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Prior to announcing the resettlement of Syrian refugees, Rutland Mayor Louras held secret meetings with representatives of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, the State Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and Gov. Peter Shumlin.
Every other day there has been a terror attack in Germany, and now a French priest has been murdered by Muslims.
Do the residents of Rutland and nearby areas feel that their rights have been trampled on because they have had no say in the decision to settle Muslim refugees in Rutland?
Last edited by mjazz; 07-27-2016 at 02:14 PM..
Reason: spelling
There will always be opponents to outsiders joining the group, unless they are fertile females. It's a primate thing.
Had the mayor been more forthright about it, the opposition would still have been there and been just as vehement.
It takes a "civilized" mind to overcome our natural instinct to exclude, but apart from the "civilizing" influence of the religions and philosophies we have developed which help us go against the grain of instinct, such inclusiveness has been one of the reasons the human race has come to be the dominant species.
Since we are programmed excellently to respond to threat, the opponents of the policy will always be more vehement and more committed despite their smaller numbers. People would in the drop of a hat favor the policy if they perceived the immigrants were useful allies in meeting a greater imminent threat.
So, maybe we can get all the people who think Obama is a Kenyan socialist to persuade everybody that Syrians can stop the virus that's spreading from Area 51, which would be one way of solving the problem.
I do not live in Rutland but I do live in Rutland County. I think the whole argument is so stupid. I think Louras is doing the right & humane thing. These people have lost everything-their livelihoods, homes and maybe even families have been destroyed. I think most people are playing into the fear that these people aren't like us-i.e. they are Muslim and therefore must be feared because they might be terrorists. I like to think that if I were to lose my home for whatever reason-that there would be kind-hearted people who will help me.
Is the opposition to the Syrians coming to Rutland any different than any of these signs?
And a little FYI: Rutland was built by people from Italy, Wales, Ireland, Russia, Germany, and many other places. "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free."
I think the whole argument is so stupid. [...] These people have lost everything-their livelihoods, homes and maybe even families have been destroyed.
Exactly - if anything, these refugees are more anti-ISIS than the most ardent Trumpista. These are people who've lost their home and hearth due to ISIS and totalitarian dictatorships (Assad). As long as they're properly vetted - and the U.S. refugee review is a 12-to-24 month process involving numerous international background and criminal checks and multiple interviews - then we should welcome them and given them shelter.
To the extent there's a concern about some of them becoming anti-American terrorists later, my feeling is that a lot of that extremism probably develops *in reaction to* prejudice and segregation and other negative reactions that they receive after coming here, rather than pre-existing desires to hurt the U.S.
Typically, if there's going to be any negative sentiment, it comes in the second generation. The immigrant parents expect their kids to behave the way the kids used to in the old country, but the kids adapt to our kids' customs and values. If the parenting is rigid and authoritarian, some of the kids are quite likely to cope by acting out-- dropping out, becoming petty criminals, or adopting a gang lifestyle, etc. The abused ones might very well retaliate by striking out against society much later in life.
There's not too much we can do for Rutlanders who are opposed to immigration. It would be nice if they would realize that this problem exists because we fell for the lies the government peddled about Iraq after 9/11. We are, in effect, paying for our government's sins.
I don't live in Rutland but I live in the county. The supporters are more vocal than the opponents but I'd say Rutland is evenly split between those for it and those against it.
To CatwomanofVT I'd say those signs have nothing in common with the opposition to refugees heading to Rutland. The difference is that every other group was capable of assimilating, and did assimilate as quickly as they were given a chance. Arab & African Muslims never assimilate but rather demand their new communities adopt Islamic cultural norms. The first 100 people won't have the clout to make a lot of demands but once the count gets up to a 1,000 or 2,000 they will, and the demands will be unyielding. They do not compromise. I am awe struck by the people who think these immigrants are no different than the Italians and Greeks of 100 years ago. There are no parallels whatsoever.
This is going to be nothing short of a disaster for Rutland. These people will be uneducated & unskilled. Working the minimum wage jobs the Mayor is so excited about just means they will be on food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid and any other entitlement they can get themselves onto for the rest of their lives. Yes some slum lords will make money but its not going to help the city. Come the 1st rape of a woman or pubescent boy by one of these refugees such as there is an epidemic of in Europe since their refugee influx and people like my wife and other women I have heard from will no longer shop in Rutland. Similarly there will be people who choose not to buy a house in Rutland because of this. Why should they subject themselves to the even higher property taxes that providing services to these refugees will incur? Perhaps more importantly why in the world would potential home buyers want their kids in Rutland schools weighted down by Islamic cultural demands?
The worst part of this is that once it starts, the influx never stops. I am so glad that there aren't any apartments, public transportation, or services in my town. Hopefully that'll keep them out of our schools.
Well, my experience has been that African-Americans never had the chance to assimilate quickly but, given our cultural attitudes since Tilden-Hayes, might be able to within the next 100 years.
The reason that these refugees might be arriving penniless is that the average payment to be smuggled out of Syria to Europe is in the neighborhood of $13,000. I don't think you're going to find too many uneducated and unskilled people in this population.
One Chechen refugee was a doctor; despite his heroic work with both Chechens and Russian soldiers, he was allowed in only through the intervention of well-connected supporters, and he was never able to get practicing privileges in America. The last I heard, he was a sports team's medical assistant. His story is told in The Oath.
We have institutional and cultural biases which serve to strengthen our insularity and damage our potential for improving our communities.
Meanwhile, I advise everyone to be very, very wary of people with brown eyes and dark hair. They might be Moslems.
It would be wonderful if the refugees are all educated skilled people with money to invest in the community. Some might be but most will not. One need only look at the statistics concerning refugees years after they arrive. Their rate of being on entitlements is far beyond the US population as a whole.
Economics aside, for me the larger issue is assimilation. I am OK with any immigrant group coming in so long as their intent is to assimilate and become full Americans. I grew up with a lot of Italian immigrants in the neighborhood and had good friends that were Greek immigrants. I have a sister-in-law from China. My mother's family came down from Quebec. My daughter has good friends who came from the Ukraine. One of my wife's friends when a little girl in the 50's escaped from Hungary with her family. In every case, the immigrants assimilated as quickly as they could. That is the way it has worked with pretty much all immigrant groups, except for Arab & African Muslims. They instead make one demand after another that we change. They don't want to adopt Western culture, let alone American culture.
Turning Rutland into Little Damascus is not going to be a good thing.
I don't live in Rutland but I live in the county. The supporters are more vocal than the opponents but I'd say Rutland is evenly split between those for it and those against it.
To CatwomanofVT I'd say those signs have nothing in common with the opposition to refugees heading to Rutland. The difference is that every other group was capable of assimilating, and did assimilate as quickly as they were given a chance. Arab & African Muslims never assimilate but rather demand their new communities adopt Islamic cultural norms. The first 100 people won't have the clout to make a lot of demands but once the count gets up to a 1,000 or 2,000 they will, and the demands will be unyielding. They do not compromise. I am awe struck by the people who think these immigrants are no different than the Italians and Greeks of 100 years ago. There are no parallels whatsoever.
This is going to be nothing short of a disaster for Rutland. These people will be uneducated & unskilled. Working the minimum wage jobs the Mayor is so excited about just means they will be on food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid and any other entitlement they can get themselves onto for the rest of their lives. Yes some slum lords will make money but its not going to help the city. Come the 1st rape of a woman or pubescent boy by one of these refugees such as there is an epidemic of in Europe since their refugee influx and people like my wife and other women I have heard from will no longer shop in Rutland. Similarly there will be people who choose not to buy a house in Rutland because of this. Why should they subject themselves to the even higher property taxes that providing services to these refugees will incur? Perhaps more importantly why in the world would potential home buyers want their kids in Rutland schools weighted down by Islamic cultural demands?
The worst part of this is that once it starts, the influx never stops. I am so glad that there aren't any apartments, public transportation, or services in my town. Hopefully that'll keep them out of our schools.
You have just proven my point that those signs of yesteryear are very much the same thing that is going on with these refugees. You used the same argument that the people who put up those signs. "Those people are not like us. They will force their will on us. We don't want them polluting our way of life." Where is the evidence that they demand their new communities adopt Islamic cultural norms. Are you talking about wanting to build a mosque-like Jews wanting to build a synagogue, or Christian denominations wanting to build a church? I am quite sure that these people will be grateful to live in a place where they don't have to worry that they will be bombed out of their homes and fear for their lives on a daily basis that they will be willing to do what it takes to become an American. There are many who came to this country from the Middle East who are Muslim who have become American as you & me. They just happen to worship a different god. And as each group enters our melting pot, we ALL become more enriched.
And for your information, most of these refugees are well educated. More Syrians have college educations than Americans.
If these folks were educated Mayor Louras wouldn't be justifying their arrival on the basis that there are a lot of minimum wage jobs for them. We'll all see soon enough.
After they build their mosque let's see how long before they complain about restaurants and bars in the neighborhood serving alcohol. After Rutland builds its new pool, let's see if they demand that times be set aside for only women to swim so as to protect the modesty of their women. Let's see how long it takes before they demand no pork products in school cafeterias. Let's see if they demand no Halloween decorations in the schools or the city being asked to tone down the annual Halloween parade. Let's see if they demand the hospital change its staffing mix or that school gym and sports attire be changed to match their sense of modesty. While none of these things are earth shaking on the eaches, they are part of the never-ending string of demands that Muslims have made in other communities. Other immigrant groups don't demand that we change. It is not our responsibility to make changes so that we don't offend them. It is instead their responsibility to adapt to Western culture, but that is not what happens when sizeable groups of Muslims come into a community. The 1st 100 won't be too bad, but each year there will be another 100 or more being added. These programs never have an end date. I thus look at this as there being several thousand Arab Muslims coming to Rutland, not 100.
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