Can we move beyond our cultural self-loathing?

Bookworm writes,

About one-fifth of all crime committed in Japan is done by the elderly. Most of it is petty theft and shoplifting.

As crime rates among the elderly rise, prisons have effectively turned into nursing homes. Guards are made to bathe the inmates and help them get dressed, and experts say living conditions are too good to keep recidivism rates down.

Normally, younger relatives would take care of the inmates once they’re released. But in some cases the costs (and loneliness) are simply too much to bear in a troubled economy, and seniors look to prison as the better alternative.

It’s not just that the Japanese have stopped having children. Lots of economically advanced nations cut back on making babies. The difference with Japan is that they’ve entirely stopped having sex. Japan is becoming a simulacrum of a country, rather than a real country. So far, Japan has resisting Europe’s decision to invite in Muslims from Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa in order to make up for a serious demographic slump. At some point, though, the Japanese are going to have to do something.

Americans are holding level, but just barely. Our demographic slump can easily be cured by allowing more legal immigration from Latin America. I would do so, though, only if we have moved beyond our cultural self-loathing. Immigration works when the immigrants assimilate in their new country. It does not work when they don’t. And it’s a bloody freaking disaster, as we see in Europe, when the immigrants insist that their new country assimilate to them.

Read more here.