Part 1 of 3 (this plays more like an SNL skit):
Part 2 of 3 (this is the more "Daily Show"-ish video):
We're still waiting on Part 3 of 3, I think.
As someone noted in the comments to one of the vids, the Danes seem to have taken it upon themselves to be the ones who shout that the emperor has no clothes, and that Sweden is effectively killing itself with its immigration-without-assimilation policy, a policy that's also mired in a willful, politically correct scotosis that has paved the way for cultural suicide.
I myself used to be a no-borders transnational progressivist; these days, I recoil from my former self. I now see border control and immigration policy as a sort of collective skin for any given country. A human body needs its skin to survive—just as much as it needs senses and orifices to interact with its environment. The skin is an integument that serves as border and boundary. In a very real sense, the skin defines and protects. Rip that covering off, and the body is fair game for all manner of pathogens. That's just common sense. Arguing that you need your skin to survive isn't racist or bigoted, no matter how much some wild-eyed folks would claim that that's the case. Here's Dr. V:
I don't give a flying enchilada whether you are Hispanic or Asian. If you accept the propositions [i.e., core American values, especially as laid out in our founding documents], drop the hyphens, and [identify] as an American, then I say you are one of us. I'll even celebrate the culinary diversity you contribute. [italics added]
Immigration per se isn't the problem. Illegal immigration is one problem, and immigration without assimilation is another. In the US, immigrants usually take a few generations to assimilate, as has long been the immigrant's story on the American continent. But in places like France, where ethnic enclaves form in les banlieues, very little assimilation is happening. Instead, what we're seeing around Paris, and in Sweden as well as in other places in Europe, is ethnic calcification and balkanization. This hardening of the battle lines—for battle lines they are—merely increases ethnic/cultural tension and strife, which usually ends in violence. No country should be so suicidal as to give up a say in its own destiny, but that seems to be what countries like Germany and Sweden are doing. Only Denmark seems to have the balls and the self-awareness to say or do anything about the problem. Everyone else is too busy whistling past the graveyard, perhaps not realizing that they're next in those graves.
"The Dark Side of Paris" (the video also includes plenty of positives):
Outstanding laydown on the immigration issue, Kevin. I hadn't thought of a border in terms of "skin" before, but it is an apt comparison.
ReplyDeleteIt is really simple to me: a nation that does not enforce its borders ceases to be a nation.
I agree. And it's not as though we're advocating for completely non-porous borders, either—to use the skin analogy again, that would be like dipping someone's body in paint: a suffocating experience. The pores and orifices all have their place, but this doesn't mean that we can or should add to them. All we're advocating, in the end, is the right to determine whom we let in. Every country has the right to act according to its own self-interest, and every culture has the right to promote its own survival. Conversely, no culture is infinitely resilient or absorptive.
ReplyDelete