Frau Merkel makes a Palestinian kid cry on national TV

[traininthedistance]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33555619

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Just... wow.  This is the mask slipping.  Who cares about mercy, who cares about humanitarian imperatives.   Who cares, even, that Germany is a rich country with falling birthrates that not only could in fact handle a "flood" of immigrants, but needs that flood to stay on top.

Who cares about all of that.  Much like with Greece, those swarthy Southerners don't get to count in Germany's pure, hard, unsentimental moral calculus.  

Try to play-act at being comforting all you want, Ms. Merkel, it's fooling nobody.  The policies (and attitudes behind those policies) that you push, and that are supported by, seemingly, most Germans, are inexorably in contradiction with anything resembling "comfort" or "humanity".

Good gravy.

[traininthedistance]

Good for her for having the courage to say that to someone's face rather than pandering while simultaneously vetoing asylum behind a desk like every other politician.

The "courage" of being open about one's status as a heartless bastard is not something I'm inclined to award any brownie points for.

What would be real courage, especially in Germany it seems, is not being a heartless bastard in the first place.

[traininthedistance]

1 like = 1 tear.

More seriously, the fact that a supposedly serious (and publically funded) source of news like the BBC puts this irrelevant and pointless clickbait on their website does make one wonder. Besides, what is she supposed to do? Reverse government policy on the basis of one teary eyed little girl? Be reasonable.

Their government's policy was already unreasonable and in dire need of reversal before this incident.  However, this is powerful demonstration of the how and why that, hopefully, might get through to some folks who haven't thought about the issue beyond nationalistic sloganeering.

[traininthedistance]

Dude, all (well almost all) European countries are as bad as each other wrt the issue of refugees and asylum seekers. From a British point of view the unusual thing here is that a leading politician actually met an asylum seeker: we prefer to keep them concentrated in camps.

That's why I'm proud to be an American.  USA!  USA!  USA!

(Yes I know that we suck on this issue as well, ugh.  But in our history and rhetoric we've tried to be better at times.)

[traininthedistance]

Dude, all (well almost all) European countries are as bad as each other wrt the issue of refugees and asylum seekers. From a British point of view the unusual thing here is that a leading politician actually met an asylum seeker: we prefer to keep them concentrated in camps.

That's why I'm proud to be an American.  USA!  USA!  USA!

(Yes I know that we suck on this issue as well, ugh.  But in our history and rhetoric we've tried to be better at times.)

At least in the US, the idea of the police checking people's immigration status out of mere suspicion is controversial...

In my part of the US, this is thankfully true!  But we contain multitudes, and some of those multitudes are Arizona.

[traininthedistance]

Staying "on top" by taking immigrants is not really a viable option in an ethnically defined nation states - at least only up to a point. Adjusting to a lower population (and maybe lower living standard) is preferable to a lot of people. It is a legitimate political choice about what kind of society you want and not an expression of evil or stupidity.

We should just accept the fact that the notion of "ethnically based nation-states" is a worthless relic of the past that shouldn't (and anyways won't) reflect what Western countries will be in the 21st century.

But is it? If so, why? What should nationhood be based on in the 20th century, if not?

It should be readily apparent that we are not yet "ready" (if we ever will be) for a single world-nation or, as the events in Europe should show, continent-nations. Hence it seems we should have nations, and they best be based on something.

Well, what is American nationhood based on?  

I have a fair bit of sympathy for historically oppressed groups that want their own nation in order to protect themselves.  I understand that, as a practical matter, it's easier to have economic, bureaucratic, and social ties with people who speak the same language as you.  (Note that this girl is a fluent German speaker, BTW.)  But freedom of movement is sacrosanct– it is not something that the majority, however defined, has any business curtailing.

[traininthedistance]

Transition to what?

Anyway, the issue of refugees ought to be decoupled from that of entirely voluntary immigration (which is always going to be contentious as an issue; like it or not). Or at least it's not politically clever for people who favour better treatment of refugees to fail to do so.

It's only "politically clever" to decouple the issues if you support better treatment of refugees but heavily-restricted voluntary immigration, which is a position that not many people actually take.  Ultimately, people's opinions on those issues tend to be strongly correlated for entirely obvious reasons, and as far as I'm concerned the best way to actually win better treatment for refugees is to advocate for an open rather than closed society more generally, a society that will not coincidentally be more welcoming of voluntary immigration as well.

American nationhood is based on civic values derived from its nature as a settler state. They cannot be grafted on to nations that formed by other means.

Why do only oppressed groups deserve nations? Do un-oppressed groups not have such a right?

I don't see any reason why other countries can't pivot to defining themselves based on shared civic values, as well.

And it's not that oppressed groups "deserve" nations; deserve isn't really in my vocabulary here.  It's that, in our imperfect world, nationhood is a practical response to the sorts of problems that are particular to oppressed groups, and also that non-oppressed groups use the rhetoric of nationhood as a way of oppressing their neighbors.  Take a look at Russia for the sort of dynamic I'm talking about.

[traininthedistance]

Ultimately, it's not what the politicians think, it's what the people think. And if the people want a closed society, then the best tactic is not to try and force an open society upon them, but to work to change national consciousness.

I don't disagree.  Of course, the whole point of a story like this is precisely to try and actually change that national consciousness, by pointing out what the whole "whoops! no more room in the inn! gotta preserve national character!" stance actually leads to. Far as I'm concerned, this is a case where both the cold hard numbers and the sob-story heartstring stuff both indicate that pulling up the drawbridges is a bad policy, and thus I'm happy to use both techniques to make that case.  And, once again, it's not that Merkel should be making case-by-case exceptions to it, it's that the system should be more open so that folks don't need to be groveling for pardons like this.

Also, thanks for showing up Tender and Thomas.  Your contributions are... appreciated.

[traininthedistance]

And now the Palestinian kid speaks out for the first time after that interview and - surprisingly - she's a fan of Merkel and what she said/did during their meeting:

"She listened to me and told her opinion, which I like. I'm happy that the Chancellor was so honest with me. I like honest persons like Frau Merkel. I would have been aggrieved if she was not honest to me."

https://twitter.com/ardmoma/status/621910481805021184

So she's taking the high road.  Good for her.

The girl's tears can be an call to work to deal with this, and can put a human face to these problems, but the practicalities in balancing competing needs are still difficult.

That's the thing, it's not that we're specifically demanding a pardon or anything (but hey pardons are a thing that exist), it's that her plight is a symptom/public face of a problem rather than the underlying reason why policy should be changed– there are other good reasons already.

That all changes, however, if the state becomes a truly multicultural society. People will cease to view the society as an extended family, as the society is no longer united by the same culture. As a result, people's willingness to accept high taxation will fall, as they will begin to ask why they have to pay into the services of persons with whom they have nothing in common. The welfare state will eventually cease to exist, as it loses its justification in a splintered society.

If the Left wants to transform the nation state into a multicultural society, they have to accept that that will, in the long term, also lead to the transformation of that state into a neoliberal society.

So, this is why we can't have nice things, basically. I would rather work towards a conception of society and humanity where we care about people who don't look or talk like us just as much.  I don't dispute that this is how a lot of people feel... but as a species, can't we learn to do better than that?