More are questioning British immigration policy, defying the predictable reactions;
Given the scale of new arrivals here and the extent to which they are changing our society, the quality of debate over the desirability of this upheaval is miserable. And we all know why.Those who favour open borders have in effect gagged opponents by accusing them of "racism". You don't have to be against welcoming newcomers to be smeared as a Nazi sympathiser. You just have to argue that it's an important matter, with some serious downsides, that deserves proper analysis.
On that basis, I'm sure that this column will be met with abuse from the pro-immigration lobby. I'll be branded as a closet racist for reflecting the concerns of millions of decent Britons who are worried about what's happening to their country.
Cowed by human-rights campaigners, refugee groups and duplicitous politicians (mainly Labour and Lib Dem), seeking electoral advantage by demonising rivals who propose controlled immigration, we have created a monstrous democratic deficit.
In December 2004, just as the wave of arrivals from eastern Europe was becoming too big to ignore, a survey for the Economist revealed that nearly three quarters of British people believed that too many immigrants were coming here. The Government refused to listen; it didn't want to know.
Labour encouraged, in some cases by stealth, one of the most impactful challenges to British life without asking anyone for permission or approval. Unrestricted immigration did not feature in any of Tony Blair's election manifestos.
We simply got it - whether we liked it or not. Since Labour came to power 10 years ago, British citizenship has been granted to one million foreign nationals. More than 150,000 were given a passport in 2006, four times the number who were awarded the privilege in 1997. The rate of overseas settlement in Britain is running at its highest ever.
The Brits are too liberal, they won't have the guts or the courage to do anything about the problem.
But the silver lining to the cloud, if there is one, is that we could learn from their mistakes.
Black American Shelby Steele has written about this phenomenon. He attributes this to "white guilt." Branding someone a "racist" is about the worst thing you can say about someone. It's known as "playing the race card." No individual or institution wants to be called racist. Race hustlers and other charlatans know this. To be called a racist ends the argument. As not to seem racist, the target of the epithet backs down. This happens over and over.
Another aspect of white guilt is that some whites think their own society deserves the predations of other racial or ethnic groups because of their own actions in the past, usually connected to imperialism, the slave trade, and the like. In other words, having your country wrecked and plundered by foreigners is considered a just punishment, atonement for the sins of our fathers, or grandfathers, or great-great-great grandfathers.
Some think that Europeans are rolling over and not defending their societies and culture due to guilt over the bloody world wars, genocides and imperialism.
This mind-set is best described as political correctness. This can be seen everywhere. While no one can say how this will all play out, it certainly has a good chance of accomplishing the destruction of western civilization.
There are two areas of concern about what seems to be a global redistribution of the population.
The first is the massive emigration out of the 'third world' into the 'first world'. Rather than focusing on developing their own societies by the introduction of democracy, industrial economies and a middle class - the third world is exporting its people to the 'first world'. It does this in two modes.
The first is to export the educated, the rational, the dissenters - who flee from militant persecution. [Africa, pre-democratic East Europe etc.]
This leaves these third world countries with a population base of the uneducated, living in sustenance peasant economies, and dead-end tribal mentalities each viciously fighting the other.
This chaotic, disorganized and incompetent citizenry enables the dev't of military dictatorships, whose dictators scream relentlessly to the developed world for money. The money goes into the pockets of the dictator and his oligarchy.
Then, we have another tactic of third world dictators, which is to fob off their illiterate and uneducated to the industrial developed countries. Mexico, Northern Africa, the Middle East. This means that the dictators don't have to develop an educational, medical or employment infrastructure for these people. Mexico, for example, fobs off its peasantry to the USA and these people send billions back to their families. Mexico is the winner in this - for its remaining peasant level is funded by their relatives in the US - and Mexico doesn't have to develop any economy, any jobs, any education and medical services for 12 million people in the US. Neat.
The same thing has happened in Europe, where the peasant class, rather than being allowed and encouraged to move into an industrial mode (as they are doing in China) - are fobbed off onto Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc - where they live in multicultural ghettoes, unable and unwilling to assimilate.
The second problem - besides the complete refusal of the third world to educate and employ this peasant class, and enable them to move out of such a mode, into the industrial middle class - is the concept of multiculturalism. Absolutely disastrous.
Multiculturalism is the tactic of the receiving country, the country to which these people are immigrating. It too, in its own way, is a refusal to allow these people to move into an industrial middle class. It, in its perverted way, defines them as forever 'different' (the nice semantic term for 'different' and 'not acceptable' is 'diversity').
It defines them by, as I've said many times, their origin - ethnic, religious, linguistic origin. The individual is locked into this 'set' and both the set and the exterior world, refuse to allow them to leave. It's like putting them in cages in a zoo, where they prowl back and forth until they escape; but by then, they are demented.
The third world must stop exporting its unwanted and move into democratic industrialism. The developed world must end multiculturalism and insist that the third world receives NO money until and unless it changes its infrastructure.
hmmmm - "could learn" is probably right. However, to few are paying attention. Those who are simply are continuing the program of extreme political correctness based on far to many unreasonable accommodations as regards the Immigration/Refugee/Citizenship/Justice files.
The National Post (Fri) has an interesting article re the young Kahdr. Not in quotations - is a statement that Canadian opinion makers are increasingly seeing him as a victim.
The MSM should really get out more to be in touch with what a high proportion of Canadians really think rather than operate from their tunneled vision of what they believe Canadians should think (the left/far left ideology, of course).
Unfortunately, the MSM collectively is a huge opinion maker but their output is far from balanced.
Interesting will be the provincial by-election results in Klein's old riding next Tues. The conservative candidate is door knocking with Jim Dinning - the defeated contender in the leadership race and who represents to many people a pink-come-red Tory influence. Behind the scenes, the Tories are making a huge effort to retain this riding.
You guys seem really threatened by all of this immigration stuff - as if the "purity" of your society is at stake. Am I right?
Here's something interesting - check out the video. I wonder how many of SDA's readers agree with the sentiment in this.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N5T7coUJFNo
I'd hate to break it to you...but if you agree with that you ARE racist.
"Those who favour open borders have in effect gagged opponents by accusing them of "racism".
BINGO!!
The universal PC slur to shut down debate and create fear in dissenters.
The "Global village" cartel pumping the centrally engineered anthill society has been successful up to a point by engaging socially engineered "speech crimes" to mask deconstrutionist TP policies...essentially the TP agenda is the destruction of the sovereign nation-state by creating a borderless world with a homogenized politically indoctrinated culture...Multicult/diversity is the red herring, loss of national/individual sovereignty is the result...the rise of "group" sovereignty instead of "individual" sovereignty the goal.
The stigmatizing smear of "racist" is the weapon to close the policy dialogue and to prevent closer scrutiny. Together the unaccountable labeling of dissent as "racist" and abuse of hate law liabilities create the pall of fear that keep objective immigration study at bay.
Transnational dystopians have their bases covered.
But the cracks in the invincibility of politically correct tyranny on free speech and public discourse are showing.
The recent defeat of the US immigration bill to naturalize illegals is a sign the people have had enough....and no ammount of racist braying by 5th columnists will deter people who are directly impacted by dangerous immigration policy from doing something to stem it.
The much vilified, and totally unheeded, Enoch Powell must be laughing in his grave.
Politically correct activist: the post-modern answer to the hanging judge.
Make sense?
ET naive as usual. The 3d world does not have to stop exporting its people - they simply can't as they have no say on the matter. It's the 1st world's duty to stop accepting unacceptable.
Throbin; You asked a question so I'll respond. FYI I agree 100% with Bill O'Reilly and your opinion concerns me not in the least.
Throbin; You asked a question so I'll respond. FYI I agree 100% with Bill O'Reilly and your opinion concerns me not in the least.
Aaron, might I suggest that it's you who are naive. Whether this naivete is 'usual' with you - I've no idea.
The third world can most certainly stop exporting its population. My point was, and remains, that the third world is not passive in this action, but extremely active.
If it is the educated, analytic and dissenting population who are fleeing because the regime has moved into dictatorship - then, the regime, as such, should be publicly exposed as totalitarian and rejected by such august bodies as the UN; all funding should stop until the regime moves out of totalitarianism and into democracy.
If it is the uneducated peasant class who are fleeing because the regime refuses to enable them to move out of peasantry, and provide education, services, and jobs - then, the regime must be publicly and loudly exposed for its tactic and the developed nations must refuse to accept these people and also, must insist that the third world country look after its own citizens.
Throbbin; You have just proved the point that Jeff Randall's column mentioned. If these were thousands of Canadians crossing the border illegally would it be racist in your view? Let's not try to hang the guilt on those who have valid concerns about immigration.
BTW, you haven't brought out the Nazi reference yet. You must be slipping.
ET, it is your idealistic notion that the 3d world dissenters and peasants are organized and obeying the secret agenda of their governments. This is not so.
Who's going to implement your proposed plan of the cosmic scale and cosmic silliness? There is no such thing as UN enforcement. UN only has a plywood facade, but no contents, they most certainly won't be able to contain China, India, Iran, SA, Somalia you name them.
Get real.
Don't be silly, aaron. People aren't 'ordered' by their dysfunctional gov'ts to emigrate. If there are no jobs, no services and no future - they'll emigrate any way they can. And if their gov't actively murders, imprisons and censors the dissenters - they'll leave. That's how the gov't 'gets' them to do that.
The UN won't do anything because it, at the moment, is run by the third world countries. The industrial countries have to stand up and refuse to be part of this. Europe is already starting to 'see the light'; and yesterday's US Senate rejection of their amnesty bill is a powerful indicator of the same.
Another problem with the third world countries is the massive amount of foreign "aid" that developed countries have thrown at them to assuage left-wing politically correct guilt.
This “aid” amounts to many billions, if not hundred of billions, of dollars; with virtually NO economic growth or improvement. It has been correctly said, by a third world economist whose name I don’t recall, that foreign aid takes money from middle class first world people and gives it to the elite class in undeveloped countries. In other words, working stiffs in developed countries give money to thugs and dictators in undeveloped countries; and the ruling classes in both feel good about themselves.
And if you don't approve of this wealth transfer you are, of course, racist, an EVIIIL RACIST!
ET: Don't get mad, you can't win every argument. Your latest post says exactly what I said, just in different words.
But you are suggesting that the murderous dictators should stop being murderous dictators. That's very unlikely to happen.
Can you propose something realistically implementable to counter my proposal not to accept the immigrants we don't need?
ET and Aaron, I think you're both correct. In my very humble opinion it's all the fault of the Brits.
They colonized a lot of these countries and introduced democracy, rule of law etc. and gave them an opportunity to see what a then-modern functional democracy would be like. They then pulled out too soon and gave the whole thing back to people that were literally centuries behind Western civilization, leaving a power vacuum that was filled by perverted dictators and communists. Amin and Mugabe come to mind.
right, terrance - that massive amount of 'aid' has to stop because it doesn't help the populations; it goes right into the pockets of the third world dictators.
And aaron, that's what I meant - that it's not simply up to the developed nations to refuse to accept these immigrants. They have to insist that any 'aid' that is given to the third world can only be given to a democratic country. And the UN has to be brought into this ideology, or openly and strongly described as assisting in the maintenance of third world poverty.
If world opinion can be captured by the latest 'Fund The Third World' scam, Kyotoism, then, world opinion can be captured by exposing that the funds don't go towards the peoples of the Third World but towards the dictators.
Public opinion isn't necessarily only on the side of cults and scams; it can be on the side of the truth.
UN does not need to be brought into anything.
There should be no aid at all - aid and welfare is the same thing. I am refusing to pay taxes that will be given to the 3d world.
I think ET's right: one of the big problems here is that the educated are leaving. In some countries, almost all the doctors they graduate emigrate. How do you then staff your health care system?
You can't, however, just stop people from wanting to emigrate except by refusing immigration altogether, but the fact is that those nations are not going to improve until the educated class actually stays, rather than flees. That's one of the keys to the whole thing. When the people have to make their country better, because they truly have no alternative, things are more likely to get better (though that doesn't always work, as North Korea shows you).
Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be a lot we here in Canada can do about that. The whole thing is just sad.
Who cares if all doctors left Somalia? Not me. I don't give a rat ass.
I am a software developer from Russia - do you think that there is shortage of software developers in Russia after so many left? I don't know and don't care - not my problem.
Western civilization has solved its problems a few hundred years ago and established an efficient society that promoted free enterprise. The 3d world dictatorships don't seem to be able to grasp the concept - too bad! I don't feel any moral obligation to support their retarded existence, specially with the taxes that the socialists in the government want to extort from me to share with them.
Oh, how I understand Ed Brown!
sheila is spot on...the majority of new doctors that my wife works with(she is a RN at KGH) are recent arrivals from 3rd world countries, some barely able to speak english....we are stealing away one of the 3rd world's vital resources, because years of mismanaged socialized medicine have given us the shortage of doctors that we have...once again the moonbats have accomplished the opposite of what they portend to do....moonbat/dipper/librano idiots!
Those Brits got what they asked for when they decided their accursed little island wasn't big enough for them and tried to invade the rest of the world. Greed got them where they are today. So good for them.
The working class over there are the biggest bunch of whiners ever. They're just like the lower middle class here in Canada who think they have it hard. Give me a break. Suck it up folks, or go out, get educated and get a better job, it's not the immigrants taking your jobs it's very likely your own ineptitude.
Those Brits got what they asked for when they decided their accursed little island wasn't big enough for them and tried to invade the rest of the world. Greed got them where they are today. So good for them.
The working class over there are the biggest bunch of whiners ever. They're just like the lower middle class here in Canada who think they have it hard. Give me a break. Suck it up folks, or go out, get educated and get a better job, it's not the immigrants taking your jobs it's very likely your own ineptitude.
The best way to make your home better is to keep it clean, orderly and free of unwanted guests!
They want to call me a racist? Let them right ahead!
And as soon as everyone who does so actually takes their own ass off to the third world and does some actual work to clean up the messes of those cultures. As soon as they also figure out a way do all the good work they want done without me being the one to foot the bill. As soon as they all figure out a way to live their guilt free egalitarian lives without causing problems for me.
Well then maybe I'll give a crap about what they say!
In the mean time .... I'm just trying to keep my house clean!
OMMAG, you are hitting the nail on the head.
ratfuc - I presume you are joking. I hope you are. So, it's all the fault of the British, who introduced democracy?!
Kindly remember that the British were not the only colonizers - and colonized countries included N. America. Remember France - and the majority of dysfunctional ex-colonies are French. Remember Spain - and the Dutch and Belgian.
Please, I hope no-one gets into the 'blame the colonizers' trap'; colonization from Europe was absolutely inevitable, given the enormous population increases in Europe. It has nothing to do with greed or rapacious longing-to-dominate.
Shall we consider the data?
In 2006, Canada accepted 254,400 immigrants, while Britain accepted ~150,000 immigrants. Canada's population is 33.4 million while Britain's is 60.8 million. That makes Canada's immigration rate about 3 times larger.
Oh, to be in Britain! (with apologies to the Derb).
If you speak to the people of Kashmere, you might be unpleasantly surprised by their utmost hatred towards England. They are convinced, that England drained the region and destroyed its wool industry to eliminate competition with English wool producers. Hard to argue that.
It would be helpful to decouple the idea of culture from race. Although it is not easily done, it will be key to the issue under discussion. It is my general experience that while there are some racists around, there are not too many. However, there are, in fact, few true multiculturalists among the political rightists.
If one were to define multiculturalism as accepting new cuisine, fashions, festivals, names, music, and the like, then few would be opposed to multiculturalism. However, there is much more to it. It is possible for people of non-Western races and nationalities to adopt much of the thought processes of Western thinking; many have already done so. In addition, it is also possible for those who have a Western genealogical heritage to reject much of Western traditional thinking; many leftists have already done so. Therefore the key is not race but the way one thinks that is the big issue.
Decoupling race from multiculturalism - and being able to communicate that message - will be key before things can be changed.
The Islamic Republic of Britain.
Funny... Let me put it this way.
Who goes to an Indian restaurant? The white and Indian.
Who goes to a Thai restaurant? The whites and Thai.
Who goes to a Chinese restaurant? The whites and Chinese.
Why don't Indians go to a Thai restaurant or vice versa? Because they are self sufficient and don't want any other cultures.
The white people (which I use as a collective term including all races who identify themselves as Canadians) should give up an idea that THEY can create multicultural society.
By the way, there's no such thing as 'races'. We are all ONE species - homo sapiens. There are different variations of this one species. Cognitively and biologically - we are one.
Culturally, we've developed different societal infrastructures. The key phrase is 'we've developed'. We've done it; our beliefs and behaviour aren't genetic; we created them; we can change them.
Therefore, we can create a stable society with a shared set of basic beliefs and behaviours from diverse ethnic, religious and linguistic origins. This requires that we reject attempting to maintain the 'purity' of the 'original' ethnic, religious and linguistic identities and, together, develop a shared set. It can be done. But, ideologies such as multiculturalism reject the attempt.
And, practices carried out by the 'developing nations' to prevent the emergence of democratic gov't, industrialism, and a middle class - also contribute to this splintering of the population.
There was an interesting post yesterday at Gates of Vienna , titled Freedom is Slavery .(http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/06/freedom-is-slavery.html ) , part of it is a list ;
THE TEN ANTITHESIS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
1 . Materialism is not about matter , but about suppressing ideas .
2 . Communism is not about common wealth , but about depriving people of any personal possessions .
3 . Socialism is not about society , but about depriving people of the means of production .
4 . Human rights are not personal rights , but collective obligations .
5 . Tolerance is not about mutual respect , but about the prohibition of opinions .
6 . Multiculturalism is not about cultures , but about the repudiation of nationhood .
7 . Energy policy is not about the distribution of energy , but about cutting off energy supplies .
8 . Health care is not about health , but about control of our consumption .
9 . Family planning is not about families , but about abortions .
10. Self-loathing is not about repentance , but about depriving others of their moral foundation .
Ok, I have to go after ET on this. There are most certainly races amongst humans. Blacks, caucasoid, chinese are all races. All a race requires is sufficient reproductive isolation to maintain a predominant phenotypic variable. Races are not genotypically isolated biologically. The fact that we have not taxonomically described subspecies for humans is ethno-cultural not biolological. Living humans are only one nominate species/subspecies by choice, not biology.
...ummm, when does the phrase "you reap what you sow" come into play here?
We always hear and read about immigrants doing the jobs that in this discussion Americans wont do. This is a lie that is propagated and supported by big business because they want cheap labour with no benefits being paid. It is not that Americans wont do the jobs, its that they don't pay a living wage to do them. A lot of these jobs are dirty and extremely dangerous as these companies don't care about their workers, there are lots more running across the border every day.
An excellent book called Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser discusses how Chicago used to be beef capitol of the US where the butchering of beef was done. Butchers had a highly skilled and good paying job that provided great quality meat to the nation. Then companies like Tyson Foods began to move this industry to Iowa and other areas and hired cheap migrants to do the butchering. They would butcher 10 times the beef of the former slaughter houses at a fraction of the labour costs. Of course the downside was the lose of the quality of the former butchers leading to E Coli and other problems. Remember when the cook asked how you liked your burger done?
Politicians are involved as these large companies give payoffs to keep the cheap labour flowing.
Mark Steyn said the same thing as ET. Mexico had a choice, build the infrastructure to provide jobs for their people or encourage them to move north and send the money home. They took the easy short term choice but will pay for it in the long run.
Aaron says “Who cares if all doctors left Somalia? Not me. I don't give a rat ass.
I am a software developer from Russia …. I don't know and don't care - not my problem.”
I have experienced this attitude from other “educated” Russians now living in Canada – colleagues, people with whom my work regularly brings be into contact. I have had debates with them, ranging from the analytical to the passionate, arguing that their incredibly selfish attitude is personally and socially destructive.
I failed.
Every time.
And it still hurts.
Aaron – please, care.
I would have cared if my former government policies had not killed my wife and son.
Interesting that in this article they say that 150,000 foreign nationals were granted passports in 2006, and 1 million new citizens in 10 years.
Well, Canada is vastly outperforming this (250K annually) and into a much smaller population!
We are more doomed than the British. The only thing saving our butts is that Asian (meaning Chinese, Vietnamese) has been the dominant fraction of our intake, and they seem to be much better imports into the country than Muslims and Africans. They truly are just trying to find a better life for themselves and their families.
I guess the white-guilt leftie crowd would call me a selective racist... I have no issue with some, but I do with others.
Or,maybe, actually, rather than judging people by their race, I am judging them by their behaviour and apparent nature.
The “race thing” is a can of worms, but in the interest of feeding the endangered songbirds, let me comment:
ET – I agree that
“[w]e are all ONE species - homo sapiens. There are different variations of this one species. Cognitively and biologically - we are one.”
And, yes, “[c]ulturally, we've developed different societal infrastructures.”
However, your statement that
“[w]e've done it; our beliefs and behaviour aren't genetic; we created them; we can change them.”,
while true, does not specifically address any putative biological (or other) component of “race”. You assert what you are attempting to prove. Taking race and subspecies as synonyms, as Skip does, is certainly viable, although it also fails to solve the problem. I also suspect that his definition of subspecies/ race as “sufficient reproductive isolation to maintain a predominant phenotypic variable” is a hotly contested one.
However, I do agree that what matters is the culture, and in such matters I am very discriminative. Show me a culture superior to my own, and I shall embrace it.
Interesting to see what information will come out in the Census next year regarding the impact of all this immigration on our society. I predict people will be stunned by how our population is changing. I predict we will be most unhappy about the percent of our population that is Islamic, and their increasing influence on our politics, policies, and national character.
Europeans' flight from Europe
By Paul Belie (editor of Brussels Journal)
June 6, 2007
Last paragraph (Gulp!)
While the fertility rate in France is 1.9 children per woman, two out of every five newborns in France are children of Arab or African immigrants. In Germany (fertility rate 1.37) 35 percent of all newborns have a non-German background. Paradoxically, fertility rates in Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc., are lower than among immigrants from these countries in Europe. "A woman in Tunisia has on average 1.7 children. In France she has six because the French government pays her to have them," Mr. Heinsohn explains. "Of course, the money was never intended to benefit Tunisian women in particular, but French women will not touch this money, whereas the Tunisian women are only too happy to... For Danish and German women the welfare benefits are too low to be attractive. Not so for the immigrants.
So, what we see in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands are immigrant women who take low-paid jobs which they supplement with public benefits. It is not a fantastic income but sufficient for them," he said.
Europe's welfare system is causing a perverse process of population replacement. If the Europeans want to save their culture, they will have to slay the welfare state.
Sadly, Paul Belien says lots of interesting things, and the European experience is very telling, but no one in Canada seems to be paying attention except a small number of us conservative bloggers.
I try to talk about this to family or friends and their eyes glaze over and they nodd and change the topic. Even the ones who vote Conservative.
skip - I disagree; 'blacks,caucasoid and chinese are not races'. The physical attributes are external, are mutable and irrelevant to the fact that cognitive and conceptual capacities are the same. We are one species. [By the way, the phenotype flexibility and differences within any one of these so-called 'races' is extremely large - eg, compare a Nilotic body typology to a so-called pygmy].
As for a 'culture superior to my own' (tenebris), with regard to large populations in the millions, in an industrial economy - the only political culture possible is democracy.
david hand - I disagree; your supposition is that the mexican labour is required because Americans won't do the work, because American corporations are bad guys. Too binary, too simplistic. Ever heard of unions and what the unions have done to the American laborer? Sent his jobs overseas or to illegal labour - that's what.
ET, the company that I was a director of Payroll and HRIS for had over 50 unions across Canada so I am well aware of the destructiveness of their give me more for less policies. In my experience people in private unions followed the 80/20 rule. 80% would give you a good days work while 20% wouldn't but you couldn't get rid of them very easily. This 20% also seemed to aline with the union management to undermine company productivity.
Because of labour costs ,ie. GM's pension and health care which is crippling the company, companies are moving more and more into part time or contract workers. If you have an endless supply of illegal workers willing to work for any wage, usually cash, how can the home grown worker compete as he/she has expenses like medical costs, housing and taxes?
Non-union skilled labour here in Toronto have difficulty getting decent paying jobs as illegal non-skilled labour undercut their rates.
Canada should end its open immigration policy NOW. Also its muulticultural policy. Canadians have lost their vision and projecting ability and most importantly, their courage by not strongly advocating for the above.
Canada should end its open immigration policy NOW. Also its muulticultural policy. Canadians have lost their vision and projecting ability and most importantly, their courage by not strongly advocating for the above.
ET, with respect, nuts :). Speciation is relevant as to genotypic transfer only. Within mammals, a "race" and a "subspecies" are for all intents and purposes interchangeable, so long as the dominant phenotype is sustainable in reproductive isolation. Cognitive and conceptual capacities are irrelevant, except in the rare case where they can define a persistent phenotyic variation that is sustainable in (reproductive) isolation (None come to mind...). Pleiomorphism is not an argument against racial distinction, all races and subs demonstrate a degree of pleiomorphic variation, but within the race, the dominant phenotype remains distinct.
Certainly we are one species- we are not biologically reproductively isolated. But then no race, variant or subspecies is, although they must, of course, remain physically or culturally isolated in order to maintain their defining phenotype. Remove the reproductive isolation and the racial distinction will eventually disappear. A fairly high degree of pleiomorphism will remain however - that's our evolutionary endowment. Had we not capitalized on our ability to migrate, we teetered on the brink of incipient speciation.