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To: rmlew
Great those are all real nice. But again they cross the immigrant boundries. They're universal problems we have with EVERY immigrant group. I've said over and over I wouldn't mind slowing or even temporarily halting ALL immigration. What I won't support is picking on the Mexicans because some people are paranoid freaks.

Nice numbers. How do they compare with your own group the Jews? They clearly don't vote as leftist as blacks. Again Mexicans are NOT posing a UNIQUE problem, and trherefore there's no reason to single them out.

Cute. But that really doesn't sound much different than the protest the Indians down here do. I don't know if any faked their own death recently. I don't go to the protests I just see them on TV. Since Columbus Day isn't even a holiday here without the protests I'd never find out it was Columbus Day (IMHO it's much ado about nothing, not like Columbus ever actually LANDED in America, Columbus discovered the Bahamas). One way or the other your Mexicans still don't hold a candle to our blacks as far as "ruining" Columbus Day goes.

I understand the importance of national unification holidays. I don't think Columbus Day is one. It's just a day off to me, one I never had because AZ had gotten rid of it before I got the kind of job where you get those days of. The national unification holidays are Memorial Day, Independance Day and Armestice Day (when we had the individual president's birthdays off they were good, the current Presidents' Day is nothing more than a white sale at K-Mart). Columbus Day is a day celebrating a guy who didn't land in America proper and wasn't the first European here anyway. As a matter of fact he didn't even prove the world was round because people didn't think it was flat. Pretty much everything you were told in grade shoool about Columbus (and oddly enough all the stuff the Indians down here protest, which is why I laugh at them) is BS.

OK you're right on the phrasing, I missed parsed the 2nd class of citizen thing, apologies. Nope none of the immigrants I regularly run into (I've worked with them and for them, and because of my serious salsa addiction eat their food all the time) has ever given any indication of any ofrm of support for La Reconquista. I've talked to a few of them about it and they all think it's total BS. A lot of the stuff I've said about how they don't respect the Mexican government and would immigrate again if it took over here is straight from these conversations, including the stuff about who's in La Raza and MECHA. That's why I'm not buying any of this stuff, I've sat down and talked to the people that are suposedly taking the country away and they think this stuff is stupid.

Posters of Britney are nice. I had to wonder when she did that Joan Jett cover (woohoo, dig Joan Jett, that's my kind of rock and roll woman) if Brittney had ever actually SEEN a jukebox, let's not even get into if she understands what rock and roll is (and someday the dime will be gone, sadly that song is not aging well).

35% is still better than the GOP gets with most of the minorities (or semi-minorities), yours and mine (European Catholic) included.

OK I can see that, but maybe the ideals of the founders wouldn't get trashed. Communism couldn't last a whole century in Russia and people still dig it. Roman and Greecian slavery weren't like what we had here. It was more like (to steal a term from the commies) the wage slavery we supposedly had here. Their slaves earned money and could eventually buy their freedom, it was a stepping stone to full citizenship which many chose not to go for because they didn't care to take that next step.

No. The Republic fell because of the coroption of the senate. That has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with immigration into Rome. Roman immigration was very complex and layered, the important thing to know is that most immigrants weren't citizens right away and many never became citizens. Being as they weren't citizens they had no voice in the government until (unless) they earned their citizenship. Sorry i've spent a fair time studying Rome and your the first with this theory that I've seen. The whole Roman- German thing is too complex to get into. Suffice that there was a lot of hatred and Rome would have been better off just ignoring them, but they didn't and in the end they got screwed.

Change doesn't happen right away. You're starting to sound like the people bitching about Bush. You can't just undo 70 years of progressing socialism right after being sworn into office. Niether nation gives the president imperial powers or a magic wand. They've got to work within the system and that's going to take time. If we're lucky and manage to keep getting conservatives in power we'll see some serious change before we die. If we're lucky.

Again, I have yet to see any significant way where Mexican immigration is different. You keep insisting it, but you haven't proven it. Without that I ain't buying that they should be singled out.
273 posted on 08/20/2002 8:45:16 AM PDT by discostu
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To: discostu
The most obvious way that Mexico is different, is that they share a border with us. This makes it far easier to emmigrate. When it is easy to do something, the motivation required to accomplish that thing is not very profound. Hence, most Mexican immigrants come here to work. They want to make more money. I'm not saying there is any thing wrong with that, per se. If the motivation was more noble, there would be far less dollars flowing out of the U.S. and into Mexico via western Union. And there would be a lot more assimilation.

The second way that Mexico is different is that we have defeated them in war, and now possess what they used to possess, by purchase, treaty, and other legal means. The reason that fact is important to this discussion, is that if Mexican education and political propaganda teaches that the southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico, then that is what the immigrant believes in his heart. From there springs the animus and eventual disrespect for our immigration laws, and by extension, our culture and our country.

277 posted on 08/20/2002 9:17:05 AM PDT by ecomcon
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To: discostu
What I won't support is picking on the Mexicans because some people are paranoid freaks.
How about treating them differently because immigration from a neihboring country at the behest of its government can be veiwed as an invasion in historical terms?

Nice numbers. How do they compare with your own group the Jews?
European Jews whose families immigrated 100 years ago, have to a large degree not assimilated. They view Judaism as being seperate from America and as supporting socialist ideals.
Jews who came here escaping communism tended to hate socialism and were far more willing to assimilate.
Jews who came here to escape Arab oppression also tended to distance themselves from their anti-American stances of some Jews.

I think the issues is one of history and numbers. There was a huge migration from 1880-1924, which allowed Jews to become insulated. Many of them were tainted by socialist anti-Czarism and a tendency to view American conservatives as teh equivalent of slavophiles. This idiocy has basically not abated for many.
On the other hand, more Jews under 35 voted for Bush tan for Gore, despite Gore's puppet Lieberman.

I understand the importance of national unification holidays. I don't think Columbus Day is one. It's just a day off to me, one I never had because AZ had gotten rid of it before I got the kind of job where you get those days of. The national unification holidays are Memorial Day, Independance Day and Armestice Day (when we had the individual president's birthdays off they were good, the current Presidents' Day is nothing more than a white sale at K-Mart). Columbus Day is a day celebrating a guy who didn't land in America proper and wasn't the first European here anyway. As a matter of fact he didn't even prove the world was round because people didn't think it was flat. Pretty much everything you were told in grade shoool about Columbus (and oddly enough all the stuff the Indians down here protest, which is why I laugh at them) is BS
You miss the point. They are destroying the moral legitimacy of America by calling us a genocidal result of Columbus.

35% is still better than the GOP gets with most of the minorities (or semi-minorities), yours and mine (European Catholic) included.
I thought Bush carried the Catholic vote or at least split it in 2000.

OK I can see that, but maybe the ideals of the founders wouldn't get trashed. Communism couldn't last a whole century in Russia and people still dig it.
True, but as an international movement, it died. Communists are runnig away from the term, even as they win elections.

Roman and Greecian slavery weren't like what we had here. It was more like (to steal a term from the commies) the wage slavery we supposedly had here. Their slaves earned money and could eventually buy their freedom, it was a stepping stone to full citizenship which many chose not to go for because they didn't care to take that next step.
Roman citizens who became slaves were treated well. Foreigners were not, especially those captured in war.

No. The Republic fell because of the coroption of the senate. That has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with immigration into Rome. Roman immigration was very complex and layered, the important thing to know is that most immigrants weren't citizens right away and many never became citizens.
I was talking about conquest. Rome had expanded so quickly that it failed to Romanize the conquered. Foreign cults were imported as non-Romans became slaves or simply moved to Rome. All this blew apart the common Republican hertage of Rome and helped weaken the Republic. There were other causes for its collapse, but you can't ignore what was going on here. I will have to go dig up Cicero.

Change doesn't happen right away. You're starting to sound like the people bitching about Bush. You can't just undo 70 years of progressing socialism right after being sworn into office. Niether nation gives the president imperial powers or a magic wand. They've got to work within the system and that's going to take time. If we're lucky and manage to keep getting conservatives in power we'll see some serious change before we die. If we're lucky.
A change in tone would be a nice step. Mexican officials who don't publically claim that there is no border between teh US adn Mexico would be nice. President Fox admitting the EXISTANCE of illigal immigrants would be nice. President Bush talking about our common culture just once would be nice.

Again, I have yet to see any significant way where Mexican immigration is different.
WEll, I gave teh historic precident of America taking over Tejas from the inside in the 1820's to show that immigration from a neighbor into contested lands is qualitatively different than immigration from across teh seas.

295 posted on 08/20/2002 3:55:19 PM PDT by rmlew
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