Hey, UK — How About An Exchange Program?

It appears the British are fleeing their country in droves, to the tune of 4,000 per week. Considering that the U.K. is not (yet) a third world country whose people are oppressed by a dictatorship (yet), why would these young lads and lasses want to move far away from the land of Shakespeare?

And many cite their reason for wanting to quit as immigration to these shores – and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away.

Interesting. So the Brits are voting with their feet as to how they feel about the government and its policies… of immigration, of education, of housing prices, policing, and high taxes.

Seems to me that what we need is to set up an exchange program with our elder sister nation. I’ve got a deal for both the U.K. and the U.S.

For every Brit who wishes to come to the U.S., we should send an American liberal to the U.K.

I mean, I’ve been hearing for years from my liberal friends and colleagues how the Brits “get it” while we cowboy Americans don’t. Their socialized medical system is something that American Left would very much like to bring here. Their socialized education system is yet another thing that American liberals admire about Great Britain, and of course, their sensitive, multi-cultural immigration program embracing all and sundry is something we racist whiteneck Americans are told to embrace with respect to our southern neighbor. Plus, the UK apparently has culture, and plays, and opera, and West End and whatever, while all we’ve got here is NASCAR and”football” that isn’t played anywhere else in the world.

So it would seem to me that the U.K. is the epitome of the modern American liberal policies come to life. What’s stopping them, I wonder?

I think a government sponsored exchange program would be a win-win for everyone. For the Brit who yearns for some freedom and opportunity, he would get to come to America and live here. For the American who yearns for a more collectivist society of culture and nuance, he would get to go to Great Britain and live there. As much as they hate Bush, and can’t stand to have a leader who is “so stupid”, they can celebrate the well-spoken Gordon Brown and others like him as their national leader. For the UK, they would get more folks who are believers in their socialist system; for the U.S., we’d get more folks who believe in a more robust form of capitalism.

Let’s make it happen.

-TS

Update:  Hey, we can extend this to France as well, apparently.