Overview
The Solution

Immigration - The Issues

Language   |   Misunderstandings   |   Law   |   Social Returns

Language barrier

If you live in the UK then it is essential that you speak English.

This is because every single interaction you have with one of the native citizens in this country will be in that language.

Native citizens obviously find any conversations not in a language they understand to be unnerving because they cannot be sure what is actually being said.

Particularly, English is very expressive and uses a variety of devices which may not be present in your own language.

Sarcasm and irony for example are often misinterpreted in foreign languages and this is the reason why some people dislike those who use it prolifically in their speech. Jeremy Clarkson springs to mind, whose almost every utterance has an element of sarcasm which if taken literally, could be seen as very offensive.

For example, I might say, 'I LOVE eating babies' which sounds horrendous if you take the literal meaning but the tone I use indicates that I mean the exact opposite. So a native English speaker would know I am joking but someone who doesn't speak English well might think me a monster.

If you were wondering why swathes of people don't seem to be able to take a joke online by the way, this is the key - they literally don't have those structures in their own language and so they misunderstand the meaning of it.

Strongly religious cultures rarely have the need for anything but a literal meaning, because their holy scripture instructs them to only speak truthfully.

It's worth noting that in he UK, sarcasm and irony are mostly used playfully and are not used to deceive the listener. Malicious intent is what holy scripture is mostly concerned with, not playful banter.

As you bring your own cultural values with you, they will be respected here but please refrain from trying to influence other people to embrace them as I would remind you that those very values have caused your own country to be uninhabitable to the point that it has caused you to flee.

Asylum seekers should learn English to integrate properly and especially speak it in public places so as not to alarm nearby citizens.

It's also worth mentioning that by not speaking the native tongue, people seeking refuge here also put themselves at a disadvantage.

Cultural Misunderstandings

Imagine for a moment that you come from a poor Muslim country. You may have received little to no education, have no real understanding of Western societies and so your conclusions about them may be drawn from what you observe. This may not be the case by the way as many people escaping disaster situations are very well educated, I am asking you to imagine a worst case situation to illustrate a point.

When you see a female wearing clothing that exposes their flesh then you might mistakenly conclude that those women have low moral values and treat them disrespectfully. You may not understand that in Western societies, people are allowed to choose what they wear and fashion tends to dictate your aesthetic decisions. It has nothing to do with moral or ethical values.

We can see how this has caused us Westerners to make some terribly ignorant decisions leading to the wickedness of slavery in the past for example. That is, a group of uneducated explorers arrive somewhere, discover an indigenous people who behave like savages and don't speak the same language and consult the only educated man what they should do with theses 'animals', the priest. The priest being the only person who can read consults the Holy book and God says that it's OK to domesticate animals and hence the shackles and the whips and the abhorrent treatment.

This simple misunderstanding led to all of the suffering of slavery. It is evident though that as soon as these people learnt our language and we discovered they were just humans like us, slavery was made illegal and the practice was purged from our trade routes.

This serious mistreatment of people by slavery was caused by ignorance NOT evil. That is the point, that ignorance can be very dangerous.

So the British Empire banned slavery with the 'Slavery Abolition Act 1833' which took effect in 1834. It is sad that our American friends did not do the same until 1865 after a bloody civil war and then chose to persecute black people with segregation for another 100 years but that is a whole different discussion.

Back to that person who has misunderstood our culture then. I hope you can see how ignorance can lead a person to commit terrible acts. Recently, a person was raped in the UK by three asylum seekers, one of whom it turns out was fleeing a murder charge in their own country.

I will not give specifics here, I will let you look it up if you wish because it isn't necessary to shame the perpetrators here, just to illustrate how ignorance can lead to very negative outcomes.

There is a similar allegory when an asylum seeker sees a Westerner as rich because they do not understand how your disposable income is related to the standard of living, because they have not been taught about economics. This is then used as a justification to steal.

'Westerners are rich so let's take from them', it is ignorant misunderstanding. Many Westerners live paycheck-to-paycheck and barely manage to feed themselves and pay their bills so any kind of theft can be economically devastating to them.

Law

'Everyone is equal before the law'

I will quote the Wikipedia article on this one:

Equality before the law is a fundamental human rights principle ensuring all individuals are treated equally, protected without discrimination, and subjected to the same laws regardless of status, race, gender, or religion. It requires impartial legal enforcement, fair trials, and prohibits special privileges, ensuring that no one is above the law.

Now we all know that this is not entirely true in practice, there appears to be a 'pay to win' element that has recently crept into our system but that is outside the scope of this document.

I hope you can see that the intention of law in the Western world is to serve all people equally and justly, it is a noble premise.

In some undeveloped countries, law comes secondary to survival. So for example, it might be seen as legitimate to steal and that kind of behaviour is mostly ignored and goes unpunished.

So then, if you come from a country like that then you might think it normal to take things from other people.

It is not acceptable here.

The UK tax payer doesn't want their stuff stolen, nor should they have to pay the cost of policing, investigating, prosecuting and ultimately imprisoning offenders - especially if they've paid nothing into our system in the first place.

Law can be very nuanced but I think that it's reasonable to expect that people be educated on the basic expectations of proper behaviour in our society before being released onto our streets for their own protections as well as ours.

These streets after all, are where are children walk and they should be able to do so safely.

As you can see, we have faithfully created and tended a fair and just legal system and now we appear to be inviting scammers and criminal elements into our country without a proper vetting process who wish to exploit those laws.

It is important we do not tar everyone with the same brush here. There are genuine, decent people who want to be a part of our society and they are welcome.

We are NOT interested in villains who wish to exploit our systems to get a free lunch.

Much of the money that we have as a country is borrowed and must be paid back with interest by our children. If you come here to steal or break our laws then you are literally stealing food from the mouths of our children.

If you are a religious person, especially if you're pious - how do you reconcile that with God? You are stealing from his children.

Socially Positive Returns

It is reasonable that if you take from a system, then you must also be prepared to pay back into it.

This concept of 'Social Responsibility' is very present and understood in the UK.

Notably, this concept is almost non-existent in some cultures like the USA where they have advertised 'The American Dream' in order to attract investors but have failed to mention that there is also the social responsibility that comes with that. If you don't believe me, have a quick look at their national debt for a quick insight into what the future holds for that country.

Unfortunately, other Western countries have been conflated with this concept of all take, no give which has led some people to be left with the overall impression that it's fine to behave this way.

This paradigm can only lead to certain system failure.

Grab your popcorn, America will soon be demonstrating this for us. Such is the cost of building a country whilst thinking about next week instead of planning for the next 100 years.

Most moral people have an inbuilt sense of balance which gives them a compass to direct their actions to seek balance in their transactions with society.

So they might receive some benefit from a social system but they will feel a sense of duty to pay something back in order to even things out and offset their impact on it.

Other people feel entitled to that benefit and take without any thought about balancing the system. They think they can just keep taking from their point of receipt and that there are no consequences for doing so, ignorant of the fact that there limited resources behind every service.

Our socialist systems are somewhat resilient to this kind of abuse which can give the impression that no harm is being done.

The problems begin when the amount taken exceeds the amount given.

The death spiral begins when a service is privatised. Private companies see a profit to be made and offer up efficiency as their reason for control.

Idiotic public representatives believe that narrative, but with that efficiency which inevitably makes the service worse, also comes the insatiable motive for profit. Because of investors causing the focus to change from providing a good product or service to seeing a constant growth in share value, all private companies will inevitably fail.

Unfortunately, that is the floor in our capitalist system. Solve that one problem and it's a damn near perfect societal system.

The tax payer cannot afford to house asylum seekers in luxury hotel accommodations, provide an endless stream of money or other benefits to these completely un-vetted human beings who have not contributed to the society we have built and paid for.

We are willing to help those in need but not at the expense of the destruction of our own systems.

I think that's quite reasonable. You are welcome to stay in my house but not if you want to burn it down.

So it is important that we instil a strong emphasis on giving back to the system you have benefited from into our new arrivals because the consequences of not doing so are not immediately obvious.

The Solution

The solution then is to build a buffer between our society and people seeking asylum here where those people can be assessed, given time to adapt and be properly educated about the culture they are entering into.

We want productive, decent, moral people who will contribute positively to their communities. This is in fact one of the reasons why we have an education system, so that people born in the UK can learn the skill set they need and have the right attitude to serve their fellow citizens and navigate our culture.

We do not want criminal elements, fleeing from their own societies to avoid punishment for the crimes they have already committed.

People who think we do not need this, fail to understand the purpose of our education system.

There appears to be a naive contingent of people, who lack the empathy to put themselves in the position of an uneducated person fleeing from an undeveloped country and have not bothered to try and comprehend the contrast between a very poor society and a relatively technologically rich one.

If you find yourself in that group, I urge you to sit and think about it for a moment. You have probably never known a world without shelter, abundant food sources, flushing toilets, central heating and all of the other myriad of technological advances which we take for granted.

A little sincere contemplation should lead you to conclude that time to adapt and assimilate into such a society should be mandatory for new members.