Up to 2,300 Syrian refugees expected in Calgary over the next six to eight weeks

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

You might be right, but it's not really very productive to attack motives, first of all. Either it's a good idea or it isn't (I don't think it is) that we should be prioritizing these issues over refugees.

It's entirely possible that a person would reasonably take the position that, "look, until now (or maybe even now), I was opposed to spending a ~$700 million chunk of money helping disadvantaged people. However, if we ARE committed to spending that money, if I'm to treat it like a sunk cost anyway, here's how I think we should spend it".

Second, world events tend to get people thinking about a variety of issues. An attack on Paris gets people thinking about foreign policy all of a sudden. People suddenly care about a ton of different things following a mass shooting. "Maybe we'd be better off intervening in X place" is not suddenly a bad notion just because it was equally good or bad six months ago.

I just don't think suspecting peoples' motivations is relevant or useful, it's wasting mental energy on speculation and mind-reading, and undermines our ability to have a conversation about basically anything.

We will have to agree to disagree.

To my mind it creates a "haze" that detracts and makes it hard to focus on the topic.


Also, people are lazy, especially when social media is involved.

For example this:



Very few people decide to actually check to see if it is factual and just "push it along". By that point it is often too late.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/fact-...ners-1.2670735

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I just keep this handy for those sorts of situations. The racism allegations at the bottom are problematic for me but otherwise it's freakin' brilliant.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Very few people decide to actually check to see if it is factual and just "push it along". By that point it is often too late.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/fact-...ners-1.2670735

From the link:

However, the Canadian Council for Refugees says that most resettled refugees end up in debt because they are expected to repay the cost of their transportation to Canada and other related expenses – with interest. The council says that more than 90 per cent of refugees repay their loans.

That was the tale also told to me by my folks who came over as refugees. They had to pay back every cent that it cost to bring them over. The were sponsored by a forestry company and the cost for their accommodations came right out of his pay, and the rest of the pay went to the government to pay Canada back.

I didn't realize that it was still like that though because you never hear about it.

[Bigtime]

I'm a little disappointed that the 25,000 actually includes 10,000 being privately sponsored. I was under the assumption that the government figure of 25,000 was over and above what private sponsors were doing.

A little basic number crunching, we've been told that to privately sponsor a family of 4 for the year would be about $25,000 (obviously will vary based on where they get settled). So take that 10,000 figure and just assume it's all families of 4. That's 2500 families times $25,000 for the year (that private groups must have in a trust for them) and you get $62,500,000.

That's pretty damn impressive coming from ordinary Canadian citizens. Makes me proud.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That was the tale also told to me by my folks who came over as refugees. They had to pay back every cent that it cost to bring them over. The were sponsored by a forestry company and the cost for their accommodations came right out of his pay, and the rest of the pay went to the government to pay Canada back.

Well, that's worth asking because my understanding is that this program is 100% government funded - is there an element of that "repayment" policy that should be instituted here? There's perhaps a line, probably not a fine one, between a re-payment plan for a part of the cost of settlement and outright indentured servitude, but is that something we should be considering? I'm inclined to say yes.

[Bigtime]

Not sure how other G5 Sponsorship groups are operating but ours is not looking to get repaid by the family we are bringing here.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

long.

My point is that you spend significant time on what people 'ought' to talk about and what methods best prescribe to productive results.

Daily discussion amongst peers is rarely so commonly analysed on an academic level as it is on the internet.

Downplaying points like undercover's because you find them not productive doesn't fuel interesting conversation. Who cares if his point is productive? They're worth sharing and worth discussing. Motives ARE worth discussing and there is rarely such thing in philosophical and political discussion as "they're either right or they're wrong." I'm very interested in why people hold their views about refugees, and why they bring up certain points to justify their views.

Hopefully this does not lead to a proclamation of you 'blocking' me again

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I'm interested in those things too, but it doesn't impact upon the truth content of the statements themselves and for some reason the predilection is for ignoring the statement and just skipping to a discussion of motive. These are separate questions entirely.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Very few people decide to actually check to see if it is factual and just "push it along". By that point it is often too late.

By people, we mean 'old people' right? Because in my experience, these sorts of phoney emails are forwarded and shared mostly by seniors - people like my parents, their friends, my friends' parents. The credulity of seniors just makes me shake my head. That, and the really dumb joke emails they pass around and share indiscriminately, like an STD at a nursing home.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

By people, we mean 'old people' right? Because in my experience, these sorts of phoney emails are forwarded and shared mostly by seniors - people like my parents, their friends, my friends' parents. The credulity of seniors just makes me shake my head. That, and the really dumb joke emails they pass around and share indiscriminately, like an STD at a nursing home.

Nope, I see it on my Facebook feed.

Sadly, I wish it was limited to the elderly, but in my experiences it isn't.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I do generally see people being responsive to pushback on those things, though. If someone says something like that and I point out, "well, this is clearly wrong, because XYZ", they usually take it down and thank me. To be fair I think that's happened maybe 3 times in my entire history of using facebook and one involved me just being de-friended instead. Not necessarily that encouraging...

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I'm interested in those things too, but it doesn't impact upon the truth content of the statements themselves and for some reason the predilection is for ignoring the statement and just skipping to a discussion of motive. These are separate questions entirely.

To that, I'd say there are two checks: a relevance check, and a truth check. Relevance checks come first. If it doesn't pass that then it's truth content doesn't matter. Homeless people are not immediately relevant to Syrian Refugees, so some justification of relevance is required. If you can't justify the relevance, it doesn't matter if it's true. That's where things like an understanding of funding levels is something you should care about.

That's all "questioning the motive" is, a relevance check. That's why it matters a lot. You can absolutely skip the truth of a statement if the motive for presenting it isn't justifiable.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

To that, I'd say there are two checks: a relevance check, and a truth check. Relevance checks come first. If it doesn't pass that then it's truth content doesn't matter. Homeless people are not immediately relevant to Syrian Refugees, so some justification of relevance is required. If you can't justify the relevance, it doesn't matter if it's true. That's where things like an understanding of funding levels is something you should care about.

This is interesting and I think the principle makes good sense. Maybe a materiality check is also worthwhile, so we don't spend a bunch of time talking about minutae (which has become its own problem). That being said, this may simply be playing into my bias as a lawyer, since relevance and materiality are the things we look at to determine if a document is producible in litigation.

However, while I'm on board in theory I'm not sure your example works here. Homelessness and refugee status aren't directly correlated, except to the extent we're talking about spending $700m on a problem. If the context of the discussion is, "what should we spend this money on", then sure, it's relevant, isn't it?

That's all "questioning the motive" is, a relevance check. That's why it matters a lot. You can absolutely skip the truth of a statement if the motive for presenting it isn't justifiable.

This, I have to completely and utterly disagree with for two reasons. One, again, in almost every situation you cannot mind-read. You do not know what the motive is, you can only speculate. There are going to be exceptions - if you get a comment from Fred Phelps on gay marriage you can guess his motive from track record. However, in most cases this is absolutely not the case.

Two, even if Fred Phelps is a complete #######, he might accidentally make a good point. Or he might have a dozen points, eleven of which are complete hogwash, but the twelfth happens to be well-reasoned. Or, as Mill points out, he may be totally wrong but give us an opportunity to refine our position to ensure it's as strongly reasoned as it can be. Certain good ideas can come from terrible sources.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

That's all "questioning the motive" is, a relevance check. That's why it matters a lot. You can absolutely skip the truth of a statement if the motive for presenting it isn't justifiable.

That just sounds like a justification to dismiss an argument without having to engage with it. And that's why political dialogue is becoming so dysfunctional - both the left and right engage in poisoning the well as a systematic practice. "Of course you can't believe what a [lefty/neo-con] says. All they want is do is [sinister agenda], so everything they say is probably a lie." And back to the group-think echo-chambers everyone goes, to signal their righteousness to their fellow believers.

[CliffFletcher]

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."

- Will Durant

[jayswin]

Slighty OT, but I must say I am beyond frustrated with CorsiHockeyLeague's recent posting style. When he was just an opinionated poster it was fine, I actually like those with strong opinions and an unwillingness to back down in small doses as it can keep discussions going.

But his recent addition of playing the overlord mod who goes after everyone's motives for posting and tries to reason everyone into only asking questions/sharing opinions if it matches what he feels is fair/worthy for discussion to continue is beyond insufferable at this point, and imo goes against the spirit of a message board.

Just debate people's opinions at face value, you're really starting to bog down discussions with your new style.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

The entire point I'm trying to get to here is that I'm NOT going after motives and promoting people asking questions and sharing opinions regardless of whether others think those opinions are worthy for discussion. In other words, encouraging people to engage with points on their merits.

I'm seriously wondering how in the hell you got the exact opposite impression.

[Cappy]

I think the homeless argument is pretty interesting, as well.

Generally, when people mention spending more on homeless housing or assistance, many people get up in arms about the homeless just being addicted to drugs or lazy ("it's Alberta! there are a ton of jobs"). Atleast from my facebook feed, the same people making those arguments before are the people "caring" for the homeless now.

This is not a comment on whether this debate is relevant or any of the other subliminal crap you guys are arguing over. Just a thought.

[EldrickOnIce]

From the article somewhere above:

The officials did not want to be identified because diplomats and immigration officers have been told by Ottawa not to speak about the matter, with all requests referred to the government.

This is what we used to refer to as muzzling.
But now that Harper is not in charge, what do we call it instead?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]