Dresdener,
I find you posts refreshing, and I admire your logic, clear thoughts and ability to reference relevant material to back your claims.
Keep up the good work.

I agree with the need to reduce African and Muslim immigration, but the argument that whites are fundamentally more deserving of civilisation because "we earned it" is specious.

Most whites in the western world were born into already-wealthy societies and directed into a productive role in a civilised, managed economy. We contribute because we were trained to, not due to some innate superiority.

It is highly unlikely that anyone in this forum, if they had been born in Liberia or Lebanon, would be some sort of progressive mover and shaker in their society. They would act as the natives do, primitivism and all.

SCOTTY, there are certainly Caribbean nations that are largely ruled by "dark-skinned" people that are generally well-behaved and moderately prosperous, e.g. the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados. But let's suppose there is a genetic trait among black African peoples that tends to lead to difficulties with maintaining a modern nation state, which is, after all, an invention that occurred outside that culture and ethnic background. Does that really mean the world would be a better place if Australia (and other stable, prosperous nations) didn't accept African refugees, who aren’t exactly likely to be source of our next prime minister anytime soon?

And does it really mean the world would be a better place, for all concerned, if "white rule" were to be returned to African nations? The alternatives - cracking down heavily on arms shipping to Africa, pushing hard for education reform, convincing the Catholic church that its position on contraception is doing drastic harm, a program of large-scale technology transfer, better targetted aid and welfare, etc. etc. have not been given a decent chance, and anyone who says "I know the solution to all Africa's problems", especially anyone who hasn't spend a good portion of their life there, fully deserves to be ignored.

As far as the "average white fella" becoming an endangered "species", not only does that show a complete ignorance of cladistics and genetics, but I'm afraid whether you like it or not, the percentage of humans whose genetic makeup might be considered predominantly "white" has been declining for a long time now, and eventually Australia is unlikely to maintain a dominant ethnic group. But so what? Last time I checked, unless you seriously consider that the word "fair" is not a reference to justice and equality of opportunity, there is nothing in our national anthem, our flag, our constitution or our parliamentary system that suggests that it somehow our skin-colour that makes our country great.

CJ Morgan,

Whilst it is clear that means exist to find out the identities of myself and other posters to his forum for anyone curious enough, could I suggest to you that it would be more polite to respect the anonymity of another poster to this forum if he/she chooses to remain anonymous within the context of that forum?

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In regard to Gore Vidal:

Of course, it matters if the words were fabricated and falsely attributed to Gore Vidal, but there is no reason to assume that they were. For reasons I have already stated, it seems to me that on the balance of probability those were his words. Certainly the part of his speech, excluding specific mention of Norway can be found in this Guardian Weekly articles of 2 January 2000 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/2000/article/0,,196650,00.html

For your part, you're welcome to provide evidence to the contrary. Given the huge resources at the disposal of the big-business-and taxpayer-funded pro-immigration lobbies around the world (examples: http://www.apop.com.au http://www.metropolis2007.org/ http://www.amf.net.au), I don't think you would have much difficulty in finding the evidence you need, if it exists. All they would need to do would be to approach Vidal himself or his agent. If Vidal were mis-quoted and his words were indeed 'hyperbolic' or even 'racist' as another poster has maintained, then I would expect a denial would have been very quickly forthcoming.

Nevertheless, even if, for argument's sake, it could be proven that the words were fraudulently attributed to Gore Vidal, I still think the argument needs to be considered on its own merits.

If that's not good enough for you, then I will just have to let other forum users be the ultimate arbiters of whether you, myself, or both of us, are 'intellectually sloppy'.

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What is more extraordinary than Vidal's alleged hyperbole, is how, for decades immigration advocates have avoided confronting the basic arithmetic of immigration.

The total population of Bangladesh today is 150million. In 1995 four years before Vidal made his speech it was 119.2million, so Vidal's hypothetical figure of 40 to 50 million was barely more ...(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)... than a third of Bangladesh's population at the time. So how many Bangladeshis do you think would NOT jump at the opportunity to immigrate to a country like Norway if given the opportunity?

In reality, it would end up being far fewer than 40 million, because long before anywhere near that number would have arrived in Norway, Norway would have been reduced to poverty worse than that of Bangladesh by the enormous social dislocation and necessary reallocation of resources. However, I imagine that that would be small comfort to either the Norwegians or to the Bangladeshis left behind.

According to Mike Davis' article "Planet of Slums" published has an article in New Left Review in 2004 and in 2006 expanded into a book of the same name, there a 1billion human beings on the planet who now live in the sprawling shanty towns on the edges of Third World Metropolises. They have no economic role whatsoever to play in those societies and live in abject poverty. They are in that state for two reasons:

1. The destruction of their agricultural livelihoods and replacement with unsustainable fossil-fuel based mechanized agriculture demanded by globalisation to suit the world's wealthy elite, and

2. Population growth

How many of those do you suppose would not jump at the opportunity to move to an industrialised western nation?

Indeed very many are, from both the poor and the less poor layers of those societies, making the move and the demographic shift caused by even a small fraction of the numbers that are theoretically possible are causing huge problems for the environment and social cohesion of countries such as Australia, whilst simultaneously making matters worse for their far more numerous compatriots left behind, because of their own increased demands upon the natural resources of this planet.

The housing affordability crisis is one aspect of this crisis. This is, in fact, a consequence of immigration both anticipated and welcomed by the growth lobby which comprises property developers, land speculators and related manufacturing and financial interests. For further information download Sheila Newman's 248p 2002 Master's thesis from http://candobetter.org/sheila).

Daggett, you really are out on a limb here. What "huge problems for the...social cohesion of...Australia" are you talking about?
Do you really think Australia has less social cohesion now than it did, say, 200 years ago, when we were virtually *all* criminals and convicts? Do you really think Australia has less social cohesion now than it did during the Great Depression, when our ethnicity was, indigineous peoples aside, overwhelmingly Anglo?
I think you would even be hard pushed to show that Australia's social cohesion was measurably less now than it was 50 years ago, before the first wave of southern European immigrants became, and even if it were, this is just as likely to be an outcome of trends in economic policy (that you allude to in other posts) as any pattern of migration.

As far as environmental damage goes - sure - but as I've said elsewhere, the solution can just as well be a serious effort to reform the way our primary and secondary industries operate, and the individaul lifestyles we choose, to not only minimize environmental damage, but to actively work towards restoring the environment, meaning that every immigrant that moves to Australia becomes a *plus* for the environment, rather than a negative. In fact I would argue that, GHG emissions aside, that is the case already: Australia manages its natural environment far better than most of the countries that refugees are fleeing from. Once we "solve" the GHG emissions problem, then environmental concerns will strongly favour migration of refugees. At any rate, at some point you simply have to start valuing human lives as they are right now over and above global environmental concerns that are some way into the future: ideally you tackle both at once, but if the choice is between allowing millions to languish and suffer under conditions of disease, despicable poverty, genocide and warfare, and increasing global GHG emissions, then I'm firmly voting for the latter, even accepting the risks entailed.

(TBC…)