Does 'progressive racism' exist?

[carepov]

Not saying there weren't always small groups of criminals, but the level of violence rose enormously after we opened up immigration to third world countries in the early 70s.

I am sceptical, if this were true:

Why has the Canadian crime rate and specifically violent crime rate been in decline since 1992?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CanadaViolentCrime.gif

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11692-eng.htm#a1

Why is Toronto's violent crime index lower than the Canadian average? And how can you explain the dramatic decreases in violent crime severity from 2009-2012 in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Canada#cite_note-Police-reported_crime_severity_indexes.2C_by_census_metropolitan_area.2C_2011-6

[cybercoma]

Like the typical progressive, you have no interest in logical discussion

Oh really, Argus? You know when it comes to corporate America, you too would be lumped in with progressives.

[dre]

No, we actually don't. There are plenty of unemployed amongst the low skilled/low education set. All bringing in masses of low skill workers does is further depress wages and lead to increaed unemployment among stuch people, many of whom give up, stop trying, and wind up on welfare forever.

Its hard to even get Canadians to do manual labor. Shortage in the agricultural sector are chronic across the country. The number of foreign workers in the agricultural sector has doubled since 2007, The government has created programs like the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program to try and fill the void, mostly with workers from Mexico and the Caribbean.

[cybercoma]

In violence, for one.

Can you elaborate on that? What are some other style gangs? How do they differ in violence? Can you give me some examples?

[cybercoma]

Not saying there weren't always small groups of criminals, but the level of violence rose enormously after we opened up immigration to third world countries in the early 70s.

Yet, according to the statistics, violent crime is the lowest it has been since....well, the early 70s. So you need to flesh out this argument of yours a bit better. I'm not saying I disagree with you yet because I think I see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure.

Edited October 28, 2013 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

Remember that most low income Canadians pay no income taxes.

Good thing you qualified that with income taxes, since you know very well that they pay all sorts of other taxes. Also, the tax exemption is roughly half of full-time minimum wage (depending on province), so they do pay income taxes, CPP, & EI like everyone else. They're certainly not getting reductions in their rate for TSFAs and RRSPs because they have no saveable income.

[-1=e^ipi]

Have to catch on some replies... :/

Well, if we're going to be precise, how could anyone think any policy is 'optimal' ? A better way to characterize it as "in need of change" or not.

Not optimal means in need of change, or things would be better if the policy became closer to what is optimal. One can use economic models/theories and statistical data to estimate optimal policies.

I'll give you an example: I think that the optimal amount of tariffs between Canada and the US is zero.

I'll give you another example: If one accepts that recent global warming / climate change is primarily human caused, that the negatives of climate change out way the positives of climate change, that the net negatives of climate change exceed the costs of implementing policies to combat climate change, and that reducing C02 emissions is a more effective method of preventing climate change than alternatives (like making a giant space mirror or pumping sea water into clouds to increase albedo) then one can use the approach of cost-benefit analysis (that is monetizing how much people value the environment, calculating the costs of adaptation, calculating the costs of mitigation, determining the appropriate interest rate, etc.) plus statistical data to estimate the optimal level of pigouvian taxes on CO2 emissions.

Anyway the paper uses the methodology of econometrics to test a model / hypothesis that the human capital quality for immigrants varies based on origin of country. It finds that the variation among countries of human capital quality is statistically significant. As for bringing more papers into the discussion, if you do not understand the first paper, what is the purpose in introducing more? It would only complicate the discussion when clearly you refuse to accept the idea that the paper I posted suggests that Canada should change it's immigration policy to account for the fact that the human capital quality varies based on country of origin and therefore the immigration policy should either use statistical data based on past immigrants to modify the point system to favor immigrants from countries with higher human capital quality or rely more on "cognitive and professional accreditation tests" to determine who gets to immigrate to Canada.

A better question might be why are so many posters in this threat so absolutely close minded to the idea that maybe immigrants from some countries are better than immigrants from other countries (this could be due to a number of reasons, be if islamism, human capital quality, economic performance, work ethic, etc.)? If you guys were a bit more open minded then perhaps we can have a more interesting conversion such as 'which immigrant groups the government favor?', 'what factors should we consider when deciding which immigrants should be favored?', 'how can these factors be measured and to what uncertainty?'. But instead your guys are close minded and refuse to even acknowledge that perhaps some immigrant groups (say South Koreans) perform better and integrate better than other immigrant groups (say Somalians). Concede me this point and perhaps we can have a more productive conversation, but at this point I think you are just trying to cling to some dogmatic progressive ideals such as cultural relativism.

If it's so ridiculous, then disprove it. You make elementary errors all over the place, then try to pretend you didn't.

Already did that. Please provide a better example of 'Somalian immigrants performing better than Chinese immigrants' or back off from your earlier claim that you can use statistics to prove whatever you want.

Will you just admit to your flip flopping on this ? I can't keep track of whether you want to use that original study or not.
How does working backwards from an errant observation "eliminating all other possibilities". There are many other possibilities, especially because you're playing with variables that are not independent. Do you understand what I mean ?

See the problem is you don't understand regression models / econometrics. GDP isn't a good proxy for how important cultural effects are for how well immigrants integrate into Canadian society, because there are other factors that affect the economic performance of immigrants besides culture (such as amount of education, amount of work experience, quality of education, quality of work experience, amount of physical capital, etc.). However, if one creates an econometric model that includes all important non-cultural factors that affect the economic performance of immigrants and finds that what is left (after subtracting the non-cultural factors) is statistically significant and that the econometric model fits the data well, then it stands to reason that most of what remains will be due to cultural effects, so what remains of GDP after subtracting important non-cultural effects is a good proxy for cultural factors that affect GDP.

Maybe it would be worth while to explain regression to you, but you are close minded to the idea that maybe Canada should have a policy to favour immigrants from some countries over others, so i'm not sure what use it would be.

Dogmatic methodology ? What is that ? It should be clear what I was saying about your method, and why I was saying it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma

You didn't have a hypothesis - you looked at the RESULTS and drew conclusions apart from any hypothesis. No real statistician would do that.

Huh? If you are only allowed to draw conclusions that agree with your hypothesis then that is dogma! Not science.

You can't create any kind of indicator variables for culture with any accuracy. This is another mistake on your part. There is no "culture metric" that you can read from a person like a temperature.

Yes, yes you can. Economists have done it for decades and will continue to do it. The paper I linked calculates human capital quality with some decree of accuracy, and human capital quality is an indicator variable of culture (as culture can affect human capital quality; example: cultures with good work ethic will generally have a higher human capital quality that those cultures with poor work ethic). And again, I'm not going to link you to more and more papers until you understand the first one.

You strike me as somebody who learned about stats and want to use it to do everything. But you don't understand the difference between subjective/objective as I pointed out.

I don't get how the distinction between subjective and objective prevents society from using econometrics or cost benefit analysis to guide policy decisions. Do you prefer policy decisions be based on ideology (like extreme 'progressivism' or traditional 'conservatism') rather than be based on evidence and reasoning?

1) Looking at data, then working backwards to a conclusion.
2) Confusing objective and subjective.
3) The fact that you haven't got a study to support your thesis
4) That you expect others to disprove your claims
5) You flip flop constantly on whether your studies prove your case or not.

Nope to 2. Nope to 1 & 3, not to mention claims 1 & 3 are contradictory (1 implies dogmatic methodology, 3 implies non-dogmatic methodology). Nope to 4, I provided evidence to support my claims. And 5 is due to you not understanding my posts / being unfamiliar with econometric methodology. You list is merely a collection of lies, misunderstandings and false claims.

With regards to 5), in your last post, here you went yet again:
"could be a good proxy to use to test if different immigrant groups are 'integrating well'"
Could they ? Could they be ? Why so milquetoast ? If it IS a good proxy, then use it and say so. If it's NOT, don't hide under the blanket by saying "the study helps the discussion".

I say could be, because whether something is a good indicator variable / proxy or not depends on the quality of the data. So I cannot make a certain claim about if something is a good proxy or not without examining the data. Perhaps a definition would be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_variable_(statistics)

I don't understand how earning power is a proxy for suitability and fit to Canada, and it's up to you to show how it could be.

I also showed you very explicitly how GDP/capita as a metric is meaningless, and I did this to explain that no metric you can produce will ever provide a true worth of an individual to the country.
You didn't acknowledge the Saudi Arabia example - why not ? You retracted an early claim - I liked that because it felt like we were working together to make some kind of mutual progress.

Sigh, I explained this above. I never claimed that GDP/capita is a good 'metric' of the suitability of immigrants. You can keep trying to claim I did but it isn't true. I suggested that taking GDP/capita and subtracting the effects of non-cultural factors (like work experience, education, physical capital) using regression analysis can give something that could be a good indicator (and the 'could' is there because the quality of the statistical data can vary).

4) That you expect others to disprove your claims

That's your response for my request "Could you at least list some potential threats to the west that come close enough to par with islamism such that the issue of 'islamism being the biggest threat to the west in 2013' is at least debatable by people with a reasonable understanding of geopolitics?"? The fact that you have such difficulty to name even 1 threat that can be close to par with islamism is quite indicative of the reality today: Islamism is the greatest threat to the west in 2013 (much like totalitarian communism was during the cold war, and nazism was during WW2).

Hm ? I didn't see that link before. But Harper didn't say that at all.

The link speaks for itself: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harper-says-islamicism-biggest-threat-to-canada-1.1048280

You made a statement with unqualified terms, very unspecific, which I don't agree with.

Your response to my request for a definition of 'unqualified terms' uses 'unqualified terms' in its definition...

I proved that according to this stat, they're doing the worst of any group. Attacking the methodology is beside the point.

Lol? You cannot criticize methodology when examining whether something is 'proof' or not? What a bizarre definition of proof you must have!

Your methodology is no better.
And the problem isn't with econometrics, it's with your misinterpretation and misunderstanding of them.

Right... providing links to econometric studies by Canadian Universities with rigerous methodology is no better than some misleading graph you found on the internet that doesn't even say where it got the data from. *sarcasm*

Oh, please. You're missing the point again.

I really believe if you ran your test and found British immigrants and the bottom of the list you'd change the parameters. Do you know what a Tower of Babel is ?

I'm not missing the point. If you want to argue that GDP/capita of former countries is the only thing Canada should consider when determining which groups of immigrants should be favoured by the immigration system, you build a hypothesis (i.e. regression model) to test this vs other hypotheses, and you perform the econometric analysis that suggests that this hypothesis is true based on the data, then I am open minded enough to accept the results and change my opinion.

As for the tower of Babel, it's some nonsense Christian fairy tale. As for building tower of Babel, humans will one day build something much greater, it is called a space elevator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

I haven't read your posts to BH, and I don't care about some comedian's videos.

Pat Condell isn't a comedian...

Edited October 28, 2013 by -1=e^ipi

[-1=e^ipi]

Canada is no longer a credible "middle power" and could not defend sovereign interests if threatened by friend or foe.

Huh? Who is going to attack Canada or threaten our 'sovereignty' by military force? What kind of paranoia is this? Canada only borders one country and that country is our closest ally and world super power.

The entire developed work is allied with each each other. Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, etc. are all allied with each other. They are and will continue to be the dominant geopolitical force on Earth for decades. If one of our allies (and by this I mean allies that share strong cultural similarities, not allies out of convenience like Saudi Arabia) decides to get a stronger military, that isn't a threat, it makes us safer. Because of the overwhelming military dominance of NATO & allies, direct military threats to Canada from other nation states aren't a reality. The biggest threat remains attacks from non-nation states such as those done by islamic terrorist organizations.

Oh oh oh! I know this one!

Islamophobism.

Haha, very funny. But seriously, can anyone in this thread name something that is a bigger threat to Canada in 2013 than islamism?

However, it seems impossible to convince those on the Left that we should take any sort of broad geographical performance indicators (such as economic failure or success)from existing immigrants into account when recruiting new immigrants. And you'll excuse me for saying it but I believe the entire reason for that impossibility is colour. If all immigrants were the same colour I think the Left put up less of a stink over the idea of favoring the more economically successful immigrant source areas.

I agree. The refusal to even acknowledge the merits of using geographical performance indicators to guide immigration policy is a big issue.

I read the reports you linked in more detail than you did. Despite the author's obvious bias, the statistical analysis discounted the theory of 'source country characteristics' as a predictor of racial minority immigrants' economic success in Canada.

Instead, it raised the question of racism in hiring in Canada.

Are you referring to a previous thread that I am unaware of? Could you provide a link please?

Also, could you explain how studies about 'source country characteristics' of different countries could shed much light on the racism of hiring in Canada, since those studies group people based on nationalities rather than on race?

Economic success, perhaps, but value to Canada not. The benefits to Canada could be great even for a minimum wage earner, if they're generating enough economic activity.

Indeed, there are other factors that affect economic success and/or economic contribution to Canada. A person's wage can often differ from their 'marginal product of labour' or 'marginal social benefit' due to a variety of reasons for market failure (un-internalized externalities, public goods, tragedy of the commons, inefficient credit markets, inflexible wages, distortionary government intervention such as the minimum wage, etc.). There are also many ways that people can contribute to society outside of employment. However, economic contribution remains correlated with income, and just because it isn't a perfect correlation or just because it is difficult to measure other factors that contribute to social benefit doesn't mean that we shouldn't take income information into account when making immigration policy decisions.

[-1=e^ipi]

This shows a lack of understanding of how the economy works. We need unskilled wage earners every bit as much as we need engineers or doctors. Espcially in todays reality where we are trying to compete with countries who have an abundance of super cheap labor.

And economy might have high demand for people that pick fruit for 10 bux an hour. If we dont have those workers than fruit wont get picked or it will cost a lot more. But by your simplistic and fallacious criteria that would represent failed immigration policy.

I think that this shows a lack of understanding of economics. No society 'needs' unskilled wage earners to function (how would one even define a societal 'need' in economic terms?).

The wage isn't the only thing that matters to employers. How productive an employee is (which is affected by a variety of factors such as the worker's quantity of physical capital and human capital) are also relevant.

In the long run, wages tend to reflect the marginal product of labour. So a group of people can have a higher income than another group of people if they have more human capital (better education, more work experience) and more physical capital (tools and machinery to be used in their workplace). This is the primary reason why people in countries like western Europe earn more than people in say sub-saharan Africa.

So no, a society doesn't 'need' unskilled wage earners to compete. Japan, for example, doesn't have a very high immigration rate (especially by western standards) and has a low birth rate + declining/aging population. But rather than 'import unskilled labour' many people would prefer to replace the labour by robotics or improve the productivity of workers with better education/training and tools/equipment.

People who earn minimum wage don't really generate much economic activity, especially when you bear in mind that they have to be subsidized by taking money from other groups. Remember that most low income Canadians pay no income taxes. That means the rest of us have to pay more. Most get GST rebates, and many get other means tested subsidies which again have to be paid for by the rest of us.

Yes, income is correlated with benefit to society.

Edited October 28, 2013 by -1=e^ipi

[-1=e^ipi]

I agree that our immigration system is driven by politicians' desire to curry favour among ethnic (and left wing) voters. But we're speaking of what is good or bad for Canada, which is not something most politicians ever really take into consideration with reference to immigration.

I wouldn't even limit it to left wing politicians. Many immigrants generally are more traditionally minded or more conservative than native Canadians, so the right wing parties also stand to benefit. Take the issue of gay marriage. Most people in Canada support it but the majority of muslim immigrants do not. Also, many other immigrant groups are skeptical of it because it is not part of their culture.

I'm pretty sure that our economist PM has a better grasp on such topic than either you or me.

Might be a bit off topic here, but I'm skeptical of the quality of Stephen Harper's economics education, because he frequently supports policies that do not make much economic sense (lowering of the GST instead of lowering income or corporate taxes for example) and my impression is that his 1980's Albertan economics education might have been more political than anything.

Edited October 28, 2013 by -1=e^ipi

[Michael Hardner]

As for bringing more papers into the discussion, if you do not understand the first paper, what is the purpose in introducing more?

What makes you think I don't understand the paper ? I just don't think it shows that some immigrants are 'better' than others to use your words.

I just don't think we can use it to set immigration policy.

A better question might be why are so many posters in this threat so absolutely close minded to the idea that maybe immigrants from some countries are better than immigrants from other countries

We have just asked you - repeatedly - to provide some evidence of that.

Already did that. Please provide a better example of 'Somalian immigrants performing better than Chinese immigrants' or back off from your earlier claim that you can use statistics to prove whatever you want.

Ok, I'll back off from that, then. Since I already resubmitted my point once - here is a better statement: I can use a statistic to 'fake prove' that Chinese are doing the worst of all.

However, if one creates an econometric model that includes all important non-cultural factors that affect the economic performance of immigrants

Theoretically it could be done, but realistically you couldn't capture all of the factors as such. There are limits to human knowledge, and there's too much granularity to these factors to capture them all.

Maybe it would be worth while to explain regression to you, but you are close minded to the idea that maybe Canada should have a policy to favour immigrants from some countries over others, so i'm not sure what use it would be.[/font][/color]

Again - I just want you to provide some evidence. I'm not sure why you think I don't understand regression.

Huh? If you are only allowed to draw conclusions that agree with your hypothesis then that is dogma! Not science.

Yes, dogma, which is what you've used by looking at the data first before forming hypotheses.

Yes, yes you can. Economists have done it for decades and will continue to do it. The paper I linked calculates human capital quality with some decree of accuracy,

No, the paper certainly does not do that. YOU do that, and then you point at the paper repeatedly and say "look ! it's statistics" ... but you're the one misinterpreting the study.

And again, I'm not going to link you to more and more papers until you understand the first one.

I sincerely doubt you have other papers to provide, given the number of times I've asked you for them.

I don't get how the distinction between subjective and objective prevents society from using econometrics or cost benefit analysis to guide policy decisions.

Oh, it doesn't. But I didn't say that. Statistics are valid, econometrics are valid but you are incorrect when you decide on your own what the results mean, apart from what the study says.

Then you say that we don't understand it because we don't buy into your made-up conclusions.

Do you prefer policy decisions be based on ideology (like extreme 'progressivism' or traditional 'conservatism') rather than be based on evidence and reasoning?

No, you do this, when you look at the data prior to coming up with hypotheses.

You list is merely a collection of lies, misunderstandings and false claims.

Lies ? That's an accusation that could only come from a lack of self-confidence. If you had faith in your argument, you could just say that my list was the latter two.

No, you've been posting a combination of each of these errors pretty much every time.

Like when you posted "Islam is the number one threat to Canada" and then told me to prove it wasn't. Your "proof" was that Harper said that, and you posted a video ... but he didn't say it after all.

Oh well.

I say could be, because whether something is a good indicator variable / proxy or not depends on the quality of the data. So I cannot make a certain claim about if something is a good proxy or not without examining the data.

Well, it's a study YOU brought to the discussion. Did you not examine the data used by the study ?

Here's a reminder of what you've done again:

5) You flip flop constantly on whether your studies prove your case or not.

The fact that you have such difficulty to name even 1 threat

I can name a couple of threats, and threats that I believe are pertinent. If I did so, you'd undoubtedly start arguing about those threats, even though I'm only bringing them up to disprove your thesis.

But I have no desire to help you with your argument. Also, it's fundamentally incumbent on you to prove your point, not me. So far, you offered "proof" that Harper said Islamism is the biggest threat to Canada. Thankfully, he isn't so sloppy and imprecise with language as you are.

The link speaks for itself:

Yes, it does.

You cannot criticize methodology when examining whether something is 'proof' or something or not?

Of course you can. As it is with your completely flawed methodology of looking at data when determining a hypothesis. You seem to have forgotten that I was pointing out a flaw in your approach by showing a similarly bad approach. Attacking my similarly bad approach misses the point.

Right... providing links to econometric studies by Canadian Universities with rigerous methodology is no better than some misleading graph you found on the internet that doesn't even say where it got the data from. *sarcasm*

Except that the rigorous (spelling !) study is used to show something different, with only some lame slight-of-hand by you.

Oh, right - I hadn't sourced that graph yet. Here it is:

http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/communities/reports/poverty_profile/snapshot.shtml

"Most common visible minority group is Chinese

The breakdown by visible minority groups for racialized persons living in poverty is very similar to that for the total racialized population.

Close to a quarter (24%) of racialized persons living in poverty identified as belonging to the Chinese group, followed by South Asian (20%) and Black (18%)."

I'm not missing the point, if you want to argue that GDP/capita of former countries is the only thing Canada should consider when determining which groups of immigrants should be favoured by the immigration system, you build a hypothesis (i.e. regression model) to test this vs other hypotheses

Test this vs other hypotheses ? What is this hypothesis ? You haven't even stated one. You keep making elementary mistakes. Pick up your socks.

A hypothesis might be that there's a correlation between income and source country, for example. You could test for that. (Once again, I'm teaching you.)

Pat Condell isn't a comedian...

Right. From the Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Condell

"Patrick "Pat" Condell (born 1949 or 1950)[2] is a writer, comedian and"

Anyway...

Can you just trim your replies down please ? They take too much time to respond to and we're really not getting anywhere. I'm just going to ask you again to reply by restating a hypothesis, and providing some evidence. Maybe this thread just needs a fresh start, what do you think ?

[eyeball]

Haha, very funny. But seriously, can anyone in this thread name something that is a bigger threat to Canada in 2013 than islamism?

Promoting unfounded unreasonable fears for the purpose of pursuing a racist agenda is a very real threat. Seriously.

[dre]

Haha, very funny. But seriously, can anyone in this thread name something that is a bigger threat to Canada in 2013 than islamism?

Id honestly be suprised if "islamism" even made it onto the "Top 100 threats facing canadians" list.

I would list things like the cost of retiring the babyboom, and inflation in the cost of things like healthcare, and education as presenting much greater threats.... cancer... heart disease...

[-1=e^ipi]

What makes you think I don't understand the paper ?

Comments made earlier in this thread.

I just don't think it shows that some immigrants are 'better' than others to use your words.

So you don't think Canada should have a preference for immigrants with a high human capital quality? Because the paper, which attempts to measure the human capital quality of different immigrant groups, clearly shows that the human capital quality varies beyond statistical significance.

I just don't think we can use it to set immigration policy.

From the conclusion:

"if a country wants to adopt an immigrant selection policy based on a point system such

as that of Canada, then for the same number of years of schooling and of work experience, the number of

points should vary depending on the assessed quality of those years of schooling and work experience. In

particular, more points should be allocated if schooling (especially the highest diploma) and work

experience have been acquired in Canada than if they have been acquired in another country. Another and

possibly more efficient approach, would be to rely less on the number of years of schooling and of work

experience in selecting immigrants, and more on cognitive and professional accreditation tests."

Yet we can not use the results of the paper to justify changes to the immigration system?

Theoretically it could be done, but realistically you couldn't capture all of the factors as such. There are limits to human knowledge, and there's too much granularity to these factors to capture them all.

I said all important factors, not all factors. The non-culture important factors would include: amount of schooling, work experience, quality of schooling, quality of work experience, level of proficiency of languages, amount of physical capital per capita, average number of hours worked per week, and mean age of different immigrant groups. If you want to add more to the list of important factors and expand the model fine. Either way, I would like to challenge you to come up with at least 1 'un-measurable' factor (either directly or indirectly through a proxy variable) to the incomes of different immigrant groups that is on par with the importance of culture. And even if it isn't possible to measure or estimate the cultural influence on immigrant performance or the affect of culture isn't significant, there are still other reasons to favour some countries over others when it comes to immigration policy (difference in human capital quality is one).

No, the paper certainly does not do that. YOU do that, and then you point at the paper repeatedly and say "look ! it's statistics" ... but you're the one misinterpreting the study.

So a paper titled 'Human Capital Quality and Immigrant Wage Gap', which clearly creates an econometric model and uses statistical data to calculate the human capital quality for many countries somehow doesn't calculate human capital quality? Makes perfect sense. *sarcasm*

I sincerely doubt you have other papers to provide, given the number of times I've asked you for them.

Sigh, fine I'll get you more papers. But only because you are so persistent! A simple google scholar search for papers using keywords such as 'Canada', 'immigration', 'econometrics' and 'country of origin' yields hundreds of results. Unfortunately, most of these require either a subscription fee (which you might not want to pay) or requires you attend a university that pays the fee for you (which I'm not sure you have). So I am not going to bother providing links to papers that require you to pay a fee to view. However, here are 2 relevant papers that I found in my short 5 minute search:

Here is an econometric comparison study by the National Bureau of Economic Research that compares Canada and the United States, & that suggests that between 1959 and 1981 the Canadian immigration system (which emphasized a point based system & skills) produced on average more 'skilled' immigrants than the US immigration system (which emphasized family reunification). It attributes this difference in skill to 'the national origin mix of immigrant flows', rather than to obtaining better immigrants from individual source countries.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w3691.pdf?new_window=1

Here is an extensive econometric study by Statistics Canada that attempts to measure the quality of education & human capital quality for different immigrant groups (it classifies people based on gender, country of origin, level of education, etc.) and sees how much of the wage gap can be measured by this. Much of the 'the wage gap, which is a key measure of how well immigrants integrate into the economy' (I'm quoting this because of your ridiculous assertion that immigrant income isn't a measure of integration), can be explained by human capital quality differences as shown in the study. The study clearly shows a difference in the human capital quality for different countries of origin (See appendix table 2 on page 41).

http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/271/1/Immigrant%20Source%20Country%20Educational%20Quality%20and%20Canadian%20Labour%20Market%20Outcomes.pdf?1

Happy? Or do you need more? Point is that immigrants from some countries are, on average, better than other countries, and we need to take this into account when setting immigration policy.

If you had faith in your argument, you could just say that my list was the latter two.

I don't have faith, I have reason. Faith is for religious people and their fairy tales.

Like when you posted "Islam is the number one threat to Canada" and then told me to prove it wasn't. Your "proof" was that Harper said that, and you posted a video ... but he didn't say it after all.

I didn't ask you to 'prove' it wasn't, I asked you to suggest threats to Canada & the West in 2013 that are even close to comparable to Islamism. Also, I believe my claim was that islamism (also known as islamic supremacism or islamicism) was the biggest threat, not islam (do you not know the difference?). That said, Stephen Harper did say that 'the major threat is still Islamicism', but that isn't proof, I merely added the link to suggest that others hold this view.

Here's a reminder of what you've done again:

5) You flip flop constantly on whether your studies prove your case or not.

Sigh, I explain to you why I cannot conclude if something is a good indicator variable or not without knowing the quality of the data and you accuse me of flip-flopping. So admitting lack of knowledge or the uncertainty involved in statistics is flip-flopping now?

I can name a couple of threats, and threats that I believe are pertinent. If I did so, you'd undoubtedly start arguing about those threats, even though I'm only bringing them up to disprove your thesis.

How convenient. You can name a couple of threats, but will not name them. Must be like my studies... oh wait I just provided some!

But I have no desire to help you with your argument. Also, it's fundamentally incumbent on you to prove your point, not me. So far, you offered "proof" that Harper said Islamism is the biggest threat to Canada. Thankfully, he isn't so sloppy and imprecise with language as you are.

I would prefer you use the term 'provide strong evidence for' rather than 'prove' when talking about issues related to social science. 'Prove' should be more reserved for things like mathematical proof, or, to a smaller extent, obtaining sufficient statistical uncertainty like in Physics (ex. Higgs boson, which was only announced as a discovery after its statistically significance surpassed 5 sigma; but a 5 sigma significance would be and unreasonable standard in the case of econometric modelling). With respect to the discussion on immigration that we are having, I see two positions: 1. Canada should change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries. 2. Canada should not change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries. We should go with the position that has the strongest evidence in its favour, no? Asking me to 'prove' my position 100%, while providing less evidence to support your position, seems unreasonable to me.

As it is with your completely flawed methodology of looking at data when determining a hypothesis. You seem to have forgotten that I was pointing out a flaw in your approach by showing a similarly bad approach. Attacking my similarly bad approach misses the point.

Let me see... I have a hypothesis: 'Canada should change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries'. I have this hypothesis before going to the study. I then go to the data in the study to see if it supports this hypothesis, find that it does, and you accuse me of being dogmatic???

Except that the rigorous (spelling !) study is used to show something different, with only some lame slight-of-hand by you.

I'll concede that the main difference between what I was discussing before mentioning the study and after mentioning the study is that before I was discussing how some immigrant groups are better than others due to the effect of islamism, where as after I was discussing how some immigrant groups are better than others due to human capital quality. Either way, both positions suggest that some countries should be favoured over other countries when it comes to immigration policy. You seem to be stuck on the fact that favouring some countries over others can be done for more than one reason and the fact that the paper I linked doesn't discuss islamism or culture.

"Most common visible minority group is Chinese

The breakdown by visible minority groups for racialized persons living in poverty is very similar to that for the total racialized population.

Close to a quarter (24%) of racialized persons living in poverty identified as belonging to the Chinese group, followed by South Asian (20%) and Black (18%)."

Chinese is the largest visible minority group in Canada. So on a per capita basis, the Chinese do not necessarily exceed Somalians in this regard.

On a side note, I will concede that Han supremacism is not that uncommon, while Somalian muslims are generally not racist because racism is strictly against islam and the teachings of the prophet Mohammed (though other forms of bigotry and discrimination are encouraged by islam such as sexism, homophobia and intolerance of kaffirs). Perhaps this would have been a better counter argument for you to argue?

Test this vs other hypotheses ? What is this hypothesis ? You haven't even stated one. You keep making elementary mistakes. Pick up your socks.

In this case I was referring to your 'hypothesis' that Saudi Arabia is a better source country of immigrants than New Zealand because it has a higher GDP per capita. I then replied that I was open to the testing of this hypothesis, and if the evidence was strong enough for this hypothesis, I would support it.

A hypothesis might be that there's a correlation between income and source country, for example. You could test for that. (Once again, I'm teaching you.)

Yes, there are correlations between income and source countries. This is what we are discussing; and it is what the papers I linked look at (though more specifically they refer to the effects of differences of human capital quality among countries).

On Pat Condell being a comedian, I will concede that I was unaware about his past history of being a comedian in the 80's and 90's. Though he certainly isn't a comedian now, and his youtube channel isn't a comedy channel, so I do not understand why that is relevant.

I'm just going to ask you again to reply by restating a hypothesis

There are a number of different issues and hypothesis being discussed here, but let's examine this one for now:

'Canada should change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries'

Edited October 29, 2013 by -1=e^ipi

[-1=e^ipi]

You have shown to be just like Harper. Whatever terms you try to couch your concerns in the issue is ultimately about something else - in this case letting people into Canada who aren't white.

Promoting unfounded unreasonable fears for the purpose of pursuing a racist agenda is a very real threat. Seriously.

And there we have it! A perfect example of progressive silencing of people who criticize or oppose islamism by calling them racists or white supremacists. We are now back to the original topic of the thread.

Thank you very much for your contributions to this thread eyeball!

Notice how despite the fact that islam isn't a race, people will still throw around this accusation? Or that there is no basis to make the implications that other posters in here are racist?

Now to clarify, there is no way to know from what has been posted if eyeball is a 'progressive racist' or not. Indeed these comments could be made for a variety of other reasons (cultural relativism or finding it easier to cling to progressive political dogma if one paints opposing views as racist views).

Id honestly be suprised if "islamism" even made it onto the "Top 100 threats facing canadians" list.

I would list things like the cost of retiring the babyboom, and inflation in the cost of things like healthcare, and education as presenting much greater threats.... cancer... heart disease...

Well I thank you for attempting to make a list of other 'threats' to Canada (unlike other posters which refused to do so because they could not think of any). Indeed, you might have a point about the aging population, cancer & heart disease as being more relevant to the everyday lives for most Canadians and therefore a bigger 'threat'. Though these are not ideologies.

In that case, I shall change/clarify my earlier claim to islamism is the ideology that is the biggest threat Canada & the West in 2013.

Though, now that I think about it, eco-terrorism/eco-radicalism has been growing in influence for the past few decades in Canada and has become very relevant recently due to the development of the oil sands and stronger emphasis on other natural resource extraction (including the prosperous uranium & potash industry in Saskatchewan). Also, within Canada the threat of islamism isn't very big compared to some other western countries because most of the immigrants do not come from radical islamist countries. Countries like Britain or France, which have had large amounts of immigration from Pakistan and the Maghreb respectively, are at more risk from islamism.

So with that in mind, I shall completely retract my claim that islamism ideology that is the biggest threat to Canada in 2013. That would have to go to eco-ludditism and its opposition to any development of our natural resource industries and of the building of any pipelines (be it east, west, north or south) to extract our oil despite pipelines being far safer, cheaper and environmental than other modes of transport like rail.

But I still think that the more general claim 'islamism is the ideology that is the biggest threat to Western countries in the early 21st century' has some merit.

Edit: Perhaps I should refer to 'security threat' rather than 'threat'. In that case, perhaps: 'Islamism is the ideology that is the biggest security threat to western countries overall in the first two decades of the 21st century.' Is that better?

Edited October 29, 2013 by -1=e^ipi

[eyeball]

And there we have it! A perfect example of progressive silencing of people who criticize or oppose islamism by calling them racists or white supremacists. We are now back to the original topic of the thread.

I'm not silencing you at all. Feel free to fill your boots.

Nothing underscores what's wrong with racism better than a racist.

Thank you very much for your contributions to this thread eyeball!

You're very welcome.

[dre]

But I still think that the more general claim 'islamism is the ideology that is the biggest threat to Western countries in the early 21st century' has some merit.

Edit: Perhaps I should refer to 'security threat' rather than 'threat'. In that case, perhaps: 'Islamism is the ideology that is the biggest security threat to western countries overall in the first two decades of the 21st century.' Is that better?

Im not sure. To be totally forthright I find fundamentalist islamic ideology be a extremely offensive. But so far I dont see any evidence that it poses a real threat to Canadians way of life. I think that over a couple of generations these people will become westernized. Our culture seems to have a way of watering down immigrant religion over time. I would hazard to guess that the second and third generations of muslim Canadians will be a lot more concerned with buying nice cars and houses, and fake tits for their girlfriends than they are about jurry rigging themselves into low tech explosive devices.

I know a handful of Canadian Muslim immigrants (its an anecdote for sure), and they are already pretty much westernized after only a few years here. At least the younger ones.

Having said all that.... Large influxes of any one cultural group should be avoided. We should "Trickle" different cultures in slowly so they are less more likely to assimilate and less likely to balkanize into segregated sub cultures. As long as we do that I feel confident that we can absorb eastern cultures without too much trouble, especially over the long term.

Im also a little bit jaded because of I have heard the same argument about every group of immigrants since 1900. Jews, asians, russians, africans... all of them were going to be incompatible with our culture. For a while there we had a law saying no member of the asiatic race was allowed into Canada unless they worked as farm laborers

Edited October 29, 2013 by dre

[-1=e^ipi]

I'm not silencing you at all. Feel free to fill your boots.

Maybe I was choosing my wording incorrectly. Should have used 'creating an atmosphere to incentivise a lack of discussion' rather than silencing.

Im not sure. To be totally forthright I find fundamentalist islamic ideology be a extremely offensive. But so far I dont see any evidence that it poses a real threat to Canadians way of life.

No evidence that islamism is a threat to Canadians? Let's see how that claim fairs against the following list of evidence:

- honor killings (such as the killing of the Shafia sisters in 2009 in Kingston)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders

And before someone says that honor killings have nothing to do with islam, the penalty for apostasy (leaving one's religion) in islam is death. Some individuals feel a religious obligation to kill family members that betray the faith. Admittedly, this isn't the norm in Canada, the norm is shunning those family members who leave islam. In many muslim majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran & Pakistan, the punishment for apostasy in islam is performed by the state.

- domestic terrorist attacks (ex. 2006 attempt to detonate truck bombs & behead the prime minister by Toronto based islamists)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Ontario_terrorism_plot

Though I will admit that Canada has been lucky enough to avoid any major islamist terror attacks, though other western countries have not been as lucky (perhaps it is just a matter of time in Canada's case until something like the Boston marathon bombing occurs?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombings

- foreign terrorist attacks killing Canadians abroad (ex. killing of Canadians in Kenya by al Shabaab for being non-muslim)

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/kenya-terrorist-attack-raises-concerns-about-canadian-western-al-shabaab-recruits-1.1468569

- terrorist attacks causing Canada to spend billions funding oversees wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada's_role_in_the_Afghanistan_War

- attempts to reduce our freedom of speech (ex. use of human rights organisations by islamists to silence those who criticize islam by using 'hate speech' laws)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversy

- attempts to perform gender segregation in schools and/or segregation of menstruating females from other females (ex. the Toronto district school board funding islamic prayer in cafeterias in which boys sit in the front, girls sit behind the boys, and menstruating girls sit behind the other girls. Menstruating girls are not allowed to pray.)

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/07/27/opposing-prayer-in-toronto-public-schools-with-dignity/

- attempts to create gender segregated swimming pools

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/life-video/video-gender-segregated-swimming-irks-quebec-residents/article7147920/

- the rapid increase of the inhumane halal meat industry, where halal meat is becoming the norm without the knowledge of non-muslims

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/03/15/halal_meat_creating_controversy_in_quebec.html

http://www.news.com.au/national/aussie-firms-paying-inflated-price-to-have-halal-certification/story-fncynjr2-1226743120181

- islamic homophobia

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/islamic-leader%E2%80%99s-anti-gay-comments-could-cost-canadian-school-4-million200413

Still do not think that there is evidence that islamism is a threat to Canada? There have been over 22,000 islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11.

I think that over a couple of generations these people will become westernized.

I agree with this, but it doesn't mean islamism isn't a significant threat.

I agree that islam & islamism will eventually fade, primarily due to the lack of flexibility of interpretation when compared to other religions. In christianity, the bible was written long after Jesus supposedly died, so the bible can not be taken as the literal word of god & christianity can keep reinterpreting itself until to fit with conflicting evidence. In islam, the qu'ran contains the teachings and practices of the prophet mohammed who was divinely inspired by Allah, so the qu'ran must be taken literally as the word of god. Therefore, to be muslim you must believe that the qu'ran is the word of god, and therefore you must believe in Adam and Eve. This means that islam is fundamentally incompatible with the evidence of human evolution from earlier primates (where as christianity isn't necessarily incompatible with human evolution as it can just keep reinterpreting itself). Due to this conflict and the vast evidence for human evolution (fossil record, the very DNA in every cell in our bodies, etc.) obviously islam & islamism will fade.

However, despite the fact that islamism will fade, that doesn't mean it can't do a lot of damage before it fades. There is also an issue of rates of conversion vs differences in birth rates. Muslims may convert to say atheism much faster than atheists convert to islam (despite the penalty for apostasy in islam being death), but muslim birth rates are far higher than atheist birth rates, offsetting this. Conversion can take a long time if islamicised groups don't interact much with the kaffir and mostly stick with other radicalized muslim groups, rather than integrate. Immigration also plays a factor. Many European cities such as London have either kaffir no go zones or effective sharia law areas.

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/mark-tapson/the-rise-of-islamic-no-go-zones/

If we look at demographic trends, many Western European cities (Brussels, Malmo, Rotterdam, Marseilles, etc.) and/or countries will become majority muslim by mid century (Belguim, Russia, possibly France, etc.).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994047/Muslim-Europe-the-demographic-time-bomb-transforming-our-continent.html

To an extent I beleive that the 'Eurabia' claims are somewhat paranoia and often ignore the fact that birth rates and conversion rates change over time, but still... I think it is very likely that many European nations will take on a semi-islamic political character by 2030-2040. Indeed, one has to remember that Islam is a very unique religion in that it is more 'complete', supremacist and political. As the relative size of muslims grow, so will the calls to impose either sharia law, or law inspired by sharia and many 'progressive' European countries might become quite 'conservative'.

In addition, you also have the fact that muslim majority countries today have a very high birth rate (many countries have a doubling period of 30-40 years), and many non-muslim countries like European countries, Russia, Japan, etc. have birth rates that are so low the populations are in decline. Even China, the world's most populated country, has practically stabilized its population and will start population decline by mid century. Sunni Islam has already overtaken Catholicism as the world's largest religion, and by mid-century all of islam will have completely overtaken chritianity. With this shift in global population, plus the economic development of muslim countries and the increase of islam in Europe, it stands to reason that political islam will be a significant geopolitical force in the first half of the 21st century (Though I would argue that by the second half of this century it will start to decline).

Our culture seems to have a way of watering down immigrant religion over time.

Maybe, but I do not think it is fair to compare islam & muslims to previous ethnic or culture group immigrations to Canada.

Compared to other religions, islam is so unique. In a sense it is more 'complete' than other religions in that it encompasses almost all aspects of everyday life and is more political. Muslims are expected to have all their life decisions guided by the teachings of the prophet Mohammed in the Quran, the Hadith and other islamic texts, and islam has a legal system, sharia law, which guides tax policy (zakat, jizya, etc.), penalties for various crimes (amputations for thieves for example), how a couple should approach divorce, how the legal system should be structured, how kaffir should be treated, what kind of laws the kaffir should live under, what kind of laws the muslims should live under, how a nation should define its foreign policy with respect to other nations, etc.

Islam is also unique in that it's flexibility of interpretation is very small (the only other religion I can think of with such a small flexibility of interpretation is mormonism). The teachings of the prophet Mohammed as written in the Quran must be taken as the word of god. In addition to the Quran, muslims base decisions on the teachings in the Hadith (traditions of the prophet Mohammed), and the Sira (biography of the prophet Mohammed). A mistake a lot of non-muslims make is they think that islam only has one holy book (like the bible or torah), when in fact it has at least 3 or more. In addition to the Quran, Hadith and Sira, muslims must also look at various commentaries and teachings made by islamic scholars, early caliphs (rulers of the islamic caliphate) and friends or family members of the prophet Mohammed. And I wont even get into Shia islam which believes that the teachings of many of the descendants of Mohammed, such as Ali (first cousin and son-in-law to Mohammed), are divinely inspired, so their teachings must also be taken as the word of god (most Shia believe in 12 imams).

In combination with the 'completeness' of islam and the inflexibility of interpretation of islam, you also have the issue with it being a supremacist ideology. According to islam, muslims "are the best of Peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah" (Sura 3:110). Indeed, much of the teachings of islam has to do with how muslims are better than kaffir, how muslims should act towards kaffir and how muslims should think about kaffir. For example,"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." (Sura 5:51).

I could list passage after passage of intolerant verses in the islamic texts, but the point would remain. Of course, do not take my word for it, I encourage you to learn about islam yourself from multiple sources. It is also important to understand the context in which the verses lie. The following video gives a good explanation of the importance of context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHmsL0p6jnI . I'll just end this thought by saying that the percentages of anti-jewish verses in the Medinian Quran, Hadith and Sira that express anti-jewish sentiment exceed the percentage of anti-jewish verses in Hitler's Mein Kompf. http://www.politicalislam.com/pdf/WebSitePDF/ShariaNonMuslim.pdf

Now I will admit that the Meccan Quran doesn't contain much anti-jewish sentinment as it contains verses that were revealed to the prophet Mohammed earlier in his life when he was living in Mecca and the muslims were a persecuted minority. It is in the early Meccan part of the Quran where you will find 'peaceful' verses that islam apologists will often cite such as "There is no compulsion in religion" (Sura 2:256). Of course these apologists will often fail to mention the context of the verse (kaffirs burning in hellfire) or more importantly the concept of Naskh. Naskh or abrogation in islam means that later verses revealed to Mohammed abrogate earlier verses. So verses like "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (Sura 9:29) abrogate earlier verses such as 2:256. It is important to note that the Quran is not ordered chronologically; though Sura 9 is the last major revelation by the prophet Mohammed.

Under Sharia law, non-muslim monotheists are forced to submit to the islamic state and live a 2nd class dhimmi status. That is, they must pay the jizya (islamic tax on dhimmis that must be paid for 'protection' much like the mafia might do), the kharaj (islamic land tax on dhimmis) and a few other dhimmi taxes like ushur, Meanwhile, they cannot benefit from zakat, cannot carry arms, cannot serve in the military or government, cannot display symbols of their faith (sounds like Quebec), cannot build or repair places of worship and must wear distinctive clothing which includes the zunar (a belt) wherever they go (sort of like what nazis did to jews). http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Dhimmitude_(definition) Of course the option of dhimmitude is only provided to monotheists (christians, jews, hindus, zoroastrians, etc.). Polytheists such as the Quraish in 7th century arabia were not so lucky and only had 3 options: convert, leave or die.

Of course islam is a religion of peace... The peace that will occur only after the entire world has either become muslim or has submitted to a global caliphate.

I would hazard to guess that the second and third generations of muslim Canadians will be a lot more concerned with buying nice cars and houses, and fake tits for their girlfriends than they are about jurry rigging themselves into low tech explosive devices.

Well you would think so but a lot of the empirical evidence is to the contrary, especially in UK & France. Often, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants in western countries are more radicalized than their parents. You can thank Saudi Wahhabism funded by oil money for that! Yet so many North Americans prefer to buy Saudi oil rather than evil dirty Albertan oil...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young-British-Muslims-getting-more-radical.html

http://www.rieas.gr/images/daniel.pdf

I know a handful of Canadian Muslim immigrants (its an anecdote for sure), and they are already pretty much westernized after only a few years here. At least the younger ones.

I agree that there are many moderate westernized muslims. I know many and have many muslim friends (both moderate and non-moderate), including some that drink alcohol, some that do not pray 5 times a day, and some that recently converted to atheism after rejecting islam.

But then that leads to the question: If we see many peaceful moderate westernized muslims, and we see many intolerant extremist supremacist muslims, which form of islam is correct? This is a very relevant question, especially as islam does not have much flexibility of interpretation. I won't get into the merits of each position here, I encourage you to learn about it yourself. However, I will say that I'm of the opinion that intolerant islamism is true islam. More moderate and westernized forms of islam exist because many muslims want to embrace modern values of liberalism, but at the same time they do not want to reject islam for family and cultural reasons. A belief that was not placed by reason cannot be removed by reason alone; if you are a muslim and your entire family which you love very much and have a deep emotional attachment to is muslim, will shun you if you leave islam, will tell you that you should be killed for apostasy and will tell you that you will burn in hell forever then you probably do not want to leave islam. As a result, many moderate muslims (like people of other religions) insist on having this cognitive dissonance.

Another important concept to mention is the concept of taqiyya. Taqiyya is basically lying to kaffir (especially if you a muslim living in a non-muslim country) about islam in order to advance the cause of islam. Taqiyya is allowed in islam, and many more radical muslims in the west will lie about the true nature of their beliefs to kaffir because they know they are in a minority situation (that isn't to say that there aren't a lot of moderate westernized muslims who truely beleive islam is peaceful as well). Here are some examples of taqiyya by more radical muslims in the west:

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/03/21/taqiyya-deception-free-islamic-cleric-says-america-already-is-paying-jizya-tribute-to-muslims-but-not-enough/

Having said all that.... Large influxes of any one cultural group should be avoided. We should "Trickle" different cultures in slowly so they are less more likely to assimilate and less likely to balkanize into segregated sub cultures. As long as we do that I feel confident that we can absorb eastern cultures without too much trouble, especially over the long term.

I agree with this statement. Though as mentioned, there might be a few examples where large influxes of certain culture groups might be okay (such as Swedes or South Koreans).

Im also a little bit jaded because of I have heard the same argument about every group of immigrants since 1900.

Well, I think that it is important to understand that islamist immigrants are very very different from previous groups. The previous groups did not bring an inflexible, intolerant, political, supremacist ideology that has that backing of the creator, Allah, which inspired a prophet (Mohammed) to reveal suras which include ideologies of jihad against kaffir. Maybe a better comparison is if western countries were experiencing large immigration from nazi countries.

Also, one more thing to add about my earlier comment on eco-radicalism being a threat to Canada in 2013, to an extent it is related to islamism in that many islamist countries like Saudi Arabia have a financial incentive to prevent the development of the oil sands (by sending money to eco-radicals).

[bleeding heart]

Bleeding Heart:

Still don't believe that verses in islamic texts justify terrorist attacks? Then listen to this video by David Wood who goes into great detail in examining verses in the Qu'ran, Hadiths and in other islamic texts:

I have no idea why you think I've argued otherwise, and from where you summon the qualifier "still"; it's as if you really believe this is part of our ongoing dispute.

And I think this illustrates part of my criticism of Condell: the invention of a dispute, and the assumptions of others' positions.

​Cultural relativism, political correctness, progressive racism, ideology of unconstrained multiculturalism, hatred of the west (ideas like foreign conflicts must be the west's fault; things being the west's fault is usually the default position of progressives), etc.

Again, I was asking you what is this alleged "Progressive ideology," not for a litany of perceived weaknesses that some progressives might indulge in.

And the idea that the faults of liberals, conservatives, and others are ultimately the fault of some sinister entity called "progressivism"--which you as of yet have remained unwilling or unable to even define (and have said elsewhere that only some progressives are guilty of "it," whatever "it" is....appeasement of evil, evidently)....well, the idea is preposterous on its face.

Not the idea that progressives, but the ideology of progressivism. Stop referring to people and instead refer to ideologies.[/font][/color]

OK...but everybody's at fault, according to this existentially catastrophic worldview: conservatives, liberals, the media, everybody.

In which case "progressivism" is not a useful term, because it means nothing more or less than "Western society."

I would prefer some references here. Didn't the west side with East Timor over Indonesia?[/font][/color]

Precisely not. It sided with the Indonesians, from '75 until '99....when sensing the jig was up, weapons ceased flowing, diplomatic support dried up, and the slaughters ended.

And in fact, the killing stopped with such ease and abruptness that we understand it could have been stopped at any time. All the West need do was stop supporting it.

There's lots of information; this site is a good start.

http://etan.org/etan/

Edited October 29, 2013 by bleeding heart

[Michael Hardner]

Comments made earlier in this thread.

Which comments ? Hopefully not the ones you previously misquoted, which I have already corrected.

So you don't think Canada should have a preference for immigrants with a high human capital quality? ...

Yet we can not use the results of the paper to justify changes to the immigration system?

Not in an unqualified way, no.

I said all important factors, not all factors. The non-culture important factors would include:

No, you couldn't capture all the important factors.

And again, you challenge ME to prove your case. See error #5 above.

So a paper titled 'Human Capital Quality and Immigrant Wage Gap', which clearly creates an econometric model and uses statistical data to calculate the human capital quality for many countries somehow doesn't calculate human capital quality?

It does. But your assessment of what it calculates is at odds with what the paper says.

Sigh, fine I'll get you more papers. But only because you are so persistent! A simple google scholar search for papers using keywords such as 'Canada', 'immigration', 'econometrics' and 'country of origin' yields hundreds of results.

Not my job to prove your point. See error #5 again.

Happy?

No. What are you using these papers to support ? Please restate your point. The papers are fine, I'm sure, but are you trying to use them, for example, to ban Muslim immigration ? Please state your argument, and how these papers support it.

Or do you need more? Point is that immigrants from some countries are, on average, better than other countries, and we need to take this into account when setting immigration policy.

Hmmmm... a search of those two papers for the word 'better' shows:

Paper 1 - no hits for 'better'.

Paper 2 - Used to describe better measure, better specifications, better understanding.

So the papers do not say that immigrants from some countries are 'better'.

This is error #1 - starting with your own conclusion, then working backwards to say that these studies prove them.

I have pointed this out to you and you keep doing it, wasting my time.

I didn't ask you to 'prove' it wasn't, I asked you to suggest threats to Canada & the West in 2013 that are even close to comparable to Islamism.

Same thing. Error #5. Prove your point without my help.

That said, Stephen Harper did say that 'the major threat is still Islamicism', but that isn't proof, I merely added the link to suggest that others hold this view.

No - you're still not framing this correctly. You're so sloppy with your arguments.

How convenient. You can name a couple of threats, but will not name them. Must be like my studies... oh wait I just provided some!

Yes, due to error #5.

Let me see... I have a hypothesis: 'Canada should change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries'. I have this hypothesis before going to the study.

When you restated it, you corrected your error - finally. This is much better.

Chinese is the largest visible minority group in Canada. So on a per capita basis, the Chinese do not necessarily exceed Somalians in this regard.

I already explained the pointlessness of attacking the 'fake proof', which I used to illustrate misuse of statistics. Several times.

Yes, there are correlations between income and source countries. This is what we are discussing;

Only because I led you to the well and had to state your hypothesis for you.

On Pat Condell being a comedian, I will concede that I was unaware about his past history of being a comedian in the 80's and 90's.

You are much more charming when you finally admit an error.

There are a number of different issues and hypothesis being discussed here, but let's examine this one for now:

'Canada should change its immigration policy to favour immigrants from 'better' (be it in terms of human capital quality, culture, etc.) source countries'

'Human capital quality' - yes, and the paper does say that, but culture... I don't see it.

Let's focus the next thread on how you would measure/codify 'culture'. How do you propose doing that ?

[bleeding heart]

I wouldn't even limit it to left wing politicians. Many immigrants generally are more traditionally minded or more conservative than native Canadians, so the right wing parties also stand to benefit. Take the issue of gay marriage. Most people in Canada support it but the majority of muslim immigrants do not. Also, many other immigrant groups are skeptical of it because it is not part of their culture.

And so the "appeasers" of retrograde cultural views are not here the progressives--but the conservatives, and, until extremely recently, mainstream liberals.

[Michael Hardner]

Edit: Perhaps I should refer to 'security threat' rather than 'threat'.

Wow, I should read your responses to the others more often. On this one, you're backtracking on something you said in your response to ME.

Oh well, it seems that the others on here have pretty much the same problems with you that I have. Argus is much better at arguing for modifying immigration policy, I now realize.

[bleeding heart]

Also, I think this sort of mentality may be indicative that you suffer from western apologism, a common trait of 'progressivism'.

What you actually mean is the opposite of "Western apologism." But no, you're flatly mistaken anyway.

Yes because calling people anti-Canadian when arguing political positions never occurs... *sarcasm

Suggest that Canada changes it's health care system(s) to include private enterprise? Get called anti-Canadian.

Suggest that Canada abolishes the minimum wage cause it's a dumb concept? Get called anti-Canadian.

Suggest that there are flaws with unlimited multiculturalism, especially if integration between new immigrants and Canadians is poor? Get called anti-Canadian, and racist, and islamophobe.

Suggest that Canada should have a less 'progressive' tax system to increase the incentive for productive behaviour, therefore increase GDP? Get called anti-Canadian.

Suggest that employment insurance should be made voluntary as it unfairly favours seasonal workers and due to moral objections on forcing this insurance/tax? Get called anti-Canadian.

First of all, I don't think it is at all a common term...it's virtually non-existent, in fact.

Second, I see that you view the two things quite differently: "anti-Americanism" is a very real issue to be taken seriously; whereas "Anti-Canadianism" is a ridiculous term thrown around viciously and without merit.

So now you understand how I view cries of "anti-American." As one part too-delicate, and two parts trivial and meaningless.

Edited October 29, 2013 by bleeding heart

[Argus]

Good thing you qualified that with income taxes, since you know very well that they pay all sorts of other taxes. Also, the tax exemption is roughly half of full-time minimum wage (depending on province), so they do pay income taxes, CPP, & EI like everyone else. They're certainly not getting reductions in their rate for TSFAs and RRSPs because they have no saveable income.

What little they are contributing is outweighed by what they are getting back, so economically, the are a net loss.

[Argus]

A better question might be why are so many posters in this threat so absolutely close minded to the idea that maybe immigrants from some countries are better than immigrants from other countries

We have just asked you - repeatedly - to provide some evidence of that.

I thought I had done that.

http://global-economics.ca/empin_immigrant_region.htm

Edited October 30, 2013 by Argus