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That's true of legal immigration also. Those who want to hold onto the old-country's ways ought to just not leave it. Let those who want to become American come instead.
Fair enough, but if you want to enact this into LAW, you have to define your terms. What makes a person American enough? What are "old-country's ways"? If someone born in Portugal picks up a guitar and signs fado on Friday nights, does that mean he is holding on to his "old-country's ways" and must be deported? Should the government regulate what people eat? Is it okay to hold on to the "old-country's ways" in private, or should the government install listening devices in people's homes to monitor what language they speak in the family? If immigrants of similar ethnic background date or marry, does this mean they've failed to assimilate? Is one allowed to have an accent, or would the accent be a ground for deportation? If English fluency is required as a prerequisite to retaining one's citizenship, how many grammatical mistakes does one have to make before deportation is triggered? Alternatively, does speaking English in ways that are too meticulously correct indicate that one is not assimilated? Would you require name changes? Is being a New Yorker "assimilated enough", or should one be required to adapt ways that are more, say, oh, Idahoan? Either way, if you had a law that states "an immigrant is required to assimilate", you have to define "assimilation".
Close/lock at least our southern border, end birthright citizenship unless at least one parent is a US citizen/green holder (grandfather in the existing Anchor Babies but their illegal parents would still need to leave), mandate English only on all Government levels aside from those dealing with public health/safety.
The above would be a good start in really reversing the invasion of the above lawbreakers
Fair enough, but if you want to enact this into LAW, you have to define your terms. What makes a person American enough? What are "old-country's ways"? If someone born in Portugal picks up a guitar and signs fado on Friday nights, does that mean he is holding on to his "old-country's ways" and must be deported? Should the government regulate what people eat? Is it okay to hold on to the "old-country's ways" in private, or should the government install listening devices in people's homes to monitor what language they speak in the family? If immigrants of similar ethnic background date or marry, does this mean they've failed to assimilate? Is one allowed to have an accent, or would the accent be a ground for deportation? If English fluency is required as a prerequisite to retaining one's citizenship, how many grammatical mistakes does one have to make before deportation is triggered? Alternatively, does speaking English in ways that are too meticulously correct indicate that one is not assimilated? Would you require name changes? Is being a New Yorker "assimilated enough", or should one be required to adapt ways that are more, say, oh, Idahoan? Either way, if you had a law that states "an immigrant is required to assimilate", you have to define "assimilation".
All of your points are valid ones, and all serve to underscore very well the nature of a "free society", and the absolute necessity of the inhabitants thereof to practice "self-determination" and responsibility for their own actions. It's the destiny of all mankind to have to live by RULES...and in a free society, the ideal is to live by rules WE OURSELVES agree to submit to.
The very nature of a 'free society' means that no one can "make" anyone else behave, or act in any prescribed way, or to 'assimilate'...yet if there IS no assimilation, ultimately there's no free society. And while in a free society, we're not supposed to worry about someone "making" us behave, that doesn't mean we're 'off thye hook'...it simply means that WE are supposed to have the common sense to 'make' OURSELVES behave....and the common values to understand the rules by which we're 'behaving', and the willingness to point out the UNACCEPTABLE behavior of others, when it happens. Today, we've lost much of that ability.
Again, your post poses excellent conundrums...yet, taken to its logical extreme, many have 'run with' ideas just like yours to state that, since no one can absolutely define "assimilation" in any exact terms....and no one can define what is, or is not, "American".....and no one can "make" anyone do anything....that THERFORE there IS nothing to assimilate TO....no "American culture"....no "norms" or standards of any kind....nothing that's considered "essential". This absurdity has now reached the point that we are now having a "controversy" about illegal immigration. This is freedom sunk to its latter stages of irrelevance....because freedom, in and of itself, really means nothing. Total, absolute freedom, with no rules or standards, no right or wrong, is just another form of tyranny.
We're fast approaching a state in which we can say, (with a straight face), that "no one should be excluded from America, because none of us have the right to make that judgement. No one is 'illegal', because none of US have the right to judge others. No one is any more, nor any less, an 'American', because nobody has the right to define just what an 'American' is. And illegal immigrants are just an 'alternative' form of immigrants....because none of US has the moral authority to judge others".
Sounds good, as your post suggests. But in the 'real world' it doesn't work. A country that can't agree on its own right to exist simply doesn't deserve to. And a country that refuses to define itself has no definition at all. Any place, any organization, any club, profession, or religion....and yes, any COUNTRY...that states that its definition is "whatever anyone WANTS it to be", has lost the right to "be" anything at all.
Your final sentence says it all, I'm afraid. Since obviously in a free society, no law can be made to "make" people assimilate, to some folks that's permission not to assimilate at ALL. In the Third World, you don't do anything unless someone "makes" you..(and there are plenty of people ready and willing to 'make' others behave). In the 'First World'.(the affluent West), you're theoretically supposed to "make" YOURSELF behave. If you don't, this type of system will either fall apart, or simply revert into a more 'Third World' situation. There's no other option...you follow the 'rules' on your own, or someone will take charge and SEE that you do. By then, it will be too late to change our minds.
My own PERSONAL advice? If we can't figure out what 'assimilation' means, we'd better make sure and decide on SOMETHING....SOON. Otherwise, we might find out that someone has decided it FOR us...
Macmeal: I am merely trying to look at the problem from a practical perspective. I am a lawyer, so the difficulty -- nay, the impossibility -- of codifying assimilation is immediately apparent to me. Look, we can establish specific, concrete requirements for immigration, a practical jumping-through-hoops, if you will. We can require immigrants to renounce their prior citizenships as a prerequisite to acquiring citizenship here. We can exclude immigrants with criminal convictions from eligibility for citizenship (this is already on the books). We can put together straight-forward, nuts-and-bolts civics and English exams. All of that is easy to explain in a statute and to implement. But once you start imposing requirements with respect to cultural tastes and private, legal behavior, I cannot imagine a statute that would either be so vague as to be completely useless or, alternatively, patently unconstitutional.
Assimilation is an inherently vague concept in this country. What is or isn't American is hard to pin down. Most of the world would probably say that New York City isn't "real America"; and at the same time, most of the world sees New York as a symbol of this country. It's contradictory -- I know -- and that's the problem. This is not about any moral right to dictate other's behavior (though it's that too); it's about the impossibility to do so with any degree of consistency.
Macmeal: I am merely trying to look at the problem from a practical perspective. I am a lawyer, so the difficulty -- nay, the impossibility -- of codifying assimilation is immediately apparent to me. Look, we can establish specific, concrete requirements for immigration, a practical jumping-through-hoops, if you will. We can require immigrants to renounce their prior citizenships as a prerequisite to acquiring citizenship here. We can exclude immigrants with criminal convictions from eligibility for citizenship (this is already on the books). We can put together straight-forward, nuts-and-bolts civics and English exams. All of that is easy to explain in a statute and to implement. But once you start imposing requirements with respect to cultural tastes and private, legal behavior, I cannot imagine a statute that would either be so vague as to be completely useless or, alternatively, patently unconstitutional.
Assimilation is an inherently vague concept in this country. What is or isn't American is hard to pin down. Most of the world would probably say that New York City isn't "real America"; and at the same time, most of the world sees New York as a symbol of this country. It's contradictory -- I know -- and that's the problem. This is not about any moral right to dictate other's behavior (though it's that too); it's about the impossibility to do so with any degree of consistency.
I can't disagree with you. It's part of the great conundrum of life....how can one "dictate" anything in a free society, while keeping it "free"?....and what are the limits of tolerance? And how does any society tolerate the intolerable? And how far must we go to 'accomodate' those who come HERE, or their own free will...and how, and in what ways, (if any at all), should 'we' insist that THEY accomodate US ? Is the very fact that immigration exists at ALL....even LEGAL immigration...a sign that we have some sort of "obligation" to mankind in general...or is immigration simply in OUR self-interest, as a society?
These may SEEM like 'no-brainers', yet I'm sure you'll agree that ALL of these points and many more are at the center of some very serious disagreements just now.
Your post serves to illustrate that we can't legislate common sense....nor, apparently, can we really even define it. Yet without common sense, a common set of values, or something very much like it...is it possible to have a viable society?...or, more to the point, is it possible to live in freedom without a common cause?
I can't disagree with you. It's part of the great conundrum of life....how can one "dictate" anything in a free society, while keeping it "free"?....and what are the limits of tolerance? And how does any society tolerate the intolerable? And how far must we go to 'accomodate' those who come HERE, or their own free will...and how, and in what ways, (if any at all), should 'we' insist that THEY accomodate US ? Is the very fact that immigration exists at ALL....even LEGAL immigration...a sign that we have some sort of "obligation" to mankind in general...or is immigration simply in OUR self-interest, as a society?
How about this: you set an annual quota for families of skilled people who have no criminal convictions; give them residency and eventually citizenship provided they pay taxes, don't break the law, and learn English; and leave them the hell alone. Everything else -- what language they speak in their home, what music they like, etc. is none of anybody's business. Freedom to sing fado isn't any greater than a native-born citizen's freedom to square-dance.
As to your second question, about legal immigration -- immigration has been and remains in this country's own self-interest. For one thing, the US has, for decades, imported skilled professionals who had been educated at the expense of other countries' taxpayers -- which, needless to say, is a lot cheaper than cultivating our own stock. This practice saved the US a ton of money. With globalization, that bonanza is coming to an end, but I think a nuclear physicist's German accent certainly isn't intolerable if he helps you build the atomic bomb.
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Originally Posted by macmeal
Your post serves to illustrate that we can't legislate common sense....nor, apparently, can we really even define it. Yet without common sense, a common set of values, or something very much like it...is it possible to have a viable society?...or, more to the point, is it possible to live in freedom without a common cause?
A viable society is one that does not get hung up on symbolic representations of a "common cause". I grew up in the Soviet Union -- a country committed to survival by subjugating all of its population to an ironclad idea of a "common cause" as a path to freedom. And look where the Soviet Union is now. Societies that eschew diversity and change stagnate. And societies that stagnate die.
How about this: you set an annual quota for families of skilled people who have no criminal convictions; give them residency and eventually citizenship provided they pay taxes, don't break the law, and learn English; and leave them the hell alone. Everything else -- what language they speak in their home, what music they like, etc. is none of anybody's business. Freedom to sing fado isn't any greater than a native-born citizen's freedom to square-dance.
*****SOUNDS GOOD....but isn't this pretty much nothing more than a description of what LEGAL immigration is supposed to be about? Not breaking the law, learning English, etc.? I agree that "singing Fados" is nobody's business, nor is it any less honorable than singing 'Cowboy ballads'....and I don't think that's what the disagreement's about, either...
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As to your second question, about legal immigration -- immigration has been and remains in this country's own self-interest. For one thing, the US has, for decades, imported skilled professionals who had been educated at the expense of other countries' taxpayers -- which, needless to say, is a lot cheaper than cultivating our own stock. This practice saved the US a ton of money. With globalization, that bonanza is coming to an end, but I think a nuclear physicist's German accent certainly isn't intolerable if he helps you build the atomic bomb.
A viable society is one that does not get hung up on symbolic representations of a "common cause". I grew up in the Soviet Union -- a country committed to survival by subjugating all of its population to an ironclad idea of a "common cause" as a path to freedom. And look where the Soviet Union is now. Societies that eschew diversity and change stagnate. And societies that stagnate die.
As for THIS PART ?...I'm not sure... I'm not convinced at all that much of a parallel can be drawn between what WAS the Soviet Union, and the United States. The USA, after all, has traditionally been a 'destination of choice', and, as such, it was understood by a sort of 'unwritten agreement' that those who WILLINGLY came here, on their own volition, "owed" us a sort of 'debt of gratitude'...and that was generally understood to mean "assimilating", which is, in fact, what MOST people did. They WANTED to be here, and they came...and they recognized their good fortune, and they "got with the program".
You're not suggesting, are you, that the Soviet Union was similarly comprised of "willing" immigrants? Is it your stance that the Russians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Georgians, Kyrghiz, and numerous others, all felt a "kinship" with each other, and desired to all be a "part" of the whole? I think it's more like these people were FORCED to 'join up' OR ELSE...., and they did so unwillingly, at gunpoint. It's hardly surprising to me that they eventually fell apart due to mutual hatreds and cultural incompatibilies. I HOPE that's not the future of the USA, yet I can certainly see how it happened...these people each saw their own "group" or culture as more worthy of loyalty than their "country" was. That, I'm afraid, is how ANY disparate, multi-cultural group of millions of humans would react...UNLESS they had some sort of common bond. It could happen to the US in the same way, given similar societal 'disconnect'.
I don't believe we need to go out of our way to "celebrate our differences". Our differences are out there, for all of us to see. I believe we need to go out of our way to identify our SIMILARITIES, and make an effort to celebrate THOSE....even if we have to 'smile' a little when we might not feel like it.
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Your posts are intersting, though we disagree on many points.
Fair enough, but if you want to enact this into LAW, you have to define your terms. What makes a person American enough? What are "old-country's ways"? If someone born in Portugal picks up a guitar and signs fado on Friday nights, does that mean he is holding on to his "old-country's ways" and must be deported? Should the government regulate what people eat? Is it okay to hold on to the "old-country's ways" in private, or should the government install listening devices in people's homes to monitor what language they speak in the family? If immigrants of similar ethnic background date or marry, does this mean they've failed to assimilate? Is one allowed to have an accent, or would the accent be a ground for deportation? If English fluency is required as a prerequisite to retaining one's citizenship, how many grammatical mistakes does one have to make before deportation is triggered? Alternatively, does speaking English in ways that are too meticulously correct indicate that one is not assimilated? Would you require name changes? Is being a New Yorker "assimilated enough", or should one be required to adapt ways that are more, say, oh, Idahoan? Either way, if you had a law that states "an immigrant is required to assimilate", you have to define "assimilation".
I don't think any one minds foreign accents and they generally fade in time. The important thing is the desire to learn English and be a part of this country.
One immigrant I knew said that all his life we dreamed of becoming an American. He wasn't poor, it wasn't just about money for him. He said he always felt American inside. He would watch every American television show that came on, he studied up on the history of the USA, listened to American music.
Immigration should be about getting people like that into this country -- over someone who doesn't much like Americans, doesn't wish to learn our language or ever learn anything about us or our country.
The problem is -- the USA accepts far more legal immigrants than any other country in the world. Many people want to come for any number of reasons -- but what reasons are the best reasons? Someone might come because they love our money or because they love our social safety net but otherwise they have no use for us as a people or for our country. Someone else might want to come because they truly desire to be one of us.
I would think that it shouldn't be just about someone getting money or preferring our government social programs but about getting new Americans who appreciate our country, our culture and our people.
I would say the same about any country's immigration programs. For example I know of three people who wanted to live in Spain. It wasn't for the money, they weren't just trying to get rich quick, but because they once traveled there and felt some special connection to the country and it's people. These individuals were eager to learn Spanish and of course immigrate legally -- I would think they would be better than someone who wanted to live there but never wanted to learn the language or adapt in any way to that country.
I also believe that immigration should be mostly employer sponsored. The family chain immigration is unfair because it gives far too much preference to someone who happens to have some kind of relative here when someone who has no relative here might make a much better American.
When people come in as individuals, or as nuclear families, they are far more likely to be willing to fit in with Americans. When they come in as a whole village, they will be more inclined to set up their own ethnic enclaves and live apart from Americans. Too much of that is obviously bad, it leads to ethnic divisions -- Balkinization.
Employer sponsored immigration would not be so heavily tilted to just one ethnic group. A good mix of immigrants helps because that encourages Americanization and the use of a common language.
If you have to have 100 immigrants in one place -- it's far better to have 5 of this, 3 of that, 2 of this other, 7 of another and so on than 100 of just one kind.
I also believe that immigration should be mostly employer sponsored. The family chain immigration is unfair because it gives far too much preference to someone who happens to have some kind of relative here when someone who has no relative here might make a much better American.
When people come in as individuals, or as nuclear families, they are far more likely to be willing to fit in with Americans. When they come in as a whole village, they will be more inclined to set up their own ethnic enclaves and live apart from Americans. Too much of that is obviously bad, it leads to ethnic divisions -- Balkinization.
Employer sponsored immigration would not be so heavily tilted to just one ethnic group. A good mix of immigrants helps because that encourages Americanization and the use of a common language.
If you have to have 100 immigrants in one place -- it's far better to have 5 of this, 3 of that, 2 of this other, 7 of another and so on than 100 of just one kind.
Excellent points all......................especially the need to do away with chain immigration (outside of nuclear families).
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