Posted on 08/15/2002 11:23:35 AM PDT by gubamyster
August 15, 2002
As more information from the 2000 Census is released, it's increasingly clear that this is not our parents' country. Ethically, it stopped being their country in the 1960s. Ethnically, it now resembles not a united nation, but a United Nations, with divisions along class, racial, religious, language and ideological lines. Our national motto, E pluribus unum ("out of many, one,") no longer applies.
Census figures show that one out of every nine residents is now foreign-born. The response from politicians? Many are signing up for Spanish lessons. They should be telling immigrants to sign up for English lessons.
Yes, we are a nation of immigrants. There is a difference, however, between the way immigrants were treated a century ago during the Great Wave, and how they are treated today.
Then, they were expected to become part of America, which included speaking our language, knowing our history and respecting our traditions. Now, they are allowed -- indeed, encouraged -- to remain who they are and not bother to learn English or care about American history. Then, we sought to make Americans of immigrants. Today, we hyphenate their citizenship and tell them they may continue to bear allegiance to other countries and causes.
Here are only a few examples of how bad the situation has become: The safety video on the Delta Shuttle between Washington and New York is delivered in both Spanish and English; this November, Denver and several other Colorado counties designated as bilingual counties must print election ballots in English and Spanish; the Department of Justice has ordered Harris County, Texas (which encompasses Houston) to start providing ballots and voting materials in Vietnamese.
Part of the reason for this forming of a less perfect union is that we are no longer sure of ourselves. Embarrassed by our success and riches, we think we're doing the world a favor by engaging in self-flagellation, refusing to repeat for the next generation what was handed to us by the previous one.
A Texas schoolteacher wrote to express his frustration:
"We were raised with 'ultimate consequences' which would dictate punishment when there was no discipline ('When your father gets home...,' 'Your mother wouldn't approve of this...')," he noted. "Now, it's a question of how people can beat the law, rather than uphold it." This especially applies to those immigrants who have seen that if they can get to America illegally, their chances are good of winning amnesty and remaining in this country.
King Solomon warned: "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint" (Proverbs 29:18). The casting off of restraint is what characterizes us now, from corporate boardrooms to private bedrooms. If immigrants know only how to get here and do not learn what made America so attractive to them, they will live by their own standards, just as we who were born here are doing in increasing numbers, further undermining our strength and cohesiveness.
In his 1992 book, "The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920," John Whiteclay Chambers wrote of the great immigration wave of a century ago, noting that a majority of arrivals in this country never intended to stay. Many hoped that "after a few years of work, they could save enough money to return home to an improved position for themselves and their families."
"Although the majority of new immigrants permanently settled in America, a significant number left (with a departure rate of 35 percent for Croatians, Poles, Serbs and Slovenes; 40 percent for Greeks; and more than 50 percent for Hungarians, Slovaks and Italians; the rate among Asian immigrants was much higher, more than two-thirds)," Chambers wrote. Today the departure rate is only about 15 percent and anyone who gets here, even illegally, can now expect his or relatives to legally follow.
Many of those who stayed a century ago had poor skills and became part of large ghettos in major urban areas, where poverty continues to drain human and financial resources. The 1990 Census indicated that ethnic enclaves were huge and growing. In the city of Miami today, about half of the population speaks English poorly or not at all, new census figures show, and 74 percent of residents speak a language other than English at home.
A source for additional facts about how we have failed to assimilate immigrants can be found on the Web page of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (www.fairus.org/).
It would help if we would re-discover what once was considered "self-evident" truths about America, disdaining relativity. If we can't do that for those already here, we will be of no use to current and future immigrants and cannot sustain ourselves as the United States.
I'm against Affirmative Action but, as whites become more of a minority, smart businesses will find ways to reach out to other segments of our society in order to hire and retain the best workers. It's already underway with or without government mandates.
Cal Thomas, whom I normally agree with, paints too broadly here. Yes, I'd like to see immigration reduced, particularly illegal immigration, but you must also accept that the doors have been swung open long enough for foreigners to arrive here and create their own enclaves where they openly speak and act as they did in their old countries - something most Jews, Poles, Italians, Chinese, Russians, Germans and Slavs also did when they first came here a century ago. The only thing that has changed is our government has tried to be more accommodating of people who have yet to assimilate.
I'd rather that some things like the right to vote and the right to drive be limited to those with a working knowledge of our language but some of the anti-immigration hysteria on this and other forums is counterproductive to a meaningful and workable solution.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Well isn't is some weird self-hypnosis NOT to believe the first point? After all the whole point of the reparations movement is to get money because of Black exceptionalism. Everything from the cancer rate, to the illegitimacy rate, to the incarceration rate is worse for blacks. The "Reparations" crowd says "it's all because we were removed from Africa 300 years ago and our native culture was crushed". But it seems to beg for the counter argument "no, it's inherent in your people, look at Africa. If it resembles anything it's the black ghetto neighborhood of the international order." Race or History. Or both. To insist that "it's all history" seems to be a completely religous view. Certainly the evidence is all around us the physically Blacks are different than whites, and in some sports athletically superior. I'm sure others noticed the make up of the track athletes - even the French and British teams were mostly blacks.
Race DOES account for differences in human ability. Character is another matter entirely. Character is a result of culture. Whatever gifts or liabilities Blacks start with due to their race has very little to do with the collective circumstances they find themselves in. Culture has everything to do with it. Black leaders should spend less time worrying about whether whites in their hearts think they are superior to blacks due to genetics (obsessive concern with this is a defacto admission of insecurity - like the Woody character in "White Men Can't Jump") and a lot more time cleansing the culture of concepts like rap music, baby mamas, big pimpin', ebonics, weed and 20 inch rims.
Which obviously works against their assimilating. There's also another factor ---the people from Mexico now can keep their Mexican citizenship, vote in their own elections, they have their Mexican politicians campaigning inside the US and still holding a claim on these people. They aren't going to assimilate like people in the past. Also I knew many first generation immigrants from Holland, Vietnam, Poland, and Germany ---they all learned English fairly quickly and quite well----enough to communicate with any other American except they kept their accents.
Maybe you haven't kept up with the changes in Mexican law and demands. Dual citizenship ---they will retain their Mexican citizenship and loyalty to that nation. They can vote within the US in both elections. They will retain their own separate language, the taxpayers are forced to pay for bilingual programs so the Mexican children will learn their own language. Their politicians now campaign in the US and they want to set up voting booths also for them in this country on their election day. Much Mexican immigration has nothing to do with them picking up the US Constitution and deciding they prefer this to their own and wishing to be American, they are being told by their leaders that Mexicans have a right to the US.
Better check the birth rates before you say that. Blacks and Hispanics churn out more kids that whites do presently (and which group do you think more firmly embraces the notions of birth control and abortions?). Even if we never let in another immigrant, they would, at the current pace, eventually overtake whites.
In the 1930's, there were actually a couple of years where there was net emigration.
What else can I do? I voted for Buchanan. I am in a small minority who thought this was an important issue in the 2000 election.
What can be expected of those who voted for Bush, Gore, and Nader in 2000? What can be expected of those who will vote for Bush or Hillary! in 2004?
Well, not to sound too much like the POS Commie bastard who infested the White House for eight long years, that depends on what your definition of "racist" is. If by racist you mean someone who is prejudiced against whole groups of people because of their race, I'm not your man. If you've twisted the definition of the word to refer to anyone who expects those we allow into our nation to learn our language and use it in public, at work, etc., well then by that twisted and sad definition, I guess I'd have to say I am.
Actually, if forced to pigeonhole and label myself, I'd have to say I was a nationalist. But these days, even that is cause to be attacked and criticized by liberal scumbag DU-type wusses. But that's okay, 'cause we "right-wing nutcases" the ones with testosterone running through our systems, unlike the spaghetti-armed little girly men that liberals are.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
It would probably take at current birthrates, and with little or no immigration, about 200 years for it to happen.
Of course, if we returned to pre-1965 Immigration policies, add about 200,000 Ukranians, etc, to the mix and it would never happen. So, it's NOT inevitable, nor it is particularly desirable, contrary to the gushings of Bill Clinton, that Whitey becomes a minority in the US.
I was with you all the way to "do you abandon these traits". Who's saying anything about abondoning traits? See here's the basic fallacy of the anti-Hispanic movement. You ASS-U-ME that integration of a Hispanic means getting rid of the things that make America great. I think that's absolute BS, and I think that after having spent the last 25 years living in the middle of the territory they supposedly are trying to reconquer. Absolute 100% rubbish. There is no reconquista, and the Hispanics are not a blight on our society.
You will not find that I have referred to "Hispanics" as a group, as a blight, or as to the fact that some Mexicans would like to reverse the whipping that they received from the Texans in 1836, and from the Polk led Americans in 1846--as well as their resentment over the Pershing incursion in 1915. I do so now, only to make a new point.
Do you really think that one could integrate large numbers of Mexicans into a school with large numbers of "Anglos," without the "Anglos" having to give up anything?
For a start, how about pride in history? Do you really think that a school that has a 30% Mexican minority--or anything close to it, given the current dispensation to be "politically correct" among "educators," is not going to down play those very events which I just ticked off? Do you think that school would be singing, "Remember Pearl Harbor, As We Did The Alamo," in response to another surprise attack, as did the generation of school kids who responded to Pearl Harbor, and our entrance into World War II? Do you really think that that school will put the same emphasis on Shakespeare, Dickens--or even our own literary geniuses, such as Poe, Melville, Mark Twain, etc., as a traditional American school? Will the history of American exploration and settlement still feature a tremendous emphasis on individual initiative, which was so important in the American tradition?
Many of the Mestizos pouring into the Southwest--and indeed spreading all over America, now--are hard working people. I do not dispute that. But what they are not is a people steeped in the traditions of the quiet loner, who went into a largely unpopulated area and rose to extraordinary heights, in displaying individual initiative in building a society from the ground up. The type of Mexican coming in is rather from a spectator background: A long settled people, victimized by successive waves of conquest. This is not to put him or her down. Some of them have proud blood from the Aztecs, Mayans and Spanish Conquistadors. But the leadership of those peoples are virtually extinct. These are the surviving remnant of the peasant stock lorded over by the departed dead; and to say that they have the same culture as the founders of America is an absurdity.
And as to your hypothesizing the resettlement of people to alleviate crowding. That is just silly parlor theorizing. Our concentration of population patterns are, if anything, still less than many other countries. People do not fan out over the land as you postulate--except in times of duress as under the mad rule of Chairman Mao, in a Communist land. They are drawn to particular areas, where they may find employment. And our areas that are amenable to settlement and employment for other than agriculture are already terribly over-crowded.
When you consider that our settlement was selective for people who liked space--the sense of being crowded in Europe was one of the motivations for our early settlers--you must understand that the very crowding today, is probably a major reason for the fall in the birth rate of the native stock to such very low levels. It is certainly a factor in the increase in mental disorders. It is ethnic suicide for us to encourage even more over-crowding, in pursuit of either cultural confusion or a temporary spurt in Corporate bottom lines.
Enough is surely enough.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
What difference? You have a foreign government insisting on destroying US sovereignty. Castaneda was very clear in that government's demands when he talked about "the whole enchilada". We are to give every Mexican legal status in the US so they can have any job they wish. They are to have US taxpayer provided "free" healthcare provided to them, our government must guarantee their safe entry into the US over our borders. There are to be no visa restrictions on Mexican citizens by the US. They aren't even to be treated like a US state, a Mexican citizen is to be given in-state tuition at all colleges in any states they choose. Dual citizenship is to be given to Mexicans (not to Americans however) so that they can vote in both national elections --and Mexican politicians are to be allowed to campaign in the United States. If you've ever lived in Mexico during one of their elections, you can't really find it too appealing to have those trucks with loud speakers driving through our downtown streets and all those posters put up the way they do in Mexico. Their elections are often overturned by their government, I don't think we should allow them to do their thing over here.
La Raza will be jumping into this too ---mark my word ---they will insist on reparations for the illegals.
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