Nimby

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Just reading of how Egypt is putting homosexuals in jail, and of course Palestine has it in for Jews, and China has many categories of un-persons. Some would contend that our unwillingness to grant citizen status to anyone who invites herself and her kin hither is a bigot, which puts me in the category of a gay Catholic-bashing bigot with an inclination to bomb Mecca as a means of forestalling the next 9-11. But let us think of gentler futures. How about everyone sealing all borders? No international tourism. No Olympics. Let each country solve its own problems. There would have to be a period of transition while trade imbalances were smoothed out, but it would mean the US and Europe would simply have to find alternative sources of energy. Unsustainable population levels would be reduced as they were in the days of the Aztecs and the pharoahs: die-backs. That will be happening soon enough anyhow. It might not happen but what an interesting utopian novel. There must be many versions already written that simply avoid spelling out the exclusionary side of the idea. LeGuin and many SmallWorlders, if that's the word.

(Original Post) (http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/187046.html)