You condemn anything at all but the obvious. "Racist" people like me have been saying repeatedly, for years now, that there is a deep cultural/religious issue with a lot of ME/NA immigrants and refugees to Europe concerning their perceptions of women, their perceptions of our laws, their perceptions of our cultures. They have no respect for the police, they have no respect for women who don't come from their culture, in fact you could even say they are "racist" and proud of it, and encouraged to be so.
They certainly have no respect for men like you. Your primary worry seems to be to not to be perceived as "racist", truly the most awful thing that could happen to you apparently. It takes some massive cognitive dissonance to say with a straight face the ethnicity and culture of the perpetrators of these attacks is completely irrelevant, as if it could just as easily have been drunken groups of german guys, or polish guys, or etc. I'm sure the reaction from the regressives such as yourself would've been identical if that was the case, yes? I guess as a "centrist" it's easier to make vague, non-commital statements that literally mean nothing. "Oh it's so bad, but nothing can be done, /shrug, people who get angry at this are obviously racists, arabs and north africans aren't particularly overrepresented in these sorts of crimes, only a racist would say that, it's just assholes in general". Keep dancing around the obvious issue, or you could just retreat to your feinting couch and "stop instantly" whenever you perceive wrongthink, as you usually do. .
It's probably the first time that you actually write "a lot of ME/NA immigrants and refugees" instead of just "all of them". And now I can actually agree with it for the most part.
How can we have a proper discussion about something if the terminology is all over the place?
I do see most of the issues that you see. Yes, probably a lot of young men do not treat or respect women as our societies in Europe do, for the most part. It's not like it's unheard of that some lower social and educational layers of the French/German/UK (and all the others) society have a lot of young men talking "bitch" and how they need "to get fucked real hard all day long, that cunt". Can you truly say that there is no lack respect in certain social circles amongst "true" French dudes? We certainly have those kind of assholes in Germany. But again, yes, there is very likely a majority of young immigrant men who do not respect women - I am not arguing against your point there - merely saying that it's not solely to be found within the immigrants. Are those immigrant men more likely to actually "act on it" compared to our native assholes? Honestly, I do not know but prolly I tend more to say "yes" than "no" if I am forced to give an answer.
Not gonna go through your list in detail now but they are similar in the answer you'd get from me.
The new thing about Cologne was the scale. Women have been attacked at all times. But the amount and scale is new.
Domestic violence is a thing. At always was and it will be in the future. It's one of the major issues the police has to deal with on a daily basis. It is in itself nothing new.
I kinda lost myself at this point. Don't really remember what I wanted to write...
Anyway, one thing I would like to say too:
I had the chance to talk to a bunch of freshly arrived refugees since there is a tent camp directly next to my University building... at some point you just start talking with each other. Well, at least when they are able to communicate in basic English. Which is rare enough... unfortunately.
I talked to probably more than 10 refugees but let's just assume 10 to get the relations easier.
At least 8 of those 10 told me that they honestly do have a hard time to get their heads wrapped around all the freedoms people have. That they can say what they want, mostly do what they want and nobody seems to bothered with all the "crazy" things. But they all said that it's something they have to and want to learn. And that should be supported.
6 out of those 10 were drinking beer at 10am while talking with them... that's something worrying in my book.
And 9 out of 10 are moving and acting very carefully. They all said that they are very grateful for being here and getting a chance. But they all feel and realize the pressure inside the society. They don't wanna piss anyone off, no stress with the police, just a place to live and a job.
Arguably that is hardly representative but neither is Cologne.
There are assholes and there are non-assholes. It's up to the police and the law to filter the assholes out. The mechanisms for dealing with assholes are already in place. It's time to use them properly.
For example, I have no idea why the police in Cologne did not intervene there. And that is a different but not less important matter.
The right to use violence is within the State. So, why wasn't it used? I am all for the use of force in such occasions.
I don't feel like I am dancing around the issue. But I don't wanna pre-judge anyone just based on the place where he/she is coming from.
Edit:
Koln police were completely overwhelmed. One of the victims was a policewoman herself. And this is only in Koln. Same thing happened in other german cities, Frankfurt drawing a little bit of attention as well. Police authority is mostly an illusion. All it takes is a large enough and motivated enough group to realize they outnumber the police and they are completely powerless. Especially german police that have been hamstrung by ridiculous "rules of engagement", slashbacked budgets everywhere and a topdown drive to make women police officers more common. And oooh do woman police officers enrage these assholes. The jails were so full they literally could not take any more offenders, even if they had wanted to.
And there's pressure from the government to keep these sorts of delicate issues under the rug. It's why the reports of New Year's Eve from Koln police were initially "all quiet on the western front", as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It took local news and social media pressure for the government and state media to even begin to accept it happened at all, much less to adress the issue.
This is at least my impression from the outside, although I am not german and do not live there.
This is pretty much true.
Tho it should have been easy enough to get a few hundred officers from other places and a rather short amount of time.
They managed to protect the fucking G7 with 24.000 officers...
Why not? Why it won't solve a problem with refugees, at least partially? And to be honest I don't understand why it's so big issues, closing borders. It's not like all people around the world have some divine right to go wherever they want.
Guns don't kill people... It's like saying that in the early nineties polakos didn't steal cars in germany, thieves did. But we did!
...cuz they gonna find a way around the fence eventually. And then what? Shoot them?
Just because you closed the border doesn't mean they suddenly say "Oh, well, goes I'm not fleeing then! Unpack the bags, kids."
And can hardly let them freeze or starve to death at your border, can you?
It's naive to think that closing borders will solve anything.
And it weren't only Polish who stole cars. Russians too. Pretty much the whole Eastern block. But hey, Poland prolly held the crown back then, that's true
2016 is going to be a hell of a year
I'm afraid so.