THE ELEVATOR METAPHOR TO THE CASSANDRA SYNDROME

 

 

By Frosty Wooldridge
February 16, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

Part 2: Elevator Metaphor, squeezing Americans to the wall

As you noticed in Part 1 of this series, we continue with our Faustian Bargain that will eventually lead to Hobson’s Choice. Our children will curse us for our cowardice and inaction.

Can an immigrant oppose immigration?

My long time friend and writer Tim Murray asks the same questions in Canada as I ask in America. How many immigrants can we absorb before we degrade into an unsustainable civilization? Any fool can read Jared Diamond’s book: Collapse—How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed—and realize we’re already on the edge. The citizens of America are choosing to “fail” this society. Our current president and Congress drive us to failure. That’s a fact!

How close to the edge? Richard Steinberg’s book: Peak Everything—Facing a Century of Declines—offers rather sobering realities as to our water, energy and resource declines.

Murray brings it home with his “Elevator Metaphor” for all of us.

Murray said, “A great many immigrants have come to understand that mass immigration is bad for Canada (and America), but feel constrained in making their feelings known in deference to a common refrain: “So now that you’re here, you want to pull up the ladder.” One long-time middle-aged friend, whose mild mid-Atlantic accent betrays the fact that he moved to Canada with his parents as a twelve year old, is particularly sensitive to that charge.

“I don’t think an immigrant with or without a foreign accent should be disqualified as a credible critic of immigration policy. Arguments of that nature are the inverse of Groucho Marx's famous remark that he would not belong to any club that would accept him as a member. They don’t make sense. If you were admitted to the club, you are a club member and should have all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of other club members.

“There should be no second-class club members. And all club members should have the right---and the responsibility---to shape and revise club policies including who should or should not be able to join in the future. Maybe club facilities are already over-used. Maybe the club should raise its admission standards. Those are decisions which all club members should have the right to participate in.

“It is logically contradictory for pro-immigrationists to argue, on the one hand, that immigrants should be afforded all the rights that other Canadians (or Americans) enjoy, but on the other hand, to argue that they do not have the same right to criticize immigration policy as other Canadians have. Do people who enter a theatre or a restaurant forfeit the right to complain at some point later that the theatre or restaurant manager has allowed it to become too crowded, that is, that the number of patrons has obviously exceeded the number the fire marshal has determined as safe? And do not people who feel sorry for those left standing outside in the rain have the option of giving up their seat and leaving the premises so that one of those outsiders may come in and take their place? Who is being hypocritical here?”

The Elevator Metaphor for Canada and America

“There have been times when I found myself in an elevator that was packed with so many people that my face was almost pressed against the wall. On some of those occasions, when I was within reach of the panel, I pressed the "close door" button in an attempt to prevent more people from trying to enter.

“Was I being a hypocrite? After all, I too was once standing in the lobby, wanting to get into the elevator, and aspiring to reach a higher floor. How could I have something against aspiring elevator passengers? As I said, I was one myself. Or my father or grandfather once aspired to be passengers of the elevator too, and the door was open for them. All of us, we are told, are from "the lobby" or are descended from people who came from the lobby. We---Canada---- are an elevator of former lobby occupants, as we are reminded over and over again. So we don’t have a moral right to close our doors to people who wish to follow us? Or so goes the reasoning.

“But the point is that once on board, I have a right to safety, and if more people were allowed on the elevator, it would not serve their interests or mine to have the cable snap. And for the record, I am not against passengers who just got on board. I am against any policy that would keep the elevator door open to allow more passengers than the elevator can handle. How many people an elevator can carry is a question that should be informed by scientific analysis.

“In Canada, 25 of Canada's top scientists---the Science Council of Canada---determined in their Report No. 25 that future resource constraints would make it unwise to go much beyond 30 million people, that we should slow our population growth rate so that there were not diminishing economic returns with each increment of population growth. And in 1997, another group of scientists, led by UBC's Dr. Michael Healey, concluded that Canada needed a "Population Plan" so that our growing urban centers did not inflict the same kind of ecological damage that his team of researchers found in the Fraser Basin.

“I am for closing the elevator door. But what if I closed the door because I noticed that most of the people in the lobby were non-white? What if I closed it because I am a bigot?”

That may be a bad reason, but it wouldn't discredit the most relevant one----that the elevator has a limited carrying capacity.

“Bad character does not preclude correct judgment. The right decision can be made for the wrong reasons by wrong-headed people.

“Imagine though, if someone had a vested interest in cramming as many passengers as they could into that elevator. Imagine if some were able to charge elevator entrants a fee. Imagine if some on board were salesmen who thought that they would have more opportunities to sell more of their products if more potential customers were allowed to come in. Imagine if some were temporally blind and thought that the elevator had more space than was safely available or that they couldn't understand that the law of gravity and other biophysical laws trumped all other considerations.

“You really wouldn't have to imagine that scenario, would you, because as a resident of Canada (or America) with a ring-side seat to political correctness, censorship, blacklisting, character-assassination, guilt-by-association, and the social ostracism of those who challenge orthodoxy, you would realize that you are seeing it unfold before your eyes. Our political culture is inimical to reasonable discussion and education in the fundamentals of math and logic.

“The truth is, in Canada it is socially outrageous to state that, like elevators, theatres or restaurants, Canada has a limited carrying capacity. There is a limit to growth. And somehow, when immigrants say that, it seems even more outrageous. It shouldn’t be. Speaking the truth never should.”

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Dear fellow American, America as well as Canada stand nostril-deep with this immigrant onslaught. We add 125,000 immigrants every 30 days. I hope you take action by joining the organizations that are attempting to stop mass immigration. www.NumbersUSA.org We do not want our children to live in the conditions shown in the following short videos by Roy Beck.

In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, “Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls”, Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of overpopulation. Take five minutes to see for yourself:

“Immigration by the numbers—off the chart” by Roy Beck

This 10 minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a word “Mind boggling!” www.NumbersUSA.org

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Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents and six times across the United States in the past 30 years. His published books include: "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS"; �STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE�; �IMMIGRATION�S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES�; �MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE TO ALASKA: INTO THE WIND�A TEEN NOVEL�; �BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD: TIRE TRACKS FOR YOUR IMAGINATION�; �AN EXTREME ENCOUNTER: ANTARCTICA.� His next book: �TILTING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY INTO A SWAMP.� He lives in Denver, Colorado.

His latest book. �IMMIGRATION�S UNARMED INVASION�DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.�

Website: www.FrostyWooldridge.com

E:Mail: frostyw@juno.com

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