Michael Douglas Speech from the film The American President
“We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections”
This statement is so true, you can replace the name of Bob Rumson with any politician’s name you like, who espouses anti-immigration rhetoric and not one of them has any real policy to tackle the actual problems they blame migrants for. This is nothing more than the blame game, which has been used by countless politicians over the ages, just to win the popular vote, simply to gain power.
Blaming immigration for the problems that we face creates two problems, first we are blaming someone else for our failings and second, by finding a scapegoat, means that we are not addressing the problem that needs to be fixed. When you run out of things to blame, then what. If there is a problem, then we need to address it and fix it. The blame game can have serious consequences, for if the newly elected politician can’t fix or does not know how to fix the problem, then they double down on the scapegoat, with dire consequences for these people. The Pogroms in Russia, the Holocaust (Shoah) in Germany, Idi Amin and Asian Expulsions in Uganda, Pol Pot Killing Fields in Cambodia, Robert Mugabe Violent Farm Seizures in Rhodesia and the Hutu Genocide in Rwanda, to name but a few. All these atrocities have one thing in common, there were problems in these countries and the leaders decided to blame someone for it, instead of taking ownership and responsibility and addressing the real cause of the problem.
Anybody who listens to and follows the simplistic answer, is asking for trouble. For anyone who embarks down the path of the blame game, when it is blatantly obvious that something else is responsible; it is only a matter of time before the person leading you down this path, runs out of words to cover up their incompetence and then they have to take stronger action; and by then you are too engrossed to be able to stop it.
Ending migration would simply mean, that no new people would come into the country. It is true, that to continue bringing people into the Country when the resources are under great pressure, will certainly exacerbate any problem, but the problem will still be there with or without any new migrants. So, unless you have a plan to address the problems, then eventually the new birth rate will end up compounding the problem.
Yes, it would be wise to place an immediate halt to all new migration applications, for at least a year. We should honour those applications already approved, but place a halt on all others. This is as much for the benefit of the migrant as it is for the country. It is unfair to bring a migrant to this country with promises of a better future, only for them to find themselves waiting in the queue, with little prospects of getting employment or a home.
Take responsibility and ownership of the problems that we face. Don’t ask who’s to blame for it, ask what you can do to fix it. If we all work together and pool our resources, knowledge and ingenuity, we Australians can fix anything we put our minds to. After all we built the greatest nation on earth with nothing more than a bunch of convicts, who were the first migrants.
