Bunny trail on borders

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Josh »

PeterG wrote:
Josh wrote:“Market forces” will result in labour being paid as little as possible on the worst possible conditions.
No, that's what happens in statist economies such as North Korea's. Generally speaking market forces result in labor being paid as much as possible in the best possible conditions, although I believe that some government regulation of wages and working conditions can be positive in some circumstances.
Does market failure ever happen?
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Bootstrap
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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Someone felt that I was calling a participant a white supremacist on this thread. I want to be clear that I don't think that anyone I am interacting with in this thread is a white supremacist, and some of the people I am disagreeing with have done a whole lot of good for refugees and immigrants.

At the same time, I do feel that we are surrounded by an angry rhetoric directed toward immigrants and refugees. Media and politicians often drum up anger and fear and hostility to get attention, and I think that affects the way we feel about things. To me, it's a little like pornography - even if you don't ever see pornography, you are living in a society that is influenced significantly by pornography, and it's important to resist those influences.

So I am trying to call attention to some of that here. I apologize if that felt like I was accusing anyone of being a white supremacist.
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PeterG
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by PeterG »

Josh wrote:
PeterG wrote:
Josh wrote:“Market forces” will result in labour being paid as little as possible on the worst possible conditions.
No, that's what happens in statist economies such as North Korea's. Generally speaking market forces result in labor being paid as much as possible in the best possible conditions, although I believe that some government regulation of wages and working conditions can be positive in some circumstances.
Does market failure ever happen?
Yes. That's why I qualified what I said and put in a word for government regulation in some circumstances. But market failure is the exception, not the rule.
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ohio jones
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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Josh wrote:I hold 4 passports
Hmmm, I only hold 3. Maybe I should apply for an additional passport to keep up with the Joshes. :idea:
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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ohio jones wrote:
Josh wrote:I hold 4 passports
Hmmm, I only hold 3. Maybe I should apply for an additional passport to keep up with the Joshes. :idea:
To be fair, one of them is about as useful as that; it doesn’t entitle you to enter the issuing country. It’s a quirk of being born before 1984.
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Hats Off
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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I am sitting here shaking my head - I replied to this thread pages ago to give it a bit of life. It has taken on more life than I expected and I don't know what happened. I think all of us responding here would want to, out of our hearts, bring in all deserving refugees. In addition, we all know that this could not happen without upsetting the status quo in our countries. Furthermore, none of us is really in a position to cause much change in immigration levels. But what we can do is help those who our governments have allowed into the country which is what Boot and Haitibu have been doing.
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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Hats Off wrote:I am sitting here shaking my head - I replied to this thread pages ago to give it a bit of life. It has taken on more life than I expected and I don't know what happened. I think all of us responding here would want to, out of our hearts, bring in all deserving refugees. In addition, we all know that this could not happen without upsetting the status quo in our countries. Furthermore, none of us is really in a position to cause much change in immigration levels. But what we can do is help those who our governments have allowed into the country which is what Boot and Haitibu have been doing.
I agree. And I also think nobody here wants refugees or immigrants to feel unwelcome in this country. We don't really make the decisions about who arrives here, I hope we can agree to welcome those who come.

We're surrounded by toxic political rhetoric, and I think that can rub off sometimes. Politicians and the popular media are jockeying for attention and they are often emotional and sensationalist. I think we have to reject the way they frame these questions.
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Bootstrap »

RZehr wrote:As far as Syrian refugees, I don't know why it is imperative that they come to America from Greece or Turkey. Of course they are welcome to. But I would probably consider them to be economic immigrants at that point since they are safe where they are, and I would suppose there are closer countries that they could go to work in Europe. And I don't think that if their home country becomes peaceful that they would ever move back to that country.
In a crisis like this, countries negotiate to figure out how to share the burden, often through the United Nations. Most American regimes, whether Republican or Democrat, have taken in these refugees. For most of our history, the number of refugees we take is proportional to the number that other countries take.

In the immediate crisis, refugees go where they can to get to safety, then the international community figures out how to resettle many of them to share the burden. If you look at the numbers, the United States has not let a lot of Syrian refugees in. Turkey has 3,381,005. Lebanon has 2.2 million. Jordan has 1,265,000. Germany has about 600,000.

The United States has 16,218. That's fewer Syrian refugees than Bulgaria has accepted. Canada has 60,000. There are 23 countries ahead of us on this list. So the question isn't really "why should the United States be responsible for all the Syrian refugees", the question is "shouldn't the United States be responsible for at least some of the Syrian refugees"?
RZehr wrote:Does it matter whether someone is coming for money or for safety? I think there is in regard to breaking the law. If you allow breaking the law for economic reasons, you will see those economic reasons grow to the point where the law is meaningless.
The United States screens refugees according to these criteria, according to the State Department:
Who are the “most vulnerable” refugees that the United States admits?

There is no standard profile. Vulnerability is assessed on a case by case basis, and is generally understood as individuals who are not able to safely and voluntarily return home, are not thriving in their country of first asylum, and are not expected to be able to locally integrate in that country in the future.

Extremely vulnerable individuals may include female-headed households, victims of torture or violence, religious minorities, LGBT refugees, or people who need medical care that they cannot receive in their country of origin or the country of first asylum.
But "not able to safely and voluntarily return home" doesn't mean they couldn't safely live in Turkey or Greece or Lebanon. We have different criteria for that - "not thriving in their country of first asylum, and are not expected to locally integrate in that country in the future".

Also, many refugees are admitted because they already have family here and we try to keep families together. That means that if one or two people are admitted because they are in serious need, we let in their families as well.
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Josh »

Why does it make sense for America to take in Syrian immigrants and refugees? We aren’t anywhere close to Syria. The ultimate goal should be that refugees can eventually return home.

Perhaps a better question is how many Syrian refugees Israel has taken in, considering they are right next door. So far they’ve admitted 0.
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Bootstrap »

Josh wrote:Why does it make sense for America to take in Syrian immigrants and refugees? We aren’t anywhere close to Syria. The ultimate goal should be that refugees can eventually return home.
Caring for refugees is a value that both parties have traditionally held. This is part of our moral standing in the world, and that moral standing is a big part of what has enabled America to lead through influence and diplomacy.

Why include Syrians who are already in some other country? You can read a lot of that off of the list of conditions the State Department gives for what kinds of refugees we accept. Some are not doing well where they are living now, and cannot safely return home. Others need the kind of medical attention that is hard to find where they are currently living. Others have family living here.

And of course, the United States has been very active in the Syrian conflict, so we might feel we have some responsibility to the people who are affected by it.
Josh wrote:Perhaps a better question is how many Syrian refugees Israel has taken in, considering they are right next door. So far they’ve admitted 0.
Whataboutism always leads to a race to the bottom.

America's moral leadership in the world has come largely from the perception that we are better than that.
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