Immigration: Charity and Common Sense

In the wake of last week’s Paris attacks the topic of immigration has been brought back into the forefront of public discourse.

And as usual left wing liberals denounce as racist anyone with even the slightest misgiving about unlimited immigration.

They don’t explain, nor apparently even notice, the internal contradictions in their own position.

Many people who would prefer to limit immigration are mainly worried about one particular strand of the whole broad spectrum of possible immigrant groups. This particular strand is muslim immigration, and it is mightily defended and continually excused by liberals.

It must be complicated being a liberal these days.

On the one hand, they denounce as misogynist all opponents, however mild, of the feminist movement; to them the least challenge to same-sex “marriage” is homophobic; they think that only an uptight prude would call for modesty in dress or behaviour, and that only a racist would advocate immigration policies being subservient to common sense. They despise militarism.

But on the other hand, the culture that liberals support, defend and tirelessly excuse – islam with its sharia law – has women walking around in body bags, as the private property of their men folk; has homosexuals thrown from high roofs or burnt alive; flays, pours acid in the face of, or “honour” kills immodest women who dare expose to public view as much as an ankle or who bring disrepute upon the male members of their families; and whose spokesmen regularly announce plans to wipe out the entire Jewish race.

Oh, and the leftist liberal pompously declares that all this violence emanating from islam is caused by right wing extremism. Which is akin to using as an excuse, after committing a crime: “The devil made me do it.”

Immigration policy should be based on a combination of charity and common sense.

Charity dictates that, unless there is a grave reason to act otherwise, we should welcome visitors to our shores.

Common sense raises some questions:

At what rate can we accept immigrants, and still enable them to adapt and assimilate to our culture?

What would qualify as an exception to the rule of charity? Should we, for example, accept declared enemies, who have credibly claimed that they will suppress our culture, marry our daughters and supplant our religion?

When it comes to refugees, charity may desire to take them all in, providing food and shelter for those in need.

Of course common sense will ask the perhaps unwelcome questions:

What can we afford to do? How much can we give without impoverishing our own people?

How much can we give now without risking not being able to continue giving, and thus leaving the refugees in another desperate, perhaps worse, situation?

What we give should, ideally at least, be given voluntarily rather than through taxation for three reasons:

-           There is more merit in giving freely than in giving under coercion;

-          Those who disagree with current refugee policies need not support them, while those who strongly favour them can support them abundantly;

-           Governments are not necessarily the most efficient vehicles for administering charity.

Then there is the more controversial question:

Why don’t we send what we can afford, in order to help the victims of the crisis, to their own country? Couldn’t we, in this way, save them the risks, cost and hardships of the journey?

Naturally there are other concerns whose reasonableness was highlighted by the massacre in Paris: security concerns; concerns about integration of immigrants into their host countries.

The left dismisses these concerns as being the wild rantings of right wing lunatics and racists, telling us that the 3,500 refugees that Ireland has agreed to accept will make up less than 0.1% of our population.

That would be a useful statistic if we were dealing with a group of 3,500 people who might be easily assimilated into our society, with a profile that is evenly distributed among both sexes and a wide range of age groups, cultures and religions.

However what we are dealing with is a group with a very singular demographic profile, and one that is largely self-segregating from the rest of society. Its members belong to a religion that is fiercely hostile to the West and to Christianity, and that easily justifies subduing and killing of infidels, not just because the right wing extremists made them do it, but because their holy book instructs them to do so.

Furthermore, according to the United Nations, 75% of the refugees currently migrating across Europe are men. Video footage would suggest that it is even more, and that the majority are young and fit.

But even taking the UN figure of 75%, we would have 2,625 strong, fit, young male members of a religion that is deeply hostile to our culture, religion and way of life due to arrive in Ireland by the end of next year.

Rather than comparing their number to the whole population of Ireland, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to compare it to the numbers in our army? That would be 35%.