Once again the BBC is running a story on Trump as headline news. Are those protests still going on in Iran? Do we know yet why some dude in Las Vegas shot around 600 people? Has Germany formed a government? Secondary concerns, apparently, to:
US President Donald Trump has reportedly lashed out at immigrants in a foul-mouthed Oval Office outburst.
Oh. But now we’re here, let’s take a closer look.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Mr Trump told lawmakers on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.
Frankly, I ask this question on a daily basis using precisely that terminology. The only difference is I ask it rhetorically because I already know the answer: it’s contained in the question.
But first let’s note the BBC’s use of the term “foul-mouthed” because Trump said “shithole”. All of a sudden this ultra-modern organisation, which cheers each act of destruction visited on aspects of our culture it deems “outdated” and signs up to every virtue-signalling progressive fad, is clutching its pearls because Trump said “shithole”. This in an age when the words “fuck” and “cunt” are the staple of seemingly every scriptwriter.
Secondly, this meeting was closed and Trump’s remarks leaked. It’s not as if he said this during a press conference, and personally I’d prefer presidents to speak freely and frankly in such discussions using terminology which is wholly appropriate than couch their language in ever-shifting politically correct terms because the permanently offended might get upset.
But what’s most amusing is the reaction on social media. Not from the left, they’re a lost cause; I mean from so-called conservatives. They’re busy wringing their hands, denouncing Trump for his blatant racism, looking absolutely no different from the Democrats and still wondering why Trump got elected in the first place. Trump’s comments are pretty innocuous to anyone who is not a deranged anti-Trumper or a fully paid-up member of the media or political establishments. He’s asked the question millions of people across America and Europe have been asking for years, waiting in vain for their leaders to do so. And now he has, and the reason his opponents have gone apoplectic is because they know how much this will resonate with ordinary people they wish didn’t exist. That, and they wish to virtue-signal in order to keep their places in what they think is polite society.
The fact is some countries are shitholes, and calling them such is not racist. Hell, I’d even go further and say the reason they are shitholes is precisely because of the people living in them. The root cause of a country being a shithole is the prevailing culture, and what else is culture but the aggregate behaviour, attitude, and customs of a population? This doesn’t mean any individual from a shithole is to blame, or you should judge them according to the place they’re from. As I said here, you should take individuals as you find them, but that ought not to stop you labeling a place a shithole and placing the blame squarely on the population as a whole. People say the reason East Germany was a shithole was because of communism, but that only prevailed because the Stasi had 100,000 workers and approximately 400,000 informants. If you have half a million people willing to absolutely fuck-over their fellow countryman for personal gain or ideological gratification then yes, that place will be a shithole. Blaming it on abstract political arrangements such as communism, as if it were imposed from a clear blue sky with no involvement from the people themselves, is comforting but it fails to address the root cause of the problem. And as I said in my infamous post on Nigeria:
The problem these decent people have is that they are vastly outnumbered by those who are not. For every Nigerian who is honest, well-mannered, and diligent you’ll find a hundred whose only goal is to get some money whilst expending the minimum amount of effort possible. If they can use personal connections, lies, or trickery in lieu of learning a useful skill and applying it, they’ll take that option every time. It’s a numbers thing: if 50% of Nigerians were more like 10% of them, the country would be okay. And that’s the fundamental problem of Nigeria summed up in one sentence: way too many dickheads.
This idea that every culture is equal and basket cases that have been that way for centuries without the slightest homegrown improvement are somehow unlucky, and to hold them to any kind of standard is racist, has pervaded every nook and cranny of western culture. Only people aren’t buying it any more, and those people vote. Trump is merely recognising that, while his establishment opponents prefer to banish any such thoughts from the political discourse. Which is why they lost, of course.
We live indeed in an age of peak cuntery. I think it will pass as Joe Blow tires of this shit. The facade of PC sensibility requires deference to the facade in order to sustain itself. Far too many people see it for what it is though. And having someone like Trump saying normal thoughts out loud can only speed the epiphany along.
I am with Trump on this one. Not only why should these people come here (and for that matter, many of them uninvited) as many sane, normal people ask in our society, but why is this allowed and even encouraged to happen? Why are so many in power and in the media — which is a form of power which is why so many love being journalists* — keen on the shitholery coming to a neighbourhood near you if not near them?
I think however the reason the word shithole is used is because there are places in the world where the locals shit in the streets. The fact that they continue with their BM habits when they reach the west rather explains why these creatures don’t, and won’t, integrate with the society they have arrived in.
*Years ago, when I worked in newspapers, I knew only one journalist who admitted the job was “power without responsibility.” Perhaps was always thus.
Q: “Why did you flee Somalia?”
A: “Because it is a shit hole”
Enough said.
Q: Why did you leave the UK and then move to NL and subsequently CH?
A: Cos the UK is a shithole
“but that only prevailed because the Stasi had 100,000 workers and approximately 400,000 informants”
Well, that’s an interesting question. How many of thise do you think there would be in Britain, had it geologically drifted somewhere close enough to be occupied by Russia? Hell, how many Nazi collaborators were there in France, which you presumably don’t fund a total shithole? It seems that prevailing culture can be prevailing despite “population as a whole” in some cases, not because of it.
People often do use stereotypes about a country (often true ones) to jump to unfair conclusions about an individual from or with connections to that country, sadly. And Trump’s statement is pretty much tautological – one way of measuring how crummy a country is, is how keen its inhabitants are to scram outta there. Which is why West Germany didn’t need to build a wall to stop its population fleeing en masse eastwards.
I was very amused by this though – from BBC news, three “related stories” that already right next to each other:
Full article Trump ‘in crude outburst about migrants’
Africa Live: Africans mock Trump over vulgar slur, protests in cholera-hit Zambia
Africa Live: Gabon lifts presidential term limits, Sudan professor ‘hits females’
Could it even be that Trump gets his negatively skewed view of Africa by being an avid reader of the Beeb?
@Patrick
I was tired of this shit a long time ago. 😉
@Tim good to see the Nigerian insight back.
Well, that’s an interesting question. How many of thise do you think there would be in Britain, had it geologically drifted somewhere close enough to be occupied by Russia?
Plenty. Had the Nazis occupied Britain, there would have been no shortage of collaborators. The Soviets didn’t even need to occupy us to get vast swathes of the country to work on their behalf.
Hell, how many Nazi collaborators were there in France, which you presumably don’t fund a total shithole?
Plenty, but you also had those fighting back, and members of the Resistance were generally not dobbed in as a matter of course, and nor were brazen collaborators (in the non-Vichy area) viewed with neutrality by their countrymen.
It seems that prevailing culture can be prevailing despite “population as a whole” in some cases, not because of it.
Yes, it’s complicated and dependent on specific circumstances. But you can’t remove the people as the main driver for what happens.
I was very amused by this though – from BBC news, three “related stories” that already right next to each other:
Heh!
I was very amused by this though – from BBC news, three “related stories” that already right next to each other:
It’s a juxtaposition worthy of Drudge, albeit an unintentional one 😀
Jerry Pournelle used to say first world countries are first world countries because they have first world populations. Seems self evident to me.
I read somewhere* that for a country to be viable and (for want of a better word) civilised that you need a population with an average IQ above about 80, otherwise the population does have the intelligence to either work to better the place or maintain the infrastructure etc.
This lists the average IQ of countries:
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
It is not politically correct to state that many of the countries inhabitants would be considered mentally subnormal in the west (Congo = 76, Ghana = 73, Sudan = 71, Ethiopia, = 69, Somalia = 68 etc.) and the west not only allows them into the country but encourages them.
Equatorial Guinea has an Average IQ of 59 whereas a Border Collie sheepdog has an IQ estimated at 54 … At least I can train a dognot to crap in the house or the street but in a designated toilet spot.
Now, admittedly, the figures quoted do vary according to which website you visit but the difference is a point or two, not 20 or 30 but the principle and point stands.
*I believe it was IQ and The Wealth of Nations. However, I read and remember so much obscure information like this that I am reluctant to state that this is definitely that book.
I think what kind of government and leaders a country has is most important factor in whether country is shithole or not.
Europeans have property rights and liberal economy, people in most other countries have awful leaders who brutalize their own. All corruption that occurs, life is cheap in large parts of world.
I am Canadian and our immigration programs are decent – points system and Canada can choose from 10% of good people from dire countries that Tim mentioned.
Same thought occurred to me the other night watching Gomorra; you take a population out of a slum, move them into brand spanking new accommodation and within 20 years it’s a fucking slum.
Trump is making the same point on a global scale and it’s quite honestly self evident EXCEPT that for the last 20-30 years decent people everywhere have been steadily brainwashed by the BBC Mostly Stupid Media schools and government spokesmen at all levels, out of thinking Badthink ideas such as this.
In fact this probably qualifies as Double plus badthink.
See that Overton window creak a bit further across to the right.
Fucking brilliant.
My most nearly relevant bookmark folder isn’t called “Shithole countries” but rather “Krapistan”.
I selected “Krapistan” because the links are about those benighted countries that the US chooses to pick fights with.
jwl -you miss the point that decent countries have reasonably decent governments because of the decent people struggling over centuries to organise themselves in that way.
Most of the shit holes had decent government when they were administered by colonial governments (Belgian Congo excepted). Since the locals have taken over they’ve gone down the toilet.
Yes, but you left them in the same country, with the same kind of government, the same culture, the same everything.
Yep, and when it comes to those 10% immigrating to some Western country numbers begin to matter as well, because if you let too many of even those better ones in, you still may end with a cultural, and eventually political problem on your hands. Moreover, this is unproductive and even unfair to the immigrants themselves, presuming their original intention was to leave the shithole attributes behind them, not to find more of the same in the new place.
IOW, selective immigration and mass immigration are two entirely different things. Some times mass immigration may be unavoidable or even desirable (I imagine most periods in the US history could serve as examples of that), but one must still be mindful of the distinction.
East Germany wasn’t a shithole in Trump’s sense. It was an orderly society, and not only because it was a dictatorship. As history shows, no dictatorship can make trains run on schedule, collect garbage and keep crime low unless the people have a certain sense of public duty and self-discipline, plus a basic education.
Half a million secret policemen and informants would have made up 3% of East Germany’s population. That’s quite a large share, admittedly, but for all I know about the place, most of the other 97% were honest, decent, hard-working and law-abiding citizens (perhaps too law-abiding for their own good).
There’s another way to put it. The patterns of behavior that made living in the GDR barely tolerable for many of its citizens are typical – for all their nastiness – of a civilized nation. An East German was statistically more likely to report a friend or neighbor to the authorities than to steal, swindle, bribe or rape.
Alex put very well what was half-baked in my mind.
I read Tim’s passage on Nigeria & couldn’t help thinking how it applies to the UK. Which is also turning into a shithole that abacab sees. Not because because its people share the characteristics of Nigerians (although sometimes I think they could do with leavening with just a tad) But the thing about proportions.
Brits seem to have become some of the most spineless people in Europe. There seems to be nothing their ruling elite stuffs down their throats, Brits won’t swallow. Yes I know. Brexit. But I get the feeling a lot of the Leave voters were somewhat shocked at the result. The British way is to grumble, then do as your told.
The French are mentioned above. France is a thoroughly fucked up country but a lot of the reason for that is the intractability of the French. They demand their brioche buttered on both sides & will set light to things if they don’t get it. The French people did produce a Resistance during the Occupation & I’m pretty certain they’d produce one now, if occupied again. I’m far from certain the Brits would. Or if they did, they’d be dobbed in by their neighbours before they’d got a chance to blow up their first railway track for hazarding the commute to the occupying power’s administrative offices.
Yes there are Brits with backbone. But they’re far too few to make any difference.
54 African countries demand that Trump apologize for the “shitholes”. Question: how do they know Trump was referring to them?
The comment about population making a place what it is has an interesting example in Sheffield’s Hyde Park development.
Was all brilliant until the council changed the tenants
“Question: how do they know Trump was referring to them?”
That’s brilliant, Ivan and spot on to boot!
I see that some congresscritters are now mouthing off about a censure motion. I almost hope it passes, on the off-chance that PDT’s response might be “Get fucked!”.
East Germany wasn’t a shithole in Trump’s sense.
You think Trump wouldn’t have called East Germany a shithole?
It was an orderly society, and not only because it was a dictatorship. As history shows, no dictatorship can make trains run on schedule, collect garbage and keep crime low unless the people have a certain sense of public duty and self-discipline, plus a basic education.
You mean the state of a country is largely dependent on the people who inhabit it? I hope so, because that was my point. Now we might argue as to whether East German was a shithole or a paradise, but I remain convinced East Germany was like East Germany because it was populated by East Germans who behaved a certain way.