THE PEOPLE SPEAK: CANADIAN VIEWS ON IMMIGRATION
(1) ON THOSE WHO PROCLAIM THE WONDERS OF DIVERSITY:
Suppose that we have a white couple who have two children of their own and four adopted children, a black, a brown, a red and a yellow one. They like to proclaim with politically correct enthusiasm that they they have a wonderful family because they adopted children from all races. Such a couple would be insulting their natural children since they imply that they have a great family only because of the adoptees.
Likewise, politicians and pundits who, oh so earnestly, say that Canada is an admirable country because it has welcomed people from all over the world and created such an awe-inspiring and heart-warming diversity are insulting native Canadians. Are they suggesting that, without these immigrants, Canada wouldn't have anything admirable. A country can be a good country even if it hasn't any immigrants, just as a family can be a good family without adoptees.
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(2) ON JUDICIAL SYSTEMS WHICH HAVE EXPANDED THE DEFINITION OF A REFUGEE:
Elsevier, a Dutch news magazine, recently reported on Salah Sheekh, a Somalian who applied for refugee status in the Netherlands. His application was rejected because he was unable to prove that he had been in any danger in Somalia. His case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Court sided with Salah Seekh because, although he had not been threatened, he belonged to the Ashraf tribe, which is unpopular in Somalia.
As a result, the Dutch government has amended its refugee policy, and from now on anyone will be considered to “run a real risk” if he/she “belongs to a vulnerable group”. This of course means that the entire tribe could eventually settle in the NL. Judges don't have to think of the practical consequences of their decisions.
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(3) ON COSMOPOLITANS AND NATIONALISTS:
Cosmopolitans are really like political correcties, who loudly proclaim their belief in diversity and just as loudly denounce those who have opinons diverse from their own. Cosmopolitans condemn nationalists as xenophobes who hate foreigners and as chauvinists who feel superior to foreigners. Then they disdain non-cosmopolitans as provincials and feel superior to them.
They tend to have the same attitude toward unlike-minded others as narrow-minded nationalists have toward foreigners. Much of cosmopolitanism and political correctness is an exercise in pretentious hypocrisy.
Nationalism doesn't have to mean, and rarely does, exclusion of all things foreign.
People have more than one loyalty, and national loyalty can conflict with other loyalties, in which case one has to choose between them.
There are always degrees of foreign-ness. To English-Canadians, the Americans, Brits and Aussies are less foreign than Greeks, Poles or Croats, and those, in turn, are less foreign than Tamils, Koreans or Japanese.
In the same way that some people can become bilingual or multilingual, so some people, not many, can be bi-national or multinational, but cosmopolitans, defined as people who are equally at home everywhere, don't exist. However, the bulk of mankind will always be primarily unilingual and uninational.
As there are degrees in foreigness, so there can be levels of affection. You love your own children most, then the children of relatives and friends, then perhaps the children of the same nation, and finally the children of for example Amazonian Indians. It is not a question of all or nothing.
Similarly, nationalism doesn't mean equal indifference to all foreigners, let alone hate.
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(4) ON EMIGRATION AS A TRANSFERRED EXPLOSIVE :
Emigration can be a safety valve for the country that emigrants are leaving. And sometimes it is desirable to close a safety valve. It is like cutting off the credit line of a gambler or shopaholic. When the option of emigration is no longer available, both the government and the citizens have a stronger incentive to limit offspring, improve the economy and moderate repression.
If Mexicans could no longer emigrate to the US, Mexico would have a greater incentive to reduce poverty and inequality. Without the option of emigration, Filippinos might have started to lower their fertility much sooner. If no Cuban had been allowed to emigrate to the US, Cuba might be a freer and more prosperous country now. Allowing countries to export their people is a form of enabling those countries to delay various reforms. When divorce or separation is impossible, couples have every interest in improving their marriage.
A common fallacy committed by the diversitists is to confuse the desirability of tolerating existing diversity with the desirability of promoting diversity.
If a country has religious diversity, then it should practice religious tolerance, within the limits of the law and democracy, but it doesn't follow that religious diversity itself is an asset. All historical evidence points to the conclusion that it is a liability and a source of actual or potential conflict.
A country should deal with the diversity within its borders as fairly and as efficiently as it can, but a policy of deliberately promoting diversity through immigration is the height of folly.
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(5) ON THE INACCURACY OF EXPRESSING THE SENIOR POPULATION AS A % OF THE TOTAL POPULATION:
It is misleading to express the senior population as a percentage of the total population. What counts is the ratio of seniors to non-senior adults or the ratio of seniors + children to non-senior adults. Let's illustrate this by comparing 3 populations.
seniors non-senior adults children total
pop. A 15 50 35 100
pop. B 15 65 20 100
pop. C 20 65 15 100
In A and B, seniors are both 15% of the total population, but in B the total dependency burden is smaller than in A because the non-senior adults are 65% of the total population instead of 50%. C has a higher senior population than B, but in both the total dependency burden is the same, namely 35%.
It is often argued that adding seniors and children together to reach the dependency burden is unacceptable because seniors are costlier than children. The argument is dubious. Small children need 24/7 care, which the vast majority of seniors doesn't need. Moreover, although seniors consume on average more health care than children, children need schooling, which doesn't come cheap either.
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(6) ON EUROPE'S DANGEROUS EXPERIENCE WITH AMNESTIES FOR ILLEGALS:
“LET'S NOT GO DUTCH: AMNESTY'S TRACK RECORD IN EUROPE SHOULD DISCOURAGE AMERICAN IMITATORS” (This is an articulate American article forwarded by a Canadian who agrees with the article's author.)
Use the following link:
http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/index.php?module=
pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=2232MMN_position=115:90
