Problem Solving: One American solution to the "gun issue"

So when you have a complex problem, the best approach to solving that problem is to ask people who are knowledgeable about the topics involve to gather information about the matter right? That's what we do in court, we call experts in the field to testify. For example if you want to stop child porn from being distributed though the internet you're going to ask networking and computer experts right? You wouldn't just pull random laws out of your ass, like making it illegal to have a hard drive of a certain size because pedophiles use large hard drive to store all their illegal pornography on. Or you wouldn't pass a law throttling down download and upload speeds to some arbitrary number to make it harder to download videos because you think that 56K speeds would deter disgusting perverts from getting their contraband. You would ask the experts in the field for information and for their expert opinions on the matter, then take those ideas and synthesize it into a solution, right?

But pulling shit out of their ass is exactly what Democrats do when it comes to guns...

About a month ago the Democrats had their national convention at at the convention Hillary Clinton said that she refused to believe that there was no middle ground between Democrats and the gun owning community. Well, to answer her call... no... there is no common ground. The reason for that is because Democrats absolutely refuse to and have no interest in listening to the other side. The other side, that has all the knowledge about the issue at hand. Simply put, when one side isn't interested in listening and only wants to dictate, there is no common ground, because there is no middle for either side to meet in. It's "my way or the highway!" when it comes to Democrats and guns, and their way is gun-control.

But lets put that aside for a minute.

Let pretend that we're in a parallel universe, where American politics wasn't hyper-partisan, a parallel universe where Hillary Clinton genuinely offered a seat at the table for the gun-owning community to sit down and work out a solution. Lets pretend Hillary actually gives a damn about the people and what we all think and that she isn't some corporatist puppet with big money's hand up her ass.

Let's all sit down together and come to a solution for this.

Which leads us to this point. What would I suggest? Could I come up with better? Well before I get into all that, I'll be writing in the context of California gun laws.

First off, I'd axe the following emotionally based laws:

"Assault weapon" bans, gone.
"May issue" concealed carry licencing policies, gone.
"Gun-free" zones, gone.
Locked storage requirements at home.
Ten day waiting periods, gone.
Hughes Amendment to the FOPA, gone.

Before you go shitting a brick and thinking that would be Mad Max the day after, calm down. Nothing will change. Those laws are pointless redundancies, and law, unlike engineering, is not something you want redundancies in. It's best to have one, clear, distinct rule that everyone understands. And we have that.

Murder is already a felony offense in all 50 states. There isn't a single state in the union, a single American territory, where murder is not a serious crime. It doesn't matter, when, how, or where you do it, if you carry out a murder anywhere where the United States government has authority, it is a crime. Even if we got rid of those four laws, if you go onto a school campus and murdered the first kid you saw, you're getting charged with murder and possibly going away for the rest of your life. If life in prison for murder didn't stop someone from going into a place like a school and shooting people, then what makes any reasonable thinking person with a well regulated brain think that a triple digit fine, or a low two-digit prison sentence will stop them from doing what they want to do? On the same token if someone doesn't want to risk going to prison, they're not going to use their gun to blast anyone anyway regardless of where they're at.

Oh you went and murdered someone? Here, please have a seat. 

The law on murder already makes all those laws superfluous anyway, but I'll dig a little deeper on why they're crap and why repealing them is the way to meet me in the middle.

"Assault weapon" bans. I've already gone into why this law is crap to begin with and why there is really no such thing as an "assault weapon" here. The cliff notes version is basically two-fold. First, because the definition is constantly shifting, there is no fixed "thing" that is an "assault weapon". Secondly it's a definition based wholly upon a set of cosmetic characteristics. If I paint up my car like a NASCAR racer with sponsor logos and what not, it's still not going to perform any differently. If I put a body kit on my car without doing any modifications to the engine, it's not going to perform any better.

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"May issue" CCL issuing policy. This is just plain stupid and nothing more than mental masturbation. Lets think for a moment. If someone is going to go though the trouble of getting a concealed carry licence and all the hundred+ dollar fees and training, they're likely not going to use their licence to commit crimes, not after what they had to go through to get it. Conversely, if someone is going to go murder someone, or knock off a liquor store, do you really think they're going to go though the trouble of getting a licence to rob a liquor store? Probably not.

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"Gun-free" zones. This probably the dumbest thing on the list. Again, if facing life in prison, if not the death penalty doesn't deter someone from doing harm, what makes you think  a lesser offense is going to deter them from committing said violence. "Gun-free" zones are essentially placebos, for the fearful. It doesn't do anything, but it makes them feel better in their head. If someone made the conscience decision to commit murder, they're going to go to the place they choose, to attempt to commit that murder. "Gun-free" zone or not. A "gun-free" zone, doesn't just magically remove guns from existence within the set zone. Here try this experiment. Take a room in your house, any room. Put a sign on the door that says "knife-free zone". Then take a knife from the kitchen, and bring it into said room. See how that works (or doesn't)? Put up a "gun-free" zone sign on a liquor store in a shady neighborhood and see how many armed robberies it stops.

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Locked storage requirements at home. Another law about guns made up by a person who doesn't own any. This can be covered by various laws and torts on negligence. If someone steals an unlocked gun, that buy itself is a crime and ought to be a felony (I'll get to that). If a kid finds a gun and shoots themselves or someone else, that can be covered under a negligence law (if there isn't one, then I suppose we can make one to cover this specific instance). Keeping a gun locked up defeats the purpose of keeping it in the home for self-defense. What, are you going to ask the burglar to hold up while you get your key to unlock your gun? No! So don't be stupid and make stupid laws. Think before feeling! If the goal of this ignorant law is to protect kids, then the best way to do that is to educate the kids themselves and teach them to respect the gun as a weapon. That it isn't some toy pick up and play with and pretend to be Jason Bourne with because he makes it look cool. On this note I wouldn't be opposed to voluntary educational classes that new gun owners can attend with their kids about safe handling.

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Ten day waiting periods. Stupid and pointless if the person has already passed the federal NICS background check and already owns a gun. No different than making someone wait to pick up a tanto blade that he purchased when he already has a kitchen full of large cleavers.

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The Hughes Amendment to the FOPA which bans civilian ownership of new machines guns. Another placebo effect feelings and emotionally driven piece of legislature. The police routinely recover illegally possessed machine guns from criminals, so this has done little to stop criminals from having them. It certainly doesn't help when you have pro-gun control legislators like Leland Yee illegally running guns from Islamic terrorist groups to organized crime to fund their reelection campaigns. Additionally with the prevalence of the 3D printer making a basic submachine gun like the STEN, which the Jewish organization Haganah produced though clandestine methods in the late '40s, would be a piece of cake and render the Hughes Amendment obsolete anyway. Even in Australia, the country that Democrats point to as the gold standard for gun laws is seeing sophisticated homemade submachine guns surfacing among criminal groups. Before you think the government would be able to stop torrent files of the 3D blueprints, ask yourself how well has it been able to stop media piracy? Technology is making this law vestigial, it's essentially becoming a pointless law.

Most crimes aren't committed with illegally had machine guns anyway, and there's also an odd argument to be made that if a mass shooter had a machine gun, the body count may actually be lower. Just watch as Jeremy Clarkson with with an H&K MP-5 sub-machine gun, hit all of nothing with one.

Now keeping that in mind, lets see how quickly it takes for the Mythbusters Build Team to empty the magazines of these fully automatic weapons.

Two seconds, it took them two seconds to empty those weapons. What does that mean? The shooter would need to reload every two-seconds and like Clarkson likely wouldn't hit what they were aiming at. Would people get still get shot? Of course, but it's quite possibly less people would get shot with just spraying a weapon instead of aiming, and there would be more opportunity to jump the shooter during reloads if they have to reload more often. 

There's a reason the military trains to mostly use semi-auto mode, and why the M-16A2 and A4 revisions don't have full-auto and only 3-round burst modes. The model the Mythbusters had was likely the Vietnam-era A1, or it could have been a less common A3. 

Now I could budge on more restrictions (like a training requirement, if you're going to use that thing in a public place for self-defense you better be able to shoot better than Jeremy Clarkson) on a machine pistol like the Glock 18, or an easily concealed sub-machine gun like an UZI or short rifle like an AKS-74u, but rifles already are rarely used in crime, and that's because a rifle is much harder to conceal. People will notice when you're walking around with one, and you'll look suspicious when you're walking around with one trying to hide it. That isn't likely to change given that an M-16A4 is still going to be hard to hide. 

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So lets put down the emotions, and put on the thinking caps instead. This is too complex an issue for feelings to solve. Tell your heart to go sit at kids table, because the brain has adult things to talk about.

Now, what am I willing to give up in exchange for those things?

Training. I've heard calls from some Democrats demanding training as a requirement for gun ownership. Ok, I'll give, anything that makes someone a better, safer shooter to be a good thing. Only thing is, who will provide the training, and how will it be paid for? I'm sure the Democrats would expect the individual gun owner to pay for the training out of their pocket. Sorry, but by virtue of being a constitutionally protected right, that is bullshit. Should people be required to pay to exercise the right to speak in a public place like the sidewalk? Should people be required to pay to exercise their 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures? Should be people required to pay in order to be protected from cruel and unusual punishments? If your answer to any of those questions is "no", then you see why the individual shouldn't be required to pay for the training that is required to exercise a constitutional right. To require the individual to pay the cost of training amounts to a poll tax. So where does the payment come from? I have a few ideas, take it out of money collected from the DROS (Dealers Record Of Sales) fees. Or have the training funded by taxes, if it's being used to train people to be safer with guns, I don't see how Democrats could be opposed to that, if it saves just one child's life from a negligent discharge, then who could oppose that?

The other issue is, who conducts the training? I would say make it a program that is run by the Sheriffs of each county. Have set number of hours required to complete the licence and have courses held several times a week. But most importantly, have it open to everyone since anyone may potentially find themselves encountering a gun, or even having to use one.

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Registration. I'll budge on this one... to an extent. I wouldn't been too opposed to a system in which the seller must maintain a record of sales for their products. BUT, this record of sale, belongs to the private seller. If the government wants to look at it, they need to go get a warrant and even then, they can only look at the investigated person's records, or a particular recovered firearm's serial to find an owner. Collectibles without serials would just be grandfathered in, given that crimes generally aren't committed with them. Of course if the business wants to stay in business, they're not going to put the purchaser's information on blast, given how cantankerous the issue is.

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Mandatory reporting if someone has stolen your gun. I'll budge on this one too. Provided that if the weapon is recovered the owner actually either A) gets it back, or B) receives some form of compensation in the equal amount, I would settle even for a voucher for the police auction. Secondly, once they find your stuff, the police destroys the records of you owning what weapon when you are found not to be in the wrong. Though ultimately, I'd go along with this anyway because if someone jacks me, I want my shit back.

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Other proposals I would put on the table.

Gun thefts are felony offenses. Governor Brown in all his wisdom vetoed a bill that would have made the theft of a firearm a felony offense. The law as it stands, depends on the market value of the gun as to determine the severity of the theft. To put this into perspective, Grand theft is where it theft becomes a felony, and the money threshold is $950. A basic semi-automatic rifle in 5.56x45mm (same caliber as the AR-15) like the Ruger Mini-14 (which erroneously has been called an "assault weapon" in some instances) can be had for $100 less than that. So stealing someone's Mini-14 rifle, amounts to nothing more than petty theft under current law, and what does petty theft get you? A misdemeanor and under California law, petty theft may be punished by a fine of up to $1,000, a term of imprisonment lasting up to six months, or both. Given what a gun is, yes it is a dangerous weapon, the charges for theft of a gun should be much higher.

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This would apply to all laws affecting the Bill of Rights. Any bill that is passed along a pure partisan majority automatically triggers a constitutional review by a neutral third party committee of legal experts. So if a Republican majority passes a law mandating prayer in public schools and the bill passes along pure partisan lines with no Democrats or Independents vetoing for it, it triggers the review. On the same token, if a Democrat majority passes new gun-control, like they have in California, the review is triggered. So who sits on this committee? I'd have it broken up into 1/3 Independents, 1/3 Republicans and 1/3 Democrats.

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Where I would pass stricter laws are, is in the area of punishment. You commit a crime with a gun, even if it's a misdemenor? Jacked up to a felony. You injure someone with a gun in the commission of a crime? Minimum sentencing of 15 years. You commit murder with a firearm? Minimum sentencing of life in prison with the option for the death penalty. If you committed multiple crimes with a gun, 2 additional years for every bullet in the magazine at the time they recovered it. If you committed the crime as part of gang activity 5 additional years of prison for all those involved in the act even if they didn't have the gun. If the shooter commits murder as part of gang activity then all others directly involved in the activity would also face the death penalty.

Mass shooting? Death penalty. Take them out back make them dig a hole, and put a bullet in the back of their head.

I'd have additional laws to cover negligent discharges of firearms. You accidentally injure someone, no prison time, instead 5000 hours of community service, plus a required training course to get your rights reinstated. If you skip out out on service, off to prison. If you get a gun before clearing the course, you go to prison. If you accidentally kill someone, then you get charged involuntary manslaughter or murder under depraved heart/criminal negligence depending on the situation. For example, you have a freak accident/mechanical malfunction and the weapon discharges and kills someone, then no charges. Now if you and your buddy are being stupid with the weapon and accidentally kill someone because you're treating the weapon like a toy, then involuntary manslaughter or murder.

If you're a politician who's convicted of a firearms related crime including trafficking? All firearms related bills you sponsored are rendered null and void, and news of your conviction are mailed out to all registered voters to inform the voting public of your crimes. Lastly, you are barred for life from holding any public office.

I'd leave voluntary manslaughter as is, since when someone commits voluntary manslaughter, they're not thinking with a cool head.

If you commit a crime with a gun or you're just stupidly negligent, you deserve to have the hammer dropped on you.

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But what some of the other proposals that Democrats want to push forward with but haven't gotten passed?

Mandatory insurance. Again, amounts to a poll tax. It essentially forces an individual to pay money to exercise a constitutionally protected right. Should you have to buy riot and civil unrest insurance in the event that your public speaking event sets off a riot, whether you set out to do so or not? 

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Bans on semi-automatic weapons. You're asking to ban technology that's been around since the 1890s. This completely side steps the human element involved in crimes and mass shootings where a semi-automatic weapon was the weapon of choice. This is like chopping off a finger to save the hand because you're scared a cut will get infected and get gangrene. You completely side step the issue of bacteria and how it causes infection. May as well ban automatic transmissions in cars because it makes it easier for criminals to conduct a drive-by.

Also, on a practical matter, this would largely be a practical impossibility to enforce with the number of such firearms in private ownership. New York tried to do something similar with registration and banning weapon types, and they only had a compliance rate in the single digits. This isn't Australia, Australifacation of our gun laws isn't going to work here.

Thirdly, Democrats have demonstrated to be completely inept at defining firearms related terms, and that's not surprising considering the level of ignorance that Democrats have towards firearms. For instance what would constitute a "semi-automatic" firearm for a Democrat? Would a Democrat consider a double-action revolver to be "semi-automatic" because it fires one shot per trigger pull?

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Words and phrases like "compromise" and "finding common ground" means that both sides have to be willing to listen and willing to make exchanges. Democrats in California have repeatedly shown that they are no interested in "compromise" and they are not interested in "finding common ground", they're only interested in dictating.

Gun owners have already given up a lot...

...and yet what have gun-owners gotten in return? What have they gotten in exchange from the gun-control side? What? The ability to exercise a constitutionally protected right? Sorry Democrats but constitutionally protected rights don't work that way. You can't threaten to revoke a right in order to extort concessions on that right. 

If you really want to compromise, then you need to give up some things in exchange for something else. If you're just out to ban, then just cut the bullshit and say it, because your actions already say otherwise. 

"An Old Story": Retro Review, Suikoden II

Overall Score: 5.4/5

S 

(Yup, some games are just so good they go beyond the A rank)

Gameplay: 5
The cockpit instrument panel of the Mitsubishi Zero has been described as a "marvel of simplicity ... with no superfluities to distract the pilot." That pretty much sums up the gameplay of Suikoden II. It is simple and straight forward in the best way possible. There is nothing extra to over complicate things or otherwise distract the player.

"RinRin", "RanRan", and "TenTen", these chicks Filipinas or something?

Gameplay consists of a world map when travelling between towns and dungeons and said towns and dungeons. The towns are your usual fare for an RPG, you'll find various shops and inns where you can restock, upgrade your equipment and rest/heal up. As with RPGs of the era combat happens in the form of random encounters on the world map and the dungeon, and are menu based. Unlike Final Fantasy VII's Active Time, you issue your commands all in one session, rather than real time. You have the option for physical attacks, magic, use of items, defending, or if you have the right characters in your party, special Unite attacks.

Along with the typical party battles, are large scale, turn based strategy style army battles. Here you have cavalry and infantry, with the only difference being movement range. Though some units can increase movement range in special areas like forests. There are three classes, troopers, archers and mage. Troopers are your strong close combat units, while archers and mages can attack from a distance. Mage units are also capable of casting area of effect spells. The outcome of battles depends on your ATT and DEF stats and the stats of your target. Fights between units is demonstrated though an animated clip with units either charging at each other, firing arrows, or casting spells.

Lastly there are the one-on-one duels. While they might look like a fighting game style fight, they are still essentially glorified menu battles. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since several key plot elements and character recruitment hinge on duel outcomes, I could see it being infuriating to lose because a player isn't any good at fighting games, and this isn't supposed to be a fighting game. Instead these duels work by giving you three options. "Attack", "Defend" and "Wild Attack", where each one is weak against one and strong against another. While it might seem random which option to choose, the enemy's dialog drops hints as to what they're going to do, helping you decide which option to chose.

Sprinkled in between are various minigames and sub-quests. One sub-quest involving a recruitable character is a series of Iron Chef style cook off minigames where the player gathers recipes and ingredients to prepare a 3 course meal for various judges. The judges being the characters you've currently recruited. Other minigames are fishing and rock climbing, while another is a gambling game played with three dice called "Chinchirorin", the game is also known as "cee lo" and has been rapped about by Biggy and the Wu Tang Clan. When you see guys in 'da hood playing a game with three dice, or those gangsta movies where you see some guys crouching around a piece of cardboard on the floor in some alley that they're tossing dice on? Same game. 

Chinchirorin in real life. Sucks to be that guy, his hand is only a 2. At least he didn't roll 1-2-3. 

In fact, Chinchirorin is one of main ways to farm money in the game (which is funny because it's probably one of the main ways some guys farm money in real life). You save your game, bet a huge amount of money and save again if you win, and reload the last save if you lose. Another minigame and way of making money is though trade. This is pretty straight forward and has you travelling around the region and even into the neighboring Toran Republic, to buy goods cheaply at low prices in one area, then gouge people for it and sell high in another area. But be careful, flood the market in one area and you'll drop the price of what is selling high.

Given that, like other RPGs of the era, the menu based gameplay lends itself well to playing on a touchscreen smartphone interface.


Graphics and visuals: 5
In an era where other developers like SquareSoft were moving towards making use of pre-rendered backgrounds, polygon characters, and 3D environments, Konami stuck with using 2D sprites for Suikoden II. Despite being sprites, there is a fair amount of detail included, there is even animated boob jiggle with the large breasted bodyguard Oulan (who can be a veritable wreaking ball), and wind rustling animation for hair and clothing in some instances. In addition to the sprites, the menus and dialog boxes make use of hand drawn character profiles.

The vast majority of the storytelling is  done though in-game graphics rather than Full Motion Video cutscenes, though there are a handful of FMV cutscenes. While those FMVs in Final Fantasy and Parasite Eve are beautiful and helped to showcase what the PS1 could do, the use of in-game graphics in Suikoden II lends to seamless story telling. Which in it's own way is just as effective.

The game also doesn't suffer from any weird kind of texture tearing or warping. Since the game is all 2D, there isn't a problem like draw distance or texture popups. By and large everything runs very smoothly, there are no arbitrary one second pauses here and there for the game to catch up and load.


Stability: 5
Aside from one very bizarre glitch that only happened to me on one occasion where I could not leave a building due to the game failing to load the next area and instead had me running out the black margins of the screen, I haven't had any stability issues with this game. Played on both the North American PS1 and the PSP, I have not encountered any crashes, freezes or other show stoppers in the game. Even that single strange glitch that happened on a PS1 (fat) system, I haven't been able to reproduce. For all I know it could have been a hardware hiccup that had nothing to do with the game itself.


Plot: 6
The plot is noting short of amazing. Easily a masterpiece among the genre, nay, video gaming in general. It blends human drama, with political intrigue, within the frame work of a massive and brutal war. It does so in a way with may shades of grey that add depth to the plot, and at the same time, successfully avoids beating particular themes over the player's head. Hell I'll go as far to say that it would make a great translation into a novel, tv series, or OVA.

The plot focuses on the mainly silent protagonist, whom you get to name at the start (though in canon his name is Riou), and his childhood friend Jowy, and their respective journeys though a winner-take-all war between the regional powers of their homeland.

The war raging is between the Kingdom of Highland, and the neighboring Jowston Alliance, a loose confederation of city-states allied in response to the common threat of Highland, somewhat like NATO. Two long time antagonistic neighbors residing in the Dunan Region of the continent (to the south is the Lake Toran region where the first Suikoden took place, and to the west is the Grasslands where Suikoden III takes place). The telling of this war story is part of where the plot shines like 108 stars. Neither the Kingdom nor the Alliance has clean hands, with both sides having legitimate grievances against the other and having done dirty to the other. This shades of grey allows the plot to show both sides as human, as opposed to a cartoon like distinct good and bad. You'll find yourself sympathizing with characters on both sides, even people who are the primary antagonists. One of these antagonists even goes on to become one of the protagonists in Suikoden III.

Highland's Royal Family and the leaders of the Alliance

Within the larger plot of the main Jowston-Highland war, are various sub plots that involve the player travelling around the region, reuniting the various Allied city-states. Each of these "business trips" involves resolving some matter facing the particular city-state and either hampering their war effort or driving them to bide their time. You'll encounter everything from city-state leaders who feel the war needs to be continued at all costs and Highland be defeated, to defeatists who think it's best to make peace and accept Highland tyranny, to the shady opportunist looking to play both sides against each other and size the land for themselves.

As this war rages, there are 108 recruitable/playable characters, and most of these characters have their own story. They're not just faceless bodies to recruit for their abilities. You have Alliance loyalist and Highland defectors that join. You have people who join out of their own personal reasons that range from paying a debt owed to the player, to literally having nothing else better to do (one character fights in your army literally because his dad was tired of him bumming around and conscripted him into the player's army). You even have returning characters from the first Suikoden playing critical roles in the plot. Former Liberation Army leaders Flik and Victor play key roles in Suikoden II's plot. In fact, the former Scarlet Moon Empire of the first game, now called the Toran Republic, makes a cameo appearance in SII. The game also makes efforts for the player to learn more about each of these 108 characters. Aside from side quests, there is one recruitable character who works as a private investigator. You can actually hire him to get you information on the other characters. In one of the minigames, the characters serve as judges for a cook off, and the announcer will give a little bit of background information on them as he introduces them. 

Not all the 108 recrutable characters, but gives you the idea of each character. Each has their own distinct design. 

Along with the 108 characters, there are also large numbers of generic characters that start to fill your Headquarters castle (that you get to name) and give the fortress the feeling of a bustling city as well as a military command center. Even the generic characters all have their own dialog that changes from time to time.

While largely silent, the protagonist also doesn't appear to be one-dimensional. He's not a super man who can do anything and everything. In fact, he actually has something of a support staff behind him, with the Army's chief strategist and tactician Shu, handling all the military and political planning from behind the scenes, and his sister Nanami always covering his back. This also goes to show the complexities of war, and that it isn't all a one man show. When asked why Shu doesn't just lead the army, he open admits that he lacks the ability to inspire and leadership qualities, and that his place is behind the scenes. On the same token, adding to the human element, in another scene Viktor reminds the protagonist that he's his own person and not just the grandson of a war hero, to carry on the fight because he believes it, not because people pinned their hopes on him because of linage. While the protagonist is the leader of the Allied Army, the entire war effort is one big group effort, with even the civilians living at the HQ castle donning uniforms to form a phantom army to distract the Highland forces in one instance. On the surface it seems like a bad idea to draw some of the player's attention from the main character, it also leads the player to care about the other characters as well.

You'll always find Viktor and Flik at the front in the thick of it.

Riou (forground) always has Nanami watching his back and  Shu planning the Allied war effort.

The plot is also long, but not so long as to drag. Taking the time to level up and recruit all 108 characters takes around 30 hours. The pacing of the plot is done very well, and the plays like a well written novel reads.

One aspect that impressed me was the portrayal of the Jowston Alliance. It reminded me very much of the United States under the original Articles of Confederation. Hobbled by political infighting and at each other's throats every bit as much as at Highland's throat. It was this kind of infighting that eventually lead to the US's current constitution. But in the case of the Alliance, a war broke out before a constitutional convention could be called. In some sense the game is like a "what if" if the US was under the Articles of Confederation when the War of 1812 happened, as opposed to being a unified federation. Instead we have a paralyzed alliance of 5 sovereign states that can't decide on anything. Part of the plot centers around reuniting the scattered members of the Alliance, utterly demoralized by initial defeats. The way they went about it, they were able to integrate the complexities of politics into the plot, without being dry and boring about it.

I found this interesting that they would go this route in terms of plot. Sure these days, political intrigue in games are a dime a dozen as plot elements *cough*Metal Gear saga*cough* but at the time when this game came out in the late '90s, video game story telling was rapidly maturing beyond "kill the invaders!" This is also the time period where video game stories started taking on a human drama element, and Suikoden II does this very well.


Music and art style: 6
In terms of setting the atmosphere the music is perfect. The game has a wide range of mood and has an appropriate track to go with each. In fact, the Suikoden II soundtrack comprises four disks. Though it isn't just mood setting, the music also has a wide range of styles. From the European style
"Prideful Sarabande" that conjures up images of medieval castles and knights to the Asian style "Nahala Yam Koong" which conjures up images of an exotic Asian market, the kind that one would see Indiana Jones wading though. The battle music is also appropriately fitting with tracks ranging from military marches to more heroic and rousing themes, to more dreading and foreboding tones.

The art style is also as varied as the music.

The Dunan Region where the game takes place has both European (in the north), Asian (to the south and east), and American Mid-West (to the west) influences. In the northern parts of the region you'll find the European medieval style castles and cities. In the central part of the region where the Muse city-state is located has architecture more influenced Roman and Greek architecture. Then to the east and to the south you'll find cities and towns that have a kind of Edo period Japanese style architecture, while the main city-state in the area has a sort of Chinese Forbidden City feel to it. An interesting note, is the leaders in these cities have a Caucasian character design, which brings up an image of early 20th century colonialism in Asia. Going further west, you'll encounter a desert region and the architecture style here is influenced by American southwest pueblos, with adobe buildings. 

The character designs are also as unique and varies as the settings and the music in the game. You have everything from armored knights to exotic sorceresses to hooded snipers. Even the races vary from Humans, to Kobolds, to Elves, to even a Unicorn, a sleepy vampire and a werewolf.

If they say variety is the spice of life, then in terms of art and music, Suikoden II is a full spice rack. Actually it's more like the spice section at Costco.

Probably the only styling I would change would be the uniforms of the Allied Army. The uniforms seem to consist of a tunic, shorts and a scarf. I would have gone with Roman style lorica segmentata armor to match the Roman style architecture of the Alliance capital.

Final Verdict: Must Buy

Suikoden II is literally one of the best games ever made. A masterpiece of story telling melded with a sleek and uncomplicated gaming interface. You will find new disks going for $400 on Amazon (thank God I got my copy in 1998 when the game came out for $50) with used copies going for $165. I literally cannot say enough about how great this game is. Konami literally does not make them like this anymore.

While the cost for a physical disk has rocketed up to something insane, thankfully Sony has woken up to this and they do have it available digitally on the PlayStation Store for $9.99. At that price (come on, I'm sure you have some cans and bottles you can take to the recycling center, or change in your couch) anyone with a PlayStation system should have this game, it's only 315MB. 

Quoth the VFX Raven “Nevermore.”: Retro Review of Macross VFX2

First off, what prompted me to do is was a realization that a a lot of the younger generation getting into video games today weren't around for some of the real gems and not so gems of the 32-bit era. While I don't condone piracy (don't go illegally downloading stuff that you don't own) the prevalence of smart phone emulators means there is now a larger potential audience for these older games.

I'm going to try to break things down into segments and score things along a 5 pt scale then average it all at the end. 

5 pts - A

4 pts - B

3 pts - C

2 pts - D

1 pts - F

0 pts - Epic Fail

That said let's get started. 

Overall score: 3.5/5

C+

This is a game for the PS1 that was released only in Japan. A Western release was planned, but was ultimately cock-blocked by Harmony Gold due to licencing issues regarding Super Dimentional Fortress Macross, the universe in which the games takes place. But that's a rant for another day. Harmony Gold? More like Harmony Crap! 

Gameplay: 3.5

You can see the HUD here is all in English, making the game very import friendly. 

Lets start off with what matters most, the gameplay. This game has a little bit of a love it or hate it reputation. Given the restrictions that the developers were under, I think they managed to pull off a fun and unique 3D shooter. This game was developed in '99 for the PS1. What was going on with Sony at this time was that into the PS1's life span they introduced the original Dual Shock. The OG PS1 controller lacked the dual analogue sticks of the Dual Shock and was more like the SNES's controller (no surprise there given that the PS1 is something of the bastard child of the SNES that was later adopted by another family). The policy Sony had at the time was that developers HAD to have  an OG compatible controller scheme. When you play SDF Macross for the PS2 (I'll review that as well at some point) or Robotech Battlecry you can see what kind of handicap the developers were working under for VFX2. Namely, the developers were boxed into having to use the D-pad for movement rather than options or other functions with the left stick controlling movement. 

So lets get into the actual gameplay. The game consists of you flying around your transformable Variable Fighter and putting the hurt on anyone who gets in your way. 

YF-19/VF-19A Excalibur

You can switch between modes at will and each mode has it's own handling characteristics. In fighter mode, the game plays as an arcade style flight game. In GERWALK Mode you're hovering in places, and pushing the throttle up or throttle down button will give you a boost forward or a boost backward. In Battroid you're either floating in mid-air/space where you have forward-back movement and left and right rotate you. 

You can switch cameras where you can set the camera set to keep looking the direction your VF is facing. Or switch it to focus on your target (which makes it feel like you're watching the anime). Or switch it to focus on incoming missiles. 

To dish out the pain you have your primary weapon, the machine gun, and your sub-weapon, typically your missiles. Holding down the sub-weapon button lets you target multiple enemies and releasing the button fires off a barrage of missiles. Along with standard missile each plane has it's own set of sub-weapons from micro missiles with faster lock on, High Maneuver Missiles, to high explosive grenades to nuclear missiles that if you're not careful will kill you too. 

Your other attack consists of a machine gun. The machine gun functions differently in each mode.In Fighter Mode, the machine gun just fires straight. It's your straight line, spray in front of you weapon. In GERWALK Mode,  holding down the machine gun button will lock you in the direction you were facing and allow you strafe left and right as opposed to rotating left of right. This comes in handy in shooting down incoming missiles in some instances. In the Gundam-like Battroid mode, the machine gun locks on to your target while you are shooting. 

Notice how there is no actual lock-on button? That the machine gun largely doubles as the lock on? That is because the developers literally ran out of buttons on the OG PS1 controller. The Dual Shock and all subsequent PS controllers have 14 buttons including the D-pad. By contrast the OG controller only has 8 buttons, since the D-pad must be used for movement. The button functions are, which are fully customizeable are.

D-pad - movement

Thrust +

Thrust -

Main weapon

Sub-weapon

Sub-weapon selection

Mode up

Mode down

Change View

There's literally no button left to assign a target lock function. But given the limitations that were worked within, once you get used to the controls it does work pretty well controlling a complicated machine like a Variable Fighter. For better or for worse there is little variation in how each VF handles, though some seem faster and make tighter turns than others. While on one hand this seems kind of bland, on the other, if you're a VF-1 fanatic, you won't get toast taking the classic Valkyrie out on the last mission. 

On an interesting note, this forced simplification of controls translates pretty well to a touch screen interfaced smart phone. 

Graphics and visuals: 3.5

Crusin' for a brusin

For it's time period, the detail on the vehicles like VFs and ships is very good. While the animation could be smoother when running in Battroid mode it still remains detailed. Not only are the VFs detailed, but they're also accurate to their anime counterparts.

Who wants some?!

The ground textures are par for the course for the PS1, they don't really stand out as anything good or bad. Where the graphics do take a hit, is in the graphical pop ups. The game has a bad habit of displaying an enemy off in the distance, then as you get closer a wall suddenly pops up in front of him. Visually it's just bad to begin with, but where it becomes problematic is when you try to attack a ground target from the ground. You'll see a target in the distance, and engage him with your gun, only to start wondering if you're even hitting him, even though it certainly looks like you're hitting him. So you move closer only to have a wall pop up, and you have your answer of why you couldn't hit him. There was an invisible (from your distance) wall he was hiding from. 

Gameplay stability: 2

Whee wacky shack!

For the most part the game runs pretty stable. By that I mean there are few crashes or freezes or anything that stops you from breaking the game, "show stoppers" as we called them when I used to work in the video game industry. 

So why the score of 2?

This depends on different variables, and not one has really done a proper QA style bug test on this, but the game does have a tendency to freeze at the very end. This depends on if you're playing the game on an emulator, or a modded PS1, on a PSP or on a Japanese PS1. I have a copy running on the PSP that had this glitch until Sony released their 5.00 update some time ago. So post FW 5.00 it will work fine. 

When the glitch happens, you can't see the ending and you can't same your "new game plus" with all your VFs unlocked from the start, plus several other units that are only unlocked after completing the game and saving at the end.

Fortunately, if you're savvy with several PlayStation related tools you can work your way around this, by downloading saved game data and inserting it into a memory card file. 

Plot: 5 

Meet the crew
Syun Tohma, Gilliam Angreat, Aegis Focker and Suzie Newlet

Granted if you don't speak Japanese you'll have to research the plot online, but that's beside the point. The plot is a bit of a deviation from the typical Macross formula in that there isn't any idol singers taking center stage. Instead the plot is more along the lines of MS Gundam: The 08th MS Team in that the plot centers around a group of grunts

The plot takes place in 2050AD, Five years after the events of Macross 7, thirty-eight years after SDF Macross and nine years before Macross Frontier. Robotech is not a part of the Macross timeline, so don't expect "Rick Hunter" to be mentioned. 

The main protagonist is Captain Aegis Focker (Shoji Kawamori has yet to expound on any relation to Roy Focker.) a pilot in the United Nations Space Force, and new member of the special operations squadron VFX Ravens. Though the course of the story, Focker faces off against anti-government terrorists attacking UN colonies, shady corporations developing new technologies and corrupt government and military officials looking to mount a coup. 

As part of a special operations squadron, Focker has access to a variety of fighters ranging from the modern update of the legendary VF-1 Valkyrie, to the VF-19A Excalibur to the massive VB-6 variable bomber.  

In Macross Frontier the United Nations Government has been reorganized into the New United Nations Government. There has been some speculation that the reorganization was related to the events at the end of the good ending of VFX2. 

The plot itself is pretty good, it's a shame it was never animated into an OAV. 

Final Verdict: For fans of the franchise and fans of the genre. 

All in all, the game is a fun 3D arcade shooter once you get used to the controls. The game isn't very long, and it allows you save in-between missions. Letting you play in small bursts if you like. If you're a fan of the series, or just a fan of arcade style shooters, this is worth checking out if it comes your way. 

Drowning in immigrants? Or forging a nation of steel?

So I came across this video and found it rather interesting. Before anyone flips out at the title and think it's Trumpist alarmist propaganda, it's actually pretty rational analysis of the immigration issue facing a European country.

Now before I start getting called an anti-immigration redneck, lets get something out of the way first. My parents came to the United States in the '70s. They came here, they integrated into and contribute to American society. I was born here and raised as an Asian-American. Immigration can be great for a country. Thanks to all the immigrants that have come here, I can to some degree experience different cultures from different parts of the world. Generally I do this though food, living in a metropolitan area, I've had the opportunity to eat Iranian, Afghani, Pakistani, Indian, Russian, German, English, etc. I can get bbq baby back ribs one day, and get halal chicken the next. I can get Bangers and Mash with a hard cider one night, and a large bowl of mabo ramen the next.

People that come into the US with the goal of living that "American Dream", I by and large have no problem with. While I do not support illegal immigration, I can understand some of the sentiment behind why they come here. The ones that do come here illegally, but have spent their whole time getting an education, contributing to society, rather than just being a criminal leech, I fully support providing a path to a green card for those people. Now where I do have an issue with, are the ones that come into a country, with no intent of integrating in with the resident population, but rather insist that we adopt their customs and culture.

But before we go further let's define culture first.

- the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time
- a particular society that has it's own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.
- a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization

Basically, the character of a particular population. In otherwords, it's the thing that makes a particular set of people, that particular set of people. This can be a collection of positive or negative characteristics. And there are positive and negative characteristics, I'll get into that later.

This sentiment goes triple for those who come from a heritage that is radically different from the Western civilization heritage. You don't go to a foreign country and insist that they be like you. To put it bluntly, given the current world situation (I'm not picking on Muslims, just using Middle Eastern immigrants as the example since they are the focus of attention, in a different time period it would be a different group of people), and the constitution that I live in, you can adhere to Sharia as devoutly as you want. But I'll be damned if I drop my own values as a born and raised American in order to soothe your sensibilities. Sames goes if you try to impose those foreign (yes foreign, the heritage of the United States is western European, not Middle Eastern) values on other Americans around you. Don't ever let me catch you pulling the same crap as radicals in Britain that like to carry out "Sharia patrols" and harassing random people, who while are breaking no British laws or ordinances, are not carrying themselves in accordance to Sharia.Now if you want to preach about your religion and spread your particular message of salvation to anyone who'll listen, you certainly have that right.

Now there's a BIG difference between coming to another country and bringing you cultural heritage with you. It's another when you come to another country and expect people to follow your cultural heritage. There's a big difference between coming to another country and opening an ethic restaurant (on that note, Afghani and Pakistani food is really good, especially if you like a lot of spices in your food), preparing dishes in accordance to your cultural customs. But it's another thing to go and harass people over the fact they eat things that are forbidden in your native culture. Same goes for harassing people that don't dress in accordance to their cultural norms. If we can break bread without you having to impose your customs on me, beyond your house rules within your dwelling, then we have no issue. On the same token if you come in and bring your culture and values to add to, as opposed to dominate, the resident culture, there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

By contrast, there are those who simply come in to take advantage of the State programs and opportunities with no intent of integrating into the larger resident culture. These are economic migrants and they are very different from the actual refugees from the fighting in Syria. These people have no intent of integrating and being part of the resident culture, as such, nothing is owed to them. As such, if you come into my country, with no intention of being a part of my country, and only want to supplement it with yours, don't expect me to be sympathetic to you, and don't expect me to just go along with it. In contrast if you come to my country, fleeing death, and you accept the culture and realities of this country, and accept it as your new home, then fine, great, welcome aboard.

Here's the other thing, I can't speak for other countries, but the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, forbids the establishment of religion. That also means that the government can't adopt religiously based laws. That's goes for everyone, be it Christianity, Islam, etc. So you coming in here and imposing your medieval religious beliefs as law, yeah that shit don't fly here in the US. Personally, I don't like anyone telling me how to live, that's one reason I love this country, a founding principal is that people can live their lives as they see fit, and unique to the United States, is also the founding principal is a reaffirmation that I, as a US citizen, have the right to the tools needed to ensure that I can live my live at my discretion. You want to impose your values onto my personal life... we're going to have problems. You want to share your values in the thought that I might want to integrate them into my personal life, then we can sit and talk over a drink. I'll give you the opportunity to make your case to me, be you a Scientologist, a Jehovah's Witness, or a Muslim.

The other point made by the video, that is a very valid is that immigration should be limited as not to overwhelm the resident culture's ability to absorb and integrate them into the larger society. Multiculturalism is as much a dead end as Voodoo Economics is. European multiculturalism stands in stark contrast with the American melting pot. Where as multiculturalism is more of a compartmentalization of different communities, the US is more like a metallic alloy with different cultures as different metals mixing with the others. But when you put too much one one kind of metal into the alloy, then the balance is thrown off. Too much iron and the steel is no longer steel.

Is multiculturalism irrational? Lets shrink it down to a more local level. Lets imagine a city-state, a city-state founded on liberal democratic values. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc. the usual things we'll find in the Bill of Rights.

The city-state of Jowston.
(now watch me get smacked by Konami for some copyright related shit...) 

Lets call this city-state "Jowston".

So we have this city-state that's doing well. People have civil liberties and are free to do what they wish, the government ensures the market is free and fair with no monopolies, etc. So life is good, and people want to come in.

In a melting pot, these people come in and want to become a part of the city-state's culture. They want to be part of the Dream. They become a part of the culture and bring with them values that integrate into the native value system the values that are compatible. Jowston's culture becomes richer. There is one inclusive Jowstonian culture that people join. But those that do not become part of the culture are left out in the fringes. Their views being taken as backwards or barbaric, and in some cases, rightfully so. You come here, you change for us, we do not change for you. So then, lets say we have a group of people from a completely alien cultural heritage, a heritage where sexism and theocratic oppression are the norm, lets call them Nagareans. They come in, they learn the language, learn the customs, respect the existing laws and themselves eventually become a part of the city-state. They understand that here in Jowston things are different, women have the same legal rights as men, the church has no legal power role in government and their holy book is not law. Grievances they have against other citizens are taken up in Jowstonian courts and settled according to Jowston civil and criminal laws. They're considered Nagarean-Jowstonians.

 Here, the law is the law, if you break the law you are prosecuted by the state, regardless of what your holy book has to say about it. Conversely if another Jowstonian does something in violation of Nagarean holy text, that is not a violation of Jowstonian law, it's the individual Nagrean's problem. Nagarean cultural hertiage is not on the same standing as Jowston cultural heritage within the Jowston city-state. It is subject to laws that came about though Jowston's native cultural heritage. Say we have another group, lets call then Aronians. Same thing that happens as with the Nagareans, they assimilate and become Jowstonians. The government allows more immigration into Jowston and the city-state and the single Jowston culture grows. Even if the immigrant population of Nagareans and Aronians surpasses the native Jowston population, there is a shared pool of values and there is an idea, maybe vague and amorphous, but an idea of what it is to be Jowstonian. The character, and culture of Jowstonian society will continue on.  

Jowston endures, Jowston prevails!

By contrast in multiculturalism, lets say we have the same situation in Jowston. Life is good, and people want to come in. Again we have the Nagareans, with their alien culture, who wants to come in, as well as the Aronians. Only instead of the Nagareans and the Aronians assimilation into the resident Jowston culture, they exist distinct and separate, side by side with the resident Jowstonians. Instead of becoming Nagarean-Jowstonians, they're instead Nagreans who just happen to live in Jowston. They do not treat women equally, Nagarean women are required to wear special clothing, and are beaten by Nagarean men when they go to vote under Jowston law, because in Nagarea women do not participate in government. Rather than conducting themselves according to the laws of Jowston, they only conduct themselves according to the laws of their holy book, so they commit acts that are crimes under Jowstonian law, but are permissible in their holy book. When acts are committed by Jowstonians that are legal under Jowston law but forbidden by their holy book, they punish the actor, not based on Jowstonian law, but on their holy book. This is tolerated, because Jowston culture is no better than Nagarea's barbaric theocratic culture. That Nagarea's barbarism has every right to exist as much as Jowston's enlightened culture.

Between the Nagreans and the Aronians, as populations flux, and surpass the native Jowstonians, the identity of what it is to be Jowstonian becomes fuzzier and fuzzier, ultimately losing the defining characteristics of it's culture. The government allows more immigration from Nagarea into Jowston, eventually the large influx combined with a higher birth rate compared to the native Jowstons and the Aronians, and though violent cultural intimidation as well as use of Jowston's democratic process, elect Nagreans to office who then pass laws based upon Nagarean cultural traditions, and ultimately by extension laws based upon Nagarean holy text. Eventually the Nagareans in office pass laws requiring women to wear their special clothing, they revoke the rights enjoyed by women, they vote preferential treatment to people who follow the Nagarean religion. Jowston is now another brutal Nagarean theocracy.

The Theocratic State of Jowston

Is multiculturalism irrational? Yes, because it's ultimately an unsustainable cultural system. Fact of the matter is, not all cultures are equal. Some are truly backwards and barbaric. A culture where "honor killings" are accepted is barbaric. A culture where female genital mutilation is permissive is barbaric. A culture where children are married off, is backwards. A culture where men and women do not enjoy the same rights under the law is backwards. Backwards and barbaric cultures do not stand equal with a developed culture, to think that is is, is highly naive if not out right stupid. Right and wrong do exist. Harming another person not in an act of defense, is wrong, regardless of what your holy books says.

And yes, there are cultures that ARE barbaric, that ARE backwards. When you look at western cultures and cultures that have been influenced by western cultures, for better or worse, you see some of the similar cultural believes held in places where fundamentalist religions like Whabbi Islam, having been left behind by the West long ago. Slavery, left behind in history, not acceptable in modern western societies. Legislated religious dogma, largely left behind in history, is not generally acceptable in modern western societies. Legislated sexism, left behind in history, not acceptable in modern western societies. Violence perpetuated in the name of scripture, by and large left behind in history, not acceptable in modern western societies. Facts are facts no amount of feel-good politically correct bullshit can change that. We as the west moved on from that kind of archaic thinking, while without the Ottoman Empire, segments of Mid Eastern (not all or as a whole of course) society reverted back to it. That's being backwards. Flogging women for not covering up their hair, that's being barbaric. Fucking acts of terrorism is barbaric. Rationalize it in you regressive leftist, PC head all you want, but that is being backwards and that is being barbaric.

On a side note... when these people do their virtue signaling, it's really out of a genuine but misplaced belief in "can't we all get along?" Or is it just jerking their ego and building their ideological cred...?

So far, America doesn't seem to have much of that issue at the time of writing. Yes there are some enclaves that want nothing to do with with integrating in the larger resident population, but that want to impose their custom on the rest of the nation. That is the point where those who don't want to just throw open the doors of immigration are right. The balance, the correct proportions must be maintained in order for a culture like the US's to maintain straight, to continue to be steel. Though, generally, by and large, the US remains a melting pot, people enter to become Americans, not as just economic migrants. This melting pot is what makes American culture strong, instead of compartmentalization, all the different view points that are brought in are selectively disseminated into the larger whole, with the most desirable ones being adopted by others. Cultural extremists are largely mocked, ridiculed and relegated to the fringe in American culture. Extremist views are by and large not treated as equally important.

There is one aspect though, that is potentially damaging to the melting pot and essentially fatal to multiculturalism. Cultural guilt driven permissiveness, or miss placed cultural pity. A sort of arrogant narcissistic ideal that somehow you have a hand in these people's supposed predicament and that you have the power to save them. This idea manifests itself in tolerance for the worst acts of barbarism that might be brought over by the dregs that accompany the decent people. It also manifest itself in this apologetic, kiss-ass, mentality that leads people to pull down their own national flag out of fear of offending someone and the victims apologizing to the perpetrator of their own sexual assault. Someone who might or might not even give a damn or have any respect for the country and culture they came to. They're not here to become part of the larger resident society, they're not your people, You owe them nothing, if they don't like it, if they get offended, if their feelings are hurt, no one stopping them from going back to where they came from if they don't like it here. If you come into the US without the intention of becoming an American, then I have no sense of camaraderie with you, and I owe you not a damn thing beyond common courtesy. If you come in here as a tourist or for business, then I only owe you the courtesy owed to a house guest. This amounts to nothing more than cultural suicide. In addition, using the example of the contemporary liberalism, it runs counter to the very thing they claim to stand for. They claim to stand for women's rights, while at the same time permitting the copy-pasting of a culture that subjugates women. And even more ironic, this is massive disservice to the immigrants that do enter in order to escape said barbarism and oppression. So what about them, by doing this, you are literally throwing the actual legitimate refugees, people fleeing war, violence, and barbarism, under the bus, all in the name of political correctness and virtue signaling. This only makes you look like either ignorant or like a hypocrite.

This is not how you forge a strong nation. This is not how you forge steel. You cannot forge an alloy by not allowing the individual metals to blend. In the modern world with things like air travel, it's inevitable that different cultures are going to meet at a much higher frequency than ever before. Each of these cultures is like an individual metal or element. You can have them all blend into a strong alloy like steel or titanium alloy, or you can just have a hodgepodge bag of ingredients. Hell even if I use the analogy of a vinigrette where the different ingredients separate and layer, the full strength of the flavor does not come out until the bottle is shaken up and all the component ingredients are blended together. I've heard the description of multiculturalism as a "cultural mosaic". Well that doesn't work. A mosaic is an arrangement, ordered by an individual or group, with a particular goal in mind, the goal in the case of a mosaic being a particular image. But in multiculturalism, who is the "artist"? What is the particular image to be portrayed by the mosaic. There is none. There's no plan, there's no one directing where each individual distinct culture goes, or what their role is? Again, it does, not, work. The phrase "greater than the sum of the parts" comes to mind. Could you imagine if a theater troupe all did their own thing? The production would be a disaster.

For Europe to stay Europe, for European cultures to continue, multiculturalism needs to be dumped. when you let people come into your country, you must insist that they become a part of your people, otherwise, do not enter. Germany, don't be afraid to deport people who come into your country and do not become Germans, they are not your people, they are only renters at best, squatters at worse. As they are not your people, you owe them nothing. If they come into your country with no intention of becoming German, or French, or British, etc. they are outsiders that you owe nothing to.

If you come into my country, the United States of the America, to work hard, and carve out your own piece of the American Dream, to live your live under the values that lead to the Bill of Rights, to become an American yourself, you're certainly more than welcome to come. But if you're just coming in here to bring your BS and impose it on the rest of us and refuse to integrate and become an American? Go the hell back home, you have no place here. You want to come here for business, fine great, just leave any BS you might have at home. Check that shit at the door.