“None of the news stations except Fox agree with my fascist right-wing nut job narrative. They must be in it for the Libruls!!!”
I grasp it. So what?!?
Did I miss the memo instituting an Orwellian group think policy? Am I suddenly not allowed to think that the majority of Americans can be wrong? People who think differently than me have elected representatives who, at least nominally, are paid to care about and represent the majority opinion in their areas. I’m not one of those reps.
Oh come on, I already had to… wait, you said fetch. Nevermind.
Some advice from a fellow traveler though. It’s tempting to get pissed off about it and I do sometimes, but we’re not in friendly territory here so it’s better to keep a calm demeanor. You’re often going to be the only person making an argument against 10 opponents, all of them demanding that you answer every single one of their arguments.
Channel Ben Carson. the good aspect of Ben Carson anyway.
Now, on to the substance, despite my arguments here against Syrian refugees being admitted, the arguments of the Dopers have gotten through, when they’ve been intelligent. I’m not there yet, but I’m pretty uncomfortable where I am.
However, in the spirit of this thread, which is about public opinion, the President is doing a terrible job of persuasion, as usual, more interested in moral preening and as usual distorting the views of his opponents as well as distorting his description of current law. So much for a new kind of politics, but I guess we gave up on that a long time ago. I’ve also been seeing this debate unfold on Facebook, where the non-hardcore political talkers go, and the pro-refugee side isn’t doing any better there. Shaking your fist at the majority opinion and acting like you’re all holier than thou is what the religious right does. And the PC left.
The way to counter what you think is fear is to explain to Americans why we shouldn’t fear, or why it’s worth the risk. We’ve got arguments. You’ve got “You’re a mean person and you should be ashamed!” And you wonder why you’re losing.
Swearing is not entirely banned. Direct insults, even non-profane ones, aimed at particular posters are. If you have any further questions on these matters please e-mail a mod, they will be happy to help you on that one.
Your “common sense” is kneejerk bigotry.
Every single one of my ancestors came here as a refugee. Oddly enough, none of them harmed anyone already here nor have they tried to change the government nor have they attempted world domination. So declaring refugees as some sort of evil “other” won’t work on me.
On my father’s side, every single person denied entry as a refugee DIED. They were butchered. That sort of atrocity is what the Syrian (and other) refugees are fleeing. How can I possibly deny to them the same chance that was given to my family?
Which is not to say throw open the doors - but as has already been been pointed out, refugees undergo more thorough screening than anyone else coming to America. There is more reason to fear people on tourist visas than refugees.
If FRANCE isn’t stopping accept refugees (and they aren’t) why should we? If you want to cower under your bed in fear of other people that’s your problem, not mine.
Oh, you want a profit! Well, yes, indeed, there is that.
Every Muslim who flees ISIS is the worst PR possible. Their rigid and constipated Apocalypso demands it, Muslims must flock to the caliphate. Now, they can posture about how they aren’t true Muslims, fleeing away from Allah’s will. But everybody who knows somebody who’s cousin got to America, and was sheltered and nourished…they know different.
Got a nickel says ISIS falls apart within a Friedman Unit. There’s a guy real close to Banr al Big Daddy who has begun to suspect that maybe he isn’t the true caliph, maybe there’s someone else close at hand that Allah favors more. Perhaps that last ruling was not really as Islamic as it should be, doesn’t show total faith in the power of Allah…
You showed up on a message board, stated your view, and are shocked, shocked, that not everyone agrees with you. Yes, surprise, not everyone is you. Stop acting so butthurt about it.
Feel free to look around and find a thread where the discussion is more in line with your own views. The ones on cooking and popular entertainment in Cafe Society might be more to your liking.
Where have I heard the “poisoned M&M’s” analogy before? I think it may have been from a lesbian separatist, speaking of men. A Google search found an instance of men complaining about cheating wives…
N. Chamberlain *surrendered *to Hitler‽ Wow! I don’t remember that at all. I know the President of Germany did, politically, but I seem to remember the UK never being conquered by the Nazis. Well, clearly you know more than I do. Puts all that mockery of the French for collaborating in perspective, doesn’t it?
Wait, who was W. Churchill, then‽ Maybe he was from Jylland?
Is your problem with Syrians, or with Muslims?
Syrians are the major victims of ISIS (or Daesh as I call them). Blaming Syrians for the Paris bombings is very like blaming indigenous Tasmanians for the scalping of Lakota men in the Indian Wars. Do you see? Because they were both attacked by Anglo-Saxons. Or, it’s like blaming Polish & Lithuanian Jews for the bombing of London in the Second World War! (If that had happened, which of course it didn’t, because as you tell me, Chamberlain surrendered! What am I thinking of‽)
Now, if you are concerned about Muslims moving in on historically non-Muslim territory, good! You have good reason to be concerned. Look at what the Turks did to Anatolia over, um, eight centuries. They’re sneaky, those Turks!
Then again, countries conquered by Muslim armies have escaped sometimes, too.
And refugees do not an invading army make.
How many Syrians have been displaced so far? Two million, maybe? Imagine this goes on for a while. The USA probably isn’t going to absorb as much as five million Syrians. But if we did, it would still be less than 2% of our present populace. Is that the makings of an Islamist revolution? Probably not, both for sheer numbers and for the fact that refugees tend to be grateful to the country that took them in and pass on that gratitude to their descendants, who then sympathize with their adopted country’s culture.
Sociologically, it’s badly assimilated children of non-refugee immigrants that are more likely to resent their parents’ adopted country, and probably still only a small minority of them that lash out. Refugees, by comparison, are a low risk. But yes, some of them might be somewhat obnoxiously Muslim. And in eight centuries, their successors might slaughter ours; or not.
From the numbers I’ve managed to scrounge up, it’s more like between 3.5 and 4 million displaced Syrians, ranging from countries like Lebanon and Jordan up through Europe and everywhere else they can find refuge. Close to 1/5 the population Syria had a few years ago has left the country.
That’s getting close to the Irish disaspora of the 19th Century, which saw around 1/4 of that country scattered to the winds (and about 1/4 dead, meaning in just a few short years Ireland lost half its population). Now we have Irish everywhere in the world, although I don’t think Ireland itself ever fully regained the same population level as before because most of those scattered Irish never went back.
Wouldn’t surprise me if in a generation we have Syrians everywhere, too. We’ve already got a start on that.
Well, when we finally get the muslim theocracy you mention below, perhaps the imams who rule us will do something about the rampant vulgarity that upsets you so.
Remind me again why I, a long-time atheist, would ever support the establishment of a muslim theocracy in the United States? I forget.
Ya know, that reminds me of something that’s been bothering me for a few years ago. I’m an atheist- I’m not religious, and I pretty much think all religions are stupid. I hate, though, that the right-wingers are forcing me to actually *defend *the religions they vilify so much.
And polls! Don’t forget polls!
They’re not belittling you. They’re belittling your views.
New poster comes in, declares everyone who doesn’t agree with him “stupid”, and then throws a hissyfit when people respond to this.
This will end well.
The *default *position, as far as I’m concerned, is that we should be helping people who have lost their homes, probably lost family members, and are in desperate need of help.
It’s up to the other side to make the case for how dangerous these people are, that the risks outweigh the obvious benefit of human compassion. I’m willing to listen to numbers, but the thing is, the risk of terrorism is minuscule. It’s always been minuscule, even including 2001. It will continue to be minuscule even if we let in some number of terrorists along with the legitimate refugees.
The problem is that even if the right acknowledges that the risks associated with terrorism are negligible, which they will never do because I’m convinced they’re mostly incapable of correctly analyzing risk, but even if they do, it won’t matter. Because we’ve spent the last couple of decades normalizing this notion that we’ll spend whatever it takes to prevent that tiny, tiny risk. We’ll spend trillions of dollars, we’ll expend the lives of American volunteers, we’ll give up our privacy, we’ll sell out who we are as humans and everything we stand for. We’ll torture people, hold them indefinitely in military prisons, bomb civilians and not feel bad about it, blow up hospitals and write it off as “shit happens,” and yes, we’ll turn away hundreds of thousands of people who desperately need help. That’s who we are now.
We’re so far beyond the point where we can change course just by sitting down and calmly explaining to half of the country why they shouldn’t be afraid of statistically insignificant things. It feels like all I can do is retreat into my bubble and pretend like everything’s fine.
I thought we weren’t supposed to feed the trolls? You guys are giving him a veritable Thanksgiving Dinner.
Hey, he just showed up less than a day ago. Maybe he’ll settle down and actually try to engage in something resembling a discussion.
Maybe not. Remains to be seen.
You’ve gotta love someone who bursts in and announces that he’s the smartest person in the room…in misspelled Latin.
ISIS has said they plan to attach the US, and they have said they will use the refugees to infiltrate people into countries this wish to attack. I believe them, so it is a matter of math to determine the potential losses of US citizens in a terror attack. Then for our politicians to determine if the losses are acceptable.
In Paris 8 killed 130, so that is 16.25 dead per bad guy. The Charlie Hebdo shooting was 11 killed by 2 bad guys so that is 5.5. The average of the 2 is 10.8, so assume 10 dead per bad guy.
Now we take how many bad guys can come in. It is unreasonable to say none, as there will be some. What is a reasonable % of the ones who come in that have bad intent. Myself, I say 1/10th of 1 % will have bad intent. So of 10,000 that is 10 bad guys.
So 10 bad guys at 10 dead per bad guy and we have 100 dead US citizens in the next few years to bring in the Syrian refugees.
Is that acceptable ?
Democrats have abandoned Obama in a vote to delay Syrian immigration.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/democrats-just-delivered-huge-blow-193742129.html
It would seem that I am the only one posting on the Dope boards who agrees with the majority of Americans, governors, and congress. This doesn’t say much about the political diversity here. Are all of the rest of you held in sway by the liberal extremist media?
Yep. We get daily memos telling us how we’re supposed to behave each day. I read them over my morning fried baby.