Millions of us honestly don’t know what our duty is to migrants – and Christianity doesn’t help

Gordon Mackay

The solution, in the short-term is money. Lots of it. To either house people here in the UK, or help with them being looked after abroad. We need boats to rescue people from Syria rather than leave it to smugglers. We need to treat this as if it had been a natural tragedy. The UK spends £50m a week on the lottery, surely we could spare a little change to stop children’s bodies being washed ashore.

Blindsideflanker

Your failure to know that we have already spent close to a billion ( more than any other country bar the USA) on housing migrants in neighbouring countries to Syria , shows the rest of your post as a lot of ill informed rubbish.
- Gordon
  
  Close to a billion over three years, so £300m a year or £6 per person. Which is tiny in comparison to what we waste on the lottery not to mention the £8bn or £20bn we managed to find for the wars in Iraq and Afgahistan.
  Considering Britain seems so opposed to actually housing any more refugees, currently something like 12,000 a year, spending a little more of our spare cash is the least we could do.
  If cash isn’t the answer, or housing people, or rescuing them from drowning in the sea then what? Watch more children die, it’s not our fault.
  - Blindsideflanker
    
    What spare cash, don’t you realise we have a £100 billion deficit, and a £1.5 trillion debt?
    - Gordon
      
      I completely agree we need to reduce our deficit and ultimately pay down our debt; the sooner the better. But, with regard to dying Syrian children, there’s no point paying off our debt then offering them more help in 30 years or so. My example of the lottery is to show that as individuals, people in the UK have enough spare cash to make a real difference.
      I think years of free-migration to the UK from within the EU has made everyone tired and cynical of immigration and unfortunately, for the poor refugees, we seem to have run out of charity just when it’s needed the most.
    - jjjj
      
      ‘I think years of free-migration to the UK from within the EU has made everyone tired and cynical of immigration and unfortunately, for the poor refugees, we seem to have run out of charity just when it’s needed the most.’
      
      But why do they have to come here and not France or Russia or other countries. And it’s not just the Syrian kids. As Lord Green said this morning, 300, 000 people net immigration last year. Where are we supposed to put them? We don”t live in a police state with internal controls. We can’t just tell them go and live in Scotland or Wales and don’t come down south.
    - Gordon
      
      The 300,000 is caused by the free-movement of labour within the EU, like I said, I think that’s what’s making people hardened to the plight of Syrian refugees.
      The Syrian neighbours Turkey and Lebanon have taken almost 3m refugees between them. I’m sure they have the same pressures on health and housing as the UK which has taken just 220.
    - Blindsideflanker
      
      No they haven’t. That is 220 people in special needs taken from the refugee camps, the very people who would get pushed aside by all these young men clamouring for a better life in Europe. . Over 10,000 people from Syria Afghanistan and Eritrea applied for Asylum here last year.
    - Gordon
      
      You’re right. Actually, I think it was 10,000 accepted from a total of 30,000 applicants. CityAM reckoned it would be cheaper just to let everyone in. http://www.cityam.com/221546/how-much-would-it-cost-uk-accept-all-asylum-seekers
    - jjjj
      
      Free movement of labour? You will find many of them coming for benefits too. And why can’t Saudi or the other gulf states take them in? These are their Muslim brothers and sisters we are talking about. Their kith and kin.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Somebody asked that same question tonight on a current affairs program in Sydney and had her head bitten off. How dare people expect Saudi Arabia to take these people – Europe CAN afford it!!
      
      This industrial-strength entitlement mentality is the tip of the iceberg in the rampant ideology of the Left. We and our family are angry and gob-smacked by the infantilizing of the news-space by pollyannas who are simultaneously naive and aggressively entitled and ready to name and shame. It’s an ugly, ugly look. I think it’s borne of a deep resentment and class warfare. Honestly.
    - jjjj
      
      Or they trot out the ‘Sunni Shia’ dichotomy as a reason. So bloody what? We are talking about children! The Arabs are hypocrites. Rather they dump their own kith and kin on Europe than open their doors to their people.
    - Sue Smith
      
      I think you’ll find the vast, vast majority are healthy males under 40. Open your eyes.
      
      And parents are responsible for their children, not you – not me.
    - Gordon
      
      EU migrants, whether they are entitled to benefits or otherwise, is a separate issue. EU policy was agreed by our democratically elected governments. Thanks, Tony.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Yes, it has proven a catastrophic failure as is Schengen. Catastrophic. What happens when a lifeboat contains too many people? Well, the same thing can happen to ANY economy.
    - Mary Ann
      
      Migrants put more into the system than they take out. Most of them want to work.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Where, in the name of God, did you hear such tosh?
    - jjjj
      
      Utter rubbish. They may want to work but where are jobs for them?
    - Sue Smith
      
      Mary Ann can put them to work searching for the unicorn.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      And shining her halo.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Wrong,as usual.
      http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/work-and-worklessness/worklessness-by-gender-and-country-of-birth/
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      You just blindly spout out this garbage as fact without any research whatsoever.
      
      You’re wrong again Mary.
    - Amgine
      
      Legal migrants are a different economic group to refugees and asylum seekers. I don’t think refugees and asylum seekers are actually allowed to take paid work in the UK. So, some of the statistics on worklessness among migrants would include the fact that quite a lot of them are disbarred from working and are therefore forced to subsist on benefits and charity.
    - mohdanga
      
      “Migrants put more into the system than they take out. Most of them want to work.” Ha, ha, ha, stop, you’re killing us!!
      Yes, they put more in, that’s why the UK runs massive deficits and debts! And why the hospital and school systems are underwhelmed by all the enrichers. Wake up!
    - Mary Ann
      
      The 300,000 are not just from the EU. There are more migrants here from the rest of the world than there are from the EU, there are about 2 million migrants from the EU living here and about 2 million British migrants living the the rest of Europe.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Yes, but WHERE will the jobs and extra infrastructure come from – all of a sudden??!!!
    - Gordon
      
      I’m sure you’re right. I think we need to differentiate between economic migrants and refugees (who, lets face it, are also going be economic migrants)
    - wudyermucuss
      
      That’s 4-5,000,000 by your figures,plus,say,1,000,000 illegals.
      Wow,that is huge,an invasion.
    - mohdanga
      
      Yes, and let’s compare the 2 million ‘EU’ migrants in the UK to Brits working on the continent. I would venture that many of the Brits are highly skilled and educated while many of the EU migrants in the UK are probably poor, 3rd world immigrants who settled in Holland and Belgium and have now made their way over to Blightly for generous benefits. Any idea whom are the more valuable migrants?
    - Sue Smith
      
      A great deal of truth to what you say here!
    - Mary Ann
      
      Ignoring of course the fact that there are nearly as many Brits. living in other parts of the EU as there are people from the rest of the EU living here, the fact that most people forget about the millions of Britons living in mainland Europe is an indictment of our racist press.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Please, the tired old ‘racist’ chestnut is so 20th century.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Wrong again.
      http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/work-and-worklessness/worklessness-by-gender-and-country-of-birth/
      
      Of 300,000 emigrants,maybe half are actual Brits.
    - Yorkieeye
      
      The British population is one of the most generous in the world already. And we give 12 billion a year via taxes to help make life better for others in their own countries.
    - Sue Smith
      
      This figure is DEEPLY disturbing, if true. There can be no movement forward with that amount of crippling debt. Transpose that to a family in debt and ask yourself how long before the bailiff arrives. Then add to that a house full of guests. Unsustainable.
    - Mary Ann
      
      So that is more important than watching children drown, how much are your children worth?
    - Blindsideflanker
      
      If anybody has blood on their hands it is people like you, who have enticed these people to set out on dangerous journeys with the asylum carrot you have dangled in front of them.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      My child is worth more than sticking in a rubber boat and gambling with their lives whilst leaving a country that has given them safe haven.
      
      I’m not that irresponsible and it’s abundantly clear that you haven’t actually thought about this at all.
    - mohdanga
      
      “So that is more important than watching children drown, how much are your children worth?” They travel 4,000 miles to get to the UK but Saudi Arabia is right next door. Why is this the West’s responsibility? After all, we are always ‘sticking our noses in other business’, according to you daft lefties. Maybe we shouldn’t.
  - Yorkieeye
    
    It’s our choice to spend our money as we wish. This is the result of Europe coming to its senses, giving up the wars, using science for our comfort, creating social systems to ease poverty in our midst, educating ourselves, behaving in a civilised way. It was painful and took hundreds of years. It’s what the rest of the world needs to do. It won’t take them as long as us. But they need to make their own countries more liveable and adopt some of our values.
    - Sue Smith
      
      But, honestly, did you ever imagine that white Europeans who are unwilling to breed could hold on to an affluent life in Europe without others wanting to come and take their place?
    - Mary Ann
      
      That is the choice of the White Europeans, so they shouldn’t complain, if we carry on as we are White Europeans will become extinct without any help from refugees.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Overcrowding and dwindling resources I guess mean nothing to you unless it’s supports your lefty views?
      
      “if we carry on as we are White Europeans will become extinct without any help from refugees.”
      
      Utter garbage. Do you actually think?? No you clearly don’t.
    - Gordon
      
      It’s one thing when you’ve got a bunch of Greeks who have been voting in loony-left governments for years to protect their massive pensions and another when a massive civil war breaks out and your whole country is screwed though no fault of your own.
    - Sue Smith
      
      The cause may be different but the result will be exactly the same.
Sue Smith

And help them find the unicorn too, presumably. And they’re alien – Muslims – who will inextricably alter the host country to suit themselves. History has shown this time and again. And they know the west is weak, above all. It’s a horrendous position and I thank God I’m 12,500km away from it all!!

What grips me to the core is how my beloved Austria – a tiny country with only 8million people – will cope with this human tide of Muslims. And they’ll bring their tribal differences with them; please don’t insult us, anyone, by suggesting otherwise.

Have you heard of the Mafia at all? How do you think that got to the USA and elsewhere?
- Gordon
  
  How many people must be mourning their beloved Syria?
Mary Ann

It seems that a lot of people would rather see children drown, of course if it were their own children that would be different.
- Sue Smith
  
  You silly woman; people do not want to see children drown. Some are the same age as my own grandchildren. What we ask is:
  (a) are they GENUINE refugees;
  (b) why did the parents endanger their children in this way?
  - Mary Ann
    
    Why did the parents endanger their children? What do these parents know, Europe is a safe place, where they are is not safe, nobody tells them that so many people are drowning? the risk of drowning is less than the risk of staying where they are? people do not risk their children’s lives for economic gain, therefore they do not understand the risk. The ones with children crossing the Med are the ones most likely to be refugees, they are desperate or seriously miss-informed.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Oh, but you’re VERY wrong; they DO endanger their childrens’ lives for economic reasons. We saw that TIME and AGAIN in Australia’s case. You cannot argue with the facts.
    - Mary Ann
      
      Unless we ask them why they are trying to get to Australia, why they don’t want to live in the country they were born in and do they have full knowledge of the risks they are taking we should not judge them.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      And you should not judge us,but you do,repeatedly and falsely.
    - jjjj
      
      I accept that we need to help a reasonable number of desperate children and their parents. But concurrently (concomitantly) we need to now stop the influx from Eritrea and the benefits charade.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      “Why did the parents endanger their children?”
      
      For no good reason at all. The parents of that dead toddler chose to put their children in a rubber boat and take their chances with the sea in the dead of night leaving behing a country that isn’t at war, that has given them safe haven, a country that already has 12m of their kin.
    - mohdanga
      
      They were renting an apartment in Turkey, a safe country, and one that Dave Cameron is pushing to get into the EU. The media makes it look like they dropped everything in haste in Syria to make the boat trip to Europe.
- wudyermucuss
  
  The people responsible for that drowning are the people who put that child in the dinghy.
  Vile emotional blackmail,to be expected.
  The vast majority of the invaders are fit young men who have paid large sums to criminals.

Blindsideflanker

I have never held Cameron in high opinion , but if he holds his position when he said taking a few migrants is an irrelevance to the solution of the crisis , then I will be very impressed.

Right now we have a campaign led by the BBC and its partial and selective news reporting trying to break the resolve of the Government .

I hope they face them down.

Pacificweather

Sky News is the leader. The BBC is merely hanging on to its coat tails.
- Blindsideflanker
  
  No, I think the BBC has been running a slick propaganda operation.
  
  We have had the BBC portraying the migrants as a little girl skipping along a railway track with teddy in her arms. We have had running an interview with a migrant , with backing music, and just the other day we had the BBC represent the migrants as a pretty young woman making her way to Sweden . The one thing they don’t represent the migrants as 80% young men, which is what they are.
  
  They put leading questions to foreign politicians, trying to get them to criticise the UK, and if they do get a word out of place, use it as the world’s criticism of us.
  
  They try and find the odd Luvie to criticise the Government.
  
  Try to find the odd Conservative politician to come out against the Government.
  
  And run programs with leading questions as they did yesterday.
  
  Its a well worn script the BBC is following
  - Abie Vee
    
    No doubt you’d prefer Murdoch’s evil Empire in charge of our national broadcaster. (or perhaps The Ministry of Truth?)
    - Sue Smith
      
      Careful, your paranoia is showing.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Murdoch isn’t a paranoia. Dennis Potter called his terminal stomach cancer Rupert.
    - blandings
      
      You are an unpleasant little piece of work aren’t you?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Nope. I’m in great demand as an after-dinner speaker at the WI.
    - Bonkim
      
      Stick to the WI you idiot.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      What… Jam, Jerusalem and Sieg Heil?
    - Abie Vee
      
      You are not too far off there.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Not far enough off to the Left for you?
    - Abie Vee
      
      What would you know… reduced as you are to to blowing raspberries from offstage.
    - Abie Vee
      
      You find it especially hard to deal with facts do you not?
    - blandings
      
      No Abie, but I do despise people who use the term untermenschen to describe others.
    - Sue Smith
      
      You are a living example of the mentality which screams “open borders” and every bit as irrational.
    - vieuxceps2
      
      Ministry of Truth,eh? I see the devil can quote scriptures for his own purpose. Orwell is on the side of reason. He is not for foaming lefty narcissists.Try Marx,available on Kindle for 38 pence.
  - Pacificweather
    
    Yes, but you see the same pictures on Sky News. Both show pictures of men climbing a fence in Calais but its women and children on boats and railway tracks. Neither station wants you to switch off out of boredom so they do what he press has always done – tug at your heart strings. Now Mr Murdoch says Mr Corbyn is the only politician who believes in anything. But not to worry, there is always Fox News or Russia Today.
- Mary Ann
  
  BBC hanging on to the coat tails of the Murdoch press, but everyone says that the BBC is leftie, and we all know that Sky is right wing.
  - Sue Smith
    
    What’s the point your making? Incoherent.
    
    I’m tired – absolutely fed up to the back teeth – with nightly TV programs and interviews with “asylum seekers” where a reporter walks up to them and asks, “what possessions have you got; how long have you been travelling?” etc.
    
    Absolutely NO TOUGH QUESTIONS: “Why are there no old people in your numbers; where is your family – mother, father wife etc; who will take care of them; who is left to defend your country” etc. etc. Absolutely no attempt to do anything except wring out the most emotion possible with nothing meaningful or complex.
    
    It’s outrageous propaganda. And totally counter-intuitive.
    - sictransitvan
      
      It is so blatant it may be having the opposite effect on people. The media seem to have completely lost touch with the average person and are oblivious to the reaction they are evoking.
      I keep remembering Damien’s teddy bear in Drop the Dead Donkey if you remember that. (A teddy bear he would carry from war zone to war zone to be a poignant icon of each humanitarian crisis he was reporting on)
      I am sure there are many journalists who see the falsity of it all.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Merkel’s ratings are slipping in Germany,anti-invasion parties in Scandinavia are becoming the largest,I think the media/political classes are way out of step with the people.
    - Abie Vee
      
      So they should follow the herd? There you have it, the fundamental flaw at the heart of democracy: the tyranny of the majority.
      
      Wiser heads are called for… statesmanship and leadership, not the howling of lynch-mobs.
    - Sue Smith
      
      What an execrable individual!
    - Abie Vee
      
      Thank you dear.
    - sictransitvan
      
      Yes there should be wiser heads called for. There is only emotion at the moment, the weeping of the media and the snarls of the neglected English people.
      Problem is that everything seems to operate on an emotional level these days. Common sense is lost in the din.
      Democracy is a precursor to tyranny in many political philosophies.
    - Abie Vee
      
      The snarls of losers… people who think they are entitled to preferential treatment, not by virtue of ability, application and dedication, but because of the mere happenstance of their birthplace.
    - sictransitvan
      
      That is a terrible attitude. People have a right to a homeland without being reproached for having a sense of belonging. Think about what you are implying and apply it to other peoples. Are we all rootless economic nomads in a global village?
    - Abie Vee
      
      British jobs for British shirkers. What sort of a person is it that gets pushed out of a job by an illiterate Romanian pea-picker?
    - sictransitvan
      
      I think your view is shared by the corporations. Everything is second to the bottom line, profits. The jackals of High Finance circling the corpse of the nation states. Perhaps there is some truth in it, ugly as it is.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Of course it’s true. The nation state is largely a mirage (for now anyhow).
      
      I have worked in two countries where businesses were compelled by law to employ a percentage of indigenous workers.
      
      Can you begin to imagine what surly, useless, people they were? Imagine it… entitled to a job by law, almost unsackable? It spells ruination for any business.
      
      That’s what I mean by the crippling sense of entitlement.
    - sictransitvan
      
      There was something of that too, in a different way, in the communist states, a total reliance on the state for job security. But the ruthless profit motive is just as harmful. There has to be a middle way between these extremes.
    - Bonkim
      
      You are arguing with an idiot.
    - Bonkim
      
      Societies are quite happy to support their own and rightly so. Go back to where you came from – and the nation state needs to be protected from outsiders that come for a free ride.
    - Bonkim
      
      Why not – British people should have more rights to what they have – you are an absconder stealing someone else’s wealth – a thief stealing and sermonising why our wealth should be yours.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      How about the rights in Muslim countries for non Muslims?
      Any vitriol about this, or just the usual hypocrite sewage that you always write?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Allow me to educate you (you’re in sore need).
      
      I have friends of mine working in The Emirates this last ten years. As residents and tax-payers they are accorded full protection of Sharia law (without the religious obligations imposed on Muslims). They can legally purchase alcohol and pork products. And they are richly rewarded and are very happy there. Their children were born there.
      
      I don’t think you’re in any position to write about sewage… if floods out of your every orifice. God knows who cleans up after you. They have my sympathy.
    - Sue Smith
      
      You have friends? Now your comments are completely devoid of credibility.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Oh yes. You’d be surprised.
      
      I don’t suppose you’d care to address the subject? Or am I the subject? In which case I’m flattered and encouraged. But I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      Emirates, you mean Slave-paradise?
    - mohdanga
      
      And I’m sure they are uneducated and unskilled, right? Just like the mob that can’t wait to get into Britain.
      I bet the wife is happy to have the protection of Sharia.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I bet she is too.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Move to the Emirates. Don’t come back, there is nothing here for you – you don’t belong here muslim.
    - Abie Vee
      
      My family goes back over 500 years. What about yours Sid Snot?
    - Bonkim
      
      Absolutely – you inherit from your ancestors – you don’t give away to strangers knocking on the doors or trying to steal what you have.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      ^^^^ YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MUSLIMS SURELY!!!!
      
      Otherwise I’m afraid you are just far too mentally ill, to see the insane irony in your posts
    - mohdanga
      
      So Britain and the West just sprung up from nothing, did they? You are dense.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I’d have to go far to match your leaden levels of density, that’s for sure.
    - mohdanga
      
      A great response! Bereft of logic and fact, just like every other response of yours. Carry on.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Indeed. You obviously don’t possess a mirror.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      No-one’s howling,no lynch mobs.
      Just democracy.
      You’re not a fan I see.
      Leftists aren’t are they?
    - Abie Vee
      
      I am a great fan of democracy. But a true democracy is measured by the protection which it affords to minority opinion within it; protection from the tyranny of the majority. The ancient Greeks had a word for this potential tyranny: Ochlocracy… rule by the mob (or mobocracy).
      
      Check it out.
    - Bonkim
      
      Not minorities knocking on the doors. Existing minorities should adapt and change not stick to their medieval cultures.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Oh the irony.. the irony. And you should do likewise.
    - Bonkim
      
      Majority chooses who is in and who is out. You are definitely out.
    - Alexsandr
      
      democracy means a majority holds power. majority means most people. Just because the population hols opinions different to yours doesn not mean democracy has gone wrong. Just you hold a minority opinion. But the left regard democracy as an impediment to socialism. Your soulmate tellytubby rated the DDR despite the walls and the secret police.
    - Bonkim
      
      Majority rules!
    - Abie Vee
      
      The tyranny of the majority for all to see. That’s ochlocracy, mob rule, not Democracy.
    - Bonkim
      
      Absolutely – lump it!
    - mohdanga
      
      Yes, much better that the minority should decide for the majority. Get real.
    - Abie Vee
      
      That isn’t what I said. You comprehension skills rather let you down.
    - mohdanga
      
      How so? If the majority can’t decide the rules, that leaves the minority to do it. Got it. How’s that ‘tyranny of the majority’ working out in the West? The vast majority of the population is against massive 3rd world immigration. So what does the minority of politicians do? Increases immigration. Who’s the tyrant?
    - somewhereinthesouth
      
      They interviewed one the other day on train going to Sweden She looked like a Brazilian supermodel model , not a desperate muslim refugee from Syria and spoke perfect English. Money didn’t seem to be problem either. She just seemed to want a bathroom and better life . Hardly typical of many migrants .She is now in Sweden .
    - Abie Vee
      
      What’s her phone number?
    - Chris Taylor
      
      Excellent!
    - AJH1968
      
      I have several bathrooms and I am rather partial to Brazillian supermodels so If you do not have any luck, kindly pass the phone number on to me. I would be in your debt.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      as if any woman with self respect would let you touch her
      and why am I not surprised that you are unattached, with that wonderful personalty LOL
    - Abie Vee
      
      Why if it isn’t little Ms Charisma-bypass herself. Lighten up Troll… you’re taking yourself far too seriously…. full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Like yourself, a relic out of the Shakespearean past. Next you’ll be telling us you have a twisted spine. Well, it would be nice to actually see a spine – twisted or not.
      
      Kindly leave the comments to the adults.
    - Abie Vee
      
      You flatter yourself: your “comments” are pejorative slurs and ad- hominem attacks… the simple stuff of playground bullies. I doubt you’ve a coherent thought in your head worth sharing.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      uh oh, now you’ve told me LOL
      
      YOU’re the one taking himself way too seriously, or maybe yo did not notice all the ridicule launched your way, every single day -and yet you continue to come here, for more ridicule and abuse, says a lot about your psyche ;D
    - AJH1968
      
      Wow! You sound really sophisticated and exotic, if I cannot win your affection my life will be bereft of all hope.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      unlike this “sophisticated” comment of yours?
    - Sue Smith
      
      This deplorable comment is typical of the Lefty mentality – or what passes for it.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Grow up.
    - Abie Vee
      
      So you think the left has some sort of monopoly? My my… what a strange world you inhabit.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Yeah, it was completely risible but the “useful idiots” have fallen for it.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Would they be the same useful idiots who supply the Gangster-state with weaponry (or are they some other useful idiots)?
    - Sue Smith
      
      Funny, it’s the Left which is generally described as “useful idiots”. I can see it’s getting to you, as it should!!!
    - Abie Vee
      
      What you don’t understand is this: the term is apolitical… it refers to all goyim.
    - Arthur Sparknottle
      
      Yes – I saw that. She was extremely beautiful. Unfortunately, too many of the people we have taken in in the past turn out to be folks like Abu Hamza, Abu Quatader, and that other famous Syrian import,Omar Bakri Muhammad . Forgive the spelling. Arabic names are not my forte, but I am sure you will get the point.
    - Bonzo
      
      The BBC web site says of her story: “The BBC’s James Reynolds follows the trail of a Syrian migrant called Nour, as she travels 2,000 miles through nine countries to fulfil her dream of applying for asylum in Sweden.”
      Travels through 9 countries to apply for asylum?
    - Abie Vee
      
      And I’m “absolutely fed up” with the rancid stench of British (more correctly, English) hypocrisy!
      
      Single-handedly we made the Middle East out of the Ottoman Empire. Yup, WE did, us Brits… creating places like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and Iraq out of nothing, keeping the oil fields of Persia for ourselves, and handing over other spoils to the French. We placed tame client-kings over most of these artificial constructs, Sunni warlords over majority Shia populations, and compounded our blunders in 1948 with the creation of Israel.
      
      As Maynard Keynes warned Churchill before The Cairo Conference in 1921: If you cut up the Map of the Middle East with a pair of scissors you will still be fighting wars there in a hundred years time.”
      
      And Cameron’s line is, it’s nothing to do with us. It is everything to do with us. Everything!! As Colin Powell once said: If you break it, you own it.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Ah,it’s our fault that their ancient ceaseless tribal savagery is still going on.
      Bonus points for mentioning Israel,who is not sending gazillions of invaders our way or for not mentioning the colonial period when there was peace.
      If we are so obviously superior to them that they all seek to come here,why don’t we just take over their countries again?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Indeed it is. The ancient tribal savagery of which you witter was non-existent under the Pax-Ottomana. WE tore the sore open in our greed and ignorance.
      
      Israel? Latest reports suggest that the Gaza strip will be uninhabitable by 2020. I wonder where those millions of displaced Palestinians will go, don’t you? And who might they in turn displace.
      
      Nothing to do with us; nothing to do with the West; nothing to do with the Zionist gangster-state either. Ho-humm.
      
      I’ll leave aside the rest of your childish muttering if you don’t mind.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Troll. Shouldn’t you be on The Guardian?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Why? My point is to pop your bubblewrap, not theirs.
    - blandings
      
      All you are doing is ranting Abie.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Rab the ranter eh?
    - blandings
      
      When you are in England Abie, try and speak English.
    - Abie Vee
      
      That was English. Try to learn it… a truly marvelous language.
    - blandings
      
      Draw near and celebrate the birth
      Of Scotland’s Rab the Ranter
      Who gave us monie a bonnie rhyme
      And tales like Tam O’ Shanter
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      the only thing you’re popping is your nerve-endings, but please feel free to continue, maybe if I’m lucky, you’ll have an aneurysm ;D
    - Abie Vee
      
      Some bad news for you: I can keep this up for years.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      don’t be so sure Abie: Muslims and Islamophiles get beheaded first LOL
    - Abie Vee
      
      You’re a brave little soul aren’t you, hiding behind your mummy’s computer. I suppose this makes a change for you from accessing porn sites. Who is going to do this beheading… YOU? Do me a favour.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      Your friends 😀 😀 😀
    - Alexsandr
      
      you just expose yourself as a prime t1t i am afraid. Ill informed witterings dont impress.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Childish muttering is pointing out the regions one democracy against the surrounding tribal savages whose conflicts never end.
      There are 10 times as many Arabs in Gaza,Israel and WB as when the area was divided between the Jews and Arabs over 60 years ago.
      Gaza has one of the highest living standards in the region.
      You go back to your ho-humming as reality is clearly a stranger to you,and no.I don’t mind what you do.
    - blandings
      
      “Nothing to do with us; nothing to do with the West; nothing to do with the Zionist gangster-state either. Ho-humm.”
      
      Indeed not Abie, the problems of the Islamic world are primarily cultural – Muslims really must stop blaming everybody else for their own inadequacy.
      
      The Zionist gangster-state, as you call it, is a an island of decency in that sea of ignorance, bigotry and savagery that is the world of Islam and all civilised people should support it.
    - Alexsandr
      
      it is also technologically brilliant.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      LONG LIVE ISRAEL!
      
      Formidable country, and remarkable people.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Really? Moshe Dayan’s “mad dogs”? You know what happens to mad dogs don’t you: they get shot.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      From where I’m sitting it seems Muslims have tried for 70 years, and nada. I wonder what’s taking them so long? Maybe too busy with killing their own? LOOOL
      
      Yes, Muslim are clever, Jews are mad……yeaaaaahhhhhh….
    - Abie Vee
      
      Be patient little man. Don’t be in a hurry to die. Death comes soon enough.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      We are patiently sitting here, watching you cockroaches slaughter each other LMAO! It’s brilliant. Don’t ever stop please Muslim. It’s the only thing your people contribute to humanity.
    - Alexsandr
      
      how long has Israel had nukes? If really threatened they will use them. And you can bet a lot of money the israelis have been slowly improving the technology over the years.
    - Abie Vee
      
      If you are relying on nukes to survive, you are preparing to die.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      😀
      
      Hilarious. Israel crushed you 3 times wasn’t it? Hahahaa!
    - Abie Vee
      
      Thanks to the USA. But they won’t always be there to bail you out. And they got severely burned by Hezbollah. The Zionists live by the sword, they will die by the sword. It’s only a matter of when.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Why don’t you try invading again? That worked out so well for you muzzie apes.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      “Latest reports suggest that the Gaza strip will be uninhabitable by 2020.”
      
      Based on now-unavoidable circumstances, or based on the idea that the froth-mouthed Hamas will continue firing rockets from schools and hospitals?
      
      Will the strip be buried under two inches of leaflets dropped by the Israelis to warn that they’re about to use a pea-shooter in the general vicinity?
    - Abie Vee
      
      What is your point? Is it that because some people behave like savages, a self-professed civilised people must get down in the gutter and be savages too. And that’s somehow ok? In which case, if we have so much in common, why are fighting? Israel slaughters Palestinian women, babies, children and old men. A malignant cancer on the face of the Earth.
      
      It’s up to the West to save the Israeli Jews (Moshe Dayan’s “mad dogs”) : to save them from themselves!
      
      What do you have to say about al-Nakba? Or the continuing theft of Palestinian land and natural resources, nothing. You seem to be rather amused by the notion of the de-populating of the Gaza strip (on of the world’s largest prison camps, second only perhaps to that of ersatz Israel itself) and a further several million refugees. Let’s hope they drop by your house.
      
      Your hatred blinds you to the truth.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      What do you say about Hamas, absolutely f ck all.
      
      You’re a muzzie i can smell you from here.
      
      A few million Jewish Israeli’s > 2bn muslims.
      
      Do you want another war muzzie? Do you want your arse handed to you again?
      
      You pigs need reminding every decade or two that you’re the worlds cancer and the gutter is where your kind belong.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I say nothing about Hamas because they are simply a convenient cover for Israeli atrocities. If Hamas didn’t exist, Israel would have to invent them.
      
      Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO whatever. Destroy one, another pops up in place. And each time the problem deepens.
      
      The UN has said that the Gaza strip will become uninhabitable by 2020. ISIS has broadcast its intention to occupy the Strip before then.
      
      When ISIS finally comes a-knocking, the Israelis will rue for all eternity the opportunities for peaceful co-existence with their fellow Semites and descendants of Abraham which they have squandered and spurned since 1948. Do you think this Gangster-state can survive in its present form until its centenary? I certainly don’t.
    - mohdanga
      
      “When ISIS finally comes a-knocking, the Israelis will rue for all eternity the opportunities for peaceful co-existence with their fellow Semites and descendants of Abraham which they have squandered and spurned since 1948.” If you think Israel with twiddle its thumbs while ISIS attacks it, you are sadly mistaken.
    - Alexsandr
      
      what the fcuk have you been taking? Israel left Gaza to the gazans. It had a flourishing market garden industry. Hamas trashed it. Then Hamas started using human shields for their rocket attacks on Israel. and they wondered why Israel protects its population. something hamas didnt do. for they had slave kids building tunnels. not air raid shelters but a route to attack Israeli civilians.
      Israel doesn’t chuck gays off tall buildings. Israel is a proper democracy where the Arab Israelis have equal rights to the Jewish Israelis.
      read the Hamas charter. they have a vow to destroy Israel, a legally created country under a UN resolution. How can you be so blind to the evil that is Hamas?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Gaza is a prison. They Israelis left Gaza to re-settle the West Bank instead.
      
      You don’t really know anything at all. And if you think Hamas is evil, BOY have you got a shock coming.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      “I say nothing about Hamas because they are simply a convenient cover for Israeli atrocities”
      
      Wow what an utterly warped view you have.
      
      So what you’re saying is that you claim to care about the Palestinians but you ignore Hamas and their role in oppressing Palestinians because in reality you don’t care about the Palestinians… you just hate Jews more.
      
      Cheers.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I try not to do hate. But the Zionist gangsters push me to the limit. Hamas are the democratic government of Gaza. I’d love you to tell me how they oppress Palestinians (the vast majority of whom do not even live in Gaza).
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Strange how Gaza has one of the highest rates of female obesity in the world with the men not far behind.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Obesity is a symptom of poor diet, not of gluttony. If you want to see true gluttons go to Haifa. But hey, what do you know. Very little.
    - mohdanga
      
      Yes, as evidenced by the American, British, Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian POWs of the Japanese in WWII. They became obese on their poor diet.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      HAHAHAHAA.
      
      The Muslim speaks.
      The Muslim lies.
    - Abie Vee
      
      You can’t afford to go to Jaffa… try the Green.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Again, more of your own projections.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Nothing to do with me (or you). I’m asking him to explain his position Yours would be of little or no interest, let alone relevance..
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      “What do you have to say about al-Nakba?”
      
      Happy Nakbah, that’s what I have to say about the Nakbah. Happy eternal Nakbah. You can end the Nakbah as soon as you like, by the way, but if you are committed to the causes of defeat, failure and death, then at least you should try to enjoy those things.
      
      Certainly, you’re one to speak of hatred, when you speak of Israel as a “cancer” – I should live to see such cancer, rejuvenating the land, firing up the economy and championing the rights of man in a region dedicated to subjugation and slavery.
      
      Do you actually know what a cancer is? It’s a malignant force that, unless fully and absolutely destroyed, breaks apart and spreads across a whole system, achieving nothing, consuming resources, and adding pressure until it kills the useful subsystems around it. That’s not Israel, that’s a pretty good description of the lot of barbarians that you seem to adore.
      
      And you were the one that said the Gaza strip could soon become uninhabitable. Do you think that the suicidal fanaticism of the people who live there has nothing to do with that? Do you think that the Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Lebanese loathing of “Palestinians” has nothing whatsoever to do with their reprehensible, irresponsivle and self-destructive behaviour?
    - Abie Vee
      
      A cancer which attaches itself to a host, gorges on the life blood of that host, killing that host in the process. I can’t think of a better word to describe the activities of that Gangster-state.
      
      Happy al-Nakbah you say. Shall I say Happy Holocaust in return? You’d probably be offended right? Is that the level of debate in which you wish to engage?
      
      I think if you really want to talk about suicidal fanaticism you should look at the Jews and their Masada complex. And then perhaps look to your own malignance.
      
      I think I’ve had enough of your tiresome loaded questions for one day. You argue like a child.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      “A cancer which attaches itself to a host, gorges on the life blood of that host, killing that host in the process.”
      
      I don’t think you know what a cancer is. Your definition boggles the mind. But it comes as no surprise to me that you are ignorant in this.
      
      “Happy al-Nakbah you say. Shall I say Happy Holocaust in return? You’d probably be offended right?”
      
      Hardly comparable is it? Your side declared war (I realise you would never dream of actually taking up arms, but I imagine a pink tutu and a pair of pom-poms would suit you), it was something like six against one. You lost – somehow – and you’ve been losing an offensive war ever since. How you compare winning a defensive war against a genocidal enemy, with perpetrating genocide…. well it’s what the Jews would probably call chutzpah. That or you are too stupid/ignorant to realise the magnitude of your error. By the way, is this how you respond to people who taunt neo-Nazis? How would you like it if Hitler killed you?
      
      But I digress. It was also quite funny to see you rubbishing my “tiresome loaded questions”, your having asked quite a number of them on this thread so far.
    - Abie Vee
      
      There you go again. Pedantic semantic mumbo-jumbo.
      
      My side? I don’t think the terrorist organisations like the Stern Gang, Irgun and Haganah were on my side (nor I theirs).
      
      You really should move out of the playground. How old are you?
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Old enough to recognise that your arguments are exactly of a ‘playground’ nature. You might as well have said, “I know you are but what am I??”
    - Abie Vee
      
      Tedious. If you’ve nothing to say, then why bother?
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Wow, you’ve done it again. What spectacularly efficient hypocrisy!
    - Abie Vee
      
      Oh dear, you’re , ahem, on the job early today. Such a lovely morning too.
      
      Most people on here aver that I have too much to say. The problem is, none of it chimes with their world-view. Happy days.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      I could not care less about that piece of sewer rat excrement
      
      In fact, I hope Jordan, Israel and Egypt finish Gaza off once and for all. Gaza is a problem for many.
    - mohdanga
      
      So if the Middle East is the fault of Britain and present day Brits should be guilty, responsible, ashamed, etc of what is happening there, should the same be said for the Arabs of the Middle East and African blacks? After all, their ancestors started the slave trade and carry it on today….shouldn’t they be paying penance to the ancestors of those they enslaved?
      Let’s take bets on whether in 4 years time Gaza is ‘uninhabitable’. Maybe the Muslim countries surrounding it can take these ‘refugees’. Maybe the Palestinians, who are apparently being subjected to ‘genocide’, should stop breeding like flies and doubling the population every ten years or so.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Indeed. You are right again. keep it up.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Oh dear, the perennial undergrad strikes again.
      
      Don’t feed the trolls folks!
    - Abie Vee
      
      Gosh. You wouldn’t care to address any of the facts within the comment would you? I seem to have you.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Er… what facts?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Um, can’t you read?
      The carve up of the Ottoman Empire by the British.
      The percipient advice Keynes gave to Churchill.
      The Cairo Conference of 1921.
      The Creation of Israel (and all that follows from that)
      
      No “facts” there for you to chew on?
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      I smell muzzie.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Still nothing to say. I have a question for you: why do you bother? Why display your ignorance on a public format?
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Am I wrong? You’re not muslim?
      
      Yes you are, that’s exactly what you are.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Yes you are wrong. As usual. You’re good at it.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      The British did redraw some lines over the collapsed Ottoman Empire, but not alone. It was largely in negotiation with the French. I assumed you were blathering, since the assumed unilateralism of the British was an invention of yours. About Keynes, his advice is not really factual, even if it is a fact that it was his opinion. One does not address an opinion in the same way as a fact unless both sides agree that the person expressing that opinion is infallible – it’s an “appeal to authority”, which you would know about if you bothered to learn anything about the kind of debating you pretend to indulge in. The Cairo Conference is not a fact, it is a context. And you abandoned factual reasoning when you mentioned Israel – you went on a mini-Hitler-rant, calling it a “gangster state”. Fact: Russia is a gangster state. Fact: Israel is not.
      
      So as I was saying, what facts?
    - Abie Vee
      
      Keynes said what he said, a matter of historical record. And he was correct.
      
      “The Cairo Conference is not a fact?
      Goodnight. Far too busy.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      “Keynes said what he said, a matter of historical record. And he was correct.”
      
      Translation: “my opinion is fact, Keynes just happened to agree with me which makes his opinion fact too”. You really don’t know what an appeal to authority is, even though I just took the time to tell you what it is. La-la-la can’t hear me?
      
      “The Cairo Conference is not a fact?”
      
      Just like my house is not a fact – it is actually a house. If my house were a fact, I could not live in it, for it would be abstracted into physical oblivion.
      
      The sun is not a fact. The Sunday Times is not a fact.
      
      “The sun is an incandescant celestial body” is a fact. “The Sunday Times is a weekly newspaper” is a fact.
      
      It would help if the idiots who argue with me were in possession of a few. Facts, I mean. I demand a better standard of idiot.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Er, rather fanciful. I happen to agree with Keynes: he doesn’t agree with me. Get it right.
      
      The rest of your garbage is, well, garbage. To stupid for comment. All you frauds resort to the same tactic; semantic wriggling.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Believe me, nobody knew the true meaning of the word garbage until you started talking.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Did it really take you 11 hours to think up that witty reply?
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Yes. I hang around on the Spectator every moment of every hour, never eating, sleeping or working. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.
      
      It took me 15 hours to put this message together. Many sleepless hours. Obviously, it’s not a lifestyle you should seek to replicate.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Some truth in that.
    - Abie Vee
      
      “Facts” are of no interest to you are they. They’re what you call “an appeal to authority” aren’t they? You don’t think with your head, but with your emotions. That’s all that matters; what you “feel”.
      
      You people have it both ways (or you’d like to): if I reference sources your scream Fraud… if I don’t reference sources you scream Liar.
      
      Easy for you isn’t it. Schoolboy stuff… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Please don’t make me lecture you on Shakespeare as well.
    - Abie Vee
      
      To be honest, I don’t think you could give a lecture on, “How to chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time.”
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      I’m sorry, I couldn’t. I would like to offer you advice on how to do that, if that particular type of activity troubles you, but I’m not qualified to give coordination lessons to the mentally or physically impaired.
    - Abie Vee
      
      As I said..
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      Eh. Don’t expect anything but a cheap shot back if it’s all you can send.
    - Abie Vee
      
      That’s right… keep digging you hole… deeper and deeper. You can stop at six feet. Leave the filling-in to me.
    - mohdanga
      
      What, your ‘facts’?
    - blandings
      
      “And I’m “absolutely fed up” with the rancid stench of British (more correctly, English) hypocrisy!”
      
      I’m quite content with my English hypocrisy thanks.
      If you don’t like it you can always emigrate to a third world hell hole of your choice.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I have. London.
    - blandings
      
      Ah yes, Londonistan. I expect you feel at home there.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Indeed I do. (I was being facetious of course.obviously wasted on you).
    - Abie Vee
      
      I note you are unable to contest the comment itself. Ignore the message and shoot the messenger. Pathetic.
    - blandings
      
      Wouldn’t waste a bullet on you old boy.
      Look Abie you obviously hate English people, so why don’t you leave England and go and live somewhere that you find my culturally agreeable. There are plenty of Islamic cesspits to choose from and I’m sure that any of them would welcome a person of your talents.
    - Abie Vee
      
      I’m English myself. The family dates back for as long as Parish records go. That’s quite some time.
      
      And I love English people. No more or less than any other particularly. and most certainly not all of them… that would be ridiculous, no?
    - blandings
      
      “I’m English myself.”
      Don’t believe you. You may have been born here but your cultural background is not English – your hatred of jews and your use of the term untermensch both betray you.
      Remember Abie, a dog can be borne in a stable, but that doesn’t make it a horse.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      I agree, it smells like a Muslim!
    - blandings
      
      ” the rancid stench of British (more correctly, English) hypocrisy!”
      
      Doesn’t sound like love, Abie , sounds like hatred to me
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      she’s a typical Nazi, like her Muslim friends.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      they must be so proud of you …
    - Abie Vee
      
      Mostly. As the Jews say; you vin a few, you lose a few.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      A Jew would never quote you. But quote Jews, while you despise them. You’re a typical Muslim, filled with equal amounts of hatred and jealousy for overachieving Jews.
      
      Muslims like to compare themselves to Jews, but no Jew in his right mind would ever compare himself to a muslim cockroach
    - Abie Vee
      
      Er, I’m not a Muslim. I don’t despise Jews. I try not to do hate, and I’m jealous of no one. Other than all that, you’re right.
      
      Muslims Arabs and Jews are closely related, and share many traits and characteristics, both cultural and genetic. They are after all, according to their own books, half-brothers.
      
      You’re something of a complete ignoramus are you not? A cockroach, you say. What like that little drowned boy washed up on the beach? The first step to take in order to kill a fellow human being is to dehumanise him; call him something other than a man… a cockroach perhaps, an untermensch, a Yid… get the picture?
      
      I bet you don’t.
    - AJH1968
      
      I don’t agree with you most of the time, but let me say this, you are a most articulate foe. I would also be loath to consider the above troll a fellow traveller.
    - Damaris Tighe
      
      Well said AJH.
    - AJH1968
      
      Thanks D Sunshine Sux sounds like somebody who was evicted from the BNP.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      You sound like a muslim cockroach.
      Everything else you wrote is projection.
      
      Btw, the drowned little boy on the beach died at the hands of MUSLIMS! His MUSLIM parents shoved him into a dhigny in the middle of the night, to cross the mediterranean, even though they were in a safe country.
      
      Because nobody kills more muslim children than you cockroach muslims. Maybe that’s why Allah hates you so much.
    - mohdanga
      
      Hmmm. Who killed this boy? His father, who took him from a safe place’, or a commenter on the Spec website.
    - Alexsandr
      
      yes the kid on the beach. killed by his father by pure greed.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      I’m English, you’re not however much you may claim.
      
      We’ve already established you’re full of sh t so there is no point to you Abie, just pack your bags and leave England, muzzie not welcome.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Isn’t it time for your bed? Does your mummy know you’re playing with her laptop? tut tut.
    - Bonkim
      
      Plug your nose if you don’t like it –
    - mohdanga
      
      “I note you are unable to contest the comment itself. Ignore the message and shoot the messenger. Pathetic.” An apt description of you.
    - Bonkim
      
      Maynatd Keynes’ economics is dead. OK the British Empire was not founded on charity – and Britain profited immensely but everyone had their cut in all the lands of the Empire.
      
      Looking back and bringing that serves no purpose – will just ignore – failed and failing societies do not deserve to live – if you want to have 15 children in a refugee camp in Palestine or Syria – your business – no reason for the British state to bear the costs.
      
      Be glad Britain allowed you in – may be under false pretenses – not wanted here.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      “And I’m “absolutely fed up” with the rancid stench of British (more correctly, English) hypocrisy!”
      
      then phack of to Cesspittistan, you vile snake!
      WE ARE ENTITLED TO HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT OUR OWN COUNTRY TOO – WE PAY TAXES HERE!
      
      GO AND JOIN YOUR BELOVED MUSLIMS AND PI$$ OFF ALREADY!!!
    - Abie Vee
      
      I’m sorry that I can’t fall to your juvenile and hysterical level of debate.
      
      I left that sort of stuff behind me at primary school.
      
      However, if you think you’ve something germane to add to the subject (which isn’t in fact me) don’t hesitate to come back. For instance, what were your thoughts on the Cairo Conference?
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      my thoughts are, that when civil war comes, your ilk will be the first shipped off to Cesspittistan 😀
      or any other Nazi shiitehole
    - Abie Vee
      
      Are you allowed out without a nurse?
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      even your sarcastic remarks are banal, Muslim
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Oh it’s all our fault that a 1,500 year old religion has been killing each other for 1,500 years.
      
      Sunni vs Shia is always good for popcorn and beers as when muzzie kills muzzie it’s a win win for the world.
    - Abie Vee
      
      1500 years? So you say. Would you care to back that allegation up with some hard evidence? Off you go… (this should be interesting).
    - Mary Ann
      
      So you think that old people can walk the thousands of miles that some of them are walking, I expect the olds sent them on their way, I would certainly want my sons to look after themselves and my grandchildren before me. The only kind of life after death is your descendants.
    - Bonkim
      
      Why not take a few in your home?
    - Sue Smith
      
      That’s right, the old have had their lives after all. Why not subject them to predatory violence and executions!! All part of the profile of cowardice from the ‘refugees’ – the vast majority of whom are healthy males under 45!! Vast majority.
      
      I’d say that’s Expedience/Self Preservation 101.
  - Abie Vee
    
    The BBC is undoubtedly an arm of the establishment, a very powerful arm. The establishment likes to pretend otherwise for the sake of appearances.
  - Pacificweather
    
    Well, people have thought that in the past but now Mr Murdoch has praised Mr Corbyn the truth is out there. People who say the BBC is leftie just do so because they are too cheap to pay the licence fee so I can watch Poldark. You will notice they still want me to pay towards their children’s education. There is the right and then there is the hypocritical right.
Frank

Plus Channel 4 news
Mary Ann

How do you know that the BBC broadcasts are partial someone else has also said that Sky are broadcasting the same thing, so what is your more knowledgeable source of information?
- Blindsideflanker
  
  Because 80% of the asylum seekers are young men.
A new poster

Cameron sounds good for now, but he will back down either in front of the cameras or more likely when the cameras have moved on to a different story
Zanderz

The breakfast presenter on BBC radio 6 promoted the Independent’s petition to let migrants in.

Whilst I’m greatly saddened by the death of the two brothers, I am terribly angry with their parents who thought it was sensible to leave the safe haven of Turkey to cross 18 miles of sea in the dead of night, in an overcrowded inflatable dinghy without life jackets. Would I do that if I was stuck in France and wanting to come to the UK? Is it really worth the risk?

That move was purely economic and had nothing to do with escaping Kobane, where the father is now planning to return to bury his family.

It’s a terrible tragedy, but one born out of stupidity, not a desperate need to escape war, which they already had done.
- Sue Smith
  
  Completely agree with you. Your common sense response does not come at the expense of compassion. It’s just a grown-up thing to do.
  
  Unfortunately, the ‘children’/youngsters in Europe, Scandinavia and the UK seem to have control of the levers – for now. They just haven’t been around long enough to understand actions and consequences.
  
  I hasten to add that when it finally all goes pear-shaped they’ll wash their hands and say, “oh, look over there”. And they’ll look over at us (retirees) and demand that we cough up the requisite cash to try and ‘fix’ it all.
  - jeremy Morfey
    
    When you mention Scandinavian youngsters, I cannot help thinking of that socialist youth camp in Norway massacred by a crazed Aryan neonazi. The Muslims don’t have a monopoly on terror.
    
    I actually think Cameron has done the right thing here – by insisting that our humanitarian quota comes from those in the camps dotted around the Syrian frontier, rather than those who push themselves on trains, bullying the local officials, or handing out life savings to gangs who do not care if the boat sinks. They can go back to the camps and wait their turn.
    
    We can send in our agents to sort out in their own time which are the terrified civilians worthy of a fresh start in safety, which are better off going back home and fighting for their country or rebuilding it rather than leaving it to foreigners, and which are fifth columnists from whom vital intelligence can be extracted.
    
    As for extracting cash out of the Arabs, how about a mansion demolition tax, whereby every building demolished in London must pay its market value in tax to the Exchequer before anything in its place can be lived in, used for business, let or sold on?
Sue Smith

Unfortunately, we are living in the era of government controlled broadcasters creating the news, not even attempting to disguise that fact – instead of objective reporting and documenting the facts. And, above all, avoiding the hard questions because you might actually hear arguments which don’t support your institutional, activist narrative. I don’t expect to have to pay for myself to be propagandized.

It’s actually scandalous. Same here in Australia, where a ‘report’ on ‘asylum seekers’ sees a reporter taking selfies with them, ushering them onto a boat for Athens and then dolefully waving them goodbye. Not a hard question in sight.

No, I must look elsewhere for my objective reporting – and it’s proving harder and harder.
bionde

Camoron has already folded like a badly erected deckchair.

AJH1968

There is plenty of sympathy from the virtuous classes for the children of Syrian refugees. Not so much sympathy for the children of working class Brits who have to make way for refugees/migrants, and who have been ruthlessly exploited by Muslim rape gangs.

Sue Smith

Absolutely spot on. The Empire of Offense is alive and well and the highest victim profile gets the most oil, as it were.
- karyn_mendez
  
  I will show excellent internet job opportunity… three-five hrs of work /a day… Payment* at the end of each week… Bonuses…Payment of 6-9 thousand dollars /a month… Merely several hrs of spare time, desktop or laptop, most basic knowing of web and dependable internet connection is what is needed…Get more information by visiting my page
Mary Ann

The Syrians are not the people responsible for rape in Rotherham, It’s nothing to do with them.
- Sue Smith
  
  You are conflating the issues.
  - Mary Ann
    
    It was AJH1968 who did that, I was only pointing out how silly it was to connect two different things.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Your heart is in the right place, Mary Ann, but you suffer from terminal naivete. Unfortunately, as this helps nobody.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Such pious cant. Pass the sick bucket.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Nothing else for you to eat, then?
    - Abie Vee
      
      More than enough thank you; I gorge myself on your right wing vomit.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      Here have some more:
      
      Islam is responsible for over 98% of all wars and armed conflicts world wide
      Nobody kills more Muslims, than other Muslims
      Nobody kills more minorities, than Muslims
      Islam can not live in peace with anybody, including their own
      
      Careful not to choke on it ;D
    - Abie Vee
      
      Did you make that garbage up all on your little ownsome? Who’s a clever bwoy.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Another projection; surely the Left makes up stuff all the time. It sees a baby washed up on a beach and then thinks all ‘asylum seekers’ are the salt of the earth needing the bosom of Europe. Dangerous cant, unhelpful and staggeringly naive.
      
      What is need now, more than ever, is a calm and intelligent response. Not the one we’re getting.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Do you even know the difference between an asylum seeker, and immigrant and a refugee? Do you even care? Nothing so far suggests you’ve the faintest concept of what is going on the world, let alone why.
      
      “Clear and calm” is what we need; what we get from you is hysteria and knee-jerk reaction.
    - Alexsandr
      
      yes. they people in turkey, greece, hungary, lampososa and calais are economic migrants. They left their country and gained a safe country, when they were refugees. Once they left that first safe country they become economic migrants.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      LOL, lying Muslim.
    - bionde
      
      Taqqiyah is allowed even encouraged.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Pretty soon you’ll have your own left wing shyte to swallow – actions and consequences and so forth – so don’t be too precipitous or smug!
    - styants64
      
      It’s another Muzzie.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Choke on it.
    - sara badawi
      
      Hi, agreed, can you email me szbadawi@gmail.com! Best, S
- Fairly Educated Scot
  
  *sarcasm*
  They share a religion with some of them and have a similar colour of skin so deep down you know they’re all equally as guilty.
  - alabenn
    
    You must associate with the terminally stupid if you have to explain yourself, unless of course.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      I am commenting in the Speccie comments; hence surrounded by swivel-eyed reactionaries bleeting about the bad brown men Enoch and the Express warned them about.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Reactionaries? Look no further than the Guardian – it only takes one photo a washed up dead kid for them to want to open the borders to the entire planet.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Yes, and what is more shocking is HOW easily they are propagandized – period!!
    - Sue Smith
      
      You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution!
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      That a r se wipe is part of the problem.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      That’s it, people are rightly concerned about the highest levels of immigration this country has seen in its entire history, which has been going on unrestrained for 15 years.
      
      And you call them all racist.
      
      What a mindless Scottish pr i ck you are.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      I have screenshotted your previous few hate-filled, racist comments and will use them on social media as evidence of the ammount of anti-Scottish hatred in reicht-wing comments sections (your display name is anonymous so your privacy is protected).
  - Cyril Sneer
    
    Pretty standard retarded left wing comment.
    
    Perhaps it’s more about the dangers of mass 3rd world immigration most notably from a societies that have seen more than their fair share of atrocities.
    
    It’s also about cultural compatibility but you won’t know about that because you’re ignorant and you only think in racial terms because how else could anyone disagree with you, they would have to be racist right?
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      Pretty standard sneering comment by a Speccie bottom sweller.
      The British and our colonies have been responsible for more atrocities than anyone else. We wiped out the native americans, industrailised slavery of Africans, invented concentration camps, we were chemically castrating men in the 60s for the crime of being gay, only in the 70s the British Army were torturing innocent men in Northern Ireland and sentencing them to hang. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
      Which “culture” specifically is ours incompatible with?
    - blandings
      
      “We wiped out…….”
      
      What’s with the we?
      You may have committed these atrocities, you evil monster, but I didn’t, I’m just an honest Englishman, living in his own country minding his own business. I don’t expect to be held responsible for your misdeeds.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      Now you see my point that it is ridiculous to hold all Muslim/Arabs responsible for a the actions of others 🙂
    - blandings
      
      But I do hold myself responsible.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Who is holding all muslims responsible? Oh no that’s right, you just assume it – the default position for any hard of thinking lefty. I guess it’s easier to do that than to actually try to win a debate with facts and we all know how you lefty cockroaches are allergic to facts.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      Who are you holding responsible then when you oppose immigration from “from a societies that have seen more than their fair share of atrocities.”?
      Seem like you blame the entire “society” for the actions of the people who have commited the atrocities.
    - Richard Baranov
      
      Obviously you don’t know your history, almost everything you say is inaccurate, a misrepresentation and the product of PC thought.
    - uberwest
      
      Why don’t you spend a few weeks in Bradford? If you don’t feel like an alien it will be because you’re already a muslim.
    - Yavver
      
      Stupid suggestion. There are many secularised Muslims who would feel like aliens there.
    - uberwest
      
      Stupid response.
      
      ‘There are many secularised Muslims who would feel like aliens there’
      
      Thanks for proving my point, snotty.
    - vieuxceps2
      
      “fairly” educated? Most unfairly I fear. Your comment is a mishmash of gobbets of undigested prejudice boiled without benefit of truth or comprehension.
      Native Americans died mainly from diseases brought in by immigrants from the Old World, much as immigrants have brought back TB to Europe (see now?). Slavery was abolished in the Empire in 1807,long before the rest of the world.Concentration camps were just that, camps where anti-British Boers were kept to prevent them harming us,no question of the death-camps of the German national socialists.Castration was an option for gay men and some including Alan Turing chose to have it. I understand that the choice is not given to muslims,but they can opt to be thhrown off a roof. IRA men in N.Ireland were tortured to stop them killing children in Manchester or mothers of large families in Belfast. Long time since anyone was hanged in Britain . Are you sure of your claims?
      You see,your frothing lefty harangue ia hardly worth wiping your arse on. Why do you marxoids not check your factoids and prejudices before writing? Perhaps your course-trainers didn’t want you to?
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      I’ll ignore the unfounded personal attacks and pretend you had addressed me as an adult would.
      “In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans
      from their homelands accommodating European-American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears.”
      Now unless “ethnic cleansing” is a newly discovered disease…
      
      We abolished slavery in 1807? I’m sure the slaves already in America (taken there in British ships) felt very grateful for that…
      
      “anti-British Boers were kept to prevent them harming us”? We annexed their country (sound familiar), they fought back (sound familiar) so we arrested the entire Boer race and starved their civilians to punish their army. Those are the facts.
      
      “Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was still a criminal act in the UK. He accepted treatment with oestrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison.” The government of Churchill was wrong in it’s treatment of Turing and it took Gordon Brown (perhaps our worst PM) to apologise.
      
      Gerry Conlon was tortured into giving a false confession and sentenced to life in prison after Crucial evidence proving he could not have carried out the bombings had been held back by the police from the original trial. He served 14 years in prison for his “crime”. His case is far from unique, many Irish were pre-judicially punished for things they didn’t do. Add to that the murder of civilians on Bloody Sunday when “The British army shot 26 unarmed civilians, many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded.” and you have a country that is thoroughly morally bankrupt when it comes to atrocities.
      
      It seems it really is true that “Britannia waives the rules”.
      
      I do fact check; as a Lean Manufacturing Engineer, I also speak and type concisely since I know using unnecessary words to seem more intelligent proves nothing, something you seem too have failed to grasp.
    - vieuxceps2
      
      “unfounded personal attacks”- Did I trespass on your personal forte?
      You said native Americans were “wiped out”,now they’re “ethnically cleansed”,much as the people of the Highlands were by their clan chiefs. Maybe the Europeans in USA (not just the British ) learned from the Scots?
      
      You cite Gerry Conlon as a victim of torture but avoid mentioning the hundreds of ordinary men and women knee-capped by the socialist IRA and as for the Bloody Sunday events, let’s not forget Warren Point or the Aldershot barracks where six women cleaners and a Padre were murdered.
      In short your history lesson is highly selective- I suspect that you or I or anyone or any country in the world could be shamed by past misdeeds. Why do you choose to attack what is presumably your own country? Is it to further your political views?
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Oh look a Scottish lefty mong who cherry picks history.
      
      What a mong you are.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      Oh you reicht-wingers really don’t like it up you.
      Look up the Indian removal act, the traingular trade system, the 2nd Boer war, Alan Turing and Bloody Sunday and tell me what I’ve cherry picked.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Oh that’s right in typical lefty moronic style you…. blame an entire country for something that supposedly happened way before anyone in this country alive today.. was even born.
      
      It is one of the most retarded ‘arguments’ I have come across. It doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny because there is absolutely no sense in pinning blame on a nation of people who weren’t even f cking alive then.
      
      You’re an anti-white anti-Brit moronic knuckle drugging left wing ape. Kill yourself you mong.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      So if your country commits an atrocity but you weren’t born, you are not accountable for it but if you were born you are?
      
      Then my grandparents were responsible for the grevious bodily harm of Alan Turing? And my parents are not to be trusted as they come from “a society that have seen more than their fair share of atrocities” as they are were born at the time of Bloody Sunday?
- Cyril Sneer
  
  It’s to do with the dangers of mass third world immigration which is precisely where the Rotherham issue had come from! And, for over 16 years government, police, social services and media failed to listen to victims and their family members about what was happening. It is one of the most shameful episodes of our history and relevant to the discussion.
  
  We don’t want any more 3rd world mass immigration and certainly not from societies where PTSD is the most common condition. It’s a recipe for disaster as it has always been.
  - Abie Vee
    
    Perhaps we “want” a better South Yorkshire Police force. That would be a very good place to start.
    - blandings
      
      Fewer Mohammedans would be an ever better place to start.
      Convert Abie, there are plenty of civilised alternatives to Islam.
  - Sunshine Sux
    
    Muslims think they’re allowed everything and anything. That’s why they live like rats: destroy their own countries and then invade others to do the same. Everything Islam touches turns to excrement.
    - Sue Smith
      
      And yet several centuries ago the Muslim empires were the most advanced in the world. The Europeans stole much of their learning and sophistication!!
    - Chamber Pot
      
      Er, no they weren’t, and I studied Islamic history at university. Most of the learning and ‘sophistication’ of the Caliphates was stolen from the Greeks, or Byzantium.
      
      So I don’t know what lies they teach in school these days as they obviously don’t teach history ?
    - Sue Smith
      
      I actually learned this in a history program with Dr. Simon Scharma a couple of years ago!!
    - Kennybhoy
      
      Is this sarcasm? 🙂
    - Sue Smith
      
      No, it’s spreading the love!!
    - SmellyFingers
      
      It’s spreading the BS more like.
    - Richard Baranov
      
      That explains it. Unfortunately Scharma is another historian who uses history to push a liberal/pc agenda.
      Jeremy Morfey’s reply to you is 100% correct with regards to the history. Islam per se, produced almost nothing original in its history, almost everything is borrowed from the cultures of the conquered. I believe that is why we are having problems with Islam, its lack of original thought provides it without any foundation or theological justification to evolve.
      In short Islam is stagnant, immutable, due to the dead hand of the Koran, as actual fact as the literal word of God, therefore the irrefutable truth about how things should be. Consequentially Islam is extremely dangerous because ossified, fixed and unable to change it contributing nothing positive, it can only resort to violence and reactionary forces in order to maintain itself.
    - Airey Belvoir
      
      The reason for the lack of a Muslim culture: Art is Haram. Music is Haram. Scientific education is Haram. Pre-Muslim cultures are irrelevant.. need I go on?
    - Kennybhoy
      
      You are of course correct man but ,credit where it is due, for centuries they did not destroy what they took over…
    - Jonty Cecil
      
      They did knock stuff down for their own erections. The Pyramids were defaced of their original porcelain gleam to put shine on the minarets and mosques of Cairo.
    - Kennybhoy
      
      A natural human activity man. Western Pagans and Christians did the same with the remains of classical antiquity.
    - jeremy Morfey
      
      I think we got a fair amount of our knowledge from the Greeks and Romans too. Even Hogwarts does its spells in a form of mock-Latin.
      
      If it is true that ancient Caliphate historians studied and made use of classical knowledge during the Dark Ages, then it is only to their credit, and makes a complete mockery of the Wahhabi idea that any pre-Islamist culture (this is anything prior to Starbucks’ arrival in Mecca) has no place in the world and should be systematically erased from posterity.
    - Jonty Cecil
      
      but they didnt do the groundwork themselves. They bonepicked it from christian monks. Credit to them for wanting to know at all, unlike the current zombie lot.
    - Bruce Lewis
      
      Well, OK, but Byzantium, though Christian, was hardly “Western” or Christian in the Western Christian sense; their emperors kept palace eunuchs and sometimes banned iconic representations of the sacred, just as caliphs did.
    - Jonty Cecil
      
      Islam is Ersatz. Muslim Scholars learnt not just from Byzantium, but from monks in Syrian monasteries.
    - WarriorPrincess111111
      
      Yes, and somewhere in our History, wisdom became extinct – that is why we are now in the predicament that we are in now.
    - Sunshine Sux
      
      that is BS, peddled by the underachieving Muslims themselves, who stole everything from civilisations smarter than them, i.e. Arabic numerals come from India
      
      Muslims contribute nothing, and had they no oil, they’d still be living in caves and clay huts. They need to import everything, they need to buy everything, they invent, innovate, develop nothing, all 1.6 billion of them.
    - Sue Smith
      
      I think you’ll find Dr. Sharma is a very learned man – and he’s an art historian. I suspects he knows more about it than you do. Where is your TV series, book and conference paper on the topic?
    - uberwest
      
      He’s just another paid-up liberal shill. As he had to be to get anywhere with the BBC.
    - vieuxceps2
      
      Nobody “stole” any knowledge . It was exchanged freely within the known world. We do owe a debt to islam for rediscovering the science and arts of classical times ,translating it into Arabic and we Europeans re-translated it into Latin and Greek.It is called the Renaissance and has flowered beautifuly since then in the West .In islam however it has gone backward and the days of muslim scholars giving us mathematics, chemistry, astronomy or representative art ended some six centuries ago.
    - bionde
      
      I was going to reply to this rubbish but then I saw Chamber Pot had already posted an excellent reply. Islam has brought nothing of any value and many problems.
    - Brogan75
      
      yes because muslims were very peaceful, not invading other territories, sure. And since then, WE made some steps forward, THEY stayed to the 7th century level.
    - uberwest
      
      On the contrary, the muslim world has held the rest of the world back.
    - Airey Belvoir
      
      Hang on, how do you ‘steal’ learning and sophistication, leaving its original owners with none? Logically we should all now be equally learned and sophisticated…
    - Sue Smith
      
      Very easily!! And try and watch the Simon Sharma program about it – very revealing. I am talking about the late medieval period when Europe was just beginning to emerge from the dark ages into the Renaissance.
    - 22pp22
      
      A Byzantine contemporary gave a long description of the depravity and cruelty of Islam. When the Pope quoted it, he was made to apologise. Your view of history is highly selective.
    - Sue Smith
      
      It’s not mine it’s historian Simon Sharma.
    - 22pp22
      
      Simon Schama wasn’t there, the Byzantine writer was, yet Simon Schama’s views are acceptable and the Byzantine writer’s are not. We live in a very politically correct era and historians who aren’t PC don’t get employed.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Your point is well taken.
  - AJH1968
    
    The left is trying to control the narrative ruthlessly by either using the plight of children (in the case of that innocent Syrian boy) or completely ignoring it (like Rotherham et al). When people try to shine a light on their hypocrisy one is denounced as a monster or a racist.
    - Sue Smith
      
      “Sticks and stones”….. Ask yourself whether calling others names is intelligent debate.
    - vieuxceps2
      
      It’s not “sticks and stones” but a statement of reality. Lefty luvvies with a cultural marxist agenda have brainwashed people into thinking that minorities need special treatment and come first before any of the native English people. Now,at last, the dam has begun to seep and crack and we can see what’s been happening. Don’t let the PC merchants tell you what to think,work it out for yourself and react accordingly.
  - Sue Smith
    
    ….and the people employed to ‘police’ same have to wear face masks!!
- Sunshine Sux
  
  I wonder what unites most rapists, pedophiles, and wars in this world….could it be the religion of peace ?
- Brogan75
  
  Then stop calling Pakistani, Aghans, Ivorians , Tunisians and Moroccans ‘refugees’. THEY are responsible so call them ILLEGALS.
- WarriorPrincess111111
  
  Which Syrians are you referring to? The Syrian population is nothing like the populations of Europe. There are any number of different factions in Syria with different beliefs and traditions – that is what has caused the war!
- 22pp22
  
  Still protecting your children I see. People like you are responsible for the rapes in Rotherham and elsewhere with your smug moral posturing.
Ambientereal

Everywhere people talk about “personal moral crisis”, but they feel it for animals, trees, migrants, what about our young people that are studying and/or working hard to have a “normal” future? What about the “society” our ancestors have built and we are destroying with our “moral”? We are not that far from the times when life was a matter of “life or death”. Are we really ready to die for others but not for ours? Or are we stupid enough to buy the modern “moral” that prescribes “others before ours”. How long will we be able to deal with the garbage that others (ruthless religious leaders or dictators from everywhere) produce or are we going to die under the weight of that garbage?
- Sue Smith
  
  Yeah, the mea culpas of the over-fed, complacent and decadent west will be its undoing!!
  - Ambientereal
    
    Survival instinct and species conservation instinct tend to disappear in over fed individuals. People stop to bearing children and don´t care about the future (they will not be there and they will not have any descendants).
    - Sue Smith
      
      I’m sorry to say that’s the impression I’ve got from Europe and Scandinavia during my last (long) stays there. The people of Austria prefer dogs to children and fetishize their animals in the most bizarre way. A mother of 5 children will never understand this!!! Not in a million years.
    - Ambientereal
      
      Lack of needs is one of the most important sources of evil in the world. When people have every basic need satisfied, they start to behave badly and become vicious and stupid. That is because they lost the main objective of humankind, “survival and conservation”
goggyturk

When was the last time one of those British working class children was blown to pieces by a barrel bomb? Or watched family members being rounded up and shot?

You are suggesting an equivalence that doesn’t exist, along with all the people who upvoted you.
- Cyril Sneer
  
  It’s real shame how you received absolutely no votes whatsoever.
  Re. the OP, it’s about putting British children and British people first but you won’t know anything about that because you’re a turk and not a Brit.
  
  Have you thought that perhaps you don’t belong here, that you’re an outsider here. Pack and leave turk, oh and the Armenians want compensation for the genocide perpetrated by you turks. The ‘fairly educated scot’ should be able to tell you all about that and how much you owe the Armenians for the genocide.
StJohnofAustria

Enjoy Cultural-Marxist pathological altruism, degeneration and total demographic replacement. South Africa and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) today, England France Italy Germany, Sweden, Spain tomorrow !
-40 million abortion/Year of European children,
-huge birthrate and polygamy from MENA and Africa (with total continental population doubling every 20 years soon 2 Billion)
– Around 1.2 fertility rate for European women versus 7-12 for Africa

Futhermore, Turkey is occupying almost 50% of an EU member state’s territory
(Cyprus) and has settled 250 000 of it’s citizens there. In no way is
Turkey suitable for EU membership.
Not only has it settled its citizens in northern Cyprus, but it’s ethnically cleansed the area of the indigenuous Greeks.

The true objective of the EU is to create a totalitarian superstate, with no democratic mandate, and for the 28 nations of Europe to be replaced with regional clones carrying out the instruction of the centre.,,,
Then we will see that the lies they peddle about supposed economic benefits of EU membership are a smokescreen to hide the true objective.
Europe has tried totalitarianism, fascism and communism several times in the last hundred years as a corrupt elite tries to thieve the freedom of hundreds of millions of people and these attempts have failed.
The totalitarian EU will be defeated too.
- styants64
  
  Ever since modern day Germany came into being during the 1870s it has done a absolute demolition job on Western European civilisation through its arrogance.
Des Demona

Ah so this is where the nasty people hang out is it?
The virtuous classes? That’s a new description of someone who’s not a vile xenophobic a/r/hol/
- Cyril Sneer
  
  So Des Demona you don’t care about the raped kids of Rotherham, neither do you care about the people of this country, just your illegal parasites. Oh that white guilt must be unbearable. You should end it now, how can you possibly go on and in fact how can you possibly live in such a racist country.
  
  Hang yourself.
  - Des Demona
    
    And my point is proven.
    See, I don’t have guilt. I have compassion. Something you evidently struggle with.
Bob47

here, here!
Both sets of children exploited by Muslim rape gangs , whether in Syria or Rotherham.
Why rape kids?
Are these Muslim rapists actually latent homos trying to prove otherwise?
Are they all endowed with undersized dicks? or
Are they paedos?

ohforheavensake

For God’s sake. This is an immediate crisis, and we can do something. They aren’t migrants- they’re refugees; and the distinction’s important. Under international law (which we helped to establish) we have a clear legal duty to help refugees where we can. Morally, this is as clear cut as it gets. People are dying. We don’t agonise; we either help, or we don’t.

Blindsideflanker

How many millions ?

I am impressed you can look at a picture of thousands of young men and tell they are refugees.

As for international law, the fact that a past generation signed us up to a convention that is a blank cheque that we have no hope of honouring , is no reason to continue with it.
- Sue Smith
  
  I’m afraid I have to agree with this. One international peoples’ plight becomes another’s existential threat. I’ll be dead and buried before all this turns to a nightmare.
  
  The trouble with much of the ‘discussion’ is that it is based on emotion and hysteria and not on actions and consequences. Merkel asks other countries to ‘take their fair share’ – oblivious to the fact that these people ONLY want to come to Germany. She will pay at the next election.
  
  That German TV network (NDR, I think) poll in May this year when we were there: “Do you want Germany to take more refugees?” No: 97%, Yes, 3%. As God is my witness.
  - Robin Baird
    
    There is a positive side, though. There was a time, not so long ago, when the ‘opinion-forming’ classes believed, or pretended to believe, that mass immigration into Europe from the Third World was something desirable. Those days are gone. Now hardly anyone uses expressions like “our diversity is our strength” or “enriching us with their diversity” except in a spirit of sarcasm.
    Now, the terms of the debate have completely altered. Even Angela Merkel does not try to pretend that these waves of migrants are anything but an unmitigated curse. That is implicit in her call to other EU countries to take their fair share of migrants. You don’t ask someone else to “take their fair share” of X unless X is something that no one wants.
    “Let them in, because they will be an asset to us” has changed to “Let them in, because it’s our moral duty”.
    And soon, “let them in because it’s our moral duty” will change to “keep them out, and to hell with our moral duty”.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Intelligent observation! Completely agree, and I think she’ll pay the price at the next election.
      
      Being compassionate and being smart seem to be mutually exclusive. It’s the tough leader who can be the latter. And the old chestnut of ‘we have zero population growth so we welcome immigrants’ is a curse. Selective immigration, over time and fulfilling a societal function/need is not only desirable but intelligent – based on the particular skills set required. Doing the opposite is catastrophic. The Turkish immigrants post WW2 were required to rebuild Germany has there were no males left. There was no other choice and they eventually integrated, as far as I’m aware.
      
      How ironic for a nation to export/annihilate Jews and import their sworn enemies – Muslims!!
- commenteer
  
  Indeed. The sooner we withdraw from these unworkable obligations, framed in a different time for different conditions, the better. We are full up.
  - Sue Smith
    
    I’m sorry for you people, and sorry for the GENUINE refugees whose plight has been made far more problematic by the queue-jumpers who’ve hitched onto their bandwagon. That’s what this is really about.
jjjj

I’ve been watching the news and reading articles just as you are. They are not ALL refugees and they are not ALL coming from Syria. There are people who are clearly from the Indian sub-continent among them. And you have no idea as to why these people are coming here. If you had the chance to escape to Europe from your Muslim hell hole, wouldn’t you lie to some soft-hearted well meaning official with the clip board? You and people like you are utterly naive.
- Sue Smith
  
  Naivete is terribly corrosive and damaging. Real politik is what make nations successful – that and strong defenses, internal and external.
- Mary Ann
  
  The Indian sub-continent is another place that we, the British invaded.
  - Sue Smith
    
    Bringing to them a fabulous language and improved standard of living and, wait for it, DEMOCRACY.
    - Mary Ann
      
      Democracy didn’t work very well in Iraq, people voted according their religious sect, the minority lost, how many people were killed in 16th Century in England for belonging to the wrong sect of Christianity.
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      Everything you just argued is irrelevant and is nothing but pure whataboutery.
  - Gilbert White
    
    We did not invade it we invented it. Also only obtuse Indians can be so stupid to derive pleasure from current Chinese economic situation to the detriment of world trade in general.
  - Cyril Sneer
    
    So I guess then the Japanese had better accept the forthcoming Chinese invasion and ethnic cleansing as just desserts for their conduct against the Chinese in WW2.
    
    While we’re at it, them Mongols had better cough up after what that Ghengis fella did.
    
    This sort of argument is only fit for the retards of the left wing. No normal;thinking person would use it because it doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny, and of course you guys don’t do scrutiny.
Cyril Sneer

So the people that leave African countries, that on their journey travel through numerous countries that are closer to their home and are more appropriate culturally to only end up in Northern Europe… these people are refugees? Fascinating because I had them down as illegal economic migrants.

So the moral of the story is don’t apply for residency through the usual official channels, just line the pockets of criminal gangs and enter a foreign country illegally jumping the queue ahead of all those that do apply through the proper channels.
- Sue Smith
  
  And Australia called them “country and jurisdiction shoppers”. That’s realpolitik and our erstwhile Foreign Minister said exactly the same thing.
- Yorkieeye
  
  We will even give a Royal Navy escort to some of the boats. Mixed messages Europe!
  - Sue Smith
    
    It’s completely counter-productive and unintelligent. How does it help the 45% youth unemployed in Spain and higher numbers in Greece?
Sunshine Sux

Let Muslims HELP Muslims, for once. If they don’t, I could not care less.
- Sue Smith
  
  Actually, it’s a good discussion to have. Children are the victims – but I blame many of the parents. In Australia they put them onto unstable and leaky boats and many of them sank. This is AFTER they’d travelled through several safe countries.
davidofkent

International Law (if it exists) states quite clearly where help should be given – in the first safe country. It does not specify that ‘refugees’ should buy train tickets to the country with the best welfare system.
- Sue Smith
  
  Try telling that to damaging do-gooders and pie-in-the-sky Marxists.
- jjjj
  
  Correct.
- MikeH
  
  Yes, can you imagine if the world’s geography was different and the UK’s southern coastline faced north Africa?
  
  I very much doubt we’d be calling on other nations to take ‘their fair share’. Leftist imbeciles would be tripping over themselves to quote the ‘first safe nation’ mantra, ad nauseam
Mary Ann

Most of them are coming from places where we have been helping to upset the apple cart,
- Sue Smith
  
  The Empire of Offense and the Culture of the Victim are alive and well.
- jjjj
  
  Have we? I suppose you agree with Fisk and others that ISIS is all the fault of Israel and the Americans.
  - Sue Smith
    
    That’s the default, unthinking position.
  - Mary Ann
    
    Certainly blame the Americans, they deposed Saddam and had nothing to put in his place, so diviseve Islam reared its head
    - jjjj
      
      So Muslims have no agency. They are never to blame for anything and it’s always the fault of someone else.
    - Mary Ann
      
      Ask a British General, they will tell you that you have a peace plan in place before removing a ruler. The Americans didn’t. It was a topic of conversation at the time.
    - Duke_Bouvier
      
      Absolutely – two terrible decisions –
      Rumsfeld’s active prevention of US planning for ‘nation building’ and De-Baathification which included completely disbanding the Iraqi army – destroying on of the few strong national institutions and depriving lots of young people with military training of their means of earning a living (what could possibly go wrong…)
    - Cyril Sneer
      
      It’s both actually, (mistakes made by the coalition ‘disbanding the Iraqi army etc’ and an ancient religion that has been at war with itself since the year dot and truly believes it should rule the world and f ck anyone else.
- Yorkieeye
  
  Yes, we are reaping the whirlwind of our unquestioning support for the so called Arab Spring.
  - Mary Ann
    
    And look where it got us, Islamic governments.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Try and see things as a little more complex. The muslims are their own worst enemies; factions, tribes, violence, misogyny, living in the medieval era…..
      
      Ask yourself why they didn’t invent the heart transplant when a white South African did. And, please, not the old “racist” chant. Again.
commenteer

Refugees or deserters? Shouldn’t all these young Syrian men be fighting for their country, as is usual in civil wars?
- Sue Smith
  
  Absolutely agree with this!! Totally.
- Mary Ann
  
  So we have a civil war, say between the Tories and the Labour party, would you be willing to see your sons risk their lives to fight for one side or the other, I don’t think so.
  - Sue Smith
    
    Mary Ann, how do you think Europe would like RIGHT NOW if the French had abandoned France instead of staying to fight the revolution? And they were malnourished as well. These ‘refugees’ on our nightly news look healthy by comparison.
  - jjjj
    
    What are you on about? How does this remotely answer the comment?
    - Mary Ann
      
      ” Shouldn’t all these young Syrian men be fighting for their country, as is usual in civil wars?” Would you want your sons fighting in a civil war, civil war is about people wanting power and the mugs that help them get it.
  - commenteer
    
    You’re quite wrong. If Britain had a civil war, of course I would want my son to fight and not go skulking off like a disgraceful coward to a country which could offer a far better standard of living. Don’t forget the obliquy attached to those like Benjamin Britten who fled to America in WW2. And at least he had a precious talent to offer the Americans.

A real liberal

You don’t need Christianity for help in this tragic matter. All you need is the clamouring press in the silly season. The nation’s policy will hang on emotional presentation, particularly in photo images. The rest is irrelevant. It will be the same when the civil unrest starts.

jjjj

Correct. These images have been displayed for years, so why now? The government has expensive advisers and think tanks. Did they not know that this would be a consequence? What is the point of all the university migration studies departments? Where was the government’s common sense? Or were they waiting for a crisis?

The Islamists must be laughing their heads off. They are achieving their aims step by step. There are not thousands on the move but hundreds of thousands of people who will be millions.

If Russia is so interested in supporting Assad, why doesn’t that nascent empire take its share of refugees? All part of the plan.

Europe is finished.
Sue Smith

Yes, exactly. And when that civil unrest occurs the Left will say “look over there; nothing to see here – it’s all the fault of the Right”. SOOOO predictable.
- jjjj
  
  That is what puzzles me about the Left. They are so naive that they would prefer to espouse policies and implement them even if it means fascists coming to power. Which of course explains why so many of the so-called Left are really Fascists.
  - Sue Smith
    
    Fascism indeed; but probably more Communism like their comrades in the Marxist utopia. Unintelligent and infantile people never learn – trouble is, they drag the rest of the community who are more intuitive and intelligent into the muck. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
  - Mary Ann
    
    Before you use the word fascist in this context I suggest you look it up in the OED.
    - Blindsideflanker
      
      Fascists are just another arm of left wing totalitarianism.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      Yes Hitler and Franco were great socialists, that’s why they outlawed trade unions and arrested their members.
    - Mary Ann
      
      They weren’t socialists, they just abused the word as do people who call lefties fascist.
    - Fairly Educated Scot
      
      I agree with you (I was being sarcastic).
    - Blindsideflanker
      
      Fascism was developed in Italy by Mussolini , who was from a family of Communists/ Socialists, was named after a Socialist , and was a left wing agitator before he began the Fascist movement.
      
      Fascism is an extension of left wing totalitarian politics.
    - Sue Smith
      
      They are really both sides of the one coin.
    - Ivan Ewan
      
      And so did the Bolsheviks when they took power, and so has every communist revolution. The idealists, the organisers and the agitators are usually the first ones up against the wall.
    - Mary Ann
      
      OED
    - wudyermucuss
      
      complete power,forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism,regimenting all industry, commerce –
      Applies just as much to leftism as far rightism.
      Stalin was a fascist for instance,so was Mao,so are Hamas,Corbyn’s friends.
    - jjjj
      
      Otto Strasser.
  - somewhereinthesouth
    
    They are full of people with bleeding hearts but no sense. The left and their apologists in the media are all about emotion and ideals. it is obvious that there have to be limits to immigration especially from destitute people many of whom have a different culture and religion .Compassion is all very well but if you are beggared [or worse robbed] in the process what have you achieved? The good samaritan could only affords to do good works because he had money and a donkey.

MikeH

Practically all news reports this week, including this morning’s reports mention only Syrian refugees and our “responsibility” to accept them here. Not one mention of the masses of Pakistanis, Afghans and Sub-Saharan Africans planted at various locations around Europe.

If we are to accept say 100,000 Syrians, and somehow try to house and fund them, suddenly create new school places and healthcare provision and supposedly support them for the rest of their lives into state pension age and beyond, what do we do with the other, non-Syrians? How long until they become the desperate folk we must accept here?

What’s puzzling is this worldwide family of the muslim-brotherhood, numbered in the billions globally, has been very quiet when it comes to this crisis of their fellow creed, especially the oil-rich nations who could surely fund and create housing provision for them.

Or are they just their “brothers” and fellow muslims when they’re trying to explain away one of their atrocities?

Sue Smith

You raise an important point about political propaganda; the fact that these other so-called “refugees” are never mentioned is tantamount to fraud, particularly on the part of the media. You’ve got to be very afraid of a media which wants to completely overturn the social structure and replace it was something unknown – all in the name of ‘compassion’. Well, ‘charity begins AT HOME’.
- jjjj
  
  I have no objection to this country taking in a reasonable number of children fleeing persecution. However, so long as ISIS is being fought, I wonder how we can improve the situation in the migrants’ home countries.
Mary Ann

The bulk of the refugees are Syrian.
- Sue Smith
  
  How can you tell? Obviously you know far more than the authorities, and are more prescient. Well done!
  - Mary Ann
    
    No I am not that clever
    
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
- Blindsideflanker
  
  Are you racially profiling pictures of people?
  - Mary Ann
    
    That would be very difficult
    
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
- jjjj
  
  You have no idea how many are Syrian. From the reports I am reading many are jumping on the band wagon from other countries. Face facts, people from whole continents are on the move.
  - Sue Smith
    
    And how many of them are aggrieved men who are tomorrow’s terrorists if the utopia doesn’t fulfill their entitlements and expectations? Hopefully, I’ll be dead before that happens. But my own family….!!
    - jjjj
      
      We are safe for about 20 years. After that, things will reach an irreversible tipping point. Perhaps we should have all followed the celebs who can’t wait to get out of here: Ricky Gervais, Emma Freud etc. Many in the establishment have homes abroad anyway.
    - Sue Smith
      
      I would dearly love to return to Europe – particularly Vienna – but it’s game over for us now. We will never visit Europe as things have transpired of late. Sadly. You do not need our tourist Euro or Pound.
    - jjjj
      
      Having recently returned from Portugal, I was struck how depopulated the country seemed. Driving through seemingly empty villages. So Portugal, at present, looks like a good option.
    - Sue Smith
      
      I was in Brussels in 2011 and appalled. The place is filthy and taken oven by people from the African sub-continent. I spoke to local people – they’re all gradually moving out to Antwerp, Ghent etc. But you cannot capitulate your own country like this!!!!
    - jjjj
      
      ‘But you cannot capitulate your own country like this!!!!’
      
      You can and they are.
    - Sue Smith
      
      So, this is why I talked about it with angry taxi drivers and others. It saddens me to the absolute core.
    - somewhereinthesouth
      
      Paris is the same. Full of migrants . I was accosted by all sorts of undesirables near the Sacre Coeur . None were of European origin .
    - João Costa
      
      We tried to repopulate some villages in the interior with people from Brazil (14 people). It was too “hard” of a work to look for the elderly or to operate a farm, so they all left for Northern Europe. Two people stayed because they had a slightly different culture (their parents were educated in Europe them being of Polish and Portuguese origin). We also had some very few refugees form Syria who soon complained that their Social Security Paychecks were very low. Nonetheless they were entitled to money which I as being raised here am not entitled to. I can’t even find a job waiting tables because the Brazilians take up all the work by arranging lower (and illegal) work fees than the ones mandatory by law.
    - jjjj
      
      Thank you! Your country is lovely and so are the people. As I said driving from Sintra to Obeidos and then to Coimbra was eerie. Whole villages looking like everyone was at siesta…I love Portugal and can’t wait to return. I’m sorry that the economic situation has affected you in this way.
    - João Costa
      
      We don’t do siestas. That’s for lazy Southern Spaniards. I would totally like to have more genuine Northern Europeans living around here tough. Their mindset is what we need to change our culture for the best. Some Dutch farmers (as well as some Englishman and Germans truth be said) showed us in the field of Agriculture how to do things properly; now we need the same in Construction, Education, Administration, Organizing etc., etc…. For me they (you) are all welcomed here. Our own culture is somehow too laid back to do things seriously and responsibly (tough not the worse, I must say). That we need is a wining culture not a whining one who stops fighting.
    - Mary Ann
      
      You can safely return to Europe, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the press, bad news sells newspapers.
    - Alexsandr
      
      go to small towns. many in england are great. just stay away from the big cities.
    - Sue Smith
      
      I don’t think you ARE safe for 20 years. Please feel free to come back to me in the interim to point out that I’m wrong.
    - somewhereinthesouth
      
      In some some places the tipping point has already happened . Try Rotherham or Tower Hamlets.
- cartimandua
  
  And the Syrians have UN camps to go to.
  So no they are not all Syrians.
  Bangladesh, Pakistan, Eritrea, Vietnam , Sudan..
  The entire world cannot come to Europe.
  - Sue Smith
    
    Your comment is an abstraction for lefties; their eyes glaze over when presented with such axiomatic realities.
    - somewhereinthesouth
      
      Yeah Just as the left did about Stalin and his ghastly oppressive communist regime. You see Stalin meant well … it was all about equality so he must be a good guy .Right ?
- MikeH
  
  Fine, lets take some of them. What would you do with the others?
  
  One of last night’s news reports, probably CH4, crossed live to Bulgaria with a huge picture of a crying babe in arms on one side, and another child waving a ‘welcome’ flag; touching, heart-wrenching imagery.
  
  It then slightly failed when the reporter appeared. Behind him were hordes of jigging, Sub-Saharan men in their twenties. No children, not Syrians.
  
  Do we have a obligation to accept those young men?
  - jjjj
    
    Try telling that to bleeding heart James O’Brien on LBC.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Yep, how can you trust people who preface everything they say with “equality with LGBT…and other such marginal labels”!!??
    - MikeH
      
      I would but for fear he’d shout over me with some ludicrous obfuscation!
  - Sue Smith
    
    News item coming in: Vienna ready to welcome a train load of ‘asylum seekers’. With friends like that who needs enemies?
    - somewhereinthesouth
      
      Yes and the photos we see will on telly, will be of 4 year old children holding their teddy bears……
    - Sue Smith
      
      One thing is certain: there will be no hard questions. These are to be avoided if the Left is to maintain their bleeding heart causes.
    - MikeH
      
      .
  - Mary Ann
    
    Build refugee camps and vet them, send the economic migrants back and look after those who fear for their lives.
- wudyermucuss
  
  Wrong,as usual.
  http://info.arte.tv/en/where-do-refugees-come-where-are-they-going
- Cyril Sneer
  
  Wrong.
- Cyril Sneer
  
  Not true,
  
  The are more Eritrean immigrants than Syrians.
Yorkieeye

Maybe Syrians aren’t daft enough to want to live in Saudi Arabia but I take your point.
And are the left prepared for a serious hike in taxes and local rates, maybe 30%VAT? Because ‘the rich’ aren’t able to pay for everything. And how can refugees support themselves, we already don’t have enough work for our indigenous under educated? I wouldn’t mind them coming if it was just to be out of harms way until the fighting was over and they went back. But the EU has become an all or nothing organisation and we dole out citizenship to everyone. Why would you go back in peacetime when you had been provided with a home, education for your kids, free health care and money to live on even if you didn’t work?
- MikeH
  
  Not necessarily Saudi Arabia. There’s Qatar or Dubai for instance. They’ve practically bought out our treasured horse racing industry. Huge plots of our land has been grabbed by them for breeding operations. We haven’t even got ‘Glorious’ Goodwood anymore; it’s now the ‘Qatar Godwood Festival’!
  
  Surely some of those hundreds of millions could be diverted to help their suffering, fellow muslims at a time of deep crisis?
  - Yorkieeye
    
    Quite right.
- somewhereinthesouth
  
  Whilst I agree with the sentiment we wouldn’t be able to send back any “temporary” migrants/refugees since their kids would be in school learning English and it would violate the ‘uman rights .

cartimandua

The UN has set up decent camps for Syrians where they may claim legal asylum.
We pay just under 1 billion on foreign aid keeping our promise while Germany and many other countries do not.
We have it seems 750 child asylum seekers in Kent alone and each one costs 1 million pounds.
What we should NOT do is emote, get sentimental and invite anyone who doesn’t like where they are to risk sealed lorries or leaky inflatables.
Whenever I see a Syrian baby I think how stupid are your parents to breed in a war?

Sue Smith

And they’d punch your lights out for suggesting as much.

cartimandua

Sweden now has a rape rate akin to South Africa thanks to their dopey welcome to men from violent misogynistic cultures.
Several recent violent rapes here have been “Asian looking” men.
They are over represented in all the crime stats.

Sue Smith

Julian Assange.
- cartimandua
  
  Not a foreign migrant just a creepy little man who exposed the West while leaving the nastiest regimes alone.
  - jjjj
    
    Assange and the other one. Putin springs to mind.
    - Sue Smith
      
      And why aren’t the ‘asylum seekers’ from Syria heading to Russia – the same country which wouldn’t ‘intervene’ and support the rest of the world? Too hot; too cold; too far? What?
    - jjjj
      
      Because the Russians are too clever and as you said, Realpolitik.
    - Sue Smith
      
      Do you know that Realpolitik actually defends and saves nations? Tough decisions have to be made if people are to survive with their own nations intact. It’s how the world works.
      
      It isn’t about ‘knit one/pearl one…make a quilt, smell the incense, light the candle”. Life is bloody tough and you need to make the calls, hard as these may be.
      
      I promise you, it’s going to come down to “us OR them”. I’ve just lived long enough to see this time and again.
      
      Cast your minds back to your history books. After the fall of Paris, Churchill ordered the sinking of the French fleet – costing the lives of many thousands of their ALLIES, the French. This is what he HAD to do to keep Britain from invasion and destruction.
    - jjjj
      
      Britain was more cohesive then. Now you are a called a reactionary if you dare to express some nostalgia. Reminds me of 1984.
    - cartimandua
      
      You would think Russia which sorely needs young men who don’t drink might be keen.
      But they would be conscripted into the mess in Ukraine.
      so perhaps not a good idea.
    - Amgine
      
      Russia has 236,000 refugees and many thousands of other displaced people (stateless people, asylum seekers). So refugees do end up in Russia.
      
      http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e48d456&submit=GO
jjjj

Not to mention the Jews fleeing from Malmo.
- Sue Smith
  
  That’s another inconsequential legacy – the rise of antisemitism from Muslims.
João Costa

Woaaa is that true???? Shocking!!!!

polistra24

In a sane world Matthew Parris would be safely locked up in a padded room. The fact that Parris and his genocidal cohorts are in charge tells us with 100% certainty that the world is absolutely insane.

jennybloggs

My best laugh of the day. Thank you.

blandings

“I’ll go even further. If I really knew my duty I would try diligently to
do it; and there are millions like me. We’re ready. But we’re honestly,
mightily, daily confused about what we ought to do.”
You’re begging the question when you ask me where I think my duty lay, as I feel no sense of duty in the first place. I may decide to help but I feel no compelling moral obligation to do so.

cartimandua

If we have a duty (which we don’t since overpopulation is part and parcel of Muslim failed state culture) it would be to apply reason to providing long term solutions.
There are UN camps. there needs to be safe havens and enterprise zones.
If the conflict stops people could then move the business back . (construction trades will be required). If it doesn’t stop those safe havens could be beacons of economic success in a cr*** region.

Guest89.7

I will point out that a cannibal is unlikely to be a upstanding Christian.

Doing unto others as a believing Christian is perfectly clear: the only reason you do not give all of your money to a beggar is so that you can better use it to help a world of beggars.

You believe Christ gave up Heaven (for a while) to live a horrid life ending in painful death. Ape him.

“If, as I believe, the main difficulty that faces us in deciding moral duty is the difficulty of prioritising, then Christianity is profoundly unhelpful.”

When asked who our neighbours were, Christ told the story of the good Samaritan; a story of one man coming across another.

“Christianity (as represented by the Gospels) is all but silent — extraordinarily so — on the question of familial obligation.”

No it isn’t: you must love the children of your Father.

“If I really knew my duty I would try diligently to do it; and there are millions like me. We’re ready. But we’re honestly, mightily, daily confused about what we ought to do.”

MT19

And behold one came and said to him: Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting? Who said to him: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He said to him: Which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith to him: All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me? Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me. And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples: Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: Who then can be saved? And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.

Dominic Stockford

Christianity presents itself simply. Our primary responsibility (as a Christian) is to share the truth of salvation through Christ. The great commission to Christians, from Christ, says:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inb the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28.

It also says that those who are Christians can be seen by the fruits of the Spirit which WILL be evidenced in their lives (James, and Galatians), which are in opposition to the desires of the flesh.

“walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5)

The clear inference from this is that Christians should care firstly for the eternal future of the ‘refugees’ and of all those within the world, not just Northern Africa/Middle East. Our care for their eternal future means that we also care for thier suffering in this world, but acknowledge that beccause it is a sinful and fallen world (Genesis 3) it is impossible to alleviate ALL suffering. Thus we should seek to do something – and what the government here has done seems to me to be a good response – it has spent £900,000,000 of our money so far in seeking to assist them in thier own countries. That should continue.

I do not believe that most of the refugees will be better off here, firstly it is not thier culture, and secondly because here will eventually collapse into a similar state to that of their own home countries if we simply let them all move from there to here. Personal problems don’t disappear if you move house, or country – they simply alter into ones of a different appearance. Christian teaching seems clear to me, help them in their problem, don’t simply act in such a way that will move the problem round and round the world.

Tamerlane

Our sense of ‘moral obligation’ is one that derives from the ‘God’ none of us believe in any longer and yet we feel obliged to help these poor souls out of a sense of that morality. Meanwhile the ones that do believe in ‘God’ are the ones fighting the war that sent them to us in the first place.

Some morality we all practise.

Sue Smith

Keen sense of irony on display here, and right on the money!
Dominic Stockford

The ones fighting do not believe in God, they beleive in a false god. There is only one God, in three persons, Father, Son and Spirit. This is utterly contrary to their false god.

Ken

“Render unto Caesar” is not evasive. Jesus accepted the authority of the Roman Empire – even its right to execute Himself. He did not call for rebellion. Christianity has nver sought to impose theocracy – Church and State retain their own domains. Contrast Islam…. Individual Christians may – perhaps should – do what they can to assist those genuinely in need, maybe going to help in a refugee camp, maybe simply donating money to charity, maybe even welcoming a refugee into their homes. But there is no imperative on them to seek to shape government policy, though too many bishops try to do just this alas. As for the Christian culture the writer clearly values, it is surely at risk if mass immigration brings in large numbers of Muslims.

The_greyhound

One the contrary.

We should extend the hand to help the Christian populations of Syria and Iraq. There are a large number of moslem illegal immigrants in Britain who can be expelled to make room for them.

jjjj

For a start they can expel the couple from Birmingham who this morning were arrested for preparing a ‘Syria related terrorism’ whatever that means.

avi15

Christianity is like a woman who loves too much: she will love and love and love until her lover beats her to death. In other words, is Europe obliged to take in so many migrants that it destroys it? Put it another way, if you were in a lifeboat, would you want to take on so many people in the water that the boat is swamped and capsizes?This is the central immigration dilemma of all functional countries in a world full of famine and war zones, where intercontinental travel is entirely feasible for anyone desperate enough. In Judaism, there is no duty to commit suicide just to help others: you help as much as you can but stop just before that point. That is why Israel is protecting itself effectively. In the case of Europe, there is no substitute for the projection of military and political power beyond its borders to stop and stabilize the situation that created these prodigious migrations in the first place. European countries have grown fat and lazy for decades under an American military umbrella. Now the US is no longer terribly interested in the Middle East, it is time for self-help. However, that is not going to happen, because Europe is incapable of uniting to form a functional political and military unit and will fall apart instead.

Dominic Stockford

Avi, you mispresresent the TRUE teaching of Christianity.
- Dominic Stockford
  
  Christianity presents itself simply. Our primary responsibility (as a Christian) is to share the truth of salvation through Christ. The great commission to Christians, from Christ, says:
  
  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inb the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28.
  
  It also says that those who are Christians can be seen by the fruits of the Spirit which WILL be evidenced in their lives (James, and Galatians), which are in opposition to the desires of the flesh.
  - avi15
    
    That may be true, Dominic but the fact is, Christ allowed himself to be killed by the Romans as a means of expiating the sins of mankind (I paraphrase). You can’t really get more self-destructive than that, even if it is with altruistic intentions.
    - Dominic Stockford
      
      God’s Son died for the sins of men. Yes. That doesn’t mean that all Christians are to die for the sins of men. We shpould be ready to die standing up for our faith in Jesus Christ, not for worldly matters.
    - avi15
      
      However you would like to interpret the words of JC, and I’m not saying you’re wrong or right, there is clearly a major ethical dilemma here, which Europe’s Christianity-informed political culture is dealing with in what amounts to a self-destructive way. I would go further than that and say that I have the impression that many Christians seem to be reacting to the migrant crisis with their hearts only and not with their heads; and that this is having the same self-destructive effect when it comes to the long-term preservation of European civilisation.
    - Dominic Stockford
      
      It all depends whether you think they really are Christians or not. I don’t think there is one in the UK Cabinet at the moment. Nor in the shadow cabinet.
    - avi15
      
      Quite right. Bring back Lloyd George and his lot; or how about Gladstone?
    - Dominic Stockford
      
      Wilberforce for me, perseverance in God’s work, until he finally got God’s truth adopted.

Gilbert White

I guess the same duty Mathew has had since birth, to San Bushmen with an ostrich’s egg full of brackish water and oryx strip biltong. Your obsfucating political class are scum of the earth. Why are the world’s politicians detached from these people at almost every level except a theoritical one.

Frank

Morality: if you bring about regime change, you have the responsibility to stay until the new regime is safely in control (eg Iraq, Syria, & Libya).
Self-interest, if you are being flooded by immigrants, it makes sense for them to be able to stay in their country of origin and this may require you / the UN to take action to ensure that the murderous/vicious/corrupt regime in control of their country is replaced by something more democratic (eg Eritrea, South Sudan, & Somalia). It may also require the UN to take action against countries fermenting instability (eg Iran)

Bonce

The Church of England, is now just an extension of the “New Left”, and the do what feels good at the time version of Morality. Its views are almost always in line with the government of the day, the BBC/Independent/Guardian view of the world. They have abandoned the Moral absolutes that are part of the word of God.

The Church of England has in equal measures remained remarkably silent- or broken cover to support the mass invasion of these people, because they buy the argument that these are all “people in need”. Perhaps they have not been thinking forward or thinking at all, of the potential impact of an even greater mass invasion of muslims than is currently part of the 800,000 per year figures, on their “freedom of worship” and the very future of “Christianity” in the UK.

Certainly, the Church of England has a death wish with their stance on this. This is a time when they would certainly gain popularity if they broke ranks from the “New Left” and actually pointed out the obvious. The obvious that importing upwards of 400,000 plus muslims into the UK each year, and importing with it their intolerance to anything that is not just like them, is not a good idea, its in fact tantamount to having a suicide wish.

Amgine

Offer relief for the immediate symptoms with patience and practical solutions but always treat the root cause. So, refugees at any point in their journey should be treated kindly and legally. They should always be given sanctuary as soon as they request it.

Most refugees remain close to their homeland, our greatest effort should be in making these people safe and exporting education, food, medicines, expertise to the countries and borderlands suffering the most civil unrest. We should definitely not export armaments and soldiers to countries engaged in civil war and border disputes.

Our government should be working hard to build strong supportive links with government in the unstable countries to work towards repatriation, which is something most refugees want. Most people would want to live in a stable economy with good health care and trustworthy authorities and most people would want that stability in their homeland.

Who cares what Christians would do? We should do the humane thing.

Peter Stroud

I watched the scenes from Hungary where hundreds of illegal migrants were being kept in the railway station. There seemed to be a smattering of woman and children, and a few old people. However, the majority were fit, seemingly well fed and well dressed young men. I was forced to consider that many of these were economic migrants, attempting to jump the queue for selfish reasons. There is clearly a serious problem that can only be solved by close collaboration of the EU states. There seems little evidence of any collaboration – just one more example of the failure of the grand EU experiment. At least Hungary is attempting to keep to the European laws. Not so Germany.

Augustus

Yes, ECONOMIC migrants, coming to Europe to exploit its welfare provisions. And then demanding more mosques, a home for the extended family, money and halal food. And then Ali will no doubt have ‘documents’ that prove that all those eighteen guys are his sons.

Abie Vee

The hypocrisy of the English is truly staggering. We bomb these places to ruins, and then say that the entirely predictable ensuing humanitarian crisis is nothing to do with us! That’s our official line isn’t it? Perfidious Albion indeed.

JSC

Just a reminder that all we did in Libya was enforce a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi dropping bombs on his civilians and we’ve done very little in Syria too. So you’re very wrong to say “we bomb these places to ruins”; al Assad bombed Syria to ruins, not us, and the only bombing being done in Libya is by Islamists.
- Abie Vee
  
  We bombed Tunisia and we bombed Libya to bits. We are bombing Syria illegally as I write.
  
  “Nothing to do with us, guv” eh? No, it won’t wash .
  - JSC
    
    We bombed Tunisia? When? I must have missed that. Libya was all above board, approved by US, UN, EU, Arab League and most Libyans. Our actions were limited to blowing up military air fields and lasted only about 6 months, ending when the civilians overthrew Gaddafi themselves.
    
    So just to clarify, we’re not responsible at all for Tunisia, Libya or Syria. Take your liberal-guilt and self-loathing elsewhere please.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Good grief. “Only six months”. How long does it take to destroy a country ? The legality has nothing to do with it. That’s another matter. Our military involvement creates refugees. Now there’s something.
      
      You are responsible if you do NOTHING you fool. Syria was invaded by terrorists and fundamentalists. The Syrian government cried out for western assistance. What did we do? Propose to bomb his forces in SUPPORT of the terrorists invaders. (which we may well have done, unbeknown to Parliament ).
      
      Not responsible for Libya? Words fail me. You people are clueless. Utterly clueless.
    - JSC
      
      We destroyed Libya’s military air fields, not “the country”, not the people, not its infrastructure. We’re not responsible, your narrative is invalid, get over it.
      
      “The Syrian government cried out for western assistance” sure, the only problem is that the Syrian government was as bad if not worse than the “terrorists” that sought to overthrow it. If I recall we “proposed to bomb his forces” not “in support of the terrorists invaders” as you fallaciously state, but because he was executing his opponents, dropping barrel bombs and firing nerve gas rockets on his own civilians, a guy responsible for 220,000 civilian deaths (UN stat). But sure, that’s the kind of guy you’d us like to give military assistance too eh? Again, take your liberal-guilt and self-loathing elsewhere please.
    - Abie Vee
      
      A simple and mindless regurgitation of NATO (read USA) propaganda. Such crap as one rarely encounters these days. If you are bombing the government’s infrastructure and forces you are supporting the invaders. It’s fallacious and preposterous to argue otherwise.
      
      The Metropolitan of Aleppo, head of the Christian community in Syria, sent a heartfelt plea to the West to support Assad. He, like everyone else, could foresee what was coming. He was, of course, completely ignored, and know that ancient community is destroyed by ISIS fundamentalists.
      
      The ignorance of you people is just astounding.
      
      [Oh, and I’m not guilt ridden, far from it: just enraged!]
    - JSC
      
      “A simple and mindless regurgitation of NATO (read USA) propaganda. ”
      Ahhh now I see where you’re coming from: the anti-US, tin-foil hat brigade. No more needs to be said, go about your business, goon.
    - wudyermucuss
      
      Liberating Iraq – wrong.
      Not liberating Syria – wrong.
      You are utterly clueless.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Um who said anything about “liberate”? Do you call the destruction of countries and the humanitarian disaster which follows “liberation”? God help us.
      
      Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
    - Richard
      
      How do you feel, say, about African countries, independent since the 1960s, with their endless wars, poverty and starvation? What intervention do you suggest there?
    - wudyermucuss
      
      You would have retained Saddam.
      It is Iraqis and Iranians and Syrians destroying their countries,not us.
    - Abie Vee
      
      Saddam? Of course. The Iraq war was an illegal war of aggression, conducted on behalf of the American oil industry.
      
      The rest is toffee.
wudyermucuss

We bombed nowhere to ruins,stop lying.
Cyril Sneer

When did we bomb Eritrea?

There are more Eritrean migrants than Syrian. Fact.
75% of all these illegal migrants are male. Fact.
- Abie Vee
  
  We let the Eritreans in this country. We do. Not the EU… us. Fact.

somewhereinthesouth

This migration crisis is all part of the ISIS strategy which is to frighten muslims in Syria and Iraq and cause them leave and thus to undermine Europe , Christianity and thus expand the caliphate….

Guest

Could be but I’m starting to think the ‘conspiracy loons’ might be on to something with their assertions that it’s all part of the mysterious EU agenda or that Coudenhove Kalergi plan that I’ve seen people posting about all over the Telegraph comments sections in the past.
I know its a mess either way and I can’t see it ending well.

Bob339

We must return these people to their own countries at once,

Bodkinn

The reason the Germans are so eager to be seen as the good
guys is because they have been conned into believing they are in some way
responsible for the sins of their grandparents.
This is of course ridiculous as no one is their brother’s keeper even if
the brother is alive, well and doing wrong at the present time. The British set up the first concentration
camps during the Boer War and thousands of woman and children died in
them. This is a fact of history but not one
we should feel guilty about as we were not there at the time. If we were to list the atrocities committed
by all the nations in the Near East to the present day and compare them to ours
we might even feel good about ourselves.
Germany will regret not being more selective as among all the refugees they
will find that among the deserving they have taken a monster to their
bosom.

avi15

By taking in millions of Middle Eastern migrants that it can’t possibly cope with, Europe will effectively destroy itself. In other words, instead curing the patient, the physician is simply catching his disease.

Guest

Europe should only take women and children from Syria,the men should live in UN camps or grow a pair and fight for their land.
The rest of the migrants need dropping back off in Libya.
Over the winter problem border areas should be beefed up with armed security and very high walls should be built and a plan formed so this doesn’t happen next year.
None of this will happen of course,it will continue for years until we give up and accept that Europe in now just a colder version of the middle east.

James Chilton

A more thoughtful commentary than many I’ve read. At least it outlines the difficulty of making moral judgments in a crisis where the people in distress live in a country that is far away and about which we know very little.

OpenEurope

And why are these migrants heading only for the EU. Why not Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia or even Russia? Why do they get to choose which country they wish to go to? By analogy, what would you do if someone broke into your house and started to live in your kitchen without your permission?

Dominic Stockford

Or China, or the Far East, or the USA, or South America…

Patrick Roy

These people have been trafficked. If they are accepted into the EU, it encourages further trafficking. We can’t take in the entire lot. The problem needs to be addressed at the source. Stop the boats and set up camps in Tunisia to temporarily house them. When their countries “recover” send them back. Sometimes you have to be strict to be kind. Sorry but that’s in the Bible, Christians.

I can’t believe the discourse on this issue – the suicidal tendencies of the Germans and the quasi-Christian guilt being perpetrated on everyone. A nation without borders is not a nation.

I don’t think women and children make up even 10% of these people. The behaviour of these men in Macedonia, Hungary, Greece, has been of a hostile nature, not of gratitude. What can we expect when they arrive in their tens of thousands?

Cameron better stick to his guns. And the BBC is a total disgrace.

A new poster

Matthew, if you do not care for the residents of Clacton, why are you doing all this hand-wringing for migrants from far flung places in the globe?

Dominic Stockford

“if you do not love the ones you can see, how can you love the one you have not seen”

The Bible

CalUKGR

Well, it’s nice of Mr Parris to wring his hands so publicly in the article above, if a little late in the day. Meanwhile, the ‘migrant’ invasion continues apace – swarms of them clamouring to get into the EU at, it seems, any cost.

It’s not even the numbers that worry me so much as the religion and ideology that travels with the vast majority of them. How is that whole ‘integration’ thing going, again..?

No amount of deliberately emotive images of dead kids on beaches will misdirect my attention on this issue, but nice try, msm.

cartimandua

Its the fact that most are single fit young men carrying God knows what criminality in their past and God knows what attitudes to women.

right1_left1

I hope the government can stand firm in the face of the Tsunami of sentimentality that is hitting the fan as a result of the picture showing the fate of the little boy washed up in Turkey.

Does Parris offer any criticism of Islam ?
Well does he ?
Have you noticed Parris that the war in Syria is between rival Islamic sects.
ie millions are fleeing the mayhem caused by the followers of Islam

Methinks you spend too much time considering your boyriends appendage it has addled your brain.

I think Parris should take his boyfriend on a wallk about in say Pakistan and see what happens while carrying a multicoloured placard saying
Gay liberation…now

btw Parris you little irritant “moral science” is an oxymoron.
A bit like you.
re your duty; may i suggest you give us all abreak and shurrup for a bit.
Get a low payed job in a charity somewhere far away. Far far away !
You views are moronic and you are a bit of an Ox.
You are Alibhai Brown in trousers !

thomasaikenhead

More pontificating from a member of the metropolitan chattering classes who wants to wallow in liberal sentiments but has no clue about what should actually be done.

Like Yvette Cooper who has used the refugee/migrant crisis to score political points he fails to do the numbers!

Accepting 10,000 Syrians is a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of displaced Syrian refugees.

Why focus on just the Syrians, how about the Iraqis, Somalians, Eritreans and the rest fleeing failed and broken states?

Parris and Cooper might have more credibility if they had spoken out against the unnecessary military campaigns by the West in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya that did so much to create these millions of refugees?

As for Cameron, the audcaity to say that resolving things in the countries of origin when him and his crony Sarkozy were responsible for turning Libya into a failed state is astounding.

cartimandua

No we didn’t create the 100 million in the regions youth bulge. We gave them clean water and vaccines our bad.
- thomasaikenhead
  
  Yvette Cooper and Matthew Parris seem unable to understand that with over ten million legal migrants and up to two million illegals over the last few decades, there is a reason why there is a shortage of affordable housing and social housing?
  - Mary Ann
    
    How do you know how many illegal immigrants there are, I would be interested in your source of information.
    - thomasaikenhead
      
      An organisation called MigrationWatch has been covering the topic for many years and are considered reliable.

grutchyngfysch

“If, however, the commandment means ‘Treat others as it would please you to be treated by them,’ then the precept is impossible because you’d give all your money to the first beggar you encountered.”

There’s an important issue here which demonstrates that the Golden Rule is not only about actions towards another, but also expectations of others.

I actually wouldn’t expect, even were I destitute, that another person bankrupt themselves to assist me. It would be entirely irrational. On the other hand, I would hope that they would do what lay within their power to meet my need – even if that were only very limited.

The trouble comes when principles like this are seen in a utopian light. They are read as the means by which all needs may be put to rest and perfection on earth achieved. But that’s not what they are for at all – the Golden Rule is a principle which tells you how to live in a world that is broken.

In fact, as this article demonstrates, treating it as a cure for the ills of the world not only confuses, but results in people doing nothing because they cannot do everything. Do what you *can* do, in the knowledge that what you do is not enough. Do it anyway.

Ambientereal

Well, there is a word for this issue, that I believe can clarify all this situation. It is “reciprocity”. In the past, Europeans have been welcomed by many countries but not the islamic ones. In the present we are being hated by muslims everywhere. Why should we welcome those who hate us. Those who will kill us given the opportunity?
- Mary Ann
  
  Do you really believe that all Muslims want to kill us? I think you have a problem.
  - cartimandua
    
    Very few of them if any give women equal rights and have western small families
    - Richard
      
      Amazing how the cowardly feminists are always silent on this point. Shows you they aren’t actually interested in women’s rights at all, but rather just in looking good and being self-righteous. That’s what this whole migrant “crisis” is about for such people: it is an opportunity to be visible in their goodness. Unseen goodness, liking helping our own poor, is worthless in their eyes. As the Germans say, “Aussehen ist alles.”
    - Mary Ann
      
      Not sure what that has to do with them wanting to kill us. It is only within the last forty years that women in Britain have had equal rights, and as for children, that is our choice, or at least it is for those of us who are fertile.
  - Germainecousin
    
    Sorry but it is not Ambientereal that has a problem. Islam is behind almost every atrocity in the present age, they loathe Western lifestyle, despise Christianity and want the west to adapt to them rather than the other way round. All in all I think it is fairly safe to say that yes they do want to kill us, if not physically certainly culturally.
  - Ambientereal
    
    My problem is “written” in a book more than a thousand years ago and the words of this book are being followed by 1.6 billion people. I believe I have strong reasons to be worried. By the way, there is no ecumenical authority in islam that could outrule those words (like the Popes in Christianity have re-interpreted the Bible along the times)

modernredeye

Strange that Parris tries to use such an issue to bash Christianity. Leaving aside philosophical nitpicking it is surely fairly obvious what “Do unto others etc” would invite here. How would Parris want to be treated if he was fleeing as a refugee to North Africa (regardless of the fact that we can guess how Arabs might behave toward European refugees if the boot were on the other foot). The story (yes it probably is just a story) in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13-23) of the flight into Egypt by Joseph, Mary and Jesus to escape Herod would also seem to suggest a model for Christians to emulate in their treatment of refugees. .Also the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46: ‘I was a stranger and you did not invite me in’.
Whether or not one agrees with The Christian view, their view should be obvious, even to one as bigoted as Parris.

Mary Ann

But Cameron claims to be a Christian, and he won’t let them in.
- Dominic Stockford
  
  Christianity presents itself simply. Our primary responsibility (as a Christian) is to share the truth of salvation through Christ. The great commission to Christians, from Christ, says:
  
  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inb the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28.
  
  It also says that those who are Christians can be seen by the fruits of the Spirit which WILL be evidenced in their lives (James, and Galatians), which are in opposition to the desires of the flesh.
  
  That does not mean destroying one’s own country and culture, it means helping those, where they are, who need help. £900,000,000 is a lot of help – where they are. Keep doing that.
  - Antitory
    
    The great commission to Christians from Christ was to love your neighbour as yourself. Can you manage that?
    If not, then you belong to Parris.
    - Dominic Stockford
      
      “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28.
      
      That is HOW we are to love people.
      It is not loving to feed them in this world, yet leave them to suffer eternal punishment in the next – that is mean and nasty.
  - Mary Ann
    
    “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” Didn’t Mohammad say something similar to Muslims, to get people to convert to their religion, mind you, it is the same God. What about be fruitful and multiply, that’s in the Bible, is it in the Koran as well?
    - Dominic Stockford
      
      It is demonstrably NOT the same God. Islam, the Koran, says clearly “god has no son”, and makes threats against those who say that he does. The heart of the Christian faith is that the Son of God came to earth and gave His life to pay the penalty for our sins.
      
      A knowledge of comparative theology is helpful when making statements such as that.
- modernredeye
  
  Then according to Matthew 25:46, Cameron is a goat and will be going away to eternal punishment.
  - Mary Ann
    
    Sounds appropriate.

Precambrian

And here was me thinking that our national religion was our own mouths and genitals….at least thats the impression I get from the behaviour of most people.

avi15

Yeah, Europe is between religions at the moment…
- avi15
  
  Or at least, what we have is a type of modern paganism…with a post-Christian backdrop.
Dominic Stockford

The Bible would agree with you.

Nick

I have the solution for the migrants/refugees.

Send them to both Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Problem solved.

avi15

I have a variation: how about, let them all into Europe. Then sit back and watch as Europe becomes wracked with civil wars, famine and mayhem. Then, after a decent interval, maybe the Middle East will have sorted itself out, and we can all become refugees there ourselves.
- Nick
  
  That initially seems like a good idea and is one which I have considered.
  
  However,that would eventually leave the UK with an ISIS/muslim/caliphate on it’s doorstep which in turn would lead to war between the UK and Europe.
  
  But I do take your point.

Arthur Sparknottle

As individuals, it would be hard to set one’s face against people desperately hoping for something like a new home, but in reality, none of these people is a real asylum seeker once out of Syria and in Turkey, or Jordan. They are safe there, if not as well off as they would like. Once we empower the ambitions of coming to a more prosperous land with notions of ‘escaping tyranny’, we provide justification for any and all of a billion Africans, not to mention millions of Middle Easterners. Britain has contributed a thousand million pounds of hard earned tax-payer’s money to providing civilised conditions in refugee camps in Jordan and elsewhere. We’ve done our bit, and it is only the spinelessness of Italy and Greece which stops those nations leading a military assault on the ports of Libya, controlled by criminal trafficking gangs who strip these travellers of their cash and consign them to leaking, hopeless boats on the Mediterranean or the Aegean Seas. Unless we act vigorously against the gangs and governments which allow this exodus towards our shores, millions more will come and our own continent will be transformed – and not for the better. Who among us has not noticed that the nightly news is dominated by the misdeeds of our new citizens and their uncompromising religious affiliation. These people in the main espouse a belief system utterly at odds with the liberal values that created the societies they claim to wish to join. Will a European woman in fifty years be regarded as the equal of her partner or husband? Will we be able to buy alcohol a a normal part of life? I doubt it. We have already set ourselves on a course of cultural annihilation. Why bring that day any closer. Any Syrian arriving at Calais, has already crossed seven safe countries, countries stupid enough to allow border free movement of all and sundry and apparently unable to stem an invasion of their shores. WE must not do the same. Besides – this island is half the size of France and Germany.

Patrick_Blankfein

and their cultures are repulsive. an Islamic society is about as charming as a murder trial
João Costa

Totally agree. It’s true the southern European nations (I live in one) are so spineless (dealing with any problem to be honest) that they end up doing some sort of a blackmail with the northern developed nations. This is typical of an irresponsible child and that’s why we have troubles here… Spineless culture, lack of responsibility… I wish my country was “invaded” by real Europeans… We might get a decent culture instead of this rotten one.

Patrick_Blankfein

The naiveté of ‘western people’ is truly disturbing. do you want to live in a country, or a refugee camp, with refugees running around, stealing, harassing the incumbent population? This 800,000 is absolute tip of iceberg. These people are totally ruthless; they will threaten to throw their babies off walls – anything to get to Germany or Sweden, G.B. to get their reward. It is very curious how they seem to think they are entering the Klondike – but I suppose maybe they are (a welfare one at least)

Richard

If they were really desperate, they would be happy to be in Hungary. They aren’t. This is a shopping trip for them, picking the countries with the best benefits and those most willing to roll over and die for Islam.

João Costa

Huge truth. Amen brother…

Arthur Sparknottle

Would it be unhelpful to mention that earlier Syrian asylum seeker, Omar Bakri Muhammad?

He caused us quite a lot of trouble and radicalised hundreds of foolish young men of the Islamic sort.

Patrick_Blankfein

I have seen what the Alawis do to the Sunnis, vice versa! If you went on a nice family trip around Syria after the bombs and bullets were done, you would be apt to watch out for skulls, and bones sans skulls – many of them dumped in wells. MMM, a lonely planet guide (and there is still is one I saw in Waterstones – in much need of correction).

Bonkim

Total waste of time Mr Paris – no duty towards migrants. The earth is overpopulated and resources running out. Imported alien cultures will be catastrophic for Britain, already there are serious social disconnect in Britain. More people living in voluntary apartheid will not do anything for Britain.

The refugees are making a deliberate attempt to break formal barriers. According to international law refugees are supposed to travel to the first country outside the conflict zone, and the UN is charged with setting refugee camps. Not allow them to travel thousands of miles to claim social security.

No cuddly comfy thoughts – those who force themselves in don’t deserve any sympathy. Open the doors and the flood will break in.

Patrick_Blankfein

I BROKE INTO EUROPE, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT (in multiple languages)

Arthur Sparknottle

“Literally millions of people across Britain have, over the past few
months, been torn and distressed by the question of what ‘we’ should do
about the migrants crossing the Mediterranean.”

Yes – I know. I’ve decided that they must be returned to their point of embarkation by force, and left there. ALL of them have passed through safe, Arabic speaking countries in their quest for a more prosperous life than say Jordan or Turkey, Egypt or Bulgaria can provide. Fulfilling the economic ambitions of alien peoples is not our responsibility, especially given the grotesque over-population of our own land and the scandalous competition for housing that our own young people already face.

Richard

Nobody seems to be too worried about the thousands of Zimbabwean whites – largely of British ancestry – killed and dispossessed by Mugabe. But then helping them isn’t “virtue signalling”, so it is really just a wasted effort.

Patrick_Blankfein

Christianity is bankrupt; it lost its way some way back. The old village churches are nothing more than song halls for old folk who need somewhere to go where young adult people can’t trouble them. Christianity under Welby is either religious guff, of platitudes like ‘ we should show compassion’ – towards the ‘hordes’. Anyone can get accepted into the church, murderers, rapists, paedophiles, even sham marriage revs. They have nothing to say; but the buildings are valuable,

Antitory

Christianity provides clear guidance how to act here. Atheism (judging by its history – Mao, Stalin etc) would also have a clear answer. I would go with Christianity.

Skyeward

Not long now until the U.S. is pressured to take them in. And while we’re better able to do so and more obligated, I have two questions. If Syrians face terrible and hopeless conditions if they stay, why have they continued to bring childeren into their world? What’s the deal with so many young men (and women) leaving their country and its poor and vulnerable to destruction instead of fighting for it?

Patrick_Blankfein

what I find most peculiar, is that we have an immigration/asylum policy – particularly the latter – which is determined by whom gets here! so unaccompanied minors must be maintained for years at huge cost, and so few citizens want that, yet we are hostage to their ability to get here. it is like saying to a potential Goldman Sachs employee, ‘break in and we’ll have to employ you’. total madness, as enoch powell knew

David Brown

England has more people per square mile than any other EU state , more than India and China. Its migrant population is more than the population of Scotland. If the English cease to be the majority in England it will cease to be other than as a geographic entity.
That the EU is allowing so many to cross its borders is seen on social media in the places in the middle east and Africa where these people come from . If the majority are allowed to remain millions more will come.

martivickers

Matthew 25:31 KJV
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
Christianity, whatever its faults, gives a very clear answer, Matthew. It just has proven rather inconvenient for so-called Christians to live by it.

Cyril Sneer

What responsible father would put their young children in a rubber boat to sail across the sea in the dead of night without life reserves leaving behind a country that is not at war, that has given them a safe haven only to end up washed up drowned back in Turkey – according to the Guardian it’s all David Cameron’s fault.

I’m going to stick my hand up here and say that so called father of the now drowned children is an irresponsible pr i ck that deserves to be handed over to ISIS.

Peter Hirsch

It seems that Mr Parris has forgotten his Christianity. It is all about compassion and helping your neighbour. We can start off with rescuing those drowning, dry them out, feed them, house them and return them home to sort out their countries. Christianity is not about encouraging people to break the law. It is about helping them keep within it.

Consider the refugees. There can be no doubt that the migrants who make it to Europe are lucky not to die on the way – drowned in the sea or dead in the deserts – and must be able and resilient people with initiative and courage. Just the sort of people, some will say, that we need to strengthen our society, to man our industry, to integrate into our communities. But what will be the effect on the countries they leave? Without the intelligent, the resilient and the risk-takers, how will they ever recover. How will justice and peace be restored? How will economies ever be rebuilt unless the able stay and have a stake?

But just returning the refugees – or economic migrants – to their homeland is not the answer. They left for good reasons and many of them: until the reasons are addressed, others will leave and those we return will leave a second time; and a third.

The tragedy of a drowned child on a beach is matched by the disaster of the life-blood of countries bleeding to death.

If it is in our interest that the countries from which these immigrants escape should be eventually our prosperous trading partners rather than a source of undesired immigrants, then we – both the EU and each of its constituent members – need to aid those nations in a continent-wide co-operative effort to stem the flood with targeted aid, so that the immigrants would prefer to stay home and rebuild their countries.

A Christian approach is root and branch: the problems can all be solved, the solution will not be easy and will not come cheap; but it will cost less than doing nothing.

tolpuddle1

The problem of the refugees is primarily a mathematical one.

Sort out the maths, and the other dimensions of the crisis – political and moral – sort out themselves.

BTW the politicians of here and elsewhere are paid partly to see things coming and make plans accordingly. Although warned for months of this approaching crisis, they’ve evidently had their minds on much more important things – their own jobs, for instance.

Paddy S

I always love being told by an atheist what Christians should or should not believe and why their teachings are flawed. Although to be fair you did get Christian morality angle right.

I would point Matthew (Christian origins again) this: For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ I would also point out the story of the flight into Egypt but alas thats too long.

Anyone who is a Christian is obliged to aid the less fortunate, (as is anyone with a heart) and give comfort and yes hospitality to the stranger. So I have no problem accepting Syrian Christians and Yazidis. Let the Gulf states take care of their Islamic bretheren. We help our own, even if we don’t recognise it anymore.

As for those by and large economic migrants off the coast of Libya, there is no legal or moral obligation to guarantee someone a better life who skips ahead of the queue. Let them come legally or not at all. That seems fair. Alas this won’t happen. Second left see that we are saving Christians they’ll say stop helping them.

Ipsidixit

Hadn’t seen your comment when I posted mine. (Above) I agree with you, including our responsibility to persecuted Christians.

MrFGordon

I have zero duty to ‘refugees’ who skip poor countries for the generous welfare states of Germany, Sweden and Britain.

Stephen Milroy

I disagree. It is almost like the good Samaritan in reverse with the victim refusing the help of the priest and the Levite (aka Middle East countries and safe countries) and only accepting, indeed demanding, help from the Samaritan (i.e.. western European countries). Also maybe the Islamic world could benefit from the bible phrase ‘physician heal thyself’…

Sue Smith

I’m cheering the PM of Hungary who has come right out and said, “we don’t want Muslims from populous countries living in Hungary”. The man is a champion and absolutely unafraid to speak on behalf of his people. Just watch the Left descend into paroxysms and convulsions of rage; just imagine, a country has national pride and a willingness to succeed and for its own culture to survive. Something the left knows nothing about in their evangelistic nihilism and moral decadence. Sad people who believe in nothing, especially their own culture – being only too happy to see it destroyed on the altar of self-loathing. Having no belief in anything external to self – no abiding ‘authority figure’ – it is willing to capitulate to alien cultures in exercise in guilt expiation for them NOT being better themselves!! I’ve just read a brilliant, academic essay on this topic!!

justejudexultionis

The Hungarians are merely following the tradition of eastern Europe as a bulwark against Islamic incursions from Turkey and the Middle East – antemurale christianitatis.

bombaybadboy

“…it is simply impossible that you or I could feel toward every migrant on
the shores or waves of the Mediterranean the same obligation we hold
towards members of our close family. We could not function as moral
beings if we felt equally beholden to all; as if every tolling bell
really did toll for me.”

A complete aside, but Precisely. Those who do so are usually zealots. This is what makes Corbyn so alarming.

lorraine kelly

To be honest here , we do not trust them and that is because of 9/11, and the Taliban and now ISIS , we think they are all the same that they will infiltrate us and take over as that is the plan of the terrorists .But what we do not know or think is that these people are at risk of being killed , we have sen that ISIS has no heart they kill anyone of any age just because they can .we do need to help these refugees , we need to be human beings again and care what happens to them , but what is the answer , well for me it would be to get as many out of Syria then bomb it till all of ISIS has been wiped off the face of the Earth , then let them go home and help rebuild their country.It would be less expensive than keeping them ..As a child my mother told me that here is going to be a third world war ,it is going to be fought in the middle East and it will be fought by air ,and that a man called David will be in power when it happens , now at the age of 61 I can see her prediction coming true
I do not want to see any more little bodies lying lifeless on a beach or anywhere else for that matter , but this problem is only going to get worse and we the whole world need to stop it now ,by dealing with the terrorists

Liberanos

We should take refugees. Which means only a tiny handful. The rest, the economic migrants, must go through the proper procedures, instead of trying to bully, sneak and buy their way in.

Ipsidixit

Always interesting to be ‘taught’ about Christianity by a atheist. As I remember, the Samaritan paid an innkeeper who was in a better position to do so than himself, to look after the injured Jew, together with a promise to recompense the innkeeper when he’d return at a later date, his responsibility not being over once he’d deposited him. That seemed pretty clear got me.
Christ taught not that we should treat others as they might treat us but that we ‘love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us’
For family responsibilities try reading Paul’s letters.

stag

The Gospels are not an ethical instruction manual, Matthew. Being a Christian doesn’t provide one with a pat answer to every ethical dilemma. I think you are expecting too much.

justejudexultionis

Well said.

Katabasis

You realise, Matthew that there are several thousand years of philosophy that could help you out on these questions?

justejudexultionis

More importantly, 2000 years of Christian teaching and the sixty-six books (over 1000 pages) of the Protestant canon. There is plenty of complexity there if you want it, since Scripture deals with the whole of life, but the essential message of the New Testament is that you are a sinner and that Jesus Christ died for sinners so that you could be in a right relationship with God.
- Katabasis
  
  Well indeed – and there have been plenty of well respected philosophers over the centuries who were also dedicated Christians and in some cases even members of the clergy themselves who expounded on these issues. It seems our Matthew is mainly just exposing his ignorance to the world.
  - pobjoy
    
    even members of the clergy themselves
    
    Do put your tongue away.

freddiethegreat

“And they’re useless. ‘Do unto others as you would that they would do unto you’ is, like ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, either impossible or circular. Circular if it means ‘Act towards others as you think they should act towards you,’ because this leaves open the question of how you think people should act, and would permit a cannibal to eat another cannibal. If, however, the commandment means ‘Treat others as it would please you to be treated by them,’ then the precept is impossible because you’d give all your money to the first beggar you encountered”
Matthew, I usually back you 100% but you’ve lost it here – no wonder you have no way of understanding this.
Of course all of these precepts are nearly impossible – because we’re human. It is ‘act towards others as you would like them to act to you’ and has nothing to do with how you THINK people should act. Have a look at the ten commandments and the Sermon on the Mount – there are the guidelines on how to act, regardless of how you think. And your beggar example is frankly, ridiculous – logically, giving all your money to a beggar would make you a beggar – yet you can do *something*.
Yes, they’re largely impossible – and that is where grace comes in.

Bob47

why don’t Europe’s wimpish politicos seize the propaganda opportunities this refugee situation offers – they are risking their lives to get to Europe, NOT:
– Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Kuwait etc – can the emir’s explain why?
– Iran – can the ayatollah’s explain why?
– Russia – can Putin explain why?
– all the other shitholes in the world.

soysauce1

A woefully poor effort Mr Parris, E minus I’m afraid…

L1A1.

It’s AD 410. I’m watching a boat being rowed up the river Trent by Anglian tribesmen

justejudexultionis

Was this an article on the profound moral dilemma posed by the migrant crisis or just another an excuse to bash Christianity? Parris dislikes Christianity, like most metro liberals, but I do wish he’d stop banging on about it.

Kasperlos

“We’re ready. But we’re honestly, mightily, daily confused about what we ought to do.” Reading Matthew Parris’ Wiki CV I see the reason he wrote that. Not a callous on his hands. Parris is no leader, but a fraud ranked among the worst of so-called dithering, hand wringing ‘leadership’ in the UK and the EU. Ergo the reason for this crisis in the first instance. Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban has the temerity to buck the useless poltiical wimps and stand up for the peoples of his country, and therefore for European civilisation. Sometimes it’s just that way, few are born to lead when the times are tough. Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. The EU Mandarins simply schedule another expense account conference. The only thing they’re ready for is collapse.

uberwest

I think around 100 million people die every year. I can’t be expected to care about all of them. I care about the people I care about. One day I will die and I’m not expecting the peoples of the third world to care, or even notice.

The English people are more important to me, stupid and vicious as they often are, than any group of foreigners.

Arabs, muslims and Africans are among the groups of people that I care least about, because I can see quite plainly the damage that immigrants from these backgrounds are doing to my country.

pobjoy

Literally millions of people across Britain have, over the past few
months, been torn and distressed by the question of what ‘we’ should do
about the migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

Are you sure there should not be a ‘literally’ before ‘torn’, as well, Matthew? It would round off the comedic effect.

krisiluttinen

Islam is nothing but an unevolved society, full of racist & perveted men with absolute no contribution to society other than wars & hate for non muslims.
They dont belong in any modern countries. No different than gypsies.
To the gas chamber with all of muslims and their shit religion.
Is my moral compass broken or I’m just voicing everyone’s thoughts that has dealt with them…? Regardless, I dont give a shit just dont come to my country.

Smiffy51

In many Muslim countries, Christians are mass murdered. What will eventually happen to the Christians of Europe whose countries are being invaded by millions of muslims fleeing the “dangerous’ country of Turkey?

Delilah Dimplebottom

The mandate from Christ is “to love one a one other AS I HAVE LOVED YOU”. It is not circular; Christ sets the standard – loving the unworthy, those that hate you, turning cheeks 70 x 7 etc. The New Testament dismisses the Golden Rule quoted by Parris – simple reciprocity – as something “even the pagans” practice. It actually has little Christian relevance.

It’s a personal mandate too – not something to be left to a faceless entity. God shows the stranger’s face to o individuals, not organizations. Ignoring the naked, hungry, stranger, imprisoned is something individuals do; not the government or the courts.

One of the desert monastic solitary dwellers, an abba, prepared for his trip to the village, to sell his baskets.
For his journey, he took a loaf of bread, and some water, and he set out on his long journey,
and afterwards, on his return trip back to his cell:
On the road, he first met a man who had no sandals, and whose feet were bruised and bleeding, so he gave him his.
Then he met a man who had been beaten and robbed, and had lost everything, so he stopped to bind and tend his wounds, and gave him the coins which he had earned for his baskets.
Then, further along, he met a man who was thirsty, so he gave him his flask of water.
Then he met a man who was hungry and had nothing to eat, so he gave him his last piece of bread.
Finally, he met a naked man, who had everything taken from him, so he took off his own cloak and put it upon him.
Arriving at his cell, naked himself and with all of his possessions gone, the abba raised his hands, and cried aloud with tears to heaven:
“Woe is me! Have mercy on me O Lord!, the great sinner!,…. for I never keep any of Thy commandments!”

Ambientereal

And look who was at power at Jesus times. How many people lived unworthy lives of suffering and death? Look at the many wars and many evils that where stopped by the decision of honorable people to fight instead of turning the other cheek. The west with it´s human rights are the result of those fights. They have built an oasis in this mercy deserted world. Otherwise, the syrians wouldn´t have a place to run to.
- Delilah Dimplebottom
  
  Actually, the human rights which the West protects comes from the Enlightenment, not Christianity. The Enlightenment has never had a problem with using force to impose its ideals on others, and is therefore inimical to all religions. It has used the principle of “freedom of religion” to successfully stamp religion out of the common life of many Western countries, except where the most zealous resist it – a recipe for radicalization. The Enlightenment would, on the basis of utilitarianism, simply let these refugees drown or starve. It creates an oasis of sorts, but hardly a utopia.
  
  Alfred the Great faced a very similar immigration crisis, this time with Scandinavians. His Christian solution to end the bloody wars which dragged on for years was to allow Vikings to settle and farm, as long as they were baptized. He acted as godfather and provided churches and schools for the immigrants. God’s will was done, and England was settled by independent-minded, hardworking Christians who gradually forgot their Scandinavian roots, created an educated class of yeoman farmers, helped to repel later waves of Vikings and broke the power of the Northumbrian kings, Alfred’s main remaining threat. In time, the Viking nations all became Christian in order to become acceptable traders with Christendom – trade, as always, being far more lucrative than raiding. The most notable being St Vladimir, who gave up human sacrifice and idol worship and led his people in a mass baptism in the Dneiper in order to acquire a Christian Byzantine princess as a bride – and valuable trading links to the Eastern Roman Empire.
  - Ambientereal
    
    I never said that human rights come from Christianity. Anyway I deeply appreciate your response. I love to learn.
  - tolpuddle1
    
    Where is the land you’re going to give to the Syrian refugees?
    
    And as most of them are Muslims, will you be the holy martyr who preaches the Gospel to them ?
Dominic Stockford

No he didn’t, he got back to his cell, looked with sadness at his bleeding feet and promptly died of a mixture of thirst and malnutrition before the infection from his feet could kill him.
tolpuddle1

Have you ever done ANY of this, as opposed to talking about it ?

Jackbrel

Of course Christianity helps. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Read some serious books about Christianity Matthew. The sermon on the mount. It’s not difficult.

Jackthesmilingblack

Blessed are the cheese makers …

samton909

After reading this, I can’t help but think that atheists seem to be the dumbest people on earth.

Liberanos

I’d say that conversing with invisible dead people and believing that a kindly wizard made the universe probably pips them.
Jackthesmilingblack

Funny you should say that, I’ve always thought these “so what church do you attend” religious types that swallow the Jewish book of fairy stories hook, line and rapture were the dumbest of the dumb.
But then the only sky pilots around here are Midwest US missionary types, and they are borderlinbe retarded.
Jack, the Japan Alps Brit

MojaveDon

Jesus is not ambiguous on this matter; if you have two coats, give one to someone who has none, feed the hungry, house the homeless, bless your enemies even though they curse you.

Freddythreepwood

….and get your head chopped off.
Dominic Stockford

Please give me the Bible passage where he says ‘house the homeless’.
tolpuddle1

Jesus didn’t say we should make ourselves homeless while housing the homeless.

Still less did He say we should make third parties – the working classes – homeless while doing so.

Bertie

We already take 630,000 migrants annually, via legitimate means. Next year we will probably take another 600,000+, similarly the year after. The queue therefore to get into the UK, legally, must stretch to millions.

Firstly, why should these queue jumpers be given priority over those that have gone through all the necessary legal processes.It’s not as if they’re refugees as if they were they would be fleeing as families, let many of the pictures are of young men only.Ergo they’re economic migrants.This conclusion is backed up by the fact that they’re leaving Turkey, which is a safe haven.

Secondly where are we going to house them when we are unable to house our own, let alone the 630,000 that migrate to our shores annually.

What of our own elderly in care we treat far worse than those we imprison at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Amount of money spent on meals for example – far greater for prisons than in our elderly care homes.

What of our ex servicemen who are thrown on the scrap heap once they incapacitated and no longer able to fight due to blindness, loss of limbs??? Much good work is done by charities but the state is noticeably absent.

How about looking after our own, to whom we owe a duty of care and then assisting others where we can.

Far better to be selective, a la Aussie points system than just open our doors.It isn’t fair on those who already reside on these shores as its bloody crowded as it is – higher population density in England than Germany,France, all the other European nations.Those of a left wing bent will disingenuously claim UK population density is far lower – but the simply fact is nearly ALL Economic migrants come to England – not Wales, not Scotland. So the English population density figure is therefore more appropriate.

And there’s certainly no thought to the importing of a culture/religious mantra that is such an anathema to ours – Islamic as a large proportion of these migrants clearly are.

FedUpIndian

Mr. Parris is a self-declared gay atheist. From Bangladesh to Egypt, atheists are being hacked to death by the ummah (Google “Mukto Mona”). As for gays, Sheikh Yusuf Qadri, a prominent scholar with tens of millions of followers, said a few years ago that the only question in Is*lam about gays is whether they should be thrown off of a tall building (ISIS-style) or stoned to death (Iran style). Yet Mr. Parris seems to feel his little Islington bubble will not burst even if Europe is Islamized by millions of immigrants from places like Iraq and Syria.
What the West lacks today are statesmen – people who can think three or four steps ahead and see the consequences of action and inaction. Instead you have a bunch of bleating sheep.

Dr Miriam Hassan

Refer to your brilliant column in Times last Saturday. Logical corollary, surely, is that USA should take most of the Afghan and Iraqi and Syrian refugees?

tolpuddle1

The Christian Church values the key-virtue of “prudence” , i.e. common sense.

Christianity demands that we welcome the stranger, on pain of God’s anger.

But as Cardinal Hume put it (rather prophetically) – “we must welcome the stranger, within due limits.”

There is no biblical requirement to make ourselves destitute in order to welcome the stranger.

Still less is there any Christian requirement to make others (i.e. the proles) destitute in order to welcome the stranger; which is what the chattering classes (either in stupidity or in malice) are now doing. Which is hypocrisy, not virtue.

So we must define Cardinal Hume’s “due limits.”

Marcussmod

The only Middle Eastern refugees the UK and Western Europe, has a moral obligation to take are Christians. They have no where else to go and are being persecuted to the point of extinction.The Muslim refugees should be resettled in enclaves in the numerous safe Islamic countries in that area e.g Quatar, Kuwait, Dubai and the UAE spring to mind. The post colonial guilt trip needs to stop.

tolpuddle1

Matthew Parris seems to regard Christianity as “unhelpful” regarding the refugee crisis.

So what’s the Atheist response to it ?

Or Matthew Parris’s for that matter.

C A

It is not ‘our duty’ millions die every day let their oil rich Arab brothers and the Muslim help their own. It is time for the Arab/Muslim world to take responsibility for their own instead of complaining and finger pointing and we should tell them.

Evan Thomas

Our duty (which is a duty owed to our ancestors who bequeathed our nation to us) is to live and not to die.

Close the borders now..

Johnny Dangerous

Christ never intended his teachings to be applied to a workable system of government. In fact, the gospels show occasions times when Christ rejected any involvement political debates or support for political action. Politics assumes humanity can be managed or saved through a correct system of governance or order – Jesus did not seem so optimistic. Politics is humanist and collectivist in nature. It is a strange paradox of Christianity that it is highly individualistic. It is up to each individual to foster a relationship with God and up to each to act in compassion to the poor and needy. As a Christian I try to do that and concede that I mostly fail though my intentions are good – but should I support a political campaign to empty the pockets of millions of others in the EU, many of whom are poor, to “save” a massive unmanageable influx of people who would inevitably change the cultural landscape and religion of a thousand year old continent like Europe? That would be pure vandalism and cultural genocide. The poor are to be helped “at home”. We have a moral duty to help make their land safe and prosperous and to help them live there. The best way to help the poor and those who live in darkness is to first ensure that we ourselves do not become poor or dwell in darkness – if we do then all hope is lost. My charitable duties do not and should not extend to my support of political change that robs from one poor man and gives to another.

Andrew Smith

I think the author would benefit from a closer familiarity with scripture.

Mark 7 clearly mentions family responsibility. The letter from James also. Render unto Ceasar has nothing to do with the nation, rather the “political authorities” as found in Jeremia 29 (Jesus recognised the authority of the Old Testament if you are one of these people who only accept the 4 synoptic Gospels) and Romans 13. The “nations” are spoken of in a different context in the Psalms.

We should love and help our neighbour. But there is nothing in the Bible that states that economic migrants have the right to live wherever they want.

Grumpthasaurus

The Bible can be made to state or reflect whatever it is one has as one’s personal prejudices, as you very nicely demonstrate here.

ExamineIslam

The Bible would tell us to help our neighbour – not the people who don’t believe in the Christian god or the morality derived from it. Muslims persecute Christians and even other Muslims, are completely intolerant of diversity, gay rights and female emancipation. Bringing more in to Europe is the biggest calamity since WWII. Our birth rate declines and theirs is rampant – and their contempt for our culture and freedoms equally so. We have shamefully ignored the people of small towns like Peterborough and Luton who have seen what happens when mass immigration of Muslims takes place – the natives are persecuted, abused and pushed out. This is happening right now all over Europe and our guilt over our treatment of the Jews is mistakenly leading us to ignore it so as not to seem ‘racist’. This is madness. Our vulnerable people, our poor, our Jews – all are at dire risk from our existing Muslims let alone from MORE coming in. We are lucky DC has vowed only to bring in children – let it be so. But what happens when all those the rest of Europe allow in get their passports? They’ll come here. Our children will grow up and have children – and be allowed to stay. We will be an Islamic State in 20 years.

http://examine-islam.org/2015/09/rationality-is-lost-at-sea-on-immigrant-crisis/

Clive

Like the psychological problem of ‘bystander intervention’, this moral dilemma arises partly from confusing facts.

The word ‘refugee’ is bandied about by the press because it gives rise to a well known tragic figure. It really ought to be divided into ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘economic migrant’ as Angela Merkel has taken pains to do.

Under British law, I believe we are obliged to take in ‘asylum seekers’ although of course that law only applies when they get here. So there is little dilemma – only whether to go and get them or let them come to us. It seems we are going to get a small number of them. There is also the question of what an asylum seeker really is. Here is one from a BBC story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34118978

…Nour and her mother, Islam, fled Deir al-Zour in Syria three years ago. Her father, who stayed behind, was killed shortly afterwards. She and her mother eventually moved to exile in Turkey.

For two years in Istanbul, she enjoyed a comfortable life. Nour found work in a hair transplant salon, and later with Turkish state TV. She learnt Turkish, went horse-riding and dyed her hair blonde for the summer.

But she wanted to start a new life away from the region. She aimed to make it to the Swedish city of Gothenburg where her brother lives with his young family. There, she would apply for political asylum….

We should also learn from migrants of all sorts – economic and otherwise who face danger to make their lives better. You quoted from John Donne Meditation XVII – it is worth reading more of it. Here is the last paragraph.

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough, that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger, I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

WarriorPrincess111111

Throughout history there have always been wars and fighting in the Middle East. There is a lot of unrest all over the World at present – there are billions of people who want to escape persecution, tyranny etc., It is impossible for everyone to be helped.
Everyday, in the UK more and more people are being turned out on the streets, people are having to turn to food banks in order to find food to survive. Thousands of whole families do not have enough money to live on because of the job shortages. Soon winter will be upon us and many of our own people will be at risk of dying.
Because of the EU we are facing more hardship than ever before and because of the EU the Syrian wars have been exacerbated.
Our duty is to give aid to those at home, to have sympathy with those who are struggling in the UK long before we even think about people who come over to the UK. People from warm dry climates where relative costs are low, obviously having more wealth than many people here in the UK having spent thousands on travel and having more to spend as they move around the UK, immigrants who show no gratitude for the aid that they have been given, who continually demand that they are given more, constantly misleading the authorities as to their real reasons for coming to the UK.

SvenTheBold

“We could not function as moral beings if we felt equally beholden to all; as if every tolling bell really did toll for me.”

It’s little wonder that Christianity would be unhelpful to you. You seem to have missed its only real message:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” -Matthew 10: 34-36

The reason why a person’s enemies will be those of his own household is because most households are made of people who have this silly and unhelpful idea that we are more beholden to members of our own household than to others. Love for all is so radical an idea that it rends the concept of household favoritism in two; and that is something most mothers and fathers are too egoistic to countenance.

MtGolfMore

Christian ethics are at least as helpful as Matthew Perry, but a deal more honest, for when he says, “If I really knew my duty I would try diligently to do it…” Christianity says, to quote the atheist, “…absolute rubbish.”

Jackthesmilingblack

Back into that, “Without religion we wouldn’t know right from wrong” debate.

David Prentice

Do the children in the womb have any claim on your conscience, Matthew? Particularly the viable babies who will be horrifically dismembered in late-term abortions around the western world today?

Tom M

“…….who told us airily that agonising ethical dilemmas were the stuff of
philosophy lectures, but did not occur much in ordinary life……”

If Bernard Williams said that then he saved me the bother.
Napoleon I believe said some people see too much. That article is an example.
When, as one of the millions you describe, saw the ‘refugees” several things ran through my mind too but little of the moral dilemma you describe.

First they didn’t look like refugees escaping with their lives from a war zone. They looked like they were people going on holiday. Assertive and demanding as to what they wanted and confrontational with their hosts. Bad manners at least.
Secondly if they came from a predominantly Muslim country why are they coming to a predominantly Christian country? Why not go where they would fit in easier culturally?
Thirdly, a significant number of these were young military age people. What would have happened if there had been a similar exodus from England in 1939? If their country is being invaded then they should be fighting for it instead of asking Western pilots and others to risk their lives attacking their enemies.

pat

All this useless wittering on about moral dilemmas. Just get off your arse and do something if it pains you.

Dean Jackson

“Millions of us honestly don’t know what our duty is to migrants – and Christianity doesn’t help”

Migrants? LOL! Now that that’s taken care of, Christianity is very clear–cease causing chaos across the globe that (1) results in REFUGEES (not migrants!); thereby (2) destroying the pre-eminence of the West, which is the Marxist design of the exercise.

The following is a discovery I made in April regarding the fake collapse of the USSR, and what that fraudulent collapse proves about the institutions of the West…

When Soviet citizens were liberated from up to 74 years of horrific Marxist oppression on December 26, 1991 there were ZERO celebrations throughout the USSR, proving (1) the ‘collapse’ of the USSR was a strategic ruse; and (2) the political parties of the West were already co-opted by Marxists,* otherwise the USSR (and East Bloc nations) couldn’t have gotten away with the ruse.

ZERO celebrations, as the The Atlantic article inadvertently informs us…

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/12/20-years-since-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union/100214/

Notice, however, the Kremlin staged demonstrations that took place in Russia (and other Soviet republics) in the years immediately preceding the ‘collapse’, yet ZERO celebrations after the ‘collapse’!

For more on this discovery see my blog…

https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/

Conclusion:

The West will form new political parties where candidates are vetted for Marxist ideology, the use of the polygraph to be an important tool for such vetting. Then the West can finally liberate the globe of vanguard Communism.
————————-
* The failed socialist inspired and controlled pan-European revolutions that swept the continent in 1848(1) thought Marxists and socialists a powerful lesson, that lesson being they couldn’t win overtly,(2) so they adopted the tactic of infiltration of the West’s political parties/institutions. In the case of the United States…(continue reading at DNotice)…

https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/now-you-see-me-now-you-don-t

Now you know why not one political party in the West requested verification of the collapse of the USSR, and the media failed to alert your attention to this fact, including the ‘alternative’ media. When determining whether the ‘former’ USSR is complying with arms control treaties, what does the United States do to confirm compliance? Right, the United States sends into the ‘former’ USSR investigative teams to VERIFY compliance, yet when it’s the fate of the West that’s at stake should the collapse of the USSR be a ruse, what does the United States do to confirm the collapse? Nothing!

The fraudulent ‘collapse’ of the USSR (and East Bloc) couldn’t have been pulled off until both political parties in the United States (and political parties elsewhere in the West) were co-opted by Marxists, which explains why verification of the ‘collapse’ was never undertaken by the West, such verification being (1) a natural administrative procedure (since the USSR wasn’t occupied by Western military forces); and (2) necessary for the survival of the West. Recall President Reagan’s favorite phrase, “Trust, but verify”.

It gets worse–the ‘freed’ Soviets and West also never (1) de-Communized the Soviet Armed Forces of its Communist Party officer corps, which was 90% officered by Communist Party members; and (2) arrested/de-mobilized the 6-million vigilantes that assisted the Soviet Union’s Ministry of the Interior and police control the populations of the larger cities during the period of ‘Perestroika’ (1986-1991)!

There can be no collapse of the USSR (or East Bloc nations) without…

Verification, De-Communization and De-mobilization.

The West never verified the collapse of the USSR because no collapse occurred, since if a real collapse had occurred the West would have verified it, since the survival of the West depends on verification. Conversely, this proves that the political parties of the West were co-opted by Marxists long before the fraudulent collapse of the USSR, since the survival of the West depends on verification.

The above means that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is an operation being carried out by the Marxist co-opted governments of the West in alliance with the USSR and other Communist nations, the purpose being to (1) destroy the prominence of the West in the eyes of the world, where the West is seen (i) invading nations without cause; (ii) causing chaos around the globe; and (iii) killing over one-million civilians and boasting of torture; (2) close off non-Russian supplies of oil for export, thereby increasing the price of oil, the higher price allowing oil exporting Russia to maintain economic stability while she modernizes and increases her military forces; (3) destroy the United States Armed Forces via the never-ending ‘War on Terror’; the ultimate purpose of the aforementioned to (4) bring about the demise of the United States in the world, opening up a political void to be filled by a new pan-national entity composed of Europe and Russia (replacing the European Union), a union ‘From the Atlantic to Vladivostok’; which will (5) see the end of NATO.

Now you know how Bolshevik Russia survived in 1917; how the West ‘lost’ China to the Communists in 1949; why the Eisenhower administration turned a deaf ear to the anti-Communist Hungarian uprising in 1956; why the Eisenhower administration in 1959 was indifferent to the Castro brothers’ Communist fidelity, actually used the CIA to overthrow the Batista government; why the Nixon administration abandoned Taiwan for Communist China, and signed treaties/provided economic aid to the USSR; why the Nixon administration refused to tell the American People that over 50% of North Vietnamese NVA regiments were actually Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers (attired in NVA uniforms, and proving that the Sino/Soviet Split was a ruse, as KGB defector Major Anatoliy Golitsyn told the West back in 1962), thereby (1) ensuring the Vietnam War would be lost; (2) destroying the prominence of the United States abroad and at home; (3) breeding distrust between the American people and their government; and (4) securing Communist victories in Southeast Asia. Working in the background within the political parties of the United States and Great Britain were Marxist agents doing their best to (1) ensure the survival of Communist nations when they popped up; and (2) sabotage any policies that would bring down a Communist nation. That’s why after the fake collapses of the East Bloc nations and USSR there was no mandatory Western verification process to ensure the Communists weren’t still in control.

Mary

Clearly Matthew Parris has never picked up a Bible! Let’s start with Leviticus 19:33-34 : “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do
him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the
native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were
strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

22pp22

Matthew, you are aware, I hope, that Muslims hang fags.

If your new Muslim neighbours don’t tie you to a chair and throw you off a building first.

Ros

G C Chesteron once observed, rightly, that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; rather it has been found difficult and not tried. Actually in the present case it’s quite clear. “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to Me.” Chrstians are meant to serve others as they would serve Christ. In the present instance that would involve giving away all of our substance except the minimum we ourselve need to live on; that our commitment to Christ is measured not by how much we give but by how much keep back for ourselves. We will never know what difference it would make if we all lived like this because, as in Chesterton’s day, most of us will find it difficult and not try it.

Christopher Posner

The rule “Do to others as you would have done to yourself” should be understood in light of the Scholastic distinction between the absolute and simple will (voluntas aboluta et simpliciter) and the comparative and conditional will (voluntas comparata et conditionalis). Thomas Aquinas explained it in this way:-
“We speak of will in do different senses…Comparative and conditional will is when we do not will a thing simply but under a condition, with the removal of which we do not will it. And this can happen in two ways. The condition in question can have a pulling effect, as when someone who would not sin simply would sin because of some great profit. Or it can have a pushing effect, as when someone who would sin in order to escape death, with the removal of which, he would not sin.”
“As you would have done” plainly should be understood to mean “as you would have done subject to conditions” The beggar might wish “simply” for a person to give him all his money, but at the same time not wish this to be done if this would led to greater evils. ( e.g. that there would be no money left for other beggars). Hence in deciding whether to help refugees, we must consider whether this would lead to greater evils than if we did not help them.

outlawState

An overly elaborate argument, to be sure. It all boils down to whether you construe them as refugees or an invasion force. Jesus did not inculcate any duty on the Jews to aid the Romans and other pagans in their invasion of Palestine.

In fact, he essentially upheld the right to treat all non-Jews as a caste apart in social and economic relations. The parable of the Samaritan only appiied to an imminent life threatening condition.

barnubus

There are 60 million refugees worldwide.Even if Europe takes 500,000 its only going to make a small dent in this number and will probably encourage more to risk the crossing.In any case Europe is already trying to cope with 11% unemployment.
Don’t know what the solution is.A good start would be the destruction of ISIS and
Boko Haram.Then perhaps we can talk about repatriation.

leongillingham

“Our Christian religion gives us — those of us who are Christians — almost no help in navigating it. ”

Self-serving nonsense. Matthew 25:34-40 sets out your obligations clearly.

You didn’t quote because it puts concrete demands on you as a Christian. You christianity’ is nothing of the sort – it’s just an easy belief in God to shore up your own identity.

Here it is, in case you don’t recall is the verse by the man you were named after:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The
King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
me.’

Tony Houghton

If Mr.Parris is a true atheist ,why should he even care what happens to the people there or anywhere,its survival of the fittest,if one does not survive,oh well.If man is just a grown-up germ or a useless passion as some atheist writers have stated then why should and attribute meaning and worth to their meaningless lives.The attitude in this article seems to go against Mr.Parris’s belief system.But maybe ,in opposition to the atheist mindset people do matter and have worth because it has been endowed by their creator to be so and deep within everyone we know this to be true so we must seek to help them.

Grumpthasaurus

“Yet this cannot be so. Can my inability actually to see any desperate migrants throw some internal switch from Personal Moral Crisis to All’s Well? Or, to put it more analytically, how does an individual’s moral responsibility vary according to distance: distance not just geographically but in terms of social, family or national obligation?”

Yes it can be so. A world in which the fact of suffering somewhere in the world mandates a state of “personal moral crisis” in all cases would be a world of realised Hell. It would be a place wherein it was perpetually impossible to feel a sense of serenity or personal well being, because someone, somewhere was in misery. What an awful concept. And how POINTLESSLY and pompously overmoralistic.

Mike435

” If I really knew my duty I would try diligently to do it; and there are millions like me. We’re ready. But we’re honestly, mightily, daily confused about what we ought to do.”

No. He is merely rationalizing doing nothing. It is a dodge.

hobspawn

Aren’t we fortunate that we have self-confessedly cluless atheists to preach to us on Christian doctrine. Confusion, a companion of despair, is one of the devil’s chosen weapons, and an affliction that Parris is determined to overshare, because it is lonely being lost and scared.

The best thing you can do for migrants is to stop them embarking on the perilous journey in the first place. There are many ways to do that, but the most effective one has always been to spread enlightenment in the places they are fleeing. Sadly, our forebears were less confused about how to do that than we.

Millions of us honestly don’t know what our duty is to migrants – and Christianity doesn’t help

If, as I believe, the main difficulty that faces us in deciding moral duty is the difficulty of prioritising, our national religion is profoundly unhelpful

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Millions of us honestly don’t know what our duty is to migrants – and Christianity doesn’t help

If, as I believe, the main difficulty that faces us in deciding moral duty is the difficulty of prioritising, our national religion is profoundly unhelpful

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