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The disunited states
Townhall.com ^ | August 15, 2002 | Cal Thomas

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.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: donutwatch; immigration
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To: Tall_Texan
Oh yeah, blame whitey and his success. How about more Affirmative Action?
201 posted on 08/16/2002 11:59:05 PM PDT by FreedomFriend
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To: FreedomFriend
I'm not blaming whitey. All I'm saying is that immigrants have *not* taken over this country and have not changed it to some U.N. tower of Babel. At least not yet. And I'm also trying to refute the notion that previous generations of immigrants came to this country to speak perfectly good English and assimilate into the American culture. Most did not but their children and grandchildren who were born here did.

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.

202 posted on 08/17/2002 2:59:45 AM PDT by Tall_Texan
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To: Tall_Texan
It's not inevitable, though, that Whitey becomes a minority in America. Adopt a pre-1965 immigration policy and it won't happen.
203 posted on 08/17/2002 7:58:56 AM PDT by Phillip Augustus
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To: discostu
How is it possible to speak to one's face on an Internet Bulletin Board?
204 posted on 08/17/2002 8:00:04 AM PDT by Phillip Augustus
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To: Phillip Augustus
You include the person in the To field so that they are flagged (like I did with the post that you're replying to, which was actually a reply to the other guy). Thanks to the My Comments feature a lot of people don't browse the whole thread once they've gotten involved, you can read and reply entirely within your comments. It's an old piece of BBS ettiquette.
205 posted on 08/17/2002 8:30:52 AM PDT by discostu
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To: discostu
Here's your definition of racism:

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.

206 posted on 08/17/2002 9:05:53 AM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Tall_Texan
The only thing that has changed is our government has tried to be more accommodating of people who have yet to assimilate.

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.

207 posted on 08/17/2002 9:15:55 AM PDT by FITZ
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To: discostu
But why would Mexican's balkanize the nation?

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.

208 posted on 08/17/2002 9:21:02 AM PDT by FITZ
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To: Phillip Augustus
It's not inevitable, though, that Whitey becomes a minority in America. Adopt a pre-1965 immigration policy and it won't happen.

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.

209 posted on 08/17/2002 9:35:12 AM PDT by Tall_Texan
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To: pittsburgh gop guy
In 1970, it was about 1 in 20...below 5%. Had been that way for about 45 years, post 1924.

In the 1930's, there were actually a couple of years where there was net emigration.

210 posted on 08/17/2002 9:54:30 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: Mudboy Slim
Although I agree heartily that we must get a handle on the ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION problem

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?

211 posted on 08/17/2002 10:15:05 AM PDT by bimbo
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To: Johnny Shear
"If you mean you admire a person like him, then you're obviously a racist."

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!

212 posted on 08/17/2002 11:18:09 AM PDT by wku man
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To: Johnny Shear
The fact that you do not agree with your father's views on race or ethnicity--you really haven't defined what he believed, only his attitude towards foreigners--does not make it appropriate for you to air your disdain in this manner, in public. Show a little class. No one else in this forum wants to share your family feuds. Indeed, most of us grew up in the belief--common among all Western and Eastern peoples--that one is supposed to honor one's parents. That does not mean that you have to agree with them, on all issues. But you certainly will impress no one by hurling insults at yours in public. (And on a scale of vices, being a disloyal son surely ranks higher than being hostile to strangers.)

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

213 posted on 08/17/2002 11:28:58 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Tall_Texan
Definitely black, and I think Hispanic Americans tend to have more abortions than white Americans, though, even with that, the birthrate is higher.

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.

214 posted on 08/17/2002 12:03:59 PM PDT by Phillip Augustus
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To: Phillip Augustus
Should read add about 200,000 Ukranians, etc, A YEAR to the mix....
215 posted on 08/17/2002 12:07:17 PM PDT by Phillip Augustus
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To: discostu
This is beginning to degenerate into a school yard argument. You will deny the truth of whatever any of the rest of us say with a contrived argument. This thread is starting to get too long to expect any new blood, so we really ought to go on to another--if you really want to keep this going. But in the meanwhile, consider your last response to me:

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

216 posted on 08/17/2002 12:08:56 PM PDT by Ohioan
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To: FITZ
Let's understand the difference between the Mexican government, legal Mexican immigrants, and illegal Mexican immigrants. I've heard nothing but bad things about groups 1 and 3 from group 2. Most Mexican immigration is just like most immigration, no they aren't reading the Constitution they're watching the TV and they see America as a land of opportunity and unimaginable wealth. And given that our welfare recipients live in better housing than most Mexican citizens it's not hard to see why they think that.

As for La Reconquesta I've only met one Mexican over the age of 25 that actually agreed with the idea that America had stolen the land. Then he appended "of course anyone that's compared San Diego to TJ knows America has done better wit that land than Mexico ever could." La Reconquesta is a boogieman, so many immigrants settle here for two reasons: 1 - it's close to Mexico, easy to get to and easy to go back and visit relatives that didin't emigrate; 2 - it's America, if it was still Mexico they'd go further north.

At least that's here in AZ. Who knows with CA. Actually given the way socialist Mexicans seem drawn to CA and conservative Mexicans seem drawn to AZ I think maybe they're doing a better job of assimilating that we're giving the credit for. ;)
217 posted on 08/17/2002 12:10:34 PM PDT by discostu
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To: Jack Black
I think the focus of the first point is the phrase "human character". Stuff that assumes members of race X or more or lest trustworthy, or work harder, or are trying to destroy America based entirely on where they were born. While there are clear physical differences between the races, and even cultural differences, those kind of blanket statements about a person's character based on no knowledge of him other than their color.

As for the reparations crowd... FR rules keep me from truly expressing myself about them. They're arguement (which you present fairly accurately, don't know how you can stomache it) is just proof that being a racist doesn't necessarily mean you look down on ANOTHER race, your hated group can be your own. And the sooner people figure that out the sooner we can get rid of the race pimps that currently "represent" the blacks (and a few other groups). I can't believe the crap they say about their own kind, if somebody like David Duke (not that I'm excusing him, he's an excellent yardstick for racism) said some of the things about blacks that Jackson and Co say he'd be killed on the spot. But when Jesse says it everybody just nods and claps.
218 posted on 08/17/2002 12:23:27 PM PDT by discostu
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To: discostu
Let's understand the difference between the Mexican government, legal Mexican immigrants, and illegal Mexican immigrants.

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.

219 posted on 08/17/2002 12:27:34 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: discostu
As for the reparations crowd...

La Raza will be jumping into this too ---mark my word ---they will insist on reparations for the illegals.

220 posted on 08/17/2002 12:28:57 PM PDT by FITZ
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