Have you read none of my posts? As I have said before, go ask a Native American if mass immigration was good or bad thing for his people.
They have, however, a single dominat culture. Moreover, the Swiss had their internal strife before they just managed to find non-violent ways to contain them. They still have national service from EVERY canton.
Why not point to countries like Japan, China etc. who have homegenous populations and appear quite content to keep them that way.
Can you name a country that has more than one dominant culture? Put another way, can you name a country (other than Belgium and even that is starting to fray) where there are two co-equal cultures?
I live in Small Town America. Three years ago, we had our very first mugging-- a guy grabbed a woman’s purse and shoved her down in a parking lot. We’ve had three murders in as many years-- something which was once inconcievable.
My point is that communties change-- crime increases and decreases. (Types of crimes change, too.) But there aren’t any influxes of minorites on which to blame our crime rate increase in the last ten years. A good portion of it comes from the way crimes are reported these days. There were always burglaries, but folks tended just to gnash their teeth and lock up their posessions better next time. Now, they’re more likely to report it. Back in the so-called Good Old Days, men could beat their wives with impunity. Now they get arrested. Likewise, forensic techniques have improved. (I mentioned the old man who was killed and his house burned to cover the crime. Perhaps years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to detect the murder and would have assumed he just died in the fire.)
As a professional historian, I see old copies of newspapers from our community, dating back to the late 1700s. What I see is the same thing today-- sensational reporting of crime and blaming outsiders for causing it. (Back then, it was freed slaves coming into the area that were blamed.) The crimes may have changed, but not people’s reactions to them.
Actually, I’d say the better our health system, the less risk of a pandemic. If everyone had access to innoculations and treatments before their illnesses could mutate, we’d be much better off.
It may be no concern of yours, but it’s highly concerning to them. To leave the life they have built to go back to crushing poverty with no chance of getting out of it-- to take their children back to the same wretched circumstances, knowing that it’s impossible they will have a good life? No one would willingly choose that.
Cuba is not that much different than, say, China. I’d imagine they’re not too pleased with people who get deported back to their country. Likewise, other immigrants have fled civil war, dictatorships, religious/political persecution. This is not your average immigrant, of course, but there are people who would face dire consequences if they returned to their homelands.
Dude, I quoted her exact words from post # 92.
True, but unless this country is just like Mexico-- meaning lacking any opprotunity other than a life of hopeless poverty and misery, there will always be perks to coming to the US. People come to start a new life, not just because there’s one or two benefits they seek.
War, genocide, diminishing resources, pollution, lack of health care for all Americans, piss-poor education, gross abuses of political power, election fraud . . I could go on for pages.
This page has some statistics of interest:
This page notes that:
So, out of 420,000 illegals each year, 170,000 are ones which overstayed their visas, not crossed the border in the dead of night. Only 40% of illegal aliens cross the southern border, yet 85% of our resources go to patrolling it?
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s not a new, sudden problem that needs attention now, now now, or else America as we know it will implode.
I don’t agree. I read back through her posts and got the same impression. Not only does she think every Mexican she sees is an illegal, she thinks they’re trying to destroy American culture.
Examples:
Gozu, all I get from anything you’ve posted here is that you don’t really care about the practical consequences of the policies and principles you advocate, and looking noble is more important to you than preserving and protecting our community. But then, this sort of attitude is fairly typical of liberals.
Preserving our community from what? “Brown,” Spanish speakers? You’re not exactly doing conservatives any favours with that attitude.
There may be a very high probibility that they are illegal, but unless you PROVE it, you cannot lable them fairly.
No, Lissa, it is not prejudice. It is common sense and sound logic. You can, and probably will, go on denying that we have a crisis with illegal aliens, but it’s people like me who have to compete with illegal aliens for such things as work, low cost housing and pubic assistance. This is a matter of utter indifference to you, since illegal aliens seldom take work away from historians. The basic issue here is that you want to sound noble, but you want others to pay the price for your nobility. Which means that you’re on the same moral level as a chickenhawk.
From a flood of illegal aliens and all the problems and dangers they bring. Your refusal to see that we obviously have a crisis on our hands and your snide insinuations of racism don’t do liberals any favors.
Japan (the Ainu are too few to be “significant”). Korea. Vietnam. Saudi Arabia (unless you account for the Sunni-Shi’ite divide). Madagascar. Portugal. Italy (regional variations but no significant ethnic minorities, except for fairly recent immigrants from the Balkans). Greece. Denmark. Iceland. The Netherlands. Austria (post-WWI). Germany (post-WWII). Poland (post-WWII). Cuba (multiracial but not in any sense multinational).
Aargh. In post #146, the second line should have been part of the quote. I don’t know how I managed to screw up the coding for that. Not enough coffee this morning, I guess …
You have described no crisises and have only broad brushed a certain ethnic group as being illegal because of how they look and sound. You aren’t doing conservatives any favour either pal.
Yeah, right. There’s no crisis. I’m just making it all up 'cuz I’m a closet Klansman. :rolleyes:
Eva, your links don’t work. I’d love more information about this if you could provide it. Please fight my ignorance! My e-mail is in my profile.
Thanks!
Well you’re overplaying it IMO. You really haven’t explained them. And if it’s the culture/language thing, I really don’t think that there is a crisis.
Why even get into that. Let’s just focus on the sheer volume of people entering the country illegally. Let’s then focus on the corrupt state south of our border and see if we can’t find ways to disincentivize people from illegally crossing the border.
So, it’s not prejudice if I say I’m afraid of blacks because it’s sound logic that a quarter of them are criminals? Seriously-- what’s the difference?
Do I think there’s a problem?-- yes. Do I think it’s crisis-level?–no.
If you lived in my neighborhood, you would face the exact same competition, but it would be from poor Americans.
[qoute]This is a matter of utter indifference to you, since illegal aliens seldom take work away from historians.
[/quote]
D’you want to know how I got my job in the museum field? I volunteered for a year at no pay to prove myself before I was hired. And before you go thinking it’s some ivory tower career, let me tell you that my salary is mostly a symbolic gesture. With my paycheck, I can ususally buy a carton of cigarretes and cover the cable bill-- that’s about it. I do this work because I love it, not because it pays well. I don’t even have a college degree.
Nor is it a matter of indifference to me when ANYONE suffers. I just think that the proposed “solutions” will cause more harm than good.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If it makes you feel better to imagine me as a fingers-in-the-ears liberal, more power to you.
First off, America does not have two co-equal cultures, we have several- perhaps the largest being African-American culture. Secondly, it is hard to find places where the majority (or racial group closest to Europe) hasn’t tried to enforce their dominance. Furthermore, there are no countries with no strife whatsoever. But some good starts are India, Suriname, Brazil…Then there are places like Kuwait where citizens are the minority!
Just because “they all look the same” to us doesn’t mean there aren’t cultural divisions.
BrainGlutton I wouldn’t really refer to Mexicans in America as “multinational”. There have always been Mexicans here. It’s not some bizarre foreign culture, it’s the same guys that founded our cities, built our first roads and started the first farms.
I confess to not having read this whole thread, but I think Lochdale is onto something. I see immigration, legal or otherwise, as just another migration of people from poorer areas to richer ones. It’s been going on forever. I don’t think there’s any power on earth that can stop a migration. We certainly can’t, seeing as how we can’t decide on whether we really want to.
It is unlikely that the US is going to become poorer than Latin America in the near future, so if we want to reduce the number of people coming here, something needs to be done to address the economic disparity between there and here. The same goes for other countries whose residents are trying to get into America. Since this would require both political will on the part of America, along with a large number of foreign governments behaving decently toward their citizens (of which Mexico is currently the most important), I’m not holding my breath.
'Cuz I was talking about a specific group of Hispanics about which I did have some specific knowledge. It wasn’t a gross over-generalization about ALL Hispanics. If you can’t see the difference, the problem is on your end, not mine.
I’d have to compete with poor illegal Americans??!? 
No country has ever absorbed as many illegal aliens as the United States has over the last several decades. Many if not most are poorly educated, unskilled laborers who greatly increase the strain on social services that would be pretty shaky even without the burden of illegal aliens. Lower class citizens have to compete with illegal aliens for work, for low income housing, for public assistance and other resources, and quite naturally they resent not only illegals but the political class which seems to care nothing about the stituation. Maybe that’s not a crisis to you, but I can’t help thinking that you must have an awfully strange definition of the word.
We simply can’t go on importing poverty this way.
Um, if you don’t even have a college degree, by what right do you claim the title of historian? Do you teach classes, publish papers in scholarly journals or write books? 'Cuz I’ve worked in a library and that didn’t make me a librarian, and I’ve worked as a security guard and that didn’t make me a cop.
But you see, no matter what we do, someone will suffer. There is no painless solution to this problem. And it would be awfully nice if, just this once, my rights and interests got some kind of priority. The first priority of the United States government in this matter should be to its own citizens. A community that doesn’t exclude anybody doesn’t really include anybody.
(shrug) All I know is, you seem to regard me as a sacrificial lamb whose rights and interests are expendable.
I do think one of us has a problem, but I don’t think it’s me.
Nope, plenty of poor honest-to-God-American people to compete for the same resources.
“Crisis” means to me that people are starving, or dying or in terrible danger. “Crisis” to me means all hell has broken loose and you’d better call in the National Guard.
I call myself a historian by right of years of study, years of training, and years of work in educating the public. I have earned that title and wear it proudly. And, yes, I actually do write.
Get in line behind the other Americans who need assistance-- and it’s a very, very long line.
“Lo, the poor will be with you always.”
I wish to God that I could help every poor person, and that poverty and its eradication were a real priority for our country.
The fact is, you’d probably be in the exact same position even if every single immigrant vanished tomorrow. There simply aren’t enough good-paying jobs for everyone who wants one.
TWEEEEET!
I know this is a hot button issue for a lot of folks. However, everyone will now take several deep breaths and cool down.
Nothing is debated with all the ad hominem attacks on the “self-righteous,” the “crazy,” the “pathetic,” the “contemptible,” and the “stupid” (whether directly addressed to another poster or simply made regarding some group into which one has conveniently already categorized the other poster) and all the sarcastic self-referential insults that have not actually been posted (“racist,” “naive,” etc.).
Everyone back off. Pick substantive arguments based on facts (preferably with supporting documentation), and leave the personal observations for the BBQ Pit.
[ /Moderator Mode ]