What should be the minimum requirements to immigrate?

[Machjo]

and we're not forcing to come here either...migration is part of our makeup as humans, we migrate to what we think are better feeding grounds/opportunities and have been doing so for a couple million years...

Thank you for completing my elliptical post above. I'd just taken it for granted that what you'd just typed logically followed what I'd typed. But it's good to make it explicit for those who can't fill in the blanks on their own.

[eyeball]

Yes because all ills in the world were caused by Western interference... not.

Who's caused it is secondary but yes interference of an imperialist nature is by far the cause of most of the worst ills in the world.

In any case, even if they were, we can't go back in time and "unmeddle". What we can do is stop meddling now. Better for us, better for them.

I agree, however I also think there is a need for acknowledgement, reconciliation and in many cases reparation where that meddling did harm.

And yet you insist that we should instead be "helping them to develop". That is exactly what the previous generations of Westerners, who you now accuse of "meddling", thought they were doing.

That's certainly the spin that was put on it but what they'd like us to think but trhe reality is vastly different from what they were doing. In any case let's ask the people in countries that were helped how they recall events, in a duely constituted process of truth and reconciliation.

How do you know that you are any less misguided than they were?

I'm not which is why I'd first ask people what we can do to help, instead of just marching in and helping ourselves, or worse, getting some dictator or warlord to do our dirty work for us.

[eyeball]

and we're not forcing to come here either...migration is part of our makeup as humans, we migrate to what we think are better feeding grounds/opportunities and have been doing so for a couple million years...

Thank you for completing my elliptical post above. I'd just taken it for granted that what you'd just typed logically followed what I'd typed. But it's good to make it explicit for those who can't fill in the blanks on their own.

Fill in this blank then.

We encourage countries, if not insist sometimes with force, that our corporations should be allowed to roam the world at will as if there were no borders while at the same time throwing up all sorts of barriers to human beings who seek a better opportunity where and when they see fit.

Like corporations, human beings are people too.

[bloodyminded]

Yes because all ills in the world were caused by Western interference... not. In any case, even if they were, we can't go back in time and "unmeddle". What we can do is stop meddling now. Better for us, better for them.

And yet you insist that we should instead be "helping them to develop". That is exactly what the previous generations of Westerners, who you now accuse of "meddling", thought they were doing. How do you know that you are any less misguided than they were?

If by "previous generations....[who] thought they were helping to develop," you mean the general population, you'd be correct. But in most cases the public has been wrong. Well, it's easy to be wrong when you're continually being lied to and swallowing the most effective propaganda in the history of the Earth (ie Western propaganda as it's development under comparative freedom of the press).

Uusually, we don't meddle for the humanitarian sake of helping human beings. Sure, we claim that repeatedly; it's probably even true on rare occasions.

If we look at real-world examples of how our helpful meddling has affected such irritants as breathing human beings, some startling truths come to light. (Usually ignored...or, worse, blamed on the impoverished people living in "third world toilets," who evidently don't have our high standards of democracy and human rights. For example, they often resent our overthrows of elected governments and our propping up of tyrannies; well, they don't understand the complex world in which we humanitarians are forced to live.

What little aid money is actually put to use is not ruining their countries, despite the protestations that "socialism is evil" made by the same folks who tend to support more right-wing, multinational corporation-friendly dictators, on "security" pretexts. What ruins their countries is, among other things, Western insistence that these regions are important bases for "our resources" (inconveniently inhabited by other people...but they're still "ours"); and Western fears of the "threat of a good example," in which countries might make choices that do not benefit us financially or strategically. What the human beings living in such places might think of this is of no importance to the Imperial centre and its allies, obviously. Satellites exist to be used; resource-rich nations exist to be exploited.

Edited April 12, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Martin Chriton]

As I mentioned at http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=16181&view=findpost&p=530698 -- A requirement should be that you were accepted for a Canadian job and have a sponsoring employer. If you can't get a job offer before you come, it's not likely you can get one after. Canada could learn from the US on this one.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Martin Chriton

[Machjo]

Fill in this blank then.

We encourage countries, if not insist sometimes with force, that our corporations should be allowed to roam the world at will as if there were no borders while at the same time throwing up all sorts of barriers to human beings who seek a better opportunity where and when they see fit.

Like corporations, human beings are people too.

Two separate issues. I agree that we ought to respect the will of the Afghan people and not impose our national laws on them.