# Mass immigration- what's to be done? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 4, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909 "2015-09-04T15:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/261 "2015-09-07T23:39:46Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > If I didn’t know better, I would think that was satire. > > “Sent away by their families?” > > In traditional cultures like Syria, men are the heads of their families. They alone enjoy agency and are exclusively responsible for their actions. They left because they chose to, not because they were forced. Full stop, you really do not know what you are talking about. And with your affirmation that they should better die there you just told all that you have really no idea about what the concept of humanity is all about. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/262 "2015-09-07T23:44:47Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > It’s still cowardice to flee from danger, even if fighting is difficult and dangerous. LOL. Maybe you have superpowers, but for us mortals, there are circumstances in which fighting back is hopeless and foolish and fleeing or hiding is the wisest course of action. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/263 "2015-09-07T23:45:49Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And with your affirmation that they should better die there you just told all that you have really no idea about what the concept of humanity is all about. I’ve never met or heard of a white supremacist who did. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/264 "2015-09-08T00:50:07Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Full stop, you really do not know what you are talking about. > > And with your affirmation that they should better die there you just told all that you have really no idea about what the concept of humanity is all about. Wow, that’s some really impressive logic. And some excellent citations to boot. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/265 "2015-09-08T01:08:46Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Wow, that’s some really impressive logic. And some excellent citations to boot. One would think that ever since post #2 there were already very good citations from Hans Rosling and the UN, but someone is not paying attention. > **[The facts: What you need to know about the Syria crisis](https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/facts-syria-crisis)** > > More than nine years in, Syria's civil war has fueled a massive exodus. See the staggering statistics and learn the facts behind the figures. > [@](#): > > What is happening to Syrians caught in the war? > More than four years after it began, the full-blown civil war has killed over 220,000 people, half of whom are believed to be civilians. Bombings are destroying crowded cities and horrific human rights violations are widespread. Basic necessities like food and medical care are sparse. > > The U.N. estimates that 7.6 million people are internally displaced. When you also consider refugees, more than half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, whether they still remain in the country or have escaped across the borders. [http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/09/03/q-a-syrias-civil-war-at-the-root-of-migrant-crisis](http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/09/03/q-a-syrias-civil-war-at-the-root-of-migrant-crisis) > [@](#): > > WHAT ARE THEY ESCAPING? > > Barrel bombs, chemical weapons attacks, beheadings and starvation — to name just a few. Most of the refugees are driven by an overriding need to escape what has essentially become hell on earth, caught between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ruthless war machine and the Islamic State group’s brutality. Many Syrians say most unbearable are the barrel bombs dropped daily on opposition-held areas by Syrian army helicopters. The makeshift, shrapnel-packed explosive devices known by Syrians as death barrels pulverize entire neighborhoods once they hit the ground. They have killed tens of thousands of people over the past four years, according to human rights organizations. Islamic State militants have also been responsible for the exodus out of Syria. The militant group’s takeover of a key town on the Turkish border in June, for instance, triggered a rush of desperate refugees pouring into Turkey, with some throwing their children over the border fence in a desperate attempt to get them to safety. > > * * * > > WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS? > > Syria’s brutal conflict, now in its fifth year, has touched off the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time, according to U.N. officials. The organization estimates that around 250,000 people have been killed and more than one million wounded since March 2011. About half the country’s prewar population of 23 million has been displaced, including more than 4 million who have fled Syria. Tactics such as encircling populated areas have caused untold cases of starvation, malnutrition and chronic illness. The U.N. refugee agency says Syria is the leading source of refugees, pushing Afghanistan — which had held that status for more than 30 years — down to second place. A U.N. report released Thursday said more than 2,000 Syrians refugees have drowned in desperate efforts to reach safety in Europe since 2011. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/266 "2015-09-08T01:17:55Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > [75% of refugees are men.](http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.html) They’re not fleeing to take care of their families. They’re abandoning their families in a war zone or in refugee camps because they want welfare and are too cowardly to fight. **Your cite is misleading, as it is only showing the percentage of arrivals by sea via the Mediterranean.** It makes sense that the percentage of men would be higher by that route, as it is the most dangerous. People don’t want to put their family at risk if it is at all avoidable, or unless they are desperate. [Here]([http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-charts-that-show-where-refugees-are-coming-from-](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-charts-that-show-where-refugees-are-coming-from-) where-they-are-going-and-how-they-are-getting-to-europe-10482415.html) is the info for all the different routes taken ([full report by Frontex](http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Risk_Analysis/FRAN_Q1_2015.pdf)). According to UNHCR, **half of all refugees are children** (full report at link). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/267 "2015-09-08T01:41:43Z")
> [@camille](#): > > **Your cite is misleading, as it is only showing the percentage of arrivals by sea via the Mediterranean.** > > It makes sense that the percentage of men would be higher by that route, as it is the most dangerous. People don’t want to put their family at risk if it is at all avoidable, or unless they are desperate. [Here]([http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-charts-that-show-where-refugees-are-coming-from-](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-charts-that-show-where-refugees-are-coming-from-) where-they-are-going-and-how-they-are-getting-to-europe-10482415.html) is the info for all the different routes taken ([full report by Frontex](http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Risk_Analysis/FRAN_Q1_2015.pdf)). > > According to UNHCR, **half of all refugees are children** (full report at link). If one clicks on the UN cite from Construct the disclaimer does notice that the number there is about sea arrivals. That is, the ones that did make it, remember about “women and children first”? In this case it also points to the sad reality that many of the ones that do survive a ship capsizing are the men. Remember that the only survivor of the family of the child that drowned in the infamous photo was the father. So, good catch **camille** , One thing that should be noticed is how often in discussions like this the ones that support pseudoscience or worse do like to just cut and paste the spin from very unsavory sources. This is not an exception, that 75% spin comes indeed from very extremist sites. Early in the day V-dare (a racist and nativist site) posted it with the same spin, although they were honest enough to tell us that the UN was not giving the ages, it turns out that a lot of them are kids. The same spin showed 3 days ago in a very conservative anti-immigrant site in the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/268 "2015-09-08T01:53:05Z")
Your cite is for total refugees worldwide, not refugees to Europe. It’s not better than the cite I gave. And the images of trains being unloaded surely don’t show very many women or children. Also, I’m not exactly sure when the United Nations (in fact, the very same _website_ you linked to) became ‘psuedoscience’, ‘unsavory’ or ‘extremist’. I’m pretty sure that no one even moused over the link I posted, much less read it. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/269 "2015-09-08T02:10:48Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Your cite is for total refugees worldwide, not refugees to Europe. It’s not better than the cite I gave. And the images of trains being unloaded surely don’t show very many women or children. > > Also, I’m not exactly sure when the United Nations (in fact, the very same _website_ you linked to) became ‘psuedoscience’, ‘unsavory’ or ‘extremist’. I’m pretty sure that no one even moused over the link I posted, much less read it. Bullshit. You didn’t qualify your claim as only sea arrivals to Europe via the Mediterranean, it implied that 75% of all refugees were men. And that is demonstrably false. The Mediterranean is not the only route to Europe, it is not even the only sea route to Europe. Aylan Kurdi drowned in the Aegean Sea. Of course I read your cite; how else would I know it was misleading? Maybe you should avoid images of trains being unloaded from hate sites, but in any case, that is not a very scientific way to determine the numbers, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/270 "2015-09-08T02:17:32Z")
Well, you didn’t call the UN an extremist website; GIGObuster did. On the other hand, perhaps he was knocking down the strawman of a website he himself brought up. The post wasn’t really well written. You didn’t qualify your claim as referring to all refugees worldwide. You implied that half of all refugees to Europe were children. And that is demonstrably false. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/271 "2015-09-08T02:21:09Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Well, you didn’t call the UN an extremist website; GIGObuster did. Pay attention, I did not. And you are indeed babbling and your posts do sound incoherent when you claim that I called the UN site pseudoscience. What I said was that the 75% (that was ok only for sea arrivals) number was spin by the nativist and racist sites so as to get a misleading result. And you happily cut the spin and pasted it here thinking that it was a good idea. You are only showing who are the misleaders that you like to consult. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/272 "2015-09-08T02:25:27Z")
You made that claim before mentioning any example websites, e.g. your post was poorly written. And calling it ‘spin’ is very misleading, because it’s literally right there on the very page I linked to. It’s not a buried statistic in an incomprehensible report; nor does it doesn’t require calculation. It’s directly given on a highly visible page maintained by the United Nations. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/273 "2015-09-08T02:39:47Z")
Oh, and one more thing I forgot, sorry about this. One should report also to others reading how one can find the iffy sources that pseudo scientists or woo woo proponents come with. In many encounters with pseudo scientists one can find that \*\*they do indeed cite good scientific papers or sources \*\*, but virtually every time me or many others that do take a closer look we find that the spin they gave the good cite it was either misleading or the poster just had no clue about how the woo woo proponents or racists and nativists from sorry sites did mislead the “copy pasta” posters. As Science writer Peter Hadfield taught me, one can indeed in the 21st century check on who the sources that claimed something fishy are coming from. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/LdnZ1l5TxJk/hqdefault.jpg "Why the media screw up science -- 1. Sources") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdnZ1l5TxJk) (Why the media screw up science Part 1: Sources) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/274 "2015-09-08T02:42:42Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > You made that claim before mentioning any example websites, e.g. your post was poorly written. And you were wrong anyhow, my problem is with grammar, what is your excuse for falling for that spin that pseudo scientists also typically use? They also do assume that people will not check the context of the [cherry pick](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cherry_picking) that was taken from a good report. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/275 "2015-09-08T03:30:00Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > You didn’t qualify your claim as referring to all refugees worldwide. You implied that half of all refugees to Europe were children. And that is demonstrably false. How did I imply anything about Europe? That was part of your unmentioned qualifier, which you are now trying to dodge with this pathetic response. ---
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/276 "2015-09-08T03:44:56Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The latest leader to reject Syrian refugees? [Netanyahu](http://news.yahoo.com/israels-netanyahu-rejects-call-syrian-refugees-113507073.html). I’m not Israeli, but if I were I would agree with Herzog that they should accept some of the fleeing refugees. Netanyahu’s argument only applies to the idea of accepting millions – they could easily accept some small number of refugees without upsetting demographic concerns and swamping the small country of Israel. > > And in this case, they didn’t pass through Hungary, Turkey, and Greece. Imagine if Bibi accepted even just a relative few Syrians just as a good will gesture if nothing else. It would take a real leader to do that. But a hawk like Bibi would see it as some sort of capitulation to Arabs. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/277 "2015-09-08T04:34:50Z")
BTW, the spin was very clear, that 75% number was used to misleadingly tell us that all refugees were mostly men that were cowards or had no families with them. In a UNICEF report the numbers showed that a third of the ones that passed through Greece were women and children, it points to the men’s numbers to be about 66% (It is really sad that this has to be pointed, again, to some that the spin is not the number, but what was implied by the racist and nativist sites) I will not link to that trash but suffice to say is that the earliest original site with that spin also mentioned things like: “Germans, hide your daughters!” Do I need to point at the whistle, no, the megaphone that is being used to call other racists and nativists there? The spin also does include the things that were not mentioned about that number but the UN does at their site. The disclaimer in the graphic was not mentioned in the post here, it was not mentioned that the number was about sea arrivals only, the spin also does not mention a huge excluded middle: those sites do not report that a good number of women are left in the refugee camps to be called or helped later, the women are not in the countries where the violence takes place. And the spin by the sorry sites included forgetting to mention what it is happening in the ocean, this includes the sad fact that many of the sea arrival numbers do not have more women or babies accounted because when a ship or raft sinks… well, you should know why the numbers are like that already. At least I hope so because I assume that even nativists do understand about context and humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/278 "2015-09-08T06:18:06Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > If I didn’t know better, I would think that was satire. > > “Sent away by their families?” > > In traditional cultures like Syria, men are the heads of their families. They alone enjoy agency and are exclusively responsible for their actions. They left because they chose to, not because they were forced. And as for being captured, a young healthy man is far less likely to be captured than any other class of person. The migrants flooding into Europe are those with the least need to do so. > > Men being cannonfodder is par for the course of history. Better that Syrian men die for the problems of their country and their culture than American troops. > > “Not having weapons?” > > I mean, I’m a second amendment absolutist like many Americans. But if Syrians didn’t arm themselves, that’s no one’s fault but their own. It isn’t the West’s responsibility to make up for Syrian’s cowardice and lack of planning. > > It’s still cowardice to flee from danger, even if fighting is difficult and dangerous. Oh yes, look at him. There he sits comfortably at his home computer making bold claims about how men should rise up against impossible odds and get themselves killed in defense of their home. Of course he knows that the same will never be asked of him, so he can make those claims easily. Look how he berates those Syrians for not having made their country a better place. That makes me wonder how he has contributed to making the US the rich and (relatively) safe place that it is today. What sacrifices did he make for his country? Or maybe, just maybe, he was simply darn lucky to be born into a place that had already taken care of all that for him and now for some unfathomable reaon he believes that this justifies him looking down upon the people who were less fortunate and calling them “cowards”. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you are in the army or the fire brigade or in any of the few other occupations where Americans are still putting their life on the line for the benefit of their country. Are you, **Construct**? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/279 "2015-09-08T10:03:05Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > It’s still cowardice to flee from danger, even if fighting is difficult and dangerous. I shouldn’t think this will make any difference to you but, as a 50-year old grizzy male, it did to me. I was sitting in commuter traffic listening to this interview. Embarrassingly, it made me cry. Give it a shot if you have a few minutes: [https://audioboom.com/boos/2751337-syria-2014-a-new-interview-with-the-surgeon-david-nott](https://audioboom.com/boos/2751337-syria-2014-a-new-interview-with-the-surgeon-david-nott) For anyone else, well, if you ant to be informed about what’s been happening in Syria, you should listen to this British surgeon. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909/280 "2015-09-09T07:11:40Z")
> [@Andiethewestie](#): > > Imagine if Bibi accepted even just a relative few Syrians just as a good will gesture if nothing else. It would take a real leader to do that. But a hawk like Bibi would see it as some sort of capitulation to Arabs. First of all, Israle has been [helping](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-the-israeli-hospitals-treating-wounded-soldiers-from-the-violence-across-the-border-10121010.html)Syrians for some time now. But letting refugees in, even a small amount, can lead to huge problems. If Syrians hear that Israelis are accepting refugees, hundreds of thousands could appear on the Israeli-Syrian border, which is as heavily fortified as that between North and South Korea. Remember, Israel and Syria are at _war_, and you can’t just open your border with an enemy, even for good reasons, because you can never know who will come through. Israel has been trying like crazy for the past 5 years to stay out of the shooting war in Syria, and something like that could tip the delicate balance it’s created and make things much, much worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-immigration-whats-to-be-done/729909.md?page=15)