Pericles has argued for immigration because he believes it improves per capita prosperity. His argument for more refugees seems to be that it reduces per capita prosperity, but how dare Australians be such a bunch of selfish pigs.

How about in both cases the best option might be the the one with the greatest measured benefit. And this may not involve accepting refugees at all. For example, more might be achieved by educating their citizens in Australia on scholarships instead of poaching skilled people from the rest of the world and selling off university places at the expense of Australian kids. Accepting refugees may in fact be a very inefficient way of helping.

Divergence

"I don't think we have the capacity to help everyone. To lift everyone worldwide out of poverty would take the resources of approximately 3 Earths, even if all of the resources were divided equally."

I still see this argument as a cop out. There is a big difference between the amount of resources required to lift everyone out of poverty and that required to lift everyone to a standard of living comparable to ours. As pointed out by Pericles, we in the West need to start living more simply, both from a fairness perspective as well as an environmental one. If we were to do that, there are resources sufficient for us all. What you are arguing for in effect is that the majority of the world have to live in poverty so that a privileged minority can live in affluence.

"Given that you can't help everyone, how do you decide who to help?"

To begin with, you don't lock up vulnerable boat people who have risked their lives to make it to our shores and then deport them back to the very same life threatening situations they have fled which is what our current government is doing. You also work in with UNHCR and resettle as many refugees as possible from camps where many have spent years and years waiting and have no possible hope of returning to their homeland. Of course, we need to be mindful of climate change and its negative effect on our water supplies and agricultural capacity, which is why we do need to maintain a quota system. But it needs to be more generous than it is at the moment. And we don't need the likes of John Howard and Kevin Andrews setting themselves up as the gatekeepers of the nation. They should defer to experienced international bodies who understand the wider picture.

Bronwyn,

The three Earths is what it would take to give everyone a typical Western European standard of living. Below that point, if you plot environmental footprint (i.e. consumption) against rank on the UN Human Development Index it falls off in a more or less linear way - low well-being and low consumption go together

Above the European standard, human well-being saturates, so more consumption doesn't make people any better off. Cuba was able to produce more human well-being for its level of consumption than other countries, but at the cost of great austerity and little personal freedom. To put it bluntly, we're agreed on reducing waste and conspicuous consumption (down to that 3 Earth level), but how low a standard of living and well-being would you expect your family or your friends to put up with because people in some other country have been having huge families, supporting corrupt and incompetent leaders or hanging on to cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional? Everything that goes wrong in the world isn't our fault.

Pericles,

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France and meant to represent Liberty enlightening the world. It had nothing to do with immigration. The Emma Lazarus poem was added later. I have always said that a moderate level of immigration has cultural and educational benefits, and that there are talented people who would be an asset anywhere. However, if you want to claim that the average American benefited from all those huddled masses, you need to explain why wages went up, and not down, when mass migration was ended in the early 1920s.

Listen guys, I don't mind you picking on things that I do say, but would you mind laying off the stuff that I haven't said?

Divergence:

>>Pericles was using religion as a stick to beat Christians who aren't in favour of open borders<<

Where did I mention open borders? I was simply pointing out the very noticeable absence of what my dear old grandmother used to call "Christian charity".

Only when she said it, she meant it. To her, Christians personified selflessness. Which in no-one's wildest dreams would anyone describe their attitudes here.

And Fester jumps on the bandwagon with:

>>Pericles has argued for immigration because he believes it improves per capita prosperity. His argument for more refugees seems to be that it reduces per capita prosperity, but how dare Australians be such a bunch of selfish pigs.<<

So which is it? Do I believe "it improves per capita prosperity", or that "it reduces per capita prosperity"? And just to be very clear - where did I say either one?

But you're right about the selfish pigs bit.

Oh, I forgot - Divergence again:

>>Pericles, The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France and meant to represent Liberty enlightening the world. It had nothing to do with immigration.<<

I didn't mention the Statue of Liberty.

>>The Emma Lazarus poem was added later.<<

But tell me, why was it added? As a poem, it sucks. So presumably it meant something, to someone. To be sure, it gets mentioned in despatches pretty regularly.

"Well Ginx, I’m sorry, but “RUBBISH” right back at ya.

If it wasn't the Brits it would have been someone else on some other colonization mission, which I think is a pretty safe bet." (Quote: Ludwig from dnicholson)

Ludwig little poppet, my point is NOT who or other colonizes. My point all along has been that 'the indigenous culture and tribal life' WOULD have survived and very likely prospered 'to this day' if we had not interfered.

Whether you agree with this or not, THAT is the point I was trying to get across; NOT who would do it!