Shanti, who's always got something interesting to say, recently posted this article about Resident Non-Indians vs. Non-Resident Indians that'll give you an interesting perspective on how people in and from India view the immigration issue.

The first thing to notice is that the "immigration issue" for India is not "how do we deal with all these strangers who want to come live here?" Instead, it's the opposite: "How do we deal with all these kids who keep leaving, then coming home with these strange new ideas and attitudes?"

It's interesting that this is happening often enough that it's a serious political issue, isn't it?

As I read the article about it, I notice certain patterns. To whit:

* - Those who cling to hearth and home vs. the adventurers
* - The Authoritarians vs. the Free Marketeers
* - The East vs. the West
* - The Conservative vs. the Liberal

Now here's an observation for you: these dynamics have probably always existed between nativists and emigrants, throughout all of human history. But today the emigrants can communicate with the folks back home, or even travel back and forth between Old World and New, orders of magnitude more quickly. As such, it's probably orders of magnitude more breathtaking (both exciting and threatening) to the folks back home.