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Time for a zero refugee policy? - *Read OP for mod warnings - updated 11/5/24*

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    The Liverpool situation was violence orchestrated by far right

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,746 ✭✭✭Floppybits


    Reading the tweets and comments on the immigration issue from both the left and right and you can see things are starting to turn ugly and some of the stuff is just childish carry on where you have one side gloating because they had more at their protest than the other side and then you have other side claiming they are being attacked and the gardai are turning a blind eye. Looking at this and reading about it you can see it is going to get worse and it is not being helped by the comments coming from politicians.

    The government need to move on this, they ignored the calls about this last year when it was first reported about people turning up and claiming to have lost their passports or documents. I have no problem with immigration and I do think it is a good thing but what we have at the moment is not a good thing and will turn more and more people against immigrants be they here legally or whatever. The government should have had all this in place years ago, every country needs to strong immigration controls and proper border protection, simple as that and people going around saying will my neighbour is not vetted so why should immigrants are just being pig headed, everyone when they go to the likes of the US or Australia has to fill out forms stating who they are what their passport number is and stuff like that before they even get on a plane, I know I had to do it to go to the US on Holidays last year, and it was no problem to me to do it. This is what every country should have and people turning claiming asylum should be investigated before being given that asylum it is common sense.

    We have not problems in this country with our own home grown criminals and ner do wells (to quote Joe Duffy) without importing more from outside and since our public services are being run down, just look at the garda article today in the Independent and it does give cause for concern at what is going on and how could escalate into something more dangerous.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,863 ✭✭✭Economics101




  • Registered Users Posts: 576 ✭✭✭Hungry Burger


    It’s getting absolutely ridiculous how much these groups hold clout in a supposed democracy.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    The catalyst for the Liverpool riot was migrant men hanging around schools hassling teenage girls for their phone numbers.



  • Registered Users Posts: 230 ✭✭minimary


    Great letter to the ed from Michael McDowell about Georgian asylum seekers in response to an article by the head of the Irish refugee council




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Irish have nothing to be guilty over, we never had an empire


    Just took active part in a few empires?

    ”[excerpt]

    Ireland’s projected slave-trade companies

    Merchants in Ireland’s ports and towns were well aware of the importance of the slave trade and the slave colonies. The eighteenth-century economies of Cork, Limerick and Belfast expanded on the back of salted and pickled provisions specially designed to survive high temperatures. These were exported to the West Indies to feed slaves and planters, British, French, Spanish and Dutch. Products grown on slave plantations, sugar in the Caribbean and tobacco from the North American colonies, poured into eighteenth-century Ireland. Commercial interests throughout the island, and the parliament in Dublin, were vividly aware of how much wealth and revenue could be made from the imports. The fact that mercantile regulations, laid down in Westminster, meant that ‘plantation goods’ only reached Ireland via British ports was a source of growing indignation. In 1779 the Dublin parliament and the Volunteers successfully worked together to make Britain’s American difficulty Ireland’s opportunity, demanding that Westminster repeal mercantile regulations to allow ‘a free trade for Ireland’.

    The importance of enslaved Africans in furnishing these Irish gains is vividly illustrated in a commemorative print of 1780 entitled ‘Hibernia attended by her Brave Volunteers, exhibiting her commercial freedom’. At the centre of the picture a youthful Hibernia, barefoot and barebreasted, hair flowing in the breeze, lifts up both her arms to display a banner bearing the words FREE TRADE. Behind her two armed and uniformed figures stand on guard while merchant ships approach at full sail. In the foreground, flanked by tobacco barrels, are three figures, kneeling before Hibernia to offer gifts. On the left an Irish woman holds out cloths, presumably a reference to the right of Ireland to freely export her textile production. Beside her an American Indian offers an animal pelt. On the right a black slave, strong, sinewy and briefly draped, extends a neoclassical urn, its precious metal representing the untold wealth of Africa and America. These three ‘volunteers’ carrying riches to Hibernia recall paintings of the Magi and the Christ-child, that biblical scene in which, since the fifteenth century, one of the kings was invariably depicted as an African.

    “This newly won ‘free trade for Ireland’ was not restricted to Atlantic voyaging; it also allowed Irish ships to sail direct to West Africa—in other words, to enter the slave trade. By 1784 Limerick and Belfast had drawn up and published detailed plans for the launching of slave-trade companies. Both ports contained leading merchant families who had made fortunes in the Caribbean. Creaghs from Limerick can be found slave-trading down the century from Rhode Island, Nantes and St Eustatius, and plantation-owning on Barbados and Jamaica. In Limerick by mid-century John Roche (1688–1760) had emerged as the city’s foremost Catholic merchant, richer even than the Creaghs, supplying the West Indies with provisions, buying their sugar and rum, smuggling and privateering during wartime. A similar pattern was established by Thomas Greg and Waddell Cunningham in Belfast. Their activities in the Caribbean during the Seven Years’ War enabled them to improve port facilities at home and to establish sugar plantations in the Ceded Islands.”


    Hibernia [or Erin] is depicted holding up a banner with the words "Free Trade" above her head; she is surrounded by an African, an American Native Indian, and a woman - all of them offering gifts up to her. Two soldiers stand next to a tree watching the scene while ships sail on a stormy sea in the background behind her. Barrels of tobacco lie to her left, her harp and a cornucopia lie at her feet. The free trade banner she is carrying is a reference to the campaign that led to the British Act of 1800 which allowed Ireland to trade with British colonies in America, West Indies and Africa on equal terms with Great Britain. A banner is illustrated under this image with the words "Vincit Amor Patriae" ["Love of Country Conquers"].



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,205 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    Not to downgrade what happened for a moment, but some fella in his 20s asked a 15 year old if she would 'be his girlfriend'. The idea that this would be enough to spark off anti-refugee protests and violence against the police is beyond ludicrous. There are probably a hundred such inappropriate conversations in Liverpool a day, not to mention people from ethnic minorities (including schoolgirls) being on the receiving end of racist comments daily.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Sounds terrible. But whats your point. Is it to excuse the extremist far right violence?

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Asking for phone numbers: violence

    Allegedly whistle at a white woman: burn down Tulsa

    Different era not very different human nature at play



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,863 ✭✭✭Economics101


    How can anyone in 2023 have any responsibility or guilt for things which happened long before they were born? Its a bit like persecuting Jews for being Christ-killers.

    I really wish people would grow up.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    The explanation given for ‘why we shouldn’t feel guilty’ was ‘we had no part’ in empires, Slave trade etc.

    All the while the Irish have nothing to be guilty over, we never had an empire or colonies and never waged wars of aggression.

    but that turns out in fact Ireland did take active part in the British empire and colonial slave trade

    don’t make a historical argument if you don’t like the historical counter argument.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    The word you're reaching for is downplay, which is precisely what you are doing. Do you honestly believe that there are hundreds of grown men waiting outside schools in Liverpool, requesting 15 year old girls provide them with their phone number?

    I take it you're not a father to a young girl. If either of my daughters was approached in that manner by an adult male, I would utterly flip the lid. Not to the extent that I'd organize a riot, but I'd be moving heaven and earth to ensure that the scumbag was prosecuted.

    This incident is also transposed against the background of grooming gangs in Rotherham, Telford, Runcorn etc. Given the sensitivity around incidents of this nature in the UK, it's really not surprising that it spiraled out of hand.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    You're right. It is terrible. I'm not excusing anything. I pointed out the catalyst for the incident.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    It wasn't a white woman. It was a 15 year old girl leaving school. If you think that's appropriate behavior, I suggest taking a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    In alabama in the modern and current age of consent is 16. In 1920, the year before the riot, it had just been raised to that age. Prior to that, the age of consent was a mere 10 years old.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    This incident occurred in the UK in 2023, a country in which the girl is under the age of consent.

    I suggest you revert when/if you ever have a daughter of your own. Until such time, I'll treat your comment as an egregious blip from somebody who has zero understanding of the primal desire any father has to protect his young daughter.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Which is also 16 years. It's uncouth and inappropriate but also not illegal to ask a 15 yo for their phone number.

    the primal desire any father has to protect his young daughter.

    Yeah that must have been it

    Just some fatherly love there. Thankfully the immigrants havent been able to build any wealth to raze hey.

    Are all the people rioting against them in Ireland/the UK fathers?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,205 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    15 year old black and Muslim girls are probably on the receiving end of racist comments every day of the week in Liverpool. Will there be riots and violence against the police this evening over it?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭newhouse87


    The Nigerians here should feel even more guilty about the atlantic slave trade so if you want to go down that route.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    eh?

    Are you saying Liverpool has a shortage of anti-racism groups/awareness/events?

    Also I believe your "argument" is nothing but whataboutery



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    So not only do we have all irish people are complicit for slavery (despite far more Irish people actually being slaves/indentured servants than ever owning slaves), but now the US nuclear weapons dropped on Japan are on the same level as anti-asylum seeker protests in Liverpool?

    We're reaching levels of woke that shouldnt be possible



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,603 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    I'm sorry, but any living Irish person has had no part in the slave trade.

    We are not responsible for the wrongs of the 18 century British empire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    We aren't discussing Nigeria though. Rather, Ireland and it's policies.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    That's not a nuclear disaster area in that photo, that's Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921. Though that's very interesting your first thought was it was a nuclear disaster. Really underpins the scale of the violence don't you think?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    "and they had no descendents and brought no material wealth to the country?"

    😶

    Ireland today inherited an advantage off their economic activities under the crown. The link I provided earlier goes into much more detail about Ireland and her merchant fleet.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    If the hypothetical 15 year old black and Muslim girls were approach by an adult male, requesting their phone numbers, I feel certain that their parents and communities would be rightfully incensed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,640 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    Are you condoning adult males approaching young girls under the age of consent?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 842 ✭✭✭the celtic tiger


    The joys of being so privileged you can pretend everything is fine because it doesn’t affect you.


    Overheal: you’re a phoney Irishman



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Its disgusting behaviour. There was a significant amount of misinformation about asylum seekers in Liverpool being spread around too. None of this justifies torching a police van orchestrated by Patriotic alternative

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    What did Ireland benefit from slavery? In real terms?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Did you read what I posted?

    The slave trade provided labour for the plantation colonies, and these colonies had an enormous impact on Ireland. They encouraged urban growth through the import of sugar and tobacco and the export of provisions. Commercial dairying and beef production changed life in the countryside, generating wealth for some and fostering agrarian unrest among others. By 1780 sugar, though not as inflammatory as tea in Boston, was playing a transforming role in Irish political life. Ireland was very much part of the Black Atlantic world.

    More: https://www.historyireland.com/the-irish-and-the-atlantic-slave-trade/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,863 ✭✭✭Economics101


    But you miss my point entirely. Frankly I could not dare less if Irish people were involved in Empire or the Slave trade. They are all dead now and I had no hand, act or part in whatever happened. So all this Ireland and Empire stuff, while it might be of historical interest, has nothing to do with the guilt of any living person.

    So I say again: grow up and more on.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Economics 101: the Irish people involved themselves in the slave trade and the british empire, enriching Ireland as it went, expanding her ports, and this wealth didn't just magically vanish with emancipation, it was inherited and is held today by modern Ireland and exploited upon year over year to expand the reach of her wealth.

    Speaking of modern day: doesn't Ireland still engage in economic protectionism along with the EU, vs eg. Africa?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭newhouse87


    Discussing Irelands involvement in Atlantic slave trade has nothing to do with thread title.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,713 ✭✭✭Feisar


    Gee, it's a good job we had all that money lying about to buy something to eat when we ran out of potatoes. Are you being serious or on a windup? I get it, you have your stance on refugees/migrants however there is no need to pull silly arguments out of the hat like that. All that wealth was held by our colonial overlords and made it's way back to England.

    First they came for the socialists...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭newhouse87


    You added to the whataboutery like you do on most threads to bring an American viewpoint which has zero relevance to the discussion.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    They took the port expansions back with them too?

    Let's not be ridiculous.

    By 1784 Limerick and Belfast had drawn up and published detailed plans for the launching of slave-trade companies. Both ports contained leading merchant families who had made fortunes in the Caribbean. Creaghs from Limerick can be found slave-trading down the century from Rhode Island, Nantes and St Eustatius, and plantation-owning on Barbados and Jamaica. In Limerick by mid-century John Roche (1688–1760) had emerged as the city’s foremost Catholic merchant, richer even than the Creaghs, supplying the West Indies with provisions, buying their sugar and rum, smuggling and privateering during wartime. A similar pattern was established by Thomas Greg and Waddell Cunningham in Belfast. Their activities in the Caribbean during the Seven Years’ War enabled them to improve port facilities at home and to establish sugar plantations in the Ceded Islands.

    Talk about the Ukranians and other modern refugees as you may but those arguing Ireland has no responsibilities, 'guilts,' and gained no benefits from empires or wars or slave trades etc. is mistaken and the record deserved correction here.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,381 ✭✭✭whomitconcerns


    No it's not. It is time for a no waste of space and no scumbags policy.

    How about for every person we take in, we send one of our wasters there and give the migrant a year to become a contributing member of society.

    If they succeed, then great they stay and more power to them! If they fail, we send them back and get a suitably contrite former waste of space back here from their country where hopefully they have had an attitude shift!

    Win win!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    lol, so any nation that traded with the colonies using slaves was complicit is that it? Most of the nations on earth did or do trade with nations using some form of slavery, the idea that this means irish people are culpable or guilty is delusional



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    By that logic the Indians and Pakistans "benefitted" from British rule from all the infrastructure left behind, and the current citizens of those countries are all culpable and guilty of all the atrocities committed because the current nation benefitted from the infrastructure built during occupation

    Again, delusional white guilt nonsense



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    No American forum would it be topical in: here Irish people are discussing their refugee policy in terms directly related to 'wars, empires' and 'white guilt'

    lol, so any nation that traded with the colonies using slaves was complicit is that it? 

    Literally, yes. Money talks.

    By that logic the Indians and Pakistans "benefitted" from British rule from all the infrastructure left behind, and the current citizens of those countries are all culpable and guilty of all the atrocities committed because the current nation benefitted from the infrastructure built during occupation

    Again, literally yes.

    India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers now.

    To suggest this wasn't influenced by British rule or the might of its slave-trading empire is delusional nonsense. They are two prime examples of the benefits gained from war, imperialism, and slavery.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    so India and Pakistanis share the guilt for what the British did during the Empire? 🤣

    And Native American tribes are all part guilty of the genocides and crimes committed against their own people, because today they benefit from the US' infrastructure



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    so India and Pakistanis share the guilt for what the British did during the Empire? 🤣

    "white guilt" was the term another user or users used. I am greatly discussing the wealth and advantages these modern entities enjoy from the actions of their long dead granddads and other descendants who carried out these atrocious deeds.

    (And there was certainly slavery activity in India, and still allegedly active in Pakistan today)

    (And I hope nobody is even thinking of indenturing any refugees, just an afterthought)



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The slave trade is still ongoing and there are more people in slavery now than at any time in history.

    What you’re referring to is the Atlantic slave trade, which is now abolished, but is the only one people like you even consider because it was white people complicit, although they were supplied by black Africans who sold them the slaves in the first place. Another detail you like to ignore. So black africans involved themselves and profited from the slave trade also. The Ottomans traded slaves far more and far longer so take issue with them while you’re at it.

    Incidentally it was abolished by white people. So go away with your collective guilt tripe.


    Wildly off topic anyway.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,215 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    but is the only one people like you even consider because it was white people complicit

    Literally just pointed out that India was engaged in slavery up till the modern era and Pakistan still does it.

    Wildly off topic anyway.

    I saw people discussing "white guilt" and providing misinformation to the same - which I have addressed, but I'll leave it there lol



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,126 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    Irish people having any kind of guilt for colonial slavery perpetuated by the British empire has as much merit as Indians and Pakistanis being complicit or Native Americans being complicit for the genocides of their own tribes and forcing off their lands, according to your logic. If you cant see the ridiculousness of it, fine, everyone else in the thread does.

    Anyways what this has to do with asylum seekers in Ireland I have no idea.

    Irish people owe nothing to anyone abroad, and have no moral obligation to take asylum seekers.



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