiently put up with being stolen from by Gypsies and blame their fellow ethnic Romanians for it, why isn't it up to the Gypsies to patiently put up with being stolen from by ethnic Romanians and blame their fellow Gypsies for it? Shouldn't the Gypsies say "What about we Gypsies stop stealing from ethnic Romanians for a while and their culture might change?"?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Just like Jews Gypsies divide the world into in-group and out-group. Out group is a fair target. It's of course more complicated than this. But as far as Gypsies are concerned I am out-group and am therefore guilty of stealing from them. Yes, this is something that needs to change. But it won't until Gypsies start being treated fairly from non-gypsies. We can either chose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

They are treated as an out group because they steal. If they want a better reputation they have to earn it!

You can't treat them as a single unit. It's the tragedy of the commons. One Gypsy has no incentive not to steal, since so many of them do. All that gypsy gets by refraining from stealing is have less stuff. He's going to be treated as if he steals anyway. But you know this. Nobody can be so stupid that they can't figure that out by themselves. I think you're just a racist. Not trying to offend you or anything. I'm just basing it on what you're saying. I think you want Gypsy's to steal in order for you to continue be racist against them.

The only way it can change is if the rest of society changes the rules somehow so that Gypsys have an incentive not to steal. As long as we insist that Gypsys have to follow the same rules as the rest of us, nothing will change.

I understand that you don't like reality and would like to have a different reality. But just demanding it, isn't going to fix it.

- - - Updated - - -

If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

You're saying you want Gypsies to remain thieves. You don't actually want gypsies to remain thieves, do you? So why did you write what you wrote?

Just read it a couple of times. I didn't miss-write

I didn't say you miswrote. If miswriting were all it was I wouldn't have made an issue of it.

"If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is a lot like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". It presupposes a wrongdoing -- that "we" treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves. "We" is a first-person plural pronoun. It means "Some other people and I". What you wrote is therefore a confession to being one of the people who treats Gypsies as nothing but thieves. You are in effect thereby claiming first-hand knowledge of what motivates people to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves. Well, are you in point of fact one of the people who treats Gypsies as nothing but thieves? Do you in point of fact want Gypsies to remain thieves? I don't believe you are and I don't believe you do.

So why did you write "we" when English has a perfectly good third-person plural pronoun? What you actually meant appears to have been "If certain bad people I have in mind continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think they should be honest with themselves that the main driver for it is that they want them to remain thieves." If you'd written it that way then it wouldn't contain the false implication that you have first-hand knowledge of their motivation. And it wouldn't contain the rhetorical flourish of associating yourself with them, creating the illusion that you're criticizing your in-group. You're criticizing your out-group, just like everybody else who thinks up the nastiest and most irrational motive he can think of and imputes it to those he disapproves of.

The notion that the people who continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves do so mainly because they want them to remain thieves is ridiculous. It is not realistic human psychology, and it is not an evidence-based hypothesis. It's just ordinary out-group abuse. The people who continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves do so mainly because they were taught to treat Gypsies that way by their culture and never gave five seconds of thought either to whether some particular Gypsy they treated that way personally deserved it or to what impact treating him that way would have on his future inclination to steal.

It's the same reason I made an issue of your earlier post, when you wrote "Maybe they're taught to steal because they're taught that everybody steals from them? Which historically is true. What about the rest of us stop stealing from them for a while their culture might change?" Wrong! It is not "historically true" that everybody steals from Gypsies. Most people never stole anything from a Gypsy in their lives. If the reason so many Gypsies steal in Romania really is because their culture teaches them that all the ethnic Romanians steal from Gypsies, that means Gypsy culture is racist. That means their culture is teaching Gypsies to think of out-group members as interchangeable parts instead of individuals, the same way southern redneck culture in America teaches good-ol-boys to think of black people as interchangeable parts instead of individuals.

You don't normally appear to regard someone's racism as an extenuating circumstance; why do you treat the racism of Gypsies as an extenuating circumstance? If it's up to the ethnic Romanians to patiently put up with being stolen from by Gypsies and blame their fellow ethnic Romanians for it, why isn't it up to the Gypsies to patiently put up with being stolen from by ethnic Romanians and blame their fellow Gypsies for it? Shouldn't the Gypsies say "What about we Gypsies stop stealing from ethnic Romanians for a while and their culture might change?"?

"If". It's a hypothetical. If bla bla... then bla bla.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They are treated as an out group because they steal. If they want a better reputation they have to earn it!

You can't treat them as a single unit. It's the tragedy of the commons. One Gypsy has no incentive not to steal, since so many of them do. All that gypsy gets by refraining from stealing is have less stuff. He's going to be treated as if he steals anyway. But you know this. Nobody can be so stupid that they can't figure that out by themselves. I think you're just a racist. Not trying to offend you or anything. I'm just basing it on what you're saying. I think you want Gypsy's to steal in order for you to continue be racist against them.

The only way it can change is if the rest of society changes the rules somehow so that Gypsys have an incentive not to steal. As long as we insist that Gypsys have to follow the same rules as the rest of us, nothing will change.

I understand that you don't like reality and would like to have a different reality. But just demanding it, isn't going to fix it.

Whether society thinks they steal or not has nothing to do with whether a gypsy gains by stealing. Thus your argument falls flat.

Likewise, the person who ignores the pattern of theft by gypsies is liable to lose stuff while not improving the situation one bit.

The only realistic solution in a case like this is to not appear like a gypsy.

 

[Bomb#20]

If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

"If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is a lot like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". It presupposes a wrongdoing -- that "we" treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves....

"If". It's a hypothetical. If bla bla... then bla bla.

I'll leave off the facepalm and put that down to your not being a native English speaker.

If you'd said "If we treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves", that would have been hypothetical about the present. "If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is hypothetical only about the future; it's no more hypothetical about the present than "If you stop beating your wife" is hypothetical about whether you currently beat her.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You can't treat them as a single unit. It's the tragedy of the commons. One Gypsy has no incentive not to steal, since so many of them do. All that gypsy gets by refraining from stealing is have less stuff. He's going to be treated as if he steals anyway. But you know this. Nobody can be so stupid that they can't figure that out by themselves. I think you're just a racist. Not trying to offend you or anything. I'm just basing it on what you're saying. I think you want Gypsy's to steal in order for you to continue be racist against them.

The only way it can change is if the rest of society changes the rules somehow so that Gypsys have an incentive not to steal. As long as we insist that Gypsys have to follow the same rules as the rest of us, nothing will change.

I understand that you don't like reality and would like to have a different reality. But just demanding it, isn't going to fix it.

Whether society thinks they steal or not has nothing to do with whether a gypsy gains by stealing. Thus your argument falls flat.

Likewise, the person who ignores the pattern of theft by gypsies is liable to lose stuff while not improving the situation one bit.

The only realistic solution in a case like this is to not appear like a gypsy.

Wow. I think you're trolling now. Nobody can be this racist outside of a white pride website.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves I think we should be honest with ourselves that the main driver for it is that we want them to remain thieves.

"If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is a lot like "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". It presupposes a wrongdoing -- that "we" treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves....

"If". It's a hypothetical. If bla bla... then bla bla.

I'll leave off the facepalm and put that down to your not being a native English speaker.

If you'd said "If we treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves", that would have been hypothetical about the present. "If we continue to treat Gypsies as nothing but thieves" is hypothetical only about the future; it's no more hypothetical about the present than "If you stop beating your wife" is hypothetical about whether you currently beat her.

I did spend a month volunteering at a homeless shelter. We had plenty of gypsy visitors. They're not bad people. But they do steal. They steal because they have nothing and they're effectively shut out of society. If you give someone no options but stealing, they're going to steal. And you can't really blame them for it. People respond to incentives.

Because they are so marginalised and such targets by racists they are extremely tight knit. This is good and bad. Good because they help each other. Bad because they pressure each other into a life of crime. And weirdly they have extremely strong moral codes. Extreme. And punishments are extreme.

I befriended a whole gypsy clan. I got to know them and I'm now a friend. Which is saying plenty.

Also I know a journalist friend who has lived in Bucharest a couple of months doing research on a book on gypsies. As well as having another journalist friend who has published a book on gypsy beggars in Sweden. I have that book in front of me.

So I'm in a position to know a bit about Romanian Gypsy culture in Sweden.

The lesson we can learn from studying gypsies is that people respond to incentives. Considering how they have been treated and continue to be treated their reaction I think is predictable.

Edit: Gypsies in Romania live in squalor. It's just outrageous how badly they're treated and the shit conditions they're living in

 

[4321lynx]

Sure Indian economic 'refugees' contribute a lot to India and Sweden both. But then they went there with requisite skills already in place and having passed eligibility criteria demanded by the education system and job market.
Do you seriously suggest that everyone among these refugees are willing to learn or have the aptitude to learn? How much education, how many years will they need? Sure there will be success stories and many will have arrived with skills already in place, but are there any studies about those who came before who who did not manage to integrate in the local economy? If nothing else those who have come in a rush will have to learn Swedish fast.

As far as I understand from my relative who worked in Sweden yours is a skill intensive knowledge based economy; also there are very few low-wage jobs. So how can you absorb such a massive influx of unqualified people?

Our educational system is a part of the culture. It's part of Swedishness. What can I say... it works. When we started this system in 1850 it generated no money for Sweden for 50 years. Then bang, we went from one of Europes poorest countries in 1888 (way more poor than India per capita) to one of the worlds richest in under a generation. This is a system that pays for itself, and we have a track record that proves it. We can manage huge number of uneducated refugees. We know we can. We've done it before.

Also.... it's part of the Swedish culture. It's hard to change. It's an integral part of how our economy works and social structure of society.

1. I am late in coming to this and maybe this has been asked already When you say " one of Europes poorest countries in 1888 (way more poor than India per capita)" do you mean india now or India then ie in 1888?

2. You entirely ignore the fact that Sweden became rich because it stayed out of World War I and supplied the "Central Powers" with raw materials and weapons. And did it again in1939-45, supplying Hitler with the same things, whilst avoiding damage and in fact expanding and improving Sweden's infrastructure.
(Whether this was done under duress, a case of Realpolitik caused by geography and aided and abbeted by the incompetence of the Allies, or done because of sympathy with Germany in each case , is a quite separate question.)

 

[4321lynx]

Dr Zoidberg said

They are all descendent from Gypsy slaves. All Gypsies in Romania were slaves and they were set free ca 1850 because of a royal decree.

They were not all slaves according to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people

Although some Romani could be kept as slaves in Wallachia and Moldavia until abolition in 1856, the majority traveled as free nomads with their wagons, as alluded to in the spoked wheel symbol in the national flag.[141] Elsewhere in Europe, they were subject to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. In England, Romani were sometimes expelled from small communities or hanged; in France, they were branded and their heads were shaved; in Moravia and Bohemia, the women were marked by their ears being severed. As a result, large groups of the Romani moved to the East, toward Poland, which was more tolerant, and Russia, where the Romani were treated more fairly as long as they paid the annual taxes.[

Were they obliged to have documents to pass post WW I national borders, or were they allowed free passage?

 

[4321lynx]

When your culture is criminal expect to be treated badly.

Maybe the culture you belong to develops the way it does because of how you and your brethren has been treated historically?

Good point. Just as the Jews were forced into moneylending and small business in Christian Europe. Lauren knows that but is being obtuse, or racist.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Our educational system is a part of the culture. It's part of Swedishness. What can I say... it works. When we started this system in 1850 it generated no money for Sweden for 50 years. Then bang, we went from one of Europes poorest countries in 1888 (way more poor than India per capita) to one of the worlds richest in under a generation. This is a system that pays for itself, and we have a track record that proves it. We can manage huge number of uneducated refugees. We know we can. We've done it before.

Also.... it's part of the Swedish culture. It's hard to change. It's an integral part of how our economy works and social structure of society.

1. I am late in coming to this and maybe this has been asked already When you say " one of Europes poorest countries in 1888 (way more poor than India per capita)" do you mean india now or India then ie in 1888?

1888. Sweden was very very poor

2. You entirely ignore the fact that Sweden became rich because it stayed out of World War I and supplied the "Central Powers" with raw materials and weapons. And did it again in1939-45, supplying Hitler with the same things, whilst avoiding damage and in fact expanding and improving Sweden's infrastructure.
(Whether this was done under duress, a case of Realpolitik caused by geography and aided and abbeted by the incompetence of the Allies, or done because of sympathy with Germany in each case , is a quite separate question.)

In hind-sight staying out of wars helped increase the effect, but was far from the whole story. Sweden meteoric rise to wealth was due to policies put into place well before 1888. Ie, low overhead, very little regulations and massive state-sponsored investments in education. Sweden as a wellfare state didn't begin until 1950'ies and then we were already properly rich.

Lots of countries stayed out of the wars and didn't benefit. Latin America. The entire continent went from rich to shit in the same period. Supplied raw materials to both sides.

 

[Malintent]

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. 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?

My cynical outlook says that while it is one thing to help the needy now; it is another thing to continue to do that day in day out constantly.
As more keep coming the countries will run out of space and people will living in a crowded condition they are not accustomed to. 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.

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'. (I am excluding whatever terror attacks may happen)

How long before ordinary citizens feels they are sacrificing too much and jettison their current ideals?

I don't know.. but we can maybe help things along by donating a Freiheitsstatue to Germany and see how much they like it.

 

[4321lynx]

Lots of countries stayed out of the wars and didn't benefit. Latin America. The entire continent went from rich to shit in the same period. Supplied raw materials to both sides.

South America was a colony economically speaking, an Anglo-American colony at first, but quickly an almost purely American (meaning USA) one. A few mostly crooked locals made a lot of money in various ways, but the real winners were the "Gringos".
And I have not heard of any successful large scale supplies from there reaching the Central Powers or Nazi Germany by sea, no matter how much sympathy there was for Hitler in say Mexico (and other parts), or how much aid was given to Nazi submarines etc in WW II and after it to various high-ranking Nazis.

Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were the only European coountries to stay out of the Nazi war Even Vichy France got invaded.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Lots of countries stayed out of the wars and didn't benefit. Latin America. The entire continent went from rich to shit in the same period. Supplied raw materials to both sides.

South America was a colony economically speaking, an Anglo-American colony at first, but quickly an almost purely American (meaning USA) one. A few mostly crooked locals made a lot of money in various ways, but the real winners were the "Gringos".
And I have not heard of any successful large scale supplies from there reaching the Central Powers or Nazi Germany by sea, no matter how much sympathy there was for Hitler in say Mexico (and other parts), or how much aid was given to Nazi submarines etc in WW II and after it to various high-ranking Nazis.

Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were the only European coountries to stay out of the Nazi war Even Vichy France got invaded.

Case in point, didn't do Ireland or Portugal any good. Saying that Spain kept out of the isn't saying much. They were ravaged by a bloody civil war.