Biden takes surprising swipe at japan during donor dinner. Labels the nation xenophobic

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Isn’t the UK in a recession despite having more Indians than Welsh people at this point?

Their recession is a result of Brexit which was all about Xenophobia.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Even if it's true (I'm not familiar enough with Japanese immigration policy to have an informed opinion), Japan is a crucial eastern ally and the last thing we need is to alienate any more of them.

Japan has a declining population though it hasn't declined much at this point (this is the sort of decline that picks up speed.)

In response, Japan has increased the number of foreign nationals but not immigrants. This program is similar to if not the same as Canada's short term foreign worker program.

The obvious difference is that immigrants can put down roots in their new country like starting businesses whereas these foreign nationals can't.

https://www.asiapacific.ca/publication/japan-needs-more-labour-immigration-answer

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Xenophobia is basically the prisoner's dilemma in action again. If two cultures are xenophile, than yes obviously xenophile is preferred, but if another nation/culture being xenophobic threatens your existence as a culture than xenophobia is the preferred response. Xenophobia can both lead to other cultures being wiped out or looked down onto because of hate but also protection of your own which sometimes is necessary, which well even this century still shows us unfortunately.

It's better if everyone would be xenophile, but just like with economic equality and communism (communism vs capitalism), is humankind even ready for it? If most are xenophobic, it's basically a fairytale to suddenly change that human nature and make us all xenophiles.

My point being that there is nothing wrong with being xenophobic if it purely means preserving your own culture, but as long you're not directly threatening other cultures its existences, than i think people make it into a bigger deal than it actually is. Japan isn't behaving this way on an international stage, and has a fairly isolationist mindset today, mostly following western concensus but not being agressive itself. It barely has a military as a consequence of WW2 too today.

There's nothing wrong with xenophobia in its core, but when you start threatening other people, cultures or countries than it is. It's when it becomes racism, discrimination, colonialism or imperialism that it becomes an issue, but again it's not the easiest subject to talk about.

People condemning Japan for being xenophobic are mostly hypocrite theirselves because it basically implies you don't have a high opinion of the Japanese yourself either. It's sort of a paradox.

I think you actually mean Japan preserving its homogeneity since culture is always changing due usually to technological changes.  

I don't know much about the Japanese culture but I'm sure it's different with the internet than pre internet. So, if a society/nation wants to keep its status quo culture it needs to do what you said and implement a Sakoku law (China did the same thing in 1421.)

Of course the other thing I always get back to is that Japan can choose to keep its homogeneity if it likes, but they need to understand the consequences of that choice, which is of a declining population due to a low birth rate and, most likely, a declining economy as a result of that. That's essentially what Biden was saying.

I also dispute that immigrants change a culture since culture is determined by the local environment and by a shared history. The 'culture' of the immigrant changes far more. However, that's for a different argument.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Given that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its Notwithstanding Clause have come up, I'm taking a break from reading the Civilization and Capitalism series to read the book "The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau, the Gang of Eight and the Fight for Canada" by Ron Graham, this is on page 54.

These are Pierre Trudeau's views on these issues.

It's important to remember we are all creatures of our times and Pierre Trudeau was probably overly scared by World War II. It is true that Pierre Trudeau 'famously' sat out that war, but at the time he was an ardent Quebec nationalist and isolationist who didn't care about Europe. The ravages of World War II likely played a major part in changing his views.

"Deep at the core of his (Trudeau's) position was an abiding hatred of all ethnic nationalism, the belief that the people of a particular race or culture should lay exclusive and collective claim to a political territory. Trudeau saw this as a primary cause of many of the great atrocities of human history, from the tribal battles of Africa to the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Even an ethnic nationalism based on language and customs rather than blood could never be, in his view, a truly positive or progressive force. It would always attempt to coerce the individual into the group and attend to the welfare of some of its citizens over the welfare of all. "A state that defined its function in terms of ethnic attributes would inevitably become chauvinistic and intolerant," he wrote. And since very few (if any) political states are perfectly homogeneous, persecution by the majority would compel every minority to demand a political state of its own, and on and on, until the whole world was engulfed in liberation movements and "the last-born of nation-states turned to violence to put an end to the very principle that gave it birth." Instead, different peoples, different cultures, different languages, and different religions had to learn to live side by side as individuals who freely consent to come together with equal rights and equal opportunities. And if a particular set of circumstances should make a unitary state either impractical or undesirable, he extolled the inherent diversity of federalism."

I tend to agree with this, though I don't think every ethnic nationalist state is going to descend to either Nazism or civil war and I think we've also seen that Trudeau's vision of individualism over the collective has faults as well.

On the other hand, I would go further that even a purely homogeneous state can descend into disagreement and even civil war as I agree with, for instance, Trey Parker and Matt Stone that people collectively are inherently tribalistic and seek out things to divide over. South Park did an episode on this called 'Go God Go' where everybody in the world around 2500 is an atheist due to the influence of Richard Dawkins and there is an long ongoing war between the United Atheist League and the United Atheist Alliance because both groups believe that the name of their group is the only correct name. 

I hope that isn't a spoiler because in Wiki it only says the two groups are at war over the 'great question.' But, the correct name for the atheist group is 'the great question.'

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

I would have Biden look at his own homeless fentanyl wasteland before saying anything about other countries.

The 10 million people coming across the southern border during his reign may appear to be somewhat linked to his advancing alzheimers.

Advancing legal immigration vs forgetting to close the door are two different things.

That is terrible diplomacy towards what is essentially an ally.

What did that lawyer say?

"He's a forgetful nice old man".

This is a great example of argument from ignorance.

Under international law that the U.S has signed on to, there is a big difference between illegal immigration and people legally entering the country seeking asylum. The United States under Biden has barred millions of would be illegal immigrants from entering the United States, however, the Biden Administration would be in violation of American law if it barred those potentially legally seeking asylum from entering. This was the change in law that Biden sought in Congress that Trump told the Congressional Republicans to block for purely political reasons.

During the Trump Administration, they were able to get around that temporarily towards the end of the term due to Covid by using some emergency order that barred asylum seekers as well. Mexico helped with that by sealing its borders as well. However, Biden could not keep that emergency order in place forever.