Thursday 2 March 2017

Facts are not what motivate the anti-immigrationists

 

WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND THAT the factual basis for immigration fears generally fall away upon close inspection, you have to question what animates the new nationalists who seek to deter and/or expel new immigrants.

Yes, observes Jason Krupp from the New Zealand Institute, this increasingly seems to be the case when it comes to politics, “where fact-based arguments have been thin on the ground of late.”

Almost all the opposition parties are guilty of this to some extent, but none more notable [locally] than New Zealand First and party leader Winston Peters.

Jason and his team teased out the facts that show the fears are not only mis-founded, they are frequently manufactured.

Our report, ‘The New New Zealanders: Why Migrants Make Good Kiwis,’ covers both local and international academic research and our own analysis of the General Social Survey and the Election Survey, and aims to paint a factual picture of immigration in New Zealand.
    Broadly, we found that many of the concerns about immigrants diluting Kiwi culture did not hold up in the data. Immigrants of all stripes tended to integrate well into New Zealand. Not only did they claim welfare and other benefits at a lower rate than native born New Zealanders, they also had good employment outcomes, and educated their children to a very high level.
    Our research also found very little evidence of ethnic clustering, and we found that over time the views and labour market attributes of immigrants converged towards the New Zealand average. In other words, immigrants might come here as foreigners, but they become Kiwis in the long run (hence the title).
    Furthermore, many of the economic fears that people have about high levels of immigration proved to have little substance.

Sadly, however, the report’s facts will not make a blind bit of difference, because the anti-immigration argument is not based on any facts. It is based on something else.

You could see this here recently at NOT PC when I posted the crime stats on Sweden that help explode the alleged “facts on the ground” showing “rocketing Swedish crime” in the face of increased immigration. (You can follow that argument here, here, here, and here.)

The problem might be most evident in the Fact-Free Zone that is modern America, where Trump's “America First” executive orders on immigration and deportation are political solutions in need of an actual problem.  That wave of undocumented workers supposed to be ravaging the country? “That ended a decade ago,” reports Bloomberg based on data from the Pew Research Center, “and has been zero or negative since.”

USImmigration1

The reasons for the turnaround are both economic and personal:

  • even after growth resumed post-GFC, there was no return to the mania of the bubble years
  • Mexicans -- both undocumented and otherwise -- are flocking back to Mexico
    • The Mexican economy has improved, and
    • the fertility rate has fallen a lot, meaning that young Mexicans are needed back in Mexico to take over family businesses and take care of aging parents

Result: both legal and illegal immigration into America have fallen, even as the hysteria has increased.

The facts could not be clearer.

So the hysteria is not clearly based on facts.

Go figure.

SO WILL DISSEMINATION OF the actual facts stop the hysteria?

What do you think. Not when the argument has never been fact-based.

Which leaves us shovelling actual facts into a hole in the ground while the anti-immigrationists cite their own “alternative facts” showing “Mexes” overrunning America, Chinese taking all our Auckland houses, and “Muzzies” making Sweden the rape capital of Europe.

Because the actual facts are not what animates the anti—immigration arguments.

THE TWO MOST POWERFUL arguments the anti-immigrationists muster involve welfare and warfare. Yet even these are both just as confused.

It is said that welfare makes immigration too expensive, despite abundant evidence here and around the world that immigrants a are generally net contributors to tax, not takers (unlike many local born). But the wider point is that, if this were truly what animates the anti-immigrationists, is that the point, surely, is to put a wall around state welfare, not around your country. As Stuart Hayashi points out, there are thousands of people -- even billionaires who have already pledged to do this -- willing to pay voluntary charity to help poor immigrants with the amenities. And there are countries like Canada who already make sponsorship of New Canadians part of their immigration procedures, allowing folk to sponsor new immigrants (which could easily be extended to taking partial responsibility for their welfare and their actions). So no huhu here; just a need for more honesty from those who say that this is what concerns them, because if it does, then this is what they should be calling for.

Because there are already countries who do bar state welfare to immigrants, most famously Australia who disallows welfare to anyone who cheers for the All Blacks until they get themselves an Australian flag tattooed just above their heart. So it’s certainly possible.

That this isn’t what they call for suggests it is not immigrants taking welfare that really animates them.

And what of warfare?

Well, we do know that for the most part it has not been immigrants who have been blowing themselves up in large numbers in their delusional bid to get to paradise, it has been mostly the home-grown – a fact that so many are so keen to evade.

Further, it’s always been the case that those fleeing barbarism know to a man who their torturers were, so that making these people your allies instead of your opponents actually helps you hunt down their badder bastards; proving once again that the best way to actually prevent terrorists from slipping in is to legalise as much "illegal immigration" as possible. Why? Because, explains James Valliant, “if one is looking for a needle in a haystack, as the saying goes, one has a hell of job. Finding that needle on a relatively clean floor, however, presents an achievable goal.”

The issue becomes even simpler, explains Keith Weiner,

when you differentiate between
A) an immigrant; and
B) an enemy warrior who comes here to destroy our world..
     With that distinction clear, when someone favours cracking down on employers and talks about "jobs" as if Luddites and Marxists and Mercantilists haven't been debunked for two centuries, then you know where they stand. When he talks about "we don't need more unskilled labourers," then you know he favours the economic system of Benito Mussolini and central planning…
    An enemy warrior is not an immigrant. He has no part of a discussion on immigration, except as a smokescreen to mask Mercantilist ideas.

SO EVEN ON THESE two most powerful of the anti-immigrationists arguments, it’s clear that actual facts are not what motivates the anti-immigrationists.

I wonder what does?

.

33 comments:

Euan said...

Most immigrants I've met seem much more motivated to work or start a business, than suck off the Govts teat, or blow us up.

Berend de Boer said...

Fully in favor of a well around well-fare instead of the country, but nobody will believe politicians will keep any such promise or law. There is no realistic alternative than keeping people out in the 1st place (unfortunately). But yeah, the minimum we can do is argue for this.

On your statistics: obviously you quote the ones that agree with you. If you want to debate, you need to show why 1. why these statistics can be trusted, and 2. why other statistics are incorrect.

It's pretty easy to turn up in a no-go zone in Sweden and be assaulted on camera. There are no such zones in NZ.

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Peter,

When it comes to facts, here is something for you to consider. 1:1000 Muslims end up on the Australian ASIO or NZ SIS terrorist watch list. That's one in every thousand Muslim men women and children end up being jihadists of interest to our State security institutions.

http://brendanslongblog.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/one-in-every-1000-muslims-is-on-asio.html

Check the facts, draw your own conclusions.

I get that libertarians are open border utopians. The question for the rest of us to consider is how viable is that approach if we wish to retain the liberties we have inherited.

MarkT said...

"I get that libertarians are open border utopians"

If that's what you think, and you think Peter is typical of that, then you don't get much at all on what Peter has just wrote.

"1:1000 Muslims end up on the Australian ASIO or NZ SIS terrorist watch list."

Really, this is what you call "facts"? I read the BBC article you linked and it in no way validates that conclusion. When someone says "99.9%" is this or that, it's just a way of saying the 'vast majority', usually when you don't know the actual numbers. Read in context he's not saying 1 1000 is a problem, he's just saying the problem is rare. Did the fact that 1000 is such a nice round number not give that away?

Dinwar said...

That's not the whole picture, either.

Ending up on a watch list IS NOT the same thing as being an objective threat. Overzealous prosecutors exist, and people can be put on watch lists for all kinds of reasons. The Society for Creative Anachronisms--a Medieval re-enactment group--was investigated by the FBI multiple times because some illiterate moron didn't know that "anachronism" and "anarchism" were different words, for example. So even if we take the numbers at face value, we can still assume that they over-represent the threat.

When it comes to retaining liberty, I'm much more willing to accept the existence of rare threats than I am to provide the state with the means to suppress those threats. Because as the USA is demonstrating right now, once you give governments that power they use it to eliminate liberty.

Unknown said...

You don't agree with Michael Reddell?

MarkT said...

Brendan - After re-reading your whole post (which I didn't the first time) I accept you had more to base the 1 in 1000 figure than just the BBC article, and you do acknowledge the "99.9%" could have been a metaphor.

My conclusion largely still stands though - these are rather hazy figures, and didn't warrant the certainty you expressed in your post to qualify as "facts". What Dinwar has said is also correct. In certain contexts it's natural and rational to be more suspicious of a Muslim, because Islam is not a race but a belief system - and that might be good cause for ASIO to have a higher proportion of Muslims on a watch-list; but whether that means they are actually guilty, and whether Islamic immigrants are a significant threat is another matter.

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Mark

It was kind of you to revisit my post and review your original comments. I remain confident that the 1:1000 ratio given both the ASIO numbers and the SIS numbers in relation to the total Muslim population in Aust and NZ is about right.

Are they all 'hot for jihad'? - well, I have no idea of what one must do to get on the terrorist watch list, but I suspect its more than simply watching ISIS snuff videos on-line.

What is missing from our collective understanding of Islam and the threat it poses to liberal western democracy? Three things.

First our ignorance of Islamic theology, and the pull their scriptures have on the religious mind. This is difficult for secular or atheist people to fully grasp this reality.

Second, the life of their prophet Mohammad who waged wars, beheaded captives and took sex slaves. Muslims consider him to be the 'perfect man' and are encouraged to follow his example, including that of violent jihad.

Third is our lack of historical understanding of bloody Islamic expansion that took place in North Africa, through much of Europe right up until the 17th century.

If living under Islamic rule is such a good thing for the 'Christian' or infidel world, why did Europe push back and Spain in particular fight the Muslim invaders / occupiers for 700 years before finally casting the last of them back into the Mediterranean?

It's a numbers game. 1% as we have in NZ is not really a problem. 2%-4% as they have in parts of Australia begins to be problematic with occasional acts of violence. 8%-10% as they have in France, well then you have acts of mass slaughter and a state of civil emergency with 10,000 troops on the streets for years with no end in sight.

Why would we go there given the experience of Europe?

Don Walker said...

There needs to be a distinction made between immigrants and invaders. Any immigrants that want to enter a country with the intent of forcibly replacing that country's culture , laws, with their own are invaders not immigrants and it is the gov'ts job to repel these people so as to protect the freedoms and rights of the citizens of that country. Immigrants mostly are beneficial providing they respect the laws and the rights of other people, Those muslims that want to install their islam ideology along with their sharia law are invaders.

paul scott said...

Vote count numbers are factual, to high level of accuracy .

Anonymous said...

Immigration and crime is a complex issue. Heck, crime statistics are complicated enough.

This is the best article I've seen about crime and Sweden. Certainly importing hundreds of thousands of third worlders hasn't been good, even if the right is exaggerating a bit:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445237/sweden-crime-rates-statistics-immigration-trump-fox-news

-Mark Martinson

Anonymous said...

If immigration isn't incresaing crime in Sweden then why did Sweden pass a law preventing the reporting of country of origin with respect to crime statistics? And what does that tell you about the accuracy of these statistics? Remember Sweden has hate speech laws so a statistician who argued that immigration caused crime could be prosecuted.

-Mark Martinson

Anonymous said...

"Most immigrants I've met seem much more motivated to work or start a business, than suck off the Govts teat, or blow us up."

If it weren't for my job (prisons) I would never have known anyone who has been to prison. This is Bastiaits "seen and unseen" question. Why would a typical working guy see unemployed slackers?

-Mart Martinson

MarkT said...

Brendan - If it's a "numbers game", and the problem starts at 2-4%, how do you explain Singapore; which has a Muslim population of 15%, and much larger Islamic majority nations to the north and south (Malaysia and Indonesia). By your theory it should be a really dangerous place for Westerners, and have one of the worst crime & terrorism rates in the world. But instead they have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, have never suffered a single incident of Islamic terrorism. In a recent vist I felt incredibly safe there, including a little walk I did with my young family around the Islamic quarter. How do you explain that?

Ben said...

Forget it Mark. I tried to argue this common sense and Peter wasn't having any of it.

Peter Cresswell said...

Your "argument" is irrelevant.
The numbers are raw numbers. They record crime rates. Yet they do not show the explosion in total crime rates that is one of your main talking points, i.e., that there is supposed to be a correlation between rising immigration numbers and rising crime.

Yet despite this alleged explosion being one of your main talking points you have zero evidence for this alleged correlation, and have shown none.

And that you are now reduced to muttering conspiracy theories about the real numbers being hidden shows that there was no basis even to begin that talking point.

So, boys, after all your talking, either bring some actual evidence or bugger off.

Anonymous said...

Ben, you are right. Peter thinks you could turn Sweden into Somalia but the crime rate wouldn't go up. Likewise, he belives Israel will not have more crime if it opens itself up to mass Islamic immigration. At least he is consistent.

-MM

Peter Cresswell said...

It's actually not difficult. You simply need to provide evidence, boys, for the facts you assume. You're making the claims, which are substantial, so you're obliged to present the substantial evidence that supports it.
That you can't suggests your beliefs are held more like a religion than they are a science.
NB: I don't believe I've ever mentioned Israel in this context, so I'm guessing this is simply you making something thing up. So I guess you are at least consistent.

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Mark

In the West it is definitely a numbers game.

Singapore is an Asian culture with a very authoritarian Government that rigorously suppresses dissent. As for the Muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia, if you were to read our mainstream media you would think they are examples of tolerance and inclusion.

However, I encourage you to google ‘Christian persecution in Malaysia/Indonesia’ to obtain a more sobering picture. Minorities are persecuted everywhere Islam is in charge - without exception.

Ben said...

You want evidence Peter? What about Islamic countries? virtually all basket cases. And countries with an Islamic minority have problems in direct proportion to their Muslim population. France may be about to elect the far-right Le Pen precisely due to a head-in-the-sand PC attitude toward Islam by the incumbent politicians.

I've noticed that if you search for "statistics" on this blog you get a lot of articles pointing out the proclivity of governments to lie with statistics. But as soon as government statistics support your worldview this healthy scepticism evaporates.

If there's anyone whose immigration beliefs are based on religious dogma, it's you Peter.

Peter Cresswell said...

Ben, you and your friends have been making the claims - very specific claims that you say you "know" to be true. So the onus of proof for these claims are on you.

Yet, consistently, when asked to present the evidence for how you "know" any of thhese things, there's nothing to show, is there. It just isn't there is it.

Instead, you repeatedly draw the same long bows about Swedish crime and rising Mexican immigration and the Chinese buying all our houses and most terrorism is committed by immigrants and refugeees and Galt knows what else, and when challenged to present evidence to back up any of these things you say are true you can't, and instead I find when I search for it that, almost consistently, that the evidence actually points the other way.

So is it any wonder I become impatient with you and your friends and your favourite websites and conclude, after watching this happen so consistently for several years, that maybe you believe all your trip not because of any evidence but *despite* it.

And just so you know, bluster is not evidence. It's an excuse for the lack of it.

NB: You may have one more opportunity to post substantive evidence for any one of your fevered claims, following which this conversation is over.

Peter Cresswell said...

PS: By the way, Ben, let me point you to a phenomenon highlighted by Thomas Sowell in his superb trilogy on Culture, that immigrants are often very different from the cultures and places from which they choose to emigrate.

One telling example he used to cite was that of India, in recent history a basket case, and yet everywhere in the world India emigres elected to settle Indians are generally regarded as hard-working, industrious and business-like.

He cited several other similar examples, but the point here being that , yes, we're all aware that many Arabic and Islamic cultures are basket cases; but that doesn't necessarily mean very much at all about who those emigres from those places may be once they settle elsewhere. If you claim something about them then as a mass, which is what you have been doing, you need more than just arm-waving. You need actual evidence. (And here I repeat myself.)

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Peter,

you might find more than 'arm waving' regarding the negative impact of Muslim immigration to Britain (and the West generally) in the upcoming 1,000 page Andrew Jackson Society report, the main findings of which are prefaced here by the Daily Mail:

The number of Islamist terror offences doubled in the five years to 2015 from 12 to 23 a year.

Women’s involvement in Islamist terrorism in the UK has trebled in the same period from 4 per cent to 11 per cent.

Bombing is the most common type of offence planned or committed but there has been an 11-fold increase in plots involving Islamic State-style beheadings and stabbings.

Only 10 per cent of terror attacks were carried out by ‘lone wolves’ unconnected to wider extremist networks.

The landmark report has analysed all aspects of every Islamist terror case including plotting or carrying out attacks, funding jihadis and offering support to terror groups.

The most chilling findings are clear geographical clusters of terrorism, often linked to areas with highly segregated Muslim communities.

Birmingham, with 234,000 Muslims, has a total of 39 convicted terrorists.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4282510/Terrorism-UK-trebles-five-years.html

The evidence is there and it is compelling, and what's more with this report it is no longer anecdotal.

Peter Cresswell said...

Brendan,

FYI, the report is not by the Andrew Jackson Society, but the *Henry* Jackson Society, a neoconservative group headed by Douglas Murray. (Did you read the report, or just the summary in the Daily Mail?)

That said, while I don't know very much about Murray, if you've been reading me you should already know I have no disagreement with Murray's general argument that "Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. If some Muslims don’t have a mosque to go to, then they’ll just have to realise that they aren’t owed one."

That is all very important. But it doesn't mean they should be locked out -- nor that Mexicans et al should be locked out and deported from the States.

On the specific issue, you need to show that the increase from 11 to 23 terror attacks p.a. (a similar number to Irish terror attacks back in the day) is due to greater immmigration. The report does not do that, nor try to.

You would need to show that the 39 convicted terrorists out of 234,000 Birmingham Muslims were recent immigrants. The report does not do that, nor try to.

Because the report is not about immigration; it is about Islamic terrorists in the UK -- which it suggests are homegrown. So it still does not say what you want it to say -- and it leaves aside the argument, that I've made here many times, that the primary problem is not exernal (at the borders) but internal (how the west deals with crime and terrorism, and with different cultures in relation to its own),

So I don't doubt many of the figures you cite, which we agree are appalling (but not appreciably different to those associated with Irish terror), but could you please indicate *precisely* what this shows about the specific issue in question.

May I also suggest the general use of quotation marks, so that we know what is your writing and which is that of the Daily Mail ...

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Peter

Yes, thank you for the correction – it is indeed the ‘Henry Jackson Society’. I agree that Douglas Murray is a credible commentator on the impact of Islam in Britain and Europe.

I haven not been a regular visitor to your blog, but came as a result of a tweet regarding this particular article as immigration is an issue of interest to me, as I’m sure it is for many.

For me the issue is not whether the jihadist who beheaded my neighbour was a recent immigrant, or a third-generation Somali, Pakistani, or Afghan living in Britain. Either way my neighbour is dead.

Presently Muslims represent about 4.7% of the British population. While some may be indigenous converts, it is not unreasonable to assume that the overwhelming majority are immigrants or the children / grand children of immigrants.

My issue is not with immigration per say. I happen to think that immigration is a good thing when it benefits both the immigrant and the host nation. It’s difficult to argue the case for Muslim immigration however, when clearly Islam is an illiberal ideology entirely incompatible with Western civilization, at least when its followers take its precepts seriously, as many do.

So, yes to immigration, no to Muslim immigration for the reasons I have outlined above, at least until the Muslim world repudiates the doctrine of Jihad, the supremacy of the sharia, and its followers learn to play nicely with others.

MarkT said...

Brendan - what on earth has the state of Indonesia and Malaysia got to do with the facts I raised? The only relevance was that not only is Singapore 15% Muslim, bit it's surrounded by 100's of millions of other Muslims in all directions, through which I'm sure there is regular trade and movement of people . Yet it remains a relatively free and prosperous nation almost completely free of violence, which according to you theory should not be possible.

You try to dismiss this because Singapore is Asian, yet for all intensive purposes it is Western, founded on British law and free trade, and remains prosperous because it more or less stays true to this foundation. But even if you were correct that their culture is significantly different, doesn't that make Peter's point - that the problems the West encounters with Islam has more to do with how the west deals with crime and terrorism, not immigration or "numbers" per se?

Anonymous said...

Peter:

I'm not sure how you can say the "anti immigration" side hasn't presented evidence. The National Review piece I linked to (written by an immigrant in Sweden) says as follows:
________

Between 1990 and 2015, the homicide rate in Sweden declined from 1.3 to 1.1 per 100,000. This drop is less than that in Western Europe as a whole, where the homicide rate declined from 1.3 to 0.6 in 2013, the latest year reported by the World Health Organization. In Finland, the homicide rate declined from 3.2 to 1.3 during the same period, and in Norway from 1.1 to 0.4. The rate was stable at 0.8 in Denmark.
_________________

I also pointed out that at least 50% of France's prison population is Muslim.* This isn't evidence?

-MM
_____________
*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11352268/What-is-going-wrong-in-Frances-prisons.html

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Mark

The problem with Islam in western nations is not related to the way the west deals with crime and terrorism, at least not in the way you suggest. The problem with Islam is that it is a barbaric 7th centaury ideology that proscribes death to the infidel, the apostate, the blasphemer and the heretic, and is entirely at odds with liberal democracy.

Why do you think the Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia are violent hell holes? Why did 500,000 Muslims in Bangladesh march on their capital demanding the death penalty for atheists?

Why is Denmark prosecuting an individual for burning a Koran and violating Islamic blasphemy laws? Unrelated? No, Denmark also has a Muslim population that it’s political elite wish to appease.

All of NZ’s media self-sensor when it comes to Islam – refuse to print Mohammad cartoons for example, produce puff pieces featuring peaceful Muslims. A growing Muslim presence in the west has a chilling effect on free speech which is a corner stone of western civilization.

Yes, I agree we are the problem, but not for the reasons you suggest. Our problem is that we have lost our cultural confidence, embraced the false narrative of cultural relativism, and consequently failed to provide a positive cultural identity for migrants to integrate into.

It is arguable if many Muslims even want to adopt western ‘values’ lifestyle and practices, preferring instead to live in closed self-reinforcing communities that are effectively parallel societies. That is the experience in much of Britain and Europe, parts of Sydney and Melbourne. It will be our experience too unless we act now.

Ben said...

"Because the report is not about immigration; it is about Islamic terrorists in the UK"

How did the Islamic population get there Peter? It doesn't matter if the terrorism is committed by the 1st generation or the 2nd: the common sense solution to the problem is to minimise the Muslim population in western countries.

There has been no shortage of evidence presented by myself and others, but you arbitrarily decide it's all either irrelevant or inadmissible. Like trying to debate evolution with a Christian.

Thomas Sowell could hardly have picked a more flawed example than India. Why are Indian expats not emblematic of India as a whole? Well which of India's deeply entrenched castes do you think India's successful immigrants come from?

You're conflating examples of selective immigration policy with your utopian libertarian fantasy. And you're also conflating Muslim immigration with immigration in general.

Can you outline in theory how 1 million Somali immigrants pouring into NZ over a year or two could possibly not cause substantial problems? Because if you can't, you'll have to admit your immigration ideology is completely absurd.

MarkT said...

Brendan - you continue to evade the specific example of Singapore I put to you, and assume I hold views that I don't. I'm not going to argue that in general everything is fine and dandy in Islamic countries, because it's clearly not, and I agree it's a religion with serious problems that poses a threat to our security. Peter and I have never argued anything different, but you and others continue to pretend this general point supports the more specific claims you are making.

You earlier said "It's a numbers game. 1% as we have in NZ is not really a problem. 2%-4% as they have in parts of Australia begins to be problematic with occasional acts of violence. 8%-10% as they have in France, well then you have acts of mass slaughter and a state of civil emergency". To which I pointed out a prosperous and relatively free country that has more than that (15% citizens - and based on what I saw I'd say a higher proportion visiting or resident at any time) and none of the problems you describe. This example contradicts or it at least an exception to your theses, and that you continue to evade it demonstrates the headline of Peter's post.

At the very least you should want to understand why Singapore can coexist peacefully with this proportion of Muslims, and we allegedly can't. You come close when you say "Our problem is that we have lost our cultural confidence, embraced the false narrative of cultural relativism, and consequently failed to provide a positive cultural identity for migrants to integrate into". I'd agree with that, but I would also add it's because Singapore has free trade and relatively free movement of people (within a framework of tight security and zero tolerance of crime), meaning that the Muslims there are sharing in the prosperity and have no motive to be violent.

This doesn't make Islam a benign religion, but it does indicate a path we should be heading down if we want to make it benign. I believe your approach will lead to the opposite.

Brendan McNeill said...

Hi Mark

Yes, I can accept that Singapore is an exception for reasons we probably both don’t fully understand, however I suspect that a strict regime, some may even say repressive, is the primary reason.

Your suggestion that Muslims who ‘share in the prosperity have no motive to be violent’ is simply not borne out by the facts. Osama Ben Laden was a member of one of the Saudi’s most prosperous construction families.

“"Historically, the idea that terrorists come from [poor and quasi-literate] backgrounds is a complete myth," says Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University. "They are much more likely to be well-educated and come from middle-class and wealthy families."

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1947703,00.html

At the risk of repeating myself, jihadists are ideologically motivated. Islamic theology supports violent jihad and teaches Muslims they are serving God when killing the infidel. Being killed in jihad is the only redemptive narrative in Islam, it is the only way you can be assured of paradise. Everything else a Muslim does including practicing the five pillars of Islam provides at best a subjective hope, no certainty of acceptance by Allah.

Only death by jihad provides certainty. This is the reason why the killers of drummer Rigby in London stood around for 15 minutes afterwards waiting to be shot by police, why they charged at the police when they arrived – they wanted to be killed – they had a certain expectation of paradise.

This is the reason why Hamas and other terrorist groups say ‘We love death like you love life’. They believe life on earth is something to be endured before acceptance into paradise where their true life begins.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/07/hamas-we-love-death-like-our-enemies-love-life

This is a difficult thing for the secular mind to grasp. Once you understand it, then it gives some perspective into Islam, the Middle East, into domestic terrorism in the West, and why we could do without more Islam in our midst.

MarkT said...

Brendan – We can’t have a productive discussion when you devote 95% of your post to irrelevancies we agree on, and gloss over the key things that are relevant to our disagreement on this specific topic.

I think you do this because you muddle the specific and the general. You think the general proves the specific, rather than vice versa.

“Islam is a dangerous religion” (a general conclusion I don’t disagree with) does not equate to a specific conclusion that “Islamic immigration should be banned”, or the “statistics must be wrong” (as others have said).

Conversely, Peter or myself showing a specific example of Islamic immigrants co-existing peacefully with the west does not mean we think Islam is a great religion.

To the contrary, understanding the conditions under which peaceful co-existence occurs, as opposed to the conditions under which violence or dysfunction occurs is key to both a rational immigration policy, and to responding to the Islamic threat in the most effective way.

Once you learn to make that distinction (between the specific and the general) without suffering cognitive dissonance, we can then perhaps have a productive discussion.

Monica said...

So, the complaint is that the immigrants haven't brought the crime rate down enough? Haha. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/15/crime-rises-among-second-generation-immigrants-as-they-assimilate/