Do you want LEGAL immigration stopped too?

My Own Head | 4/3/006 | Me

[clawrence3]

The question has come up on different threads here - we know everyone who wants all ILLEGAL immigration stopped, but who is for stopping all LEGAL immigration as well? Whether it is just for a "short" time or permanently, let me know.

[teenyelliott]

BTW, I never answered your original question.

I have many friends who are immigrants, and most are citizens now. Some from Lebanon, tons from Vietnam, a couple from Greece, etc.

Allowing the current tidal wave of illegals to slide through to citizendom without having to go through all the retarded hoops and fees and tests that all of my friends, and all of the legal immigrants I don't know, is insulting.

Why follow the rules if others get to cheat and get the same result, with the blessing of the gubmint?

So, my answer, even though you might think it less than honest, is that legal immigration, good. Illegal immigration, bad. For many, many, many reasons.

[redgirlinabluestate]

As a first generation American I am rather partial to LEGAL immigration. My family members came here through Ellis Island in the 1950's and are proud American citizens. I think legal immigration works provided we put a higher emphasis on patriotic assimilation, speaking English and becoming an American in the truest sense of the word. I would cut off all federal funds for bilingual education, multicultural education, bilingual ballots etc. I'd insist on vigorous “Americanization.”

Bilingual education and the liberal obsession with multiculturalism has not been good for us. Immigration was much more successful when we were known as a melting pot instead of a salad bar or buffet.

[nopardons]

Gee...I didn't know that you REALLY wanted a full bore history lesson, but since you don't like, nor appreciate my brevity, I'll give you a bit more of the FACTUAL stuff.

The Statue of Liberty was conceived and executed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, as a present to America, in celebration of the United States' centenary celebrations of 1876, after his trip here. It was mostly funded by FRENCH AND AMERICAN MASONS ( Bartholdi had become a Mason in 1874 ) and was NOT thought up by, paid for, nor had ANYTHING at all to do with any "foreign government" intervention, thought, nor agenda.

If you want more of this statue's history, I'll get back to you later. :-)

Ummmmmmmmm...I'm a "renowned historian" ?

[Prokopton]

Responding to a post that stated: "This country was founded on "give us your tired, your poor," etc."

I posted: "This certainly is not what our country was founded on. This is what a foreign government wanted us to do and put it on a statue it gave to us."

You posted the blindingly obvious inconsistency:
"When France gave us the Statue of Liberty"
"Neither that poem, nor the Statue of Liberty, herself, had ANYTHING at all to do with any 'foreign government'"

So, it was given to us by France but it had nothing to do with a foreign government?

Dense or what?

Your lack of any propensity towards logic would, indeed, serve you well as a liberal historian.

[nopardons]

Didn't read my reply to you...wherein I gave the actual history of the Statue of Liberty, did you? Or are you just sooooooooooooooooooooo blindingly hung up on your own meanderings and biases, that actual FACTS don't matter?

Most people and most history books claim that FRANCE gave us the Statue of Liberty. I didn't have the time to post a full, in depth reply, so did a quick one, using "common knowledge"; which is NOT really the case. But, since it most assuredly was NOT really the government of France and since France hadn't sent America any large numbers of immigrants for more than a century prior to the Statue of Liberty, you're stating something patently ridiculous, as fact!

No, this country was NOT founded on "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...", since colonizing North America, predates the poem by centuries! OTOH, Roanoke WAS founded by second sons, yearning to at last own some land. That colony disappeared. Plymouth and other New England states were founded by people yearning for religious freedom, who once they had it, denied it to others ( why do you think R.I. got settled? ), not of their own kind. New Amsterdam was founded TO MAKE MONEY!

Oh yeah...riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...I'm a "LIBERAL" historian? In what universe? ROTFLOL

Go learn some factual history and then, AND ONLY THEN, get back to me.

[Prokopton]

You posted: "When France gave us the Statue of Liberty"
Now you post: "it most assuredly was NOT really the government of France"

Please sort out the confusion in your own mind before any further posting.

[nopardons]

Please READ my subsequent posts, to that one, before you reply to this one. And for crying out loud...STOP PICKING NITS!

You're the one who ERRONEOUSLY claimed that "foreign nation" wanted to influence America to take their dregs, so the Statue of Liberty was sent to us, by them. That is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo incorrect, it's mind numbing! If anyone here is "confused", it is you; not I.

Obviously, you are neither knowledgeable about history, of any kind, nor how to conduct a civil debate. I suspect that this is the most attention you've gotten in years and you're eating it up with a spoon. Oh yes, you also appear to want to 1) make a public fool of yourself 2) have a flame war 3) really don't care one whit about any of this.

[Spiff]

Our legal immigration levels are just fine.

So, in your opinion, the Kennedy plan which discarded all reason and opened the floodgates to 1 million immigrants a year - regardless of their nation of origin, skill level, etc - is fine and dandy? 1 MILLION! How is that sustainable?

I believe that we need a moratorium on legal immigration until the borders can be secured and we can actually control who is allowed in. Until then, any immigration system is a fraud as we have no real control. Once we get thing under control, we can again start a reasonable immigration policy which puts the needs of American Citizens first - not foreigners, not foreign nations, not huge corporations who want cheap labor at American workers' expense, not politicians - but Americans first.

Kennedy promised when promoting the outrageous Immigration Act of 1965 that immigration levels were not going to change much. This was a total lie. Before the law passed, immigration levels were around 300K per year. This changed quickly to over 1,000,000 per year. This was not a sane policy when Sen. Kennedy was promoting in 1965 and it is not a sane policy now.

And this is where we're heading - not including the increase from illegal immigration.

So, I'm not against immigration or immigrants. I'm against immigration policies which do not pass the sanity test. I'm against any immigration policy that Kennedy would support.

[Spiff]

So, basically, stopped forever then?

Well, the alternative is that we have no borders and that our laws are worthless. Which do you prefer?

[Prokopton]

Nope. Your confusion is not sorted out yet. Keep trying.

[Spiff]

This country was founded on "give us your tired, your poor," etc.

No it was NOT!

This country was founded upon individual rights and sovereignty. You would be better served to look to the Bible, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, and the writings and journals of our Founding Fathers than to look to a poem bolted to the base of a huge statue the damned French gave us over a century after the nation was founded.

[Spiff]

If you want SS in retirement, you had better be willing to welcome legal immigrants.

Do you also suggest that if being raped, one should just lay back and enjoy it?

[nopardons]

Go pay for companionship...your need for attention is not only boring, but palpable and juvenile.

[dangus]

It depends:

Anchor Babies: Stop.
H-1 visa shenanigans: Stop.
Study visas: Depends on the course of study, the usefulness of the content for anti-American purposes, and the need for technological supremacy in the content area. But reforms are needed, and it's ridiculous that University departments get Affirmative Action for hiring unintelligible foreign-born grad students.
Citizenship for spouses: OK
Political refugees and victims of disaster: It's a moral imperitive we accept them.
"Economic" refugees and immivaders: It's a "grave sin that cries out to the Heavens for justice" (Rerum Novarum) to import immigrants for the purpose of suppressing wages.
Lotteries: an outrage.
Family reunification: only if the family member who already has citizenship earned citizenship through the ways considered valid above, and only if the relationship suggests an economic dependence (i.e., young children, incapacitated parents, spouses).

[dangus]

But we agree that legalizing illegal immigration is not the way, right?

[rmlew]

We should
1. Protect our borders
2. Create punishments and incentives for illegals to leave
3. Dramatically slash our immigration levels to only include certain family reunions and those foreigners who would provide useful skills.
4. We would set up a system for refugees, who would be closely monitered and not go to the front of the line in petitioning to immigrate.
5. We would end the purposeful misreading of the 14th Ammendment which has thrust the offspring of invaders upon us as equals. However, those who have grown up here, speak english, and have no criminal history can stay for an extended period of time, during which they could petition for citizenship. I believe that some form of national service tied into an Americanization program would be useful.
6.Create a national Americanization program to teach immigrants English, teach them American values and proper history, and ensure that they have basic skills.

Perhaps in a generation or two, we can return to a more liberalized immigration program, so long as our culture remains secure and our national interest is put first and formost.

[rmlew]

You do realise that while we always had immigration, the numbers we allowed in fluxated. We generally had one generation of high immigration followed by another of assimilation. The two times we have broken from this were the great wave of 1880-1924 and 1965 onwards.
The cultural damage was and is extensive. We need time to heal, Americanize, and integrate the new immigrants.

[rmlew]

What would be a good number for you? Perhaps 3 million immigrants per year, 1% of our population?
Do you really think that we could assimilate these people? Or do you think that we will face a further degredation of our Anglo-American core next two the importation of an alienated educated class?

[rmlew]

Do you really think that uneducated foreigners, who are a net drain to our current economy, will be willing or able to prop up Social Security?
Or is it more likely that these largely future Democrat voters will try to redistribute the ever shrinking wealth of our native middle class?

[muir_redwoods]

"Do you really think that uneducated foreigners, who are a net drain to our current economy, will be willing or able to prop up Social Security?"

Do you really think that legal immigration is made up of uneducated foreigners? The folks in the legal immigration crowd are the folks your kids will be working for. They are the techno-wizards from India and China and this country is lucky to have them and the ones I know (and I work with 100's) are not leaning left, they are escaping the left.