shoshin wrote:So many questions!I'd need to be as smart as John to have those answers, give me some time to think about it...
but I will deal with this lovely quote of yours: "allowing "worthy" refugees into a country without "denaturing" said country of it's "native" character?"
I assume you're quoting various trolls here (note that "worthy" is defined by those already here), and different strokes for different countries, but our "native character" was subsumed into a Constitution, wasn't it, wasn't that the idea?
I tend to put words in quotes when the word is being used in some unconventional, or ambiguous, way. Sorta like hanging a big red blinking arrow over a word signifying "open your mind a bit as to what the fnerk this means".
Anyway, I'm not really trolling anyone. I was alluding to what I'd like to see happen, which is that we (or they) could perfectly distinguish fully worthy refugees that would "clean up their own messes" (like any good guest/family member) and make their new country more beautiful and interesting.
And it's an EVOLVING Constitution (amendments!), not some strict constructionist nonsense. Unless you're native american, we're all immigrants, and we gravitate to communities that share SOME of our ideas, but mixing is what makes us advance, innovate, and enjoy life.
The "culture" of a people can't really be captured by a set of rules (a constitution).
BUT, a maximally comprehensive yet minimally restrictive "set of rules" is a very important part of a "culture".
The "owners" of culture within a country are the local-ish groups of people. Where a locality overlaps with it's neighbors (localities) in terms of culture, that expands the "culture territory" while diminishing the shared ITEMS of culture (otherwise they'd be the same culture).
This process eventually fills the country with common culture, while reducing the commonly agreed to cultural "items".
Once the country is "filled", it's "constitution" can be generalized and minimized (parred to it's essentials). Once the constitution is formed it carries a huge (Trumpian HUGE) amount of inertia, but should be allowed to be "improved" by addition of "overwhelmingly agreed to cultural items".
But unless a locality goes massively rogue and abrogates a large part of it's former "agreed to cultural items" that had overlapped with it's neighbors, it should be allowed to "own" it's culture without molestation.
Personally, I'm a localist when it comes to "psychologically important but practically trivial" items of culture, and a nationalist when it comes to "interpersonal voluntary trade" items, which essentially define "criminality".
Those who "came later" (immigrants) need to fit themselves into this structure, and if the immigrants can't convince any locality that they will be a benefit, then the national government needs to create a new "village" (because these people have ALREADY been classified as "worthy").
And I can state unequivocally that the economic future of this country is crucially dependent on increased immigration. If we stop immigration, we are doomed to be a second tier country (or 3rd tier, like Russia).
Bye for now.
You are ABSOLUTELY correct, and we need to be raiders of human capital from the rest of the planet, and not inbred degenerates motivated by xenophobic despair.
How do we do all these wonderful things? Good question, but getting more "smarter than me" people thinking about it would probably be a good idea.
..just some random thoughts.
Aloha! <shaka!>