"There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who live here, but who do not care one bit for British society. Their purpose is to take as much as they possibly can from the taxpayers' pockets, while taking advantage of our lax laws."

This describes most British people.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 10:18, 2 replies)

We can't do anything about them, they're "us"
it's the "them" that are the problem, with their "us and them" mentality. Apparently.
( Flapjack I spay a little mare for you, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 10:29, closed)

It does not describe me
Does it describe you?
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 10:55, closed)

Not relevant.
It describes some people. Explain to me how it matters whether they were born in the UK or came here last week? Do you seriously believe that being born here gives you some innate right "to take as much as you can from the taxpayers pockets while taking advantage of our tax laws?"
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 11:35, closed)

No, no-one has the "right" to do that
But surely you agree that it is "a bad thing" if people do that... don't you?

Therefore the fewer people who do such a thing, the better.

And if we can eject at least SOME of those people - on the grounds that they are not British - then we should do so.

Or do you disagree with me, and you don't mind that your tax money goes towards funding spongers?
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 12:35, closed)

I've no particular opinion either way. I accept it as an unpleasant but natural facet of humanity and human behavior.
I'd love to see your justification for how "where you were born" is an acceptable reason to choose who you persecute for doing and who you don't, though. Do you think that people born in, ooh, Somalia should face a different punishment - let's say the death sentence rather than life in prison - for committing murder in the UK, as well?
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 14:05, closed)

It's interesting...
...that you make so many of your arguments based on precisely the kinds of preconceptions the right-wing press (e.g. Daily Mail / Express etc) continually perpetrate. Going off on one about "scrounging immigrants" while insisting you're not racist is a transparent position built on arguments which don't stand up to analysis. Anyone can pick out a few examples - a tactic the right wing press uses repeatedly when trying to fan flames against immigration - but the fact is that if you look at the actual statistics then those arguments don't hold water and the examples are simply not reflective of the overall picture.

The immigration regulations cannot sift the deserving cases from the non-deserving ones on every occasion. If we want to have a fair and reasonable system which allows in deserving cases we have to accept that sometimes this is going to be abused.

There are typically three ways to get into the UK: be a citizen of a Commonwealth country, be a citizen of an EU member state or marry an EU citizen. So: do you want to start saying that married people shouldn't have the right to live in the same country as their spouses? Or do you want to renounce the rights of all UK citizens to live and work elsewhere in Europe? Because I wouldn't want to lose that right. As for Commonwealth countries, to forward a very broad and basic argument, it is possible to suggest that part of the economic problems caused to those countries result from the stripping of assets and resources which occurred during the occupation of these countries by the British Empire, and conversely that some of our own prosperity was built on these acquisitions. So if people ARE economic migrants, it's always worth remembering that the economic conditions which obliged them to try to migrate have a historical basis and can't simply be considered in isolation.

Apart from which, put yourself in their shoes. If you, by an accident of birth, came from a place with no possibility of a job, which may be in a war zone, where you can't raise a family with any prospect of better lives for your children, wouldn't you do anything you possibly could to get them to a place where you could work, live in peace and where your kids have a chance of something better?
(rampants, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 15:36, closed)

^this, so hard things bleed.
Also, to expand on your deserving/undeserving thing - it's similar to one of the death penalty arguments, in a strange way. What percentage is it acceptable to get wrong? 1% innocent people wrongly killed? 10%? I think most people would say much, much less than 1%. So how about asylum seekers? If the original poster really is a decent person who is worried about this, how many do you think would be an acceptable "loss rate" ... 1% of genuine asylum seekers refused entry? 10%? 50%? How expensive do you think it would be to instigate a system which NEVER got it wrong? That's "your" taxpayers money, too. I tell you this - it would cost a damn site more than is actually "lost" to the tiny proportion of immigrants who do end up claiming benefits. It would cost a damn site more than is paid in benefits, full stop. So we err on the side of caution, and maybe occasionally a few chancers get in. A few. Who have all been through hell just to get here, yet they are still lazy scroungers?

Oh - and just to clarify... "Illegal" immigrants can't claim benefits. Legal immigrants can, but since as ramparts says, that means EU nationals/commonwealth citizens. Unless you want out of europe and the commonwealth it's a bit pointless to rail against that.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 17:31, closed)

Just look at the language
"entitlement" "so-called liberal left" "my tax money"... it's Moseley in a brand new black shirt. Nationalism is nationalism.

Living as a free citizen of a country with several air and sea ports, one shouldn't resent immigrants for having the balls to head somewhere they'd rather live just because one hasn't oneself.

And looking at the budget for asylum seekers and how many of one's Hard-Earned Tax Pounds that equates too might put things in perspective. But of course, one can't trust statistics. That's the liberal media machine brainwashing the sheeple.
( Flapjack I spay a little mare for you, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 20:09, closed)

I did check, as it goes.
It's not even a fraction of a pence in every thousand pounds tax you pay. But, hey, nothing like a proportionate response.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 10:41, closed)

Just a point
`Right wing' does not equate with racist.

There are more than a few historical examples of left wing political ideologies that espouse discrimination on various sectors of society. Go to Russia and they don't talk about `Nazis' - they talk about `Hitlerites' because `National Socialism' was a little too close for comfort.

Interestingly enough all the BNP voters I know (and believe me, I know a few - coming from an area that has at least one BNP councillor) are former Labour voters.

Racism is not a political viewpoint - it is something entirely different.
(Audax Victor, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 17:37, closed)

No, you're right.
but "nationalist" and "racist" are just two sides of a very dirty and unpleasant coin.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 10:16, closed)

I think that comes from the fact that 'Labour'
seems to have lost sight of everything it stood for and has been swinging further and further right as time passes...
(ab1kenobe, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 16:00, closed)