Making Americans

The Claremont Institute ^ | July 16, 2007 | Brian T. Kennedy

[Delacon]

Let us for a moment not worry about the health of the economy or the justice of kicking out the millions of illegal aliens we have let in with a wink and a nod. There will be plenty of time for those concerns in the months ahead. Instead, let us recognize the crisis of American citizenship itself, accelerated by 40 years of unchecked illegal immigration and deeply flawed attempts at immigration reform.

[Delacon]

Assimulation, I think, is the most important issue(next to national security) with regards to immigration, legal or illegal. Its not necessarily that there are too many immigrants coming here but that the ones here won't ever become Americans in a true cultural scense.

[Clemenza]

Very few people actually came here to "become American." Most folks then as now come here for economic opportunity, and settle in segregated ethnic ghettos with their countrymen.

Personally, I'm very impressed with the fact that so many Koreans, Indians, Persians, and even South Americans don't stay in the same urban ghettos for many generations like many of the Italians and Poles did.

As far as the illegal Mexicans are concerned, control the border, end bilingual education, and encourage practical/technical knowledge in the schools, and the problem will take care of itself.

[Delacon]

“Very few people actually came here to “become American”. Most folks then as now come here for economic opportunity, and settle in segregated ethnic ghettos with their countrymen.”

They used to. America is NOT just a job opportunity. Its a way of life, a set of principles and ideals, or at least it used to be. Immigrants of the past came here for more than just finding work. A couple of my ancestors came here after quitting jobs in Europe in the 1900s. They came here for the social mobility that comes with our unique American view that there are no social barriers than can’t be lept. They came here for the freedoms that we take for granted. And while ghettos have always existed, we now seem to be systematizing them. Ghettos used to be places that immigrants struggled to get out of. Now they are becoming places where an immigrant can live his whole life without ever having to learn english or venture out away from the way of life he had back in the old country. Thats a shame and is just one facet of the lack of assimilation that is required of immigrants these days.

[donna]

Ordinary citizens may still carry around the country's first principles in their hearts, but the minds of our elites have been corrupted and enfeebled by political correctness.

Enfeebled - but running things.

[Niteflyr]

America's founders understood that self-government requires certain good habits, and that we as a sovereign people must determine who can be an American based first and foremost on the character of the person in question. They were concerned that immigrants might come in such numbers that they would overwhelm the existing political community, remaking it in the image of the very countries the newcomers had chosen to flee. But our founders also knew that if immigrants came in manageable numbers, they would be welcomed not as a separate class of laborers and outsiders, but as fellow Americans.

It is NOT being of good character to ignore the boundaries of a sovereign nation...steal across that boundary in the dead of night...commit fraud, deception, and identity theft in order to work...and expect hand-outs from the citizens of that nation...

[Niteflyr]

America is NOT just a job opportunity. Its a way of life, a set of principles and ideals, or at least it used to be

Yes and it's obvious from recent demonstrations that the current crop of illegal infiltrators just don't get that or give a sh**....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Demand a border fence! Build it NOW!! Beef up the border patrol and close our borders!

U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121

U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121

White House comments: (202) 456-1111

Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep

Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE Washington, D.C. 20003
phone: 202.863.8500 | fax: 202.863.8820 | e-mail: info@gop.com

Take a look at their hidden agenda: http://www.mexica-movement.org

[heylady]

“our elites have been corrupted and enfeebled by political correctness”
41 years I’ve worked at my current job and today a person accused me of saying to her “Speak English” I didn’t say it but I have a feeling it won’t matter. She was sitting on a bench under a No Smoking sign and naturally she was smoking. As I walked by I said “No smoking , sheesh”, under my breath. I am so very weary of all this political correctness and all the lives that have been disrupted because of it.

[donna]

Depressing - we can’t live together anymore. I have a name for such behavior - “no Christian in the room”. People are free to lie to your face and get you in trouble because we don’t have enough Christian witnesses in the room who will tell the truth.

(By the way, perhaps there is a surveillance tape and perhaps you should have them save it just in case! It wouldn’t hurt to have proof of the smoking. Sorry to mention it.)

[Clemenza]

Yes, but the European "ethnics" (Southern and Eastern Europeans) often spent 2-3 generations in their urban ghettos. By contrast, you see large numbers of folks from Asia, the middle East, and even parts of Latin America (depending on education and knowledge of capital formation) living comfortably out in suburbia.

I do agree that the advent of jet travel and the rise of mass communications (including the internet) has made it much easier to remain in touch with one's country. Lets also not forget that in the case of Mexico, it is often a five minute walk across a border.

[raybbr]

Yes, but the European "ethnics" (Southern and Eastern Europeans) often spent 2-3 generations in their urban ghettos. By contrast, you see large numbers of folks from Asia, the middle East, and even parts of Latin America (depending on education and knowledge of capital formation) living comfortably out in suburbia.

Can you say Chinatown? Can you say South Chicago?

Do you ever pass up a chance to belittle those immigrants who came in previous dedades?

Comparing the Poles and Italians of yesteryear to the immigrants today who have everything handed to them in their languages and are accomodated at every turn is specious.

[Clemenza]

I am the descendant of Polish and Italian immigrants. Just pointing out that those folks, in many cases, spent generations living in crappy nabes (ghettos) of rowhouses and tenements before they "made it in America." You don't meet too many multigenerational families on Mott Street or Newark Avenue in JC.

While we can both agree to castigate the welfare state, I must say that most of the Indians, Koreans, and Chinese that I see in NJ and NY WORK for their success, rather than wait for "the man" to give it to them.

[raybbr]

While we can both agree to castigate the welfare state, I must say that most of the Indians, Koreans, and Chinese that I see in NJ and NY WORK for their success, rather than wait for "the man" to give it to them.

That's not what I meant. Aliens today get tax breaks, govt. forms in their native language and everyone bend's over backwards to "aid" them for fear of being called a xenophobe or a racist.

Even the Poles today get forms in polish and they don't live in ghettos anymore.

By the way, have you been to South Chicago lateley? That's pretty much the mexican "chinatown" these days.

[Clemenza]

Yes, our government at work. In Portland, they even give out forms in Klingon, I kid you not...

The problem with South Chicago and Pilsen (SW Side of Chicago) is that we have a never-ending wave of illegals. Were said wave to be stopped, such places would gradually depopulate or become gentrified (difficult in South Chicago's case, as it is closer to Gary than to the Loop).