realignment of the mind

[DominicJ]

It amuses me greatly that a person can both believe its obscene to prevent migration to the UK, yet have a problem with European migration to the Americas, or more recently, Jewish migration to Israel.

[2 As and a B]

Is what we are talking about here not the clash of cultures? To which can be added technological and/or political superiority in conflict situations, when in competition for resources (primarily land as that covers food-potential and water)?

Doesn't moral duty to do no harm tend to take a back seat when dealing with members of another culture in competition for resources?

(You amuse me full-stop Dom "realist, not a hippie".)

[kenneal - lagger]

Any country or people deserve the right to decide who lives with them and in what numbers. Previous waves of emigration from Europe were wrong and caused untold death and destruction by war and, mainly, by disease. According to Jared Diamond, in a documentary on TV recently, 95% of the indigenous people of South America were wiped out by diseases bought in by the Spanish.

Since then the world population has grown drastically and space is now at a premium in much of the developed world. Taking people in does not make sense, especially when you take into account the problems of Peak Oil and its effect on food production. The UK would only be able to feed itself with its present population with great difficulty and to provide fuel as well would be even more of a problem.

Anyone who can say they understand the concept of Peak Oil and then advocate uncontrolled immigration into the UK is asking for trouble in the future. We have many here who expect waves of hungry people from the cities to invade the countryside in a search for food in a resource constrained future so to advocate a larger population either speaks of a rejection of this hypothesis or a head in the sand approach to our future.

Uncontrolled immigration in a resource constrained future is likely to lead to a great amount of anti immigrant feeling and this will be directed at anyone who looks different, whether they were born here, had been here for years or have just arrived. This is not what I want to see and I am not advocating it. You just have to look at places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to see what happens in time of turmoil.

Much migration in the past has been of a violent nature. Successive waves of migration from central Africa southwards in the past have resulted in the death of the indigenous peoples: Europeans into North and South America, the same: Asian migration westwards and European migration/conquest eastwards. Did any of that had a moral right?

I am not saying, either, that we should do nothing for potential immigrants to this country. We have a moral duty to help those less well off than ourselves and we can do that cheaper and thus more effectively when they are in their own countries. Why do you think the government have not cut the Aid Budget?

If people can buy their way into a country, you could say they have a right to enjoy what they have purchased. But to march, swim, stow away into a country and demand asylum or take work from the indigenous people is not a right that I can support.

[biffvernon]

Gosh. There's a straw man in each of those paragraphs.

You highlight real issues that each needs to be addressed on its own merits but none detract from the fundamental principle of freedom to move.

[biffvernon]

Let's take your last point to start with:

If people can buy their way into a country, you could say they have a right to enjoy what they have purchased. But to march, swim, stow away into a country and demand asylum or take work from the indigenous people is not a right that I can support.

Your first sentence concedes a major point. If a rich foreigner comes here, buys property and the wherewithal to sustain herself then she has a right to remain. Good. And similarly if a rich Brit wants to move to France or Bongo-bongoland the reciprocal right obtains.

No migration controls for those who do not become 'a burden on the state'.

If we just got that much I would be a very long way to being content on this issue. You won't find in any of my posts on this subject that that I have advocated unlimited migration accompanied by an open cheque from the receiving nation's taxpayers.

[kenneal - lagger]

You won't find in any of my posts on this subject that that I have advocated unlimited migration accompanied by an open cheque from the receiving nation's taxpayers.

At last, something I have been asking for for ages, a qualification of the limit to Biff's desire for unrestricted immigration.

So he's now happy to have unrestricted immigration and see many of those immigrants starve and freeze on our streets when they can't find food or shelter because they have no money, is he?

[biffvernon]

So he's now happy to have unrestricted immigration and see many of those immigrants starve and freeze on our streets when they can't find food or shelter because they have no money, is he?

That is not a logical deduction. It's also wrong.

We must learn to separate two things, not conflate them so that the one is used as argument when discussing the other.

One issue is the right to migrate and settle in another country.
The other issue is the responsibility of the settled population to support the new immigrant.

I am arguing the first issue.

The second issue may arise but needs to be dealt with separately. I've not argued that there should be an automatic responsibility on the host nation. One might like to debate why we are fairly relaxed about watching people die of disease and starvation in some foreign land but if it were to occur on our doorstep we would take action. It's an interesting point but not part of my argument about the abolition of border control.

[Ludwig]

You won't find in any of my posts on this subject that that I have advocated unlimited migration accompanied by an open cheque from the receiving nation's taxpayers.

I'm sure you've said in the past that we should let anyone into the country who wants to come. If I recall correctly, you didn't make any qualifications for whether they can pay their own way. Even supposing they get a job - which will be bloody difficult in a post-Peak world - in most cases that will be a job that a native Briton could have been doing. So, if we're not exactly giving the immigrants a blank cheque, they're still being a net drain on our limited resources.

There is a point at which you have to abandon idealism. I doubt if there was much idealism to be found during the Russian and the Argentinian economic crises. I'm sure there were small acts of kindness, but that's not at all the same thing.

[Ludwig]

One issue is the right to migrate and settle in another country.

If this principle were remotely workable, some country would have tried it and shown that it works.

Why do ALL countries have border controls?

I'd like to emigrate to Norway because it's empty, they have lots of money and it looks like a nice peaceful place to live. I'm sure I'm one of many millions of people who would be in there like a shot if Norway abandoned its border controls, and who would then proceed to fuel all sorts of demographic and social problems once I got there because the infrastructure and the economy and the food production chain couldn't cope.

[kenneal - lagger]

Biff, do we have the right to decide when we have enough people in the UK or do we wait until every scrap of land that can be built upon has been, as has happened in Hong Kong. Or do we then go to high rises, again as in Hong Kong.

Do we allow enough people from one ethnic group or religion in to outnumber our indigenous population and change our culture? I am sure that the American Indian populations, both north and south, would rather that us Europeans had stayed away.

May I suggest, Biff, that you be thankful that your parents migrated here at a time when we needed immigrants and had the room to make them welcome, accept that in our over populated, resource depleted world things have now changed and mass migration is not a good thing and get over the guilt you feel for their and your good fortune.

As to your point about people feeling relaxed about people dying in far off lands, that is patently not true. You only have to look at the huge donations made to charity appeals for overseas disasters to see that the people of this country do care about the fortunes of others. As I said earlier, even the government recognises our moral obligation to the poor of the world by not reducing the aid budget, even in this time of economic crisis. This recognition does also acknowledge the fact that we can do more for them in their own country and their own culture.

[kenneal - lagger]

Has it been a good thing? I think we need to distinguish between the process of migration and resettlement and what some of those settlers have sometimes done.

I would evoke the overriding moral duty on all to do no harm. That applies equally to all people whatever direction they migrate in. History shows many examples where that moral duty has not been observed but that does not detract from the fundamental right to migrate.

Unwanted mass migration is bound to harm the indigenous population. Where do the migrants live, for example? In most countries all the useful land is spoken for. In the US and south Africa the immigrants saw what they thought was empty, unused land and took it.

In North America the early settlers bought in diseases which the indigenous people had no immunity against. they found plenty of empty land initially because they had, inadvertently of course, killed of the local Indians. The settlers then moved west looking for more "empty" land and found plenty.

They didn't know it was the tribal lands of the indigenous people who then made an attempt to throw them off. This was taken as an attack on the freedom of the migrants who then defended themselves. Unfortunately for the indigenous people the migrants were in greater numbers with better technology and were able to defend themselves from attack. Is that wrong?

[biffvernon]

Arrghhh, I am being savaged by a whole army of straw men. I'll fight them later if I can find the time . Meanwhile read what i wrote not what you think I wrote.

[RenewableCandy]

Just pour on some petrol and chuck a match in...

[JohnB]

Just pour on some petrol and chuck a match in...

What about the emissions?

[RenewableCandy]