The AfD leader as being Chamber of Commerce type makes sense, as the origins of the party were of that ilk.
There's no tradition of assimilation, is another issue. My great-grandfather's generation understood that my grandfather's generation had to speak English fluently for any kind of success. Being an unskilled laborer not speaking the language of commerce well was not a ticket to success. In the guise of 'multiculturalism' that notion was stopped in the US, and not sent to the Old World.
They're unassimilable, they all have to be removed. Turns out that turning your country into a third world $***hole for the sake of some ethnic cuisine wasn't such a good idea after all. The longer they wait the worse it will become. Those European schoolchildren bullied by ethnic gangs will grow up to be fine members of a Protection Squadron.
Here in the US, I don't think the Left wants assimilation. They want segregated zoos of people of differing cultures, that they can visit, and feel superior to. Assimilation would ruin the zoos, and lead to a stable population, which, again, the Left does not want.
I lived in Germany '66-'69. My father was USAF and stationed at Ramstein and Echterdingen Airfield, the plane patch for Patch Barracks. He employed several Turks at the DFAC and they were good people. Then. The people running Germany since the victory of the socialist coalition in '69 have been fools. There is no way to candy coat it. Same with so-called conservatives. Chamber of commerce "conservatives" are not conservative by most measures because of their support for nearly unlimited immigration. They have been as short sighted as the overwhelmingly foolish left.
I was in Germany. You couldn't ask for better duty than the Marshall Center in Garmsich. But away from the postcard town was the ugly housing project where all the "guest workers" lived. That was thirty years ago
It's amazing how well the hard left and the fanatical jihadists get along. I guess it's because they both hate western civilization. I wonder if there will be a Charles Martel or Jan Sobeiski to save Europe again.
Years ago, Ralph Peters (whatever happened to him?) and Tom Kratman got into a discussion about where immigration and the Europeans were headed. Peters was of the opinion that it would be a repeat of the 1930s because "no one does genocide like the Europeans". Kratman demurred, because he didn't see the stomach or physical prowess in the native Europeans to defend their culture, land and nations. Looks like Kratman was right, there won't be any jackbooted thugs running the immigrants out of the EU because there are no jacks to put the boots on. Of course, we are a good distance down that path ourselves. Remains to be seen if we can reverse the trend. An armed populace really helps, and a lot of the immigrants here don't like illegal immigration, so hope remains for the moment. Notice how critical race theory and DEI classes shape the environment by shutting down anyone who questions "the border".
Meanwhile we not only tolerate, but actively encourage unassimilated masses from all over the globe to freely enter our country without even the pretext of any background check or actual identity, and then pay to disperse them all around our country on the foolish belief that they will show up in an immigration court several years in the future. Even worse than the tens of millions described above the huge, but uncounted number of "gotaways" who are much more likely to be motivated for something other than a career as gardeners and farm workers.
Without a secure border we are not a sovereign nation. Without full obedience to our immigration laws we are dangerously close to becoming an anarchist state where no laws need be observed.
I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to piece this together, but I’ve recently fleshed out my immigration view as follows:
The lynchpin of the USA’s rightfully proud pro-immigration history (melting pot, give me your huddled masses, etc) falls apart given the mature state of today’s “safety net”. In Ellis Island’s heyday, we offered little more to an immigrant than equal(ish) treatment under the law and *a chance to build* a better life. That sales pitch appeals to a certain cohort of people and, even more importantly, aligns incentives once that cohort is boots on ground. Today’s robust suite of social safety net benefits (read: handouts) draws an entirely different cohort of people and, worse, provides zero incentive alignment.
You make some good points, but overall I think this post lacks context. In other words, it is looking at this from a USA perspective, not taking into account the very different way of looking at the same things, but from a German perspective.
One example is citing Bild, as if it's representative of general German opinion. Bild basically, sad to say, is trash, a red-top paper written on a superficial level for people who often aren't all that good at reading. Of course Bild is going with the flow, coming off rather severely anti-migrant, as in "Ban Muslim Immigration!" This is about like taking Trump's half-thought-out thoughts on this seriously, even though he might have 15% of our general population behind him.
I live in Germany as an expat American. and some of their "problems" make me laugh. One is that a higher proportion of the children of the more highly educated take advantage of the very generous terms afforded everyone here to pursue higher education. Think about that one in American terms, with our creaky and over-priced system. We would love to have this German "problem."
Going on from that, we have a fair proportion of migrant children succeeding in school, not just integrating but enjoying real success in chosen professions. It's the migrant losers who get the attention, not the fact that you will often find your doctor or dentist, for example, sporting a very non-German name.
Germany has nothing if not a system to deal with pretty much anything. I think that with growing attention being paid to the problem of migrant integration, particularly Muslim migrants, they will figure out a way to cope with that. Right now, for example, it's forbidden to stage demos using "Palestinian" flags. Israeli flags are okay, on the other hand.
What can be seen as delusions might just be differences of approach, differences of opinion, when modern German history has been grossly different to modern American history. If you want to look at a delusion, just look at the one that has led to leaving guns in the hands of your lunatics (USA) vs. quite reasonably not letting even very many of your sane citizens have them (Germany). For the USA the problem there is the human heart; for Germany the problem is the gun. Only one of those approaches is deluded. QED.
In years past, I would look at Germany and shake my head in amazement at the capacity for a modern nation to self-destruct.
I no longer need look across the Atlantic.
The AfD leader as being Chamber of Commerce type makes sense, as the origins of the party were of that ilk.
There's no tradition of assimilation, is another issue. My great-grandfather's generation understood that my grandfather's generation had to speak English fluently for any kind of success. Being an unskilled laborer not speaking the language of commerce well was not a ticket to success. In the guise of 'multiculturalism' that notion was stopped in the US, and not sent to the Old World.
They're unassimilable, they all have to be removed. Turns out that turning your country into a third world $***hole for the sake of some ethnic cuisine wasn't such a good idea after all. The longer they wait the worse it will become. Those European schoolchildren bullied by ethnic gangs will grow up to be fine members of a Protection Squadron.
Here in the US, I don't think the Left wants assimilation. They want segregated zoos of people of differing cultures, that they can visit, and feel superior to. Assimilation would ruin the zoos, and lead to a stable population, which, again, the Left does not want.
I lived in Germany '66-'69. My father was USAF and stationed at Ramstein and Echterdingen Airfield, the plane patch for Patch Barracks. He employed several Turks at the DFAC and they were good people. Then. The people running Germany since the victory of the socialist coalition in '69 have been fools. There is no way to candy coat it. Same with so-called conservatives. Chamber of commerce "conservatives" are not conservative by most measures because of their support for nearly unlimited immigration. They have been as short sighted as the overwhelmingly foolish left.
I call it pathological altruism.
CDR, the American Social Democrats would like you to hold their beer.
I was in Germany. You couldn't ask for better duty than the Marshall Center in Garmsich. But away from the postcard town was the ugly housing project where all the "guest workers" lived. That was thirty years ago
It's amazing how well the hard left and the fanatical jihadists get along. I guess it's because they both hate western civilization. I wonder if there will be a Charles Martel or Jan Sobeiski to save Europe again.
Years ago, Ralph Peters (whatever happened to him?) and Tom Kratman got into a discussion about where immigration and the Europeans were headed. Peters was of the opinion that it would be a repeat of the 1930s because "no one does genocide like the Europeans". Kratman demurred, because he didn't see the stomach or physical prowess in the native Europeans to defend their culture, land and nations. Looks like Kratman was right, there won't be any jackbooted thugs running the immigrants out of the EU because there are no jacks to put the boots on. Of course, we are a good distance down that path ourselves. Remains to be seen if we can reverse the trend. An armed populace really helps, and a lot of the immigrants here don't like illegal immigration, so hope remains for the moment. Notice how critical race theory and DEI classes shape the environment by shutting down anyone who questions "the border".
Meanwhile we not only tolerate, but actively encourage unassimilated masses from all over the globe to freely enter our country without even the pretext of any background check or actual identity, and then pay to disperse them all around our country on the foolish belief that they will show up in an immigration court several years in the future. Even worse than the tens of millions described above the huge, but uncounted number of "gotaways" who are much more likely to be motivated for something other than a career as gardeners and farm workers.
Without a secure border we are not a sovereign nation. Without full obedience to our immigration laws we are dangerously close to becoming an anarchist state where no laws need be observed.
Round 'em up and send 'em back, now!
If your immigrants have a fertility rate greater than replacement and natives do not, you are a handful of generations away from being a minority culture. By 2100, "climate change" will be the least of your worries. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/the-growth-of-germanys-muslim-population-2/
I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to piece this together, but I’ve recently fleshed out my immigration view as follows:
The lynchpin of the USA’s rightfully proud pro-immigration history (melting pot, give me your huddled masses, etc) falls apart given the mature state of today’s “safety net”. In Ellis Island’s heyday, we offered little more to an immigrant than equal(ish) treatment under the law and *a chance to build* a better life. That sales pitch appeals to a certain cohort of people and, even more importantly, aligns incentives once that cohort is boots on ground. Today’s robust suite of social safety net benefits (read: handouts) draws an entirely different cohort of people and, worse, provides zero incentive alignment.
You make some good points, but overall I think this post lacks context. In other words, it is looking at this from a USA perspective, not taking into account the very different way of looking at the same things, but from a German perspective.
One example is citing Bild, as if it's representative of general German opinion. Bild basically, sad to say, is trash, a red-top paper written on a superficial level for people who often aren't all that good at reading. Of course Bild is going with the flow, coming off rather severely anti-migrant, as in "Ban Muslim Immigration!" This is about like taking Trump's half-thought-out thoughts on this seriously, even though he might have 15% of our general population behind him.
I live in Germany as an expat American. and some of their "problems" make me laugh. One is that a higher proportion of the children of the more highly educated take advantage of the very generous terms afforded everyone here to pursue higher education. Think about that one in American terms, with our creaky and over-priced system. We would love to have this German "problem."
Going on from that, we have a fair proportion of migrant children succeeding in school, not just integrating but enjoying real success in chosen professions. It's the migrant losers who get the attention, not the fact that you will often find your doctor or dentist, for example, sporting a very non-German name.
Germany has nothing if not a system to deal with pretty much anything. I think that with growing attention being paid to the problem of migrant integration, particularly Muslim migrants, they will figure out a way to cope with that. Right now, for example, it's forbidden to stage demos using "Palestinian" flags. Israeli flags are okay, on the other hand.
What can be seen as delusions might just be differences of approach, differences of opinion, when modern German history has been grossly different to modern American history. If you want to look at a delusion, just look at the one that has led to leaving guns in the hands of your lunatics (USA) vs. quite reasonably not letting even very many of your sane citizens have them (Germany). For the USA the problem there is the human heart; for Germany the problem is the gun. Only one of those approaches is deluded. QED.
Don't have to go to Germany to travel this Road to Oblivion...
https://youtu.be/5GxA03cAGdA?si=ZrCk7x4wlUoSmG7J
Notably, the talking heads didn't phrase the mayhem as "Mostly Peaceful".
In another couple years, American citizens will need a visa to visit the Loop in Chicago.
Spoiler Alert: The convoys overwhelmed attempts to keep them out of downtown:
https://youtu.be/qX_rNhSQhTs?si=fpcmrjb0BeNpDvPJ
https://youtu.be/LVddNmCbJVM?si=seTAAuHsOfa5wHO5
Open borders + welfare state = national suicide