Sorry, OLM - It's Too Important

Bret. How can you question elitism and in the same breath promote Plato? I sympathize with your Plato idea, but pragmatically, we have seldom seen a wise King. Can you name one? Also, you must concede that people won't be dictated to, however wise the dictator. Anyway, The Republic is just the first of many Utopias. I prefer Thomas More, his ridicule of golden insignia, and his understanding of women.

 

Wrong! I started it by merely showing that German football fans expressed a sympathy. Football fans are a tiny minority, but 'every little helps' - it's a cumulative effect. Why else do you think Fauntleroy has changed tack? I'll give you a clue: it's not because he's suddenly grown a sense of humanity.

FFS - even The Scum has changed tack! Even Murdoch's poisonous outlets have to pay attention to public opinion (where they are unable to bull-**** any longer).

 

Our countries stance on immigration wouldn't make a jot of difference to those making the dangerous crossing of the Med.

The only solution to safe extraction of Syria would be to actively park up at Syrian ports to help their plight .that clearly cannot happen.

The problem is the family of the child who's drowning made the headlines was on a boat moving from the completely SAFE Turkey ... Bound for Greece.

What should happen is all asylum seekers should claim on their landing at a safe country and an agreement should be in place by all European nations to share the burden of those host countries .

I don't see a realistic way to make their escape from Syria safe But those that make it should be processed accordingly .

 

Something in this. A few years ago, I worked for a farmer who was getting out of farming by means of building up a collection of buy-to-let houses. They were in Hull, off Hedon Road. All let out on Home Office contracts. He had to keep everything to a good standard, but the money was there.

Then there was the Pete Stitt thing that I heard on the World Service. It was basically about getting the Kurds, who were hanging around Pearson Park and getting into bother, organised via a football game. There was one condition: there were to be two games, but you could pick any players. The first game, both sides kicked the **** out of each other; the second game, the Pearson Park Regulars picked some Kurds, cos they were good players.

A lot of trouble defused.

 

My brother-in-law spent time in Iraq during the conflict over there. He was/is a Major in the army. He went with the mindset that we could do some good over there and he returned hopelessly depressed that we had any involvement at all with those "animals".

You'll have to take my word for it that he is no sort of racist, but that is the word he used to describe the average Iraqi, "animals". They did nothing to help themselves or their community. In fact, they did quite the opposite.

From hijacking a large consignment of desperately needed medical supplies meant to treat their own, to gang raping women, men and young boys and girls. They simply don't think like we do.

As for anyone who has ever wondered 'How the **** can they blow themselves and other human beings up, with a smile on their face'? The inescapable answer is Religion. They believe they will live a wonderful afterlife, with the same surety you believe today is Friday and water is wet . There is absolutely no bravery involved whatsoever. To them the afterlife is fact.

Never try to rationalise these people, they don't get us, every bit as much as we don't get them.

 

I blame Tony Blair and George W. Bush, they're pair of total ****s, and not in a good way.

There I said it, you can close the thread now Lambo.

 

And the Libya route for immigrants to Europe is due to Cameron. And Cameron wanted to fight against Assad which meant our friends in the region would have been ISIS.

 

Over the past 60 years they took in hundreds of thousands from Israel.

 

My comment about Plato was relatively tongue-in-cheek as a response to your comment that government policy shouldn't be influenced by the views of the masses . I can name a few wise kings. Matthias I of Hungary, Alexander the Great, Cyrus the Great, Alfred the Great, Cnut the Great, James I, Louis XIV to name a few were all intelligent monarchs.

The point being, should the government take into account the growing anti-immigration sentiment amongst the British population or should they ignore it and maintain the status quo. I've already said we should accept more refugees as these are people desperately in need but with net economic migration at an all-time high, a lot of people will be less sympathetic to genuine refugees.

 

Can you provide proof of that? I doubt 'hundreds of thousands' of Israeli refugees left Israel for neighbouring Arab countries they were at war with, especially considering many Jews in Arab countries migrated to Israel in that period.

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

 

I've seen a lot over the years of wars, war zones, refugees, aid agencies and the like, so much I could write a book.
So where to begin, first of all blaming the west and it's foreign policies for the crisis, that may be true but we have what we have today to deal with and harking back to what was done 10 or more years ago is not helping. In most cases the west for want of a better word thought it was doing the right thing to help people in the places they bombed or invaded.
As many have said if your fleeing a war you would think that the first safe place you get to would be good enough, now though most of those fleeing only want to go to rich western countries.
The fence that the Hungarians have built will never stop the migrants but that was not the real plan. They want and need to know who is entering and leaving their country. Even though the border crossing at Horgoš has a reception center with aid and help many are still going through the fence, you may want to ask why.
Living on one of the migrants transit routes I have seen the rate of migrants increase dramatically since Germany annouced it would allow 800,000 in. It basically became a race to get there and of course the fittest and strongest are winning which is why if you look at the overall view shown on TV most of those travelling are young single males, even though the media always like to show women and children they are very much in the minority.
What do we do when that allocation is filled and the weaker more desperate ones turn up at the borders of the EU.

 

They are Palestinians.

 

Open fire?

Some of them will almost certainly be the enemy anyway.

 

So, they're Palestinians and not Israelis.

 

Bit harsh.

I should have added that some of those on the move will shortly be seen in Calais trying to get into the UK.

 

One thing that I haven't heard mentioned is who are the people making money off these refugees that are being stuck on boats from wherever to wherever?

 

I don't begin to understand the politics of that region, which is probably why I was surprised when I saw a programme that showed a lot of the Israeli soldiers at the forefront of pushing the Palestinians out were what I would have wrongly described as Arabs. They were seemingly Bedouin.

Point being, it's complex.

 

Syria is a mess , the countries capable of making a difference militarily, chose sides badly , with hindsight there was no right side but non intervention has prolonged suffering , even now Assad is a much preferred answer when just 2 yrs ago he was on everyone's to do list ... Lessons are impossible to learn

 

It is complex. My original comment about Israel was 'If Israel suffered a devastating civil war, how many Israeli refugees do you reckon neighbouring Arab countries would take in?'. I specifically said 'Isareli', not 'people from Israel'. Lebanon and Jordan have accepted hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs as refugees after the 1948 war but I was strictly referring to Israeli citizens. The fact is, Syria, like many Arab countries, don't accept Israel as a state and refuse admission into the country if you have an Israeli passport or have travelled to Israel with any other passport. So, for example, if Israel had a civil war wherein two factions of Israeli citizens came into conflict, Syria would not accept Israeli citizens seeking refuge because they don't accept Israeli passports. That was the point and neighbouring Arab countries accept Palestinian refugees because they are not Israeli citizens and because they are their Muslim brothers.