Immigration: is there a "moderate" position anymore?

the politics of immigration policy are
really difficult to discuss in 2017 and I think part of the problem is that the only voices that are clearly defined in the debate are left-wing extremists and right-wing extremists I think if you ask the average person to define what is a moderate liberal position on immigration policy they can't do it the vast majority people can't do it they can't do it in America they can't do it in Europe they can't do it in England they can't do it in Australia if you ask someone to define what is a moderate conservative policy on immigration they can't do it however it's very easy for people to define what's a right-wing white nationalist perspective or what are the extremists in the left wing saying or what are even the anarchists extremists anarcho-capitalist saying you know those are the voices we hear that are clearly defined that speak in unison and that are pulling the debate in one direction or another who's in the middle what does it mean to be in the middle what does it mean to be a moderate in a narrow one in many ways the nature and significance of immigration has fundamentally changed from what it was for any prior generation now the context for this video obviously is that I've quite recently expressed contempt for far-right views I have expressed my contempt for white nationalism I've expressed my contempt for the so-called you know white genocide discourse however if you've watched the videos on my channel for a longer period of time you may have seen I made just one or two videos talking about my views on refugee policy and immigration policy and in them I think many people would say I'm something like a moderate conservative depending on what country looking at it depending on you to find those terms and thus people on the far left would perceive me as right-wing on those specific issues even though in recent videos have made it very clear that I despise the right-wing I certainly despise the right wing's whole discourse these issues now it's especially phony it's especially insincere for right-wingers to be talking about white genocide when they show zero sincere concern in very real historical genocides and ongoing genocides you know if we're talking about the context of Australia Australian immigration policy very difficult question talk about a very important question doctor but I would say in the context of Australia the moderate liberal position today the moderate liberal liberal position is that in the future white people should not be the majority of Australians now how do you indigenous people feel about that in Australia they have become a minority in their own country in some cases locally they've been completely eradicated the island of Tasmania from everything I've read the number of people indigenous to Tasmania is now zero every single one was exterminated average some other sources that claim there are a very small number of survivors who are there be that as it may the island of Tasmania which is part part of Australia if you don't know that is an example of total genocide so we have a discourse between what I would call the moderate liberals and the moderate conservatives where the moderate liberals are saying that yes what they want is a multicultural future what they want is a cosmopolitan future and when you look at a map of Australia they see no reason why Australia shouldn't become 10% Japanese 10% Chinese maybe 10% Indian well they shouldn't gather in new talent well ten percent Filipino for the Philippines right next door why they shouldn't be having very large numbers of Asian immigrants from across Southeast Asia and surrounding part of the world Southeast Asia South Asia East Asia and in this way why Australia shouldn't make a transition from being a white dominated colonialist Geneseo society to being a multicultural multi-ethnic more diverse and cosmopolitan society albeit one that is still built on genocide right now in the Australian context I find it very difficult to countenance that liberal view that way it's a pro globalization view and what have you precisely because it ignores the special significance of the people for whom Australia is their home you know you cannot make a simple statement of Australia for the Australians without recognizing who are the Australians who are the indigenous people of Australia and to what extent is this their decision I actually saw a lecture from a clergyman a Christian preacher in Australia I'm sorry I forget his exact title but he was a high ranking representative of one of the Christian churches in Australia I forget if he was Protestant or Catholic and he made the point he said fundamentally if the native people of Australia asked us to leave asked why people leave we have to leave that morally he felt that was really important that you know they could have a referendum at any time and if they were asked to leave a given area or the whole country that white people Australia had to be ready to do this now as you can understand that was shocking and controversial within Australia but in the 21st century this is exactly the type of scenario we have to deal with so I received a very passionate email from one of my supporters on patreon who is French and I can relate to the situation in France especially because I myself was an immigrant in France I went through the government process to become a French citizen and I I dropped out before it was completed but I sat in the classroom with North African Muslims I went through the assimilation lessons we are formally taught what it means to assimilate into French culture by a French government official you talk about the political history of France the status of religion and secularism and society in France it's it's quite an interesting process I learned a lot I was in a classroom where 99% of the other students were Muslim I think every single student was Muslim aside from myself I'm a nihilistic atheist and I have no Muslim background aside from myself there was one Tibetan student one Cambodian student and one I think one Thai woman no one I also met one Chinese woman but otherwise the out of the hundreds everyone else was of Muslim ancestry and currently in the Muslim religion there were no secular Muslims none and again mostly from North Africa a few from other from other parts of the of the Muslim world I got to hear their perspective I got to hear how the laws worked and I got to hear both from the instructor and from the other students how in some cases they manipulate the laws how they cynically do things that should be illegal put it that way and take advantage of legal mechanisms that were there it was a very interesting perspective on on immigration France so I haven't an email from one of my patreon supporters expressing his sincere concern about the extent to which I have seen this myself some cities in France I can say this is a fact in the South of France in some cities in France the downtown core of the city is no majority Muslim I have seen that and they're not assimilated Muslims some of them are legal immigrants and some of them are illegal they're not speaking French and they're they're very much intact culturally intact examples of North African Islam that have migrated to France and of course there are tons of French people who are respond to this with alarm and saying this isn't what they signed up for I have to frame this discussion though but pointing out the hypocrisy of people who express that concern even if it is completely sincere how do you think the edge if you how do you think the Cree feel how do you think the Navajo feel how do you think Aboriginal Australians feel how do you think black South Africans feel all over the world we have the reality of European colonialism and of real genocide look at almost anywhere in the Caribbean there is some diversity of historical experience in the Caribbean but the extremely violent history of the French Empire in the Caribbean have you heard of Haiti's or in French it expends iat but Haiti in the Caribbean Haiti San Domingue and you know this unbelievable history of French and Spanish ilysm in in the middle of the Caribbean which involves genocide and slavery and what have you how would you feel if you were the indigenous people in any of those islands facing up to that reality the the current reality I've seen in the South of France with most moments it presents real challenges and real problems and I'm willing to discuss them from my moderately conservative perspective on those issues but I'm not willing to do it I'm not willing to pretend that what we're talking about here is is so-called white genocide that is a very phony and very insincere narrative that everyone has to challenge I mean this is really if you're right wing yourself watching this video you have to challenge and reject this this narrative in in part by confronting it with and contrasting it to the reality of genocide all over the world okay how does it feel to be a foreigner in your own country maybe you feel that way if you're in a city in France if you go to the downtown core of any of the cities in southern France where I live myself that I fit in some of them I visited some of them was living in so much visit if you go to the downtown core and the majority of the people around you or Muslim immigrants and they're not speaking French how do you feel ok well now how did the kree feel how did the Egyptians or they have to speak French where there were no services there's no education there's no police saying there's no hospitals providing language there's a real question of the imposition of shall we say the imposition of authority from another country another language and other sets of norms and standards and practices ok who wrote the laws in South Africa in what language were those laws written by what culture ok let's get real there are French people who say that they are afraid of having Sharia law within France having Muslim cultural ideas and laws imposed on France okay but if that is a sincere concern why do you not also have a sincere concern for that the total extinguishment of native ways of life moral values been a cultural values all over the world but very obviously in these examples of already mentioned by European colonialism and when you look at that more broadly if you just if you focus on the imposition of European law okay South Africa is not a case of outright genocide it was a white colonialist project with terrible crimes against humanity involved but this imposed European languages European culture and European law on the native African people that's very significant although it's a different question from a situation like Quebec or today in Quebec 99% of people are not indigenous they're white or they're other colonizing settlers you know that's very different South Africa is not 99% white people so is that there's a different balance but whether you look at example except Africa or another difficult example like Japan Japan had its constitution written for the Americans Hong Kong Hong Kong has its law written by the British okay the idea which again part of this fear coming from the far-right wing of having foreign norms laws and institutions imposed on you that may be a reasonable fear if stated in a reasonable way but you're stating it in an unreasonable way and in a manner that is much worse than tone-deaf to the ethical reality of recent and ongoing history of European colonialism all over the world so for example I can quote this guy who just wrote to me on patreon he says that you know he's trying to defend himself he's trying to claim that he's not racist which is understandable every one of these discussions has to clarify that there's not racist it seems he says that he believes Africa should be for the Africans he says that he believes Europe should be for the Europeans he says that he believes Asia should be for the Asians but this is not historical reality what is the historical reality of the French Empire in Cambodia what is the historical reality of the French Empire in Vietnam what is the historical reality the British Empire in India these are or or Pakistan or many they're places for the Persian Empire okay these are cases precisely of Europeans colonizing Asia none of them had the attitude of Asia for the Asians and thus now they do not really have the luxury of saying that you're Europe should be for the Europeans there is a real situation of a moral obligation that still links France to Vietnam and France to Cambodia I've seen that myself it is much deeper than just white guilt I mean really is there our ongoing humanitarian projects and cultural exchanges and the French government they don't want to leave if anything they want to try to deepen cultural ties the French government French taxpayers keep paying to give free French lessons to anyone in Laos who wants to learn French they don't most of them want to learn English they don't wanna learn French but the French government will pay for this and the French government keeps offering scholarships and special exchanges they desperately want to cling to the little bit of influence they have in their former colonies in Vietnam and Laos and there they're quite eager to try to recruit significant numbers of immigrants from Vietnam and Laos to to come to France to keep those ties alive right now why is that maybe that's a fascinating case study in many ways but the historical reality as Europeans did not have the attitude that they should respect the sovereignty or the territorial integrity or even the legal integrity of a country like Vietnam a country like Cambodia they did the opposite they imposed European laws there they colonized it they robbed the natural resources they tried to get rich by doing things like opium dealing case you didn't know both India and French Indochina opium was the big game Europeans were trying to get rich quick from again the British history of colonisation in India you can't now say so easily that there should be zero immigration or zero lengths that there should be zero immigration from India to England given the history of England's colonization and annexation of India so that is part of the moral playing field we're on here we're not talking about an even playing field we're not talking about a situation in which this patreon viewer can write to me saying Africa is for the Africans look at the reality of South Africa you can't just say Cambodia is for the Campo you can't say that and you are apparently a French citizen sincerely concerned about problems of immigration in France if you have a sincere concern you have to demonstrate that concern with a real depth of analysis with sincere analytical detachment on both sides of the equation you have to look fairly and I could say honorably at the legacy of those colonial relationships and in some cases they're issues that are still ongoing if you say you don't want to live in a country with Sharia law I don't either I don't want to live under Sharia law but how do you think Cambodians feel when they live in a country where their laws were in the past written by the French and then they were I should written by the United Nations and they're in a process of trying to write their own laws where their educational institutions and their hospitals were built by foreign powers were to such a radical extent their society was reformed in Europe's image and another another really strange example is Japan because Japan in many ways has become Americanized and has become Europeanized without being of formal colony in this way one of my university professors in class showed photographs of downtown Shanghai before or communism he showed us a bunch of photographs of Shanghai and said what city do you think this is where is this in the world they were beautiful black on my photographs of Shanghai and the students couldn't guess and he says it looks like any city in Europe doesn't it he says in fact these are photographs of Shanghai and he told us the years the photographs taken there was a time when I mean Shanghai not an example of outright genocide not the same as indigenous people in Australia not the same as indigenous people in Canada the creative way that Mohawk it's not like that but nevertheless there's a powerful question of European civilization being imposed on Asia and of Asia being remade in a European image so this is part of the reason why many people many people who are pro cosmopolitan or pro globalization have a sense of fair play now in saying that France should welcome in Cambodian culture that France should welcome in Vietnamese that England should welcome in India's culture and that they should be open to to some extent having their cities influenced by and remade in the image of India Cambodia Vietnam when was the last time you saw architecture that was distinctively Indian whether you live in France or England or Villa when probably never or maybe you've walked past a Hindu temple but I kind of doubt it when you walk down the street wherever you are in the world probably everything you see is european-style architecture okay and guess what I live in Asia and the vast majority the architecture I walk past is European - it's a hundred percent European architecture surrounded me I don't see any authentic local tradition in the architecture so the extent to which Asia has been Europeanized and the whole world has been Europeanized is something we have to recognize and in many ways that is the basis for what's currently ongoing in globalization this video is long enough I don't really know if I'm gonna be able to cover even 25% of what I want to what I wanted to say in this video what is a moderate liberal position on globalization day and what is a moderate conservative position of globalization day I think as I've said the moderate liberals would be people whether they're in Canada or Australia who would say that they look forward to a future that is much more cosmopolitan and where indeed white people may be the minority in Australia or white people may be the majority in Canada that is currently the property so white people may become a minority in either Australia or Canada of a much more cosmopolitan country however I think it's also worst point worth pointing out they do completely assume that they'll still have a Westminster parliamentary system that they'll still have a fundamentally British style of government that they'll still have a fundamentally English language code of law and standards of practices and they do so with reckless disregard for what indigenous Canadians might want and with no sense that in the future indigenous people in Canada or Australia should have some important role be it in Parliament's or be it in the culture and language of the country or what have you that Canadian Ness is in some meaningful sense linked to indigenous or that Australian Asst is lengthening meaningful sense to Indigenous Australians and their language their culture their history so that is currently the moderate liberal perspective and you can tell if what I've said here I disagree with it a number of fundamental ways I would say the moderate conservative perspective one of the things that makes it powerful is that it's really built on skepticism it's built on saying let's look at these platitudes let's look at these vague platitudes about welcoming and all of humanity of cosmopolitanism of cosmopolitanism of people living together in harmony let's look at the mechanisms of how this immigration actually works and then what we discover is very often deeply problematic subject to critique subject to reform and most of the reforms tend to less and less immigration now what do I mean by this when I was in France for example there was a principal in law that allowed anyone who spent four years in a French University to become a French citizen so from all of North Africa people who had the money to send their kids to university in France could sign up for this and I was this was explained to me by French government official three and a half years into their BA in a French University they do a four year BA they would apply for French citizenship and as you remember the government official telling me if they're doing a shorter University diploma they take extra courses try to make it take longer you know try to expand her diploma to be enough years or enough month to get this immigration process done but about three and a half years into their degree in France they start the paperwork and they can then get residency and they get citizenship just by virtue of getting PM France is that a smart policy or is that a stupid policy well when you say everyone you mean everyone obviously that's gonna welcome in people who would not qualify for citizenship if they were going through another to have a process that that's scrutinized right now I think some people in France would say well anyone who can get through a BA in France deserves his shift that's I got a parsley I'm not a French nationalist I'm not French I don't agree with that I think that's completely ridiculous I think that's a completely insane lotta half is completely insane for social policy even though I can see why it's well-intentioned that probably people wrote that law I had good intentions and felt that they should welcome into the country anyone who goes to that process another law and I met and spoke with at some length a young woman he was taking advantage this law in France another law they had was along the lines of a granting citizenship to anyone who attended French school so here meaning primary school in high school even if their parents were illegal immigrants so I met a girl she was in class with me as a legal immigrant getting her French citizenship she had just graduated I don't know if just recently she had maybe she'd graduate a couple years before she had recently graduated from French high school and she had attended all levels of schooling in France with both of her parents being illegal immigrants so they came in as illegal immigrants knowing about this law intentionally abusing this law so that their daughter could become a citizen of France which she did she was doing it in front of my eyes and she talked about with me exactly how that worked now that law also I can completely appreciate the humanitarian impulse behind it French legislators probably sat down and said look we can't blame the children for the sins of their parents therefore part of the law was that it guaranteed access to schools for these children so even if the parents were legal immigrants children would still get free education that still be welcome to the French school system and then at the end of their schooling they got kind of fast-tracked to get paperwork and become French citizens well that sounds grandiose and very positive when stated as a platitude that you're doing the right thing to help these children who shouldn't be blamed for their parents illegal immigration but in reality it's not just susceptible to abuse it absolutely encourages illegal immigrants to come in and take advantage this so if the conservative position is in this way stated in terms of a methodological skepticism of moving beyond platitudes about human equality moving beyond platitudes about globalization and integration and living together in peace and harmony to look at the real mechanisms of how countries choose who are their immigrants and to to skeptically criticize them then in that sense I absolutely am a moderate conservative this is one of those areas of politics where the more you look at the details the more your skepticism is rewarded and the more troubling it is that we don't have healthy democratic debate and discourse about how this works this is a really really strange area of public policy and as I've said even when I was in the classroom in a classroom that was devoted to discussing this issue a advanced seminar course in an academic setting with the professor was supposed to be a specialist in this area the professor was not capable talking about these things calmly she very often became irrational and irate and overly emotional and angry and what have you my Lichtman to you for this video was to point out that we're now in a situation in 2017 where first and foremost nobody seems to be comfortable discussing these issues not professors in classrooms not members of parliament in the house of parliament etc etc and we're the only voices that are really clearly announced and consistent are the voices of left-wing extremists and the other hand right-wing extremists and where people find it very very difficult to define or discuss what are the issues in the middle and the moral this story for me again I am a nihilist I don't believe in any of the statements of platitude I don't believe in any of the platitudes I don't believe in any of the ideologies involved here none of them what I believe in is the overweening importance of focusing on those mechanistic and technical details if you ask Canadians who controls immigration the meanness you'll get is there's a point system there's a point system that means we don't have to think about it is the point system racist is the point system classist is there some reason why wealthy people from hong kong are favored by this point system and maybe not poor people who have other redeeming qualities that would make them great immigrants to Canada those are really hard issues to ask to what extent is your point system reward people who may be wealthy and Quorra and you'll believe me sir I'm currently living in China I speak Chinese but if you think I have an uncritical attitude towards the impact on Canadian Society of Canadian immigration policy trying to constantly recruit the wealthiest people from Hong Kong and China that also has an impact on Canadian society that's really worth examining and really worth thinking about although it's a very different impact from say recruiting refugees who are War veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan these are very very difficult questions to ask very different question different questions to answer and I think we failed to deal with them because they're both so ethically loaded nobody wants to be accused of being a racist nobody wants to admit their own ignorance and admitting your own ignorance is a crucial first step towards learning and then nobody wants to deal with these kinds of technical details you can say oh there is a point system there is a bureaucracy handling it oh there is a process for permanent resident status don't worry worry you should worry it's it's a choice ultimately made whether by bureaucrats or by Parliament's or by local City Hall as they do it in Switzerland that at the end of the day it's a choice for who is going to be Canadian what is the future of Canada going to be overcome and we have a very very difficult decision to make in each country are we going to make those choices in a matter that's transparent and accountable or are we going to sleepwalk through it because it's just something we can't stand to think about