Germany never changes... German leader says multiculturalism has failed.

[Jon Miller]

Correction: (i.e every unemployed legal or illegal immigrant or non-immigrant)

JM

[rah]

I stand corrected.

[Dauphin]

1m Muslims in the UK, a handful of them are any problem.

Handful is understating (unless you mean serious concerns, like terrorist inclination). I agree the problems aren't massive, but don't pretend there aren't any endemic problems under the surface that need to be seriously addressed.

[dannubis]

Ok, so basically what we have here is some little ***** that pipes up every once in a while, mirroring on a forum the same insignificance his country displays in the real world. Also, it's a little hard for you to call me a redneck when I have a higher IQ than you and more education. The fact is that Europeans, in general, are inferior to Americans. That's why Europeans whine and cry about the US and how backwards it is since they can't out-compete it.

Now you are funny again !

Keep it up.

[Kitschum]

HMMM, you're making correlations between prison populations percentages and tolerance.

Yes I consider a country that incarcerates almost 1% of its adult population incapable of being a model of tolerance.

I don't know if the drug war gone haywire explains the whole difference but I doubt that Americans are really 3-7 times more undeserving of freedom than people in other multicultural Western democracies. I do believe that only a disturbed, intolerant, culture can do this to its own population and seemingly think of it as healthy and normal. Try and defend it if you want but I don't see why you'd want to.

Or how people feel about how governments enforce immigration policies and tolerance and you're call me ignorant. Hilarious.

I've explained this and still you don't get it. There is evidently a cross-country correlation between dissatisfaction in government management of immigration and how likely people in each country are to see immigration as a problem. It is a fact that made perfect sense to me once I discovered it. I don't know why you have a problem with it.

This concerns immigration tolerance because thinking of immigration as a problem and not an opportunity is, to me, a clear declaration of intolerance. Unlike all the opinions expressed in this thread (nothing wrong with opinion but it is not as objective) I have substantiated this point with a survey and consider it pretty much settled.

You have yet to dispute my point that the US has had it's share of immigrants that were from non-western countries, so Europe isn't experiencing anything that hasn't happened elsewhere before.

Why are you stuck on this non-issue? I have not argued that "non-western immigrant" is a useful category.

If you want to talk about immigrants from Muslim countries of the Middle East, North and East Africa then, yes, clearly Europe has accepted much, much higher "concentrations" of such immigration than the US ever did. But I am not the one in this thread pushing this point the hardest because it really is nebulous as I mentioned in my very first post in this thread (on the first page)

[Hauldren Collider]

It's not intolerance that creates a high prison population...it's crime...duh...

Although I have to say, I am not fond of our justice system. While I think it's probably the best in the world or at least close to, we absolutely need to start paying public defenders as much as prosecutors. That, along with requiring prosecutors to charge someone with a crime BEFORE guilty pleas, would go a fairly long way.

[Dauphin]

Why do you consider it the best (or close to best) in the world?

[Hauldren Collider]

Is that a trick question?

[Dauphin]

You made a claim, I'm just wondering what it's based on.

[Zevico]

1. Merkel ain't a racist.
2. She's pro integration and pro a multi-ethnic society. She's anti-multiculturalism if and to the extent that it implies an erosion of democratic values.

[laurentius]

Islam is the cancer of the world.

[dannubis]

No, poverty is... *beating dead horse*

[Zevico]

Is anyone else reminded of Fallout by the title of this thread?
Also, is she making a distinction b/w multi-ethnic society and multi-cultural society in so far as the former implies "everyone assuming democratic values" and the latter does not?
If so, I agree.

Edit: to be clear, I could care less about China Town, or worshipping at Mosques/Synagogues/Churches; speaking multiple languages; etc that's fine. What I care about is quite simply the acceptance of democratic values. If we fail to teach that and integrate people with that aim in mind, we're buggered.

[Al B. Sure!]

That's War Never Changes, not Germany.

[BeBMan]

Is anyone else reminded of Fallout by the title of this thread?
Also, is she making a distinction b/w multi-ethnic society and multi-cultural society in so far as the former implies "everyone assuming democratic values" and the latter does not?
If so, I agree.

Edit: to be clear, I could care less about China Town, or worshipping at Mosques/Synagogues/Churches; speaking multiple languages; etc that's fine. What I care about is quite simply the acceptance of democratic values. If we fail to teach that and integrate people with that aim in mind, we're buggered.

As I posted in the other thread I don't give much about the terms "multi-ethnic" vs. "multi-cultural" since I think they end up being used by everyone for anything either as something great or the opposite. Your post above hit imo the nail on its head: The biggest matter of concern is the acceptance of democratic values, so in principle everyone can come that accepts the German constitution regardless of his religion, ethnicity, whatever.

The whole debate about learning the language is there because education is thought to be the key in getting people from societies that often aren't modern democracies but now have to interact with people in such a society in touch with those democratic values. There may be parts of the political spectrum/population which have a xenophobe/racist agenda and/or certain prejudices in those debates, but that in the end is just the result of being a democracy where anyone - even the nutjobs - can participate in such debates. It doesn't mean that this is the mainstream notion that governs the debate.