Thursday 26 September 2013

Interesting comment on immigration

Nod2glod at HPC, in the context of something completely different:

For me the key to the migration issue is entitlements. Only people who feel they are entitled to things, i.e. free money, land, public services are worried about immigration.

"Oh those immigrates are taking our - jobs; housing; services; land, etc."

If you only get what you work for, then having other people here is less of an issue.

The whole concept that the fact you were born on a piece of land within an imaginary line drawn on a piece of paper gives you a set of entitlements is ridiculous when you stop to think about it objectively. It all comes down to the defence of the entitlement to take other people's labour, which is the basis of our tax and spend society.

14 comments:

Antisthenes said...

Do not agree. Those who work and pay taxes are just as aggrieved as they are reluctant to pay benefits to indigenous people. So they are bloody sure they do not want their taxes to go to immigrants.

James Higham said...

Only people who feel they are entitled to things, i.e. free money, land, public services are worried about immigration.

A few million beg to differ.

Mark Wadsworth said...

A, JH, I lived and worked abroad for nine years, having fled Thatcher Britain as soon as I could and not come back until she fucked off again.

I was glad to be there, I was prepared to work and expected nothing from "the state" (got a decent apprenticeship though), I chipped in more than I took out and in return I didn't have to live in Thatcher Britain.

My wife in turn is from abroad, she chips in more than she takes out and were she not darker skinned, she'd vote BNP.

Go figure.

Mark In Mayenne said...

I also disagree. What is the main difference between a person who is present in a country after arriving at a port, and one who is present after being born and raised locally? Culture.

Immigrants are an easy target for grudges arising from problems whose source is elsewhere. This is wrong. But if they don't absorb the local culture, they can destroy it.

Cultural heritage is also defined by lines on a map, and therefore arbitrary in that sense. Is one entitled to keep the culture one has grown up with? Yes, in so far as any changes desired are achieved by common consent.

Perhaps indigens are entitled to resent enforced cultural change brought about by failure of immigrants to assimilate rather than cultural change brought about by common consent.

Mark Wadsworth said...

MIM: "indigens are entitled to resent enforced cultural change brought about by failure of immigrants to assimilate"

Yes of course, that goes without saying, but that is a different topic.

L fairfax said...

I don't agree at all.
I am concerned about immigration for two reasons
1) I know people who got off a plane and were given large sums of money on arriving in the UK.
2) I know that in 2004 Poland had more troops in Iraq than Spain. However Spain suffered terrorism and Poland did not and still hasn't. The reason seems to me because of the type of immigrants the two countries have had.

Then again saying that I don't dislike all immigration. I think law abiding, non parasite, non muslim immigrants are great for the UK. I married one (how I know the people in point 1)

Bayard said...

LF, your points are not problems with immigration, they are problems with the government and its policies on immigration.

L fairfax said...

@paulc156 Did you not understand"2) I know that in 2004 Poland had more troops in Iraq than Spain. However Spain suffered terrorism and Poland did not and still hasn't. The reason seems to me because of the type of immigrants the two countries have had."

Anonymous said...

@L fairfax. "Did you not understand 2)"

I understood but thought it somewhat peculiar/unjustified. If approximately one in every thousand Muslim immigrants is a terrorist or suspected terrorist,[as was estimated in Spain after the Madrid bombings] I would have thought that it's an issue that doesn't demand a blanket ban on the grounds of faith alone, but rather some selective enquiries into individual's backgrounds. That's why I asked if it made any difference if the said Muslim immigrant was law abiding or not. You've made it clear it doesn't.

L fairfax said...

@paul156
"I understood but thought it somewhat peculiar/unjustified."
So you think the deaths in Spain were a price worth paying, in order to let innocent Muslims come to Spain?
As one in three law abiding Muslims in the UK support killing people who change their religion
do you really want them here?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-3-British-Muslim-students-killing-Islam-40-want-Sharia-law.html

What do you think will happen long term as the numbers go up?

Tomsmith said...

Completely agree with the comment by Nod2glod. People hate the idea of immigrants muscling in on what the state dishes out. Nod2glod correctly identifies that this mindset stems from the system which takes the work of people and redistributes it as the government desires. Of course it is only possible to feel happy about this situation if you feel that you are a "winner" in the redistribution stakes and this is why governments go to such lengths dishing out little sums of other people's money to all sorts of demographic voter groups. It is also why relatively affluent people "love" the NHS, uk pensions system, child benefit, and the other trinkets dangled in front of them to distract from the massive hole government is making in their standard of living to also bribe all of the various less affluent groups.

Any prospect of a bunch of immigrants rocking up and getting a share of the other people's money pot that government so generously bestows makes everyone in the current ridiculous system feel that their share of the pie is bound to be squeezed, especially if said immigrants are poor.

Moving tax from labour to something else is the way forward.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS: "Moving tax from labour to something else is the way forward."

Yes, LVT is always the way forward, which blunts the argument that "They are taking our land" but that still leaves open the question about whether recent immigrants are entitled to welfare in cash or in kind paid out of LVT revenues. That's still "our" money and we have to decide democratically how it is spent.

Tomsmith said...

"that still leaves open the question about whether recent immigrants are entitled to welfare in cash or in kind paid out of LVT revenues. That's still "our" money and we have to decide democratically how it is spent."

Simplifying welfare to the extent that it consisted of a single cash sum, paid as universally as possible, would remove politicians ability to spend it on things like infrastructure vanity projects, bribes to particular voter groups, and sustaining out of date dinosaurs like the NHS.

It would then be easy for voters to weigh up the pros and cons of allowing more or less immigration.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, yes of course, but the basic question is this:

Immigrants have to pay their LVT just like anybody else, if they can't afford it, they shouldn't come here, that's easy.

But... after how many years will they become entitled to their Citizen's Dividend, or free NHS and other stuff?

I did a Fun Online Poll on it once, I think the consensus was five years or ten years. There's no perfect answer, is there?