The Refugee Thing


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On 9/24/2016 at 9:09 PM, dahlia said:

Can someone help me with what the Church wants us to do with refugees?

I almost turned of the Women's Conference tonight because it started with 'the refugee thing,' and I had a hard time deciding to open my heart to whatever else was going to follow.

Here are my thoughts. We can look around the world, and right here in the US, to see what some refugees have done - even those who have been in their new country for some years. It doesn't have to be a terrorist event; the behavior of refugee men with European women ought to be enough to make us think twice about admitting thousands of unvetted refugees. For many reasons, I don't find a need to embrace the refugee when there are Americans and veterans who need our help. 

We had a presentation in RS about 'others' living in our town. I almost got up and left because I found it so racist. Newsflash, white people - saying how 'wonderful' and 'sweet' these 'others' are as if you are talking about children doesn't make you look open-minded, it makes you look patronizing. You might as well be patting the 'other' on the head. Maybe because I've lived in big east coast cities around all kinds of people - and know that they are not all wonderful - I find this blindness to reality to be off-putting. By way of background, I'm in a college town ward full of young people <35, mostly from BYU, Utah, and Idaho; people who apparently haven't seen much of the world. They want to be open to everything and it bothers the heck out of me that they don't seem to know what's going on in the world. Actually, I know they don't as many will come right out and say that they don't follow the news. 

I'm sure some will think I am a terrible person, but I'd rather be a terrible person with my own culture and legal system (and not some kind of bifurcated Sharia/Constitutional system) and not look up in 5-10 years and find it changed beyond recognition. 

So, this terrible person wants to know what does the Church want us, as LDS and as women in RS, to do about refugees? How blind are we to be to what is going on with unvetted refugee populations in other parts of the world? They ain't building that wall in Calais for nothing...

I have been vacillating between two opinions with regard to the LDS Church's position on immigration generally:

1.  America's day of grace, both in terms of domestic culture and international prestige, has passed.  Both political parties embrace candidates who are inveterate liars; and they openly gloat over what lies their own candidate has gotten away with telling.  Public virtue takes a back seat to whoever can "get things done".  Domestically there is no universal "flag, mom, home, and apple pie" American culture left to preserve; and internationally there is no will to commit American troops to preserve the Pax Americana that allowed the Church to operate globally.  Areas formerly open to missionaries, like Russia and Syria, are now closed.  Other areas where the Church currently operates like the Ukraine and Turkey may be taken over by hostile governments soon.  Atheistic China is on the ascent, apparently holding territorial ambitions over many free island nations of the Pacific Rim.  Even in the United States encroachments on our religious liberty look on-course to fundamentally change the way to change the Church has to do business, probably within the next two decades.  In this environment, the Church has decided that from a missionary standpoint it needs to get while the getting is still good--and American national pride be darned.

2.  Things are not really so bad for America, or for western civilization.  Nonetheless, the question of whether these refugees can enter--and where they can go--is simply beyond the Church's province.  The basic fact is that these people are in need, the vast majority of them are innocent, and we can and should help.  Moreover, from a national security standpoint:  The immigrants themselves, at least in America, haven't been the primary source of terrorist attacks; the problem has been the children of immigrants who end up getting radicalized, in part, because they and their parents were never fully assimilated into American life.  The Church may have a key role to play here.  Think of it--in 1920, Mormons were routinely swearing vengeance against the US government for facilitating Joseph Smith's murder.  By 1950, we were the quintessential American religion.  If anyone is qualified to Americanize these immigrants--it's us. 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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On ‎9‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 9:36 PM, jerome1232 said:

Where did you hear that we don't vet refugees?

Anyways I think the Church wants us to do good unto our enemies, love those that hate us. I think they want us to exhibit christlike charity to our brothers and sisters fleeing the turmoil of ISIS and other terrorists.

The U.S. government does little to nothing to vet refugees.  DHS has admitted this.  Even when "vetted" there are many who simply refuse to assimilate into the population.  Look at cities in Michigan and other towns.  The police are afraid to go there.  Look at other countries where there are no go areas for the police.  Sweden has rampant sexual assaults and from 2014 to 2015, immigrants in Germany committed 208,000 crimes, mostly fraud.  I have no problem with immigrants because my wife is one, but something more needs to be done to ensure our security. 

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3 hours ago, Jojo Bags said:

The U.S. government does little to nothing to vet refugees.  DHS has admitted this.  Even when "vetted" there are many who simply refuse to assimilate into the population.  Look at cities in Michigan and other towns.  The police are afraid to go there.  Look at other countries where there are no go areas for the police.  Sweden has rampant sexual assaults and from 2014 to 2015, immigrants in Germany committed 208,000 crimes, mostly fraud.  I have no problem with immigrants because my wife is one, but something more needs to be done to ensure our security. 

This is the first thing @Jojo Bags and I agree on. Probably worth looking further, in fairness. I'm all for helping widows, war survivors and children. What I'm not cool with is helping people who want to kill us. It's good to be compassionate, and it's a wonderful virtue. But compassion uber alles will get you killed. 

Edited by MormonGator
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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

This is the first thing @Jojo Bags and I agree on. Probably worth looking further, in fairness. I'm all for helping widows, war survivors and children. What I'm not cool with is helping people who want to kill us. It's good to be compassionate, and it's a wonderful virtue. But compassion uber alles will get you killed. 

In the top end of northern Australia, its the crocodiles/alligators that sometimes do the killing :) And then sometimes they end up getting shot at other times they just get caught and relocated. 

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5 hours ago, Jojo Bags said:

The U.S. government does little to nothing to vet refugees.  DHS has admitted this.  Even when "vetted" there are many who simply refuse to assimilate into the population.  Look at cities in Michigan and other towns.  The police are afraid to go there.  Look at other countries where there are no go areas for the police.  Sweden has rampant sexual assaults and from 2014 to 2015, immigrants in Germany committed 208,000 crimes, mostly fraud.  I have no problem with immigrants because my wife is one, but something more needs to be done to ensure our security. 

Having served my mission in France, including spending 6 months in Roubaix (50+ percent Muslim, one of the most notorious no-go zones in Europe that basically covers the whole city - search it on Google) and even a couple of months in the now-infamous neighborhood of Molenbeek in Brussels, I can say that the "no-go" zones are not nearly as scary as the media would have you believe.  For the most part, they are just filled with poor people, who happen to be Islamic immigrants (largely from Algeria and Morocco).  I actually felt more respected as a Mormon missionary by these Arab kids than I did by many of the ethnic French!  Some of these guys tried to convince me to convert to Islam (which I have since studied in some depth), but they were almost always very respectful of me and Mormonism, even while disagreeing with American foreign policy.  Many of these kids also disapproved of the more extreme "denominations" within Islam, calling the extremism a petrodollar-fueled perversion of their religion.

I think that a large reason that Muslims have trouble assimilating in Europe is because they are not allowed to assimilate - they are confined to ghettos, denied good jobs, and are social outcasts.  I don't know what Muslims in Britain or Germany are like, but the ones in France are a lot more like you and me than Fox News would probably lead you to believe.  Just speaking from my personal experience and what I have observed.

Maybe I just have a soft spot for these Arab kids I befriended on my mission, but I don't think that Islamic immigration to America is a problem if done correctly.  I think America could avoid a lot of the problems that Europe is facing by 1) vetting refugees to root out the crazy/dangerous ones (who are really a very small minority), and 2) allowing those who are let in to assimilate.  

Edited by DoctorLemon
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4 hours ago, MormonGator said:

This is the first thing @Jojo Bags and I agree on. Probably worth looking further, in fairness. I'm all for helping widows, war survivors and children. What I'm not cool with is helping people who want to kill us. It's good to be compassionate, and it's a wonderful virtue. But compassion uber alles will get you killed. 

Agree wholeheartedly.  It should be noted that the ones who want to kill us can almost always be traced to a few specific movements within Islam, as opposed to Islam as a whole (and are thereby distinguishable, though there is always the factor of people converting to extremist "denominations" and carrying out terror)... the problem with Europe is a widespread complete lack of vetting whatsoever.

Edited by DoctorLemon
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38 minutes ago, DoctorLemon said:

Agree wholeheartedly.  It should be noted that the ones who want to kill us can almost always be traced to a few specific movements within Islam, as opposed to Islam as a whole (and are thereby distinguishable, though there is always the factor of people converting to extremist "denominations" and carrying out terror)... the problem with Europe is a widespread complete lack of vetting whatsoever.

Yup, we agree. It's only a small part of Islam that is the problem. 

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1 hour ago, DoctorLemon said:

I think that a large reason that Muslims have trouble assimilating in Europe is because they are not allowed to assimilate - they are confined to ghettos, denied good jobs, and are social outcasts.  I don't know what Muslims in Britain or Germany are like, but the ones in France are a lot more like you and me than Fox News would probably lead you to believe.  Just speaking from my personal experience and what I have observed.

I can't remember where I got this link from, quite possibly here, but the article explains this phenomenon, I think, and how it's backfired royally.  https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/what-is-wrong-with-multiculturalism-part-1/

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It's not about immigration per say but about the quantity and quality of immigration.

Right now in the United States, over 13.1% of the population is foreign born.  That is an all-time record and high. When you have that large of a percentage of the population who are not native to the US problems with assimilation will occur. People generally tend to congregate and associate with people of their own ethnicity, background, culture, etc.  Such a large population who is foreign born does not encourage assimilation b/c assimilating to the US culture is the harder path.  People (when faced with a choice) will generally take the path of least resistance.

This is what is happening in the European countries, the percentage of individuals who are foreign born are at all-time highs and consequently do not assimilate (b/c they don't have a need to), this disrupts culture, social standings, etc.

We seriously need to reconsider our immigration policies, limit the amount of immigrants coming in and allow the current immigrants to assimilate; if we shut down borders this social strive problem will solve itself in about 20-30 years and then we can think about admitting more immigrants.

We must as a nation significantly reduce the percentage of individuals who are foreign born-this will solve a lot of social strive problems in this country.

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http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/from-ireland-to-germany-to-italy-to-mexico-how-americas-source-of-immigrants-has-changed-in-the-states-1850-to-2013/

You know the Irish were a large portion of the immigrants to the USA. They were a despised ethnic group. There are still echoes of the loathing that Americans had for these people left in the language. Paddy wagon, the police vehicle so named because of course the paddys a nickname for the Irish who were believed to be mostly criminals. The Irish were mostly catholic, a despised religion. They drank a lot, true! Remember the people who didnt want to elect Kennedy because he was catholic. http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/Discrimination-And-The-Irish-American-Experience.htm

I was in Dearborn MI last weekend. They have more Arabs as a % than anywhere outside the Middle East. It's a great place! I have many professional relationships with people from this area.

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7 hours ago, DoctorLemon said:

 

I think that a large reason that Muslims have trouble assimilating in Europe is because they are not allowed to assimilate - they are confined to ghettos, denied good jobs, and are social outcasts.  I don't know what Muslims in Britain or Germany are like, but the ones in France are a lot more like you and me than Fox News would probably lead you to believe.  Just speaking from my personal experience and what I have observed.

Maybe I just have a soft spot for these Arab kids I befriended on my mission, but I don't think that Islamic immigration to America is a problem if done correctly.  I think America could avoid a lot of the problems that Europe is facing by 1) vetting refugees to root out the crazy/dangerous ones (who are really a very small minority), and 2) allowing those who are let in to assimilate.  

In Australia the Muslims do not assimilate out of choice.   You don't go to the Bankstown area unless you are a Muslim especially if you are a woman.  Women aren't even second class humans.  I've watched how they are treated and it isn't nice. 

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21 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/from-ireland-to-germany-to-italy-to-mexico-how-americas-source-of-immigrants-has-changed-in-the-states-1850-to-2013/

You know the Irish were a large portion of the immigrants to the USA. They were a despised ethnic group. There are still echoes of the loathing that Americans had for these people left in the language. Paddy wagon, the police vehicle so named because of course the paddys a nickname for the Irish who were believed to be mostly criminals. The Irish were mostly catholic, a despised religion. They drank a lot, true! Remember the people who didnt want to elect Kennedy because he was catholic. http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/Discrimination-And-The-Irish-American-Experience.htm

I was in Dearborn MI last weekend. They have more Arabs as a % than anywhere outside the Middle East. It's a great place! I have many professional relationships with people from this area.

There's a huge difference between the Immigrants of the past and the Immigrants of today.  The basic difference is THE NATURE OF THE GOVERNMENT.

The Immigrants of yesteryears (before immigration was closed post WWII) came cognizant of the Constitution and WANT to be Americans because of it.  The immigrants of today (post 1968) came mostly because of the money potential and not the ideals of the Constitution.

The problem here is - like most Filipino immigrants in my family - these people do not understand the cultural impact of the Constitution.  For example - these Filipino immigrants from the Philippine Martial Law era are anti-gun because they came from a country that has made guns the symbol of war.  They do not understand the concept of the Constitutional foundation of self-determination - the power to control one's destiny.  A people imbued with inalienable rights can only keep those rights if they can defend it.  This is not something enshrined in Constitutions outside of America and therefore, immigrants who came here for any other reason other than the Constitution are more than likely not cognizant of it. 

Heck, kids born in the US are not even taught this anymore... and that is because, kids these days are raised in a predominantly progressive Government far removed from the foundations of the USA such that you currently have a culture where vilifying the Flag and the Anthem that represents the American Constitution can stand on the public square without being "egged and tomatoed".

 

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5 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

There's a huge difference between the Immigrants of the past and the Immigrants of today.

Exactly. The immigrants of yesterday also assimilated into the culture of the time too.  

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5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Exactly. The immigrants of yesterday also assimilated into the culture of the time too.  

It was a matter of pride then to become American.  My grandpa died in WWII fighting with American soldiers.  He was proud to stand side by side with Americans in common defense.  Note that this was only a few years after the Filipino-American war.

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4 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

It was a matter of pride then to become American.  My grandpa died in WWII fighting with American soldiers.  He was proud to stand side by side with Americans in common defense.  Note that this was only a few years after the Filipino-American war.

Yeah totally agree. Your grandfather was a hero, for sure. My grandfather fought in WW II as well and he was a Irish immigrant from Quebec. 

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  • pam unfeatured this topic
On 9/25/2016 at 5:57 PM, tesuji said:

You are free to have your own reaction of course.

I personally have been very saddened that some members have put their politics, and the words of political demagogues, ahead of our church leaders, who are encouraging us members to do one of the most Christlike actions possible:

 

There are hungry, depressed vets. Vets commit suicide at the rate of 22 per day.  As the widow of a  vet who saw combat in Vietnam, I'd rather help them. At least they fought for their country. I don't really want to help males who won't fight for thier country, while expecting others to fight for them. 

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On 10/2/2016 at 5:07 PM, zil said:

I can't remember where I got this link from, quite possibly here, but the article explains this phenomenon, I think, and how it's backfired royally.  https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/what-is-wrong-with-multiculturalism-part-1/

I am aware of this and understand how it is a problem. As an aside, I met a Chinese girl who was married to a German. They were both here attending school. She wanted to stay because she said she would never be accepted as German, whereas she could be an American over here. So, yes, when you marginalize and gheto-ize people, they aren't likely to disseminate. That said, assimilation or not, there is much in Islam that is against American/Western culture. Therein lies the problem. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On September 24, 2016 at 9:09 PM, dahlia said:

Can someone help me with what the Church wants us to do with refugees?

I almost turned of the Women's Conference tonight because it started with 'the refugee thing,' and I had a hard time deciding to open my heart to whatever else was going to follow.

Here are my thoughts. We can look around the world, and right here in the US, to see what some refugees have done - even those who have been in their new country for some years. It doesn't have to be a terrorist event; the behavior of refugee men with European women ought to be enough to make us think twice about admitting thousands of unvetted refugees. For many reasons, I don't find a need to embrace the refugee when there are Americans and veterans who need our help. 

We had a presentation in RS about 'others' living in our town. I almost got up and left because I found it so racist. Newsflash, white people - saying how 'wonderful' and 'sweet' these 'others' are as if you are talking about children doesn't make you look open-minded, it makes you look patronizing. You might as well be patting the 'other' on the head. Maybe because I've lived in big east coast cities around all kinds of people - and know that they are not all wonderful - I find this blindness to reality to be off-putting. By way of background, I'm in a college town ward full of young people <35, mostly from BYU, Utah, and Idaho; people who apparently haven't seen much of the world. They want to be open to everything and it bothers the heck out of me that they don't seem to know what's going on in the world. Actually, I know they don't as many will come right out and say that they don't follow the news. 

I'm sure some will think I am a terrible person, but I'd rather be a terrible person with my own culture and legal system (and not some kind of bifurcated Sharia/Constitutional system) and not look up in 5-10 years and find it changed beyond recognition. 

So, this terrible person wants to know what does the Church want us, as LDS and as women in RS, to do about refugees? How blind are we to be to what is going on with unvetted refugee populations in other parts of the world? They ain't building that wall in Calais for nothing...

The grand majority of islamophobia that is making its way on facebook is false. I think the church has a website dedicate to helping refugees, so that members can donate time and or material in helping them get settled. How we choose to treat others will affect how we are judged in the last days. Probably one of the hardest commandment is to love those who hate us.

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On 9/24/2016 at 9:09 PM, dahlia said:

Can someone help me with what the Church wants us to do with refugees?

I almost turned of the Women's Conference tonight because it started with 'the refugee thing,' and I had a hard time deciding to open my heart to whatever else was going to follow.

Here are my thoughts. We can look around the world, and right here in the US, to see what some refugees have done - even those who have been in their new country for some years. It doesn't have to be a terrorist event; the behavior of refugee men with European women ought to be enough to make us think twice about admitting thousands of unvetted refugees. For many reasons, I don't find a need to embrace the refugee when there are Americans and veterans who need our help. 

We had a presentation in RS about 'others' living in our town. I almost got up and left because I found it so racist. Newsflash, white people - saying how 'wonderful' and 'sweet' these 'others' are as if you are talking about children doesn't make you look open-minded, it makes you look patronizing. You might as well be patting the 'other' on the head. Maybe because I've lived in big east coast cities around all kinds of people - and know that they are not all wonderful - I find this blindness to reality to be off-putting. By way of background, I'm in a college town ward full of young people <35, mostly from BYU, Utah, and Idaho; people who apparently haven't seen much of the world. They want to be open to everything and it bothers the heck out of me that they don't seem to know what's going on in the world. Actually, I know they don't as many will come right out and say that they don't follow the news. 

I'm sure some will think I am a terrible person, but I'd rather be a terrible person with my own culture and legal system (and not some kind of bifurcated Sharia/Constitutional system) and not look up in 5-10 years and find it changed beyond recognition. 

So, this terrible person wants to know what does the Church want us, as LDS and as women in RS, to do about refugees? How blind are we to be to what is going on with unvetted refugee populations in other parts of the world? They ain't building that wall in Calais for nothing...

I'm not LDS but I understand what you are saying. 

Now and again we have visiting representatives from various Catholic ministries address their needs at mass. Twice now in the last 2years this incredibly devoted Dominican priest has visited on behalf of the Dominicans who are helping refugees in Iraq. In particular they are assisting Iraqis who have fled the Nineveh plain and are now in refugee camps close to the Syrian border. 

These refugees include all the Christians, who have fled from IS. Christians who have lived on the Nineveh plain since they received the gospel from the Apostles of Jesus. (Historical fact.). IS gives Christians in the regions they control three choices. To pay a high tax for not being Muslim, convert or die. Reports of opposing Imams to the IS soldiers, defending their Christian neighbors, is of the Imams and their followers being murdered. 

The problem is not a Muslim vs non-Muslim problem. It is a good vs evil problem. It is very problematic, as a Christian, to say a group of people should not receive assistance. Based on the actions of non-associated forces  

That being said, I was glad to see in the news the assistance the LDS church and its members are providing. We are called, as Christians, to gaze upon the other as Christ gazes on us. With love, compassion and mercy. Many times, easier said by us than done. Take it to the Lord, in prayer. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/15/2016 at 6:22 PM, Zarahemla said:

I feel we need to focus on helping the poor already in our country instead of bringing in like 100,000 more refugees and ignoring our homeless veterans.

actually we can do both as they certainly are not mutually exclusive, but the sad reality is we'll only do less than a halfhind job at both.

Edited by Blackmarch
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