Letters to the Editor
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The Yellow Peril
Good conservatives should welcome the victims of forced abortion, no?
Good liberals should welcome more open immigration policies, no?
This doesn't really have anything to do with men and case-law, it has to do with how many yellow people the US is prepared to admit. And everybody is a hypocrite, because everybody is scared of strangers. Racially different strangers.
Up here in the Great White North, we are getting pretty close I understand up to 20% of our population not being born here, which beats the US all to crazy. But we do have our own evils.
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-- Canuckistan Bob
That's obnoxious.
First of all, this particular case is unusual and the law doesn't really address it properly. You or Flory making hay of that is just stupid.
Secondly, obviously there are limits to the number of immigrants the US can absorb from anywhere while maintaining social cohesion and infrastructure. If tens of millions of British, Germans or French wanted to move here, we'd still have to say no as it would still be a serious social problem and strain on infrastructure, even though they're more educated and wealthier on average by comparison to people of developing countries.
There are 1.3 billion Chinese. Literally hundreds of millions, more than the entire US population, is affected by China's one child policy. Which is draconian, but ultimately necessary. If not for the one child policy, China's population would balloon further, and starve. It would bed a failed state. Resulting in more wars and revolution within china, only with nuclear arms.
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Yeah I'm both stupid and obnoxious.
Because I just don't buy the infrastructure and absorption arguments. Because I think both are covers for ugly xenophobia. Because there is no proof whatsoever that it won't work. And much as we might wish to imagine otherwise, there is not in fact a tidal wave of Chinese (or African or South Asian or whatever anybody is scared of) people that wish to emigrate to North America.
The fear of that is pretty obviously basically racist, to my mind. But then I am stupid and obnoxious.
I think we should welcome as many as can want to and can make it, and the project should be welcomed by both conservatives and liberals, on the grounds of right to life in the former case, and anti-racism and feminism in the latter. I am continually amazed how both sides are willing to sell out all their principles due to xenophobia. And dress it up in case-law.
It is a pretty obnoxious and stupid opinion, I fully admit. Also one of my hot-button issues, I also fully admit.
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Men are all soulless rapists
No way they can claim "victimhood".
Only women can.
"I think few people would argue that the decision to have an abortion is a serious one, and that it carries the possibility of regret. There are plenty of instances when both women and men could benefit from therapy or counseling both before and after the abortion -- and it is definitely not a decision to be taken lightly. But to use men's grief over unborn children as a weapon in the fight against abortion seems to miss the point -- it has nothing to do with the fetus. I thought that the main opposition to abortion had to do with the "murder" of the would-be baby, not with whether the dad might stay up nights wishing his partner hadn't terminated the pregnancy."
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/01/08/abortion_pronoun/index.html
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Feeling grateful tonight...
...that I don't live in China.
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Parson Jim, You Have A Strong Imagination
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Men are all soulless rapists
No way they can claim "victimhood".
Only women can.
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Neither the current article, nor the one you quoted, said or implied anything like that.
At some point imagination overflows into paranoia.
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Bob
Actually, there is proof of too much immigration being a bad thing. The current social unrest in Europe is evidence. I'm predicting a major backlash. Remember the riots a few years back? And now British lawmakers are contemplating a parallel Sharia law system. Not to mention how much harassment from immigrants that many women experience if they walk around alone in the evening. (Even when dressed modestly.). Then there was the killing of Theo van Gogh.
I don't think it behooves anyone to deny the ways in which massive immigration will change a society. It isn't necessarily for the better. But these things need to be discussed BEFORE the immigrants come in. Perhaps the locals will decide Sharia law, or Spanish-language options, or whatever other changes are a good thing, or at least a different-but-ok thing. This needs to be a conscious choice, however. Denying that changes will happen, and putting on rosy all-multiculturalism-is-better glasses, does nothing for anyone.
Which is not to say that in the end people will necessarily say to to immigration. Just that people need to think it through a little more. It's not racism to want to preserve certain parts of your culture.
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Sensationalist Title Warning!
While I understand the point that you're driving at (are men a victim too if their partner is unwillingly forced to undergo an abortion?) the title distorts the issue at hand. He is threatened with sterilisation and possibly a further punishment by the Chinese authorities, it is those issues that have potential to make him a victim in China. He is not a victim in the same sense as his wife, who was forced to actually physically undergo the abortions, their situations are not the same. But yes, in the sense that he is denied refugee status because of his refusal to follow Chinese laws that violate human rights, he is a victim.
Countries do have the right to reject people from entering their countries. But if the courts wrangle over whether he is a 'victim' and therefore a refugee, they will undoubtedly make him a victim of the Chinese system.
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hard cases make bad law...
Even though I think this particular couple should have been granted asylum, the courts have a point about the "legal marriage" requirement. In nearly all the U.S. states, a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old could get legally married and have a child and probably none of us would have much of a problem with recognizing them as a couple even though they are "too young" by Chinese standards.
But what if the bride (or groom) were younger? There are many places in the world where CHILDREN are married in traditional ceremonies that aren't legally binding but which are certainly considered commitments by all parties involved. What if one of the parties to this was 11 or 12? It's certainly not unheard of to get pregnant at that age.