Hi again, James!
There are surface similarities between Asian Invasion and Muslim Invasion but not enough to draw parallels. Amongst other differences, the former is an importation problem, and the latter is kinda home-grown. I guess we have to agree to disagree on that one.
The sole commonality which does worry me (and I suspect it'll worry you too) is the idea that one can silver-bullet problems of this nature by simply keeping the scary aliens out, or somehow outlawing them. She’s a not gonna work. Nasties determined to get in have more resources and motivation for gaming the system than the average immigrant, so the main effect of clamping down on immigration would be to increase the proportion of nasties arriving. Similarly, the main impact of doing something bizarre like legislating a ceiling on family numbers will be to drive them underground (and look at how well it worked for the Chinese).
I have not the slightest problem with you self-identifying as an Atheist, but I strongly suspect that you're unaware of many of the entailments.
As to Stalin, Mao, Hitler and so forth, their genocidal tactics arose directly from the logical consequences of Atheism. It’s true that Hitler’s case is not as clear as the others, particularly because many of his hangers-on and close associates were more than a little bizarre in that respect, nevertheless his chain of reasoning is clear in his (more or less) own writings. I didn’t invoke these historic icons to say “Atheism is bad” but to point out that the assorted forms of Theism are typically no worse.
I agree with most of the rest of what you write, but I must take you to task on “multiculturalism”, which is a closet/stealth/dilute form of Apartheid, no matter what its originators actually claim.
I’m going to invent a word for australia’s culture, which is “demipolycultural”. I hereby define this new word, almost Germanic in its grandeur, to mean a society which has polycultural aspects but isn’t really.
To exemplify, it means that my Indian associate Malcolm is difficult to culturally distinguish from me, but another Indian associate Ahmer, while visually very similar to Malcolm, has carried a much greater dose of his ancestral culture with him (including Islam) but is just as comfortable as Malcolm is with lounging around a barbie laden with snaggers (as long as they are not pork snaggers). My Greek rellies all have name-days and stuff that we don’t but if you met them in the street, you’d not notice anything different from the next bloke about dress or accent or attitude.
Our culture has a distinctly Australian core, and more room than most other Western cultures for variation towards importado. It’s a reasonable blend between assimilation and preservation.
Multiculturalism, on the other hand, is at its heart about distinct cultures sharing the same space.
Y’all may have noticed I left the Muslim Invasion thread dangling? Well, I believe that there is a positive answer, and that is to invite “the problem” far enough into our demipolyculturalism that they’re comfortable with their own religion but would never dream of voting it down the throats of even a minority of other Aussies.
That’s not as simple as it sounds, but it’s always worked before.
</soapbox>
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