For weeks now... in Hong Kong. Non-stop rain.
Which makes me think: "A bit of something is good. Too much of something is bad".
As in: "Moderation in everything".
Even water.
You need water to live. Without water you die. But too much you drown. You can even die from just drinking too much water!
Same with so much in life. Perhaps everything. Hence "moderation in everything". In Chinese: "The Great Mean".
And so it is with immigration. Some is good. Even necessary. Too much, especially unvetted, is bad. At the extreme, it can destroy countries.
As we see now in the Anglosphere. And in Europe. Too much; too unvetted; too unqualified; too unwilling to integrate; too unwilling to share values of the host country.
People on the right, conservatives, who are against unrestricted mass immigration are NOT against immigration. Just against the scale and the lack of qualifying.
Lionel Shriver talks to Toby Young. About the issue and her book about it, which I've read. "A Better Life". The title referring to the usual motivation of immigrants: to have a better life.
Which is indeed true. That's what immigrants want. A better life. Fair enough. Who can blame them.
But all too often that "better life" of the immigrants is at the expense of the lives of poor people in working class suburbs, who have no choice in the matter. For them, mass immigration is very often not at all better. More crime; higher prices, crowded schools, queues at hospitals. No respect, from guests, of their hosts. [*]
So the empathy here only works for the foreigner not the locals. Why?
Look at Bradford, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Tower Hamlets. Just in Shriver's adopted home of England.
But, you know, BIGOT! If you dare raise this issue. If you've got concerns. Racist! Xenophobe! Even... the bigDaddy of them all: "Islamophobe!"
Sigh...
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[*] The epigraph of A Better Life:
"Mankind is divisible into two great classes, hosts and guests."
~ Max Beerbohm
