It's only meaningless to one-dimensional philistines who put no value on intangibles such as diversity and richness of culture.


No one has to "answer" you anything. Your use of language is quite revealing.

Of course if nothing else changes then net immigration reduces wages (which is why the Right is often in favour of open borders and free flow of labour), but perhaps if you use your brain and look at the bigger picture you'll see why (West) Germany was able to take in huge numbers (ie millions) of immigrants in the 80s and 90s without this side effect and was able to prosper as a nation.

Indeed. On Radio 4's PM programme last night, they played the full 15 min speech as part of a 1 hour news broadcast. It's not like it was a slow news day....

And if you are really concerned about downward pressure on wages you can always campaign for a stronger minimum wage and enhanced collective bargaining.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10075047.html

One of many studies that shows migration doesn't depress wages or increase joblessness.

I imagine in part because of the minimum wage. Previous studies have suggested that those at the lower end of the wage scale lose.

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.a...ts-immigration

I could say precisely the same subjective fuzz about British heritage and Western culture. Neither would present an argument.

Just to clarify, are you essentially admitting that the working class do indeed suffer economically from mass-immigration but that its a price worth paying? Or that you personally don't care?

Your arguments really do fit into my suspicions that essentially support for mass immigration is as close to a religious belief as you're likely to find. Its simply a conclusion that people such as yourself have decided to arrive at before retroactively looking for evidence to support what you'd like to be true.

If no evidence is forthcoming, you resort to trying to shut your opponents up with cries of 'haram!' and 'heretic!' or some such nonsense.

'at a boy. That'll win you elections!

I stand by my prediction that within my lifetime the authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of the left-wing in large parts of Europe will find a natural bedfellow with the block votes and welfare dependency of the increasing Muslim population.

I fully expect to see a "Islamic Socialist Party of Britain" appear on a ballot paper within my lifetime. In the UK it will likely be what the Labour Party eventually evolves towards.

typical bbc propaganda machine ****s. they also want the spastics to get hard ons over fascism. he'll be replayed till the video's worn out.

[QUOTE=S.K;48799973]

He's probably referring to what's known as kinship voting and it's something that definitely happens.

The Syria debate, vote and fallout has been eye opening.

So one side of the debate has a political leader of the opposition making a speech of his career, one of the best in a decade. The other side has jpgs with one line jokes posted by unilad on Facebook.

The number of people who don't even know we already were bombing IS in Iraq thinking they have informed opinions about how if we just appease them and not bomb in Syria they will leave us alone is crazy. Someone even quoted their eight year old child who summed it up in a way they could understand and they were super proud, like they thought their kid knew the answer to the Syria crisis.

I wish you'd stop using the word "spastics' as a pejorative: it detracts from your posts.

ok sorry.

This. I was probably against getting involved before the Paris and Russian airline attacks, but once our allies were attacked I believe we have a moral responsibility to "do our bit".

If it had been London that had been attacked instead of Paris, I'm sure there would be overwhelming support for action, but how would we then feel if countries like Germany and France refused to support us?

We should stand together with our allies.

Nice absolute strawman and really intellectually honest reduction of the arguments made against bombing Syria to posts on FB.

A new low for this thread, a thread in which RM posts often, so really saying something.

Watched most of the debate. No one mentioned afaik that the so called 70K "troops" we need to defeat ISIS on the ground are being bombed by the Russians.

So we are now entering a conflict where our strategic proxy is being bombed by a nuclear super power.

Also ISIS were called a death cult. Cameron did not mention that a specific tenet of that "death" cult is that an Islamic army will defeat the army of Rome in Syria and thus bring on the Apocalypse.

There ****ing newsletter is named after the town in which this apocalyptic final battle takes place. Choosing to bomb ISIS is a specific fulfillment of their religious prophecy.

They want us to bomb them because they are not a death cult, they are a War cult. A cult of war. The whole telos of their world view is war, it is their ultimate metaphysical goal made concrete in the world.

So now we are entering a theater of the absurd which sees an apocalyptic war cult gleefully fist pumping the opportunity afforded it by having the war planes of numerous nuclear powers flying overhead with competing and conflicting agendas.

ISIS exists as an idea, an ideology, that is its material starting point, however much you bomb their infrastructure, each bomb is energy and input for their ideology.

This is also ignoring that their only very weak moderate Sunni resistance groups as alternatives to ISIS. Only a Sunni group will be able to take power in large areas of Syria, at the moment the strongest groups not called ISIS are Al Queada and the Muslim Brotherhood. Who will happily fill any void if there is any real power degradation to ISIS caused by the bombing.

Its total whack a mole.

Bombing ISIS is simply ******ed.

Upside is really limited, downside is near infinite.

So what's your solution?

I only caught half of question time this week, but I watched Dianne Abbott give a lot of bluster when asked the same question, but no one in the "don't bomb" camp has provided a cohesive strategy for supressing Daish without military intervention.

Lol at bombing being close to a cohesive strategy for suppressing Daish.

Any actual damage you do to ISIS just creates opportunities for another bunch of nutbars, simple and highly expensive whack a mole.

For starters one of the reasons you are seeing so many male Sunni refugees is because there is very little political agency for moderate Sunnis in Syria. There is no one for them to fight for. Creating something for them to fight for gives us much better strategic options on the ground, which are 100% necessary for any real defeat of ISIS, almost no one disputes that, and also negates the whack a mole effect. Bombing without a good Sunni proxy in Syria is just so so so so dumb and pointless.

Obviously the above is not a straightforward task, which is why its been eschewed for the political symbolism of bombing, we are doing something look bombing. Anyone taken in by that is just a mental midget.

Also their should be real action to resolve all the diplomatic and political contradictions in Syria. The Kurds are a great possible ally and proxy, but they are in conflict with a NATO member e.g. Turkey. Any proxies that might help fight ISIS cant because they are in conflict with Assad and being bombed by the Russians. These conditions need political resolution.

The above is not a complete package of solutions, but at the least they are pre requisites of bombing, bombing in absence of the above is simple gesture politics.

Its exactly the kind of military action void of real political and strategic cohesion that has created the cluster **** of Iraq and Syria in the first place.

True but the argument is that the lack of any good strategic options is not a good enough reason to choose the bombing option.

Bombing is portrayed as the hard option that serious people need to be tough enough to take but it's actually the really easy option.

This is taken too far imo. There's a general idea about not doing what your opponents want but these people aren't some super rational group with a well though out strategy or any sort of parity if it comes to a fight. They are opportunistic nutters.

There is a big difference in not doing what your enemy wants in pure tactical and strategic terms and doing what they want in symbolic and ideological terms.

Bombing is the later, and the fact that ISIS are of course irrational just leverages the power of doing what they want in symbolic terms.

Whether bombing is a good strategy or not is not really anything to do with what ISIS want. All the symbolism and ideology is so much bullcrap.

The solution is political. Bombing is a means to that end and the criticism is that it's a means that hasn't been justified in terms of that end.

Yea thats intellectually rigorous, just hand waving away the defining feature of the enemy as bull crap.

If something actively strengthens an enemy/cult by enforcing the world view it proposes, then its not an effective strategy, obviously this has to be measured against other outcomes, but its obviously a factor to be taken into account, not BS.

I mean its almost like the effective use of propaganda and symbolism is not one of the most notable elements of ISIS.

It's a very notable element of ISIS but lets not give them too much credit. They're only real strength comes from the political situation and even that strength is way overblown. They're a nasty opportunistic group with little support.

If we had a decent and viable political goal then taking out ISIS by whatever means including the the war they want if necessary, is a no-brainer. We don't so it's very complicated.

Good post +1

I want to hear a cohesive end game to the Syria strategy but bombing ISIS by definition is a no lose situation. There is no downside.

The argument that IS wants to be bombed so we shouldn't isn't even an argument. Nor is the argument it will make them angry. Or it will win support for them.

IS is already a dying entity, it has no state allies, it has no ideological allies, it's "people" are fleeing as fast as possible and it's finances are imploding. Bombing them will speed up the process and protect the west in the mean time.

The one single argument that is valid is that we don't know step two after IS is defeated. This would be a step we get to regardless so it's relevance is none at this stage.

Guy has just gone on a knife rampage nearly decapitating 1 and injuring two on the tube 'shouting this is for Syria'

Bombing ISIS without the bombing being part of a cohesive strategy is a no win situation.

I agree to certain degree with that.



While ISIS might be a 'dying entity' the idea behind it is not and how does bombing them protect the west from the likes of this -

I also agree with this, there would be no step 2 if ISIS has its way.

.