You could try telling him that his taxes helped pay for it.

In that case, I suggest you blow up his house and start a campaign of systematic persecution until he's forced out of the country. He'll see the benefits of offering asylum then.

He's probably more than eager to bomb the shit out of ISIS, but doesn't want to give any aid or help to the civilians fleeing from ISIS persecution. Weird that.

Even though it wasn't our doing, our country is "better off" as a consequence of actions from 300 years ago. The way I see it is there's still a debt to pay.

I'd like to think that we can move on as countries

Me too, unfortunately a whole bunch of Leave voters had other ideas (mostly about banana and sausage legislation) and are now courting impoverished irrelevance, woohoo.

International IHT?

acemuzzy wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

Not sure I can get behind that as an argument . Rich lords years ago did something, now everyone else pays for it. (to be clear, I also dont see migration as some punishment or duty that one country owes to the bother. It should be shown as the overall positive thing it is)

I guess it comes down to how far you view the benefit as stretching. To the rich Lords themselves? To their children? To all their descent? To people their descendents have given money to? The government that have received some of the wealth as tax? To people who live in a country that enjoys a higher quality of live / gdp than it would have done? People who have enjoyed the strength of gbp? I don't think there's an obvious answer in terms of who owns the debt, but I'm unclear if you're saying we're not better off, or we are better off but shouldn't do anything anyway? The latter isn't wholly unreasonable dependent on rationale behind it is suppose. I can't really remember what we're arguing about anyway.

I suppose if we go back to Scots mate, this is were I might see a problem. And to be clear, we are talking in very broad strokes. But that guys argument was that he cant be blamed for the war because he personnally pulled no trigger or voted for it etc. etc. Now, there's an argument that he could have voted for a different government at a certain point (either before the attack to try and prevent) or after (to punish the government) or that he could have led a petition/ protest against the war. Equally, he could have supported the government in question ya-da-ya-da . There's no evidence that he did in either way (probably did nothing) So his response to not being happy with migrants coming to his town and "upsetting things" holds a slight bit of water, at least in his mind. He didn't cause it, why should he and his family suffer. My problem with the argument of "hey, youre country caused it" is not that it is logically wrong but that (a) there's nothing a single voter can realisticaly have done and (b) it backs up his thinking that the migration is a punishment.  As I said, the best way to view migration is through the positives. 

In terms of who benefits, I think that is on a fast track to nowhere. How far to you go back? What outside factors do you ignore? Can you look at how much the populace had information and influence on the government of the day. THere's benefits and effets of everything every governement does - some intentional and some not. At some point, History needs to be let go because otherwise...

I can't really remember what we're arguing about anyway

Are there immigration stats for the whole of Europe? We mostly assume the Eastern countries don't take many in, is that true?

We haven't built enough new properties in this country for decades; that is on record. Until we tackle inequality, it's gonna keep rising with the global population.

Escape wrote:

Are there immigration stats for the whole of Europe? We mostly assume the Eastern countries don't take many in, is that true?

It's not as simple as a number, though. How large is the population, currently? How does that break down into permanent residents and temporary? How many people are seeking residency, compared to numbers turned away? How many are seeking assyslum as opposed to those who it's safer to turn away?

A lot of complex stuff getting muddled together here.

So to break it down.

"I never voted for the Iraq war"
No member of public did, nor was it even part of any manifesto. The general election prior to the Iraq war was a few months before 9/11 so nothing like this was on the cards, at least not to the public's knowledge. 
I wasn't old enough to vote at that GE, I was 16 or 17 when the Iraq war started. What I can remember is that the public were not having any of this "weapons of mass destruction" nonsense and any referendum would have been a landslide NO. I think this is a solid point for the vast majority of the population but doesnt excuse a lack of compassion.

"Why should I pay for immigrants if I didn't vote for it?"
Well our country fucked up their country so our country owes them a debt and a safe place to live is currently the best we can do for them because their country isn't stable enough to just pay reparations/aid.
The rest of Europe are taking refugees regardless of what the Mail says. The nation we should be angry at is the U.S.A, who seem quite content to stir up shit on the other side of the world but take few to none of the people it displaces. Also, how many immigrants live on Tony Blair's street? How much strain has it put on the schools his kids went to? Or the hospitals he goes to?


"Have we benefited from the Iraq war?"
Hard to say.
It has made us more of a target for extremists and led to our involvement in Syria. Financially both wars must be cripplingly expensive and without them we could have dropped this austerity nonsense. Depending on what happens in the future we may benefit in the future but I doubt we have made financially or in terms of security in 2016. If we do make in the future I doubt that will trickle down to communities strained by having to house an immigrant population.

"Have we benefited from the Empire and decisions made 300 years ago"
Yes.
We have one of the strongest currencies in the world even with the current rinsing of this brexit vote. Manufacturing abroad allows us luxuries due to low cost of living in developing countries. It may seem wrong that some of your income goes to correcting ancestors faults but the reason that income is so high globally is because of said faults.
We are in this situation largely because of exploiting the rest of the world in the past. In terms of how we should balance this, I consider mass immigration to be the last option and reserved for unsettled states. It is far better that we continue to pay aid, educate and improve these nations and the quality of life within them so that immigration becomes a lifestyle choice not a financial or security choice. 
We pay India aid despite them having a space programme, we fucking owe them it, if we stop I predict a costly law suit and reparations instead. If they choose to spend that aid on science rather than feeding their poor then that is their choice.

Have you been to Romania? They can barely take care of their own people, especially not their gypsy population. The last thing that country needs is a mass flux of immigrants.

We also had the Beatles.

One point I've heard about refugees is that if the British had given up like the Syrians did then the Germans would have won. I sort of get that. I mean if a force tried to overthrow our government I'd be staying to fight back but you do see an awful lot of men of fighting age coming into the UK from Syria. 

Maybe thats just an ignorant observation.

Syria is in the middle of a civil war, it's not being invaded. If you don't feel passionately about what the rebels (including ISIS etc) stand for, or what Assad (a dictator) stands for, then dying to fight for them would be silly.

Scotswahey wrote:

One point I've heard about refugees is that if the British had given up like the Syrians did then the Germans would have won. I sort of get that. I mean if a force tried to overthrow our government I'd be staying to fight back but you do see an awful lot of men of fighting age coming into the UK from Syria. 

Maybe thats just an ignorant observation.

That's a nonsense observation.
As Kow said, its a civil war. If Labour went to war with the government, and then the church of England got involved and started killing people for not going to church on Sunday, would you hang around or duck off to France?