Cass Sunstein: prediction

Transcript context

…Some of my friends on the right think that Islamic immigration is a major threat to European freedoms, and that is the result of a fairly liberal immigration policy. Do you agree, disagree? I don’t agree. I do think that whether immigration is, broadly speaking, an excellent thing or a risk is something that it’s reasonable to have divergent views about. Some liberals are very open to immigration. That tends to be the liberal tendency, but some people who believe in freedom and in the rule of law and in pluralism worry that excessive immigration can start undermining those things, partly because it might make pluralism not self-sustaining. Some liberals worry partly because it might mean there are illiberal forces in society. Partly it might mean that people are just really mad at each other, and that’s ultimately going to undermine freedom. I think the risk of being concerned about certain kinds of immigration is that it’s inflected by, let’s say, forces of hostility and stereotyping, and that liberals aren’t excited about those forces. But say some of the stereotypes are true. There is a lot of cousin marriage in England, for instance. Sharia law can mean different things, but to some extent, that’s in England as well. There’re anecdotes about rape, which seems to be somewhat widespread within Pakistani, Muslim, Bangladeshi communities. Those individuals seem to exercise some power through the vote, influencing Labour on Middle Eastern policy. Aren’t those real worries?…

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