What We Can Learn From The Burning Of Paris

Rob- There is a big difference between America and France on this front. We are a nation of immigrants. Since our first days, America has brought together vastly different cultures (compare the Virginians to citizens of New York or Massachusetts, or mix-in the French from New Orleans with the Amish of Western Pennsylvania). America has always been made stronger by this mix of cultures. It has broadened our perspective, brought us new skills, and allowed us to grow and compete in the world more powerfully.

We deal with it better, too. We allow the children of immigrants, born on American soil, to become Americans. Within one generation (just a few years for many of the families coming since they are young and just starting to have kids), we show opportunity to them. We give them an education, including American history, English, and cultural norms (including the importance of tolerance in a democratic land of immigrants). In short, we don't create islands that stay islands. We bring people into American culture, helping them learn about the best we have as we capitalize on what they bring.

You sound afraid of the change, Rob. Our nation has evolved powerfully in the last two hundred years. If we embrace those who want to come here, give their children ciitizenship, an education, and their whole family hope by doing that, we avoid the situation France has.

We're better at it, frankly, than the French. And better for it, too.

Mike, you seem to be confusing my opposition to illegal immigration with opposition to immigraiton in general. That's not true. I strongly support immigration and feel, like you, that it is a positive thing for our country. In fact, I'll go a step further and say that it is a neccessary thing for this country. One of the partial solutions to the illegal immigration I routinely advocate for is a simplification of our legal immigration process. If its easier for people to get in legally there's less of a chance that they'll do it illegally.

But I think you're wrong about our current situation. We are not giving these people citizenship, they are coming here and continuing to live as they did in Mexico without assimilating. And we're helping them by requiring that school teachers learn Spanish and tying to give them drivers licenses even though they are not legal citizens.

If these people come here, Mike, they must come here to be Americans. And if they want to be Americans they most become that throught he proper channels.

I'll let Teddy Roosevelt, himself a President that faced a massive influx of illegal immigrants, sum it up for me. First from a 1915 speech before the Knights of Columbus:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation of all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

Second, from a 1907 speech as President:

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the manÂ’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an AmericanÂ…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isnÂ’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostileÂ…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English languageÂ…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Rob: very well put. There is a big difference between different classes of immigrants. As you know, I'm as pro-immigration as anyone, being that my wife is a legal immigrant. It's a massive affront to me when people immigrate illegally, an even bigger affront when Presidents want to amnesty them.

There already are visas for agricultural workers and other sorts of workers. There already are visas for foreign businessmen. We don't need another fancy name for yet another amnesty for illegals. The immigration and visa process certainly could stand some reform, but the guest worker program isn't it.

The issue is not immigration. It is who and where they come from and whether we want them at all. Many immigrants come in (legally and illegally) everyday from places all over the world other than Mexico. Any comments on that fact? It just seems to be when we let the "tired, hungry and poor" get past our great guardian of patriotism and liberty does some of the unhealthy reality of the world find its ways to our shores. And it isn't helped at all when our leader is blindly tied to NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAA ideas that are destroying what economic dignity THOSE PEOPLE have in their home nations.

Allan

PS -- Any of you commentators lawyers, just in case my NSL comes Monday?

Yes, I have a comment on the fact that many immigrants arrive every day: the ones who arrive legally are welcome, the ones who arrive illegally are not.

My wife is a legal immigrant, and it bothers me a lot that this, or any President, would toy with anything even remotely like an amnesty for illegals. It's an affront to my wife and me personally (and many others like us), a denigration of our laws, and a threat to our security.

You talk about free trade like it is a quatifiably and across the boad bad thing. Care to explain how? The whole "economic and cultural imperialism" bit is a tired old trope. Here's a fact for you: people want American culture and free trade helps the poor. It's not coming from the barrel of a gun.

Seth, the legal immigrants are all on welfare, California had to scrap its ag worker program because the workers were so excessively abused. Do you think this huge wave of illegal workers are not abused?
Mike, the children of illegal immigrant children attend shcool and provide teachers and administrators with jobs, they are taught nothing. . . and are now competing for jobs with the huge new wave of illegal immigrants.
How can someone who cannot read in Spanish or
English assilimate. Prisons are the newest groth industry. I do agree with Mike. Europe sold its sole for cheap labor. No one talks about it but Europe is now percentagewise a muslim continent.