Nevermind the fact that it's also a UN-sponsored policy paper and that, e.g., 51.6% of schoolkids in Vienna, Austria, speak some language(s) other than German at home
All migration policies are dictated at Brussels, headquarters for the European Union. Hungary is paying fine imposed by EU for protecting its own borders. This EU policy is nothing but devide and conquer and build back better New Hell Order.
And the irony of this that while "they" promote "diversity" in the developed world, they also insist on making Ukraine a mono-ethnic Ukrainian language-only state where Russian native speakers are denied the chance to speak their own language in schools and elsewhere (while living in their own country on their own land) which was the big reason (one of many) of the 2014 civil war in Eastern Ukraine.
To understand that, you'd need to study advanced victimology. You see, minority languages only count if they can apply for victim status. Which is why every effort should be made to promote e.g. Welsh in Wales, but it's perfectly appropriate to ban Russian in Ukraine.
Well, *technically*, it wasn't banned. So in that sense, he was right. You just couldn't do anything official in it (ahem). And you certainly couldn't get an education in it.
Interestingly, I hear a lot more Russian than Ukrainian on the streets of Prague. Since we have something like 10x more Ukrainians than Russians in the Czech Republic, I can only conclude that most of that Russian is being spoken by Ukrainians. (And yes, I can tell the difference between Russian and Ukrainian, due to the fact that I speak pretty decent Russian, albeit non-natively. What I *cannot* do is distinguish between regional accents. So, don't ask me to guess if someone is speaking Moscow or Odessa Russian, for example. I speak no Ukrainian, but if I hear an extended conversation in it - on the subway, for example - I'll be able to identify it as such. If I hear just a small fragment of it, I'll identify it as a "Slavic language that I don't speak." Well, I hear a *lot* more Russian on the streets of Prague than I hear all the Slavic languages that I don't speak combined.)
And then the question is, and always has been: cui bono (who benefits)?
It's hard to see that the Political classes and Bureaucrats/Managerial elites benefit other than in the short term.
I suppose 'their' medium-term goal is to render the welfare state dysfunctional so that when 'they' come up with a 'solution™' (yet more of the same public-private-partnership, but with digital ID-controlled 'means-testing'), people will jump at it.
"Now, I’m all for helping children, no question there, but the main issue is: how much does this cost? At some point, this must be discussed, because the recipients of such largesse are typically those who aren’t citizens (which is, technically, o.k. to a certain extent in welfare states, I suppose)."
It is certainly appropriate to ask how much this costs, but it's at least as appropriate to ask how much it costs *not* to fund it. The cost of those language classes is surely lower than the long-term price of having a substantial chunk of the population with inadequate language skills, or simply a level of education that's far below their intellectual potential. (Imagine an adolescent arriving in Austria with no German language skills. He eventually learns German from his peers and the media, but by the time that happens, he's hopelessly behind in school and ends up not graduating, or graduating with terrible grades.) From what I've been able to gather, the Czech Republic has its head in the sand about this, and I cannot help but wonder how this will play out over the next decade or two.
The way I see it, you should pay what you need to pay to adequately integrate the foreigners you admit to your country, and you should not admit more than you're able and willing to integrate. Integration is not cheap, sorry. And, oh yeah, it helps to do what you can to prevent wars next door, so that you don't wind up with large numbers of refugees.
No doubt about this, no question. There's a 'marginal utility' to this admission/integration differential, but your posting makes so much more sense than literally every BS peddled by 'politicos™', 'journos™', and 'experts™' alike.
"When I performed some higher-level rocket-science™ (I’ve added all the 9 shares given = 212.6 and divided by 9), I get an average share of 23.6%, not 27%."
Aaaargh!!! That's not how you do the math, Stefan! Let's use a very simple example. Suppose you have a 100 person village with two parts: the "small" part (with 10 people) and the "large" part (with 90 people). Suppose that 90% of the people in the small part grow potatoes, whereas only 10% in the large part do. What percentage of the total grow potatoes? If you computed (90+10)/2 = 50, and concluded it's 50% percent, then you're wrong. Instead:
90% of 10 people is 9 people
10% of 90 people is 9 people
So, a total of 18 people in the village grow potatoes, and 18 out of 100 is 18%.
And those children are coming to rescue America's international reputation. :-) Remember the joke:
Q: What do you call a person who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: American or British.
Well, it would appear that 20% of America's school children have every reason to disagree with the joke. In any case, unless something's changed in the last year or three, the US does not have an official language. It's a land of immigrants, isn't it? Europe's somewhat different, with its nation states. Nation states come with advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include higher social cohesion. The disadvantages include their propensity for violence toward minorities. Ugo Bardi (https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/natural-born-killers-the-curse-of) and Aurelien (https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/people-states-and-borders) had good posts about this.
Thank you for this! No such numbers available in Finland where I hail from, but development is similar, lots of immigration and zero attention on possibility of integration.
As to who/what is driving all this - here the public broadcasting is firmly supporting the us "democratic" party. Celebrating the Harris poll successes and never failing to underline Trump failings, prosecutions and such. So we have turned into a vassal, not even of the us empire, but a vassal of one us party. I am old enough to remember when it was considered bad form to criticise the Soviet Union, but this is equally ridiculous. As to public opinion, 80% of people seek mainly to follow the majority, so manufacturing consent is easy: just make polls show wide public support for whatever is required.
You're welcome, even though this is a hot potato, I suppose.
Your (?) Finnish experiences are mirrored in Austria: the gov't is moving ever closer to NATO, of course Mr. Trump is dealt with in a bespoke manner ('orange man bad'), and public opinion is 80-90% in favour of way less immigration and neutrality, as opposed to NATO alignment.
All migration policies are dictated at Brussels, headquarters for the European Union. Hungary is paying fine imposed by EU for protecting its own borders. This EU policy is nothing but devide and conquer and build back better New Hell Order.
I think you're correct.
Now the question becomes: who's bossing the dimwits in Brussels around?
And the irony of this that while "they" promote "diversity" in the developed world, they also insist on making Ukraine a mono-ethnic Ukrainian language-only state where Russian native speakers are denied the chance to speak their own language in schools and elsewhere (while living in their own country on their own land) which was the big reason (one of many) of the 2014 civil war in Eastern Ukraine.
To understand that, you'd need to study advanced victimology. You see, minority languages only count if they can apply for victim status. Which is why every effort should be made to promote e.g. Welsh in Wales, but it's perfectly appropriate to ban Russian in Ukraine.
I recall people--incl. former OSCE high commissioners--denying the fact that Russian was banned in Ukraine.
Well, *technically*, it wasn't banned. So in that sense, he was right. You just couldn't do anything official in it (ahem). And you certainly couldn't get an education in it.
Interestingly, I hear a lot more Russian than Ukrainian on the streets of Prague. Since we have something like 10x more Ukrainians than Russians in the Czech Republic, I can only conclude that most of that Russian is being spoken by Ukrainians. (And yes, I can tell the difference between Russian and Ukrainian, due to the fact that I speak pretty decent Russian, albeit non-natively. What I *cannot* do is distinguish between regional accents. So, don't ask me to guess if someone is speaking Moscow or Odessa Russian, for example. I speak no Ukrainian, but if I hear an extended conversation in it - on the subway, for example - I'll be able to identify it as such. If I hear just a small fragment of it, I'll identify it as a "Slavic language that I don't speak." Well, I hear a *lot* more Russian on the streets of Prague than I hear all the Slavic languages that I don't speak combined.)
Huhum, my comparable anecdote goes like this: I have yet to meet a Ukrainien refugee in Norway who doesn't speak Russian…
Same problems in Canada.
Unfettered immigration aided and abetted by our Political classes and Bureaucrats/Managerial elites.
ESL industry builder so Govt can get bigger!
The welfare state is unable to manage.
Street populations have skyrocketed as cost of living inflates because of 2 million more immigrants in a short time
Sewage and potable water are severely strained already and most systems are ancient and need of replacement/repair now.
No Worries
No Problems
But diversity has immediate and long term cascading costs
And then the question is, and always has been: cui bono (who benefits)?
It's hard to see that the Political classes and Bureaucrats/Managerial elites benefit other than in the short term.
I suppose 'their' medium-term goal is to render the welfare state dysfunctional so that when 'they' come up with a 'solution™' (yet more of the same public-private-partnership, but with digital ID-controlled 'means-testing'), people will jump at it.
"Now, I’m all for helping children, no question there, but the main issue is: how much does this cost? At some point, this must be discussed, because the recipients of such largesse are typically those who aren’t citizens (which is, technically, o.k. to a certain extent in welfare states, I suppose)."
It is certainly appropriate to ask how much this costs, but it's at least as appropriate to ask how much it costs *not* to fund it. The cost of those language classes is surely lower than the long-term price of having a substantial chunk of the population with inadequate language skills, or simply a level of education that's far below their intellectual potential. (Imagine an adolescent arriving in Austria with no German language skills. He eventually learns German from his peers and the media, but by the time that happens, he's hopelessly behind in school and ends up not graduating, or graduating with terrible grades.) From what I've been able to gather, the Czech Republic has its head in the sand about this, and I cannot help but wonder how this will play out over the next decade or two.
The way I see it, you should pay what you need to pay to adequately integrate the foreigners you admit to your country, and you should not admit more than you're able and willing to integrate. Integration is not cheap, sorry. And, oh yeah, it helps to do what you can to prevent wars next door, so that you don't wind up with large numbers of refugees.
No doubt about this, no question. There's a 'marginal utility' to this admission/integration differential, but your posting makes so much more sense than literally every BS peddled by 'politicos™', 'journos™', and 'experts™' alike.
"When I performed some higher-level rocket-science™ (I’ve added all the 9 shares given = 212.6 and divided by 9), I get an average share of 23.6%, not 27%."
Aaaargh!!! That's not how you do the math, Stefan! Let's use a very simple example. Suppose you have a 100 person village with two parts: the "small" part (with 10 people) and the "large" part (with 90 people). Suppose that 90% of the people in the small part grow potatoes, whereas only 10% in the large part do. What percentage of the total grow potatoes? If you computed (90+10)/2 = 50, and concluded it's 50% percent, then you're wrong. Instead:
90% of 10 people is 9 people
10% of 90 people is 9 people
So, a total of 18 people in the village grow potatoes, and 18 out of 100 is 18%.
I'm lucky I was standing around reading this, for otherwise I would have fallen off my chair laughing. Thanks a lot!
Definitely a conspiracy 😉 https://www.statista.com/statistics/476804/percentage-of-school-age-children-who-speak-another-language-than-english-at-home-in-the-us/
And those children are coming to rescue America's international reputation. :-) Remember the joke:
Q: What do you call a person who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: American or British.
Well, it would appear that 20% of America's school children have every reason to disagree with the joke. In any case, unless something's changed in the last year or three, the US does not have an official language. It's a land of immigrants, isn't it? Europe's somewhat different, with its nation states. Nation states come with advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include higher social cohesion. The disadvantages include their propensity for violence toward minorities. Ugo Bardi (https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/natural-born-killers-the-curse-of) and Aurelien (https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/people-states-and-borders) had good posts about this.
Of course it must be, because otherwise it indicates you disbelieve IngSoc in favour of your own eyes, isn't it?
It’s one of the elements of the UN’s SDGs.
Like the anti-malaria jabs I discussed the other day.
Thank you for this! No such numbers available in Finland where I hail from, but development is similar, lots of immigration and zero attention on possibility of integration.
As to who/what is driving all this - here the public broadcasting is firmly supporting the us "democratic" party. Celebrating the Harris poll successes and never failing to underline Trump failings, prosecutions and such. So we have turned into a vassal, not even of the us empire, but a vassal of one us party. I am old enough to remember when it was considered bad form to criticise the Soviet Union, but this is equally ridiculous. As to public opinion, 80% of people seek mainly to follow the majority, so manufacturing consent is easy: just make polls show wide public support for whatever is required.
You're welcome, even though this is a hot potato, I suppose.
Your (?) Finnish experiences are mirrored in Austria: the gov't is moving ever closer to NATO, of course Mr. Trump is dealt with in a bespoke manner ('orange man bad'), and public opinion is 80-90% in favour of way less immigration and neutrality, as opposed to NATO alignment.
…and this is why most countries/places refuse to release such statistics or simply claim they do not have it…
Shhhh, you might stand accused of peddling 'conspiracy theories™' or the like.
Also, if accused thereof, I typically retort: what's the 'best before' date of any given such 'theory'?