Submitted by The Real One(Australia), Aug 31, 2006 at 19:14
Man of the West,
I agree that USA has allowed immigration for a lot of different reasons over many years- refugees, religous, economic. Modern immigration in todays terms centers around economics and I acknowledge that there is many humanitarian reasons even today but my cynical opinion is that a lot of these are still allowed by governments for reasons of economics, such as refugees immigrating to a safer country are going to be on the bottom of the ladder. I think the global economics and people movement in the world today has only started and it is going to increase or will get worse if you subscribe to that idea of globalisation.
The culture side of things is going to be the biggest challenge the world faces as these migration patterns increase, I think the internet and ease of travel will ensure people see further afield and have the opinion that they are being persecuted, when in reality another persons culture is theres and should be protected even if some of the ways of this culture is economically damaging, the western world has become most of the most affluent nations around the world largely because of its outlook . I don't want to see this outlook exported to other nations because of the affluence of western nations.
As the migration levels increase some of these new cultures will bring new ideas to host nations and possibly worsening economic conditions. It is difficult for me to reconcile this opinion when your country has the largest migration history the world has seen and still has an envious economic model. I think this has been achieved by vigorous patriotism to unite the people, fostered by previous US governments going back 100's of years.
I'm only rambling, don't take me too seriously. By the way I am Australian, my ancestors in Australia go back to the First Fleet 220 years ago which was when Australia was first settled by Europeans.
cheers
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