"I have essentially had the most important years in my career development taken away from me."
This guy certainly has a sense of drama.
What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
101–110 of 192 posts
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East? Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.
It may be even more fundamental: Good leaders emerge from a good democracy. Maybe what the Middle East needs is to copy from the constitutions of successful democracies. Even adopting just our First Amendment would be a decent start.
The us constitution has not been a great model. Latin america was the main place it was copied, and that didn’t work out so well. And even america had a civil war.
The british and french systems are more likely to be copied nowadays.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_a...
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#103I moved to the UK seven years ago, and have clearly noticed a change in the time I've been here. It wasn't perfect to begin with, but there is now a clear popular attitude against non-British people. It's worse against non-white people and eastern europeans, but there is also a level of general xenophobia. Of course, this is not the prevailing situation in London and cosmopolitan cities, but it is prevalent among the…
Polls consistently show that Britain is one of the most tolerant countries in europe (debatable wether that is a good thing if it leads to intolerance in the long run ...) in any case I would suggest it is more likely the common language makes any alienation feel more raw. Alienated in a european country - can often be charitably put down to language differences (and learning the local language is a greater signal of integration when it's not english).
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
No doubt there are terrible leaders, but experience in the middle east has shown it's no just terrible leaders standing in the way of prosperity.
Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East? Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.
Usually the ones who were proponents of national self-determination and/or assassinated: Yitzhak Rabin (Israel), Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran, who the US deposed), Anwar Sadat (Egypt), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Mohammed Daoud Khan (Afghanistan), Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia).
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#105While the Home Office in UK was vigorously trying its best to throw Lucas out, the same Home Office in UK is trying its best to keep economic offenders like Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi from being deported: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/28/india-asks-brita... "The Home Office said the suspension of Mr Mallya's passport was a matter for Indian authorities and declined to comment on the individual case, citin…
"its best", not "it's best"
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Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at this poll: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume... The voters of all parties support these policies. What is "pandering" in a democracy? The people are xenophobes, they are getting what they want.
This raises an interesting question: what happens to a democratic society when "the will of the people" embraces principles and ideas that are profoundly anti-democratic? I mean, it's hard to find a definition of "democracy" that would satisfy everyone but, intuitively, xenophobia and open hostility to visitors who clearly mean well and are contributing to the well-being of the community (Lucas was a Cambridge alumnu…
That’s a stretch.
You could be a fully functional democracy and strict immigration laws.
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#107There are legitimate and rational reasons for not wanting a large influx of poor immigrants into a developed nation. Using the US as an example, in the 1800's and early-to-mid 1900's, American work was largely labor intensive agricultural and factory based work. Labor was in huge demand, and as a result the middle class was able to thrive. Today that is no longer the case, and a massive rift between rich and poor is…
This isn't "realist", it's the usual clichés and lies that are always propagated by people trying to justify anti-immigrant sentiment.
It perpetuates the falsehood that immigrants stress social programmes. In fact, social programmes in Western countries are stressed by the shifting demographics of their indigenous populations, and require immigrants to prop them up.
Social programmes like state pensions and healthcare were created in an age when Western countries had large working-age populations, and relatively small numbers of older, non-working people. However, the decrease in fertility and increase in life expectancy across the West has flipped this. There are too many older people, and not enough indigenous tax-paying citizens to support them.
Politicians in Western countries saw this problem coming in the 1990s. Since cutting social programmes that affect the elderly is politically impossible, they realised the only solution was to liberalise their immigration policies. Immigrants are statistically younger, healthier, harder-working, and pay more taxes than the average indigenous citizen. As a bonus, many of them return to their home country when they get older, so you don't need to pay for their pensions / healthcare.
Ironically, old people in these countries then decided, or were persuaded, that they disliked immigration. So they started supporting parties with anti-immigrant policies, even though this was totally against their economic self-interest. The result is a political paradox that no Western politician has been able to unravel, although populists have made hay exploiting it.
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
>These African "leaders" send their kids to school in the west, they go to the west when sick. This is common among all oligarchs, and a great idea for sanctions. Want to rob your country blind and blow out your liver on fine drink? Congrats - you're barred from entry. Feel free to use the hospital in your home country like the rest of the poor souls you've abused.
This would require immense cooperation and the whole scheme can be defeated if any one country doesn't comply. Given that the US has offered medical visas to Yakuza leaders in the past, I don't see this ever happening.
There have been some efforts by immigrants interestingly enough in the UK harassing a minister from their home country[1]. There should be more of this.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lceJAw6iSck
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#109Much mumbo jumbo in the comments. Immigration is seldom a problem anywhere. Excessive immigration is usually a problem everywhere. The coming of Britain's and Europe's immigration backlash was obvious nearly 20 years ago. Surprise, surprise, people like their culture and their homeland. Who would've thought? Something a European in London said yesterday: "We're moving outside London. I'm not a racist, but I'd at leas…
> forcing them to do things they didn't want
Can you elaborate on this? As someone who just visited London, the opposite seems to be true at least in the service industry; most wait staff I encountered were non-British.
Re: What happens if you mistakenly apply for British citizenship?
#110While the Home Office in UK was vigorously trying its best to throw Lucas out, the same Home Office in UK is trying its best to keep economic offenders like Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi from being deported: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/28/india-asks-brita... "The Home Office said the suspension of Mr Mallya's passport was a matter for Indian authorities and declined to comment on the individual case, citin…
"its best", not "it's best"
Nice catch! Fixed :)