I am surprised to see so much one-sidedness on
population and immigration packed in one issue, and I trust that
the Writers on the Range column, and related letters, do not
represent the mindset of your readership (HCN, 2/16/04: Why
I’m running). Why would the people of the West, many of whom
have migrated here from the East and elsewhere, want to keep new
people out, other than for self-preservation? We live in one world,
and we cannot isolate the West from that world. It is well-known
that nowadays, the more open societies, which can draw expertise
globally, thrive, while self-preserving, jingoistic societies
wither.
Surely there are too many people on this planet
already, but the good news is that global population is expected to
stabilize sometime later this century.
The radical change
in our administration’s global policy a few years ago
(including the Iraq war, the failure to recognize the International
Criminal Court, the Kyoto protocol, and the U.N. Convention on
Child Labor, among others) has dropped the esteem of the United
States in the eyes of people in Europe and Asia, and few of them,
especially the most skilled labor, aspire anymore to migrate to the
United States.
Bart Geerts
Laramie, Wyoming
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline We can’t isolate the West.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
