Althouse: "As an Italian who was born and raised in Bari, I can assure you that the influx of economic refugees is now coming to an end in Italy. Italians have had it."

August 27, 2017

"As an Italian who was born and raised in Bari, I can assure you that the influx of economic refugees is now coming to an end in Italy. Italians have had it."

"If you look at the general welfare roles in Bari and throughout Italy; or just observe what is happening on the Streets, refugees from North Africa and the Middle East simply refuse to work, or go back to their country of origin when their paperwork expires in Italy. Italy has a very generous social welfare State that is being financially drained by these refugees. Italians are paying into the system, but it is the refugees who are benefitting at the expense of elderly, sick, and poor Italians who need the assistance, and have paid into the system their entire lives. It is not fair, just, or appropriate to continue this practice of accepting primarily economic refugees who do nothing but use the social welfare State of Italy for their own personal needs and financial interests. The free ride is over, and Italians are very happy about it."

The top-rated comment on a Washington Post article titled "In once-welcoming Italy, the tide turns against migrants."

57 comments:

Michael K said...: So what are they going to do ?

They should have thought of this before.

Rome thought the Vandals would make nice mercenaries.; 8/27/17, 6:53 AM
Rusty said...: If somebody opens their door and invites you in you should at least be useful. You know. Offer to sweep up, do the dishes, walk the dog. That sort of stuff.
Not
Gimme samich! Chop chop. Yer outa beer!; 8/27/17, 6:54 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "They should have thought of this before."

If you think of it before, you're a racist. You have to become a victim first. That's your only hope of not being a racist.; 8/27/17, 6:56 AM
rhhardin said...: Refugees prefer white rule.; 8/27/17, 6:57 AM
rehajm said...: Hard to believe WaPo didn't delete as inappropriate content; 8/27/17, 6:58 AM
Oso Negro said...: But they DID think of it before! Oriana Fallaci was ALL OVER that shit years ago!!!; 8/27/17, 6:59 AM
Jersey Fled said...: How much longer do you think it will be before WaPo disables comments to this article?

Or is that just a NYT trick?; 8/27/17, 7:03 AM
iowan2 said...: I did not see that coming; 8/27/17, 7:05 AM
Wince said...: Maybe "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is a racist slogan?; 8/27/17, 7:10 AM
iowan2 said...: I have an idea, dont know how to implement it.
Someone should record what happens, the successes and failures, circumstances leading to the outcomes and pass that information on to future generations. Over time, learning what works and what doesnt, we would soon be living in utopia.; 8/27/17, 7:11 AM
Humperdink said...: I was on an open blog some time ago and an intellectual astute lefty was arguing there should be no borders ..... anywhere. How do you argue with that? Well, you don't. Just shake you head and hope they don't overwhelm you at the ballot box.; 8/27/17, 7:12 AM
Oso Negro said...: Blogger iowan2 said...
I have an idea, dont know how to implement it.
Someone should record what happens, the successes and failures, circumstances leading to the outcomes and pass that information on to future generations. Over time, learning what works and what doesnt, we would soon be living in utopia.

8/27/17, 7:11 AM

Not everyone possesses the ability to learn from the mistakes of others.; 8/27/17, 7:14 AM
Curious George said...: "Italians have had it."

Unknown "That's not what Italy stand for!"; 8/27/17, 7:32 AM
Humperdink said...: I suspect there is some Italian somewhere, putting on his best Obama impersonation, shouting: "That's not who we are!".; 8/27/17, 7:38 AM
Fernandinande said...: “They’re not stealing a job from me.” said Pani, a 39-year-old film production manager who also said she had struggled for years to find full-time work.

Someone should hire Pani as an economist...but then her village would be missing its idiot.; 8/27/17, 7:54 AM
William said...: "Italy has a very generous social welfare State that is being financially drained by these refugees. Italians are paying into the system, but it is the refugees who are benefitting at the expense of elderly, sick, and poor Italians who need the assistance, and have paid into the system their entire lives."

As we used to say when I was young, no sh!t, Sherlock.; 8/27/17, 7:55 AM
rehajm said...: As we used to say when I was young

Today isn't this called getting woke?

I'm uncertain if the term pertains to movement in either direction politically.; 8/27/17, 8:05 AM
Sebastian said...: Horrible Italian supremacists. Don't they know they owe a moral debt to Africans, due to the African misdeeds of their ancestors?

"Economic refugees." As with Muslim terrorists, you've got to be able to name the problem properly first.; 8/27/17, 8:15 AM
MadisonMan said...: Friend from college tried to start a Company that offered employment to people with mental problems -- not dangerous mental problems. But they were receiving benefits from the state and didn't want to work for a living. Watching TV beats working in the hot Texas sun.

Some people are lazy. Maybe even many. I know I can be, and sometimes take the path of least resistance through life.; 8/27/17, 8:41 AM
Tommy Duncan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/27/17, 8:42 AM
Tommy Duncan said...: Brendan Bernhard in LA Weekly:

How was Europe, which was saved by the U.S. in world wars I and II, and whose Muslim Bosnians were rescued by the U.S. as recently as 1999, transformed into a place in which, as Fallaci puts it, “if I hate Americans I go to Heaven and if I hate Muslims I go to Hell?”; 8/27/17, 8:43 AM
n.n said...: Another oil for refugee program. CAIR is both a crisis and a cover-up.; 8/27/17, 8:46 AM
Dave said...: Tank said...
Italians are racists?

Having lived there for 7 years from 1976 to 1983 I can answer that. Yes, they are.; 8/27/17, 8:48 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: So simple.

1. A country can have a lenient immigration policy
2. A country can have a generous welfare state.

But it's very bad though to have both 1 and 2. Your country will be overrun with poor, unskilled folks who will not assimilate and, if they reach critical mass, lead by leftist elements, will vote you out of office or seize power.; 8/27/17, 8:49 AM
n.n said...: People and Posterity, first.

The issue is excessive immigration. That is immigration that exceeds the rate of assimilation and integration before Planned Parenthood.; 8/27/17, 8:55 AM
Clyde said...: The only ones unhappy when parasites are removed from a host organism are the parasites.; 8/27/17, 9:36 AM
Virgil Hilts said...: A few inconvenient statistics:
2.5 million -- Population increase in U.S. per year (recently)
1.7 million -- Population increase in Europe per year (recently)
30-40 million -- Population increase in Africa per year (recently)
9 miles - closest distance between Africa from Europe
I think people in Southern Europe are more familiar with these facts than those in other places. If you make Europe inviting to refugees, they will come in overwhelming numbers. That is not subject to reasonable dispute and it is not racist.; 8/27/17, 9:41 AM
Mark said...: they were receiving benefits from the state and didn't want to work for a living. . . Some people are lazy. Maybe even many.

Learned helplessness is a scientifically-tested phenomenon. And policies that promote government dependency encourage it further.; 8/27/17, 9:46 AM
mockturtle said...: Welfare roles?; 8/27/17, 9:48 AM
Mark said...: With the immigration policies that some would impose on people, they would essentially destroy and eliminate any notion of nationhood, sovereignty, and citizenship, not to mention the rule of law and the concept of any measure of order.; 8/27/17, 9:49 AM
Mark said...: If you do not have sovereignty, if you do not have control over borders, if people keep coming in -- especially if they come in over and over and over and over after they have been deported and banned repeatedly, then it ruins things for everyone.; 8/27/17, 9:52 AM
mockturtle said...: The EU has screwed the European people from day one but I think the people are finally getting woke. Italy, in particular, relies heavily on tourism. Tourists don't visit Tuscany to see Nigeria. Remember the saying, "Let Poland be Poland"? Let Italy be Italy. It's not racism. It's about national identity. America is a melting pot. Italy is not.; 8/27/17, 9:55 AM
Fernandinande said...: Mark said...
Learned helplessness is a scientifically-tested phenomenon.

"Learned helplessness" doesn't have anything at all to do with laziness or welfare.; 8/27/17, 9:57 AM
retail lawyer said...: Merkel did the stupidest thing I've ever seen a politician do. "We can do it. It will change us". No limiting principle. And then demand the rest of the EU take in their "fair share". A good dose of radiation will change something, too.

I simply cannot process the fact that she will win her next election.; 8/27/17, 10:16 AM
SteveR said...: Unexpectedly; 8/27/17, 10:20 AM
buwaya said...: But CAN they stop them?

At this point, it doesnt seem likely.
The shipping being used is paid for by private parties.; 8/27/17, 10:22 AM
Anonymous said...: mockturtle: Let Italy be Italy. It's not racism. It's about national identity. America is a melting pot. Italy is not.

I agree that Italy should be Italy, but America, too, has a national identity. It isn't a blank-slate held together only by a rule book. It's a real place with real people and a real history and a real culture, not merely a "proposition", a country with "no there there", a "country about nothing". Canada and Mexico are also nations of immigrants, of similar vintage, and "melting pots" in their own way. (Well, Canada was, but has apparently chosen to go full multi-cult retard, but whatever....) But they're not us, and we're not them, but 'Muricans, by gawd.

At any rate, "melting pot" used to mean "Americanization", aka "assimilating into something that's already there". (Yes, yes, I know, even reasonable amounts of immigration will add people who will contribute to, and shape, the future culture of a country. So will the passage of time itself, but that's not the same thing as having a blank-slate of a country.)

I mean, mock, surely you have noticed a certain unpleasantness abroad in the land regarding excessive immigration and the memory-holing of our past? I think these things may have something to do with that "national identity" thingie. ;); 8/27/17, 10:30 AM
Comanche Voter said...: As Instapundit likes to say, "What can't go on, won't go on." But if you don't turn off the spigot, (and I doubt that the Italian government has the will or the ability to do so) Italy will keep on getting flooded.

The Mexicans used to say (in referring to their Yanqui neighbors to the north), "Poor Mexico, so far from heaven, and so close to El Norte." The Italians might change that to "Poor Italy, so far from heave and so close to North Africa." Historically this influx is revenge for Mussolini's adventurism in Ethiopia, Abyssinia and Somalia.; 8/27/17, 10:33 AM
Comanche Voter said...: As Instapundit likes to say, "What can't go on, won't go on." But if you don't turn off the spigot, (and I doubt that the Italian government has the will or the ability to do so) Italy will keep on getting flooded.

The Mexicans used to say (in referring to their Yanqui neighbors to the north), "Poor Mexico, so far from heaven, and so close to El Norte." The Italians might change that to "Poor Italy, so far from heave and so close to North Africa." Historically this influx is revenge for Mussolini's adventurism in Ethiopia, Abyssinia and Somalia.; 8/27/17, 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: retail lawyer: Merkel did the stupidest thing I've ever seen a politician do. "We can do it. It will change us". No limiting principle. And then demand the rest of the EU take in their "fair share". A good dose of radiation will change something, too.

I simply cannot process the fact that she will win her next election.

One could (and one often does) opine that "Europe has a death wish", but the continued re-election, with comfortable margins, of politicians who are hell-bent on destroying the people who vote for them probably has more to do with the enfeeblement of the human character in comfortable welfare states, than with abstruse philosophical musings on the spirit of history. Wealth, comfort, and security make one fat and soft, nations are emasculated; material security becomes the citizens' chief priority. Plus, Europeans are demographically old, and old people are naturally more comfort- and security-oriented than the young. Yeah, the quality of life is deteriorating all around me, but hey, better to throw in one's lot with the status quo, since things can't get that bad before I buy the ranch, can they?

But really, it's human nature, not just a pathology of easy living, to plump for security when one can: ...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.; 8/27/17, 10:54 AM
Anonymous said...: Comanche Voter: Historically this influx is revenge for Mussolini's adventurism in Ethiopia, Abyssinia and Somalia.

Most of the Africans pouring into Europe never heard of Mussolini and wouldn't give a shit about him if they did. If Europe were a poverty-stricken shithole with no bennies available nobody in Africa would have this kind of "revenge" on his mind. (That an African might nurse racial resentment against Europeans, and bring that racial resentment along with him to Europe, doesn't mean that that's his motivation for trying to get to Europe now.)

What we're seeing in Europe is not "the wages of Empire" - there is no iron law of nature or history operating here. Pakistanis didn't pour into Britain because Britain once ruled them, they poured in, and are pouring in, because the people in power want them to. Britain is perfectly capable of keeping them out, if they wanted to. The British public aren't willing to do anything but grumble about it, and then turn around and vote the nation-abolishers right back into office. If most Brits didn't want them there, and that "most" had any balls, they wouldn't be there.; 8/27/17, 11:08 AM
JAORE said...: Some people are lazy. Maybe even many. I know I can be, and sometimes take the path of least resistance through life.

Most, I suspect, are lazy. I am roused from the pull of sloth mainly by which destination along that "path... through life" I wish to attain.; 8/27/17, 11:15 AM
Paul said...: As Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales) would say about helping these would-be terrorist, "Mercy? Just plumb fresh out".

People are just tired of this. We cannot save the world.; 8/27/17, 11:15 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Points of no return have probably been reached.; 8/27/17, 11:29 AM
wholelottasplainin said...: Northern Italians used to jeer at their poorer southern countrymen by saying, "Africa begins at Naples."

Not any more. Africa is now all around them.; 8/27/17, 11:51 AM
wholelottasplainin said...: mockturtle said...

Let Italy be Italy. It's not racism. It's about national identity. America is a melting pot. Italy is not.

*************************

I guess you missed the American Left's drive to pit various "victim" groups against the white majority, and to encourage group "identity" --- not assimilation aka melting.; 8/27/17, 11:56 AM
Danno said...: Mockturtle said..."Tourists don't visit Tuscany to see Nigeria. Remember the saying, "Let Poland be Poland"? Let Italy be Italy. It's not racism. It's about national identity. America is a melting pot. Italy is not."

Who in their right mind would want to go see Europe now, much less in 5 or 10 years?

Not me.; 8/27/17, 12:54 PM
mockturtle said...: I guess you missed the American Left's drive to pit various "victim" groups against the white majority, and to encourage group "identity" --- not assimilation aka melting.

No, Jay, I didn't miss it. But I am looking at the big picture, not the events of the past few years.; 8/27/17, 1:28 PM
n.n said...: Refugees of Obama's clean wars and redistributive debt.; 8/27/17, 1:29 PM
MeatPopscicle1234 said...: and right on cue... Polish tourist gang-raped and beaten by African migrants in broad daylight at famous seaside resort...

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/26/italy-african-migrants-beat-rob-polish-man-gang-rape-wife/; 8/27/17, 3:22 PM
n.n said...: gang-raped and beaten by African migrants in broad daylight

Arab Spring, revisited. For the sake of color diversity, no less.; 8/27/17, 4:24 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: This is my surprised face.; 8/27/17, 4:50 PM
Gahrie said...: Now swap Italians with immigrants and refugees with illegal immigrants...; 8/27/17, 6:20 PM
Gahrie said...: Learned helplessness is a scientifically-tested phenomenon. And policies that promote government dependency encourage it further.

Every national park has signs telling you not to feed the animals......; 8/27/17, 6:23 PM
JAORE said...: "Who in their right mind would want to go see Europe now, much less in 5 or 10 years?"

Well our travel group just went to Spain this year. Touristing and ran with the bulls. That may be a two fer on the not in my "right mind" issue.

Stayed in Barcelona on both ends of the stay. Judy called out, "Hey, that's the hotel we stayed at" as news coverage of the recent terrorist attack was showing the general area.

Our next planned trip will be outside of Europe.; 8/27/17, 7:11 PM
JamesB.BKK said...: UNHCR: "A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group."

What is an economic refugee? A non-existent thing cannot come into existence via an adjective.; 8/27/17, 10:29 PM
Dude1394 said...: Dumbasses. They are not going to do anything about it.; 8/28/17, 4:29 PM