Yeah, it's all just a big culture war game to the likes of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.
Blair writes of Trump's refugee (temporary) immigration ban: "Leftist media will be entertaining today." Yes, that's what really matters for a writer whose sole output is anti-Left wing snark.
Bolt gets obsessed with media calling it a Muslim ban, and gets totally on board with the claimed justification - to work out better "vetting procedures" from certain countries - while not showing any interest at all in what the current procedures are, or wondering how it could be at all possible to get perfect vetting from a war torn nation, or for people who have come (for example) via living in a tent in a desert refugee camp for the last 3 years. He is completely in the tank for Trump on this, because it aligns with his own contemptuous disregard for refugees, despite the West's role in helping generate more globally by its attempted Middle East interventions.
Bolt is the most dishonest and disgraceful writer on immigration matters in Australia today - continually blaming government for letting in thoroughly deserving refugees (be they Muslim or not) in the event that any of them, or their children, commit a crime even years after their arrival. Governments are supposed to be able to tell which 10 year olds will be a 17 year old thief, apparently.
Neither of them are morally serious on this, or indeed on climate change, another topic of long term consequence on which they prefer to play the short sighted fool and culture war warrior.
9 comments:
Is Bolt even relevant anymore? Always the same tired old themes from a man who considers himself an expert on so many issues.
I cannot believe a ban on anyone with a green card or a dual citizen merely b because they were overseas is constitutional.
No one with green card or a passport from approved country is banned. You should be horse whipped, Paxton.
incorrect
his main advisors were Bannon and Flynn who are complete nutcases like Katesy. no wonder this wasn't thought through properly.
It's the retroactivity of the changes that bothers me. I think countries are perfectly entitled to take in whomever they want but once you hand out a visa and people uproot their lives based on it, then those commitments should be honoured. But in terms of who the US chooses to hand out visas to in future, that's up to them. How many immigrants does Japan take in, Steve? Hopefully the retroactivity will be fixed up.
sorry that deleted comment was me, I made a typo in my last comment
Jason: I haven't noticed a lot of Japanese armies or aircraft in the deserts of the Middle East helping create instability over the last 20 years, either. And I would imagine the language barrier makes it an unattractive place for refugees anyway.
Refuge seeking from war and mad Islamists is a serious and difficult issue, particularly for Europe because of geography. It does not help for an American leader to be dealing with it by encouraging his base to demonise refugees as a danger, nor indeed Muslims (or Mexicans) generally.
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