Metal Reviews

Immigration is good for the economy and society and should be encouraged.

In other news -

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics ... -wikileaks



just imagining this has made my day.

Bizarre.

I do like what Julian Assange and Wikileaks have done though - democracy requires transparency and too much stuff is kept secret for no reason at all.

But he seems like a bizarre character.

Depends on the migrants themselves and how much they contribute to the economy and society.

I can tell you for a fact that my parents and nearly all their ex-Yugoslav friends are nothing but social welfare leeches who hate living in Australia, do not associate with Australians and generally don't work. They of course take all the government welfare they can get.

Personally I think those types should fuck off back to their own countries, my parents included. I've even told them to go back if they're not happy in Australia.

But the dole and associated benefits aren't as good in Croatia as they are in Australia.

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Another one for you Goat:


What do you think of the following case?

1. Java, the main island of Indonesia is horrifically overpopulated

2. Javanese are encouraged by the Indonesian Government to migrate to other parts of Indonesia including West Papua, Malaccas, Aceh, Borneo etc.

3. Javanese are given heavy subsidies to migrate while the locals are pushed out of their way by both the migrants and the Indonesian government. This includes cultural and economic discrimination.

4. This leads to endemic internal strife including mass violence.


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Another case is that of plundering poorer countries of essential doctors etc. Many Australian doctors are from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Every single doctor that migrates from say Pakistan to Australia is one less doctor able to service the already underserviced masses in those countries.

I saw a recent report on one Bangladeshi hospital which is basically a large tent. In one month, they lost 2 doctors to migration to Australia and Canada.

In Australia it's viewed as cheaper to simply acquire foreign trained workers than train your own. So third world countries suffer because we're cheap skates.

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So not all immigration is good nor does it all lead to positive changes.


Migration has to be carefully managed lest it become an issue.

Because that isn't a totalitarian policy in the slightest. You don't look at issues dynamically but only in simple one to one causal relations. It's not even worth discussing shit with you.

Since when is migration control a totalitarian policy?

Every country on the planet practices it these days. Free flow of labour died out in the late 19th century.




By dynamic you mean "general theories"?

Social science theories don't really work from a practical perspective . It's why the social sciences have always struggled to come up with universally applicable laws that predict behaviour.

This is contrary to the pure sciences where laws are generally predictive (e.g. physics, maths, geology etc).

Causal relations are practical. Each social issue has a multitude of factors that contribute to it. Very often these social issues are historical and more often than not, are illogical.

Well, I mean you could also criticise Germany invading Poland as When Immigration Fails, but it's hardly what I meant, is it? As Trapt points out, the sort of state planning you're advocating is more akin to North Korea than anything. Is it really up to Australia to say to immigrant doctors, no, go back to India, you're not allowed in? Pretty wacky thing to do.

Anyways, topic change-

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/op ... d-1.345929

Fascinating piece. Common Western perceptions of Israel miss stories such as this by reducing everything to black/white good/evil tropes. Hard not to see the evil here.

Actually Germany's invasion of Poland had some justification to it, given after WWI Germany was split into two (East Prussia and the rest) to allow Poland access to the sea.






You might want to read up on this sort of thing.

These migration policies are already in place around the world and have been for many decades.

Nearly every country on the planet has policies that restrict who comes in. They also usually have a set number of immigrants they allow in annually.

Those migrants have to apply to enter the country. Hence why some people try to avoid the process by coming in illegally.

Some countries limit citizenship and generally only allow short term work migration (e.g. Japan, Arab states). You can work in these countries but don't have the same rights as citizens.

The only exception is the EU where intra-EU migration is free. However anyone coming into the EU on a long term basis still needs to apply for access (be it a work visa, temporary protection visa etc). Again there are set numbers.

Again this is why so many people try to enter Europe legally.

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I assume you guys are Uni students? I ask because you seem to focus on ideals and not on the hard realities of actual societies.

Interesting article. Definitely evil there. It's the same as the usage of paramilitaries in other parts of the world.

But this caught my eye:



You know this was the rationale used by Hitler to enter Czechoslovakia and Poland (Germans being oppressed) and the Serbs used it as an excuse for the 4 wars they started in the 1990's (Serbs being oppressed).

And Vietnam was slammed internationally when they invaded Cambodia to topple the murderous Pol Pot in 1979.

The UN Charter actually prohibits this sort of intervention (unless the Security Council overrides it).

Under the Charter a sovereign state is the main building block of the international system. It has all responsibility for internal affairs.

So the UN Charter will need changing to allow this.

And then checks and balances need to be introduced to prevent invasions and other actions in the name of human rights while the real motive is national self interest.

Ugh, you're getting all patronising. Countries have laws on immigration? REALLY? I was not unaware of this. Some American remind me what percentage of their economy is based on the back of illegal immigrants - not an ideal, a stone cold fact. Immigrants, even those who enter the country illegally, are good for a country's economy, and removing them would be bad even ignoring how they'd be deported back to poverty - real poverty, not the can't-afford-an-iphone spoiltness of the west. The fairly sensible people who run most countries are more than aware of this, so they don't apply immigration laws as harshly as some people would like. Studies have shown that most so-called illegal immigrants are better at following the laws of their host countries in terms of taxes than natives, and no amount of anecdotal evidence you no doubt have prepared to tell me about rape and murder and robbery change that.

Yeah, but Hitler talked bollocks and everyone knew it.

Illegal migrants have actually already broken the law - they've broken the country's immigration laws.

And not all of them are poverty stricken one's - anyone that can afford $25,000-$50,000 to pay a people smuggler is not poor by anyone's standard.

Though to be fair a lot of people take out loans to do it.

Also illegal migrants are often exploited. In Europe there has been the reemergence of sweat shops staffed by illegal migrants who are used as indentured labourers (last report I read stated about 500,000 people are used in this form in Europe). There's been a similar resurgence of illegals used as sweatshop labour in Australia as well.

This can't be good for the country and it undermines human and worker rights.


Personally I'd give an amnesty to all existing illegal immigrants and then introduce mandatory immediate deportation for any new ones.

Actually it appealed to great many Germans (at least about 37% in 1932 and 44% in 1933 when they voted for him) who thought they were stooged at Versailles.

And Milosevic used the same excuse from 1989 onwards to roust up the Serbs.

Russians are still using it across a wide variety of territories.

Nationalism may be bollocks but it appeals to people. People love a scapegoat.

Clearly this is the answer. Making this sort of thing illegal pushes them underground, to the detriment of all.

And you can probably blame 99% of the world's problems on people believing things that are untrue!

Totally agree!

The daft British Prime Minister is calling for a no-fly zone over Libya.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12638015

The Americans aren't too keen on the idea and are approaching it very cautiously.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gates-clinton-libyan-fly-zone-difficult/story?id=13037200

So how the world changes with the Americans being cautious and a European being gung ho.

But maybe it's cause most likely it would be the Americans putting their own lives on the line with the Brits having a secondary role.

Britain no longer has a viable air force or power projection capability.

The Brits have been dismantling their military including:

1. Retirement of all Harrier VSTOL jets - already done. This means they have no fighter bombers to operate off their remaining two carriers.

2. Draw down of Tornado strike aircraft fleet. 2 squadrons are to go this year with the fleet retired before 2015.

3. Cutbacks to new Typhoon fighter fleet leaving just 160 of them. Of these 50+ are already obsolete and need serious upgrading but will most likely be retired.

4. Draw down of intelligence aircraft - Nimrod Maritime Patrol aircraft has been retired and scrapped while the near new Sentinel R.1 is also being retired.

So clearly the Brits are just talking rubbish and have no capability to offer any great assistance to any no fly zone.

Cameron must be using Libya to deflect of some home issues such as massive cuts to public spending.

Well, massive cuts to massive spending - it's only going back to 2006 levels. I'd also point out that Cameron is a conservative leader who has Blair's belief in liberal interventionism. He's been speechifying in favour of the (hopefully) emerging democracies whilst off selling arms to their neighbours - partly to divert attention from arms industry, but partly (I believe) also because he believes in what he's saying.

Of course, as with the Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq mess, there's no point in half-measures - either we should invade with a real, solid, legal plan for before and after, or we should leave well alone, but doing something small to start with will just get us sucked in disastrously. Leaning towards non-interventionist p.o.v, but open-minded.

The spending may be 2006 level, but the effect is that the Royal Navy is being shrunk to its smallest level in a few hundred years, and the RAF will be about the size it was in 1921.

I've got no qualms with this. Disarmament is a good thing, but promoting military action that will involve other's spilling blood for you is not exactly honourable.

Very British though - they did let the colonials die in droves at Gallipoli after all!





It's bizarre cause even when he visited Egypt, he brought the arms merchants along.

Egypt needs reform, not more weapons. Egyptian military is bloated enough as it is. Besides Brits won't get any orders because Egyptian arms contracts are mainly US subsidised and that means US weapon systems.

When Egypt buys it's own weapons with it's own money, it's usually cheap Chinese or Russian.



I don't agree with interventions based on humanitarian ideals. While I understand killing people for oil, land, etc I don't believe in killing people to save them.

Humanitarian interventions have never worked.

And I agree if you're going to war, throw everything in including the kitchen sink and have a solid and concrete reconstruction plan.


Besides the Libyan rebels have posted up big signs that they don't want foreign intervention.

Only part I can really disagree on is snide comment re Gallipoli - actually, more British dead at Gallipoli than ANZAC, and few today think of the many French dead. Not that it wasn't a bloody stupid disaster that almost knocked Churchill out of history, of course.

Of course, but we Aussies like to make it out that we were picked on and that it was an all Australian operation with some Kiwis helping us out.

However most Australians don't know where Gallipli is. A lot of them think it's a part of Australia.


You should see the propaganda here - apparently even Normandy was an Australian led victory despite the only Aussies being there being a few fighter and bomber pilots and no ground troops.

And Australian SAS single handedly defeated Saddam's forces in 2003.

Oh and any actor or other famous person who spends even 1 day in Australia then gets referred to as an Australian until they fuck up E.g. Russell Crowe or Mel Gibson.




Churchill made the same blunder in WWII.

In 1941 he fed some badly equipped and poorly supported Allied (mainly ANZAC) formations to the German juggernaut in Greece despite being advised that Greece was a lost cause and that those troops were better to be used for strengthening Africa and Crete.

He was then opposed to Normandie landings and wanted to land in the Balkans instead to act as a buffer against the then-allied Russians. While maybe sensible from a geo-political perspective, not exactly sound strategic military thinking.

Basically he was obsessed with the Balkans and viewed them as the cornerstone of European security.

Oof, bad result for us Libs tonight. 6th in a by-election, beaten by nazis. 36% turnout, but still.