I am a culturally conservative libertarian from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada and a long-time reader of VDARE.com. Even though I am a non-white "visible minority," I believe that massive non-traditional immigration, so-called 'diversity," and official policies of bilingualism and multiculturalism—both collectively and individually—are not sources of strength but causes of individual alienation, greater societal tensions and even outright violence.
As Nasim Nicholas Taleb and Gregory F. Treverton wrote in an article for the uber-establishment Council of Foreign Relations mouthpiece, Foreign Affairs: "...states that have well-defined boundaries separating various ethnic groups experience less violence than those that attempt to integrate them...people are better next-door neighbors than roommates" [The Calm Before The Storm: Why Volatility Signals Stability, and Vice Versa, January/February 2015].
In addition, unlike most other libertarians—who are supporters of "open borders"—I also believe that mass immigration and greater heterogeneity in the demographics of a country's population means less individual freedom and more government surveillance.
This belief of mine was further strengthened this past summer when I came across an interesting article in Foreign Policy magazine. It describes in detail how Singapore—over the last decade and a half—has implemented a mass surveillance program designed to not only protect the national security of the city-state but also maintain "harmony" between Singapore's three major ethnic groups—Chinese, Indians and Malays. [The Social Laboratory: Singapore is testing whether mass surveillance and big data can not only protect national security, but actually engineer a more harmonious society" by Shane Harris, FP, July 2014].
The Orwellian-sounding title of the article is frightening enough for those of us who believe in freedom of association and the idea that vexed social problems are best solved by individuals at the local level rather than through the heavy hand of an omniscient and omnipotent central government. It's clear that Singapore—while economically very prosperous—has not learned from the failed examples of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Its "Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Program," or RAHS, is the model for the U.S. National Security Agency's mass spying program—elements of which were revealed in classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013.
According to the article:
...many current and former U.S. officials have come to see Singapore as a model for how they'd build an intelligence apparatus if privacy laws and a long tradition of civil liberties weren't standing in the way...They are drawn not just to Singapore's embrace of mass surveillance but also to the country's curious mix of democracy and authoritarianism...As a libertarian who does value privacy and civil liberties, this is alarming, but what should also be alarming to readers of VDARE.com—even those who are national security hawks and view Snowden as traitor and not a patriot (as I do)—is that Singapore's mass surveillance program is designed to not only prevent a terrorist attack, but also to maintain its fragile multi-ethnic social fabric.
All Internet traffic is monitored and filtered, and thus anyone posting so-called "hate speech" and "inflammatory rhetoric" can expect a visit from the police. According to the authorities in Singapore: "The right to free speech does not extend to making remarks that incite racial and religious friction and conflict..."
Again, this type of talk is very frightening to a strong civil libertarian, like myself, who values freedom of speech no matter how controversial and contrarian to the mainstream consensus. What is also worrying is that the elites in the United States—and I'm guessing most other Western countries—seem to agree with the Singaporeans in their disregard for civil liberties and their belief in massive spying into the ideas and lives of private citizens in order to maintain "social harmony."
The article makes it very clear that, the more heterogenous the society, the more one expect less privacy and more snooping by the authorities in order to make sure that everyone gets along.
The fact that such coercion and intrusion is deemed necessary by the elites in order to keep a multiethnic and/or multiracial society from tearing itself apart illustrates the fact that "diversity" is not a strength but a weakness. Those libertarians who currently support the concept of an open-borders immigration policy need to realize that such a policy leads to greater demographic heterogeneity which, in turn, then leads to more government intervention and spying and less individual freedom.
In the end, is that really what they want?
See a previous letter from Deepinder Gill.
