He is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as a pseudo-spiritual symbol for much of the cultural left, half of Hollywood, countless college posers, and of course, Lisa Simpson. And he is making a common sense observation that usually only comes from the right, and only to the resounding critical chorus of wails about racism or privilege or fear-mongering or some other typical leftist bludgeon.

The Dalai Lama this week had the temerity to suggest that maybe an unlimited flow of indefinitely housed refugees isn’t the greatest idea ever. *gasp*

Notice that his message is compassionate but still reasonable:

“When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has himself lived in exile for over half a century.

“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now,” he said, according to the German translation of the interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country,” he added with a laugh, the daily reported. “Germany is Germany.

What an obvious truth that is. It is simply factual to say that if the demographic makeup of an area is completely replaced by a different one, it is no longer the place that it previously was. This is forbidden talk if you are someone on the right, but it is absolutely not foreign to the left, though they’d loathe to admit it. It is the very essence of arguments against “gentrification” and colonialism.

Do the leftists not say that North America belonged to the tribes before the whites came? Do they not claim that the population replacement of white European conquest and expansion changed the native land to a new one? Of course they do. And the same argument is made today on the small scale against the invasion of white people into minority neighborhoods, on the grounds that it changes the cultural identity of the neighborhood or erases its history or character or heritage.

What the Dalai Lama says is no different. It is an obvious, practically mathematical argument to say that if you continue to import people from one country into another country, and that the people from the other country do not adapt to the new country but bring with them the ways and language and culture of their old country, that the new country will eventually become the new geographic location for what is in essence the other country. This is not a complicated idea, despite my ridiculous sentence.

But let’s back to the Dalai Lama:

“There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.”

The Dalai Lama added that “from a moral point of view too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily”.

“The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.”

Another heresy for leftists. Will President Obama claim the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism is afraid of women and children, as he says of Republicans who make the same observation? Remember that Obama called the Dalai Lama “a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion,” and said that he “inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings.”

I wonder how President Obama and friends will react to the Dalai Lama considering native Germans to be human beings? Or that he thinks refugees should go home at some point?

Yes, it is moral to expect and to help refugees to return to their homelands to rebuild them rather than abandon them. *gasp again*

The bottom line is you can be compassionate and want to help refugees, while simultaneously being vigilant and serious about security threats their numbers represent, and also while being concerned about the preservation of one’s own cultural heritage. You can be all three things. In fact, you can be all three things while being a Buddhist monk. And while being considered a worldwide symbol of modern tolerance and peace.

Imagine that.