Oh, politeness. I forget, that is of course the motivator of behaviour. Not interests or economics, forget about those of course.
Why every discussion about rules need to end with citing immigrants ?
Not every discussion about rules ends with citing immigrants. Immigrants are relevant here – see the article – and the rules that exist favour either rich immigrants or people with citizenship. And migrants do make the world go round, look at doctors, people working in industry and so on.
Obviously not, death penalty alone would not work if you are pretty sure to not be caught. What you really need is to be sure that if you break the law there will be a penalty, and a hard one if you commit a murder.
All of that is after the fact. After murders have happened. Murderers know they will be punished harshly and do it anyway. The interesting question is how to prevent murders without strictly relying on harsh punishments since that is something murders factor in…
Like every penalty if you think about it.
So you do recognise rules are forced upon subjects by an authority, in this case the state. I assume you are not a state servant or business owner, do you also recognise that the state wants to squeeze you of every ounce of labour so that it can do its deed to perpetuate its system of class rule? It’s hens OKing the fox guarding the hen house.
No. Following the rules is the base for a society to be functional.
Society is not merely a set of rules. Society is made up of relations between people and physical infrastructure such as housing and workplaces. What you think of as rules are at best for edge cases. Most people don’t go about their day thinking about rules, those who do are a small minority which most would generally label bean counters. You have a highly idealistic conception of why things work.
Beside, when UK decide to leave the EU, they know very well what the consequences would be, they simply choose to ignore them, or they were convinced that the UK could have imposed their conditions on EU.
Actually, no those who voted did not understand the consequences. To understand the consequences you would need to spend time that most people don’t have because they work. Nationalistic thinktanks that position themselves against German (and French) competition pour a bunch of money into campaigns that say the UK will be paradise after Brexit and the people lap it up. Not that this is the thing that brought us Brexit, there was a nationalistic sentiment that existed before Brexit was even a concept. This has a logic, and it has very little to do with rigorously rational voting.
But yeah, what you are saying, about needing to follow rules and whatnot, is exactly the same thing someone killing for the military would say. “I need to follow the rules, if I didn’t something bad happens or society collapses into complete disorder”
Not every discussion about rules ends with citing immigrants. Immigrants are relevant here – see the article – and the rules that exist favour either rich immigrants or people with citizenship.
In this situation the immigrants (the Britons) were able to stay in Sweden exactly because UK was in the EU and then there were rules about this. Also a lot of people was forced to left UK for the same reason.
And migrants do make the world go round, look at doctors, people working in industry and so on.
I would like to discuss about this, if what you say would be true we would not have rise from all the parties that say to send them back. Now we can discuss about legal Vs illegal immigrants but I don’t think we could agree.
All of that is after the fact. After murders have happened. Murderers know they will be punished harshly and do it anyway. The interesting question is how to prevent murders without strictly relying on harsh punishments since that is something murders factor in…
Would you commit a murder if you would be **sure ** to be caught, put in prison cell 2x2 meters and never ever exit, not even for 1 hour a day, until you die ?
Or, let’s take a lighter crime: would you park your car in a no parking zone if you would be sure to be fined every time you do it ?
The problem is not how harsh is the punishment but how sure you are to be punished: you can have a death sentence for murder but if your probability to be caught is 1% it is not a deterrent.
So you do recognise rules are forced upon subjects by an authority, in this case the state.
Yes, and it is necessary.
I assume you are not a state servant or business owner, do you also recognise that the state wants to squeeze you of every ounce of labour so that it can do its deed to perpetuate its system of class rule? It’s hens OKing the fox guarding the hen house.
No. Simply because even if I am currently not a state servant or business owner (but I was both of them) there is nothing that stop me from being one once I had the prerequisites (for being a state servant) or I want to start a business.
Society is not merely a set of rules. Society is made up of relations between people and physical infrastructure such as housing and workplaces. What you think of as rules are at best for edge cases. Most people don’t go about their day thinking about rules, those who do are a small minority which most would generally label bean counters. You have a highly idealistic conception of why things work.
Maybe but I am pretty sure that if there was not a set of rules then society as we intend it would fall in a very short time frame.
Relationships between people work once the people know that if the do something wrong there is some sort of punishment, else it would become something like “the strongest rules” very fast.
Actually, no those who voted did not understand the consequences.
It is not an EU problem, it is their problem. Why we should try to solve a problem they created for themself.
Beside the fact that in my opinion UK voter understand very well what the possible consequences would be, they simply choose to belive that they were in a position to impose their will.
To understand the consequences you would need to spend time that most people don’t have because they work. Nationalistic thinktanks that position themselves against German (and French) competition pour a bunch of money into campaigns that say the UK will be paradise after Brexit and the people lap it up. Not that this is the thing that brought us Brexit, there was a nationalistic sentiment that existed before Brexit was even a concept. This has a logic, and it has very little to do with rigorously rational voting.
True. But what you are saying is that UK was so full of itself that they think that EU would beg to them to make treaties at their (UK) conditions.
Unfortunately for them it was (and is) not true.
But yeah, what you are saying, about needing to follow rules and whatnot, is exactly the same thing someone killings others for the military would say. “I need to follow the rules because if I don’t something bad happens or something”
No. Killing in a war has rules too. And a soldier can refuse to follow and order.
True, you follow orders but if the order is unlawfull you must refuse to follow it, since the “I was following the orders” defence does not work.
In this situation the immigrants (the Britons) were able to stay in Sweden exactly because UK was in the EU and then there were rules about this. Also a lot of people was forced to left UK for the same reason.
Of course.
I would like to discuss about this, if what you say would be true we would not have rise from all the parties that say to send them back. Now we can discuss about legal Vs illegal immigrants but I don’t think we could agree.
The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have the same rights as citizens, they might have difficulties expressing themselves in the local language and often times they are poor. They cannot defend themselves as easily, not as a collective, nor as individuals. There are certainly migrants who do speak up, I wouldn’t deny this. I am focusing on the fact they’re a generally marginalised group present in daily life.
They are also something that is perceived as external. Foreign if you will. A nation defines itself though external facts and the principal externality is competition, like china being Competition for Japan and vice versa. Immigrants are of course not external, they become part of a nation because of local realities like paying taxes. Anyone who pays tax on their income in Germany is a German from a simple functionalist lens.
When the current political system reaches its inevitable boundaries, what is the more comfortable thing for a self sustaining system to do? Admit faults and inherent limitations (which exist in regards to growth, etc.,) or is it easier to define scapegoat minorities? I would say the latter.
The antagonism against immigrants is great for business. Immigrants are less likely to unionise or make demands if there is significant pressure for them to conform. They don’t want to be thrown out of a country because it means loosing everything, so they will make a point to work harder, longer, and with less pay. Immigrants will accept living in bad housing, harassment, and discrimination in social services, just to have a chance at survival.
Many nationalistic forces use immigrants, and generally those who have nothing, as a vehicle to direct the class antagonism away from workers vs. business owners and (a good chunk of) state servants, towards average workers and those in the middle middle class (including very few small businesses) vs. extremely impoverished sections of society, which includes poorer workers without qualifications who work back-breaking jobs.
All in all, immigrants are not inherently harmful. They are in a sense quite useful.
Would you commit a murder if you would be **sure ** to be caught, put in prison cell 2x2 meters and never ever exit, not even for 1 hour a day, until you die ?
I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences
In rap there is often this theme of riding with the devil. Being “condemned”. Criminals view crime as their being, they view crime and punishment as their being. Big L, Tupac and Biggie have rapped at length about this. People will commit murder-suicides. Murder itself is usually worse than any punishment that could follow. It is a minority that thinks it can really get away with murder.
Or, let’s take a lighter crime: would you park your car in a no parking zone if you would be sure to be fined every time you do it ?
I don’t drive a car. I think it’s an outdated technology.
The problem is not how harsh is the punishment but how sure you are to be punished: you can have a death sentence for murder but if your probability to be caught is 1% it is not a deterrent.
I would agree that a functioning society needs to be able to take care of itself. I would agree that people need to keep their eyes peeled. I would agree that someone going on a killing spree needs to be contained for the safety of others and themselves. Rehabilitation would be called for in cases of violent infractions. But the punitive angle doesn’t grab issues at their root, it’s much more a way of pruning phenomena in a way that appears palatable at first glance.
Yes, and it is necessary.
I am going to let this end-in-itself stand as is.
No. Simply because even if I am currently not a state servant or business owner (but I was both of them) there is nothing that stop me from being one once I had the prerequisites (for being a state servant) or I want to start a business.
The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.
Maybe but I am pretty sure that if there was not a set of rules then society as we intend it would fall in a very short time frame.
I don’t know about this. ISIS in Syria went against conventions. Now ISIS is practically in power. Now that they are in charge of a state they were forced to liberalise and adapt their previous rules and convictions. Exactly the same thing has happened in Afghanistan with Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan may not be the shining democracy that people envision as an ideal, but it’s not too different from the West-allied UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain. It seems to be the case that rules, in the sense of rules that are written down, come after activity.
Relationships between people work once the people know that if the do something wrong there is some sort of punishment, else it would become something like “the strongest rules” very fast.
But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state. The state presents itself as the biggest on the block – it is already similar to the rule of the strongest. Aside from that, relationships between people work because because humans are social animals that tend to be cooperative, that is how evolution made us. It is more fundamental than a fear of punishment causing people to behave a certain way. I could ask why friendships work without punishment. If I am with my friend, the last thing that I want to envision are punishments for them or myself.
/
It is not an EU problem, it is their problem. Why we should try to solve a problem they created for themselves.
It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe.
/
But what you are saying is that UK was so full of itself that they think that EU would beg to them to make treaties at their (UK) conditions.
Yes of course. It’s analogous to Trump’s talks about making deals on his own terms. A nation is not an intelligent being, it’s quite the opposite. Nations are scared and driven by competition. Just because there are a couple of smartiepants designing policy, does not necessarily mean that a nation makes decisions that are clear and intelligent in historical retrospect. I feel there is in fact a quite libidnal quality to the nature of nations.
/
No. Killing in a war has rules too. And a soldier can refuse to follow and order. True, you follow orders but if the order is unlawful you must refuse to follow it, since the “I was following the orders” defence does not work.
Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.
Rules are not static and can be liberalised in the case of war. Everything the Wehrmacht was doing was legal according to the laws in Germany at that time. These rules were tuned to benefit Germany as a military power.
You can say organisations like the U.N. exist to act like an ombudsman between warring nations, however the U.N. only has power as long as it is supported by the nations it is supposed to keep in check. The U.N., NATO, BRICS, and the EU may collapse. When these organisations collapse it becomes a question of the winning side in a war, or rather controlling sides in the case of warring parties continuing to exist after conflict, as to who did what wrong.
I can also break the rules in favour of my superiors and hope I receive their good will. I can lie and say I was following rules. What’s important here is the authority judging me in the end turning a blind eye and that has happened time and time again throughout history. Operation Paperclip is a fairly decent example of this.
It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.
The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have…
The problem is that people are not able anymore to discern things. What you say it could be true but the problem is that it applied mostly to illegal immigrants.
True, some people are assholes also to legal immigrants (stupid people alway exists).
Most people have not problems with the immigrants that work and partecipate in the society but with the immigrants that live by petty crimes.
Many nationalists force use immigrants because left wings (and other btw) parties make it too easy to use them as bogeyman: it is not too hard to point your finger at them saying “they are all criminals” when looking at situations in the cities (I always use the Milan Central railway station as example).
As I said elsewhere, years of immigrations left unchecked has caused the society to switch from the “they need help” mentality to the “they are all criminals, we don’t need them” mentality, offering an easy target to nationalist forces even because everyone else refused to look at the problem.
Would you commit a murder if you would be **sure ** to be caught, put in prison cell 2x2 meters and never ever exit, not even for 1 hour a day, until you die ?
I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences
Or, let’s take a lighter crime: would you park your car in a no parking zone if you would be sure to be fined every time you do it ?
I don’t drive a car. I think it’s an outdated technology.
I think you understand perfectly the spirit of the questions, answering this way is simply childish.
The basic question is: would you think that people would do something illegal if they would be sure to be caught and punished proportionally to the crime ?
The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.
No, I mean that I was s state servant (I served in the militay like every other man did up until 20 years ago) and I was a business owner.
But your point is wrong: everyone can try and that does not mean that everyone will succeded. There is nothing that can stop me to try to become again a business owner, only my choice to not be one.
And likewyse there is nothing that stops me to try to become a state servant again if not objective things: I am too old to join again the army or I have not the correct studies for a certain work in the state apparatus for example.
And society do not implode because someone move up the ladder.
But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state.
The alternative is a never ending chain of personal vendettas.
It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe. /
The UK created the problem when decided to leave the EU. Think about EU like a private club: you could enter if you are a member. You leave the club, you can no longer enter. Who caused the problem ? The club which follow its rules of you that decide to leave the club thinking that you could still enter whenever you wanted ?
Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.
That does not means that everything is allowed. The use of every weapon, old or new, ultimately has a resposinble: who gave the order to deploy it.
I can also break the rules in favour of my superiors and hope I receive their good will. I can lie and say I was following rules. What’s important here is the authority judging me in the end turning a blind eye and that has happened time and time again throughout history. Operation Paperclip is a fairly decent example of this.
Obviously, you can lie or you can break the rules as long as you and your superior are willing to pay the price. And as you pointed out, it happened time and again.
It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.
Only if you are on the winning side. And also in this case I am not sure that if you follow an illegal order the defence works.
It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.
Only if you are on the winning side. And also in this case I am not sure that if you follow an illegal order the defence works.
I don’t think it matters that much if you are defending yourself or not. The idea of following orders concerns what you are doing at any given moment. If I was stationed at Abu Ghraib and I received an order to do something I might as well do it. I have this justification of following orders that suits my role.
In fact the defense still works.
Quote from wikipedia: “Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley’s sentence was reduced because Calley believed that what he did was a part of his orders”
As for when you’re confronted with not being on the winning side, many people in the united states think that large parts of the Wehrmacht and Japanese army are absolved of their crimes because “they had no other choice”, even in cases where it’s very clear that someone gleefully committed crimes.
The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have…
The problem is that people are not able anymore to discern things. What you say it could be true but the problem is that it applied mostly to illegal immigrants.
I think the distinction of legal and illegal immigrants serves as a foot in the door for culture war distraction. First there is about needing to surveil some immigrant communities because of terrorist acts associated with foreigners, then it’s about not wanting to take in refugees because other nations in the EU are not putting in enough of an effort, then it becomes an issue of illegal immigration – which is synonymous with undocumented immigration. The step after that is introducing legislation to make working visas less of a certainty, usually that’s coupled to worse working conditions. Lastly deportations, nowadays called remigration, strip large sections of immigrants and those with an immigrant background of citizenship. This furthers an erosion of basic rights and puts those affected in a position where it’s do or die, which means proving your worth as an immigrant to state and industry.
Furthermore, many currently legal and working immigrants have histories of undocumented migration, receiving government aid, and some even have engaged in illegal activity.
True, some people are assholes also to legal immigrants (stupid people alway exists). Most people have not problems with the immigrants that work and partecipate in the society but with the immigrants that live by petty crimes.
Many voters of right wing parties don’t have a probblem with immigrants as long as they’re the right immigrants in their view. Immigrants are disadvantaged though and this makes some turn to crime. Crime that could be in large part prevented if these people had their needs better met. Trying to kick out criminal immigrants potentially makes the problem worse because it puts them in an even more precarious situation where they are even more incentivised to do crime. This creates pressure for the vast majority of immigrants who by the way are not criminals to conform even harder.
Criminals doing petty crime are not able to find regular employment when the state cracks down on them. They walk into the arms of human traffickers, which does not decrease the crime rate in any way. At best, crimes become hidden or a moved geographically.
Many nationalists force use immigrants because left wings (and other btw) parties make it too easy to use them as bogeyman: it is not too hard to point your finger at them saying “they are all criminals” when looking at situations in the cities (I always use the Milan Central railway station as example).
Reformist-progressive parties are in power in urban areas where inequality is high. They are not able to change anything because the entire country’s economy is built in such a way that creates significant discrepancies in wealth, which is magnified in urban areas. The left leaning parties are not sending the “bad” immigrants elsewhere because A. it costs money and B. it does not address the cause. This does not seem like a local left wing party problem, they seem like a correlation at best.
As I said elsewhere, years of immigrations left unchecked has caused the society to switch from the “they need help” mentality to the “they are all criminals, we don’t need them” mentality, offering an easy target to nationalist forces even because everyone else refused to look at the problem.
I think “unchecked immigration” is a misnomer. I would not say that immigration was left unchecked, immigration has always been a gigantic cornerstone of policy.
I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences
The basic question is: would you think that people would do something illegal if they would be sure to be caught and punished proportionally to the crime ?
I’ve answered this numerous times in great detail at this point and the answer is yes and besides, there is this assumption that just “bringing people to justice” is most important in order to prevent crime. There are crimes that have high clearance rates, meaning that on paper a very high number of reported crimes are figured out. People still commit these crimes and it’s sort of a ‘mystery’ of the justice system why that is still the case. Well, clearly there are factors, which I have previously pointed to, that go beyond catching the bad guys and punishing them for effect.
The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.
No, I mean that I was s state servant (I served in the militay like every other man did up until 20 years ago) and I was a business owner.
Thank you for clarifying.
But your point is wrong: everyone can try and that does not mean that everyone will succeded. There is nothing that can stop me to try to become again a business owner, only my choice to not be one.
This, with the exception of the very last part, is what I was saying. Sure, you can try to become a business owner, there are no limits to you choosing to. The important distinction here is trying and being. As someone who works, you likely have rather few resources to fund a business. You won’t be able to provide as much collateral on loans as people with capital, i.e. people whose property works for them. You are significantly disadvantaged.
And likewyse there is nothing that stops me to try to become a state servant again if not objective things: I am too old to join again the army or I have not the correct studies for a certain work in the state apparatus for example.
Certainly. But you have duties and in the army example those duties entail taking another’s life and giving one’s own. Then again the army is a low hanging fruit since they’ll take all kinds of people. It’s good that you realise that there are certain prerequisites that the vast majority of people do not have when we turn our eyes away from the army example. This gate is education and education is highly determined by the financial situation of one’s parents.
And society do not implode because someone move up the ladder.
Yes, when one person moves up the ladder society does not implode, but what I was saying is that society implodes when a fair chunk of people can simply choose to move up the ladder, by applying themselves better for example. If everyone became self-employed, you’d be back in feudalism and that simply isn’t efficient enough in order to sustain industrial production.
But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state.
The alternative is a never ending chain of personal vendettas.
I don’t think so. The state, police and monopolies on violences are a recent phenomenon. History is littered with systems where social conduct was shaped without purely punitive or violent measures. Who is to say that the nation state is the end-all-be-all?
It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe.
The UK created the problem when decided to leave the EU. Think about EU like a private club: you could enter if you are a member. You leave the club, you can no longer enter. Who caused the problem ? The club which follow its rules of you that decide to leave the club thinking that you could still enter whenever you wanted ?
This does not really engage with the argument. States don’t have responsibilites like a person. They don’t join private clubs as it were. The rules you are seeing are a result of negotiations based on leverage and generally this is in the interest of the most powerful nations. First the EEC (EU-predecessor) is created out of a strength in numbers calculation. The United States and the Soviet Union are blocks that could overpower any one member of the EU, but as a regional alliance the scales can be balanced. The rules of the EU are based on that. It’s not a rules-first thing, if it was Hungary would have long been kicked out for repeatledly flunking the rules of the EU.
Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.
That does not means that everything is allowed. The use of every weapon, old or new, ultimately has a resposinble: who gave the order to deploy it.
Of course it does not mean that everything is “allowed”. So long as there are states there is war and there is an incetive to come up with new ways of brutalising your enemy. My argument is this, mustard gas wasn’t banned prior to the end of WWI, then it got banned. Nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Nuclear aspect was legal at the time. Now there are many states that have pledged to not use nuclear weapons.
Oh, politeness. I forget, that is of course the motivator of behaviour. Not interests or economics, forget about those of course.
Not every discussion about rules ends with citing immigrants. Immigrants are relevant here – see the article – and the rules that exist favour either rich immigrants or people with citizenship. And migrants do make the world go round, look at doctors, people working in industry and so on.
All of that is after the fact. After murders have happened. Murderers know they will be punished harshly and do it anyway. The interesting question is how to prevent murders without strictly relying on harsh punishments since that is something murders factor in…
So you do recognise rules are forced upon subjects by an authority, in this case the state. I assume you are not a state servant or business owner, do you also recognise that the state wants to squeeze you of every ounce of labour so that it can do its deed to perpetuate its system of class rule? It’s hens OKing the fox guarding the hen house.
Society is not merely a set of rules. Society is made up of relations between people and physical infrastructure such as housing and workplaces. What you think of as rules are at best for edge cases. Most people don’t go about their day thinking about rules, those who do are a small minority which most would generally label bean counters. You have a highly idealistic conception of why things work.
Actually, no those who voted did not understand the consequences. To understand the consequences you would need to spend time that most people don’t have because they work. Nationalistic thinktanks that position themselves against German (and French) competition pour a bunch of money into campaigns that say the UK will be paradise after Brexit and the people lap it up. Not that this is the thing that brought us Brexit, there was a nationalistic sentiment that existed before Brexit was even a concept. This has a logic, and it has very little to do with rigorously rational voting.
But yeah, what you are saying, about needing to follow rules and whatnot, is exactly the same thing someone killing for the military would say. “I need to follow the rules, if I didn’t something bad happens or society collapses into complete disorder”
In this situation the immigrants (the Britons) were able to stay in Sweden exactly because UK was in the EU and then there were rules about this. Also a lot of people was forced to left UK for the same reason.
I would like to discuss about this, if what you say would be true we would not have rise from all the parties that say to send them back. Now we can discuss about legal Vs illegal immigrants but I don’t think we could agree.
Would you commit a murder if you would be **sure ** to be caught, put in prison cell 2x2 meters and never ever exit, not even for 1 hour a day, until you die ?
Or, let’s take a lighter crime: would you park your car in a no parking zone if you would be sure to be fined every time you do it ?
The problem is not how harsh is the punishment but how sure you are to be punished: you can have a death sentence for murder but if your probability to be caught is 1% it is not a deterrent.
Yes, and it is necessary.
No. Simply because even if I am currently not a state servant or business owner (but I was both of them) there is nothing that stop me from being one once I had the prerequisites (for being a state servant) or I want to start a business.
Maybe but I am pretty sure that if there was not a set of rules then society as we intend it would fall in a very short time frame.
Relationships between people work once the people know that if the do something wrong there is some sort of punishment, else it would become something like “the strongest rules” very fast.
It is not an EU problem, it is their problem. Why we should try to solve a problem they created for themself.
Beside the fact that in my opinion UK voter understand very well what the possible consequences would be, they simply choose to belive that they were in a position to impose their will.
True. But what you are saying is that UK was so full of itself that they think that EU would beg to them to make treaties at their (UK) conditions.
Unfortunately for them it was (and is) not true.
No. Killing in a war has rules too. And a soldier can refuse to follow and order.
True, you follow orders but if the order is unlawfull you must refuse to follow it, since the “I was following the orders” defence does not work.
Of course.
The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have the same rights as citizens, they might have difficulties expressing themselves in the local language and often times they are poor. They cannot defend themselves as easily, not as a collective, nor as individuals. There are certainly migrants who do speak up, I wouldn’t deny this. I am focusing on the fact they’re a generally marginalised group present in daily life.
They are also something that is perceived as external. Foreign if you will. A nation defines itself though external facts and the principal externality is competition, like china being Competition for Japan and vice versa. Immigrants are of course not external, they become part of a nation because of local realities like paying taxes. Anyone who pays tax on their income in Germany is a German from a simple functionalist lens. When the current political system reaches its inevitable boundaries, what is the more comfortable thing for a self sustaining system to do? Admit faults and inherent limitations (which exist in regards to growth, etc.,) or is it easier to define scapegoat minorities? I would say the latter.
The antagonism against immigrants is great for business. Immigrants are less likely to unionise or make demands if there is significant pressure for them to conform. They don’t want to be thrown out of a country because it means loosing everything, so they will make a point to work harder, longer, and with less pay. Immigrants will accept living in bad housing, harassment, and discrimination in social services, just to have a chance at survival.
Many nationalistic forces use immigrants, and generally those who have nothing, as a vehicle to direct the class antagonism away from workers vs. business owners and (a good chunk of) state servants, towards average workers and those in the middle middle class (including very few small businesses) vs. extremely impoverished sections of society, which includes poorer workers without qualifications who work back-breaking jobs. All in all, immigrants are not inherently harmful. They are in a sense quite useful.
I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences
In rap there is often this theme of riding with the devil. Being “condemned”. Criminals view crime as their being, they view crime and punishment as their being. Big L, Tupac and Biggie have rapped at length about this. People will commit murder-suicides. Murder itself is usually worse than any punishment that could follow. It is a minority that thinks it can really get away with murder.
I don’t drive a car. I think it’s an outdated technology.
I would agree that a functioning society needs to be able to take care of itself. I would agree that people need to keep their eyes peeled. I would agree that someone going on a killing spree needs to be contained for the safety of others and themselves. Rehabilitation would be called for in cases of violent infractions. But the punitive angle doesn’t grab issues at their root, it’s much more a way of pruning phenomena in a way that appears palatable at first glance.
I am going to let this end-in-itself stand as is.
The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.
I don’t know about this. ISIS in Syria went against conventions. Now ISIS is practically in power. Now that they are in charge of a state they were forced to liberalise and adapt their previous rules and convictions. Exactly the same thing has happened in Afghanistan with Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan may not be the shining democracy that people envision as an ideal, but it’s not too different from the West-allied UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain. It seems to be the case that rules, in the sense of rules that are written down, come after activity.
But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state. The state presents itself as the biggest on the block – it is already similar to the rule of the strongest. Aside from that, relationships between people work because because humans are social animals that tend to be cooperative, that is how evolution made us. It is more fundamental than a fear of punishment causing people to behave a certain way. I could ask why friendships work without punishment. If I am with my friend, the last thing that I want to envision are punishments for them or myself. /
It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe. /
Yes of course. It’s analogous to Trump’s talks about making deals on his own terms. A nation is not an intelligent being, it’s quite the opposite. Nations are scared and driven by competition. Just because there are a couple of smartiepants designing policy, does not necessarily mean that a nation makes decisions that are clear and intelligent in historical retrospect. I feel there is in fact a quite libidnal quality to the nature of nations. /
Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.
Rules are not static and can be liberalised in the case of war. Everything the Wehrmacht was doing was legal according to the laws in Germany at that time. These rules were tuned to benefit Germany as a military power. You can say organisations like the U.N. exist to act like an ombudsman between warring nations, however the U.N. only has power as long as it is supported by the nations it is supposed to keep in check. The U.N., NATO, BRICS, and the EU may collapse. When these organisations collapse it becomes a question of the winning side in a war, or rather controlling sides in the case of warring parties continuing to exist after conflict, as to who did what wrong.
I can also break the rules in favour of my superiors and hope I receive their good will. I can lie and say I was following rules. What’s important here is the authority judging me in the end turning a blind eye and that has happened time and time again throughout history. Operation Paperclip is a fairly decent example of this. It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.
The problem is that people are not able anymore to discern things. What you say it could be true but the problem is that it applied mostly to illegal immigrants.
True, some people are assholes also to legal immigrants (stupid people alway exists).
Most people have not problems with the immigrants that work and partecipate in the society but with the immigrants that live by petty crimes.
Many nationalists force use immigrants because left wings (and other btw) parties make it too easy to use them as bogeyman: it is not too hard to point your finger at them saying “they are all criminals” when looking at situations in the cities (I always use the Milan Central railway station as example).
As I said elsewhere, years of immigrations left unchecked has caused the society to switch from the “they need help” mentality to the “they are all criminals, we don’t need them” mentality, offering an easy target to nationalist forces even because everyone else refused to look at the problem.
I think you understand perfectly the spirit of the questions, answering this way is simply childish.
The basic question is: would you think that people would do something illegal if they would be sure to be caught and punished proportionally to the crime ?
No, I mean that I was s state servant (I served in the militay like every other man did up until 20 years ago) and I was a business owner.
But your point is wrong: everyone can try and that does not mean that everyone will succeded. There is nothing that can stop me to try to become again a business owner, only my choice to not be one.
And likewyse there is nothing that stops me to try to become a state servant again if not objective things: I am too old to join again the army or I have not the correct studies for a certain work in the state apparatus for example.
And society do not implode because someone move up the ladder.
The alternative is a never ending chain of personal vendettas.
The UK created the problem when decided to leave the EU. Think about EU like a private club: you could enter if you are a member. You leave the club, you can no longer enter. Who caused the problem ? The club which follow its rules of you that decide to leave the club thinking that you could still enter whenever you wanted ?
That does not means that everything is allowed. The use of every weapon, old or new, ultimately has a resposinble: who gave the order to deploy it.
Obviously, you can lie or you can break the rules as long as you and your superior are willing to pay the price. And as you pointed out, it happened time and again.
Only if you are on the winning side. And also in this case I am not sure that if you follow an illegal order the defence works.
[2]
I don’t think it matters that much if you are defending yourself or not. The idea of following orders concerns what you are doing at any given moment. If I was stationed at Abu Ghraib and I received an order to do something I might as well do it. I have this justification of following orders that suits my role. In fact the defense still works. Quote from wikipedia: “Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley’s sentence was reduced because Calley believed that what he did was a part of his orders” As for when you’re confronted with not being on the winning side, many people in the united states think that large parts of the Wehrmacht and Japanese army are absolved of their crimes because “they had no other choice”, even in cases where it’s very clear that someone gleefully committed crimes.
[1]
I think the distinction of legal and illegal immigrants serves as a foot in the door for culture war distraction. First there is about needing to surveil some immigrant communities because of terrorist acts associated with foreigners, then it’s about not wanting to take in refugees because other nations in the EU are not putting in enough of an effort, then it becomes an issue of illegal immigration – which is synonymous with undocumented immigration. The step after that is introducing legislation to make working visas less of a certainty, usually that’s coupled to worse working conditions. Lastly deportations, nowadays called remigration, strip large sections of immigrants and those with an immigrant background of citizenship. This furthers an erosion of basic rights and puts those affected in a position where it’s do or die, which means proving your worth as an immigrant to state and industry.
Furthermore, many currently legal and working immigrants have histories of undocumented migration, receiving government aid, and some even have engaged in illegal activity.
Many voters of right wing parties don’t have a probblem with immigrants as long as they’re the right immigrants in their view. Immigrants are disadvantaged though and this makes some turn to crime. Crime that could be in large part prevented if these people had their needs better met. Trying to kick out criminal immigrants potentially makes the problem worse because it puts them in an even more precarious situation where they are even more incentivised to do crime. This creates pressure for the vast majority of immigrants who by the way are not criminals to conform even harder.
Criminals doing petty crime are not able to find regular employment when the state cracks down on them. They walk into the arms of human traffickers, which does not decrease the crime rate in any way. At best, crimes become hidden or a moved geographically.
Reformist-progressive parties are in power in urban areas where inequality is high. They are not able to change anything because the entire country’s economy is built in such a way that creates significant discrepancies in wealth, which is magnified in urban areas. The left leaning parties are not sending the “bad” immigrants elsewhere because A. it costs money and B. it does not address the cause. This does not seem like a local left wing party problem, they seem like a correlation at best.
I think “unchecked immigration” is a misnomer. I would not say that immigration was left unchecked, immigration has always been a gigantic cornerstone of policy.
I’ve answered this numerous times in great detail at this point and the answer is yes and besides, there is this assumption that just “bringing people to justice” is most important in order to prevent crime. There are crimes that have high clearance rates, meaning that on paper a very high number of reported crimes are figured out. People still commit these crimes and it’s sort of a ‘mystery’ of the justice system why that is still the case. Well, clearly there are factors, which I have previously pointed to, that go beyond catching the bad guys and punishing them for effect.
Thank you for clarifying.
This, with the exception of the very last part, is what I was saying. Sure, you can try to become a business owner, there are no limits to you choosing to. The important distinction here is trying and being. As someone who works, you likely have rather few resources to fund a business. You won’t be able to provide as much collateral on loans as people with capital, i.e. people whose property works for them. You are significantly disadvantaged.
Certainly. But you have duties and in the army example those duties entail taking another’s life and giving one’s own. Then again the army is a low hanging fruit since they’ll take all kinds of people. It’s good that you realise that there are certain prerequisites that the vast majority of people do not have when we turn our eyes away from the army example. This gate is education and education is highly determined by the financial situation of one’s parents.
Yes, when one person moves up the ladder society does not implode, but what I was saying is that society implodes when a fair chunk of people can simply choose to move up the ladder, by applying themselves better for example. If everyone became self-employed, you’d be back in feudalism and that simply isn’t efficient enough in order to sustain industrial production.
I don’t think so. The state, police and monopolies on violences are a recent phenomenon. History is littered with systems where social conduct was shaped without purely punitive or violent measures. Who is to say that the nation state is the end-all-be-all?
This does not really engage with the argument. States don’t have responsibilites like a person. They don’t join private clubs as it were. The rules you are seeing are a result of negotiations based on leverage and generally this is in the interest of the most powerful nations. First the EEC (EU-predecessor) is created out of a strength in numbers calculation. The United States and the Soviet Union are blocks that could overpower any one member of the EU, but as a regional alliance the scales can be balanced. The rules of the EU are based on that. It’s not a rules-first thing, if it was Hungary would have long been kicked out for repeatledly flunking the rules of the EU.
Of course it does not mean that everything is “allowed”. So long as there are states there is war and there is an incetive to come up with new ways of brutalising your enemy. My argument is this, mustard gas wasn’t banned prior to the end of WWI, then it got banned. Nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Nuclear aspect was legal at the time. Now there are many states that have pledged to not use nuclear weapons.