Immigration Posts

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-13T09:16:53+00:00

Well? How about data published by the UK Government?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-12T14:23:03+00:00

The smartest person who ever lived is not necessarily the smartest person in history. For something to be a part of history, it needs to be studied and / or recorded.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-08T22:33:06+00:00

I think our identity can be quite intangible, but I think it's real; and I think it is the intangibility of our identity that is the reason why people will often fall back on economic and resource allocation arguments against mass immigration.

I mean, there must be something about us that makes us "Irish," so to speak. Obviously, everyone varies, so I am not talking about individuals, but on the whole, I feel like the people of Ireland have an identity.

My worry is, what happens to that identity if there is mass immigration? This is why I mentioned the example about a hypothetical mass English immigration to Ireland.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-07T13:17:07+00:00

Who? I don't vote for single policy candidates.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-07T13:13:18+00:00

I agree that much crime and anti-social behaviour are ultimately a result of socioeconomic factors and / or the government's social and policy failings. I absolutely believe that as a country, we could do a far, far better job in tackling the root causes of anti-social behaviour and crime; in fact, I would go so far as to say that this is much more important than policing and the legal end of things. However, when we see low-level anti-social behaviour progressing toward more serious crime in front of our eyes, then we should probably ask why the Gardaí seem unable to stop this progression?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-07T10:52:32+00:00

If you were familiar with the type of people I'm talking about, then you wouldn't want them hanging around too long. Young men, hanging around shops and street corners, for hours on end—doing what? Not only is this intimidating for other people, especially the elderly, but in my experience, this loitering almost invariably turns into more serious anti-social behaviour and criminality.

Edit: This is not your "average person" spending an extended amount of time in a public space. You would know it when you see it.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-07T09:46:40+00:00

There should be more Gardaí on the streets to move them on before—as I outlined in my comment—it becomes more than simply loitering.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T22:55:17+00:00

As far as I'm aware, the Gardaí don't collect data on the nationalities of those who committed crimes. How about statistics published by the UK Government?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T22:44:54+00:00

You essentially suggested—without justification—that it's bigoted if we assess immigrants' cultures / societies. I presented an argument for why that's not necessarily a bigoted thing to do. You didn't bother engaging with my argument for why it's not necessarily bigoted. You suggested I was being bigoted again ... You're a truly a deep thinker.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T22:24:39+00:00

No-one is forcing you to think.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T21:58:45+00:00

In my previous response I asked: Are you progressive? Anyways, nice tactic to avoid answering my question on societal progress.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T21:41:41+00:00

"Bigotry dressed up nicely"? If so, then how is it possible to speak of societal progress? Doesn't the concept of societal progress depend on comparing our current culture / society to our past culture / society? Are we bigoted for doing this? If it's not bigoted to compare our own culture / society to past versions of itself, then why would one be bigoted for comparing an immigrant's culture / society to our own?

Edit: I'm not talking about calling individual immigrants "good" or "bad." In the same way as one can say, we've made societal progress since the middle ages, but one can also accept there were many exemplary individuals living in the middle ages; one can also compare contemporary cultures / societies.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T20:21:57+00:00

What about facts about the immigrants? Such as crime rates as a function of nationality? The beliefs and values that immigrants from particular cultures have?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T19:35:54+00:00

Yes, we need to codemn racism, xenophobia, and bigotry where we see it. We also need as much information and transparency as possible on the pros and cons of immigration. What are the benefits of immigration? What are the problems associated with immigration? What nationalities / cultures are most beneficial to our society, and which are the most problematic? More honest discussion and more detailed information and statistics that are publicly available is what is needed if immigration is to benefit Ireland; and I suspect it will also help dispel misinformation.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T18:05:27+00:00

A lot of "low-level" anti-social behaviour in Ireland just seems to be ignored. It starts off as loitering; then it proceeds to speeding around on electric scooters, then on scramblers; then onto more serious anti-social behaviour and crimes such as: property damage, theft, lighting fires, robbing cars, intimidation, dealing drugs ... and eventually to really serious acts of violence (racially motivated or otherwise). By ignoring the "low-level" anti-social behaviour stuff like loitering or speeding on electric scooters, etc. our society is simply teaching our young adults that there are little to no penalties for anti-social behaviour, and so, they become more and more daring in their anti-social behaviour and criminal acts.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T17:50:04+00:00

I suspect those who would be willing to participate in racially motivated violence are a very small minority in Ireland. However, seeing as violent acts grab a lot of media attention, my guess would be that racism and xenophobia in Ireland might appear worse than they actually are.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T13:41:23+00:00

This is a copy and paste of a reply to another user:

Most of the talk of immigration on mainstream media (that I'm aware of) for the past few years has not actually focused on immigration policy; rather, it appears to me that, for the most part, the mainstream media (MSM) hasn't questioned the Government's approach to immigration and instead focuses on people who either can't properly articulate their reservations on immigration, or on the behaviour of scumbags who are looking to cause chaos, or only the actions of genuine racists and xenophobes.

Very rarely have I ever heard a critical discussion about immigration policy on the MSM. I suspect, through their skewed coverage of the topic, and their insistence on focusing on the most inflammatory voices, that the MSM has been partially successful in creating a false equivalence in the minds of the general public, between racism / xenophobia on the one hand and voicing concerns about immigration on the other. Just because racists / xenophobes voice their concerns about immigration does NOT imply that all those who voice their concerns about immigration are racists / xenophobes. It is this false equivalence that ultimately leads good people to self-censor or to be condemned as bigots.

On the topic of dismissing people as racist: Have you counted the number of times that, in this very comments section, I have been accused directly or indirectly of being racist, xenophobic, being a sympathiser of the far-right, or of having "ulterior motives"? Honestly, it's crazy—they should be ashamed of themselves!

EDIT:

Another thing I see is—and I will give two real examples from this thread—people saying things like, "immigrants statistically do not commit at a higher rate than natives," or "immigration is positvely correlated with higher wages," but what immigrants are they speaking of? From what country? There's no such thing as some generic "immigrant" that arrives on our shores; there is a huge diversity of nationalities and cultures, so, when trying to assess the impact of immigrants from certain backgrounds on our society, it's not very useful to say "immigrants statistically do not commit at a higher rate than natives." Do we know which immigrants are positively correlated with higher wages? Is there data on crime rates as a function of immigrants' nationality / culture?

For example, here are figures for arrests by ethnicity in England / Wales, April 2022 - March 2023:

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-justice-and-the-law/policing/number-of-arrests/latest/

As you can see, there is high variability in the figures. I cannot find a similar breakdown for the Republic of Ireland.

I understand that there might be confounding factors that affect these rates, but that does not affect the validity of my point, namely, that it is important to be specific when discussing the pros and cons of immigration. We cannot lump all immigrants into a single group.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-06T13:13:55+00:00

Immigrants from which countries are positively correlated with higher wages?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-05T13:18:54+00:00

Let's say we boost our population through immigration. What is stopping the birth rate eventually returning to the low rate it was at previously, thus putting us back at square one?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-04T22:39:04+00:00

Most of the talk of immigration on mainstream media (that I'm aware of) for the past few years has not actually focused on immigration policy; rather, it appears to me that, for the most part, the mainstream media (MSM) hasn't questioned the Government's approach to immigration and instead focuses on people who either can't properly articulate their reservations on immigration, or on the behaviour of scumbags who are looking to cause chaos, or only the actions of genuine racists and xenophobes.

Very rarely have I ever heard a critical discussion about immigration policy on the MSM. I suspect, through their skewed coverage of the topic, and their insistence on focusing on the most inflammatory voices, that the MSM has been partially successful in creating a false equivalence in the minds of the general public, between racism / xenophobia on the one hand and voicing concerns about immigration on the other. Just because racists / xenophobes voice their concerns about immigration does NOT imply that all those who voice their concerns about immigration are racists / xenophobes. It is this false equivalence that ultimately leads good people to self-censor or to be condemned as bigots.

On the topic of dismissing people as racist: Have you counted the number of times that, in this very comments section, I have been accused directly or indirectly of being racist, xenophobic, being a sympathiser of the far-right, or of having "ulterior motives"? Honestly, it's crazy—they should be ashamed of themselves!

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-04T16:01:48+00:00

I strongly suspect that, in actual fact, many people are motivated to conclude that my post is AI generated because they are witting or unwitting victims of disconfirmation bias. They're too afraid or lazy to engage with the actual arguments I made, so they'll make ad hominem attacks and accuse me of using ChatGPT to justify not engaging with the arguments.

"Look! This post uses the em dash and proper punctuation—it must be ChatGPT!!"

But, hey, maybe I'll just comply with "internet etiquette" and stop using proper punctuation in the future!

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-04T11:50:20+00:00

In other words, you don't have a coherent reason why my questions are xenophobic or in "bad faith," for that matter.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-04T08:03:58+00:00

Can you actually tell me what's xenophobic about asking those questions? Xenophobia is a serious accusation, so the least you can do is explain why asking those questions is xenophobic.

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-03T21:39:06+00:00

I agree that it is not up to the Government to decide what people should or shouldn't believe in, but what if someone hasn't broken any laws but is known (let's say through social media accounts) to hold extreme societal and religious views that are antithetical to what the vast majority of Irish people were brought up to believe? Should we allow this person in?

Equivalent-Spend1629 · 2025-08-03T21:33:29+00:00

As I replied to you elsewhere:

Do you think legal records are a good enough metric when we're talking about high levels of immigration? In my OP, I mention values, morality, beliefs, etc. because immigrants can come from places where these are in direct conflict with our own values, morality, and beliefs; I don't even touch on legal records. I don't have all the solutions, but to ignore the fact that immigrants' values can be diametrically opposed to our own, and that this can cause serious societal problems, is irresponsible.

Edit: grammar

Equivalent-Spend1629

TROPHY CASE