Presumably many people with racist views are already more likely to vote for Republicans or future Trump-inspired candidates. An appeal to architecture is not going to expand the party. This would seem to go against future demographics needed to win national elections, and the degree of modern enlightenment that exists.
But those parts of the sentence don’t matter, because they are cover. Of course countries have borders. Of course all citizens and residents, whether foreign or natural born, should respect the rule of law and be productive. Those statement are the ice cream in the sundae. They’re non-controversial on the face, every sundae has ice cream. They’re also a solution in search of a problem, since there is no evidence that immigrants have less respect for the law or are less productive than natural born citizens.
I like the sundae analogy, but I’d do it a bit differently. I sometimes don’t really like the sundae of policy positions that Democratic politicians offer up. Some of their positions are like butterscotch syrup or shredded coconut. I don’t like them on a sundae. I might have to eat around them or hold my nose a bit. But it’s still a normal sundae and if there’s enough stuff I like in it, I’ll order it off the menu.
The position about “cultural respect” is an ingredient in the sundae of that statement. But it’s not an ingredient like coconut or butterscotch. It’s an ingredient like heroin.
If there is a sundae with heroin on a menu, people only order it for one reason,everyone that orders it orders it for the same reason, and it’s not because they like ice cream with chocolate syrup. If you start blathering about how you are ordering the sundae with heroin because even though you don’t like heroin, you love chocolate syrup, people will laugh at your transparent hypocrisy.
If you whine that people are discriminating against you because they like butterscotch sundaes and you like chocolate and heroin sundaes, you don’t get to be taken seriously when you bitch that people are being mean to you because you like chocolate and they like butterscotch.
That said, I’d love to hear you explain what you think “respecting culture” means. Is it about you getting mad when you have trouble understanding the waiter at a Mexican restaurant? Is it about how annoyed you feel when you’re turning the radio dial and there are too many stations playing salsa music? Or is it about you not liking to hear people speak Spanish? Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s about you.
Or maybe you get tweaked when Eastern European immigrants refuse to assimilate, insist on dressing like hookers and applying eye-makeup with butter knives, and refuse to lose their moose and squirrel accents. I’ll admit that’s ones gotten to me a few times, especially when they try to scam me into sending money to their husband’s re-election campaign - but I still don’t let my personal feelings toward certain immigrants drive my opinions on public policy.
Oh, you know, valuing freedom of expression, and of religion, and from religion; and otherwise agreeing to enshrine various individual rights as Constitutional protections, while engaging in free-market transactions as a law-abiding citizen who does their duty when it comes to serving on a jury or casting a vote in an election and all that other stuff — preferably as someone who’d go above and beyond that by actively volunteering to help their community or serve their country in uniform or champion civil liberties against government interference, or whatever.
Right, those Freedom caucus types are all about protecting the rights of atheists. This pretzel of argument has so many twists in it now, it’s more like a big ball of knots.
I was asked what I thought “respecting culture” means — followed by “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s about you.” And so I shrugged and answered accordingly.
And what reason do you have to believe that non-natural born citizens are deficient in this regard? If there is none, why do we need to reform a system that is working properly?
Why would they? Many of them likely thought the same. Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and most of the rest would have thought very similar things.
The concept of “whiteness” has literally changed over time. More and more immigrant groups have been accepted in the US as “white” as times (and social mores) changed, often because it became more convenient to enlist those groups against other and/or newer immigrant groups.
I literally mentioned the Irish and Italians in my post. That was no accident. They weren’t considered “proper” white people for a long time even by some people considered progressive for their era. Hell, just being Catholic was bad enough until fairly recently. It’s still almost shocking to me that there are no Protestant Justices on the Supreme Court - they’re all either Jewish or Catholic - and this would have been totally unacceptable even 30 or 40 years ago. Each letter in WASP was actually very important until recently and some people are totally willing to go back to those days again.
You have been consistently ignoring the central tenet of the “Freedom Caucus” and trying to pretend that it’s all about the general topic of “Illegal immigration” rather than “white people only”
They’re blatantly racist. You are defending them by pretending not to see the racist part. This is what you are doing. It’s obvious.
You’re not stupid. You know that you’re defending racists by pretending not to see the racism. It’s blindingly obvious.
At this point the only logical explanation is that you are continuing to post crap like this because you are enjoying stirring up reactions. Pretty plain to see.
Mild correction here… this thread is about the openly racist America First Caucus not the secretly racist Freedom Caucus. The America First Caucus is too racist for the Freedom Caucus (see Ken Buck Tweet above), but not too racist for notable dumbass @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper.
OK, maybe we’re getting somewhere. We just agreed that the legal immigration system in this country works and there is no problem with the quality of the legal immigrant population in terms of their productivity or their willingness to obey the law.
I guess that makes all the stuff you typed earlier about needing to run a full economic study on the earning potential of legal immigrants moot, since there is no problem that needs to be solved. You obviously weren’t discussing illegal immigrants as, by definition, there is no governmental control over illegal immigration.
So maybe the solution is to expand legal immigration, increasing or eliminating quotas while using the screening processes currently in place. This would reduce illegal immigration by giving a legal path to many more immigrants and allow the government to maintain the current standards, which seem to be working.
In fairness, it had only been about 700 years since the Vikings had stopped raiding England. Franklin was suspicious that they might start up again at any time.
Ann, I’m a big fan of yours. You write thoughtfully, eloquently, passionately and I learn a lot from reading your posts. Frankly, you used to be a hero of mine; until I read your position on butterscotch syrup. I’m going to need some time to process this new information.