EU immigration row / time to get out

[jonny2mad]

"no there cannot be such a thing as cultural 'progress"




Wow think about what yours saying

And if all identitys and cultures are the same and theres no such thing as cultural progress why is it your against people like the kkk or the BNP I mean surely they have as valid a culture as anyone else, you should be cheering them on as part of a diverse world.

[AndySir]

Jesus. What we have seen is both a rise in unemployment and a serious deterioration in the quality of employment. What we now see is zero-hours contracts, people being shafted by their employers in myriad ways because they are terrified of losing their jobs, people being forced into temporary and part-time work because they can't get permanent, full-time positions, etc, etc, etc... This is a direct result of immigrants coming here looking for work and the offshoring of jobs to places like India where there is abundant cheap labour.

I have facts to back up my arguments, rather than pulling assertions about sustainable population numbers and employment out of the air. Here's UK net migration since 1991.




Here is unemployment



Immigration goes up since free movement, unemployment trends down even with the spike of the 2008 crash. Here's zero hours contracts



Not much of a correlation there either. From my own experience I think the rise of these contracts are pretty closely related to the Agency Workers Regulations - I noticed a big change in the way hiring worked in Glasgow after each round of these came into effect.

I can't challenge you on the assertion that the UK population is unsustainable because there really isn't much in the way of facts to challenge you on.

[biffvernon]

(Boston for example), reaching social breaking point

If you mean the Boston in Lincolnshire, (I can't speak for the American one) it's doing quite nicely thankyou. It's long been a bit of an economically deprived backwater, long before any east Europeans arrived to work on the farms, but still is a very pleasant place to live. I used to teach in a secondary school there so had quite a bit of experience of the children at the bottom of the economic heap. The quality of fruit and veg stalls in the market has improved since the arrival of our fellow Europeans. Perhaps, to make a sweeping cultural generalisation, they have a better appreciation of good food than the was traditional in England.

[Little John]

(Boston for example), reaching social breaking point

If you mean the Boston in Lincolnshire, (I can't speak for the American one) it's doing quite nicely thankyou. It's long been a bit of an economically deprived backwater, long before any east Europeans arrived to work on the farms, but still is a very pleasant place to live. I used to teach in a secondary school there so had quite a bit of experience of the children at the bottom of the economic heap. The quality of fruit and veg stalls in the market has improved since the arrival of our fellow Europeans. Perhaps, to make a sweeping cultural generalisation, they have a better appreciation of good food than the was traditional in England.

That really is just about the most outrageous, condescending dismissal of the real concerns of the majority of the long standing residents of Boston for which you should be ashamed.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes cultures are different, no there cannot be such a thing as cultural 'progress'. Culture is identity, progress requires improvement - a better or worse state. There can be no such thing as a better or worse identity.

You appear to be using culture to mean level of complexity, by your comparison to hunter-gatherer societies. In which case your assertion that Zimbabwe is culturally backwards (less complex) makes no sense as it has the same structural complexity as any other nation state. Central government, code of laws, democracy etc.

Pick whatever one you choose, you're left with a choice of outright prejudice or prejudice by ignorance.

You're not worried about an influx of !Kung now, are you?

I prefer my identity to say for example a ancient aztec to me thats a worse identity, most humans in human history have been tribal they prefer their own family to complete strangers .

We have a long history of war between groups of humans defending the interests of Their tribe thats because they prefer their tribe to them its better than the other .

That is xenophobia. Proud xenophobia.

[biffvernon]

That really is just about the most outrageous, condescending dismissal of the real concerns of the majority of the long standing residents of Boston for which you should be ashamed.

Some of my friends are long standing residents of Boston and take a different view. But then my friends are not supporters of the NF/BNP/UKIP or whatever the far right racist minority call themselves these days. Some of my friends (and my next door neighbour) were born in Poland and other east European nations. I am proud that they have made a home in England.

[UndercoverElephant]

"no there cannot be such a thing as cultural 'progress"




Wow think about what yours saying

And if all identitys and cultures are the same and theres no such thing as cultural progress why is it your against people like the kkk or the BNP I mean surely they have as valid a culture as anyone else, you should be cheering them on as part of a diverse world.

He doesn't bother to think about what he's saying.

AndySir:

Your repeated accusations of "racism" at the earliest opportunity are designed to shut down legitimate debate about topics you can't cope with debating legitimately, for whatever reason. It means that instead of having a rational discussion where the real issues are explored, Steve and myself are forced to defend ourselves from slanderous accusations and this becomes the debate. And you have pretty much succeeded in this thread, and I have no intention of letting you get away with it. This topic of "cultural progress", when your ridiculous posts are not making Jonny look like an intellectual giant (see above), is actually very relevant to the subjects we are interested in at Powerswitch.

JM Greer called progress "a myth", but I think he was referring to people's belief that progress could go on forever and that we were destined to end up with a "star trek" civilisation. I don't think he meant there had never been any progress.

And as previously mentioned, you could look at modern civilisation and conclude that because it is trashing the planet, hunter-gather cultures are "better" and that therefore there has been "no progress". This is also an oversimplification.

There are a lot of grey areas, but that doesn't mean there isn't clear progress either. To use an analogy, washing your mother's feet clearly isn't incest, some other things clearly are incest, and there is a large grey area inbetween. However, the existence of the grey areas does not justify any claim that there's no such thing as incest, because there are undeniable things which are incest and aren't incest - black and white.

And example of this grey area would be in systems of governance. Which is "better" - western democracy, or Chinese-style communism? There is no clear answer, since both systems have important advantages and disadvantages. Western democracy is better at guaranteeing people's freedoms and holds politicians to account, sort of. But the Chinese system is better at taking difficult decisions and planning for the long term. What is more important for the current discussion is that both systems represent clear progress over certain older systems of governance, such as the absolute monarchy that existed in the British Isles before the Civil War, and still exists in Saudi Arabia today. They are also both better than, say, the Islamic-based system imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, which involves, among other things, women not having the right to an education. Your typically pathetic and nasty response to this is to accuse me of "islamophobia" for denouncing this system as backwards.

In other areas, "progress" is more easily defined. In science there has been a clear progression of theories over four centuries. There has also been cultural progress whereby societies come to accept that scientific explanations must take priorities over supernatural or political explanations. Not all societies have made this progress - some, not just generally backwards places like Zimbabwe but supposedly-advanced places like the United States, are struggling with it. But in western Europe, with the notable exception of some pockets of climate change denial, our society takes science seriously. This only happened after centuries of fighting with both religious and political powers that opposed it.

So "progress" means different things in different areas.

In science it means something like "theories that make better predictions about future observations."

In systems of governance it has something to do with the ability to come up with effective policies, the ability to implement those policies and the benefits this has for the lives of the people. Somewhere along the line this also involves the control of corruption and nepotism, and improving the quality if the judicial system. It may also have something to do with economic progress, whatever that means.

In philosophy it is about understanding why certain ways of understanding humans and reality are flawed, and how they can be replaced with ones which are less flawed.

There are also areas where we have failed. Future progress may have to be measured against the ability of a system to be sustainable or compatible with the ecology of the planet, for example.

But to say "there is no such thing as progress" is plain idiotic. You're only saying it in an attempt to prop up your accusation that I'm a racist, because you want to be able to link belief that some places are not culturally as advanced as others is somehow "racist".

The truth is that some places really are culturally backwards. I don't care about your accusations of "islamophobia". I am not ashamed to say that the Sharia system is "backwards", because it views all sorts of other cultural progress as "bad" or "wrong" and wants to return the whole of human civilisation to the state it was in 14 centuries ago.

And as for UKIP, who this discussion was about? Well, they've now banned the phrase "bongo bongo land", which is probably for the best if they don't want to look like a bunch of offensive idiots, but the truth, which you won't be able to accept, is that they might just as well point to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe instead. Make no mistake - if Mugabe could simply have declared himself "king" and gone back to absolute monarchy, then he would have done so. In almost every sphere of culture I've been describing in this post, Zimbabwe is going backwards. And if you try to deny this, then all you're going to do is make Jonny2Mad look like he's worth listening to, because actually he's making more sense than you are.

[AndySir]

AndySir:

Your repeated accusations of "racism" at the earliest opportunity are designed to shut down legitimate debate about topics you can't cope with debating legitimately, for whatever reason. It means that instead of having a rational discussion where the real issues are explored, Steve and myself are forced to defend ourselves from slanderous accusations and this becomes the debate.

Naturally your distaste for the derailment of the 'serious issues' is why you ignored my post debunking your claims on immigration and employment to focus on the more important issue of 'cultural progress'. I had given up on it, on the grounds that when your opponent is posting swivel-eyed rants about witchcraft in Zimbabwe he has made your case for you.

I am not certain how you have managed to twist the fairly obvious statement that a cultural identity cannot be considered better or worse than another one to 'there is no such thing a technological process', or 'all systems of government are equal'. Here is the wiki on cultural identity, please note the complete absence of references to level of technology and systems of governance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_identity

However you may feel free to expand your own definition to include technological process, economic progress and improvements in administration and law. Actually we better strike economic progress from this list otherwise the argument in which you claimed certain cultures were backwards would read "Some countries are poorer because they are less economically developed". We better also strike scientific progress off as well, since that's not constrained by borders. An academic in Harare has access to the same research as one in Michigan or Shanghai.

That leaves you with "some countries are poorer because of their system of governance." I've got no problem with that statement... but I don't think it is actually the statement you intended.

[UndercoverElephant]

AndySir:

Your repeated accusations of "racism" at the earliest opportunity are designed to shut down legitimate debate about topics you can't cope with debating legitimately, for whatever reason. It means that instead of having a rational discussion where the real issues are explored, Steve and myself are forced to defend ourselves from slanderous accusations and this becomes the debate.

Naturally your distaste for the derailment of the 'serious issues' is why you ignored my post debunking your claims on immigration and employment to focus on the more important issue of 'cultural progress'. I had given up on it, on the grounds that when your opponent is posting swivel-eyed rants about witchcraft in Zimbabwe he has made your case for you.

In other words "I'm going to completely ignore everything you just posted, insult you again, and continue posting whatever crap it suits me to believe."

I am not certain how you have managed to twist the fairly obvious statement that a cultural identity cannot be considered better or worse than another one to 'there is no such thing a technological process', or 'all systems of government are equal'.

No, Andy, you're not going to get away with that either.

I initially claimed that some places are "culturally backwards". You accused me of racism, quoting a UN statement which talked about "discrimination on cultural grounds." So I responded by explaining precisely what I meant by "cultural progression" and why it is an undeniable fact that some places are more advanced than others - meaning they are further along the progression than others. YOU started talking about "cultural identity" and claimed none could be considered better or worse, so I responded to that too by explaining exactly why this "progression" implies that some elements of culture are indeed better or worse.

You apparently believe that a system of Sharia law, or a system of absolute monarchy, is no better than the legal and political system we have in the UK. And quite rightly, you are being ridiculed by Jonny2Mad for saying these things. You sound like some liberal academic who has completely lost touch with reality. Of course our political and legal system is "better" than Sharia law or absolute monarchy.

However you may feel free to expand your own definition to include technological process, economic progress and improvements in administration and law. Actually we better strike economic progress from this list otherwise the argument in which you claimed certain cultures were backwards would read "Some countries are poorer because they are less economically developed". We better also strike scientific progress off as well, since that's not constrained by borders.

Right, so you admit there is such a thing as cultural progress provided it isn't constrained by borders? ??

That leaves you with "some countries are poorer because of their system of governance." I've got no problem with that statement... but I don't think it is actually the statement you intended.

Stop putting words into my mouth.

I made a long, detailed post explaining precisely what I meant. I don't need you to warp it into something completely different and ignore what I actually posted.

[3rdRock]

What's next? My brother's bigger than your brother?

The 'Undercover Steve Show' - what a pair of *****

Chill out guys!

[AndySir]

Stop putting words into my mouth.

I made a long, detailed post explaining precisely what I meant. I don't need you to warp it into something completely different and ignore what I actually posted.

You made a confused rant which attempted to conflate culture, technology and system of government - a definition of 'culture' which seems to be unique to you. I have been trying to pick what fragments of meaning or sense I could from it, so please forgive me if I have not been able to correctly reconstruct your intent.

I am at a loss to understand your claims about my views on Sharia, a topic which I don't believe has yet emerged on this thread. However it may provide a way through by example:

Condemnation of a law or system of government - not racist.

Condemnation of Islam because that law of system of government occurs within a predominantly Islamic country - racist.

Hope that clears things up.

[AndySir]

[quote="UndercoverElephant]
Right, so you admit there is such a thing as cultural progress provided it isn't constrained by borders? ??
[/quote]

Culture != Technology.

There's no way this flies. I'll try to allow for flexibility on what is and isn't culture, since it's such a vague term but there are limits. Even if we allow it there no way we can claim Zimbabwe is technologically less advanced - a quick look at the alumni of the University of Zimbabwe's contributions to biology, physics and economics should attest to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Berridge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDowell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University ... er_faculty

[biffvernon]

Stumbled across this despicably vile website http://www.britainfirst.org/about-us/

We will restore Christianity as the bedrock and foundation of our national life as it has been for the last one thousand years.

I don't suppose Jesus Christ would have joined them.

[extractorfan]

Stumbled across this despicably vile website http://www.britainfirst.org/about-us/

We will restore Christianity as the bedrock and foundation of our national life as it has been for the last one thousand years.

I don't suppose Jesus Christ would have joined them.

Actually it's quite funny:

The rapid growth of militant Islam is leading to the suppression of women, freedom of speech and racist attacks.

Britain First has a proven track record of opposing Islamic militants and hate preachers and this fightback will continue.

Freedom of speech for all......oh, except hate preachers.

[jonny2mad]

Andy sir you never seem to answer my questions

Anyway culture is not the same as technology, if the Zulu today have a culture where they get a bull and swarm over it and pull its eyes out rip its balls off and generally beat it to death thats not technology (thats called the first fruits ceremony and people have tried to have it stopped on animal welfare grounds but the south african courts have said its part of zulu culture )

The present president of the ANC is Zulu you know the one who sings about machine gunning whites with his entire ANC cabinet, and hes also done things like made witchdoctors standing higher as traditional healers .

South africa and other parts of africa has a thing called muti murder, you can see shows about it on youtube and these witchdoctors chop parts of people off them while their still alive, and then use them as part of traditional medicine .

All farm murders of whites seem to be muti murders you get tortured for days raped and have bits chopped off, thats not technology Andy sir as you would find out if you were the victim