This issue raises the question of what kinds of obligations states have towards non-citizens. When it comes to refugees, given that they are non-citizens, and given that the interests of refugees necessarily will conflict with at least some of the interests of some citizens, in what sense would a state be obligated to act counter to the interests of some percentage of its citizens? Even if the percentage is small, does it follow that a state must ignore the interests of this minority? If so, does that have implications for minority interests? What if the percentage is large? Does it then follow that a state must abide by the "will of the people"? Is there some sense in which some interests are necessarily prior to others?

Forcibly kicking them out is bigoted, close minded and spreads fear, while allowing every single person in for as long as they want is an impossible dream. — darthbarracuda

Why is kicking them out "bigoted, close minded and spreads fear"? Do not a sovereign people (Poles, Finns, Irish, Italians, Turks, Rumanians, Russians, Americans, British, French, etc.) have a right to say whether or not a million people from another part of the world can move in there, just because their own country has become a shit hole?

"Come stay for X years, or until your country is stable--which ever comes first--then you have to go back" sounds like a more palatable plan than "Come stay forever, whether your country ever is a nice place to live again, or not."

Do the governments of refugee admitting nations that also have high unemployment (already) plan on doing anything about their citizens who don't have jobs? If they are not solving their native unemployment problems, why should they spend money on future unemployed people from someplace else?

I would trust a refugee destination country more if they said, "Look: We don't really want you here, but we understand that you have been driven out of your own homes. We will admit you under two conditions: 1) You adapt to our lifestyle (rather than we adapt to yours) and 2) you will not become citizens here, no matter what. When your country gets itself together, back you go."

I distrust the Swedish multicultural approach. I suspect that it is brittle and less sturdy than it looks--sort of like the junk they sell at IKEA. (I do like Swedish meatballs, however.)

Here's an example of brittle, flimsy multiculturalism:

Our Nordic Lutheran pastoral staff are hot to trot to bag a refugee family to sponsor. (Molds of their heads will be mounted on the walls in the office.) A small group of sort of seedy alcoholics wanted to use a room one night a week to hold an AA meeting (lots of churches host Alcoholic and Narcotics Anonymous meetings). The good pastors clearly had indigestion at the thought of the seedy, needy, alcoholics who totally lacked multiculti credentials using a room in the church. ("They might steal stuff.")

True enough, the AA people might steal something. So might refugees steal something. So might church members steal something. For that matter, the pastors themselves might steal something (and just my guess, probably have, though by going through channels, not by a 5 fingered discount like I would use).

Why is kicking them out "bigoted, close minded and spreads fear"? Do not a sovereign people (Poles, Finns, Irish, Italians, Turks, Rumanians, Russians, Americans, British, French, etc.) have a right to say whether or not a million people from another part of the world can move in there, just because their own country has become a shit hole? — Bitter Crank

I should have expanded on my original point. Kicking them out because they are, say, Muslim is bigoted. Kicking them out simply because they aren't actually at your doorstep is just kind of kicking the can down the road. Someone has to deal with these refugees.

I would trust a refugee destination country more if they said, "Look: We don't really want you here, but we understand that you have been driven out of your own homes. We will admit you under two conditions: 1) You adapt to our lifestyle (rather than we adapt to yours) and 2) you will not become citizens here, no matter what. When your country gets itself together, back you go." — Bitter Crank

I can more or less agree with this. Unless the refugees do not desire to become citizens, they should be allowed to at least try to become one.

Kicking them out because they are, say, Muslim is bigoted. — darthbarracuda

Why?

The Central Planning Office determined that Muslims did not fit into the long-range plans for establishing atheism, pork eating, booze guzzling, free sex, and religion ridiculing as the exclusive non-belief system. Why can't a nation decide whether they are willing to have their cultural norms upset or not by people they didn't want there in the first place?

Unless the refugees do not desire to become citizens, they should be allowed to at least try to become one. — darthbarracuda

Why?

We don't really want them to stay any longer than 5 years. We don't want their problems, or their cultural characteristics. Humans may all be equal in the cold calculations of the universe, but the same can not be said for cultures and religions. We worked hard to weed out Christianity; we don't want another bastardized religion taking up shop here.

We pride ourselves on the solidarity we achieve during our weekly blasphemous, pork-eating, alcohol swilling, free sex, religion-ridiculing rituals. We are sure Moslems will not accept this feature of our culture. We're not changing, and we don't want to put up with people who would be judging us while we are supporting them.

So...no. Don't make our doorstep your destination. Go to the Swedes, and be damned.

I have an idea, which might be too unpractical, not quite sure.

George Soros claims Europe should spend £23billion and accept 500,000 migrants a year to avoid the EU being torn apart by the refugee crisis, according to the Daily Mail 4/12/16.

At the same time the EU is trying to figure out what to about Greece, which owes owes its official lenders 242.8 billion euros ($271 billion), according to a Reuters calculation dated 6/28/15 so higher today...and getting higher.

Why doesn't the EU negotiate a trade off of debt for settlement with Greece?

Each one of us doesn't actually fit in perfectly in our own societies. Our thoughts may not resonate with that of others, our values may be rejected as undesirable. Our behavior may not agree with others. Etc.

We're all refugees of some sort. Perhaps we should treat other people, labelled explicitly as refugees with the same degree of respect and concern as we ourselves would like to be treated.

Each one of us doesn't actually fit in perfectly in our own societies. Our thoughts may not resonate with that of others, our values may be rejected as undesirable. Our behavior may not agree with others. Etc. — TheMadFool

God, this is the story of my life!

Why doesn't the EU negotiate a trade off of debt for settlement with Greece? — Cavacava

It would seem like there might be some problem finding housing, medical facilities, food distribution systems, water, transportation, etc. for 1,000,000 people in Greece, and maybe twice or three times that many. The population is 10 million+. Adding 10%, 20,% or almost a third as many people would probably not be doable.

The Refugees are already in 1 over-burdened country (Turkey -- at least I assume Turkey is kind of over-burdened) why would they want to go to an even more over-burdened country?

They could, perhaps, be sent to, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Iranistan.

ACTUALLY I am in favor of Europe, the US, Brazil, Russia, China, and anybody else taking in refugees on a temporary basis (not forever). Clearly these people need help. What I am opposed to is the assumption that if countries don't do it, then they are bigoted, close minded and fear spreading, xenophobic, and worse. There are rational reasons for taking in refugees, and rational reasons for not taking refugees.

One good reason for keeping refugees on a clearly temporary basis, is that many of them are skilled, professional people who are going to be desperately needed in their home country once things settle down again. Countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunesia, Egypt -- whatever -- can not afford to lose their educated class and be forced to start from scratch.

They should be granted temporary asylum, provided "they" are actually refugees. The problem no one likes to talk about is that well more than half of the people flooding into Europe at the moment are not families with children fleeing war zones, they are primarily young men from North Africa and South Asia looking for work and free welfare, while pretending to be Syrians. Some of these young men are no doubt moles for various terrorist groups as well. So there first of all needs to be greater checks at the border.

Second, the Gulf Arab states should be made to accept more refugees than they have. Jordan, Lebanon, and now Europe are full to bursting from the influx, whereas Saudi Arabia and the UAE have comparatively accepted hardly anyone. And one of their ambassadors, when asked why, cited cultural differences. The mind boggles. Europe should not be made to have its societies convulse and buckle under the strain of migrants when it doesn't have to.

[Quoting Darth:

"What, if anything, should we do regarding the refugee crisis?

Recently I read an interesting article written by Slavoj Žižek, in which he criticizes both the liberals and the conservatives. The conservatives he criticizes for being willfully ignorant to the plight of the drowning refugees, and the liberals he criticizes for being too idealistic and using this idealism as an excuse for not doing anything.

I personally don't really have a solid position on this current event, although I am leaning towards the view that we should offer temporary asylum for refugees, no questions asked (unless highly suspicious). As soon as the home country has become stable, the refugees must leave or become citizens of the country they are staying in.

Forcibly kicking them out is bigoted, close minded and spreads fear, while allowing every single person in for as long as they want is an impossible dream."]

This is a really hard question.

Transporting refugees across your own nation to the country on the other side of you is kicking the can down the road and a violation of that other country's sovereign rights.

So Greece and Turkey are most to blame for this European crisis.

If people start flooding into your country from your borders however, it would seem that your nation owes them some kind of assistance and space for their refugee camps.

Then the UN needs to step in and help solve the problem.

As I said, what Greece and Turkey are doing is immoral and unethical by transporting them across their own boundaries.

I would consider Greece and Turkey's actions to be an act of war.

As I said, what Greece and Turkey are doing is immoral and unethical by transporting them across their own boundaries.

I would consider Greece and Turkey's actions to be an act of war. — YIOSTHEOY

This is an asinine opinion.

Why should Turkey and Greece alone shoulder the burden of refugees and migration from Afghanistan, Somalia, parts of West Africa, Bangladesh, Iraq, and so on?

Yes the UN should be working on solving problems, but it is hamstrung by the permanent members of the Security Council who are loathe to have the UN as an active player against their perceived self interests.

One man's asinine is another man's genius.

Are you the one who plays Lucifer here?

And what makes you think I "play" Lucifer?

And you didn't address the issue of your viewpoint's deficiencies.

I kind of agree with BC on this but, Turkey is another story. They are, arguably in one of the worst positions under constant pressure, but they appear to using the immigrant situation as a way to blackmail the EU into providing its 97 million(?) citizens with passports. The EU has set several conditions which Erdogan has said he will not keep, nor will he keep up to his end of the deal if the EU does not provide the free visas. The EU is also paying Turkey, who knows what they are doing with Greece, but I like the role Greece has played in this, I could be wrong, but it seems as though they have tried to help these people.

Germany has agreed to accept the most...like a million this year and similar amount next year and then 600K per year for 3 more years, it's funny, they project 55% employment by the end of the 5 year period.

My opinion is that we should take these people in and put them in resettlement camps. Places where they could be sorted out, so to speak. As part of that process security concerns could be addressed. My forefathers went through Ellis Island, there was a process.

The migrant camps in various countries appear to be horrific these people are not being treated well.

The Turks are blackmailing and the Greeks are kicking the can down the road (across their country).

Both are shameful.

Facilitating the folk invasions seems a-priori like an act of war to me.

a-priori = self-evident.

I would agree that Erdogan is trying to weasel Turkey's way into the EU, one way or another. I don't think Turkey, as it stands today, is sufficiently in sync with EU policy to be admitted, and Erdogan himself is one of the things most out of sync. On the other hand, Turkey have sheltered a lot of people. The Greeks have too. Many of the refugees (like from Somalia) have crossed many borders to get to Greece. Greece just happens to be a frontline European state.

I don't think Europe needs to accept all or any of these people as permanent residents bound for citizenship, sight unseen, backgrounds unchecked. Temporary shelter is something else; something they can do. Sheltering camps might be kind of bleak, but that is a hell of a lot better than getting bombed and shot at.

My main objection to offering permanent residency and eventual citizenship is that quite a few countries in Europe do not have enough jobs to employ many of the people who are citizens now. The US is in similar shape with respect to Mexico and South America. Our actual unemployment level is considerably higher than the official level, and we should resolve the problem of say 10,000,000 unemployed / unemployable American citizens before giving a path to citizenship (or anything, really) to the 10,000,000 immigrants who are here illegally.

Changes in the world economy make it unlikely that real full-employment will return. It may never return (because of robotics, automation, new technologies, etc). Europe, The US, China, India, Brazil, and other large countries need to figure out what will be done with the large amount of wealth that is produced while not employing a large group of people. The super rich and their trillions of dollars are going to have to be reckoned with.

Solve that problem, then figure out how millions of future refugees will be incorporated into other economies. (It is solvable; but perhaps not within the business-as-usual model.)

Massive folk movements like the Syrians overwhelm nations' ability to cope with them. It is just like taking food out of the mouths of their own residents and putting it into the mouths of the newcomers. The tax and resource burdens are overwhelming for any nation's budget. All nations have put up fences long ago to control the movement of immigration. Ultimately the problem is one of uncontrolled population growth. China, India, and Pakistan have dealt with this problem responsibly rather than shipping their excess populations out of their country. The Greeks and Turks should have asked for UN help rather than kicking the can down the road to their neighbors. Only idiots would have done what the Greeks and Turks did to the rest of Europe.

As for what the solution now is, the migrants need to be stopped. Refugee camps need to be set up. Keeping those camps on or near the borders of Greece and Turkey pays the Greeks and Turks back for their indiscretions.

The UN still needs to help. Normally the UN is not good for much, but in this case there is something they can do with financial support from the various member states. This spreads the tax and resource burden around the whole world. China, India, and Pakistan should be exempt. The USA is already the world's policeman and has deficits enough from that. The rest of the freeloading world should therefore participate in the solution.

The solution is to set up refugee camps and house, feed, and cloth the migrants there. Otherwise the migrants should not be rewarded for their migrations. This is also the only way to contain the Muslim terrorist risk, which is a mere pinprick but still a security issue.

Whenever soldiers and sailors are not fighting wars, they are best equipped to dole out food and water during crises like these. They also need to establish security and protect their own borders from invasions from the refugee camps.

The Palestinians in Jordan have taught us over the past 68 years since 1948 that refugee camps never go away. They are however a necessary evil in the process of slowly admitting small numbers of refugees into another country.

This whole situation is bad all around. It is sad that Assad cannot govern his people peacefully and feels that he has to bomb and murder them. Sadder still that the USA got involved to support the rebellion there. And even more complex that the Russians jumped-in to support him against the USA. The USA only made things worse. The Arab Spring has been a complete failure. It should not have been supported by the USA in Syria. What was BHO thinking ?!

The only relevant philosophical issues are the ethics of international politics. BHO should have minded his own business and stayed out of Syria. BHO ran on a platform of returning US troops back to the USA and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And 52% of the people elected him for that. It thus makes no sense to flaunt his own mandate from the people of the USA by jumping into Syria. What a huge mess !!