Comment on Alton Towers bans people with anxiety from using disability pass

• bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is why people come over in small boats from France, because they see our empathy as something to be taken advantage of.

  Oh, actually, this isn’t true, usually it’s because they speak English. The UK is quite a nasty place for immigrants.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Is it much worse than the rest of Europe? Basically every european country seems to have a populist right wing anti immigration movement

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  • tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s not though. All the major cities have cultural hubs and communities where migrants can find their place amongst their brethren. It used to be one of our strengths.

    Compare that to Germany where even the Turks and Italians who have lived there for generations are still seen as oddities to be frowned on.

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    • bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The UK pretty consistently scores low compared to other emigration destination countries, and Germany consistently scores higher, actually.

      This is one of the mainstream media’s favourite pieces of propaganda. “we’re a soft touch, that’s why migrants come here!” it’s just completely transparently wrong, the reason migrants come here over other countries is because there used to be a British Empire that colonized half the world and as a result lots of people speak far better English than they do German or Swedish. Most of the countries people migrate from we had some hand in destabilizing too.

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      • tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I don’t know what to say other than the anecdote I gave above after living in Germany for a decade

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• flamingos@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is why people come over in small boats from France, because they see our empathy as something to be taken advantage of. And it works for them.

  I don’t know how you can see abysmal living conditions, hate crime and being subjected to attempted pogroms as ‘works for them’. I’ve linked you stuff in the past telling about how bad conditions are for asylum seekers, I’m honestly getting sick of pushing back on your vibes based, callous anti-asylum seeker rhetoric for it to constantly fall on deaf ears.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’m not anti asylum seeker. I’m anti people taking advantage of the system for legitimate asylum seekers. There are people coming over from France. France isn’t that bad. Also in addition, there’s been attempted pogroms here.

    I can’t remember the statistic, but the majority of asylum seekers don’t even come over in small boats. They’re typically legal immigrants who cannot return home or extend their visa. I’m talking about the widely condemned human trafficking industry that takes advantage of our system to make a business of bringing people across the channel.

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    • flamingos@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m not anti asylum seeker. I’m anti people taking advantage of the system for legitimate asylum seekers.

      Unless you’re from Ukraine or Hong Kong, there’s no way to claim asylum in the UK that doesn’t first involve entering the country illegally.

      I can’t remember the statistic, but the majority of asylum seekers don’t even come over in small boats.

      About half of asylum applications come across in boats.

      I’m talking about the widely condemned human trafficking industry that takes advantage of our system to make a business of bringing people across the channel.

      I also want to stop the boats and the exploitative gangs doing this, but any approach that isn’t opening up safe and legal routes for applications to be made is just advocating for everyone else to bear the burden of global instability the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

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      • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        There is. I’ve known a few people personally in fact who were from places like Iran who had entered the UK legally, and then their personal situation changed and they couldn’t return home, thus they applied for asylum. And got accepted as well.

        I also want to stop the boats and the exploitative gangs doing this, but any approach that isn’t opening up safe and legal routes for applications to be made is just advocating for everyone else to bear the burden of global instability the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

        Sounds like we’re more in agreement than disagreement then?

        I assume you mean there hasn’t. I think it’s a pretty apt way to describe a mob descending on a hotel to try and burn it down because asylum seekers are inside.

        No? There has. People in the UK have attacked migrant hotels and even a few got attacked in Larne a while ago during the summer.

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      • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I also want to stop the boats and the exploitative gangs doing this, but any approach that isn’t opening up safe and legal routes for applications to be made is just advocating for everyone else to bear the burden of global instability the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

        Safe, legal routes are key, but are also a way to do the opposite of having “everyone else […] bear the burden”, because in a world where refugees are not seen as a global problem to be handled multilaterally to ensure the burden is shared, making it easier to claim asylum means you’ll receive a higher share.

        This can end up with people talking at cross-purposes because in any disagreement there can be a reluctance to address the numbers: what level of immigration is the right one? We need to balance

        1. bringing young people into the country to offset our ageing native born population
        2. our obligations to refugees
        3. the societal problems that come from rapid change in the balance of cultures. To be explicit, I’m not talking about “white replacement” here, I’m talking about what happens to a society - let’s take a coastal Spanish town for a reverse example - and dump a bunch of immigrants - English retirees there - at a high rate. The local population is liable, reasonably in my view, to be annoyed if a load of people arrive and don’t integrate well.

        So what rate will balance those three things? I dunno, but looking at how migration has changed over the last few decades, it’s not surprising that we are seeing a lot more annoyance under the third item.

        the UK played a disproportionate role in creating.

        I don’t think this kind of thinking is very productive though. Maybe the UK as a country does bear some responsibility, but whether it is disproportionate is hard-to-impossible to quantify. Most small boat arrivals over the past few years are from Iran. Should UK citizens now be considered responsible for the actions of our government over 70 years ago? For a counter-coup that could never have been foreseen? Or should radical repressive Islamists bear more of that responsibility?

        The next largest contingent is Afghanistan - but the UK went into Afghanistan with as part of a large multi-national coalition, so just what proportion of the responsibility is ours?

        The next largest is Iraq - where we certainly bear a higher portion of the blame.

        Then comes Albania - I don’t know anything we’ve done to fuck them up. (Arrivals from Albania are now very low)

        Next comes Syria - again I don’t believe Britain has any responsibility for the situation there.

        But if we are to incorporate this thinking into policy, it can’t come as some kind of thought-terminator, “we did bad things in the world, so we have to be punished, so we must take whatever.” We need to have at least a rough idea of which countries we have adversely affected, how significantly, and therefore roughly how many people that means we ought to take as some kind of reparation.

        Otherwise, it’s a non-starter; it wouldn’t provide any practical guidance, so it would be little more than virtue signalling.

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• bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  a lot of the rough sleepers they come across aren’t really helping themselves nor extremely interested in actually getting help

  Unhoused people more often than not have quite a series of issues which are at odds with them helping themselves or proactively seeking help. I think this is the issue with most cases like this where people think others are “exploiting” the system, simply because they don’t know what it’s like to live that person’s life, you know what I mean?

  Either way, no matter how many people really do abuse benefits, it doesn’t come anywhere close to the exploitation that the ruling class subject us to.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A lot of people probably could be rehabilitated through either rehab programmes or adequate mental health support. Possibly the majority if not all.

    it doesn’t come anywhere close to the exploitation that the ruling class subject us to.

    Facts.

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    • bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Oh yeah, for sure, no doubt - if there was any funding available for such programmes. All the research on this points pretty conclusively towards prioritising getting unhoused people into stable accomodation first and foremost, it’s impossible to recover from PTSD living on the streets for example, and we would also need a robust public health focused approach to drugs, e.g. decriminalizing drugs and treating them as a health issue rather than a criminal one. That, plus funding the NHS appropriately, esp. mental health, would work miracles and change so many people’s lives.

      But instead the bastards running the show would rather loot the public purse for all it’s worth to line their pockets before getting a cushy 6 figure job as a lobbyist.

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• Hacksaw@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  There isn’t a single homeless person successfully taking advantage of society. If you’re “successfully” scamming society, why are you destitute??

  Lots of homeless are assholes, belligerent, alcoholic, drug addicts, disregard laws, rules, and procedures. But they’re not “taking advantage”. If they were UNFAIRLY benefiting then they would by definition have more than the bare minimum required to live a decent life, not LESS. It’s the system that’s depriving all of us of the necessities of a dignified life, putting them behind a paywall.

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