Thanks for the back up guys, but don't worry. Books is entitled to his opinion like we all are. For now we have the luxury of freedom of speech, although barely....so let's enjoy it while we still can....................
@bookhunter2007 wrote:
@jd.linklater wrote:
On the whole the people fleeing the war in Syria are not poor in an economic sense, they have had the wherewithal to to handover five grand apiece to people smugglers to get them out of the country. I don't regard myself as poor but I'd struggle to lay my hands on that much cash in an emergency, if I had a young family I'd be completely up the creek.
All the so called refugees that I've seen interviewed keep reinforcing the view that they are not benefit scroungers but well educated and highly trained doctors, dentists, engineers, IT consultants etc. That may be just what we in the West want to hear but even if true, these are just the sort of people who will be needed to rebuild their countries in the future if and when things ever return to some level of normality. Instead, as usual, the poor and uneducated masses are the ones left behind to contend with the brain drain from their country, the same ones who will be more submisive to the likes of Assad, ISIS and the like. These are the people in most need of help, not the wealthy fleeing the sinking ships throughout the Middle East.
If a similar thing happened here in the UK and you had the means to escape wouldn't you try to flee to a country that had a similar culture and held similar views and beliefs to your own? This is what these thousands of refugees should be doing, moving half way around the world and trying to assimilate into several different countries each with their own unique cultural identity has no benefit for either side.
First, yes. Middle class people can be refugees too. Hence why they're generally the ones who can afford their way out of refugee camps.
Second, most refugees from Syria have fled to either Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan or back to Iraq (!). These figures are in the millions. The problem is too much of a population influx on these nations could destabilise the region even further. Remember, part of the problem with Syria was created by an influx of millions of refugees from Iraq in the first place.
Here is the last paragraph of my post which you 'inadvertently' left out. Or perhaps it wasn't inadvertent, perhaps you think we should only consider the needs of outsiders. It's not a crime to have concerns for the security and welfare of our own population.
As to whether we can handle a further increase in population, almost every country in the EU is in a better position to help than we are. Net migration to the UK was 330,000 in the last 12 months, we have a shortfall in housebuilding of around 250,000 a year, we already have 185,000 people who are officially classed as homeless and close to 3,000 of them will be spending this coming Christmas on the streets. Do the math as they say.
If you are going to quote someone you could at least have the common courtesy to quote them in full. 
@jd.linklater wrote:
Here is the last paragraph of my post which you 'inadvertently' left out. Or perhaps it wasn't inadvertent, perhaps you think we should only consider the needs of outsiders. It's not a crime to have concerns for the security and welfare of our own population.
As to whether we can handle a further increase in population, almost every country in the EU is in a better position to help than we are. Net migration to the UK was 330,000 in the last 12 months, we have a shortfall in housebuilding of around 250,000 a year, we already have 185,000 people who are officially classed as homeless and close to 3,000 of them will be spending this coming Christmas on the streets. Do the math as they say.
If you are going to quote someone you could at least have the common courtesy to quote them in full.
My apologies, and no it's not a crime to have concerns for the security of "our own" population - a tad parochial and symptomatic of the "me me me" generation perhaps. If anything, it's our ageing population who put the greater strain on infrastructure, public spending and welfare services - not refugees. Something that should've been addressed years ago:
http://www.21stcenturychallenges.org/focus/britains-greying-population/
"There are currently 4 people of working age supporting each pensioner in Britain, by 2035 this number is expected to fall to 2.5, and by 2050 to just 2. The number of people of working age in relation to retirees is known as the ‘dependency ratio’."
