Unlike the ones who come to America who do assimilate.

DU can scream at me all you want, I will not back down. If these refugees give any trouble, send them back.

The far left is always making excuses for the behavior of traditional muslims. This has to stop. So yes, Harris and Dawkins have a point.

I will NEVER accept any religious zealot of ANY background telling people what do wear.

Assimilate to generally held cultural norms in the country or LEAVE.

"When in Rome do as the Romans do" has been sound advice for centuries.

Assimilate to the laws and basic mores of the society or stay where you are.

should women fear new residents? fuck no.

watch kino eye to see how the real far left approached the burka forcing education prohibbiting nuttiness in the 'stans' that enforced sharia in the 20's.

the real left makes no excuses for radical islam or christianity or judaism or sumarianism ir whatever nuttiness is in play.

thanks.

This is bullshit! The Germans were kind enough to take them in and this is how they are repaid? Eff that!

to assimilate." Europe sure gets the short end of those stereotypes.

Happens every day. That religious sensibility isn't a factor is really indisputable. What about that?

pious idiocy in the US doesn't meant the rest of the world has to march in step with the US.

which was a response and a valid challenge to an earlier post.

Furthermore, the question itself in no way expressed or implied a belief on my part of either of the claims you make; 1) that the EU is part of America, or 2) that I "love pious idiocy in the US."

The earlier post proposed that religious based rules and accommodations in schools of the kind mentioned in the Daily Mail article were completely unacceptable. My question highlights the fact that a similar practice regularly takes place in American schools. Furthermore, that the practice is so common and ubiquitous that the religious aspect is rarely noticed.

American schools from coast to coast are quietly filled with Christian accommodations. So before anyone loses his shit over a tabloid story about a principle in a German town who asked a student to dress more modestly, I suggest they should take a look closer to home.

Just how old are you, 20? No offense intended, it's just so typical.

and from my perspective that's the wrong way to understand it. The point was not whether one religion is better or worse than another. The point was whether the subtle but pervasive ways our schools accommodate (for lack of a better word) Christian religious sensibility is comparable to the example from the Daily Mail article.

Furthermore, the question was a specific challenge to a specific proposition made by another poster and should be understood in that context.

codes than many places in America. I don't know what is the case in Germany.

nor anywhere else in Europe as far as I know, except in the UK (the ultra-conservative outlier where they still haven't done away with kings, lords and knighthoods, duh):

In modern Europe, Britain stands out as the only country with a nationwide school uniform policy.

School uniforms are a great idea. I raised my children in the US and it was awful trying to buy clothes that they wouldn't be teased or bullied about.

We went to school dressed to study/learn, not make a fashion statement, turn the boys on.

I loved our school colours.

America separated from Great Britain a few years ago so you don't have to concern yourself about Lords and Knights or Doctor Who. Or the NHS.

did New 'Labour' leave intact?

I happen to have been raised in Germany and was never teased about my clothes, nor anybody else as far as I remember - I guess we had other problems in the sixties than to worry about who could or couldn't afford designer clothes. Distribute wealth more equally and such problems will disappear.

For the people who don't want to work for a living - free housing, free eye glasses, free bus passes, free legal services etc.

Maybe Germany is better than the US if you didn't have to wear expensive clothes to avoid teasing/bullying. My children are adults now. One middle-aged.

There is a big difference. Assimilation means giving up your culture and adopting the host-culture (Rudmin, 2009). Integration is where relationships are sought between groups while maintaining ones culture and identity (Berry, 2009, 2011).

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(Berry, 2011)

When I think of assimilation I think of Star Trek (seriously). I have actually had an email exchange with Dr. Rudmin and he is very kind, but I disagree with his findings. In my opinion you can't just throw aside what you have learned all your life and become culturally something you aren't. I have lived overseas for almost 11 years and have a bit of experience with this. I also recently finished my doctoral degree in which my dissertation dealt with how foreigners adapt in South Korea.

As to what you are saying about the article, I agree that having to warn children to dress modestly is a big much. Whether instances of rape will occur is yet to be seen. Certainly if it does, there is going to be a rather large backlash.

They need to integrate with their new homeland, but they DO need to assimilate when it comes to cultural concepts of freedom and equality. Some middle eastern cultural baggage, including viewing women as subservient and the notion that public displays of "objectionable" behavior be confronted or attacked, need to be eliminated. Discrimination and abuse wrapped in a cloak of "culture" is unacceptable and should always be confronted.

Not all cultural values should be protected. Those that are wholly incompatible with the liberal European worldview need to be educated out of existence.

in the host-country. In my opinion, it is an either or not both.

I agree that people would have to change some of their cultural values to fit in. Treating women like a piece of meat is not acceptable in western countries. Obviously rape would be illegal and the laws of the host-country would trump the person's cultural values.

My point is assimilation, which is telling people to change all their values to adapt to the host-country's culture, is not the way to go.

In the US it is not the immigrants but the people already here. We are used to assimilating new groups, that's what we are.

Europeans have a harder time accepting the new people, since they are way more attached to their original culture. Germany especially.

In the US the religious right is forcing society towards the same norms and values as these traditional Muslims want. Women as property, check; unaccompanied women as fair game, check; girls have to dress modestly, check; women need to be punished if they choose to have sex, check.... The religious right in the US is a misogynistic, homophobic authoritarian group of people, and so are these groups of Muslim men. It makes sense that the Muslim men do assimilate, it's not as if they have to change very much.

In Europe, however, we are actually making strides when it comes to not only changing the rights of women and how society views them. We have come a step further than the US, and are actually challenging how culture views men and masculine roles. We are actively trying to change toxic masculinity, for example by mandating paternal leave so that men have a chance to participate in raising children beyond "babysitting" them. That is a bigger change for Muslim men to swallow, and of course they are resisting assimilation.

In other words, what you are saying isn't something to be proud of. It is rather an admittance of defeat from America's side.

They are great at knowing the rules and taking orders but not that. Please.

as climate change, drought, and hunger pushes even more refugees north. When any culture, ours included, reaches a certain critical mass in a foreign land, it begins to push that native culture toward being more like its own. When enough Americans retire and move into a village in Mexico, they start pushing American culture on the natives, and the village becomes Americanized. And when enough Muslims move into Germany they will start pushing Muslim culture on the Germans. And when that happens, women will be second-class citizens to be owned and exploited.

This is NOT a racist anti-Muslim sentiment, because it is ALSO not a racist anti-American sentiment, because not only Muslims, and not only Americans, but every culture that reaches that certain saturation point of immigrant population begins to force its own culture on the natives.

schools are proactive and indoctrinate the young ones.

We are a migratory species.

Identify the criminals and send them back from which they came. Or try them under German law.

To ask that German, non-Muslim women change their attire is enabling rapists. Not acceptable.

Assign police to that area, arrest anyone caught breaking the law and prosecute accordingly. If there has to be a class or something to tell the immigrant men that in Germany things are done differently and if you break the law, you go to jail, then they should do it.

so there won't be any "misunderstandings" that lead to sexual assault.

And if they don't follow the law, they should be treated like any German would -- no cultural excuses allowed.

I would think there are harsh penalties for sexual assault there.

Their religious law requires that there be male witnesses to a sexual assault, in order to convict the rapist.

And they also blame the victims of assault, sometimes even sending them to prison.

Better educate them ASAP and make sure they understand the seriousness of it. I guess this is a challenge with a large number of immigrants coming at one time. I would say if they don't have the capacity to handle that, they really ought to slow down their intake.

via parachute - air drop over the country they claimed of origin?

the Germans themselves - have the refugee men really shown any tendency to go after German girls at all? Perhaps this is a made up concern.

in clashes between Muslim men and non-Muslim women.

Women who are not covered up are targeted.

I think they should be educating the men about German law.

I even got compared to the Nazis right here on DU because of it (even though I live right here in Germany and speak the language fluently, and they don't)--all because I predicted the obvious.

The Germans will not put up with being told to change their culture to accommodate these people for long. Nobody who invites guests over expects them to move into the master bedroom. There will be a reaction, and the radical right will be grinning from ear to ear.

That's what people here seem to not understand because they have never seen this kind of mass immigration before and clashing of cultures that are this wide apart. This is not anything like the types of immigration that we have seen in America.

If they cannot follow the laws of Germany and cannot respect the customs and beliefs of the western world...then they can go back to Syria. That's my opinion. Like you said, when someone is having a hard time and you invite them in your home...what do you do when they try to take it over, change your religion, and tell your daughters how to dress? You kick their ass out. That's got nothing to do with racism.

some people have been evicted from their rental flats to make room for refugees and at least in one town suspected arson to a school gym to keep refugees out happened in Germany.
IIRC I read it on the RT news website.

The rental flats that were mentioned were short-term shelter for poorer Germans. Who do you imagine will be easy pickings for the radical right here?

In order to make it easy for the first few, the Germans have made it potentially awful for the rest. The Greeks haven't helped, in many cases because they can't. Overwhelmed by lack of space, equipment and personnel, they have not fingerprinted all arrivals as is normal procedure. They just send them on as fast as they can to make room for the next boat. The Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians and Hungarians send them on to Austria ASAP, and we are swamped here in Germany. In my town, the music school has been evicted from its building, as have a few small sport complexes. The people here have taken it in stride, though with some grumbling. We have a large mosque here. So far, it does not send loud calls to prayer 5 times a day through the town--a wise compromise on the Muslims' part, and there have been no incidents in the years since it was built. The local Turkish population here is well integrated, and I am on friendly terms with the ones I know. I speak a little Turkish, and that always goes a long way.

One thing that WILL send things over the top is telling German young people that they have to adapt their behavior and dress to accommodate Muslim men from another continent. That will go over about as well as telling Saudi Arabia or Iran that they must deal with the opening of strip clubs with billboard advertising in Mecca or Qom. The Germans will not react favorably to it, and anyone who can't predict that is either very naïve, or is deliberately looking the other way, hoping the storm will pass them by (it won't). The few educated and linguistically capable among the arrivals get welcomed with open arms.

But take somewhere between dozens and thousands of young men, speaking only Arabic, knowing only traditional Muslim mores, unable to work or communicate, having only minimal spending money--put these guys in the midst of an affluent (to them) society of people who let their women dress any way they want to, and who have seemingly unlimited pocket money, and whose stores seem stocked with unending luxuries (again--from their point of view). What does anyone THINK will happen? These guys are not Buddhist monks who eschew comfort and learn to purge jealousy from their psyche. They will get frustrated, bored, and envious. They will act on their emotions. Who wouldn't? The radical right is frothing at the mouth here, waiting for just that to happen to swell their ranks.

situation to stoke fear and paranoia and the article is from an English rightwing rag is simply playing to that more than anything else.

Oh, and Germany is building new apartment complexes right now:

Germany is building new apartment blocks and refitting old ones to accommodate an unprecedented wave of refugees -- an expected 800,000 this year, four times last year's figure and many more than in any other European nation. Volunteers are turning out in large numbers to help. As a response to human suffering, this should be a source of national pride.

The papers here are full of everything that is being done. But you can't throw together space for 800,000 people to live overnight. Not even in the States. It won't be done anywhere nearly as quickly as these people will arrive. The intentions are all fine and dandy, but the social conflicts are real, and the upsurge in resentment is real. The upsurge in votes for the most odious of fringe movements on the right here will be just as real.

And then go back from whence you came.

Native and immigrant Germans don't have to do anything. Not Raping is literally not doing something.

have to change the way they dress in their own country in order to not "offend" these backwards fuckwits?

"far right agitators trying to foment resentment..."

I tend to agree-- the isolated reactions we're reading of don't seem to be a collective German sentiment; yet stirring emotions and agitating does seem to working.

Simply by reading so many responses leading with "it isn't racist of me to say this, but...," illustrates your premise as rather accurate.

The letter to parents said the migrants were ‘mainly Muslim, and speak Arabic. They have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be warn... revealing tops or blouses, short skirts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings.’

Last edited Sun Sep 27, 2015, 09:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Expecting them to join with European culture is impossible because they're not white, so they can't fit in no matter what they do. In addition to their views on alcohol, women, work, and other non-obvious but important things, German girls will just have to accept the new morality as a new culture has joined with them.



What did everyone think 'multicultural' meant? That it meant 'your culture is perfect and worthy of respect once you adopt this list of things we wealthy white men and women believe in'?

Edited from original to add Sarcasm tag where necessary. I apologize to those who posted before I added it in - I thought (wrongly) that it would be evident.

just give it up because.

There are 80 million +/- people in Germany - are 1 million really going to change things that much?

Personally, they should make single male & single female camps to shut that shit down until calm prevails. There isn't a thing wrong with single gender camps. I would think it would make the women feel safe for the time being.

Go into the male camp and teach them the rule of law of Germany & Europe. Can't assimilate? Then here is your ticket home or wherever takes you in.

)Edited twice because Shandris is apparently incapable of locating Reply numbers. )

Are you being serious with the "German girls will just have to accept the new morality as a new culture has joined with them."???

I mean, just look back at that sentence and THINK about what you just implied there.

We wouldn't want to "offend" people who are only there because of the generosity of the German people.

Accept the dominant cultural norms of the place that has offered you asylum or go the fuck back home.

...sarcasm would be obvious or not. No, in no way do I actually believe that! Bad Shandris!

That's why my second set of comments ("What did you think...&quot were at odds with the meaning of the first set. I apologize that it wasn't clear.

In short, we have to choose between one or the other. Given the options, we simply can't choose 'multiculturalism' by any definition I can think of (which implies there might be one I can't think of), even if the alternative is presently being considered 'white supremacy'.

I hope that clarifies my post, and I'll try to use that technique a lot less; it clearly didn't read to others as it did to me.

It is hard to detect sarcasm with topics like these because there is a fine line in regards to migrant situations such as the one present in Europe.

WOW.

Please see the other follow-up post I made in this chain, CP. It was intended to be read satirically, and I failed to make it hit home properly.

I WILL SPEED YOU UP; yes INDEED

You're disturbing the Two Minutes Hate. Which is actually hours and hours...

It's just all made up lies that muslims have a wildly different culture which says that women who don't cover their hair and ankles (and maybe even their faces) are whores who deserve whatever they get!

I mean -- they're MEN! of FAITH! How dare we criticize them?!

Islam is an issue that modern, mainstream liberal political correctness just cannot seem to get a grip on. On the one hand, there's this kneejerk need to defend the 'other'; the 'outsider'. On the other hand, Islam is an undeniably misogynistic force, and arguably one that promotes or at the very least accepts violence in a way that other faiths do not.

It's as if that tired and pathetic old right-wing line of 'you're the intolerant one because you won't accept my intolerance!' actually works on this topic. You get liberals who are adamantly on the side of gays, women, minorities, etc., and strongly opposed to domestic fundamentalism, lining up to defend fundamentalist, misogynist, anti-gay societies.

is something I find highly amusing. Sam Harris is totally right in this case. Traditional Islam is a very nasty set of beliefs. So is traditional christianity, but the civilizing forces of liberalism and the Enlightenment - which never touched most of the Islamic world - have marginalized a lot of the worst in it, particularly in western Europe, though certainly not all of it.

clash? Absolutely, but level heads on all sides can come to agreement and assimilation policies that a palpable to those who will choose to stay.

There are no level heads when people are told to modify their way of life to accommodate people coming in from another culture, who are there because they say their lives are in danger at home. They'll all choose to stay. They didn't book a vacation cruise to get here. But generosity dissipates very rapidly when it is abused.

There is only one agreement, and that is one that will not be reached: that all those who come here learn German and accommodate the German way of life. There is no way a million people a year will all do this. Is the USA prepared to accept four million Muslims a year who don't speak English, and accept only Muslim culture? That is the kind of proportion in play here. Add to that the fact that German has about 85% the land mass of California. Where are we supposed to put these people? Are you people back home prepared to tell young America it can no longer dress how it wants, entertain itself how it wants, have the social life it wants, all because it might offend the sensibilities of 4 million people taken in from another continent and culture? That's a sure way to insure about 30 million new angry Teabagger voters in one very swift blow. The German far right, long dormant, is rubbing its hands in glee at the sudden breath of life this issue is offering them.

I'm pretty sure this will not end peacefully. Heck, we cannot even discuss it here, on a message board an ocean away, without it becoming an argument.

Eventually the refugees will have to assimilate or at least accept the local culture and traditions or it is inevitable that they will be asked to leave.

In a way, the collapse of the Soviet Empire was the first step. After the euphoria of Berlin 1989 was over, some in West Germany were joking that Honecker should be given a medal for keep the East Germans out of the West for so long. Their whole mentality needed a big adjustment. And they are Germans! Example--a family from the former east was on vacation in the west, and asked the hotel what time they were to have breakfast. The hotel said that breakfast was served between 7 and 10 in the morning. The Easterners said, yes, OK, but what time was THEIR breakfast. The patient receptionist explained again: between 7 and 10. The Easterners said, yes they got that, but at what time was breakfast for THEM? In East Germany, people on vacation were assigned specific hours when they could have breakfast. The concept that it was up to them when they wanted to have breakfast was completely foreign to them. They thought the receptionist was playing with them, and the receptionist thought he was dealing with functional idiots. And these people all spoke the same language and had no religious issues!

West Germany, a country of roughly 60 million people, absorbed East Germany, a country of just under 20 million people, who spoke the same language, had roughly the same social views on gender-related issues, and had their own land to live on. This land, now with 80 million people, still had less square miles than California, even with a population a quarter the size of the USA.

These people are now being asked to absorb a 1.25% increase in their population (and that's just this year!). The increase consists of people who do not speak the language, for the most part have no job skills, adhere to the Muslim religion, with radically different views on gender issues, and have nowhere to live. The weather here is still relatively good. In 4 months, it will be cold. Up in Sweden, where there is a lot of empty land, it will be brutally cold. It gets on my nerves going up to Sweden in the winter just for a few days, and I see friends, speak Swedish, get to stay in a decent hotel, and have enough to eat. I can't imagine what it would be like to stay in sub-standard housing, have crappy food, speak no Swedish, and be rejected by the locals who have social mores I can't begin to understand.

We're sort of coping for now, as the majority of the migrants are not here yet. In three months or less, things will get ugly, and your prediction is on track to come true--it probably will not end peacefully. You can ask a few thousand to leave. You can't ask a million to leave--where could Germany possibly send them?

Seems like many Germans are welcoming them so it's hard to know what's going on there.

Last edited Mon Sep 28, 2015, 01:57 PM - Edit history (1)

If Obama had invited 3.5 million of these people a year, sent them on the various states and told the governors "deal with it," how do you think that would have gone down? That's pretty much what we're faced with here.

What you see are the headlines Germany wants you to see. And plenty of them, especially the first wave, ARE being welcomed. These was an article in our local paper about five new arrivals. All university educated, some of them Christian, all speaking good English and a couple of them even speaking passable German. All with marketable job skills. What's not to like? THESE people are welcome. Mexicans fluent in English with doctorates in biochemistry are welcome in Texas, too.

It's the coming masses you DON'T see in the headlines that will be the problem. There was one group of young men on the way here, chanting in Arabic how they were going to transform Germany into a Muslim state. How do you think they'll be welcomed, once they get here and proudly make their intentions known?

Germany is building new apartment blocks and refitting old ones to accommodate an unprecedented wave of refugees -- an expected 800,000 this year, four times last year's figure and many more than in any other European nation. Volunteers are turning out in large numbers to help. As a response to human suffering, this should be a source of national pride.

The living space won't be ready in time for the winter, not anywhere near all of it anyway. Quickly thrown together apartments are always in danger of collapse, but maybe we'll get lucky and not see that. But turning half a million Muslim men into tolerant European-minded "gentlemen," THAT is a task that won't be accomplished overnight, even if you put them all up in the Ritz-Carlton and have it catered by Die Vier Jahreszeiten.

Seriously, what's with this prejudice?

I have seen the immigrants of predominantly Muslim countries here in Germany and in Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, etc. I also speak German, Spanish, Catalan, Dutch and French. I live here, visit these countries every month. The people arriving are not ashamed of who they are. They display it with the same pride the locals display for their own culture. However, when one is indigenous and one is foreign, and the foreign one declares itself to be the righteous one and the indigenous one to be inferior, there will be conflict. Just ask any Belgian who "the Swedes" are.

Seriously, what's with this sticking your head in the sand? You think a problem will go away just because you don't need to confront it every day? We do our best. Ask the people at that Belgian Jewish museum or at Charlie Hebdo if our best is always good enough.

I'm sorry, I live in the middle of little Bosnia, here in the United States, surrounded by mostly Muslims(about 50 thousand of them). Sometimes when I go to the grocery store, I see women in hijabs and even full burqas, sometimes not, and everything in between.

Are there problems, yes, but they are manageable, its a drastically different culture than what we are used here, but we are getting along, more or less. We do have plenty of people who display your attitude, but they live in the exurbs, far away from the "problem peoples" they don't like.

Integration should be the goal, not necessarily assimilation. What do you want? For them to convert to Christianity first or something?

I am no friend of any religion. I'm with Maher and Lenin on that theme.

These people are uprooted from their home by necessity, not by choice. They had no intention of joining a western society nor adopting its ways. All they wanted was to survive. But they have been plopped down in a society which they neither know nor understand nor respect. They know the society they came from, which is fine back there, but not here in Germany. Try to tell 1 million people that they can stay Muslim but must respect that the place they live in considers the way they treat women at home to be criminal, and they don't get it. How could they? That's when the trouble starts. This is not "Little Bosnia" or even "Little Kosovo." This is more like "Little Syria," and if you think that is the same as a million European Muslims moving across the street, you've never been here. We have a few people who display your attitude here too. "Take these people, house and feed them. It'll be just fine."

Until it isn't, but they leave that part out.

Are they all just evil people who are invading your country to take advantage of your generous social services?

They are, in your words, people who will never respect your culture, are uneducated, all of them, and will commit crimes, rather than adapt to their circumstances.

If all that's true, what should be done with them?

Since you keep pointing out the misogyny in Syria as one of the points where they will never compromise, well, they did, in their own country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Syria

I mean, obviously, since the civil war, things have gotten a whole lot worse for women, and even before that, it wasn't ideal, far from it, but Syria isn't Saudi Arabia. Also, bear in mind that many of the refugees are fleeing Islamic extremism, some, I don't doubt, are fundamentalists or extremists themselves, but I'm sure many others are far from that. Hell, some aren't even Muslim, shocker, I know.

I just can't see this working out harmoniously for all parties involved. It is a train wreck waiting to happen.

asked a female student to dress more modestly.

Should the media ignore it?

And law enforcement should do whatever is within their power to apprehend and prosecute the guilty.

and other right wing groups in Europe.

and around Minute 10 you'll see a woman attack the reporter for being underdressed - as in not wearing full coverage! Looks at the right wingers in the area as well.

even though the evidence says they're wrong.

Many liberals believe that everybody will sit down with you and sing kuymbaya if you're nice to them, even though the evidence says they're wrong.

We believe whatever it is that we want to be true.

Conservatives who keep believing tax cuts will fix the economy have their heads in the sand.

Liberals who believe that radical Islam is not a dire threat to us have their heads in the sand.

I'm a liberal, maybe even extremely liberal, but I refuse to believe any fantasies that are contradicted by facts just because I wish they were true.

and this is seen at the US border with the children of Central America. If anyone deserves a break due to US intervention it's them - but one million have been prevented from entering and that's just at the Mexican border not the US border.

Sheer numbers, and no way to fund them - no one looks good when it gets that bad.

Is Merkel a liberal? I think she may have erred in inviting people to settle in Germany without being very careful about the process.

If you mean "people in the West", then no, Islam, radical or otherwise, is absolutely not a dire threat to us (although admittedly not through want of trying).

If you mean people in Islamic-majority or near-majority countries then you are right, but you should probably make that clearer.

With a few piddly plane hijackers, they destroyed our economy for decades and eroded our civil liberties, albeit largely because it was already a wobbly house of cards, and we had fools in office. But we always have fools in office, and often they're in control, so we continue to be a soft target for terrorist acts that result in fascistic overreactions by our plutocratic overlords.

people who will try to live a good life. That is why liberals are historically pro-refugee and pro-immigrant. Conservatives always seem to be anti-immigrant and now anti-refugee because they do not believe the essential goodness of the most people entering a country.

Are there some 'bad apples' in the 'barrel' of refugees? Sure. Just like there are among a host of whites, Blacks, Hispanics or any other large group. We make and enforce laws to deal with the 'bad apples' in any group rather than treating the entire group as bad people.

Even if I believed that "god" created the world (which I don't), I'd have to believe that the devil created religion. "By their works you shall know them." Well the works of religion, viewed over the long run, have never been anything but a bad influence on humanity.

Are the exception and not the norm. I am pretty sure there are German men rapping women as well, this is an issue with men and we should not assume it's just because they are refugees.

Want an M&M? Cyanide is the exception, you know?

I mean, first off, we have no idea if the actual rapist there is a migrant, a native German, or something else (IIRC there have been no arrests). Lang's M seems appropriate to keep in mind.

What I think about this ultimately isn't important, though; the issue is that Germany is set to take on 1% of its current population in migrants this year alone. And I specifically say "migrant" because there's no real talk right now of anybody going back to where they came from. Suddeutsche Zeitung has interviewed several and either by chance or decision all were originally from Syria but had fled to either the Gulf or Turkey and from there sought to reach the EU and said explicitly it's because they can't find jobs in the country they fled from Syria too. Now, like I said that could very well be an editorial choice or just some bad luck, but then again SZ is not exactly a hack rag or anything. We've already seen the Schengen rules suspended between Austria and Hungary, and now Germany and Austria; this is a huge development that could bode a lot of things.

In reality the vast majority of refugees are good people since the vast majority of people in general are good.

I would not want to punish any group for the sins of a few.

I'd remind you I live in the developing world and do a shit ton of work with trying to get refugees settled somewhere.

As I said below we have a rape case, but absolutely no evidence whether the rapist was a migrant, a native German, or someone else.

that is the first thing I thought - it sounds like something you throw out to get the hatred flowing.....I doubt people experiencing this kind of trauma are going around making demands

still, there is no denying the extreme misogyny in their homeland

And reading this thread has been a bit depressing. Amazing how some Progressives are reacting to unsubstantiated propaganda.

All this hardline bullshit. ("Damn Straight!" "Abso-fucking-lutely!" "Amen!&quot There was a controversy in my hometown over the local mosque when they sought approval from the planning commission to build a new center. The brouhaha went on for two years, went to federal court (which upheld the civil liberties of the Muslim Americans.) A documentary was made, etc. etc.

Anyway, the comments here are very familiar to me, I'm just surprised to see essentially the same sentiments here as the ones that emerged from some of my neighbors back home.

I was pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the Planning Commission members, Republican County Mayor Burgess, and the extensive support of the citizens of Rutherford County. I made some good friends as a result.

Who could have imagined?

Do you know any conservative Muslim men really well? I do. Some are reasonable but others are the most misogynistic entitlement creeps I've ever known.

Based on a report from the sensationalist right-wing tabloid the Daily Mail.

A girl got raped. No mention of by whom.

Conditions could be ugly in refugee camps. Really?

Some local officials tried to be culturally sensitive.

The Daily Mail is trying to whip up Islamophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria. And many are buying.

Thought I took a wrong turn somewhere.

Similar things have been said about Mexicans. It's unsubstantiated, racist BS.

in refugee camps in May 1945.

A rag.