sangell51
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True, there have been large scale migrations in the past. They almost always led to the total destruction of the society that allowed them. Native Americans lost their continents and civilization. Aborigines in Australia did too. We might argue a more prosperous and advanced civilization took their place but the ‘natives’ were left at the bottom of the “new order”.
What is taking place in Europe is the reverse of Western expansion. We know have a less advanced population seeking to overrun a more advanced civilization. The last time that happened led to the Dark Ages in Europe. We might wonder what would happen if Muslims were to gain political power in a modern European nation. A contemporary best seller posits just that happening in France but a more likely scenario would be Sweden. This is a technologically advanced nation like France but much smaller. A Muslim led party could declare it to be a ‘homeland’ for Europe’s Muslims and suddenly you have a Muslim ruled state capable of building modern fighter bombers, tanks and ships. Worse still it would have growing Muslim minorities in the rest of Europe. Sounds like a recipe for war to me.
Rather absurd argument to suggest ” we will do what we can, first and foremost, to not allow for people to drown, or go hungry or cold, or contract diseases” when they put themselves at risk. Paying a criminal gang to smuggle you across the Mediterranean in an overloaded rubber dinghy is stupid enough but it becomes child abuse or manslaughter when you imperil or cause your own children to die. If it is the Swedes duty to ” do what they can, first and foremost, to not allow for people to drown, or go hungry or cold, or contract diseases” maybe the so called refugees have similar duty themselves and remain in Turkey, Jordan or wherever as long as they are secure and being fed.
A terrible precedent is being set that will only result in third world people taken insane risks to reach nations that cannot provide for them.
25 million in Syria, 25 million in Yemen, 35 million in Iraq, 32 million in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sub Saharan Africa. A billion plus people who would rather live in Western Europe than in their own lands.
Juncker said he understood why a people want to flee to some other people’s land to secure a their safety and a better life. He even said it was a moral imperative that they be allowed to do so. What he failed to recognize that those whose homelands are being invaded have an equal moral right to defend their own lands to provide for their own safety and way of life. Given the equivalent needs for safety and preservation of prosperity then scales of justice must tilt towards those who have not created a disaster over those who have.
The problem is there is an unlimited number of these so called refugees and a limited amount of resources to deal with them. Let’s take Iraq. Iraq had a population of 5,700,000 in 1950 and a population of 35,700,000 today despite all the wars and violence. Had the US undergone such a population explosion and not had a single immigrant over the same period our population would be over 1 billion! Syria had 3.4 million people in 1950. 22.5 million today.
This is the real problem. The wars and violence are merely symptoms of dysfunctional societies unable to cope with their surplus populations.
Whether they are refugees, asylum seekers or migrants depends on the deal they get. I have always wondered why Honduran hurricane refugees or El Salvadorean civil war asylum seekers are still here, in the US, decades after the hurricane or civil war has ended. Not very polite of a guest to whom you offered shelter to decide they will stay in the spare bedroom forever.
That is the situation Europe faces. These people come with their well rehearsed sob stories claiming ‘asylum’ but everyone knows they are not going to go back to Somalia or Eritrea or Syria or wherever once they get their third world hineys into Sweden or Germany. Better to destroy someone else’s homeland than build your own and these people are world class experts in destroying homelands.
I really don’t see why a managed decline in population cannot be achieved, particularly in advanced nations. Already 25% of the Japanese population is over 65 and their population is falling by about 500,000 per year. The same is starting to happen in Europe though they are about to swamped with the surplus population of the Middle East and Africa if nothing is done to stop it.
California, e.g. had just 3 million people living there 100 years ago and there is no reason it could not shrink back to that population over the next 100 years. It wasn’t hell on earth back then. It fact it was truly the Golden State with a sophisticated San Francisco and plenty of water available for the orchards and farms of that era.
Even automobiles are possible if the US kept its population to that the 100 million we had 100 years ago and lived as we did then. A family had one car right up until 1960 or so. Gasoline was expensive- relatively. 100 gallons cost about 1 ounce of gold which would be around $6 per gallon per day! Electricity wasn’t cheap either 100 years ago… for those who had it and not everyone did. I really don’t see a problem for a world of just over 2 billion people, which was the global population 100 years ago maintaining a decent standard of living though some regions, for other reasons, may have trouble providing even a 1920 standard of living for their population that have nothing to do with resource constraints.
While I think ‘Swineherder’ is doing what he can under the circumstances if things go ‘south’ to the extent his pigs become essential to his survival then things are going all the way ‘south’ and there is no guarantee he will be around to sell or even eat them.
Bob Dylan wrote a song long ago called “Talking World War Three Blues” in which he noted that everyone dreams they are the sole survivor but everyone’s dream is a bit different in that they ‘didn’t see you around’ and therein lies the problem. There is no ‘plan’ one can have that works if the ‘system’ collapses. Gold, crops, protein and any other ‘asset’ can be seized by the state or any other actor with the means to do so even if it is just an 18 year old kid with a gun and if the ‘system’ breaks down everyone becomes an independent actor.
Our world is incredibly complex. My ability to exchange a promissory note backed by the ‘full faith and credit’ of the United States government for a ham depends on a few billion people working together and believing in that promise for it to happen. Should that faith and trust dissolve then we are left with an unpleasant alternative.
