Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

German Quandary of How to Deal With Anti-Immigration Movement

From the NY Times:
DRESDEN, Germany — German leaders are struggling with how, and how much, to engage with supporters of a protest movement formed around fears of an “Islamization” of their country.

Local leaders have started reaching out to supporters of the group known by its German acronym, Pegida, or the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, to listen to their complaints and try to forestall the movement. Although still largely confined to Dresden, it has found sympathizers in other cities across Germany...

But concerns about Pegida’s roots, as well as its support from neo-Nazis and extremists, have tainted the group’s motives and created a split among elected officials over how seriously they should take some of the group’s grievances about the country’s immigration and social fabric.

There is no quandary. As I said in my post about the New Left Crow, the reason the Neo-Nazis are able to capitalize on the issue is because the Left has made it impossible for "regular folks" to air their concerns in public without being labelled. And it is also the idea that certain ideas are inherently "racist" or "xenophobic" rather than legitimate concerns about national identity and the obligations government has to its citizens FIRST AND FOREMOST.

Stop vilifying the people and their concerns and the neo-nazis get little support because they can no longer own the issues.

It's that easy.