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The Michael Shermer Show, 293. An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (2)

293. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West (2)

1 (11m 16s):

You know, that free speech is, is super important. I, I agree with everything you said about the free speech in your book, but to what extent do we self censor? Right. Because I really don't want to tell people what I'm really thinking as it's not that that makes me a racist or a misogynist or a antisemite or whatever. It's just that people have private thoughts and you know, it, what matters is, are they expressed? Do you actually act on them and so on?

2 (11m 43s):

Yeah. Well, as you know, in the book, I don't argue for compelled speech speech. I'm not arguing that you should reveal all your deepest intimate secrets to every stranger because that is the free speech society in which I believe, I just believe that you should have the ability to say what you think without losing your job or without losing your column or without being, you know, otherwise punished by the government or by the legal system or by your employer, by whoever for expressing opinions. Even, even if the, I may not necessarily agree or like them, I think that's the basic standard of a free society. And I make the point in the book, Michael, as you know, that I don't just consider this to be like an important principle that all right thinking people should get behind.

2 (12m 29s):

I draw a direct link between that and the freedom, the scientific progress, the technological progress and the dominance, frankly, of the Anglosphere countries in the world and their ability to project their power and to secure for themselves the greatest share of resources and therefore to make sure that their citizens are prosperous and healthy and safe and live stable and, and, and comfortable lives. There's a direct connection between these things and the ability to express your thoughts freely, the ability to pursue your business freely, to, to create, you know, like in, in, in we talk about how China has become this capitalist place.

2 (13m 9s):

Well, not really because quite a lot of it is controlled by government apparatus. So whether you make a business decision this way or that way depends on government decisions. And it's that freedom to think for yourself to speak for yourself, to decide for yourself how you're gonna run your business. That is one of the key elements of why the west has been as successful as it is. And as you know, the prediction I make is that if we throw that away, then we throw away the prosperity and the comfort and the safety and the stability that comes with it. Yeah.

1 (13m 39s):

Let's, let's define the west. What do you mean by the west?

2 (13m 42s):

Well, this is one of the best criticisms that people have made of the book that I actually agree with very much because an immigrants love led to the west is a marketing. I think very good title for a book. What I'm actually talking about is, and it doesn't sound quite as catchy as an immigrant's love letter to the Anglosphere because as you know, and the history of the 20th and the 19th century shows Germany, France, these are countries which have very different attitudes to many of the same things. You know, some of the, the products of the French revolution, for example, this obsession with rationality over anything else, which I'm not particularly comfortable with. You know, I am someone who does think the constrained division is one that ought to be included in the conversation.

2 (14m 29s):

And the idea that we can rationalize ourselves in, into a brave new world is one that seems to me to be empirically false. And so the French conception of that way of doing things to me, I find, you know, imperfect Germany has its own C history in recent centuries with, with some of the ideas that they've implemented. And so it seems to me that the anglers fear, the descendants of the British empire, which is, you know, Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, to some extent, you know, India is obviously a very different country with, with very rich history of its cultural of its own, but the countries that were part of the British empire that, that remain English speaking, they've inherited some very important traditions.

2 (15m 15s):

It seems to me, and it is those countries that are in my, you know, humble opinion, the best countries to be in, in the world. It's the countries that are the best countries, not only in my opinion, but you know, there seems to be several billion, potential immigrants who would quite like to live in one of those countries too. And that seems to be one of the best tests for how well society is doing comparatively to others. Do people want to live there? Do people want to move there? Well on the facts of it, it seems that they do. And so those are the countries to, to whom the love letter is. And I, I, and those are the countries in which I hope my children have the opportunity to grow up. And I, you know, the reason I wrote the book and the reason I do what I do on a day to day basis is I would like those countries to remain as safe, comfortable, prosperous, and so on as they have been in my

1 (16m 5s):

Lifetime. Yeah. I think I should point out that how quickly these things can change Germany, post world war II has become quite a different country than it was before that my, my wife's from cologne, Germany. And she tells me that, you know, when she was growing up in school, they just had it pounded into them. These are the sins of our past, and we are never, ever, ever gonna do this. Again, we have changed, this is our new, you know, standards and norms and, and all the way to the point where Ang and Merkel famously opened the borders, almost like we're so guilty of treating, you know, immigrants and, and minorities in our country badly. We're just gonna let 'em all in. Of course, that kind of backfired. Right. So there, you know, so that kind of brings up the subject of, you know, immigration, which you have a whole chapter on in your book, you know, to what extent do you, you know, open the borders up, close 'em up, you know, what's the percentage.

1 (16m 56s):

And to what extent do you want people who already largely agree with your view of human nature, let's say, or your values about things like free speech and, and, and democracy and so on versus letting people in that don't share those. And then they're gonna try to change your country's norms.

2 (17m 13s):

Well, my view on that, Michael first and foremost is that that is a, is a question should be decided, democratically people should vote for the type of immigration that they want. And that is the type of immigration that the government should allow and implement and both in your country and in mind that has not happened for decades. Now you have people coming illegally across the Southern border, in huge numbers every single day. I don't believe any Americans voted to have an open border in, in that area. I don't believe anyone in the United Kingdom voted to have people coming across the, the channel in boats, escaping the Warton country of France.

2 (17m 56s):

I don't think any of us voted for any of these changes that were implemented without our consent. And I'm someone who was a first generation immigrant to the UK. I came here in 1995. At that 0.3% of the British public thought that immigration was a major issue, cuz it wasn't a major issue. The levels of immigration into Britain were quite manageable. Everything was going absolutely fine. Nobody had any great concerns about what was happening. And then you get to the early nineties, the late nineties, early nineties, when Tony Blair comes to power and Tony Blair says, well, we must join the European union. And by the way, we are going to suspend any temporary transitional controls, unlike every other country in the European union.

2 (18m 40s):

So when new countries that join the EU like Poland, Romania, et cetera, join exceed to the European union. We will not, will be one of the two countries us in Ireland who do not introduce transitional controls. And they said 13,000 people a year would come in the first couple of years, a million people came, whoa. So these large disruptions, whether you, you like Polish people as I do and think that they're really hard working and they've come here and contributed brilliantly to society or not, you cannot deny that that that process is disruptive. Now look, if the British public get together and say, this is what we want. We want a million people from Eastern Europe to come to our country every year to help run our national health service, to help pick our fruit, to help, you know, serve service in restaurants.

2 (19m 30s):

Then I I'm a Democrat in small D Democrat. I believe that people should get what they voted for and if that's what they vote for, that's what should happen. The problem is in both our countries, the public are not getting what they voted for. Instead, they're getting some sort of, you know, half ass solution in, in, in where they end up with people coming into the country ahead of people who've actually done the right thing. Who've filled out the right paperwork, who followed all the rules. You get people coming in illegally and there are politicians and all sorts of other institutions that seem to be covering for that. That is a big, big problem. Whatever you think about, you know, you could want billions of people to be, you could believe in open borders, frankly, and still think that people breaking the law to get into your country should be illegal.

2 (20m 14s):

So that's my primary concern now, as for my own view on immigration, my own view of immigration is that it should be, it should be reasonable and decided as I say, democratically, but to me, the numbers should be such that they benefit the host country. That's I mean, that's what it's all about. We should take a number of refugees, genuine refugees who come because we are able to, although, you know, as someone who has family who are refugees right now, fleeing Ukraine, I do think quite often, there's, you know, our reason for allowing people to come to the us and the UK is more about our guilt than it is about the practical reality of what benefits them frequently refugees are best place in nearby countries, because most of them would actually quite like to return to their country once hopefully the war's over, which is the case with all the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians.

2 (21m 7s):

But in terms of just legal immigration, I think, you know, we should decide as a society who, and how many people we want and then make sure that those are the only people who are coming in. And, you know, I don't see, for example, why we should have a situation as we do here in the UK, where we have frequent terrorist attacks, committed by people who came into this country without being checked at all. I don't see why the British public should be, should be put in that position. That doesn't make any sense to me. And as I say, nobody voted for

1 (21m 35s):

Hmm. Since we're doing an issue on nationalism, how do you think of a nation? I mean, is it a group of, is it the common language? Is it common norms? Is it geographical borders? I mean, these are all kind of fuzzy sets where there's a lot of overlap and blending into one another. How do you think about that?


293. An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (2) 293. Carta de Amor de um Imigrante ao Oeste (2)

1 (11m 16s):

You know, that free speech is, is super important. I, I agree with everything you said about the free speech in your book, but to what extent do we self censor? Right. Because I really don't want to tell people what I'm really thinking as it's not that that makes me a racist or a misogynist or a antisemite or whatever. It's just that people have private thoughts and you know, it, what matters is, are they expressed? Do you actually act on them and so on?

2 (11m 43s):

Yeah. Well, as you know, in the book, I don't argue for compelled speech speech. I'm not arguing that you should reveal all your deepest intimate secrets to every stranger because that is the free speech society in which I believe, I just believe that you should have the ability to say what you think without losing your job or without losing your column or without being, you know, otherwise punished by the government or by the legal system or by your employer, by whoever for expressing opinions. Even, even if the, I may not necessarily agree or like them, I think that's the basic standard of a free society. And I make the point in the book, Michael, as you know, that I don't just consider this to be like an important principle that all right thinking people should get behind.

2 (12m 29s):

I draw a direct link between that and the freedom, the scientific progress, the technological progress and the dominance, frankly, of the Anglosphere countries in the world and their ability to project their power and to secure for themselves the greatest share of resources and therefore to make sure that their citizens are prosperous and healthy and safe and live stable and, and, and comfortable lives. There's a direct connection between these things and the ability to express your thoughts freely, the ability to pursue your business freely, to, to create, you know, like in, in, in we talk about how China has become this capitalist place.

2 (13m 9s):

Well, not really because quite a lot of it is controlled by government apparatus. So whether you make a business decision this way or that way depends on government decisions. And it's that freedom to think for yourself to speak for yourself, to decide for yourself how you're gonna run your business. That is one of the key elements of why the west has been as successful as it is. And as you know, the prediction I make is that if we throw that away, then we throw away the prosperity and the comfort and the safety and the stability that comes with it. Yeah.

1 (13m 39s):

Let's, let's define the west. What do you mean by the west?

2 (13m 42s):

Well, this is one of the best criticisms that people have made of the book that I actually agree with very much because an immigrants love led to the west is a marketing. I think very good title for a book. What I'm actually talking about is, and it doesn't sound quite as catchy as an immigrant's love letter to the Anglosphere because as you know, and the history of the 20th and the 19th century shows Germany, France, these are countries which have very different attitudes to many of the same things. You know, some of the, the products of the French revolution, for example, this obsession with rationality over anything else, which I'm not particularly comfortable with. You know, I am someone who does think the constrained division is one that ought to be included in the conversation.

2 (14m 29s):

And the idea that we can rationalize ourselves in, into a brave new world is one that seems to me to be empirically false. And so the French conception of that way of doing things to me, I find, you know, imperfect Germany has its own C history in recent centuries with, with some of the ideas that they've implemented. And so it seems to me that the anglers fear, the descendants of the British empire, which is, you know, Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, to some extent, you know, India is obviously a very different country with, with very rich history of its cultural of its own, but the countries that were part of the British empire that, that remain English speaking, they've inherited some very important traditions.

2 (15m 15s):

It seems to me, and it is those countries that are in my, you know, humble opinion, the best countries to be in, in the world. It's the countries that are the best countries, not only in my opinion, but you know, there seems to be several billion, potential immigrants who would quite like to live in one of those countries too. And that seems to be one of the best tests for how well society is doing comparatively to others. Do people want to live there? Do people want to move there? Well on the facts of it, it seems that they do. And so those are the countries to, to whom the love letter is. And I, I, and those are the countries in which I hope my children have the opportunity to grow up. And I, you know, the reason I wrote the book and the reason I do what I do on a day to day basis is I would like those countries to remain as safe, comfortable, prosperous, and so on as they have been in my

1 (16m 5s):

Lifetime. Yeah. I think I should point out that how quickly these things can change Germany, post world war II has become quite a different country than it was before that my, my wife's from cologne, Germany. And she tells me that, you know, when she was growing up in school, they just had it pounded into them. These are the sins of our past, and we are never, ever, ever gonna do this. Again, we have changed, this is our new, you know, standards and norms and, and all the way to the point where Ang and Merkel famously opened the borders, almost like we're so guilty of treating, you know, immigrants and, and minorities in our country badly. We're just gonna let 'em all in. Of course, that kind of backfired. Right. So there, you know, so that kind of brings up the subject of, you know, immigration, which you have a whole chapter on in your book, you know, to what extent do you, you know, open the borders up, close 'em up, you know, what's the percentage.

1 (16m 56s):

And to what extent do you want people who already largely agree with your view of human nature, let's say, or your values about things like free speech and, and, and democracy and so on versus letting people in that don't share those. And then they're gonna try to change your country's norms.

2 (17m 13s):

Well, my view on that, Michael first and foremost is that that is a, is a question should be decided, democratically people should vote for the type of immigration that they want. And that is the type of immigration that the government should allow and implement and both in your country and in mind that has not happened for decades. Now you have people coming illegally across the Southern border, in huge numbers every single day. I don't believe any Americans voted to have an open border in, in that area. I don't believe anyone in the United Kingdom voted to have people coming across the, the channel in boats, escaping the Warton country of France.

2 (17m 56s):

I don't think any of us voted for any of these changes that were implemented without our consent. And I'm someone who was a first generation immigrant to the UK. I came here in 1995. At that 0.3% of the British public thought that immigration was a major issue, cuz it wasn't a major issue. The levels of immigration into Britain were quite manageable. Everything was going absolutely fine. Nobody had any great concerns about what was happening. And then you get to the early nineties, the late nineties, early nineties, when Tony Blair comes to power and Tony Blair says, well, we must join the European union. And by the way, we are going to suspend any temporary transitional controls, unlike every other country in the European union.

2 (18m 40s):

So when new countries that join the EU like Poland, Romania, et cetera, join exceed to the European union. We will not, will be one of the two countries us in Ireland who do not introduce transitional controls. And they said 13,000 people a year would come in the first couple of years, a million people came, whoa. So these large disruptions, whether you, you like Polish people as I do and think that they're really hard working and they've come here and contributed brilliantly to society or not, you cannot deny that that that process is disruptive. Now look, if the British public get together and say, this is what we want. We want a million people from Eastern Europe to come to our country every year to help run our national health service, to help pick our fruit, to help, you know, serve service in restaurants.

2 (19m 30s):

Then I I'm a Democrat in small D Democrat. I believe that people should get what they voted for and if that's what they vote for, that's what should happen. The problem is in both our countries, the public are not getting what they voted for. Instead, they're getting some sort of, you know, half ass solution in, in, in where they end up with people coming into the country ahead of people who've actually done the right thing. Who've filled out the right paperwork, who followed all the rules. You get people coming in illegally and there are politicians and all sorts of other institutions that seem to be covering for that. That is a big, big problem. Whatever you think about, you know, you could want billions of people to be, you could believe in open borders, frankly, and still think that people breaking the law to get into your country should be illegal.

2 (20m 14s):

So that's my primary concern now, as for my own view on immigration, my own view of immigration is that it should be, it should be reasonable and decided as I say, democratically, but to me, the numbers should be such that they benefit the host country. That's I mean, that's what it's all about. We should take a number of refugees, genuine refugees who come because we are able to, although, you know, as someone who has family who are refugees right now, fleeing Ukraine, I do think quite often, there's, you know, our reason for allowing people to come to the us and the UK is more about our guilt than it is about the practical reality of what benefits them frequently refugees are best place in nearby countries, because most of them would actually quite like to return to their country once hopefully the war's over, which is the case with all the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians.

2 (21m 7s):

But in terms of just legal immigration, I think, you know, we should decide as a society who, and how many people we want and then make sure that those are the only people who are coming in. And, you know, I don't see, for example, why we should have a situation as we do here in the UK, where we have frequent terrorist attacks, committed by people who came into this country without being checked at all. I don't see why the British public should be, should be put in that position. That doesn't make any sense to me. And as I say, nobody voted for

1 (21m 35s):

Hmm. Since we're doing an issue on nationalism, how do you think of a nation? I mean, is it a group of, is it the common language? Is it common norms? Is it geographical borders? I mean, these are all kind of fuzzy sets where there's a lot of overlap and blending into one another. How do you think about that?