BBC World Service: The Why Factor

[lucas80]

I heard a fascinating episode of The Why Factor this morning on WSUI. It was about group think and it gives insight into how we choose to govern ourselves, and how we come to decisions that we should know are wrong.
This is well worth the 20 minutes or so it will take you to listen to the full episode.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039zq41

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

This comment stood out (around the 14 minute mark): "That's the real danger of group think: you become bullies."

The last few minutes on a different topic - the refugee crisis - was also interesting. Germany, with a population a quarter of ours and much less complicity in the Iraq/Syrian crisis that is creating all these refugees, has already taken in nearly 1 million people.

Based on our population difference, we should be taking in 4 million. Based on our role in creating these problems, we should be taking in most of them.

Yet what is the US group think on this? And what happens to you if you suggest we should even take 10K (as Obama suggests)? Instead of being justly ridiculed for shirking responsibility and for callous disregard, Obama is attacked by the group think that says we shouldn't take in ANY refugees.

 

[The Tradition]

Germany, with a population a quarter of ours and much less complicity in the Iraq/Syrian crisis that is creating all these refugees, has already taken in nearly 1 million people.

Based on our population difference, we should be taking in 4 million. Based on our role in creating these problems, we should be taking in most of them.

Yet what is the US group think on this? And what happens to you if you suggest we should even take 10K (as Obama suggests)? Instead of being justly ridiculed for shirking responsibility and for callous disregard, Obama is attacked by the group think that says we shouldn't take in ANY refugees.

Don't you think those who feel like you are also experiencing group think? There is no international law that says welcoming refugees must be proportionate. You just think it's the right thing to do, but there really isn't any legal or moral requirement for us to do so. In fact, it would make a helluva lot more economic sense to carve out a "safe zone" in Syria for the refugees, but that idea seems to be a non-starter for some reasons.

 

[soybean]

Don't you think those who feel like you are also experiencing group think? There is no international law that says welcoming refugees must be proportionate. You just think it's the right thing to do, but there really isn't any legal or moral requirement for us to do so. In fact, it would make a helluva lot more economic sense to carve out a "safe zone" in Syria for the refugees, but that idea seems to be a non-starter for some reasons.

#1 - Economic sense for who?

#2 - Isn't "Safe Zone" just another term for ghetto or refugee tent city?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Don't you think those who feel like you are also experiencing group think? There is no international law that says welcoming refugees must be proportionate. You just think it's the right thing to do, but there really isn't any legal or moral requirement for us to do so. In fact, it would make a helluva lot more economic sense to carve out a "safe zone" in Syria for the refugees, but that idea seems to be a non-starter for some reasons.

I don't understand how you can say there's no legal or moral responsibility here.

I'm not really suggesting that we have to match Germany, just that we should be doing a lot more.

That can't really be group think, since hardly anyone in America seems to agree with me - even, I'm sorry to say, a lot of liberals.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

#1 - Economic sense for who?

#2 - Isn't "Safe Zone" just another term for ghetto or refugee tent city?

Plus, what part of Syria would that be?

 

[lucas80]

Just out of curiosity, who listened to the piece? I thought the section on how we got ourselves into Gulf War II was extremely interesting.

 

[The Tradition]

#1 - Economic sense for who?

For everyone who is trying to help. The cost to bring one refugee to America could save scores of refugees in the region.

As Americans continue to debate what to do about the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, this analysis attempts to estimate the costs of resettling refugees from that region in the United States. Although we do not consider all costs, our best estimate is that in their first five years in the United States each refugee from the Middle East costs taxpayers $64,370 — 12 times what the UN estimates it costs to care for one refugee in neighboring Middle Eastern countries.

http://cis.org/High-Cost-of-Resettling-Middle-Eastern-Refugees

#2 - Isn't "Safe Zone" just another term for ghetto or refugee tent city?

You think these people are staying at the Berlin Hilton?

 

[The Tradition]

Plus, what part of Syria would that be?

Whatever safe space the UN can carve out and defend.