Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A Question for Your Ethics Class

A luxury cruise liner is sinking in freezing cold North Atlantic waters in April.

There are about 2500 people on board. The nearest ship that could attempt a rescue is 150 nautical miles away and will take at least 3 hours to get there. A person can survive in the water about 6 minutes.

There are, say, a dozen lifeboats on board designed to carry, at maximum capacity - that's with the boat down to the gunwales - 75 bodies.

That means that at least 1600 people are going to die.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing for the people in one of the filled-to-capacity boats to beat off the frantic survivors with an oar, even killing them in the process, to keep the boat from foundering?

Please answer within five business years.


* ~ * ~ *

Britain's Population Could Soar to 90 Million

(given current levels of immigration.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tough one, that. Lemme go find a good Jesuit ...

Anyway, I think the analogy with immigration and Great Britain is way overdramatized. The reasons:

1. The prospective immigrants wanting to get into England have other options. They are not all going to die if turned away.

2. Even if they had ZERO options, allowing them into Great Britain does not mean that the inhabitants of England will all die.

3. Perhaps you mean that English Culture would die - or the White Race would die - if the immigrants are allowed in. I suppose that's a possibility, but not very likely. More likely is that English Culture and the White Race would be forced to change at faster pace than usual. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that English Culture and the White Race would disappear from the face of the earth forever. If these immigrants were truly desperate and without options (something I believe to be false), and dependent upon the English liferaft for their very survival, then English Culture and/or the White Race must simply take a back seat to saving their lives.

Anyway, I'm glad you like your new English home. I can't deny being a little envious.

Anonymous said...

According to MigrationWatchUK (linked in your sidebar):

"We entirely accept that genuine refugees should be welcomed, but nowadays those seeking asylum comprise only about 6% of foreign immigration into Britain."

So the England-as-liferaft metaphor doesn't seem to apply.

Anonymous said...

Supposing, however, that the England-as-liferaft metaphor were valid, I wrote:

"More likely is that English Culture and the White Race would be forced to change at faster pace than usual."

Actually it is likely that, even in the midst of rapid change, the categories themselves would survive in relative "purity", but they would shrink in relation to the whole.

Not being English myself, I don't have a real strong or coherent position on the English immigration problem. The obvious thing is that Muslim immigration should cease immediately, and the advance of Islam within Britain should be sharply curtailed and reversed. As for other immigrants I'd like to see England remain open to a much smaller number, while facilitating their Anglicization, so that Our Lady's Dowry may be reclaimed as such.

Mark S. Abeln said...

An alternative: preach the Gospel to the immigrants, and with the fervor of the Faith, they will go back to their home countries to convert the heathens there. Oh, but only after they make sure there first is a good Catholic monarch on the throne of England.

500 years from now, the 'Black English' descendants of these immigrants will be merely interesting genetic variants among many found on the Island.

For several years I've been toying with the idea of writing an open letter to Her Majesty the Queen, petitioning her to repudiate the actions of King Henry VIII, creating the Church of England, which has immeasurably harmed her realm, and instead to embrace Catholicism. Sometimes all that a nation needs is good leadership.

Anonymous said...

I read somewhere that the country that spends the most on refugees is (wait for it)----Denmark (!!!)

They buy things like tents, toilets, and water treatment equipment for use by refugees in refugee camps. And lots of it. However, they don't let any refugees into their country.

FWIW