[netsharc]

My theory is, people want to survive, and they are selfish in order to make sure they do. They first would want to make sure their well-being. Next they would care about their family's survival. Next, their tribe's survival. How big is the tribe, is it the same village, or the same nation, or is it the same race/culture background?

And "survival" can be an abstract term. Most people in Western Europe have a warm place to sleep and enough to eat to survive. But maybe they worry about rising prices and worry if they'll have enough (if their government will have enough for them) to retire in 20-30 years. They see their neighbor who got laid off and is still looking for a job months later. Their government says they need to cut some social safety nets because of austerity, and then they hear about the government saying refugees are welcome, with money from... where?

My belief is, Angela Merkel basically became the leader of Europe and her (and her finance minister's) disastrous austerity policies lead to so much unhappiness all over Europe, even in Germany itself. As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being.

Germany isn't an economic hero, it's exploiting the effects of the single currency while other countries around it are suffering economically. And this has also lead to the rise of populism all over Europe.

[dang]

You've broken the request above to keep political rhetoric out of the thread. Independently of whether your point is correct or not, this has a reliably degrading effect on discussion.

By no means is it a coincidence that the flamebait bit of your comment is precisely the one other users respond to. Flames start fires. Please don't start them on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[titanix2]

> As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being.

This kind of moralistic stance is part of what people drives towards populist parties: being denied even the right to hold an opinion makes people angry. We totally have the right to chose who can come in our country and under which conditions. And that applies to refugees as well. This is not a problem of begin "human" or not, it is about making decisions that will have impact for decades on the European societies.

[mamon]

Additionally, they are not refugees at all. By international law's definition they stop being refugees when they reach the first safe country, which for most of them is Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or other Middle East/African country.By the time they decide to go to Europe they are just plain old immigrants, seeking for better life standard, and we should treat them as such.

So far the most reasonable approach to the refugee issue was proposed by Hungarian Prime Minister, who wants EU to help them right there, in the Middle East, instead of letting them in.

[matt4077]

You'll be happy to know that, by and large, your wish is actually truth: Of the ten million or so refugees from Syria, 8+ million are in Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_W...

[pjc50]

There were plenty of refugees turned away prior to WW2 who ended up in the extermination camps. This is where the 1951 international convention on refugees comes from.

Also, nobody's saying you don't have the right to hold that opinion, it's just that if you do we're going to have an extremely negative opinion of you.

[netsharc]

Well, I'm not a law-making politician, I'm not denying anyone of anything. But it seems like a convenient deflection from self-reflection (what if what I said is right?); just be outraged and say it's my fault that people are joining populist parties.

I do agree about the impact, and at least for Germany, the half-assed way the government is handling the crisis will lead to a lot of pain and grief, on both sides (the refugees and the native population)

As the mods say, let's just stay out of the politics.

[reitanqild]

Let me try to be nuanced here:

I'm a friendly man who tries to make foreigners lives in my home country better, regardless of where they come from.

A lot of what you say makes sense.

But at the end I think you get very harsh while also being partly wrong (If I read you correctly.)

You say: "As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being."

As far as I'm aware nobody has the right to be in another country than those that they belong to, except when it is agreed otherwise (visas, visa free zones, international rules about refugees etc).