After Brussels Attacks, Poland Turns Away Immigrants - Polidicks

[QUOTE]The Brussels terror attacks prompted Poland to rethink its already unenthusiastic position on accepting asylum seekers and stop resettlements. “I say very clearly that I see no possibility at this time of immigrants coming to Poland,” Prime Minister Beata Szydło said on Wednesday.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]A new opinion poll conducted for the Adam Smith Center, a think tank, found 64 percent of Poles want the country’s borders closed to refugees.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Poland’s ally Hungary has led the way in strongly opposing Germany’s “open door” policy on refugees. Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán denounced the EU’s migration policy as an effort to destroy Europe. “We will not import crime, terrorism, homophobia and a brand of anti-Semitism that sets synagogues ablaze,” he said, according to Reuters. “There will be no outlaw districts, no riots and no gangs hunting for our wives and daughters.” Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico also made Muslim migration one of the main issues of the country’s recent parliamentary election campaign. None of Central Europe’s countries has seen much migration in recent decades, and the idea of allowing in large numbers of culturally dissimilar Muslims is deeply unpopular.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.politico.eu/article/poland-slams-door-on-refugees-beata-szydlo/"]Source[/URL]

I don't blame them. I don't want the risk of that shit happening in my country either

Considering the current Polish government, I'm surprised they didn't do this much sooner. I assume they were waiting for a good excuse.

I'm surprised it took them so long

Good on them.

No surprises there. Its been well established that the Poles were never happy with this whole situation and also had a very hard stance on immigration. If anything I'm more surprised they didn't take this policy after what happened in Paris.

I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Visegrad group follow suit.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;50008522]Considering the current Polish government, I'm surprised they didn't do this much sooner. I assume they were waiting for a good excuse.[/QUOTE] There we go again with THE GOVERNMENT boogeyman. The PEOPLE don't want them here. Our country was always very monolithic both in terms of religion and ethnicity, but has always offered tolerance to those of other origins. Because those people WANTED to be Polish, they wanted to live here for whatever reason it could be. That's the reason why a lot of people here are wary of the wave of imigration, and don't want to have anything to do with it. No one here minds that one guy from Afghanistan who has his own shop. Hell, we have our own Muslim minority, who, are as far as I am aware, are actually afraid of the refugees coming into Europe, because they identify foremost as Polish and then as Muslim, not the other way around. No wonder, a lot of them came here probably to get away from all this. We want people who actually feel like they belong in this country, not people who are economic immigrants.

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;50008922]Whilr you are right Tamschi didnt really suggest people objected to it.[/QUOTE] He/she used the typical rethoric you will find here. I'ts gotta be the big scary right-wing government doing everything. Newsflash: people wanted this government.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50008938]He/she used the typical rethoric you will find here. I'ts gotta be the big scary right-wing government doing everything. Newsflash: people wanted this government.[/QUOTE] That doesn't make it better when it's effectively dissolving the judicial checks on itself. Believe me, I think the people who voted for them are morally just as bankrupt as them. That aside, these blanket judgements are frankly disgusting me. If a nation cites its religion as reason for going against one of that religion's fundamental tenets by generalisation (refugees and economic migrants aren't the same after all), then I don't think those people's faith is even worth the words it's declared with in this context. (Before anyone complains that this is off-topic: I'm also looking at previous statements from Poland here.) I admit that hypocrisy and empty appearances are a personal pet-peeve of mine though. One of the main reasons I respect Merkel is that she actually upholds her faith's inconvenient tenets in this context, and that's despite me being an atheist. And yes, this goes for my opinions towards right- [I]and[/I] left-wingers. While I'd still disagree, I'd have much less of a problem if there wasn't such a glaring (theo)logical inconsistency in the argument. (You make way too many assumptions when reading others' messages. Please be a little bit open-minded and don't immediately assign a convenient stereotype, ok? I even agree with you on the economic migrant bit, as does Germany. Those who come here as such aren't allowed to stay and never were.)

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50008938]He/she used the typical rethoric you will find here. I'ts gotta be the big scary right-wing government doing everything. Newsflash: people wanted this government.[/QUOTE] Yeah, 30% of all poles. Most of which are seniors who think it's a religious sin to vote for anyone else. Barely anyone wanted it, and barely anyone wants it now. To which the frequent, big protest even before spring/summer time are a clue. This country was doing great the last couple of years, leaving Hungary and the czechs behind as post-soviet expanding country. Now it's all going downhill, Polands international opinion is down the drain, and the incompetence of our current government is being proven by themselves again and again, scandal after scandal, backpedal after backpedal. Our president and PM are Kaczyńskis puppets, and Macierewicz is fucking insane.

[quote]That doesn't make it better when it's effectively dissolving the judicial checks on itself. Believe me, I think the people who voted for them are morally just as bankrupt as them.[/quote] I just love how you go from such a blatant generalisation about our population to: [quote]That aside, these blanket judgements are frankly disgusting me.[/quote] See, this is what I'm talking about, you guys always come out in threads like these, you read something on the internet or another media outlet that is either a gross overdramatization of what is happening here, or conveniently omitted informations that make them look worse than the previous government. Poland is doing just fine, so far nothing changed for the regular citizen. This is not a totalitarian banana republic everyone makes it out to be. And before you go saying that the argument "the previous ones did it" doesn't make their decisions valid, it also doesn't make you talking shit about us NOW. Nothing has changed in Poland besides the political spectrum that dominates now our Parliment. PO has owned the Parliment, Senate and Judical part, and everything was fine. Now that PiS does it, it's the end of the world. Give me a break. [quote]If a nation cites its religion as reason for going against one of that religion's fundamental tenets by generalisation (refugees and economic migrants aren't the same after all), then I don't think those people's faith is even worth the words it's declared with in this context. (Before anyone complains that this is off-topic: I'm also looking at previous statements from Poland here.)[/quote] Mind clarifying what do you mean by this? [quote]I admit that hypocrisy and empty appearances are a personal pet-peeve of mine though. One of the main reasons I respect Merkel is that she actually upholds her faith's inconvenient tenets in this context, and that's despite me being an atheist. And yes, this goes for my opinions towards right- [I]and[/I] left-wingers. While I'd still disagree, I'd have much less of a problem if there wasn't such a glaring (theo)logical inconsistency in the argument.[/quote] Why do you keep pushing that argument about religion? I only used it as en example in the historical persepctive, when religion was one of the defining traits of a country. Poland was a place where the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim countries had prominent influence. It's a secular country, like most others. [quote](You make way too many assumptions when reading others' messages. Please be a little bit open-minded and don't immediately assign a convenient stereotype, ok? I even agree with you on the economic migrant bit, as does Germany. Those who come here as such aren't allowed to stay and never were.)[/QUOTE] This is a nice projection indeed. And hipocrisy to boot, your post is full of assumptions and stereotypes people who voted for PiS, or myself(I like how I managed to cram all those buzzwords into one sentence). Tell me what, assumptions did I make in my previous post? Because, so far you are proving my point. I wrote, what I think was, a sensible post about why the Polish act like they do, and all I get is a post that is that is bashing our ruling party and my country or touches unrelated topics. [editline]26th March 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=proch;50009724]Yeah, 30% of all poles. Most of which are seniors who think it's a religious sin to vote for anyone else. Barely anyone wanted it, and barely anyone wants it now. To which the frequent, big protest even before spring/summer time are a clue.[/QUOTE] Do some research before you post. PiS had the majority of votes in every single age category in the parlimentar elections. And since most of Poland's population is in the middle section of a country's age demographic, the impact is even smaller. The population above 60 yrs old is about 18-20% currently(can't find data from this year) Reposting since noone ever looks at the statistics: [img]http://i.wp.pl/a/f/jpeg/35864/wiek.jpeg[/img]

Hey, thanks for posting statistics to prove what I said. How's your paycheck, by the way?

[QUOTE=proch;50009756]Hey, thanks for posting statistics to prove what I said. How's your paycheck, by the way?[/QUOTE] Do you perhaps have reading problems? And, since you go after the good old shilling accusation, I'll have you know, I have not voted for anyone last year because I don't think anyone represents me currently in the Parliment.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50009767]Do you perhaps have reading problems? And, since you go after the good old shilling accusation, I'll have you know, I have not voted for anyone last year because I don't think anyone represents me currently in the Parliment.[/QUOTE] So you're doing it for free? Oh momma

[QUOTE=proch;50009820]So you're doing it for free? Oh momma[/QUOTE] Your condescending tone is pathetic.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50009854]Your condescending tone is pathetic.[/QUOTE] Literally every single "leftist progressive" person I've seen in SH acts like this, and the problem is that if you keep arguing with them you eventually get banned. I think the problem is that leftism after 9/11 eventually slipped into some sort of ideology where you are rewarded for ideological "purity", so even if you don't know why you're doing it, you just know that the "bad guys" dislike Islam and like Trump/right so you do the contrary things. It also ties in into this stupid "white guilt" bullshit with some sort of racism since majority of Muslims are non-white which means Islam as a whole is non-white therefore they need protection from oppressive white people. On topic, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. If you see increase in violent events which all share lowest common denominator it's logical that the first step you will take is to stop that. If the rest of progressive Europe wants to remain defiant and doesn't care about their culture then by all means do as you wish, but do not guilt trip rest of the non-compliant countries just like you tried to do that with Orban. I have trouble with this mass migration (and yes, let's call it this because I assure you that them going back will not happen, they are here to stay) because usually cultures change organically, or naturally shall we say, but the way this is done basically leads to forced change of culture or even worse, an incompatible subculture within a culture which just leads to violence and chaos.

[QUOTE=Dzonintz;50010046]Literally every single "leftist progressive" person I've seen in SH acts like this, and the problem is that if you keep arguing with them you eventually get banned. [/QUOTE] Holy shit, you can't even imagine how much do I agree with this. I deleted so many of my posts, just one click away from being posted, because I decided: "fuck it, not worth the ban"

Before you two get too comfortable up on that cross, maybe you should read some of Proch's other posts before calling him a "leftist progressive", or perhaps just have a moment of silence for the numerous prolific "SJW" posters that have almost been banned into extinction forum.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;50010267]Before you two get too comfortable up on that cross, maybe you should read some of Proch's other posts before calling him a "leftist progressive", or perhaps just have a moment of silence for the numerous prolific "SJW" posters that have almost been banned into extinction forum.[/QUOTE] "Before you two get too comfortable up on that cross[...]" Stop twisting our words, we are not trying to self pity here. Every time I've seen him post in SH he posted something vague, using big words, contributing nothing to the threads he posted in. Pretty much just riding that popular opinion here. I know because I pay a lot of attention to my fellow Polish posters here. And I've seen him being called out on it only ONCE.

Funny, every time I've seen him post in this subforum, it's been criticizing attacks on Donald Trump.

It's as if you have to lack common sense to be leftist(disclaimer here: I didn't call him either a SJW or left-wing, because I am not informed on that matter). Let's stop talking about Proch. We're really getting offtopic here.

[QUOTE=proch;50009820]So you're doing it for free? Oh momma[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=BananaMed;50009854]Your condescending tone is pathetic.[/QUOTE] Can both of you just stop please? Polish government is awful, but for reasons that have nothing to do with either immigrants or even right- and left- wingism. Meanwhile all you're (and when I say "you" I mean both of you to be clear) doing by ad-homineming each other like that is embarrassing our contry in front of a lot of people. I'm all for discussing polish politics on FP since a) speaking in english makes you look at what you say from a sightly different perspective and eliminates a lot of emotional connotations you would otherwise have and b) there are a lot of foreigners that are only hearing about those things for the first time and are generally neutral about this and they can make the discussion feel like an actual discussion with both sides giving their arguments and trying to convince them instead of the standard exchange of arms and slogans, but what you are presenting here is the worst possible way this could be done

[QUOTE=WhyNott;50010376]Can both of you just stop please? Polish government is awful, but for reasons that have nothing to do with either immigrants or even right- and left- wingism. Meanwhile all you're (and when I say "you" I mean both of you to be clear) doing by ad-homineming each other like that is embarrassing our contry in front of a lot of people. I'm all for discussing polish politics on FP since a) speaking in english makes you look at what you say from a sightly different perspective and eliminates a lot of emotional connotations you would otherwise have and b) there are a lot of foreigners that are only hearing about those things for the first time and are generally neutral about this and they can make the discussion feel like an actual discussion with both sides giving their arguments and trying to convince them instead of the standard exchange of arms and slogans, but what you are presenting here is the worst possible way this could be done[/QUOTE] Excuse me? I've made two fairly long posts trying to actually debate the topic, and then Proch comes waltzing into the thread spreading misinformation and the standard bullshit about old people. I called him out on that, and he started with ad hominems. I've also made a point earlier to stop bringing everything towards politics. Other than that, it's my last post about Proch.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50010204]Holy shit, you can't even imagine how much do I agree with this. I deleted so many of my posts, just one click away from being posted, because I decided: "fuck it, not worth the ban"[/QUOTE] Maybe you should change up the way you post, then. Dzoninzt also managed to make pretty broad generalizations about people on the left while denouncing someone being condescending. Maybe both sides should tone it down. And Dzoninzt, just because the end result is that they stay doesn't mean they aren't refugees. There's nothing about the definition that implies a purely temporary stay outside their country of origin: [QUOTE=Merriam-Webster] Refugee one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution[/QUOTE] Sure, some of them are migrants, but robbing people of their status as refugees is an easy way to justify harsher barriers to entry. Discourse is a powerful thing.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50010432]Excuse me? I've made two fairly long posts trying to actually debate the topic, and then Proch comes waltzing into the thread spreading misinformation and the standard bullshit about old people. I called him out on that, and he started with ad hominems. I've also made a point earlier to stop bringing everything towards politics. Other than that, it's my last post about Proch.[/QUOTE] Yeah, to be fair you're less guilty of this whole shit then he is. Maybe I was a bit too harsh on you.

Quit this dumb bickering.

[QUOTE=BananaMed;50009734]I just love how you go from such a blatant generalisation about our population to:[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=BananaMed;50008938]He/she used the typical rethoric you will find here. I'ts gotta be the big scary right-wing government doing everything. Newsflash: [B]people wanted this government.[/B][/QUOTE][emphasis mine] Would you like to retract your previous statement? [QUOTE=BananaMed;50009734]See, this is what I'm talking about, you guys always come out in threads like these, you read something on the internet or another media outlet that is either a gross overdramatization of what is happening here, or conveniently omitted informations that make them look worse than the previous government. Poland is doing just fine, so far nothing changed for the regular citizen. This is not a totalitarian banana republic everyone makes it out to be. And before you go saying that the argument "the previous ones did it" doesn't make their decisions valid, it also doesn't make you talking shit about us NOW. Nothing has changed in Poland besides the political spectrum that dominates now our Parliment. PO has owned the Parliment, Senate and Judical part, and everything was fine. Now that PiS does it, it's the end of the world. Give me a break.[QUOTE] And here are your prejudices again. Please point out where I said anything about this. (Reminder: All I said is that I'm disgusted by this political direction. That and that I was surprised that this party [I]that previously stated it was harshly anti-immigrant[/I] hadn't closed the country earlier.) You do have a (tangential) point regarding the previous government though: I didn't pay too much attention to Polish politics before all this. That's why I didn't comment on it whatsoever and am reserving judgement until someone explains to me what exactly was going on previously. My opinion regarding the current developments is solely based on my personal ethics however, which means your argument is irrelevant. You quite obviously don't know anything about me, so it would be nice if you asked regarding what's unclear before trying to strawman me into some kind of leftist. [/QUOTE]Mind clarifying what do you mean by this?[QUOTE] It's quite simple: If someone keeps up a pretense of faith but doesn't follow through on this when inconvenient, it's imo fair to assume that person does this for selfish reasons. Normally I avoid publicly expressing harsh judgements, but as someone who read the bible, attended a Christian school for 8.5 years and had ample of religious education during that time, lives in a country that is [I]very[/I] heavily influenced by Christianity and has a(n afaik at least somewhat) similar culture to yours, I feel I'm qualified enough to express my opinion in this regard. For reference, as of 2011 Poland was 87.5% Roman Catholic, which alone is a far higher percentage of Christians than if you sum up confessions in Germany. ([url=http://stat.gov.pl/download/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/LUD_ludnosc_stan_str_dem_spo_NSP2011.pdf]Page 99, if I'm not mistaken.[/url]) It would surprise me very much if your country's majority interpretation didn't have the tenet of Christian charity. [/QUOTE]Why do you keep pushing that argument about religion? I only used it as en example in the historical persepctive, when religion was one of the defining traits of a country. Poland was a place where the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim countries had prominent influence. It's a secular country, like most others.[/QUOTE] Poland, like Germany, has a church that is interlinked with the state. Neither of our countries is truly secular. That said... I was under the impression Poland was one of the countries that officially cited their majority religion as reasoning for not taking refugees, but it appears I was mistaken. For this I apologise. However, the PiS appears to promote a religiously motivated reasoning against taking refugees at least to some extent, so for the party and their voters I criticise here (where Christian, which statistically [I]must[/I] exist (see below and the poll(?) you posted)) my argument still holds just fine. Additionally, it applies through sheer statistics to a significant part of the population, because when you have >87.5% Christians but >50% of Polish people who reject taking refugees, that amounts to at least 37.5% of Polish people being hypocrites regarding their religion. This is the main thing that irks me, and I don't think I ever alleged this towards you or the Polish in general. [QUOTE]This is a nice projection indeed. And hipocrisy to boot, your post is full of assumptions and stereotypes people who voted for PiS, or myself(I like how I managed to cram all those buzzwords into one sentence). Tell me what, assumptions did I make in my previous post? Because, so far you are proving my point. I wrote, what I think was, a sensible post about why the Polish act like they do, and all I get is a post that is that is bashing our ruling party and my country or touches unrelated topics.[/QUOTE] In your first post you alleged I was talking about a "THE GOVERNMENT boogeyman". I'd like to clarify that I mean this purely in its functional role and previously explicitly stated intentions. In both of our [I]representative[/I] democracies, the people don't have much [I]immediate[/I] say on policy afaik, so it makes sense to speak of the people who decide things hands-on specifically in this case. I honestly don't get what your problem is with that, considering I'd say the exact same regardless of location or political affiliation. (Feel free to comb through my post history to verify this.) In your second one you rejected my initial post based on a prejudice (or at least a very avoidable misunderstanding). As I said above, you're just plain mistaken about my intentions. In this one you accused me of stereotyping you. That's demonstrably false. I not even once said something about you as a person or individual, other than criticising your prejudice against me. I don't think we ever interacted before either, so this must not be something against me personally on your part; Hence my usage of plural when I told you "You make way too many assumptions when reading others' messages.". If you for some reason hold a grudge against me personally I apologise for the generalisation but demand an explanation. [QUOTE][editline]26th March 2016[/editline] Do some research before you post. PiS had the majority of votes in every single age category in the parlimentar elections. And since most of Poland's population is in the middle section of a country's age demographic, the impact is even smaller. The population above 60 yrs old is about 18-20% currently(can't find data from this year) Reposting since noone ever looks at the statistics: [img]http://i.wp.pl/a/f/jpeg/35864/wiek.jpeg[/img][/QUOTE] Normally when I post anything in German I translate it, and if there are political parties involved I sum up their general stances too. I know this is a reply specifically to proch, but I'm still interested in learning more in this situation. I'm sure that if there's some glaring flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing, it can be cleared up that way too. I'm one of those, as WhyNott said, "foreigners that are only hearing about those things for the first time". I do have an opinion about handling of the refugee crisis that's important to me, and I'm very unlikely to go back on what I said about hypocrisy and prejudice, but that doesn't mean there aren't huge parts of the situation in Poland that I don't know anything about. For example, it's true that I mostly only know what the local media reports. I try to get a clearer picture from what Polish users post here, but so far it's definitely not enough. I think I can also understand your frustrations to some extent considering I regularly have to explain Germany, though personally I opt to assume others are well-meaning in their misunderstandings.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;50011255] Normally when I post anything in German I translate it, and if there are political parties involved I sum up their general stances too. I know this is a reply specifically to proch, but I'm still interested in learning more in this situation. I'm sure that if there's some glaring flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing, it can be cleared up that way too. [/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/ve7uxw.jpg[/IMG] there you go

[QUOTE=WhyNott;50011421][IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/ve7uxw.jpg[/IMG] there you go[/QUOTE] Thanks! While that's a little less thorough than I had hoped for I can already tell that proch wasn't right with his comment considering the larger picture. I'm going to look into these parties a bit with an online translator now that I have a starting point, at least to get an overview of how they present themselves.