TRIGGERnometry - September 19, 2024


Why We Keep Losing the Immigration Debate - Konstantin Kisin


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

188.85869

Word count

1,529

Sentence count

94

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Why do we keep losing the immigration debate? Why is it so hard to have a sensible immigration policy? Is it a matter of morality? What are the tradeoffs of mass immigration? How can we win a debate about it?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.480 Why we keep losing the immigration debate.
00:00:07.420 Earlier this year, at a small private gathering of political and media leaders in Australia,
00:00:12.260 I was asked what advice I might have for Australians with the power to shape their nation's future.
00:00:17.460 I had just explained that while their country is not as advanced as Britain and America
00:00:21.140 in terms of its cultural malaise, it does appear to be on the same downward trajectory.
00:00:26.680 Having dispensed with the standard British response that I have no idea why any of them should listen to my opinion,
00:00:31.980 I proceeded with the standard Russian response of telling them exactly what I think as bluntly as possible. 0.53
00:00:37.180 The most important thing you can do for the future of your society, I said,
00:00:40.800 is not to allow immigration to become a moral issue.
00:00:44.340 On the surface, this might appear to be a strange and somewhat esoteric response.
00:00:48.800 Surely what politicians need to do is take control of the border, 0.76
00:00:52.940 ensure border security and stop the boats.
00:00:55.680 Get in control of our borders.
00:00:57.180 We need to smash the gangs.
00:00:58.500 We have to stop the invasion.
00:01:00.840 Stop the boats. 0.99
00:01:02.180 These populist slogans are great for retail politics,
00:01:04.860 and they allow charismatic anti-immigration politicians like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump to win votes.
00:01:10.580 But no matter how many votes they win,
00:01:12.840 culturally, the fight for a sensible immigration policy is still being lost.
00:01:16.800 Why?
00:01:17.440 Because immigration is no longer seen as a policy issue.
00:01:20.720 It has become a matter of morality.
00:01:22.260 You may recall my recent appearance on the BBC's Moral Maze,
00:01:26.160 in which I attempted to elicit from an academic his view of the negative trade-offs of mass immigration.
00:01:32.180 I might as well have asked him about the negative trade-offs of curing cancer.
00:01:35.360 It's a universal truth that all policies have positive and negative sides.
00:01:40.320 What would you say are the negative trade-offs of mass immigration?
00:01:43.700 Just to go back to the point, actually...
00:01:44.840 No, no, let's not go back to the point.
00:01:46.060 I'm asking you a different question.
00:01:46.640 You actually have conducted numerous interviews with people in that area.
00:01:51.220 Dr. Connell, with respect, I'm asking you a different question now.
00:01:54.140 What would you say are the negative trade-offs of mass immigration?
00:01:57.020 I think it's characteristic of this debate that actually you're not allowing a conversation.
00:02:01.820 No, you're not answering my question.
00:02:03.840 That's all that's happening here.
00:02:05.700 What are the negative trade-offs of mass immigration?
00:02:07.980 That's the only question I might ask you.
00:02:08.940 I think the negative trade-offs is that, unfortunately,
00:02:10.660 people like yourself do tend to mobilize these negative racist tropes
00:02:15.000 in order to progress their own individual careers.
00:02:17.600 Of the very few skills I have to my name,
00:02:20.040 understanding how to win a debate is perhaps one I can claim without false modesty.
00:02:23.860 And I can tell you that as long as this framing is accepted in public discourse,
00:02:28.920 those of us who want a sensible immigration policy will keep losing.
00:02:32.840 What most people fail to understand is that you do not win debates with arguments.
00:02:36.940 You win by setting the frame.
00:02:38.860 You saw the power of this technique during COVID with your own eyes.
00:02:42.620 All the authorities had to do was set the frame correctly,
00:02:46.180 and your fellow citizens abandoned reason and rationality in the blink of an eye.
00:02:50.980 How did they do it exactly?
00:02:52.040 In a battle, the deciding factor between comparable armies
00:02:55.340 is often the territory on which the fight happens.
00:02:58.240 A general who is able to place his troops in an advantageous position
00:03:01.600 will usually win, even against a bigger, more powerful army.
00:03:05.420 This is how Edward the Black Prince secured victory at the Battle of Poitiers,
00:03:08.900 or, for a more contemporary reference,
00:03:11.000 how a small number of Spartans were able to hold back a Persian horde 1.00
00:03:14.580 in the Battle of Thermopylae, on which the movie 300 is based.
00:03:18.260 The same thing is true of debate.
00:03:19.820 The frame is the set of unspoken assumptions
00:03:22.940 which determine how the conversation happens.
00:03:25.580 Whoever controls the frame controls the way that the debate goes.
00:03:29.500 During the pandemic, the framing was simple.
00:03:31.940 All deaths from COVID are unacceptable,
00:03:33.860 and since all deaths from COVID are unacceptable,
00:03:36.320 this is the only thing we must all focus on.
00:03:38.580 Notice how nobody ever said this out loud.
00:03:41.340 Politicians never went on TV and said,
00:03:43.300 the only thing that matters is COVID deaths,
00:03:45.520 and our goal is to reduce them to zero.
00:03:47.580 Because if they had,
00:03:48.920 a lot of sensible people would have asked questions
00:03:51.040 about how reasonable and realistic that was.
00:03:53.480 Instead, they simply acted like it was self-evident
00:03:55.900 that reducing COVID deaths was the only thing that mattered.
00:03:59.000 And before long, so did everyone else.
00:04:01.200 This is why perfectly good arguments about proportionality,
00:04:04.420 personal liberty, and bodily autonomy
00:04:05.980 had absolutely no impact on public policy
00:04:09.140 outside of Sweden and a handful of American states.
00:04:12.360 Once you have drilled into people's heads
00:04:13.960 that the only thing we ought to focus on
00:04:15.720 is the number of people who die from COVID,
00:04:18.400 all else follows.
00:04:19.600 The reason the debate about immigration
00:04:21.200 is as absurd as it is in the Western world
00:04:23.400 is that we are operating within
00:04:25.060 a morality-based framing of the issue.
00:04:27.400 As long as we continue to do so,
00:04:29.220 we will continue to lose.
00:04:30.820 What is the frame?
00:04:32.200 Immigration is a good thing. 0.85
00:04:33.920 Therefore, anyone who opposes immigration
00:04:35.600 is a bad person.
00:04:37.260 Once this framing is set,
00:04:38.540 arguments are largely irrelevant.
00:04:40.820 You can quote statistics, facts, figures
00:04:42.740 till you're blue in the face,
00:04:44.060 but all you'll ever be is an angry racist 0.99
00:04:46.280 using numbers to support your immoral position. 0.91
00:04:49.000 The only way to win this debate
00:04:50.320 is to break the frame.
00:04:51.900 The correct framing of this issue,
00:04:53.460 like any other,
00:04:54.260 is that immigration policy is a slider.
00:04:56.900 You move it to the left when you need more immigration 0.99
00:04:59.140 and you move it to the right when you want less.
00:05:01.740 Most Western countries have gone through periods
00:05:03.860 when they were absolutely desperate
00:05:05.460 for more people to come in.
00:05:06.800 Australia, with which we began our discussion,
00:05:09.820 responded to the end of World War II
00:05:11.580 by deciding it must increase its population
00:05:14.240 to avoid the threat of another invasion
00:05:16.280 and launched an immigration program
00:05:18.100 under the slogan
00:05:19.020 Populate or Perish. 0.98
00:05:21.060 Britain, too, increased migration after the war,
00:05:23.600 encouraging colonial people to take jobs 0.98
00:05:25.600 that could not be filled by British people.
00:05:27.580 Canada, the US, and many European countries
00:05:29.600 have encouraged migration within living memory
00:05:31.940 for perfectly good reasons.
00:05:33.940 In other words,
00:05:35.160 the attempt to present the history of our countries
00:05:37.200 as one continual process
00:05:38.720 of moving from a restrictionist past
00:05:40.740 to a progressive utopia
00:05:42.380 is not just inaccurate,
00:05:44.120 it is purposefully misleading.
00:05:45.900 This framing deliberately conceals the reality
00:05:48.100 that the right level of immigration
00:05:49.840 varies over time.
00:05:51.620 It is therefore unwise and counterproductive
00:05:53.720 to argue against immigration
00:05:55.780 or for immigration.
00:05:57.640 The correct frame is that immigration 0.99
00:05:59.420 is good when it's good
00:06:00.500 and bad when it's bad.
00:06:01.940 And as before,
00:06:03.180 all else follows.
00:06:04.320 Once this framing is accepted,
00:06:06.100 winning the remaining argument
00:06:07.240 becomes simple.
00:06:08.520 If immigration policy
00:06:09.540 is about making sure
00:06:10.460 that immigration is beneficial
00:06:11.700 to our country,
00:06:13.020 the correct number
00:06:13.800 of illegal immigrants is zero.
00:06:15.500 The arguments which are often made
00:06:16.900 in the US
00:06:17.400 about illegal immigrants
00:06:18.460 doing jobs no one wants to
00:06:19.780 are patently absurd.
00:06:21.660 Many of the people
00:06:22.520 who are desperate
00:06:23.220 to do those jobs
00:06:24.480 are waiting patiently
00:06:25.880 for their visa application
00:06:27.100 to be approved.
00:06:27.880 And the only reason people
00:06:29.720 enter the US illegally
00:06:31.200 is that they know
00:06:32.400 they won't be allowed in legally.
00:06:34.600 In other words,
00:06:35.500 illegal immigration
00:06:36.320 is not beneficial
00:06:37.620 to a country by definition.
00:06:39.620 As for legal immigration,
00:06:41.020 once you accept
00:06:41.740 that the quantity
00:06:42.480 and type of people
00:06:43.360 allowed to come
00:06:44.200 should depend on
00:06:45.240 how beneficial
00:06:45.880 they're likely to be
00:06:46.860 to our country
00:06:47.740 given the current circumstances,
00:06:50.320 the argument becomes even simpler.
00:06:52.040 After decades
00:06:52.720 of unprecedented levels
00:06:53.960 of immigration,
00:06:55.040 it is time to pause.
00:06:56.740 Notice that you've heard
00:06:57.820 all these arguments before.
00:06:59.500 But in the new frame,
00:07:00.780 they land differently.
00:07:02.320 We're not against immigration.
00:07:04.360 We do not hate immigrants.
00:07:06.020 We in fact
00:07:06.640 envisage circumstances
00:07:07.860 in which we may well
00:07:09.160 be delighted
00:07:09.780 to welcome more people
00:07:10.720 to come here.
00:07:11.640 I'm proud that Britain
00:07:12.660 has offered refuge
00:07:13.500 to people fleeing
00:07:14.240 Chinese tyranny in Hong Kong 0.98
00:07:15.700 and the Russian invasion
00:07:16.960 of Ukraine.
00:07:17.900 What we're for
00:07:18.800 is a sensible immigration policy,
00:07:21.180 one that fits
00:07:22.060 the realities
00:07:22.720 of the present time.
00:07:24.660 If you enjoy
00:07:25.560 these monologues,
00:07:26.320 remember that they're
00:07:27.040 available on my substack
00:07:28.640 weeks,
00:07:29.560 sometimes months
00:07:30.280 ahead of time.
00:07:31.000 So click the link
00:07:32.060 in the description,
00:07:33.160 head on over there now
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