For the longest time I am planning to write a post ‘In praise of discrimination’.
This is not that post, it is just a desperate illustration of the dangers of doing it wrong.
Extreme division is just as wrong as the delusional desire to pretend harmony where it can not exist; but what’s really killing us is not understanding who and what is responsible for our problems.
What prompted this post is a Youtube video of Paul Joseph Watson.
The video is quite disappointing. PJW is a fine journalist but increasingly catering to an outrage seeking audience.
This video is not only bad journalism, but outright mendacious and unfairly incendiary against a religious group.
It starts with a phone recorded video-clip of an old Sikh man being confronted and bullied by some Britons about the Kirpan in his belt, then arguing with the police that he should be arrested for carrying a deadly weapon. Then the story switches over to violent crimes committed young illegal migrant Muslim men. Let me dissect just this part.
The Kirpan is a religious symbol, akin to the Christian cross. Wearing it is a religious obligation for Sikhs.
“Despite global Sikh populations exceeding 25 million, violent kirpan incidents are exceedingly rare—fewer than a dozen high-profile cases in the last 30 years across Canada, Australia, UK, and India. For comparison, everyday items like pens or forks have caused similar harms without bans.” (Grok)
Quite possibly, more people have been clobbered to death by a cross, than killed by a kirpan.Sikhs do not enter the country illegally. They are not boat people.
The illegal immigrants committing crimes are young males, overwhelmingly Muslims from the Subcontinent or Muslim Arabs from North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Sikh man harassed in the video is at least sixty years old.Of the different religions of India, the values of Sikhism are the closest to the values of Christianity. They could be the best allies of the British against the Muslims.
Sikhs were the most loyal subjects and fiercest defenders of the British crown.
In the UK, Sikhs outperform not only the Muslims and other ethnic groups, but the Britts themselves.
In educational attainment, they do better that the Muslims and the national average.
Their average income is significantly better than either the Muslims’ or the national average.
The unemployment rate of Sikhs is comparable to the average, and significantly lower than that of the Muslims.
Their use of social assistance is lesser than average, and significantly lower than that of the Muslims.
The most striking difference is in criminality: Sikhs represent 0.4% of the prison population compared to 18.2% Muslims
The point here is not to defend the Sikhs, but to expose the ignorance of their attackers. They are harassing the wrong guy. Probably because he is an easier target than an angry Muslim with an actual knife.
I couldn’t expect any better from a cockney speaking bloke, but I would expect more from Paul Joseph Watson reporting on it.
The problem is not immigration; it is the lawless way it is allowed to happen:
too much, illegal, unvetted then cuddled by the system at the expense of others.
The problem is the slowing growth rate of the economy
The problem is the slow unraveling of the social welfare Ponzi scheme.
The problem is the pandering to immigrants in the vain hope that they will help the Ponzi scheme going and stave off the inevitable reckoning.
The problem is the delusional belief that the new immigrants will willingly work their asses off to support the luxurious retirement benefits of the native population.
The problem is the belief that by simply ignoring cultural differences will make them go away.
The problem, simply put, is politics.
Discrimination
At some point, in the TV Series “The Blacklist: Raymond Reddington says to Harold Cooper: “You accept that the world is gray. That’s a virtue, not a vice.”
This one sentence could be the summary of the whole series.
The world is infinitely complex and constantly changing, but the decisions we make are binary and final. The world may be gray, but our actions are black and white. Our decision can make the world either better or worse.
Nothing matters more than making the right decisions, which in turn is dependent on our understanding of the grey complexities that lead to the need of making it.
The existence of the Western liberal welfare state is predicated on constant growth.
The growth of the economy, the growth of productivity, the growth of the population, the growth of the tax-base. If any of them fails, the system collapses. This is our problem, not the kirpan.
The real problem with the uncontrolled immigration everywhere in the Western democracies is not the people, not the cultural differences, not the lack of assimilation, but the fact that it is designed to ‘solve’ this more fundamental problem, the bankruptcy of the liberal welfare state. The problem is not only the ‘West’, but the idea of the redistributive welfare state.
Just consider Japan and South Korea, suffering the same fate, without immigration.
It would be an interesting experiment to explicitly ask the people of Europe what they would prefer:
A comprehensive pension and welfare reform
or
more immigration and the problems it comes with,
Individual freedom and responsibility in a minimalist state
or
a digital social credit system with full control over our behaviour
In both cases I would bet on an overwhelming majority voting for option two. Anything to avoid making hard choices. Anything to maintain the illusion, anything to avoid facing reality.
Just look at the recent crisis in France concerning changes to the pension system:
France surrenders: Pensions will Devour its Economy and there is nothing to be done.
Things could, of course, be done, except the French will not do them.
Total reliance on the state is part of their social contract.
A watered-down bill was eventually passed, but it isn’t nearly enough to solve the problems. It is just kicking the can down the road.
A discriminating citizen would understand the problems and vote accordingly.
The electorates we have keep voting for the free lunch.
Polarization is not a bug but a feature
The dangerous aspect of the PJW video is the polarization it creates.
Polarization is in the interest of the state as it presents an opportunity to take more control. Australia has strict gun controls. The years after its introduction, ‘gun-crimes’ went down, but shockingly, knife crimes went up! Who would have thunk?!?
It should make us wonder what will happen when knives will be banned? Most likely screwdriver and crowbar crimes will go up! There is no limit of what else can we ban to protect public safety! We will also discover that those pesky criminals will not abide by the rules.
The only thing that is more amazing than watching people proposing the ban of knives is watching the sheeple nodding in agreement.
Polarization is whipping up emotions and creating conflicts that the state can promise to solve by taking some more power.
Polarization diverts attention from the real problems that the state is either unwilling or unable to solve. The state allows uncontrolled immigration and criminality because it gains more power from them.
PJW has a follow up on the first video, showing some reaction to the Huntingdon train massacre. Here is a typical one:
No change can happen as long as the idiot half of the population is voting against it.
The polarization works. We spend far more time and effort on righteous rants and indignation on one side and hysterical virtue signaling on the other, than we spend on trying to find pragmatic solutions.
We met the enemy
…and not surprisingly, it is us. Well, enough of the worst of us to win elections….
It is us, who support the welfare state
It is us, who elected the sleazy globalists
It is us, who want free healthcare
It is us, who want free education, minimum wage laws, family laws, job security, environmental regulations, zoning, government pensions, welfare security, affordable housing, diversity, Human Rights Tribunals, gun controls, price controls, subsidies and an endless list of other state interventions.
It is us, who want protection from people saying and thinking mean things
We want this, we want the free lunch, not understanding that there is no such a thing.
The uncontrolled immigration, the break-down of the law, the rising crime rate, the inflation, the housing crises, the falling real wages are the way we are now paying for it.
Uncontrolled immigration is not the problem, it is the symptom. The fights about it are akin to fighting over the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. What we should all do is trying to figure out how to stay afloat after the ship is sunk.
We are played by our politicians and blinded by our own complacent, righteous stupidity.
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