Dear Friends,
It seems to me… if people who seek to flee their home nations, turned around and fixed them instead, their fate and the lot of mankind would be drastically improved. Since people are self interested, and we do what we believe best serves ourselves, at least at the time we do it, we can conclude, that those who want to emigrate don’t believe their situation is optimal where they are, and it would be improved by moving elsewhere. Which is an explicit condemnation of their own nations and the systems that run them. Moreover, it is obvious then that the system of the country they want to move to, is one under which they believe will benefit them the most. So we know it is the system they are fleeing and a different system they are seeking.
As to systems that people seek or flee. It is evident that people believe capitalism is best, because that is the system the vast majority of migrants flow to, and socialism is one people detest, judging by the immense outflows of people from nations that embrace socialism. This point is sharpened to a razors edge, by the fact many socialist nations have walls, gun turrets and shoot to kill orders… to keep people in, that was what the fall of the Berlin wall, was all about. North Korea today will kill anyone who tries to flee their utopia. In other nations people are trapped by poverty, situation and by their own minds. Yet, once people get to the new place they braved death for… many immediately set themselves to changing it into the system they fled.
Examples of this behavior abound. From the interstate level, of people leaving Michigan, California, New York, Vermont, etc… for states run by conservatives. Only to immediately start initiatives to change the laws, regulations, culture and even the constitutions of the places they moved, to insure they will have to flee them in a few decades as well. To the international level, where people flee places like Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Argentina, etc… to come to the US, then vote to change the US into a replica of what they fled. I am sure if you try you can think of at least ten other instances where this happens. This strong tendency is a pernicious and malevolent quality of illegal immigration to free nations and states. Encouraging it is like drinking drain cleaner to solve constipation.
Not all immigrants bring such baggage with them. Many integrate, start businesses that locals are too jaded to start, join the communities, help protect the culture, customs and laws that made it the place they sought for refuge. In doing so they grow the economy, bring innovations, deepen the gene pool, toughen the community and most importantly, keep the place as it is, so others may seek sanctuary there as well. Far from being a negative, such immigrants, be them from across the planet, another state or province, add much more than their mere presence, they add the totality of human potential. In a capitalist nation such is the currency of advancement. Yet, if they stayed home and worked to change their own systems to capitalism, liberty and opportunity, humanity might be better served.
One could argue that under the conditions of a large scale migration, such as we see across the globe today, the conditions are created that make it possible for a nation to change from oppressive socialism, to libertarian capitalism. If a large portion of the population that would fight such a move… have moved away, their non presence can no longer hinder. That nation can become one people flee to… instead of one people flee from. If those who would change it stay… their presence could make all the difference. Of course, those egoists who have fled for greener pastures, to fleece, will be a problem wherever they land. Yes, the world could be vastly improved, if people changed their own nations to capitalism, instead of move, and change capitalist places socialist.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
