The shitstorm over shitholes …

Trump is reported to have called some places in the world "shitholes" in closed-door discussions on immigration.  

This created an another opportunity for manufactured outrage.  Now, like naughty little boys and girls, the media can’t get enough of saying shit in one form or another.

Shitholes. Shitstorms. Whatever.  

Did Trump say shitholes, or didn’t he? Did he use it to describe mostly African countries? And Haiti? And other places of non-whites? Is it proof that he’s (gasp) a racist? 

Hey folks. Get a grip. 

I’m pretty sure most of us know he said shitholes. Seriously, we all know that.

Now you can draw whatever conclusions you want about whether it was culturally insensitive, politically incorrect, or something else. It probably was. But the truth of the matter is we don’t need more immigrants from shithole countries. Or Haitians. 

It’s true as well there are a lot of shithole countries out there. They’re not all in Africa. 

Ever been to Jamaica?  Get outside the heavily guarded resorts and it’s a shithole.  Sorry, mon, but it is. So is much of Mexico, again once you leave the resorts. When you see large numbers of people living in shacks with hammered soda cans for a roof, and toting water for drinking in recycled gas cans, that’s a shithole. I’ve seen all that firsthand in Jamaica, in Mexico, in Belize, and elsewhere.    

Soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan will tell you those places are shitholes, too.  

I can’t speak for Africa. However, I strongly suspect there are many shithole countries there.  

Any country where most people are illiterate, have no access to clean water, much less toilets, or education, where pre-teen females are traded for goats, and where it’s an accepted belief that men can cure AIDs by having sex with a virgin, is likely a shithole.  

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are quite literally shitholes; ask anyone who has been to these. When people are crapping in the streets, that’s a shithole by definition  

Many countries in Central and South America qualify as shitholes as well.  After you get past the guards at your resort or cruise terminal, see how people in the countryside live. It’s typically in abject poverty under the constant threat of abuse by the police or army or criminal gangs.

I don’t blame the people who live in these shitholes. They don’t have much choice.  

And it’s no wonder they’d want to be someplace else. Like here.

Unfortunately, we can’t take them all. The Pope can say all he wants about our duty as Christians to welcome these people to our country but we have our own people to care for.  I’m sorry for the plight of the displaced Syrians, the Somalis, the Guatemalans, the El Salvadorians, the Mexicans, the Nigerians, the Sierra Leoneans, the Congolese, Haitians, and everyone else struggling to survive where they are and holding out hope for a better life here or in Europe.

The harsh reality is we don’t need them.  

We need immigrants, for sure, if for no other reason than our aging workforce and low birth rates among our legal citizens.  We’re in a looming demographic crisis, not as bad as Japan and many European countries, but in time just as serious. 

No one doubts that.

The real issue is which immigrants.  We don’t simply need more warm bodies to feed and support; we already have quite enough of those. We don’t need more illiterate immigrants with no discernable job skills applicable to our changing economy either. And we certainly don’t need to import people who hate our way of life, our culture, and have no intention of respecting our laws. 

Do they have to be white? Of course not.  Nor do they have to be Christians. They just need to have skills and functional mastery of English to contribute meaningfully to our country over time.  The key is not skin color or religion, or even country of origin, but attitude, desire to be a part of America, and the ability to bring something we need. 

Immigrating to America is a privilege, not a universal right. It must be earned by meeting objective standards for admission.

As cold as this sounds, there are plenty of other desirable people in the world – people with education and valuable skills – who want to come here and become citizens; we can afford to pick and choose who we want. We don’t have to open the floodgates and allow everybody in regardless of their ability to contribute, or allow those here illegally to stay, just because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or large agribusinesses want a perpetual source of cheap labor. Or because some politicians want that. 

It doesn’t mean we should only accept rich people with PhDs in quantum physics. However, we should require certain thresholds be met, much as Canada does.  (Far from a wide-open immigration free-for-all see https://www.canadavisa.com/canadian-immigration-requirements.html for reference.) We need to have a merit-based system in place, like Canada.

Now, in fairness, I don’t care if someone comes from a shithole country, or anyplace else for that matter, as long as they meet certain criteria. 

Simply having a pulse and the ability to fog a mirror isn’t enough. Or the desire to escape the crappy place where you now live. Frankly, if you are poor, have no education or skills except to reproduce, and have no ability to support yourself or your family without government assistance, we’re already full up on people like you. We don’t need more.  

And as far as increasing our “diversity,” that’s also a non-starter. Importing people who have nothing to offer just because they are from an obscure place that culturally and educationally might as well be another planet doesn’t make sense.  For a zoo, maybe; not for a country.  

You have to bring something valuable to us to get in. That’s what Trump is after. I suspect most American citizens would agree with that as well. 

No random drawing or quota system can insure that. 

And yes, there are shithole countries.

We don’t need to discriminate against them; nor do we need to favor them. We certainly don’t need to make sure we get a certain percentage of our immigrants from them.

Especially if they have nothing of value to offer us.