September 6, 2015

"David Galbraith, a Geneva, Switzerland-based tech entrepreneur and designer, tweeted an iconic black-and-white photo of Steve Jobs with the words: 'A Syrian migrants' child.'"

“I was prompted to post it after seeing the pictures of Aylan Kurdi. I could barely look as I have two beautiful young children of my own. It seemed to be that what the most precious thing in the world, a small child, was washed up on the sea shore like a discarded object of no value, when a child with a parent of the same nationality, given opportunity had created the largest company in the entire world. And here we are seeing an acrimonious debate, about stopping migrants.”

60 comments:

CarlF said...

So, the logic is that we should admit all Americans (Jobs was born in America and never lived in Syria) who were born to an American woman and a Syrian man -- studying at the University of Wisconsin and the son of a millionaire -- and then adopted by two Americans living in California. While not buying that logic, what does that have to do with the current Syrian migrant invasion in Europe?

SGT Ted said...

Just another guilt trip by a white lefty open borders idiot.

CWJ said...

My leftist friends fill my facebook page with with stuff like this day in day out. Interesting that I read the title of this Althouse post immediately after hearing from my Hungarian son this morning about the situation there with their "Syrian migrants."

tds said...

Kid of a Syrian rich imigrant and a white American. Adopted and raised from a suckling by a white American couple without any knowledge of his origins or connection to its culture or parent. (Not that there is anything wrong with Syrians).

CWJ said...

My Lebanese daughter works with refugees there. I'm skyping with her on Tuesday and will be sure to find out the view from the front line.

tim maguire said...

Oh Carl! Of course not. He's saying that if only we treated every refugee child as a future Steve Jobs, and every refugee adult as the future parent of Steve Jobs, then we would have iphones for everyone. But those darn conservatives just won't set the happiness free.

Anonymous said...

Of the wide reach of his tweet, Galbraith said: “I did have a hunch the Tweet would go viral, because it used few words, stated fact not opinion, defied stereotypes and had an iconic picture.

It went viral because the world is full of people as fatuous and puffed up with moral vanity as you are, Mr. Galbraith.

n.n said...

There is a similar iconic black-and-white photo of a Norwegian woman with the words: "raped and murdered by refugees".

While treating symptoms in perpetuity is extremely lucrative, perhaps the solution is to address causes at their source, rather than to exchange one life for another in mass emigration schemes.

Also, what does Galbraith think of excessive and illegal/unmeasured immigration obscuring and compensating for policies such as selective-child that are the leading cause of childhood mortality in first-world nations?

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is inviting back its surviving native whites to manage their farms in order to prevent mass starvation in one of the most fertile lands on the African continent.

Whether it was premature evacuation from Iraq, social intervention in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc., the humanitarian crisis created by social activists has been remarkable. And that does not include their support for Planned Parenthood around the globe.

Humperdink said...

I find it interesting that the richest nations on the Arabian Peninsula are taking zero Syrian refugees. That would be Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE to name three. The founder of the next Apple could be lurking among those refugees. Of course, the terrorists would have to be sorted out first.

Europe will have fun with this (sarc alert).

amielalune said...

OMG - if we are now reduced to thinking we should all just open our borders because of a picture of a dead refugee child, we really are lost.

What about the children that will be killed by some of these immigrants? That have already been killed by illegal immigrants. Let's publish pictures of their corpses also since that's what it takes.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Reading that schlock made me wish I had the Time Machine from last night's rerun of The Big Bang Theory so I could go back to watching last night's rerun of Star Trek TOS. It was the episode where some super-advanced rock creature puts Kirk and Spock on the same team as Abraham Lincoln and Surak to battle a bunch of historical bad guys.

In case you were wondering . . . the bad guys don't fight fair, but the good guys win in the end.

Schlock.

CWJ said...

By the tweet's logic, think about how silicon valley would have been in Damascus if only Steve Jobs' mom had stayed put.

Unknown said...

Anecdotally, I'm hearing from Munich that the sex ration looks to be 75% male to 25% female.
That will prove to be a large problem for Europe in the near future

Paco Wové said...

"...it used few words, stated fact not opinion, defied stereotypes and had an iconic picture..."

Not to mention it also used courage like a muscle, and stood up instead of sitting on the fence.

Somehow I doubt Switzerland is taking in a whole lotta migrants.

gspencer said...

Want root causes?

Think Islam.

Humperdink said...

In related news: "The Saudi Arabian king had red carpets installed on every floor and even in the parking garage so the king doesn’t ever have to touch the ground, POLITICO reports."

http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/04/saudi-king-takes-over-swanky-dc-hotel-requires-red-carpet-in-parking-garage/#ixzz3kxuDnwGB

Cynicus said...

Any Syrian man of military age should be fighting for his homeland not running. [insert French joke here] that little kid had been living inTurkey for 3 years. He was not fleeing danger. His selfish dad was wearing the only life jacket.

MadisonMan said...

It would be interesting to track every one of the migrants to see what they make of their new (much improved, I'd like to think) lives.

Lyle said...

That photo sums up Obama's and America's foreign policy today. Doing nothing has consequences. Doing nothing after saying you will do something says even more about our President and ourselves.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

amielalune: ...if we are now reduced to thinking we should all just open our borders because of a picture of a dead refugee child, we really are lost.

Apparently people like Mr. Galbraith live in such a happy state of sheltered innocence that they didn't know that human suffering existed until an image of a dead child appeared on their facebook page.

I don't know how else to explain how a grown man can believe that human beings reduced to "discarded object[s] of no value" is so rare and new a phenomenon that it is within the power of Europe to fix the problem by letting them all come live there.

Fernandinande said...

chuck myguts said...
Anecdotally, I'm hearing from Munich that the sex ration looks to be 75% male to 25% female.


In those pictures of the train station in Hungary, the invading mob appears to consist almost entirely of 15 to 30 year old men.

A First World country without strong borders is an Attractive Nuisance. -- Sailer.

Unknown said...

Fernandinande, I to think that the percentage of men to women is much higher. I was being charitable using the percentage a reporter for a very liberal news outlet told me

Michael K said...

"Any Syrian man of military age should be fighting for his homeland not running."

The refugees seem to be chiefly young men of military age,. That is a terrible time bomb and Europe will suffer for this vague sense of empathy with strangers. They are being manipulated by the same people who set up the The al-Dura affair, which was the fake story of the Palestinian boy killed by Israelis>

This is not being taken in by Hungary and the UKIP party in Britain will grow but the left will eat it up.

Hagar said...

This particular boatload came from Syria, but please note that practically all of North Africa is also trying to get to Europe, and really just northwestern Europe, where they hear life is good and people are not trying to kill each other all the time.

Hagar said...

15-30 year old men are those most wanted for "cannon fodder" by various regimes, and also those who most readily can pick up stakes and move out.

Phil 314 said...

Reading the article I anticipated the responses on this blog. I wasn't "disappointed"

We're all foreigners.

"Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt."
Deut. 10:19

"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all."
Col. 3:11

Hagar said...

I also think this turmoil in the Middle East is just beginning; it is going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Hagar said...
15-30 year old men are those most wanted for "cannon fodder" by various regimes, and also those who most readily can pick up stakes and move out.

9/6/15, 9:46 AM
---------------------------------------------------

This also means they left their mothers, sisters, wives unprotected and their villages undefended.

Etienne said...
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amielalune said...

At least with the Mexican illegals, along with a small percentage of criminals, the US is letting in a lot of hard-working, family-oriented men. The muslim males migrating to the EU are cowards.

Including those Islamofascists who are "migrating" in order to kill unarmed Westerners.

Paco Wové said...

I stand corrected (in principle):

"The Swiss cabinet agreed in principle on Friday to welcome an additional 3,000 Syrian refugees to Switzerland over the course of the next three years."

"We're all foreigners."

I realize that this sort of blanket reality-denying assertion of identity seems to work for white people who want to been seen as black, or men who want to be seen as women, but, no, actually, we're not.

Roy Lofquist said...

Albert Einstein was German. So were the Waffen-SS.

Anonymous said...

... abandoned by the Syrian before birth, not aborted by the mother, raised by a white Christian couple.

By the way, the Syrian migrant was a legal migrant with all necessary papers to stay in the United States.

Hagar said...

"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all."
Col. 3:11


And another missionary outpost gets wiped out.

David said...

It has always seemed to me that we were very lucky. Jobs would have been one hell of a terrorist.

Jim said...

Ok, we'll take all the Syrians capable of PhD work.

Rusty said...

How many of those 15 to 30 year olds are ISIS?

chickelit said...

Paco Wové said...Somehow I doubt Switzerland is taking in a whole lotta migrants.

There is residual Swiss guilt for not having taken in more refugees during the Second World War. Yet somehow I doubt that Galbraith is even Swiss.

Bill said...

He mispunctuated.

Bill in Pasadena said...

His father was a PhD student at Wisconsin. So I'd accept letting in any immigrant who is accepted into a PhD program!

Saint Croix said...

Obama’s lowest moments in the Middle East have involved his handling of Syria. Last summer, when I visited Za’atari, the biggest Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, one displaced person after another expressed anger and dismay at American inaction. In a later conversation, I asked Obama if he was haunted by Syria, and, though the mask of his equipoise rarely slips, an indignant expression crossed his face. “I am haunted by what’s happened,” he said. “I am not haunted by my decision not to engage in another Middle Eastern war. It is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which our involvement in Syria would have led to a better outcome..."

In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that Al Qaeda had been “decimated.” I pointed out that the flag of Al Qaeda is now flying in Falluja, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; Al Qaeda has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said...

“I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian."


I think it's fair to say these are Obama's refugees. And if Obama was an isolationist Republican, the media would say that, all the time.

Valentine Smith said...

Round up all the men aged 16 to 40 and give them military training. Then arm them and land them on the beaches with proper NATO support. If they won't accept these terms drive them back into the mediterranean to swim back home. The quicker the chaos is ordered the less European blood shed in the long term. Because at some point, probably the coming depression, the shitstorm will begin.

Anonymous said...

Phil 3:14: Reading the article I anticipated the responses on this blog. I wasn't "disappointed"

Very honest of you to put "disappointed" in quotes there, Phil. Because of course you're not disappointed. You're delighted by an opportunity for moral preening.

mikee said...

Decades ago, a well-traveled friend told me that Syria was the only country he had ever visited where anger was the predominant emotion expressed in everyday life.

Business transactions as mundane as checking into a hotel were fraught with the threat of violence from the desk clerk, who expected a bribe before the reservation could be found, and who would lose the reservation he found immediately after pocketing the bribe, insisting there was no such thing.

Ordering lunch in a local cafe became an argument tantamount to revising the Old Testament into a Harry Potter fanfic, using only Star Wars characters.

And trying to buy a piece of fruit at a street vendor's stand would have gone easier if the other vendors weren't so insulted by your choice of Ahmed's stand over Achmed's stand that escaping with one's life was considered a successful haggling experience.

Those were stories from the 1960s and 1970s. I wonder what his opinion of the place would be if he visited now.

CWJ said...

Just heard from my Hungarian daughter as well. My extended family allows me access to what amounts to a network of foreign correspondents.

Phil 3:14,

Can't quibble with the moral exhortation, but Jesus also knew that people had to deal with reality.

Morality and policy driven by comic book propaganda like this guy's tweet and contextless photos of a single dead child are hardly going to be realistic.

Lebanon- resident population 4.4MM. Syrian refugees in Lebanon at the beginning of this year 1.3MM. Do the math! But this is not news.

Cited above, Switzerland to magnanimously accept 3K! Syrian refugees. This is news.

The moral preening about Hungary's behaviour and attendant hand wringing about Europe's challenges are spectacularly out of proportion to the facts on the ground.

Michael K said...

"When Bush did the Pearl Harbor on Iraq, and installed the dictator Nouri al-Maliki, he destroyed the whole middle east, "

As usual, the story always begins with Bush. Why can't you folks see that it began in 1914 with the end of the Ottoman Empire and the failure of Islam as a political system ? Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and would have taken Saudi Arabia if Bush I had not intervened. Would you prefer that ?

Had Jimmy Carter allowed his generals to take out Kharg Island as they wanted to when the hostages were seized, or if he had not "Thrown out the Shah like a dead mouse," as Iran's generals said, maybe we wouldn't have had this at all.

Why does everything bad in the world start with George W Bush ?

Does no one read history ?

Etienne said...
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Etienne said...
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Michael K said...

"That history has nothing to do with what is going on now."

Oh well, now we know.

Big Mike said...

Why does everything bad in the world start with George W Bush ?

Because (1) Millennials have no concept that there even was a time before George W. Bush, and (2) they'd have to blame Clinton, and maybe even Carter.

Does no one read history ?

Of course not. And thanks for giving me my belly laugh of the day.

Michael K said...

Does no one read history ?

Of course not. And thanks for giving me my belly laugh of the day.


You're welcome. It really is sad to see how little most people know and understand about the world. The WSJ has a thread about the refugees. I read a great book about Syria in early spring and wrote a review of it on Amazon.


Like Cassandra, I am cursed to live among people who do not read and do not understand what is going on around them. Some even accuse me of wanting a revolution when I would love to avoid it. I fear it is coming.

Well, I can amuse myself by visiting history and avoiding too much thinking about the fools who run our country.

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Phil 314 said...

Well I knew my comment would get some responses. And I've always appreciated the dialogue on this blog. FWIW a few comments

-My wife would be impressed that I was accused of preening.

-I'm fully aware of the origin some of our worst terrorists.

-Clearly this problem is first the EU's to addresses not the US's.

-I do believe my Christian belief's compel me to offer comfort to the "least of these"

-"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." Heb 13:2

thx

n.n said...

The wars and humanitarian crises initiated with Obama's political, diplomatic, and social intervention have created a quagmire in the Middle East, Africa, and Eurasia. His proposed solution, along with the social complex, is to ignore their roles in these man-made disasters, leave most people to suffer and die on the ground, and shift the problem abroad (e.g. exchange one life for another). Presumably, this will entail promotion of "abortion/planning" in first-world nations in order to create space for the refugees, and expansion of ghettos in progressive liberal locales in order to preserve stability and a "green" environment in the wake of arriving masses that will remain unassimilated and unintegrated.

Phil 314 said...

n.n. said:

"Presumably, this will entail promotion of "abortion/planning" in first-world nations in order to create space for the refugees"


Well on that score, Europe is doing just fine without any new policies, abortion or otherwise.

n.n said...

Phil 3:14:

That's true. Evolutionary dysfunction or suicide pact is an outcome that follows from more than just a self-genocide/abortion. Although, there are a few European societies that have stopped promoting libertinism, and actively promote orientations and behaviors that are compatible with evolutionary fitness. The development of civilized societies does not need to be unsustainable.

That said, it's interesting that you mentioned the population decay in Europe. Someone mentioned that this was an impetus for excessive and even illegal/unmeasured immigration. Supposedly, immigration policy is set, not to promote dysfunctional orientation and behaviors, but rather to compensate for their popular progress -- another "wicked problem".

Finally, what do you think can be done in Syria, Libya, Iraq, etc.?

Aiding the emigration of a minority is only a stop-gap measure that will leave the majority at risk, and shift the problem to other communities. It seems that we are past the point of no return, and any resolution of the diverse conflicts will require comprehensive nation building. The only question is who will stabilize and manage the areas. There are the Kurds who have demonstrated an ability and will to help themselves. There are surviving regimes (e.g. Assad) who could, with external backing (e.g. Russia), restore order.

Achilles said...

That child could have been Obama's son too.

Anonymous said...

Phil 3:14:

-My wife would be impressed that I was accused of preening.

He boasted, humbly.

-Clearly this problem is first the EU's to addresses not the US's.

Yeah, it'd be great if the U.S. refrained from its usual messianic hubris, and didn't try to bully recalcitrant nations into taking migrants. They're better judges of what they want and what their countries can handle than we are. However, what's going on in Europe now is part of a pan-Western problem, and you're dreaming if you think the refusal of Europe's muckety-mucks to control her borders isn't going to end up affecting us.

-I do believe my Christian belief's compel me to offer comfort to the "least of these" [my emph.]

Maybe certain Christians shouldn't have made a habit in the past of confusing "me" with "other people", "offer comfort" with "go along with any and all grossly imprudent 'solutions' concocted by an ideologically-addled ruling class", and "least of these" with "any and all of the millions if not billions of people from less-nice countries who'd prefer to live in Europe". Then maybe people wouldn't be so skeptical about their appeals or their judgment.

-"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." Heb 13:2

I'm sure both Christ and Paul meant by that that Christians are obliged (and are obliged to oblige secular people, too!) to go along with any "compassionate" plan thought up by their incompetent, out-of-touch rulers, regardless of clearly foreseeable disastrous consequences. (Go wag your finger at the residents of Mälmo, when they unChristianly murmur about their once safe city having become the rape capital of Europe as a direct consequence of their nation's enthusiastic, context-less endorsement of Heb 13:2 for refugees.)

I don't know what Christian tradition you come from, but in mine prudentia is one of the cardinal virtues. It's the one that isn't all about the feels, and you don't get off the hook for not cultivating it by spouting Davos Man's favorite bible verses.