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June 11, 2008

Immigration Restriction Linkage

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Randall Parker points out that immigration reduction has the side benefit of reducing overall population growth. (Link thanks to FvBlowhard.)

* Hibernia Girl dares anyone to call her a racist, and notices a study reporting that righties have more sex than lefties do.

Best,

Michael

posted by Michael at June 11, 2008

Comments

I believe some study or other has indicated that even blacks prefer white faces over black ones. Can't remember where I saw that, but it indicates something other than "racism" even in H Girl's sense of "preferring one's own" may be at work.

As for the charge of racism, it's now become so overused that I don't care if someone calls me a racist. I usually just mock-shudder the way McManus did in The Usual Suspects when one of the cops interrogating called him "f*cko".

"F*ucko? Brrrrrrr." "Racist [sexist, homophobe, nativist, global warming denier, right-winger]? Brrrrrrrrr."

Posted by: PatrickH on June 11, 2008 5:52 PM

I don't agree with much Sen. Obama has to say, but I wonder: Will the constant harping about racism begin to wane now that he's won the nomination? If he's elected, will all the weeping and wailing lessen?

I'd almost be willing to vote for him if that were the result.

The notion that political affiliation says something about our sex drive is one of the silliest themes I've ever encountered.

Politics isn't the solution to anything, and it certainly doesn't indicate whether people are compatible.

I try to pay as little attention to politics as possible. I don't worry (or care) about how many people live in this world. Such things are far beyond my purview.

From time to time I get excited and rant and rave, but most of the time... I just don't give a shit.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on June 11, 2008 7:47 PM

I've always found the hurled term "racist" funny, mainly because anytime someone tried to hurl it at me, it wouldn't stick.
"Racist against blacks you say? Well, going back my paternal line, I have a mulatto great-great-great grandmother of Cape Verdean extraction!"
"Racist against Micronesians you say? (Long story there) Well, my maternal great grandmother was Chamorro!"
Ears, smoke, all that jazz. It's fun being so mixed-race you make Tiger Woods look positively vanilla. Gives a certain perspective to the whole debate.

In any case there was a comment on Hibernia Girl that struck me from the fact that she did not address it at all, namely the case of the second generation Japanese-Americans who for the most part (with exceptions) were whole-heartedly pro-American despite the fact they did not really have much reason to be so.

The idea that folks have the ability to choose what cultural values are more appealing to them in a true free-market of values (as opposed to the restricted market of today) seems to be, well, an unconsidered notion.

If you're black, by your very nature you're going to buy into every single one of the cultural values you're born into, even if you're a smartie, ain't no difference if you're a doltish thug like Fifty Cent or Barack Obama.

What the multiculters and their loyal (and loud on the anonymous medium of the internet) opposition have in common is the idea of race as destiny. Ngube the reasonably smart and motivated young man from Lagos can't move to Dublin and say "Shit, you know, I may be born Nigerian, but hell, I love Guiness and Seamus Heany way better than the shithole I got out of, so hey, Erin Go Braugh!" The multiculters say that if Ngube does decide that the land of Joyce is for him rather than an ethnic ghetto of Little Lagos, well he's a traitor to his culture rather than a man smart enough to make a value and aesthetic choice of his own. The "extended ethnic family" deny that he can even make that choice in an honest fashion at all.

The root of both is romantic (inter)nationalism, if pulled in different directions. Now I'm all for romantic nationalism, it's as ingrained into the human psyche as religion, and yes, race is. Romantic nationalism is what gives national (and more exactly, regional) pride and color.

Granted, in some places it's more connected to ethnicity than other places. The USA and France believes (believed?) that its national values were universal and transmittable, but in some ways many nations have some plurality and conscious choosing to them (in the case of Ireland; DeValera anyone?). While we're no longer naive enough to think that it will triumph over the tribal minds both near and abroad, it is perhaps within reason that such ideas are capable of being transmitted to those who have the ability and freedom of making a choice in such a manner without the current set of bad actors around.

I suppose I'm making a case for choice and individualism. It's no use pretending masses of unskilled bitter immigrants can become patriotic citizens in a short generational time, but it's also rather disturbing to say otherwise that people of difference ethnicities and outward appearances cannot make the choice of culture and affiliation if so offered it.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 11, 2008 9:14 PM

Numbers, Spike. Numbers. Let in very large numbers very quickly, and making choices in the way you described is much less likely to happen. Numbers is the key variable. Keep 'em low, end chain migration, and immigration ceases to be a big problem because it ceases to be big.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 11, 2008 10:03 PM

PatrickH:

Well, yeah, I said that, though I think that my point stands. Both sides of the debate deny one large aspect which made immigration less damaging in the past, namely that they deny that assimilation is either possible or desirable.

Of course part of it is that you want immigrants who are willing and able to make that choice, and right now we're not really looking for either of that.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 12, 2008 1:53 AM

Since the catalyst for this particular round of immigration discussion came from a heated string of comments on Hibernia Girl's blog let's start here; is it reasonable in a discussion of the relation between immigration and prejudice to bring up the massive exodus of mostly poor and uneducated folks who poured out of Ireland and flooded into slums in places like New York and Boston during the years of the potato famine? What about whether the reaction they provoked from American nativists at the time was justified or bigoted? When we think of an "Australian" do we picture a strapping lad like Mel Gibson slapping some shrimp on the barbie or do we visualize a dark skinned, nappy haired fella on walkabout? Was flooding a sparsely populated continent with convicts and the poor a terrible thing or justified because the aboriginals weren't properly exploiting their homeland's resources? When we read about Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe evicting white farmers do we think "that's an appalling racist horror" or do we applaud his courageous attempt to roll back the unchecked immigration in the past of people who do not share the race or culture of that country's native population? What point in time do we pick to say your (and our) place on the planet must be determined by wherever our ancestors resided at that point in time? Do we allow exceptions, say Jews whose ancestors may have resided for a few hundred years in Eastern Europe ... or Pittsburg ... are allowed to move to Israel based on a biblically recorded right, or not? Should those moved against their will be treated differently than those who choose to move freely? If we consider forced migration as being different do we only count slave trading and those fleeing ethnic cleansing or do we also consider those moving to escape poverty, war and famine? Which borders and distances are pertinent to the discussion and which are not? In what ways are a move of 200 or so miles from Santa Ana in Mexico to Tucson in Arizona different than a move of a couple of thousand miles from Buffalo, NY to Seattle, WA? Are the cultural differences between a small Amish town in Pennsylvania and Atlanta, Georgia greater than the differences between Nogales and El Paso or not? Does that mean we should restrict people's movement between Lancaster County and Georgia?

My comment is all a series of questions. I expect that rather than actually answering any of them many who comment here will instead argue with me based on some caricature notion of what these questions imply about my views.

Posted by: Chris White on June 12, 2008 8:40 AM

Righties may "do it" more, but Lefties are far more imaginative and passionate with a certain finesse not found in our mainstream counterparts.

What? Which "handed" am I?

Left, of course ;-)

Posted by: Cowtown Pattie on June 12, 2008 10:19 AM

Is it reasonable in a discussion of the relation between immigration and prejudice to bring up the…poor and uneducated…out of Ireland …?

Why not? One of my great-great-greats was a hard-core little Irish bastard who survived the worst of the disease ships off Grosse Isle. It mattered not a whit to him what prejudice he faced. He was too ornery, drunken, combative and tough to care about anyone pointing out to him that the Irish were ornery, drunken, combative and tough. If he’d noticed, he would have beaten the crap out them and then gotten sloshed at a tavern.

What about whether the reaction they provoked from American nativists at the time was justified or bigoted?

It was justified. It was also bigoted. The question about today’s immigration is whether its level and origins are in the interest of the people of America. Why would you assume that a reaction can’t be both justified and negative?

When we think of an "Australian" do we picture…Mel Gibson or…a dark skinned, nappy haired fella on walkabout?

Mel Gibson, of course. Or maybe Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee. That’s as much a cliché as “nappy headed…”. Aborigines are drunken, despairing, semi-literate women- and child-beaters and rapists. They are tragic figures, bent over and reamed but good by history. And?

Was flooding a sparsely populated continent with convicts and the poor…justified…?

In any case, the question of “justification” is irrelevant. It’s happened. Deal. The question today is, is immigration of the level and type flooding into America in the interests of its citizens? What’s with all this moralizing, justificationizing flapdoodle, Chris?

When we read about Mugabe…evicting white farmers do we think "…appalling racist horror" or do we applaud…[the] roll back [of] unchecked immigration…?

Neither. You keep setting up these bizarre moralizing dichotomies. Mugabe’s eviction of the farmers isn’t racist, it’s self-serving. It’s also an appalling horror. The white immigration into Rhodesia was the best thing that ever happened to the blacks there. The overthrow of the white government was the worst. It has to do with the intelligence and level of civilization of the respective populations in question. And?

What…time do we…say your (and our) place on the planet must be determined by wherever our ancestors resided at that point in time?

Today sounds pretty good to me.

Do we allow exceptions, say Jews whose ancestors may have resided for a few hundred years in Eastern Europe ... or Pittsburg[h] ... allowed to move to Israel based on a biblically recorded right…?

We allow people to immigrate if they are assets to this country. We refuse them if they’re not. Simple. Again, what’s with the ethico-historico-philosophicalizationing?

Should those moved against their will be treated differently than those who…move freely?

Treated differently? We let people in if it’s in our interest to do so. It’s of no importance whatsoever how they ended up where they are now.

If…forced migration…different, do we…count slave trading…those fleeing ethnic cleansing…or…also…those moving to escape poverty, war and famine?

See above. Interest. Of America. Its citizens. Immigration policy is not refugee policy, nor should it be.

Which borders and distances are pertinent to the discussion and which are not?

The American border. And who gets to cross it. What other border would, could, should be of any interest whatsoever to America’s people?

In what ways are a move…from Santa Ana…to Tucson…different than a move…from Buffalo…to Seattle?

In-migration from Mexico brings in low-quality immigrants. Their presence leads to a decline in the quality of life of American citizens. American citizens moving from Buffalo to Seattle? Maybe not so much.

Are the cultural differences between…Amish…and Atlanta…greater than…between Nogales and El Paso?

Amish people living their lives doesn’t lead to a decline in quality of the lives of American citizens. The Amish don’t commit a lot of crime, they don’t demand government services in Amisholese, and don’t join with blacks in gorging at the ethnic spoils system that has disfigured American society and politics for 40 years now. No lobbying groups called Das Volk as far as I know.

Does that mean we should restrict people's movement between Lancaster County and Georgia?

No. Unless they’re immigrants. In which case they should be intercepted during their movement, detained as briefly as possible, and then deported. Is that a restriction?

Chris, what was the point of these questions?

Posted by: PatrickH on June 12, 2008 12:23 PM

Chris White:

If I may be glib, I would say at least that I would be quite happy if immigration from the mainland states to Hawaii was restricted. There's only so much land and apartments and I say it belongs to those who actually have roots here going back at least one generation.

Besides, cultural values and all that jazz.

Though to be less glib, you do raise some good points, though I figure you know and I know what the vast majority of people's answers will be to those questions. Double standards can be fun. However, I do think the point that needlessly and thoughtlessly destroying cultural institutions for the sake of... well, I can't really figure out what it's for the sake of other than higher corporate profits... well, it just isn't a good thing. Ain't good for the people already there and it ain't good for the immigrants.

If I may step back and take a big picture look, it's simply high time that the USA go into one of it's more isolationist modes right now. We need to clean house for awhile and wash the dirty laundry. It won't last forever, and hell, to the ever-lasting dismay of some folks (at least until they croak, who bitches about the Irish anymore?), some of the descendants of the recent waves of the poor and huddled masses are going to be around one way or another.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 12, 2008 3:22 PM

Well, I can't much improve on Patrick H.'s response. Wonder if my agreement correlates with sharing some of the same "hard-core little Irish bastard" genetic stock. Christ, you'd think after letting us in the Old Stock Americans would have learned their lesson.

It's really quite simple, Chris. There's not an acre of land on this earth that hasn't seen some tribe shove off another tribe and take possession, and for most of those acres it's probably happened a thousand times over since the rise of genus Homo. All said and done, land belongs to groups that have the means and the will to keep it. Lacking these, they will lose it. The only people on earth who sit around engaged in hare-brained vaporing about some alleged moral imperative to dissolve their own existing nations are a subset of whites belonging to one or more of the following classes: naïve, stupid, greedy, evil. Other people laugh at them and mark them down under that "lacking these, they will lose it" category. Mene, mene, etc.

Some groups, having made themselves secure in their conquests, get down to setting up civilization, some of which offer more attractive ways of living than other groups, even other civilized groups. Until these cultures reach the stage of being corrupt, twittering, emasculated shells of their former selves, they take prudent measures to preserve their polity.

In what ways are a move of 200 or so miles from Santa Ana in Mexico to Tucson in Arizona different than a move of a couple of thousand miles from Buffalo, NY to Seattle, WA? Are the cultural differences between a small Amish town in Pennsylvania and Atlanta, Georgia greater than the differences between Nogales and El Paso or not?

Dear God, there are cultural continuities between the American Southwest and Mexico? Atlanta is a different flavor of city than El Paso? MY GOD OPEN THE BORDER NOW!!!

Throughout my youth, I wandered and lived in places in every region of this country, all with their distinct flavors. In those days, in every place, even on Indian reservations, which are, technically, separate sovereign nations, I never felt anything but this is part of my home, and these are my countrymen. The use of foreign languages in small towns, or the babel of languages on the streets of great cities, was an enchantment, not an annoyance or a threat, because people took the common language for granted, nobody was having pissy-fits at being expected to master it, the center held. But this was in the last days before immigration policy set by a coalition of the corrupt, the rapacious, and the oblivious began to take its toll. So long, e pluribus unum. Thanks, assholes. You were saying, Chris?

I expect that rather than actually answering any of them many who comment here will instead argue with me based on some caricature notion of what these questions imply about my views.

Chris, trust me. I have no desire to infer anything about the mental states of a man who thinks this parade of banalities is going to rock my world, and constitutes some pristine exposure to certain facts of history on my part.

Posted by: Moira Breen on June 12, 2008 6:00 PM

What Moira said. Wow.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 12, 2008 7:38 PM

Chuck Berry, David Hidalgo, Michael Doucet, Hank Williams, Tiger Woods, Woody Allen, Anthony Quinn, Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Frank Sinatra ...

This is but the barest hint at an enormous list of individuals that I believe have enriched American culture and whom I consider first as artists (or athletes), then as Americans. I tend to sort them by musical genre or film style rather than ethnicity or ancestry, except in contexts like this thread where ethnicity and ancestry are the heart of the topic. All of the individuals above descend from immigrants (or were themselves immigrants) from ethnicities or cultures deemed undesirable upon their arrival by many native born Americans.

Am I concerned about the rate of immigration? Yes.

Do I support tightening immigration policy? Yes.

Do I want to leave it to the likes of Moira and PatrickH to determine that policy based on their notions of which immigrants are likely to be "assets to this country" and which ones are not? No, thank you very much, I want to be part of the discussion, too.

As in every other time this topic has come up any deviation from the position of, essentially, 'Close the borders, round up everyone brown who has an accent or speaks no English with less than an advanced degree and throw them and their kids the hell outta here!' provokes venomous scorn.

Limiting immigration to Hawaii from the mainland? I understand its appeal. I bet there are folks in Alaska and Montana who feel the same way.

Posted by: Chris White on June 12, 2008 9:34 PM

Of course part of it is that you want immigrants who are willing and able to make that choice, and right now we're not really looking for either of that.

Is there a shortage of patriotic white Americans?

Posted by: Nobody on June 12, 2008 10:39 PM

Chris White:

Knowing some Alaskans, I don't doubt it. The feeling of regional pride and uniqueness is strong in us fairly remote parts of the nation. We don't want to melt into the undifferentiated mush of the modern American mass-media culture anymore than some of the folks here want the USA just to be some vague notion in deculturated globalized world. We like our completely inpenetrable accents!

Nobody:
Gee, I dunno really. Is there a shortage of white dudes who completely and utterly misconstrue arguments to follow the demented logic of their own idee fixees? Educate this confused brown man as to why his ancestry means his patriotism is of lesser worth than yours. I'll try not to break out into a spontaneous hula as you do so, as my kind are wont to do.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 13, 2008 2:06 AM

Hey, Chris, would you not be able to buy Santana CDs if they were made in Mexico?

You're right; we are a bit angry. Historically, it has been a common reaction to having your country invaded. And what is wrong with throwing people out if they are not suppose to be here? Mexico is not Rwanda. Judging by the illegal immigrants in my city, they seem quite proud of Mexico. I'm sure they -- maybe not you -- might be able to understand some of us wanting to keep our language and our culture and our laws intact. We don't see that happening on the present course.

By the way, I don't care for Santana, but i have enjoyed some of Woody Allen's movies. So, should i let in 500,000 for that or 5 million or what. I'm not sure how this works?
s

Posted by: s on June 13, 2008 2:12 AM

"Gee, I dunno really. Is there a shortage of white dudes who completely and utterly misconstrue arguments to follow the demented logic of their own idee fixees? Educate this confused brown man as to why his ancestry means his patriotism is of lesser worth than yours. I'll try not to break out into a spontaneous hula as you do so, as my kind are wont to do."

You have suplied the answer, but you probably didn't realize it.

"If I may be glib, I would say at least that I would be quite happy if immigration from the mainland states to Hawaii was restricted. There's only so much land and apartments and I say it belongs to those who actually have roots here going back at least one generation."

Posted by: Anon on June 13, 2008 10:44 AM

Yes, I could buy Santana recordings if he lived and worked in Mexico, just as I buy and enjoy Maria Kalaniemi, Clannad, Heddningarna, and the Tuva Throat Singers. As both product and aesthetic/cultural influences these have entered and influenced my culture, too.

The yin yang of the issue is the balance between celebrating and maintaining one's ethnic and cultural family heritage while assimilating into the larger culture. In one sense every culture on the planet is struggling to exist and maintain its purity while simultaneously seeking to enter and benefit from the global, high tech, culture.

I still feel the way Moira did once, "I never felt anything but this is part of my home, and these are my countrymen. The use of foreign languages in small towns, or the babel of languages on the streets of great cities, was an enchantment, not an annoyance or a threat ..." There will always be a sub-groups in any immigrant population that fail to assimilate. Sometimes they are merely sad and lost figures, old men on park benches muttering and reading foreign language newspapers. Sometimes they're the Mafia or a gang sending funds to the IRA. It is a policing problem, but not an insurmountable existential one.

"... what is wrong with throwing people out if they are not suppose to be here?"

What's wrong is that this has become the rallying cry for conflicts that get labeled 'ethnic cleansing' springing up all over the planet. Which (no surprise here) leads to refugees and other folks trying to emigrate to somewhere else before their simmering neighborhood becomes the NEXT target for ethnic cleansing. In short, the more places that are 'throwing out folks who don't belong' the more folks will be immigrants somewhere else.

Goods, services and capital flow freely across most borders. English has become the predominant shared language around the globe. Our culture ... in the big national sense of American Culture ... is well on its way to blanketing the globe. Our culture ... in the small town New England or Midwest micro-culture sense of Yankee fishermen or Norwegian bachelor farmers ... has already been altered dramatically and there's no why back, only forward.

The best thing for each of us to do is support and participate in our own local cultures, not get caught up in scapegoating or attacking others.

Posted by: Chris White on June 13, 2008 12:20 PM

Do I want to leave it to the likes of Moira and PatrickH to determine that policy based on their notions of which immigrants are likely to be "assets to this country" and which ones are not.

Why would you want immigrants who aren't "assets to the country" to enter at all? It doesn't matter for purposes of this discussion what I think being an "asset" means. It's that your bizarre fabulating quasi-scholastic questions about forced movement, historical-this-here, cultural-distance-that-over-there, simply misses the point: America's immigration policy must first and foremost be compatible with and supportive of the interests of its citizens. You never mentioned that in any of your questions. It's your entire approach--its moralizing, its hypothetical-mongering, its historical picking-and-choosing, that is utterly irrelevant to the ONE CENTRAL QUESTION: what immigration policy is in the interests of the citizens of this country? There's plenty of room for disagreement in the answers to that question, but the question itself needs to be asked--it needs to be the question asked first and asked the most--and not be obscured by a vaporous mass of irrelevant, pettifogging, hair-splitting rhetorical blah-blah.

Australian aborigines? The Amish? The 'fuh?

Posted by: PatrickH on June 13, 2008 12:20 PM

What immigration policy is in the interests of the citizens of this country?

I don't have a complete answer and as far as I can see neither does anyone else here. There seems to be large consensus that the total number coming in each year is too high. Exactly how many is too many? What should the cut off number be? I'm not really sure, are you?

Do we stop taking in any immigrants at all for a few years? Is 'a few' two years or ten? If I said I thought a one year moratorium made sense to me, I suspect you could argue me out of it entirely but doubt yuo could convince me to have it much longer than that.

In the near term I think a "cost benefit analysis" - including cultural and other difficult to quantify costs - leads me closer to amnesty rather than mass deportation as the better way of dealing with most of the undocumented workers (note that "workers") and their families already among us. It is far easier to assimilate if you're not constantly afraid of being sent back to a village in Oxaca you last saw as a five year old in 1983. You can also be a better guest worker if you're actually a guest rather than a party crasher.

Should undocumented gang thugs be given amnesty? Absolutely not. I have no doubt that many here have a very different take and think we should have a massive round up effort and deport as many as possible. I think that would do far greater harm to our country than a lenient amnesty program.

While there are controversies here, and I'm sure some of the more extreme righties, lefties and libertarians would get excited about this, I think we're moving toward a time where we should have some type of secure I.D. (passports?) for everyone. If you needed to have and show a US passport (or a foreign passport with the proper visas showing you can work in the US) for major transactions (e.g. getting a job or opening a bank account) we could crack down on employers who hire undocumented labor.

In the meantime, let's eliminate some of the "sub-contractor" loopholes that shield the companies who benefit from and even help drive those economic forces that lead to undocumented workers in the first place. Seeing a few H.R. managers and C.F.O.s doing the same perp-walk with the undocumented work force they've been glad to employ might alter everyone's perceptions a bit.

How's that for a "vaporous mass of irrelevant, pettifogging, hair-splitting rhetorical blah-blah"?

Posted by: Chris White on June 13, 2008 5:04 PM

Anon:

Oh courageous Anon, sallying forth to deliver a broadside against me of my own words, if only he had the mind to figure out what I was saying in the first place with those words!

To begin with, if the "if I may be glib", didn't tip you off that I was being a bit tongue in cheek, I don't know what to say about the reading comprehension abilities of native speakers of the English language. While a nice notion, I know full well it could never be done, nor even if it should be done. You see, I don't confuse my own emotional instincts towards my home with rational conclusions on what should be done.

Secondly, what does "white" or anything else have to do with who has roots and patriotism? I no more want a flood of Polynesians or Micronesians than California suburbanite refugees to Hawaii. The scions of New England missionary stock, the descendants of Japanese plantation workers, and the humble Hawaiian all have a place in my book as someone with roots in Hawaii by my account.

If we look at the wider history of America, at no point in it's history has it been a "white" nation of completely English cultural mores. At the time of independence, around 15% of the population was black. In 1803, the Lousiana Purchase, did the acquisition of Creoles and Acadians sully the nation? Then we move to the 1840s, where America acquires the Western states, and what do you know, we acquire non-whites with that as well!

I'm getting sidetracked.
In any case, what I'm saying is that the notion that mass immigration is no good shouldn't be conflated with race. One million Swedes or Irish suddenly disembarking in New York is as disruptive as one million Taiwanese or Ghanians, if you're speaking in terms of trying to preserve the quintessence of what's good in American culture. If you think that a first gen Swede off the boat is more apt to take to and contribute to American culture than Creole jazz trumpetist from N'Orleans or a Navajo WWII vet from Sedona, then you, my friend, are not talking about preserving American culture or values, or immigration at all, really. It's simply all about your own racial bugaboos and historical revisionism.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 13, 2008 5:09 PM

How's that for a "vaporous mass of irrelevant, pettifogging, hair-splitting rhetorical blah-blah"?

Why, Chris, it fails miserably to be any of those things. The questions you raise in your comment above are valid, important, critical questions. It is possible, indeed likely, that honourable people will have very different answers to how to interpret the issues you raised, and have different opinions on some of the solutions you proposed.

I asked what the point of your earlier questions was. I still think those questions were pointless. Your above questions, if I may paraphrase Buffy the Vampire Slayer, are pointy, very pointy indeed.

Good to see you back, Chris. :-)

Posted by: PatrickH on June 13, 2008 7:12 PM

One million Swedes or Irish suddenly disembarking in New York is as disruptive as one million Taiwanese or Ghanians, if you're speaking in terms of trying to preserve the quintessence of what's good in American culture.

The Swedish or Irish immigrants' grand-daughters will be nice to look at in my old age, and their grandsons will be suitable mates for my future granddaughters.

Not so with Taiwanese or Ghanians.

Posted by: PA on June 13, 2008 8:48 PM

The Swedish or Irish immigrants' grand-daughters will be nice to look at in my old age, and their grandsons will be suitable mates for my future granddaughters.

Not so with Taiwanese or Ghanians.

...And that has exactly zero to do with immigration or assimilation and more do to with your own personal issues.

In my case I'd just be happy if my granddaughter was happy and with a decent guy who loved and supported her, no matter if he were white, black or blue, from China, or just from Kalamazoo. But hey, I was raised with the notion you should unconditionally love your family members when it came to such matters.

Posted by: Spike Gomes on June 14, 2008 2:48 AM

Chuck Berry, David Hidalgo, Michael Doucet, Hank Williams, Tiger Woods, Woody Allen, Anthony Quinn, Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Frank Sinatra

...

Really? People immigrated here? And have descendants? People didn't like the newcomers? Wow, I never knew that. Thanks, Chris, this vital new information completely rearranges my views. I see now that they differed from yours in large degree because I lack your aesthetic refinement. I have no ability to appreciate art not produced by Anglo-Saxons. Based on the startling facts that you have revealed here, I can now see that any and all objection to current immigration policy is rooted in cultural philistinism.

...

What's wrong is that this has become the rallying cry for conflicts that get labeled 'ethnic cleansing' springing up all over the planet.

...etc.

Oh wait. I forgot. Immigration discussion with Chris White. Zero to fevered slandering hysteria and Pilobolus-grade moral posturing in 60 seconds flat.

I have (obviously) little objection to verbally abusive, insulting, sneering, snarking comments, and rather relish the taking and the giving thereof, a good time being had by all. But I do have my quirky little standards of civility, which require courteous attention and response to the interlocutors's actual content, and not to whatever, ahem, "caricature notion... of what these questions imply" that I've pulled out of my ass after downloading these unmediated paranoid neuronal flickerings directly from the murkier reaches of my reptile brain. If I were going to respond in this inimitable Chris White style, I could, I dunno, be shrieking about your complicity in driving down wages and working conditions to pitiable Third World standards, and your obvious approval of the abuse and exploitation of powerless workers. Or how about, with at least as much justice, rationality, and good will as you're displaying here, heatedly accusing you of viciously promoting policies that result in the ethnic cleansing of white and black Americans by Hispanics? Wouldn't that be fun? No, not really. It would just be asinine.

Your last comment is indeed pointy goodness, as Patrick says. Agree completely with hacking at the root of corruption and hanging the real perps. I'm stewing mad here in Iowa, where there was a Potemkin-raid recently you may have read about. A big show was made of kicking around some hapless, mostly Guatemalan, shat-upon workers, while the dirtbag owners of AgriProcessors apparently are allowed to mince about playing "well, I never! Goodness who knew these people were illegal!" There's some buzz about "oh, the feds are just carefully constructing a case against them, just you wait!", but...yeah, right. They were (are) reportedly paying these people $5-7/hr for some of the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous jobs around - and of course, safety standards have been flushed down the toilet since meatpackers decide they were entitled to serf labor. They can't afford to pay decent wages or benefits or provide the working conditions that used to go with those jobs, but somehow they've got millions to spare for lobbying Congress. It's a puzzlement. Of course, the people who really need to swing are much further up the food chain in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Well that explains a lot. Yer one of them there fruity globo-sexuals.

P.S. I think your concept of "countryman" may be so elastic as to be meaningless. Not having yet mastered English is not a disqualifier. But people who consider it a violation of their civil rights to be expected to use the national language in the public square, or consider it an "insult to their culture" to have their children instructed in the foundational history of this country, or who demand all the benefits of citizenship while stating straighforwardly that their loyalties are not to the United States, are not my countrymen, nor do they consider themselves as such. (And since I've come across some of those types among intelligent, highly productive people with advanced degrees, I don't consider those qualities in themselves sufficient for citizenship.)

P.P.S. The U.S. and other countries have been granting what amount to rolling amnesties of one form or the other for several decades now, and all evidence points to their doing nothing but exacerbating the problem they were meant to bring under control. I would be happy to be referred to examples of amnesty programs that worked.

The problem I see is that any possible concrete measure that is taken to deal seriously with the problem, that might cause any hardship to anyone (illegals, businesses, bobos who think they're entitled to cheap nannies), in any possible way, is decried as "unfair", "draconian", "police state", etc.. Those who admit there is a problem, and say they want to solve the problem, but insist that the solution must be painless, are saying, "I give up". Which I think is even less defensible a position than a serious deportation policy.

Numbers and concentration, and the existence of a confident host culture willing to make demands of newcomers, are key to assimilation. Letting millions of foreigners colonize across a contiguous national boundary, and then pandering to them, is (or rather, more accurately, was) a first-class ticket to balkanization.

Posted by: Moira Breen on June 14, 2008 12:45 PM