The Political Thread - Burlamaqui edition

[Chilloutman]

 

yeah, thats your opinion, I am not that sure that those millions of poeple are really refugees and it seems Germany is not sure either, latest news from Germany shows that 70% of 'refugees' are lying. But they wanted to look good and now millions of people who oppose our humanitarian values are inside our borders. I don't think its good news.

 

Mass flight from Syrian and Iraq and then from several African countries has showed that European countries refugee laws which are based on UNHCR - The 1951 Refugee Convention  (and its extension in 1967) don't work well when there is such mass of people seeking asylum. Which is why many countries made emergency changes on their laws in order to limit amount people coming in. Addition to European refugee laws, we saw that countries weren't really prepared to handle such mass of immigrants coming every day for months, meaning there was no process/procedure that countries officials would follow, which allowed lots of unregistered people enter in EU area where they were able to travel freely thanks to EU's free travel agreements. But eventually countries were able to put processes in place to control those masses, but it lead to new problem in southern Europe, especially in Italy and Greece which are two main countries where people enter in EU, which is that they have now big camps of people whose refugee status need to be determined and other EU countries are reluctant to offer their help in that.

 

UNHCR - The 1951 Refugee Convention (and its extension) gives people right to seek asylum and countries obligation to go through comprehensive process to determine if their situation demands international protection aka asylum. Meaning that even though situation of their home country didn't fulfil criteria of asylum in case of majority of people who come to seek asylum or better life during refugee crisis, our laws forced officials to go through that comprehensive process in case of every one who seek asylum and most of the countries didn't really have enough people who handled asylum applications to handle amount of applications they faced and addition to that in asylum seekers whose applications were rejected had/have right to complain to courts about their rejected application, which means another time consuming process before our laws allow to deport person whose application was rejected. And even after official finally get right to deport person it can be quite problematic as Iraq, Syria and some African countries refuse to take person back as in many cases there are no deportation agreement between European countries and said target countries, which can mean that those people who have given deportation order stay in limbo state where they don't have right to stay in the country where they sought asylum, but officials can't force them go to their home country, which has lead to voluntary return policy where governments pay asylum seekers money if they voluntary go back to their home country.  

 

 

problem is, if you don't 'catch' those people at borders and they lie to you about country of origin, where do you deport them? They don't have papers with them on purpose (not always) Also those laws you mention require those seeking asylum to do so in first secure country. There is plenty of those around the world but we all know why this flood of people is heading to Germany. I am sorry but I don't feel for those people, and worst part is that people will loose feeling even for those who would deserved it. Also paying someone to GTFO where they should not be in first place just encourage such actions

 

also this:

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Chilloutman

[Elerond]

 

 

yeah, thats your opinion, I am not that sure that those millions of poeple are really refugees and it seems Germany is not sure either, latest news from Germany shows that 70% of 'refugees' are lying. But they wanted to look good and now millions of people who oppose our humanitarian values are inside our borders. I don't think its good news.

 

Mass flight from Syrian and Iraq and then from several African countries has showed that European countries refugee laws which are based on UNHCR - The 1951 Refugee Convention  (and its extension in 1967) don't work well when there is such mass of people seeking asylum. Which is why many countries made emergency changes on their laws in order to limit amount people coming in. Addition to European refugee laws, we saw that countries weren't really prepared to handle such mass of immigrants coming every day for months, meaning there was no process/procedure that countries officials would follow, which allowed lots of unregistered people enter in EU area where they were able to travel freely thanks to EU's free travel agreements. But eventually countries were able to put processes in place to control those masses, but it lead to new problem in southern Europe, especially in Italy and Greece which are two main countries where people enter in EU, which is that they have now big camps of people whose refugee status need to be determined and other EU countries are reluctant to offer their help in that.

 

UNHCR - The 1951 Refugee Convention (and its extension) gives people right to seek asylum and countries obligation to go through comprehensive process to determine if their situation demands international protection aka asylum. Meaning that even though situation of their home country didn't fulfil criteria of asylum in case of majority of people who come to seek asylum or better life during refugee crisis, our laws forced officials to go through that comprehensive process in case of every one who seek asylum and most of the countries didn't really have enough people who handled asylum applications to handle amount of applications they faced and addition to that in asylum seekers whose applications were rejected had/have right to complain to courts about their rejected application, which means another time consuming process before our laws allow to deport person whose application was rejected. And even after official finally get right to deport person it can be quite problematic as Iraq, Syria and some African countries refuse to take person back as in many cases there are no deportation agreement between European countries and said target countries, which can mean that those people who have given deportation order stay in limbo state where they don't have right to stay in the country where they sought asylum, but officials can't force them go to their home country, which has lead to voluntary return policy where governments pay asylum seekers money if they voluntary go back to their home country.  

 

 

problem is, if you don't 'catch' those people at borders and they lie to you about country of origin, where do you deport them? They don't have papers with them on purpose (not always) Also those laws you mention require those seeking asylum to do so in first secure country. There is plenty of those around the world but we all know why this flood of people is heading to Germany. I am sorry but I don't feel for those people, and worst part is that people will loose feeling even for those who would deserved it. Also paying someone to GTFO where they should not be in first place just encourage such actions

 

also this:

 

 

 

Not knowing person's country of origin is also problem if you catch them on border.  And even if you know their country of origin deportation can be difficult as their home country can refuse to take them back. 

[Chilloutman]

Well I am pretty sure USA does not care where people at their southern border are from, they just don't let them in Anyway its really not issue for me. Its west EU who got burning cars and rape gangs. As long as we are the poor part we are safe (guess why)

[HoonDing]

Lauren Southern and Timmy Robinson should make a lot of rightwing love babies.

[Chilloutman]

Lauren Southern and Timmy Robinson should make a lot of rightwing love babies.

 

well she is technically man, so not sure about that part

[Elerond]

Well I am pretty sure USA does not care where people at their southern border are from, they just don't let them in Anyway its really not issue for me. Its west EU who got burning cars and rape gangs. As long as we are the poor part we are safe (guess why)

 

USA's asylum laws are only partially based on UNHCR - The 1951 Refugee Convention  and even they seem to have problems to control flow of immigrants coming in. USA also has deportation agreement with the countries where the immigrants are coming in, which makes deporting people easier for them. But it seems that many cases their official try to cut corners and do things that their courts find to be against their laws.

 

Burning cars and rape gangs in western EU are so few compared to general criminality level of eastern EU that western EU needs to take tens of millions of immigrants to achieve those levels. So I would not necessary be so muck about things.

[Malcador]

 

Lauren Southern and Timmy Robinson should make a lot of rightwing love babies.

 

well she is technically man, so not sure about that part

 

 

Legally not technically, no ?

[Chilloutman]

Woot? We have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, not to mention violent crime. As for deportation, I guess Australia is the lucky one it here than (I know kinda rough statement)

[Chilloutman]

 

 

Lauren Southern and Timmy Robinson should make a lot of rightwing love babies.

 

well she is technically man, so not sure about that part

 

 

Legally not technically, no ?

 

 

my bad

[Zoraptor]

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577222

 

Abolishing the Senate  ?

 

What does he plan to do, give the moffs direct command of the outlying sectors?

 

 

I don't remember about any vote about opening borders by Angela, yet she somehow is now telling its everyone problem, go figure

 

 

She didn't open any borders and she didn't change any rules about immigration or how EU or Germany treats refugees, she only publicly said that Germany will accept refugees according to their laws, laws which have existed over 60 years. 

 

 

Please, she 100% issued an invitation knowing exactly what it would mean practically. Whether she already had her fall back positions formulated at that time is an open question, it seems more likely she was just plain stupid but maybe she was actively malicious as well, who knows. She may not have changed the rules at that time, but she definitely took and has taken advantage of them to the detriment of just about everyone else in the EU and to her and Germany's benefit.

 

Which is what is the fundamental problem with the EU as it always happens with the EU- Germany collectivises her problems while nationalising everyone else's. Merkel's idiotic invitation results in too many refugees? Collectivise the problem by sending them off to other countries to bail her out. But, too many refugees still arriving? Well they have to stay in Greece and Italy since that's where they landed, why can't those countries take responsibility and follow the rules? German banks lent idiotically to Greece? Bail them out collectively via the European Bank, then make the Greeks pay for it! Plus bonus, tons of leverage against Greece when you want the refugee spigot turned off, after all surely refugees love extended holidays on Greek Islands as much as anyone so it's win win. Euro massively overvalued for Italy, Greece etc? Tough noogies, it's wonderfully undervalued for Germany and that's what is important.

 

That's the fundamental flaw of the EU, and it will never be fixed. Every country from Italy down in importance will be treated as vassals, and any benefits to them from the EU are incidental and not the core aim of the organisation. It's also why Britain is better with a hard Brexit no matter what, there's no chance of EU reform and the laughable 'concessions' they gave Cameron to try and stave off the referendum showed it- and, frankly, those pathetic concessions was likely a contributing factor to the referendum loss for remain. While meant to be a sop to get just enough votes to win they were actually an insult and extraordinarily tone deaf, symptomatic of the EU's technocratic rule from the top mentality.

[Malcador]

I liked one outlandish prediction I had heard about Brexit - where NI leaves to join Ireland and Scotland secedes.  Essentially ending the UK

[Elerond]

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577222

 

Abolishing the Senate  ?

 

What does he plan to do, give the moffs direct command of the outlying sectors?

 

 

I don't remember about any vote about opening borders by Angela, yet she somehow is now telling its everyone problem, go figure

 

 

She didn't open any borders and she didn't change any rules about immigration or how EU or Germany treats refugees, she only publicly said that Germany will accept refugees according to their laws, laws which have existed over 60 years. 

 

 

Please, she 100% issued an invitation knowing exactly what it would mean practically. Whether she already had her fall back positions formulated at that time is an open question, it seems more likely she was just plain stupid but maybe she was actively malicious as well, who knows. She may not have changed the rules at that time, but she definitely took and has taken advantage of them to the detriment of just about everyone else in the EU and to her and Germany's benefit.

 

Which is what is the fundamental problem with the EU as it always happens with the EU- Germany collectivises her problems while nationalising everyone else's. Merkel's idiotic invitation results in too many refugees? Collectivise the problem by sending them off to other countries to bail her out. But, too many refugees still arriving? Well they have to stay in Greece and Italy since that's where they landed, why can't those countries take responsibility and follow the rules? German banks lent idiotically to Greece? Bail them out collectively via the European Bank, then make the Greeks pay for it! Plus bonus, tons of leverage against Greece when you want the refugee spigot turned off, after all surely refugees love extended holidays on Greek Islands as much as anyone so it's win win. Euro massively overvalued for Italy, Greece etc? Tough noogies, it's wonderfully undervalued for Germany and that's what is important.

 

That's the fundamental flaw of the EU, and it will never be fixed. Every country from Italy down in importance will be treated as vassals, and any benefits to them from the EU are incidental and not the core aim of the organisation. It's also why Britain is better with a hard Brexit no matter what, there's no chance of EU reform and the laughable 'concessions' they gave Cameron to try and stave off the referendum showed it- and, frankly, those pathetic concessions was likely a contributing factor to the referendum loss for remain. While meant to be a sop to get just enough votes to win they were actually an insult and extraordinarily tone deaf, symptomatic of the EU's technocratic rule from the top mentality.

 

 

Problems was not caused by her invitation, but existing laws, processes and lack of people to process people who come and lack of infrastructure to handle massive amount of immigrants.

 

Merkel or Germany didn't change any directive, law or policy in Germany or EU.

 

Germany also did quite lot to help Greece, for example by paying Turkey that they prevent refugees leaving from Turkey with boats. They also organized direct line where they transported refugees from Turkey to Germany.

[Chilloutman]

yeah, paying ransom to Turkey was really great move

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, that's a 100% temporary solution that ensures Erdogan has leverage for the forseeable future. It's also again the bare minimum they could get away with, anything less and Greece would have been forced by simple reality to ignore the EU rules as they are economically- and physically- incapable of dealing with every refugee so would have been forced to let them through no matter what the law says. In truth that 'generosity' has made the EU semi permanently beholden to a despot who can threaten to tear up the agreement whenever he wants something from them. They'd have been better off investing the money into Syria directly and getting people to actually go home rather than feathering Erdogan's nest.

 

 

 

Merkel or Germany didn't change any directive, law or policy in Germany or EU.

 

 

No they didn't, which is irrelevant since sure as anything took advantage of said rules and applied them selectively, depending on what was best for them at the time. They issued the invite, took the refugees they wanted to try and fix their demographic problems, then decided that the rules about initial entry had to be enforced, and used collective responsibility to get other countries to accept the excess they'd ended up with. All rules applied as and when politically expedient for Merkel and not done either consistently or fairly.

 

The problems were caused by her invitation. It's like issuing a public statement about squatter's rights laws then being surprised and amazed when suddenly you get a load of squatters moving in who all know the law and want to take advantage of it. If you issue a statement saying that you'll treat each and every migrant as a refugee then you will get an inundation of refugees and an even bigger inundation of 'refugees' who are simple economic migrants. Reminder again, the 2nd largest number of refugees in the crisis were Kosovan, nearly as many as Iraq and Afghanistan combined. How many of them could reasonably be considered refugees rather than economic migrants in a 'country' that is basically a NATO protectorate, and if they are what exactly does that say about NATO and Europe? I'd exclude Serbs worried about being carved up for spare parts by the Kosovan Prime Minister or forced out of their homes at gunpoint  while NATO ran interference from that list, but then they were all sent to Serbia rather than Germany.

[Guard Dog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577222

 

Abolishing the Senate  ?

What he would end up with is the United States of New York & Los Angeles. A union of two towers so to speak. 

 

If you want to "fix" the Senate, repeal the 17th amendment. 

[Raithe]

Maybe not strictly politics, but still....  Washington Post - US Citizen illegally held by Florida sherrif for ICE, after case of mistaken identity, threatened to be sent to Jamaica

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOWs0O1gGI&feature=youtu.be

[Malcador]

Meanwhile, the complaint alleges, officers mocked his appeals. As Brown insisted that he was from Philadelphia, one of the guards sang the theme song from the 1990s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

What a surprise a cop would act such a way.

[injurai]

 

Water should never have a cost. Watered bottles is a crime against humanity.

Its nice for you guys living in first world countries to believe that but in many countries people have to pay for water and when you have droughts these costs can and do increase in the form of taxes\tariffs

 

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-05-10-cape-town-explains-water-tariffs-pipe-network-costs-more-than-water/

 

 

Water should be available to everyone. If you don't think so, then you must not be familiar with the modern marvel of democratically raising levies for public utilities. Public investment in shared resources that in the long run yield savings is a corner stone of the modern world.

 

You pay for the maintenance of the utility providers, but that uses public infrastructure. Free access to water and a cost to maintain society around you are not incongruous.

[Zoraptor]

In South Africa there would be two problems with that model: firstly money from utility levies would probably end up being used on critical projects like renovating Jacob Zuma's private residence to Buckingham Palace level instead of actual infrastructure and secondly, a lot of people there are absolute poor so no matter how low utility bills are set they could not afford them. Not that things have improved without Zuma, go on strike at one of President Cyril's mines and he might just send the po po around to machine gun you...

 

Cape Province, where the water shortage is really biting, is also being shafted in numerous ways by the national government as well as having an actual and real drought- things like their trains being 'mysteriously' sabotaged causing traffic chaos- because they had the temerity to elect someone other than the ANC to power, and the ANC believes they will be back if they can make things bad enough there so long as people blame the local government rather than them.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Zoraptor

[SonicMage117]

Democritism is a thing...

[injurai]

I don't even need to hit the googs to know she never said that. She is going to pay her interns well though, I know that much.

[SonicMage117]

Hmmm... I think everyone missed that it was a reference to the political novel (in the photo below) which was a good one.

 

I didn't make the pic with Cortez btw, I would be more clever (and chosen a better pic).

[injurai]

It's not a reference to the novel when the punch line is literally considering the concept of landing on the sun, and further doing so to paint an irrational portrayal of Orcasio-Cortez. So it's just the world's lowest tier strawman image macro.

 

You can quote her directly in-context and fulfill an agenda better than that.

[SonicMage117]

And here I thought it was just for the sake of being a comic meme with no agenda... merp.

https://youtu.be/UiV1Tn47pEE

 

On a more serious note, here is the guy that made it. He seems to be a fan..

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=212574219635913&id=100026500103814&set=gm.341462659776183&source=48

Edited December 5, 2018 by SonicMage117

[smjjames]

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577222

 

Abolishing the Senate  ?

What he would end up with is the United States of New York & Los Angeles. A union of two towers so to speak. 

 

If you want to "fix" the Senate, repeal the 17th amendment. 

 

 

You'd probably need a constitutional convention for that kind of restructuring.

 

As for the 17th amendment... I don't see how making the state legislators pick the Senators would help improve anything, not in this hyperpartisan environment. Plus, you'd have to come up with a solution to the issues that led up to the push for reform and the creation of the 17th amendment in the first place.

 

Sure, it would make them less focused on winning elections and pandering the lowest common denominator, but do you really think the makeup is going to change all that much? If that's what you're thinking. Also, the elections would just put more focus on the state legislature (which in itself, isn't a bad thing) since the makeup of the state legislature determines the Senate.