Actual Evidence about Immigrant Assimilation

I studied Islam and Islamic history for eight years after a close relative of mine converted to that religion and created a lot of unhappiness (to put in mildly) in my family. You are massively, stupidly, insanely wrong. Islam is a POLITICAL SYSTEM which is DESIGNED to be irredentist. Their beliefs instruct them to establish an Islamic state WHEREVER they achieve a majority. Their beliefs SPECIFICALLY forbid the establishment of "man-made" legal systems (that is why they have done so poorly with secular nation-states). Their religion is also heavily tied up in not just gaining souls, as is Christianity, but in gaining actual physical territory. In fact, gaining converts in Islam runs a very poor second to gaining land mass. That's why they conquered a huge empire in a very short time -- it wasn't to "spread the good news" of their religion -- it was to take territory away from "unbelievers" in the name of Allah. Sorry but this posting is moronic and ignorant in the extreme.

Sorry, that should be "I am close to being convinced that in the case of *certain* Muslim cultures that perhaps they are the exception to the rule."

I have always been an open borders pro-assimilationist (and I more or less still am) but I am not convinced that in the case of *certain* Muslim cultures that perhaps they are the exception to the rule. Just saying you 'feel' British to some academic is essentially meaningless if what that means is not what it means for the host society. Poll after poll (not to mention my own discussions with UK Muslims) show a HUGE gap in accepted axioms when you really get down to it. Blaming the undeniable increasingly hostility of non-Muslims in the UK for Muslim alienation only makes sense if that hostility has no rational basis but in truth every time some Muslim 'community spokesman' opens his yap, he just confirms that the unflattering stereotypes bandied about in the press are very much grounded in reality. The real driver of hostility to local Muslims is not the odious Daily Mail but things that are constantly being said by Muslim activists who are usually describes as "moderates". In truth so-called islamophobia is very much 'event driven' and pretending we do not have a problem ain't going to make it go away.

I'm not a climate change skeptic, but neither do I think that capitalism is the greatest threat to humanity, yet that's what people complain about (in South Africa).

Thanks for your contribution, bjk.

I don't feel like copying over the links I posted on the subject here, but they seemed relevant enough so if you're interested just click.

Immigration's not a problem, but if it is, blame the British. Either way, immigration is not the problem. Problem solved.

If that’s what you have in mind, whining isn’t normally a good indicator of what’s really goinjg on.
Will says "So chill", which would be sensible if people were upset about these immigrants driving down wages, but Samuel Huntington (who is called out) never made an issue of that.

which is of course the cause of global warming
Are you a global warming skeptic?

My understanding is that first generation (mexican I think) immigrants commit crime at way below what their level of income, education etc would predict.
That is true. Much of that may be due to crime being a "young man's game", fear of deportment and lack of connections to criminal networks.

If following generations become more americanised, speaking english and stuff, so why wouldn’t we expect to see them commit more crime?
Later generations DO NOT approach the American average, they significantly exceed it. You can view imprisonment ratios by states here. Remember that when discussing their crime rates people usually say that it's low "for their level of income/education" but all that means is that they aren't as criminal as the largely African-American underclass (which has crime rates way above the national average) and unless their income/education level improves significantly (which as I noted with welfare and years of education, isn't happening) we can expect continued high crime over generations. Perhaps we could say that they approach the average for ghettos (although I believe for things like teen pregnancies and dropping out of school they exceed the average for the pre-existing underclass), but not the normal path-to-the-middle-class we have been told to expect using Italians, Jews and Irish as examples from the past. We are fortunate in that they are not causing the same problems as Muslims in Europe with riots and terrorism, but the Europeans could hardly have predicted that today they'd be worried about radical islam rather than communism (which coincidentally enough was big in latin america at the time).

TGGP- Your comment covers a lot of ground in a short space so is difficult to get a fix on. What do mean by complaints? People whining about immigrants? If that's what you have in mind, whining isn't normally a good indicator of what's really goinjg on. If it were, I'd be forced to conclude that global capitalism were the greatest threat facing humanity (which is of course the cause of global warming).

A suggestion about the crime rate issue. My understanding is that first generation (mexican I think) immigrants commit crime at way below what their level of income, education etc would predict. If following generations become more americanised, speaking english and stuff, so why wouldn't we expect to see them commit more crime?

I've read a lot of complaints about Muslim immigration, and none of them were about wages going down (I personally would consider that a good thing). It's usually about the terrorism, the riots, the racially/religiously motivated gang rapes, the honor killings, the higher crime rates, welfare dependency and so on. If you wanted to establish assimilation you would compare data from first, second, third and so on generations of immigrants. For hispanics the data actually get worse. Those things seem a lot more important to me than what answers are given on some survey.