01/27/2024
[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusivelyon VDARE.com]
Recently, I applauded Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s challenge to the Biden Regime’s treasonous determination to open the border to illegals (which continues). But I noticed the paradox that Abbott was doing this from India, where he traveled to express support for Indian legal immigration to the U.S., specially via the H-1B visa racket that imports Indian “guest workers” to immiserate American STEM graduates.
In an interview from India, Gov. Greg Abbott says ten other states have sent national guard to the Texas border, and others will follow. Abbott says he is “prepared” for a conflict with federal authorities. pic.twitter.com/F58MLoOsAZ
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 26, 2024
So this raises the question: How many Indian immigrants do we want? Or are we not allowed to ask?
I’ve written before about the problem posed by importing an Asian Overclass. But the lobbying of those Indian tech-placement firms has been so successful that there are now, I am told, IT departments in American companies with a majority of Indian employees.
At the executive level, we here at VDARE.com have for a couple of years now been posting on the Indian CEO virus. For example. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, an immigrant from India, has ordered subordinates to discriminate against white men in hiring.
And just a brief personal note on those IT departments: I spent thirty years working in them, as an employee or as an independent contractor. I know those places and the work that’s done in them. It’s not hard. Those guest-worker visas are not bringing in Claude Shannons and John von Neumanns. They are bringing in John Derbyshires… er, at best.
I am now going to ask what Sir Winston Churchill would have called a Naughty Question. Before asking it, though, permit me to put down a marker about Diversity — which I think is a jolly good thing.
My inspiration here is British sociologist Noah Carl:
When it comes to nation-states, “diversity is our strength” doesn’t really hold water. Or to put it less diplomatically, it’s sentimental tripe. But is there a context in which the slogan might have more veracity? Yes there is: the whole world. The more unique cultures, nations and races we have on planet earth, the better.
Diversity is good, actually, Aporia Magazine, January 17, 2024 [Link in original]
I completely agree. Taking the world as a whole, the more human diversity it holds, the better. Diversity adds interest, opportunities for adventure, intellectual challenges, … and that’s not even to mention different cuisines.
From the point of view of a working-class English lad, for example, China is separated from the society he knows by a considerable diversity gap. I've been fascinated by the place since my college days; got two books (Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream and Fire from the Sun,) out of it and, um, a wife.
So yeah for global diversity!
It’s not improper to ask, though, how much diversity one single country can tolerate within itself. As Noah Carl describes at length in his article, too much human diversity in one country can be a negative.
Americans, of all people, don’t need to be told this. We, a big population of white Europeans sharing the land with a smaller, but still big population of black Africans, are reminded of it daily.
So here is my Naughty Question: How many Indians should we admit for settlement?
There is almost no upper limit to the answer that might be given. India has a lot of Indians. At some point very recently — around the end of last year, I think — India’s population became bigger than China’s, at just over 1.4 billion. And that’s with a higher fertility rate: 2.07 children per woman versus China’s advertised 1.45, which experts believe is an overstatement.
You can broaden the scope here slightly, and not impermissibly, by bringing in other South Asian nations somewhat aligned with India: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, even the Maldives if you like. Population total then: 1.84 billion. If you do the same for China, adding in Taiwan and Singapore, you get something like 1.44 billion; so that South Asia is 28 percent more populous than the Greater China Co-Prosperity Sphere.
So: a mighty lot of Indians, and even more South Asians.
And that Naughty Question again: How many should we admit for settlement?
There are negatives to be considered, most obviously Hindu-Moslem antagonism [Indian PM presides over inauguration of new Hindu temple built where mosque once sat, by Payton Davis, Deseret News, January 23, 2024] and the caste system.
Less obviously, but increasingly noticeable, there is what you might call “political capture.” Glance across the Pond to the British Isles…The “British” Isles?
British Isles settlers of South Asian or part-South Asian parentage seem not to have found Wales a subject of political interest yet, but perhaps it is just a matter of time. Or perhaps they find the language too difficult.
Meanwhile, we Americans have just been obsessing over General Election primaries featuring personalities named Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley, née Nimarata Randhawa.
South Asians seem to be rather good at the Anglo-American style of politics.
But South Asian predilections have negative consequences for the host white populations.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list from VDARE.com’s 20+ years of reporting:
The Indian CEO Virus
Indian Medical Doctors
General Negatives
So one more time, my Naughty Question: How many Indians should we admit for settlement, from a country whose population is currently 4.2 times ours?
Or are we not permitted to ask?
John Derbyshire writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
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