[honeymagnolia]

There is no problem, if a society allows in the individual of another inheritance, another race or culture. In that situation, he accepts the climate of his adoptive land; their heritage becomes his; his gratitude for being there may make him more avid in its defense than those originally born to it. Is that what the Europeans did when they came to America? Accepted the climate of seemingly endless bounty? And how did the immigrant Europeans rate on the gratitude part? Such musings serve to make many feel better about what our ancestors ultimately committed.

There was an old adage I once studied at length. "Sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons." In my experience, it has never failed--in spite of (or maybe because of) Jesus. And here we all are--fussing about the "immigrants." Sweetest of hypocrisy. Frightening for our children.

[Ohioan]

There is no problem, if a society allows in the individual of another inheritance, another race or culture. In that situation, he accepts the climate of his adoptive land; their heritage becomes his; his gratitude for being there may make him more avid in its defense than those originally born to it.

Is that what the Europeans did when they came to America? Accepted the climate of seemingly endless bounty? And how did the immigrant Europeans rate on the gratitude part? Such musings serve to make many feel better about what our ancestors ultimately committed.

I don't know what you are suggesting "our ancestors ultimately committed," but most of the early European immigrants, who came in relatively smaller groups than the recent pattern, did indeed accept the Settler culture that had created America. Certainly, so long as we had an open frontier, those who didn't like what they found when they first came had an escape valve, other than seeking to change what they found.

But again, for a discussion of the whole question of immigration, see Immigration.

William Flax