I’m in Australia May 27 to June 13. The country has changed since I last lived here in 1985. It has become much more politically correct. In my six days in Australia this trip, most of it in regional Australia, I have not heard anyone say anything racist nor utter a peep that a white Australia policy is in Australia’s self-interest. Everybody says diversity is good and you have to be tolerant.
Nobody I’ve talked to wants boat people but they always define the argument as that the boat people are economic refugees (rather than folks fleeing oppression) and that they are jumping the que. Australia has a system for letting in immigrants and that system includes taking in 20,000 refugees a year on humanitarian grounds.
I keep arguing back that a country doesn’t need to make such arguments about economic refugees. It should simply stand on national self-interest. It is in Australia’s interest to take in immigrants who most resemble Australia’s genetic stock (Britain) and to avoid taking in immigrants who come from a genetic stock that does not tend to flourish in the First World (such as people with low IQs). Why do the Australians I meet never argue immigration in terms of national interests? They’ve been intimidated by the media into constraining their arguments to Kantian notions of universal human rights.
I haven’t heard anyone say that Muslims are not a good fit with Australia unless I prompt them. One local fellow had a job driving a bus in Sydney and he quit because of all the abuse he took from Lebanese immigrants. So he moved to Central Queensland where he still drives a bus but everyone treats him with respect.
I fear that white people are too nice for their own good. I don’t notice any other race getting upset about injustices done to people outside their race, but Australians (and other whites) are often enraged about the suffering of non-whites.
