# I pit images of drowned little boy. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 3, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826 "2015-09-03T17:31:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/41 "2015-09-03T20:52:04Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > So - economic hardships… Those aren’t “economic hardships”, they’re a _humanitarian crisis._ > [@](#): > > Economic migrants are those who flee economic hardship (vs. some horrible persecution). And refugees are those who flee humanitarian crises. So, in conclusion, your posts are both utterly incorrect, and utterly sociopathic. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/42 "2015-09-03T20:53:24Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I don’t fault people for wanting more. Everyone wants more. But I wouldn’t call someone who is fleeing economic hardship in Turkey in order to get to much cushier accommodations in Germany a “refugee”. In fact, neither does EU. AFAIU, EU’s laws do not allow someone to claim asylum in an EU country different from the one he arrived at. Turkey’s not an EU country, shithead. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/43 "2015-09-03T20:57:46Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > And refugees are those who flee humanitarian crises. Um, no. The UN definition of a refugee only allows for someone fleeing “a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” to be one. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/44 "2015-09-03T20:59:18Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Turkey’s not an EU country, shithead. Are the refugees fearing persecution in Turkey “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/45 "2015-09-03T21:11:23Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Are the refugees fearing persecution in Turkey “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”? See the dead kid that sparked this thread? His name is Aylan Kurdi, from a family of Syrian Kurds. The Kurds are not notoriously welcome in Turkey. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/46 "2015-09-03T21:13:16Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > See the dead kid that sparked this thread? His name is Aylan Kurdi, from a family of Syrian Kurds. The Kurds are not notoriously welcome in Turkey. Sure. What % of the teeming masses trying to get to Germany are Kurds? Oh, and you may be surprised at this, but these Syrian refugees are not “notoriously welcome” in Germany either. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/47 "2015-09-03T21:24:20Z")
> [@Lowdown](#): > > Okay. I was on the wrong side of this. You guys are right. I got a little feisty when you told me I wasn’t! > > My youngest turns one on Monday, and he has been very sick since last Monday and got admitted to the hospital after an ER visit. He finally came home a few days ago. It was terrifying and he’s still a little off and keeping us up at night. The last thing on earth I expected or needed to see this morning was a dead child about the shape and size of my eldest son, since I’ve been pretty much worrying about my kid dying for about a week straight. I didn’t handle it well. So I thought I’d switch from news to shopping for drums, and it followed me there. Fuck! So I thought it’d be a good idea to bitch about it here. Whoops! I’m still not handling it well, because every time I see it I think it looks like my son, and I can’t avoid it because it’s everywhere. That sucks. I truly empathize with you. My kids are also about that age, and that would be unbelievably stressful. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/48 "2015-09-03T21:32:21Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Um, no. The UN definition of a refugee only allows for someone fleeing “a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” to be one. [http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html](http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html) “Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. They have no protection from their own state - indeed it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them. If other countries do not let them in, and do not help them once they are in, then they may be condemning them to death - or to an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights.” Let’s see, having to move to save their lives otherwise they’d be condemned to an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights seems to fit what’s happening to the people in the camps a lot more than your “economic migrant” label. And, as the UN discovered in Zimbabwe, there is a category of displaced persons who don’t fit that definition of “refugee”, but are nevertheless not voluntary or economic migrants - the Regional Office for Southern Africa of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs labeled such people “migrants of humanitarian concern” or “forced migrants”, people who moved for the purpose of their and their dependents’ basic survival. Your insistence that the people trying to leave these camps are merely “economic migrants”, rather than people trying to escape horrific and intolerable conditions before they _die_ is, as I said, sociopathic. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/49 "2015-09-03T21:38:39Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > There’s a [picture of a nine year old Vietnamese girl with napalm burns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc)that may have altered the course of the war. You probably shouldn’t look at that, either. How about the picture of the firefighter carrying (not just carrying, but cradling) a dead infant out of the wreckage of the Murrah building? It’s been twenty years and I still remember that one. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/50 "2015-09-03T21:45:35Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Your insistence that the people trying to leave these camps are merely “economic migrants”, rather than people trying to escape horrific and intolerable conditions before they _die_ is, as I said, sociopathic. Terr would have fitted in at the Wannsee Conference, although he’d have just been taking the notes and happily carrying out the orders with a click of the heel and a sharp salute. A small person, of no worth or humanity. To be pitied, really. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/51 "2015-09-03T21:49:55Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Are the refugees fearing persecution in Turkey “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”? The Syrians in Turkey aren’t even considered refugees by Turkey under the convention which lays out that definition. When Turkey ratified it, they ratified it with the geographical limitation that only people from Europe who met the definition above counted as refugees. The Syrians, as non-Europeans, are therefore excluded (Turkey considers the Syrians “guests”, not refugees). The convention also mandates that refugees be guaranteed the right to work and to shelter. The Syrians in Turkey are guaranteed neither (and, in fact, are prevented from working entirely). So that’s yet another reason for Syrians to want to leave there for a country where they are actually considered refugees and are treated accordingly! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/52 "2015-09-03T21:52:38Z")
Seems like this thread is saying that reality should be censored, because the horror might spur people to action? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/53 "2015-09-03T22:00:32Z")
I can see the importance of the image, but I also wish I wasn’t seeing it multiple times a day. I’m not particularly sheltered-- I’ve actually done some work related to the refugee crisis, and I deal with disturbing stuff every day, hopefully improving some of it. But I have a daughter that age. And it’s hard to me to keep composed at work when I see that particular one. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/54 "2015-09-03T22:01:55Z")
The laws on claiming refugee status are quite clear, you go to the nearest safe country (as determined by the UN, not by posters on a message board who don’t like Turkey) and seek asylum there. What is missing is a proper international agreement on what happens next - really, every country in the EU, and other western countries, should be taking refugees from the camps on the borders in Turkey, Greece, Italy and wherever, in an orderly fashion. I have plenty of sympathy for people fleeing warzones. I have rather less (that is, none whatsoever) for the hundreds of money grabbing cunts who decided to attack passenger trains because they’re not allowed into the UK from France. I have a great deal of dislike for France refusing to do its job, and take said cunts and send them back to wherever they came from. As far as I’m concerned anyone who refuses to follow simple rules such as “don’t use violence to enter a country when you claim you’re fleeing violence” should be permanently denied refugee status. As for the father who put his son in such danger and caused his drowning, hopefully he’ll be locked up for a very long time. Same for anyone else who effectively kills their child by putting them on these boats. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/55 "2015-09-03T22:02:19Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > The Syrians in Turkey aren’t even considered refugees by Turkey under the convention which lays out that definition. When Turkey ratified it, they ratified it with the geographical limitation that only people from Europe who met the definition above counted as refugees. The Syrians, as non-Europeans, are therefore excluded (Turkey considers the Syrians “guests”, not refugees). > > The convention also mandates that refugees be guaranteed the right to work and to shelter. The Syrians in Turkey are guaranteed neither (and, in fact, are prevented from working entirely). > > So that’s yet another reason for Syrians to want to leave there for a country where they are actually considered refugees and are treated accordingly! So - Greece is not good enough, right? Neither is Macedonia. Serbia. Hungary. Nah. It has to be Germany, Norway, Denmark, UK. It definitely is not economic considerations, right? No, it’s the horrible persecution they would face in Greece, Serbia Hungary etc. Again, I have full sympathy to people fleeing war. But once they get to Turkey or Greece, there is no war anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/56 "2015-09-03T22:03:02Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > So that’s yet another reason for Syrians to want to leave there for a country where they are actually considered refugees and are treated accordingly! They won’t be refugees in any other country, as Turkey is a safe country. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/57 "2015-09-03T22:21:57Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > So - Greece is not good enough, right? Neither is Macedonia. Serbia. Hungary. Nah. It has to be Germany, Norway, Denmark, UK. It definitely is not economic considerations, right? No, it’s the horrible persecution they would face in Greece, Serbia Hungary etc. Not only has Greece has taken in almost as many as Germany, the Eastern European countries are hideously xenophobic, have mistreated Syrians, and (in some cases) closed their borders to the refugees entirely. Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, for instance, [are only willing to accept Syrian refugees if they’re non-Muslim.](http://qz.com/490973/these-european-countries-are-willing-to-accept-some-syrian-migrants-but-only-if-theyre-christian/) > [@](#): > > Again, I have full sympathy to people fleeing war. No you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/58 "2015-09-03T22:22:42Z")
> [@Lowdown](#): > > Okay. I was on the wrong side of this. You guys are right. I got a little feisty when you told me I wasn’t! > > My youngest turns one on Monday, and he has been very sick since last Monday and got admitted to the hospital after an ER visit. He finally came home a few days ago. It was terrifying and he’s still a little off and keeping us up at night. The last thing on earth I expected or needed to see this morning was a dead child about the shape and size of my eldest son, since I’ve been pretty much worrying about my kid dying for about a week straight. I didn’t handle it well. So I thought I’d switch from news to shopping for drums, and it followed me there. Fuck! So I thought it’d be a good idea to bitch about it here. Whoops! I’m still not handling it well, because every time I see it I think it looks like my son, and I can’t avoid it because it’s everywhere. I’m so sorry, **Lowdown**. I hope he is completely well soon. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/59 "2015-09-03T22:25:29Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > They won’t be refugees in any other country, as Turkey is a safe country. There’s more to safety than simply no longer being shot at. Being kept as a starving underclass unable to work or obtain shelter in violation of the conventions on the treatment of refugees is not “safety”. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826/60 "2015-09-03T22:34:41Z")
In this case the family was not trying to go to the European countries listed above but to Canada because they had relatives there. They weren’t seeking to go someplace because it was a welfare state; they were trying to get someplace where they had family who could presumably provide them with shelter and help in establishing a life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-images-of-drowned-little-boy/729826.md?page=4)