As usual, the dog is silent on NS and Sporns being discriminated against in their own cuntry again.
<TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%">
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From:
</TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>CPL (kojakbt22) <NOBR>
</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>9:13 pm </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>23290.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>ok, here's the background. He wrote an article telling us Singaporeans to accept PAP's liberal FT policy. And I emailed him telling him how I felt. He then wrote back to counter my points. My England is not good enuf. Need helps from the bros and sis here to counter him.....
Following is the article he first wrote:
__________________________________________________________________
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>US immigration policy pays off
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Without its welcoming policy, the US Nobel Prize haul would have been halved this year </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Janadas Devan, Review Editor </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Eleven of the 13 Nobel laureates this year are American. But five of the 11 are American only because the United States had the wit to put in place liberal immigration laws much before its competitors did.
Two of the three Americans who won the Nobel prize for medicine were born overseas - one in Australia and the other in Britain. Similarly, two of the three Americans who won the prize for physics were immigrants - one from China and the other from Canada.
Both are in fact dual citizens: the Canadian, of Canada as well as the United States; and the Chinese, Dr Charles Kao, of Britain and the US. The fifth immigrant was one of the two Americans to win the prize for chemistry - Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, born in India.
Asians have rarely done this well, winning two Nobel prizes this year. Dr Kao and Dr Ramakrishnan could have prefigured the Asian century in the Nobel sweepstakes, if only their nationalities had lined up with their ethnic origins. Instead, they helped swell an American progress, as other immigrants like them are likely to do in the coming decades.
For the US today is in fact reaping the benefits of policies that were first instituted 44 years ago. In September 1965, then President Lyndon Johnson signed into law an immigration Bill that expunged the quota system that had since 1924 allowed Northern Europeans to enter the US but had kept out Asians and other people of colour.
Indeed, before that, the US had specifically prohibited Chinese immigration, as provided for by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The 1924 Immigration Act further restricted Chinese immigration and extended the restriction to other Asian ethnic groups as well.
The playing field was levelled fully only in 1965. As a result, there was this influx of talent from Asia - including Dr Ramakrishnan and Dr Kao. The policy change has borne numerous Nobel fruits, as well as many other benefits for the US economy and society.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy was one of the key figures in gaining this crucial change in US immigration laws. As he recalls in his posthumously published memoir, True Compass, he paid a political price in opening up immigration to Asians, Hispanics and other people of colour.
'My Boston Irish constituency was not thrilled to see me at work reducing Ireland's proportionate access to US citizenship, and some loud voices were raised,' he wrote.
President Johnson signed the new Bill into law at the Statue of Liberty in New York. 'Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/ Send these', goes the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on a plaque at the Statue. Dr Kao and Dr Ramakrishnan can hardly be described as 'wretched refuse'.
The 1965 law in effect re-wrote the Lazarus poem thus: 'Give me your geeks, your genuises/ Your PhD's yearning for US government research grants,/ The rich cream of your teeming shore,/ Oh pray, do send these - quick.'
Singapore had been independent for barely a month when Johnson signed that Bill. Almost all the core political leadership of the newly independent country were born elsewhere: Dr Toh Chin Chye, Dr Goh Keng Swee and Mr Ong Pang Boon in Malaya; Mr S. Rajaratnam in Ceylon. Only one - Mr Lee Kuan Yew - was born in Singapore.
And yet, 44 years later, Singaporeans, almost all the descendants of immigrants themselves, are making a fuss about other immigrants - from China in the main, but also India and elsewhere.
Some of this disquiet is understandable. The immigrant numbers were allowed to grow too much, too fast. Not enough attention was paid to assimilating the new immigrants into Singaporean society or acclimatising Singaporeans to the new immigrants. Almost overnight, Singaporeans saw their neighbourhoods change - and naturally, they became alarmed.
And this is not a problem unique to Singapore. As an article in this newspaper by Mr Joseph Chamie last Tuesday noted, there is a 'worrisome gap between public opinion and official policies on immigration' in many countries.
The director of research at the Centre for Migration Studies in New York and the former director of the United Nations Population Division, went on to note that while governments encouraged immigration, the overwhelming majority of people are reluctant to accept immigrants.
The consequences of failing to bridge this gap, Mr Chamie warned, include 'increased xenophobia, vigilantism and political extremism'. The success of nationalist, neo-fascist political parties in Italy, Greece, Switzerland - and even Britain - confirms these dangers are real.
But we have to navigate them as best we can and hold fast to an open immigration regime. For looking at it over the long term, there can be no doubt that this is the right policy, especially as it is applied to talent. It took 44 years, but it is clear today that Johnson and Kennedy did right by the US in the 1960s. The US haul of Nobel prizes this year would have been cut in half if the country had not welcomed talent from all over the world.
What proportion of Singapore's potential would be cut if we restrained immigration? Quite possibly the whole caboodle, for Singapore doesn't have the luxury of failing only by half. But if it kept intact its open immigration regime, it would probably gain a tremendous competitive advantage, for few other countries in the region are as equipped culturally to welcome immigrants on a large scale.
Despite all our current problems with immigrants, the fact is we will in all probability find 44 years from now that the next Dr Goh, like the last, was the child of an immigrant. And we won't think of him as an immigrant then, any more than Americans think of Dr Ramakrishnan or Dr Kao as immigrants today.
The immigrant would have become us - as we did.
[email protected]
[email protected]
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%">
</TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>
From:
</TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>CPL (kojakbt22) <NOBR>
Following is the article he first wrote:
__________________________________________________________________
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>US immigration policy pays off
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Without its welcoming policy, the US Nobel Prize haul would have been halved this year </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Janadas Devan, Review Editor </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Eleven of the 13 Nobel laureates this year are American. But five of the 11 are American only because the United States had the wit to put in place liberal immigration laws much before its competitors did.
Two of the three Americans who won the Nobel prize for medicine were born overseas - one in Australia and the other in Britain. Similarly, two of the three Americans who won the prize for physics were immigrants - one from China and the other from Canada.
Both are in fact dual citizens: the Canadian, of Canada as well as the United States; and the Chinese, Dr Charles Kao, of Britain and the US. The fifth immigrant was one of the two Americans to win the prize for chemistry - Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, born in India.
Asians have rarely done this well, winning two Nobel prizes this year. Dr Kao and Dr Ramakrishnan could have prefigured the Asian century in the Nobel sweepstakes, if only their nationalities had lined up with their ethnic origins. Instead, they helped swell an American progress, as other immigrants like them are likely to do in the coming decades.
For the US today is in fact reaping the benefits of policies that were first instituted 44 years ago. In September 1965, then President Lyndon Johnson signed into law an immigration Bill that expunged the quota system that had since 1924 allowed Northern Europeans to enter the US but had kept out Asians and other people of colour.
Indeed, before that, the US had specifically prohibited Chinese immigration, as provided for by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The 1924 Immigration Act further restricted Chinese immigration and extended the restriction to other Asian ethnic groups as well.
The playing field was levelled fully only in 1965. As a result, there was this influx of talent from Asia - including Dr Ramakrishnan and Dr Kao. The policy change has borne numerous Nobel fruits, as well as many other benefits for the US economy and society.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy was one of the key figures in gaining this crucial change in US immigration laws. As he recalls in his posthumously published memoir, True Compass, he paid a political price in opening up immigration to Asians, Hispanics and other people of colour.
'My Boston Irish constituency was not thrilled to see me at work reducing Ireland's proportionate access to US citizenship, and some loud voices were raised,' he wrote.
President Johnson signed the new Bill into law at the Statue of Liberty in New York. 'Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/ Send these', goes the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on a plaque at the Statue. Dr Kao and Dr Ramakrishnan can hardly be described as 'wretched refuse'.
The 1965 law in effect re-wrote the Lazarus poem thus: 'Give me your geeks, your genuises/ Your PhD's yearning for US government research grants,/ The rich cream of your teeming shore,/ Oh pray, do send these - quick.'
Singapore had been independent for barely a month when Johnson signed that Bill. Almost all the core political leadership of the newly independent country were born elsewhere: Dr Toh Chin Chye, Dr Goh Keng Swee and Mr Ong Pang Boon in Malaya; Mr S. Rajaratnam in Ceylon. Only one - Mr Lee Kuan Yew - was born in Singapore.
And yet, 44 years later, Singaporeans, almost all the descendants of immigrants themselves, are making a fuss about other immigrants - from China in the main, but also India and elsewhere.
Some of this disquiet is understandable. The immigrant numbers were allowed to grow too much, too fast. Not enough attention was paid to assimilating the new immigrants into Singaporean society or acclimatising Singaporeans to the new immigrants. Almost overnight, Singaporeans saw their neighbourhoods change - and naturally, they became alarmed.
And this is not a problem unique to Singapore. As an article in this newspaper by Mr Joseph Chamie last Tuesday noted, there is a 'worrisome gap between public opinion and official policies on immigration' in many countries.
The director of research at the Centre for Migration Studies in New York and the former director of the United Nations Population Division, went on to note that while governments encouraged immigration, the overwhelming majority of people are reluctant to accept immigrants.
The consequences of failing to bridge this gap, Mr Chamie warned, include 'increased xenophobia, vigilantism and political extremism'. The success of nationalist, neo-fascist political parties in Italy, Greece, Switzerland - and even Britain - confirms these dangers are real.
But we have to navigate them as best we can and hold fast to an open immigration regime. For looking at it over the long term, there can be no doubt that this is the right policy, especially as it is applied to talent. It took 44 years, but it is clear today that Johnson and Kennedy did right by the US in the 1960s. The US haul of Nobel prizes this year would have been cut in half if the country had not welcomed talent from all over the world.
What proportion of Singapore's potential would be cut if we restrained immigration? Quite possibly the whole caboodle, for Singapore doesn't have the luxury of failing only by half. But if it kept intact its open immigration regime, it would probably gain a tremendous competitive advantage, for few other countries in the region are as equipped culturally to welcome immigrants on a large scale.
Despite all our current problems with immigrants, the fact is we will in all probability find 44 years from now that the next Dr Goh, like the last, was the child of an immigrant. And we won't think of him as an immigrant then, any more than Americans think of Dr Ramakrishnan or Dr Kao as immigrants today.
The immigrant would have become us - as we did.
[email protected]
[email protected]
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
