Intel Bill Missing Key Recommendations of 9/11 Commission (Sensenbrenner: 'worse than current law')

You make very valid points. However, I disagree with you on the causes of several of the problems you mention.

Diversity itself isn't bad. It's the liberal, force their version of diversity down our throats, approach that is bad.

Integrating diverse cultures into our own can make us a stronger nation. Telling us we can't criticize other cultures and basically teaching people that it's alright to be racist if you're a minority. The PC attitude that those in the majority should be ashamed for even questioning if those in the minority cause any of the problems they face through their own actions isn't diversity.

The concept of diversity has been hijacked and skewed to fit the needs of those who want to oppress and control minorities through hate.

"People think this is about racism, but it's about culture. Culture is all that matters, but those who claim that America is an unlimited reservoir of culture that can absorb any number of immigrants and imbue each of them with the essential elements of that which is "American" are naive. So naive that it's tragic. Why are our cities liberal today? A good deal of it comes from the immigrants who live there, and the ideas they have encouraged in each other."

It's not just the immigrants in our cities that are liberal. It's that in cities people lose the concept of being self sufficient. They expect the government to provide all kinds of services.

They see problems around them, and instead of trying to do something about it themselves, they think the government should do something about it.

In a rural area, if you see a neighbor how needs an hand you don't complain that the government needs a program to give them a hand, you just give them a hand.

"The immigrants of the 19th century wanted to assimilate as fast as they could. They were closer to us in many cultural aspects. To the extent that they fell into ghettos, they had their difficulties. But they came in waves of several types of immigrants and never found whole states shifting toward their own particular cultural peccadilloes. As northern Europeans they had much more in common with the original American colonists. Furthermore, they wanted to meet or exceed the standards the original founders had set, and they did."

Those immigrants didn't so much want to assimilate, and they had a common desire to make their lives better. They had pride in what they were doing and were proud of their the country they were forming.

There was still plenty of prejudice, and they did tend to settle in areas with immigrants who came from the same area.

My parents grew up in rural farmland in Illinois. You would have had a hard time finding anyone in the area at that time who wasn't a decedent of German Catholic immigrants.

The town was built around the Church, and it's a truly beautiful Church, which shows how important their religion was to that small farming community.

When I visited my grandparents and other relatives there while growing up, you didn't see anything resembling diversity.

Was there prejudice there, definitely. There were a lot of good old boy jokes about black people, Pollocks, and such. However, there really wasn't intentional malice involved. They were making fun of people they had never met and were blind to the harm such joking can do to society.

The subject came up with one of my cousins not so long ago. He's seen a bit more of the country since he was growing up, and he's pretty much ashamed of the kind of things he said. He didn't mean any harm by them then, but he definitely understands how wrong it was to say those things.

What's different about immigrants today? There is a cultural difference, but it's not just with the immigrants.

The immigrants in the 19th century came here with strong family structures and Christian morals. Without family or God, there's little to hold society together when it falls upon rough times.

Add to that a lack of patriotism, and we're a Country with very little direction.

"Sure, of course. But what about compatibility? What about a true desire to become an English speaking, red-blooded American? You can find that among many immigrants today, hailing from Africa to the Philippines. But what hope do we have of maintaining the base of our culture when we're aborting our own children and feeding the dearth we've caused with foreigners? I'll tell you, it's almost hopeless."

The problem isn't just with the immigrants. Not requiring people to learn English is a real issues, but in order for immigrants to want to become red-blooded Americans, they need some good examples in America.

The mainstream media treats patriotism like a disease.
They disdain God and strong family structures.
Our society is being destroyed from within, not from the immigrants coming from the outside.

Diversity itself isn't bad.

We agree on most things except that. We have no proof that diversity in and of itself is positive. It's just a theory put forth to justify the laboratory experiments forced on us by the elites.

Diversity past a very nominal point is something to manage. Look at our crime rates among minorities (soon, very soon to be the majority). If you ask a Hillary Clinton or a Al Sharpton why the crime, they'll say prejudice. I think I know better.

Diversity is destroying America, and it's been our officially stated policy since the mid 1950s. Sort of like bussing for immigration. We can't sustain anymore. America will cease to exist if it continues.

"Diversity past a very nominal point is something to manage. Look at our crime rates among minorities (soon, very soon to be the majority). If you ask a Hillary Clinton or a Al Sharpton why the crime, they'll say prejudice. I think I know better."

Look at crime rates among the poor. I think you'll see a stronger correlation to poverty than to race where crime is concerned.

Why is poverty so high among minorities? My opinion is that the greatest factor is culteral issues. I think you may agree with me on that one.

The Hillary Clintons and Al Sharptons of the world don't want to acknowledge that. The exert power and influence over minorities by claiming that it's prejudice that is holding minorities back.

There are real cases where prejudice is holding people back, however that's not the biggest factor. It seems to me that the prejudices of the minorities are holding them back as much if not more than the prejudices of others.

Many minorities appear to be jaded against getting education and taking responsibility for making their own lives better.

That is a cultural issue. Here's why I think it's a different issue than immigration through a guest worker program. People wanting to come to America as guest workers by definition are taking it upon themselves to try and work to make their lives better.

We do need to stop letting people sneak into our country and live off of our government programs. Those people poison our culture and drain our resources. They need to go, and the sooner the better.

I've been to Mexico twice. Once you get away from the tourist traps you find all kinds of people. However, I found that if our treat them with respect you will overwhelmingly receive respect in return.

There are a lot of good, hard working people in Mexico just like anywhere else. I think a guest worker program is a good way of encouraging the good ones to come and discouraging the bad ones.

Language is still an issue. One way of solving that is to require a level of English competency to qualify for the guest worker program. I wouldn't require much more than being able to get your point across in English, and I wouldn't require it at the start of the program.

Bush's plan allows for those already in the US to apply for the program from within the US at the start of the program. Future applicants must apply from outside the country. Place the requirement on those applying outside the US, and the requirement gets phased in.

I would not allow people in that don't speak English and require them to learn after getting here. That's asking for a mess.

We have the right and obligation to be somewhat picky about who we allow to enter under the guest worker program. I think that minimal competency in English is an important requirement. I don't know if there's enough votes in Congress to include that in immigration reform, but I think it's important.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON 12/08/04

DOBBS: This debate over what is effectively assimilation in this country is the at center of our Face Off tonight. Joining me from Dallas, syndicated columnist with the Dallas Morning News, Ruben Navarrette. He says Latinos are making strides in assimilating into this country.

Victor David Hanson disagrees, saying we're allowing immigrant groups to vulcanize and to separate from our mainstream population. He is a senior fellow from the Hoover Organization, joining us tonight from Palo Alto, California. ~snip~

DOBBS: The cultural right. Victor Davis Hanson, is that you?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SR. FELLOW HOOVER INSTITUTION: I don't know. That's kind of a buzz word. But the problem is we've never had in the United States 13 million, 10 to 13 million people here illegally. Nor have we had a situation where the host has lost confidence in the powers of assimilation so that we have people who go to school and learn in two languages.

People always -- immigrants spoke their native language for a while. But because of the sheer number of people, we're having a constant pull now of first and second generation people who simply don't speak English.

By any historical marker we know what happens in places like Iraq with Shi'ites and Kurds and Sunnis, or in Rwanda or the Balkans. Anytime a person owes their allegiance to a particular language or language or tribe rather than as a nation as a whole, you start to unravel these very precious, historic bonds that keep us together. We're a nation, not cultures, but of different races that have one common culture. We're really the only successful multiracial society in the history of civilization. ~snip~

DOBBS: Victor, this issue is boiling up, as I said to Ruben, this cultural right stuff, I think personally, is nonsense. I think the cultural left is also nonsense. I think what we have, if I may say, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and yours as well, Ruben, we have a bunch of people with a vested interest in this subject that are distorting the reality for all of us who are not directly involved in that first or second generation of immigration into this country whether legal or illegal.

And by that, I mean, we have unions that are trying to bring in cheap labor to be exploited, frankly. We have corporate America who want to bring in cheap labor to be exploited. Both are benefiting.

And we're not even beginning to control our borders, let alone our schools or the cultural institutions, including church's, including our schools. And there's a tremendous problem.

How do we deal with it?

HANSON: I agree with you. I don't see this as a political left or right. My experience in talking to a variety of people, it's a class issue. People who are in the halls of corporate American, people in the Chicano studies departments, people in journalism, people in politics who don't live with the reality every day tend to think it's not a problem. People who try to go to school in the public schools, assimilate, they want this.

Some of the success stories Ruben is referring to came in spite of, not because of, a lot of the leadership in the Latino community that fought tooth and nail, bilingual education and ethnic identification.

One of the reasons that we're starting to recover our confidence in the melting pot in California is that the people rose up and said, no more bilingual education. They said no more ethnic identification for jobs, we're all here as Californians. And now we have this ironic Orwellian situation that, with the powers of popular culture and the revolt of the people, they've started to bring back this idea. And all of a sudden spokesmen say, see it's working. It's working despite people in the past who have tried to separate us.

DOBBS: Victor Davis Hanson, Ruben Navarrette, we thank you very much. We hope you'll both be back as we continue our examination on this. And we know you will continue to examine the issue from your perspectives, almost daily.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/08/ldt.01.html

Aired Dec. 8, 2004

And by that, I mean, we have unions that are trying to bring in cheap labor to be exploited, frankly. We have corporate America who want to bring in cheap labor to be exploited. Both are benefiting.

While the diversity proponents ignore the chaos all around them. How do they benefit? Who knows, but their delusions are too strong for them to question their own world view.

Language is still an issue. One way of solving that is to require a level of English competency to qualify for the guest worker program.

Or require that Mexican schools teach English as a mandatory second language as they do in almost all European countries. Make President Fox agree to that as a pre-requisite for the program.

And allow U.S. retirees living in Mexico have access to all the same level of benefits as guest workers will have to benefits in the U.S.

"Or require that Mexican schools teach English as a mandatory second language as they do in almost all European countries. Make President Fox agree to that as a pre-requisite for the program."

Sounds like a good idea to me.

"And allow U.S. retirees living in Mexico have access to all the same level of benefits as guest workers will have to benefits in the U.S."

Since I would require guest workers that can't support themselves here to be deported, that's not much of a benefit to retirees living in Mexico.

We can't afford to pay for welfare for guest workers.
Mexico has even less ability to pay for benefits for Americans in Mexico.

Mexico has even less ability to pay for benefits for Americans in Mexico.

I'm only asking for equality in land ownership rules. If guest workers can purchase land here, I want retirees in Mexico to be equal in all cases where they purchase land in Mexico. That's been a problem in the past. I'm not asking for mexico to pay retirement benefits or anything. I just want a place where American retirees can go and live inexpensivly, own land and houses and have equality to Mexicans in courts, buy medications cheaply, etc. It seems encouraging American seniors to move to Mexico in retirement would be good for both coutries. The infrastructure to support them would be built up in Mexico, they could get inexpensive medical care, inexpensive drugs, inexpensive nursing, inexpensive housing, inexpensive food, inexpensive maid service, a mild climate, etc. Mexico would benefit with an infusion of retiree money. People would be employed supporting them. It would be all good for everybody. But, they would have to be equal under the law as far as owing land.

Sure sounds fair to me, and Bush's plan sure seems like a good bargaining tool.

and Bush's plan sure seems like a good bargaining tool.

Exactly. If we don't ask for any thing in return, we won't get anyting in return. You gotta ask for something.

and Bush's plan sure seems like a good bargaining tool.

Exactly. If we don't ask for any thing in return, we won't get anyting in return. You gotta ask for something.

Ooops. Sorry about the double-post.