Off Topic The Politics Thread
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Then again, you didn't come from a section of the community from which suicide bombers had come to blow up underground trains, or join a death cult to cut innocent people's heads off, burn people alive in cages and throw gay people off high buildings
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"Nuclear weapons are like an insurance policy, if you don't need to use them then, great"
but if you do use them..........
You can end a world war?
You can prevent a world war...
You can 'use' them. Without litteraly using them and bombing another nation.
Just one hypotheical example; an ex-KGB agent finds himself running Russia, as his economy crumbles he moves from politically influencing Easter European countries and rolls his military into everywhere from Finland down to Southern Ukriane with no apparent intention of letting up.
Britain ready air force, Navy and ground forces.
Scenario One; Britain have no nuclear weapons. Russia say if you try and assist militarily, econmically or even with humanitarian aid we will Nuke a UK City each day until you stop. What do you do? Send in Jezza for a chat?
Scenario Two; same story but Britain have Nuclear weapons. So aggressor run risk of receiving same treatment back. Guess what it comes down to is we
have a stronger (certainly less weak) negotiating position, may not even get into that position in the first place and are ultimately safer
What's all this stuff about languages and deportation
If you move to a new country one of the first things you should do is learn the language
After 13 years here I have almost mastered kiwi
If you move to a new country one of the first things you should do is learn the language
After 13 years here I have almost mastered kiwi
Fair enough, so long as you have learnt the language of the indiginous people, ie Maori.
A classic case of this is Warwick University banning feminist, ex muslim, and now atheist Maryam Namazie. The Warwick Uni progressives banned her on the grounds that she could incite hatred and insult religion. The WU speaker policy states that speakers on campus must '' Seek to avoid insulting other faiths or groups within a framework of positive debate and challenge and must not spread hatred and intolerance in the community.''
This may all seem fairly reasonable to some, but perhaps not when the very same WU student union allowed preacher Assim Al-Hakeem to take the platform and to claim that homosexuality is an illness, unnatural and also likened them to animals. Another homophobic preacher Abu Usamah At-Thahabi was also given a platform at the Union.
Namazie was also banned and barred from speaking about apostasy and the rise of Islamism at Trinity College Dublin in March last year. College security said her talk would be “one-sided” and would be “antagonizing” to Muslim students.
It would appear that the student progressives who support all minorities have embroiled themselves in a social concious paradox.
Most of the indigenous people can't be bothered learning their own language
I have yet to meet a Maori who speaks it
The same in Ireland but we are still trying to teach Irish to our colonial invaders.
Maybe that's because the invaders forced their own language on the indigenous people?
Without trying to sound rude, if you can speak English, Spanish, German or French than surely you have enough to get you by. Why learn another language? Chinese mandarin if you really need it maybe as it's the most common language in the world but it's spoken only in China due to the amount of the indigenous speakers. It's not really used anywhere else. Irish, Gaelic, Welsh or whatever is a nice to know rather than a need to know. Speaking a minority language is a romantic notion, but sadly a defunct one. I speak some Irish in part and a few other languages but only because I want to. My Irish relatives speak to me and my family in their native tongue but it's pointless as they can speak English too and only speak Irish to us as if they hold some moral upper ground. When we don't understand what they're saying they tell us in English. Why not do so in the first place without all the drama?
It's a question of cultural identity 999's. Your Irish relatives speak Irish to you to emphasise their cultural identity. They are not trying to create drama's or the moral high ground. The ancient language of the land they come from is different to the language the invaders forced upon them, hence their desire to speak their native tongue. You wouldn't expect to find a load of English geezers speaking Spanish in an English pub in Benidorm for similar reasons.
If you live in benidorm and the majority of people speak Spanish you would be an idiot not to at least try to learn the language
If you live in a country where even the locals can't be bothered to learn a language spoken nowhere else in the world then don't behave like a colonial,behave like the locals
If you live in a country where even the locals can't be bothered to learn a language spoken nowhere else in the world then don't behave like a colonial,behave like the locals
Yeah send their Mums home if they don't speak English, break a few families up. That'll do it. Show me the evidence that illiterate (a terrifying proportion of women from Muslim countries can't read or write their own language, let alone English), non English speaking mothers produce terrorist children and we can start a discussion. None has been put forward. You need a causal link to make the claims Cameron did yesterday in his little stunt. Of course immigrants should learn English,it will improve their and our lives, but the rest of it is bogus populism until some proof is shown.
I don't really understand why the taxpayer should be footing the bill for those English lessons though.
If you want a broad brush anti Islamicist move and you don't care about sweeping the innocent up with the guilty, then Donald Trump is your man. Plus a bit - surely this has now gone beyond not letting these people into the country, it's about kicking them out as well.
Going back to the 'wasting taxpayers money' bit, There's this:
Army's hero sniper is dragged into Iraq war witch-hunt: Soldier faces probe after he 'shot grenade attacker without warning him'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-hero-sniper-dragged-Iraq-war-witch-hunt.html
The legal companies pursuing this and many other 'claims' against the British Army are Leigh Day and PIL - supported by Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, funded by taxpayers, and hell-bent on winning 'compensation' for all those who have the temerity to challenge our soldiers on the field of battle and come off second best.
As with the heinous case against Sgt Al Blackman, serving time for the 'murder' of an armed insurgent who was in all likelihood already dead (certainly beyond any medical hope) when Sgt Blackman shot him, there's no way any of these people should be prosecuted for basically doing the job we employ them to do.
Army's hero sniper is dragged into Iraq war witch-hunt: Soldier faces probe after he 'shot grenade attacker without warning him'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-hero-sniper-dragged-Iraq-war-witch-hunt.html
The legal companies pursuing this and many other 'claims' against the British Army are Leigh Day and PIL - supported by Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, funded by taxpayers, and hell-bent on winning 'compensation' for all those who have the temerity to challenge our soldiers on the field of battle and come off second best.
As with the heinous case against Sgt Al Blackman, serving time for the 'murder' of an armed insurgent who was in all likelihood already dead (certainly beyond any medical hope) when Sgt Blackman shot him, there's no way any of these people should be prosecuted for basically doing the job we employ them to do.
Ok, so we're agreed immigrants should learn English. If it helps poor Muslim families, particularly women suppressed in those families, than as a taxpayer, I'd say the funding is excellent value for money.
Instead of the Trump reference, try Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, hardly a pro-establishment, card-carrying Tory. What she is saying is that as a result of culture, largely Pakistani, Muslim women are kept at home to be seen and not heard, certainly not heard speaking English. When Alibhai-Brown was canvassing up north, she barely saw a Muslim woman at political meetings, they all stayed in their houses. The culture is truly misogynistic. In her view, the Pakistani community is more isolated and inward looking now than it was in the 1960's and 70's.
The Cameron argument is that by obliging those women to get out from under the feet of their overbearing menfolk and learn English, it will free them from shackles that have no part in C21st Britain and help them engage more widely in British Society. This broadening of mind will have a knock on effect on how they bring up their children and the values they impart. There's no guarantee on these things, but the stakes are so high, it seems a worthwhile endeavour.
I don't disagree with any of that, and you won't get me sticking up for the Muslim Faith, or any other faith for that matter, but it's not what Cameron said when I was listening to him anyway. He said that Muslim women coming from abroad to join their husbands would be given English lessons and if they don't learn would be kicked out after two and a half years and that somehow that would reduce radicalisation. He may be right, but evidence is needed to demonstrate the link.
The tone of your previous post rather took me by surprise Goldie.
Sorry if my tone in my earlier post dismayed you, Stan. It wasn't intended in any way to be personal. I just get frustrated about the comparisons between (1) Muslim communities in the UK and Europe where there are clearly serious problems with community relations and integration that could lead to fatal results by a few extremist hot heads and (2) British pensioners in Spain or ex-pats in Dubai who are, admittedly, often lazy about learning the local language, but are totally benign, and by their spending, aid the national economy of the country they're living in
I understand your concern about deporting recently arriving Muslim women who refuse to learn English. There has to be a stick though. And the stick may well act to aid the women, since the men who dominate the household will be less likely to prevent the women taking lessons in English