Richard Allen
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Post by Richard Allen on Nov 24, 2014 0:36:36 GMT
Prejudice against immigrants is quite common. What evidence do you have for that claim? I ask this question with no disrespect intended but have you ever been involved in political campaigning? As one who has I can tell you that I have spoken to a large number of people who have expressed "concerns about immigration" and in quite a few cases it was quite obvious that they simply disliked immigrants. Now that certainly isn't the case about everyone who has concerns about immigration, hell I have concerns about immigration, particularly with regards to community cohesion, pressure on infrastructure and public services and security concerns that come with open borders. To deny however that some opponents of the status quo simply don't like immigrants is to ignore a clear and obvious point. |
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Nov 24, 2014 0:40:14 GMT
There is widespread prejudice against immigrants. The evidence I have for this is what I see and hear.
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Post by Devonian on Nov 24, 2014 1:31:39 GMT
What evidence do you have for that claim? I ask this question with no disrespect intended but have you ever been involved in political campaigning? As one who has I can tell you that I have spoken to a large number of people who have expressed "concerns about immigration" and in quite a few cases it was quite obvious that they simply disliked immigrants. Now that certainly isn't the case about everyone who has concerns about immigration, hell I have concerns about immigration, particularly with regards to community cohesion, pressure on infrastructure and public services and security concerns that come with open borders. To deny however that some opponents of the status quo simply don't like immigrants is to ignore a clear and obvious point. No I have never been involved in political campaigning (when I joined the Conservative Party in my youth I rather quickly became disillusioned with it and let my membership lapse after year. I have not joined any other party since). I think its important to define what we are talking about. I started this conversation by saying that hatred of immigrants is not common. Then we moved onto 'prejudice' and now 'dislike'. If you are saying that quite of lot of people don't like the presence of immigrants in their areas they live in then I could hardly dispute that. I would also accept carlton43's point that people are prejudiced about all kind of things so if we are using the term 'prejudice' in a general sense then people have prejudices about immigrants just as they have all other kinds of prejudices. Unless greenchristian is using the term in a more specific sense then it doesn't really shed much light on the question of whether hatred of immigrants is common. Perhaps you could give examples of cases where people 'obviously' hated immigrants. I could be wrong but I suspect that many of the cases that you are referring to fall well short of real hatred. |
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Pimpernal
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A left-wing agenda within a right-wing framework...
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Post by Pimpernal on Nov 24, 2014 6:39:46 GMT
A desire to have greater immigration control is very common. A hatred of immigrants is not. To deliberately conflate the two is highly dishonest. Indeed - it is so common in fact that 90% of the countries in the world have controlled immigration. Even EU countries have controlled immigration from non-EU countries. Historically, most countries have had controlled immigration. As a policy it isn't extreme - it's mainstream. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 24, 2014 9:33:11 GMT
Dislike and prejudice are not the same thing of course. I dislike tomatos but I'm not prejudiced against them. I tried them and didn't like them
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Nov 24, 2014 9:37:20 GMT
Hungarians don't like Bulgarians taking their jobs. When a Hungarian colleague told me this I wasn't sure what to say.
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 24, 2014 9:56:40 GMT
Good point. What do you mean in this case by the term 'prejudice' greenchristian ? In this context, I'm talking about negative prejudice against immigrants. Even in a fairly well-integrated place like Coventry I've come across people who will make derogatory comments about immigrants that I would describe as prejudiced. One example that sticks in the mind is when I was canvassing (this time not in Coventry) for a candidate with an obviously non-English surname and a voter expressed concern about the fact that the candidate had this name. I've certainly found similar attitudes come up repeatedly on the doorstep in a variety of places. I'm talking about the same kind of person as gwynthegriff was a couple of posts back. Interestingly all that you say and the mode of your saying it and the words that you use perfectly betray forms of your own prejudice.........or your pre-formed non-evidential reasoning. In our past there would be prejudice against the next village let alone East Europe! Germania and Scandinavia suggested a bit more that competition for jobs, houses and the NHS; more of women, crops and life itself. These notions are hard wired into us and are perfectly valid. It is the modern French englightenment tolerance concept that is counter-intuitive and that needs to be backed up with intellectual sneering and superiority, PC and gallons of drip-feed propaganda to overlay the genuine internal reactions of ordinary people. Our behaviour at sporting events or in the relaxed environment of the pub betray the real core feelings of people. I cite from your text 'negative prejudice' as an attempt to wrong-foot the opinion. It is obviously in fact positive prejudice but it does not need an adjective at all. 'Come up repeatedly on the doorstep in a variety of places'......so it is genuine vox populi, but interestingly now being voiced instead of suppressed because we are freeing up the ability of the people to be natural in their reactions instead of guarded and apologetic. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 24, 2014 10:05:00 GMT
Hungarians don't like Bulgarians taking their jobs. When a Hungarian colleague told me this I wasn't sure what to say. Well naturally they do. The reaction must be that one is not astonished and would not expect it to be otherwise. A reaction of "Oh good the Bulgarians are coming and that will help to staff the gaps, reduce output costs and tide over our short-term expansion requirements" would be utterly absurd for any ordinary person. Their reaction will be "Damn those Bulgarians, I have lost my job and my neighbour has not had a pay rise for 8-years, the primary school can't take my child and teaching quality has gone off trying to teach them Hungarian and German, and I am 197-places further down the housing list for those new flats I helped to build but won't now have enough points ever to occupy." |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Nov 24, 2014 14:25:59 GMT
Hungarians don't like Bulgarians taking their jobs. When a Hungarian colleague told me this I wasn't sure what to say. Quite a few British (Cantonse) Chinese I've nattered to don't like the recent influx of (Mandarin) mainlanders. Coming here, with their weird food and gabbing away in their incomprehesible gibberish and throwing loads of money around. |
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Post by Merseymike on Nov 24, 2014 16:08:00 GMT
Dislike and prejudice are not the same thing of course. I dislike tomatos but I'm not prejudiced against them. I tried them and didn't like them But how could this be transferred into a descriptor against a group of people? Given that you can't 'try' a person. You can disagree with something about them, but that involves making a judgment which is much more active than just a 'dislike' |
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Post by Devonian on Nov 24, 2014 17:15:34 GMT
Hungarians don't like Bulgarians taking their jobs. When a Hungarian colleague told me this I wasn't sure what to say. What exactly does that have to do with hatred or indeed prejudice. Hungarians perceive that having free movement of people with a country, like Bulgaria, with much lower average wage rates is producing downward pressure on wages at the lower end of their own job market. Why should that surprise you? The fact that they may also be in favour of free movement for themselves to work in higher wage countries isn't surprising. The principle isn't in being in favour or against free movement as an abstract principle. The principle is 'what kind of rules would best serve the interests or ordinary Hungarians'. How would that be either surprising or illegitimate? |
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Nov 24, 2014 17:33:38 GMT
Hungarians don't like Bulgarians taking their jobs. When a Hungarian colleague told me this I wasn't sure what to say. What exactly does that have to do with hatred or indeed prejudice. Hungarians perceive that having free movement of people with a country, like Bulgaria, with much lower average wage rates is producing downward pressure on wages at the lower end of their own job market. Why should that surprise you? The fact that they may also be in favour of free movement for themselves to work in higher wage countries isn't surprising. The principle isn't in being in favour or against free movement as an abstract principle. The principle is 'what kind of rules would best serve the interests or ordinary Hungarians'. How would that be either surprising or illegitimate? I included it as a little tale, no other reason. I found it amusing. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2014 19:18:04 GMT
Medway Rochester and Strood  I have wondering why I find these graphs so deeply unsatisfying and thought it might be because I am an artist and there is something too blunt over large? But, in fact, it is because instead of the graph giving a quick answer or demonstrating a hidden truth..........in fact one needs to fully undertand the situation in order to fathom the graph. It is a reverse aid. I have not done a good job at justifying the graphs, I admit |
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Post by greenchristian on Nov 24, 2014 19:26:47 GMT
He would have to define his terms for any analysis to be meaningful. IMO their is widespread prejudice by most people over a massive range of subjects. It is part of our mode of functioning, although we prefer to pretend otherwise. Good point. What do you mean in this case by the term 'prejudice' greenchristian ? In this context, I mean dislike or hatred of groups of people based on spurious factors such as stereotyping, hearsay, media scaremongering, etc. It's debatable whether anti-immigrant prejudices are strong enough to be called prejudice, but we've had activists from across the political spectrum reporting encountering it on the doorstep in this thread - so it's fairly obvious that it does exist. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 24, 2014 22:47:14 GMT
Dok. Your graphs are obviously a labour of love and dear to your heart. I like good graphs and they show much at a glance. These don't work for me but I find it hard to explain why or to make useful suggestions.
With daily opinion polls or daily shop sales this style of graph would be more dynamic and meaningful as the lines would move most days. These are static snapshot events at intervals of many years, so you need IMO a different mode. The distortion here is the apparent growth or diminishing of a party colour between elections, leading not only to an untruth as to movement over time but a difficulty in reading out the result even on election day. On your graph on this page I cannot see at a glance who won in 2001 or 2005 because the colour fields have different values to a human eye and the internal measures pose problems because the percentage axis is nearly useless.
A first thought is having a series of individual rectilinear lozenges as discrete boxes one on top of another. The top box is the party currently holding the seat, the second place party having the second box, etc. The box is just big enough to encompass the maximum voting strength of the party during the whole period exhibited. The vertical axis runs from 0 to whole decal above the maximum vote achieved on the graph. No angles but a straight horizontal for the whole parliament then a vertical rise or drop on the next election day. Suggest much sharper super-saturated colours as easier to read.
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Post by Devonian on Nov 24, 2014 23:25:30 GMT
Good point. What do you mean in this case by the term 'prejudice' greenchristian ? In this context, I mean dislike or hatred of groups of people based on spurious factors such as stereotyping, hearsay, media scaremongering, etc. It's debatable whether anti-immigrant prejudices are strong enough to be called prejudice, but we've had activists from across the political spectrum reporting encountering it on the doorstep in this thread - so it's fairly obvious that it does exist. Well that's a fairly broad definition. The word 'dislike' in particular could cover anything from vague discomfort based on unfamiliarity or differences in cultural taste all the way to outright obsessive hatred. Do you think that actual hatred of immigrants in commonplace? Perhaps you could given some evidence or examples if you think it is. |
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Richard Allen
Banned
Four time loser in VUKPOTY finals
Posts: 19,052
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Post by Richard Allen on Nov 24, 2014 23:27:19 GMT
I have not done a good job at justifying the graphs, I admit Your justification is not the problem, the problem is the graphs. One of the main purposes of a graph is to show statistical information in a simple format that can quickly and easily be understood. Your graphs frequently fail to make clear which party won the seat in question at any given election, which party was second or any other basic information. |
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Post by johnloony on Nov 25, 2014 1:41:58 GMT
The main thing wrong with the graphs (in my opinion) is that the parties are not listed in a useful order. They may be listed (from top to bottom, or vice-versa) in some sort of numerical order, but it would be more useful if they were in political order. In other words, right at the bottom and left at the top. Or whatever.
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Nov 25, 2014 21:45:07 GMT
I'm sure someone prints them out and uses them as art. Possibly.
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Post by psephos on Nov 26, 2014 14:57:37 GMT
I have not done a good job at justifying the graphs, I admit Your justification is not the problem, the problem is the graphs. One of the main purposes of a graph is to show statistical information in a simple format that can quickly and easily be understood. Your graphs frequently fail to make clear which party won the seat in question at any given election, which party was second or any other basic information. Graphs aren't the problem. Twenty minutes playing about in Excel using the same data (ie Medway 1992-2005, Rochester & Strood 2010-14, no allowance made for notional results). Not perfect but:  |
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