This is a question that would benefit from a serious historical-philosophical investigation. The WSJ is simply presenting propaganda for its own view, and shouldn't be taken very seriously on this issue. We can all define freedom as the freedom to get what we want or what serves our interest. It requires more thought to ask what a free society really requires, how it functions, what makes it live and what brings it too an end.
I gather this article is a substitute for the scandalous "There Should Be Open Borders" editorial that they used to greet the Fourth with. If I remember correctly that article even proposed that restrictions on immigration be barred by constitutional amendment, a view that disqualifies the Journal as a serious commentator on this question, for can anyone be so stupid to support such a policy after 9/11 or to give its longtime advocates any credence?
We can certainly argue about how much immigration the country should take in or can assimilate or benefit from. But let's do it in the rational, realistic way the founders would have done, not by idealizing immigration and ignoring the problems it brings.
"With equal pleasure I have often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give us this one connected country, to united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same lanuage, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence." -- John Jay, Federalist 2
"May it not happen in fine that the minority of citizens may become a majority of PERSONS, by the accession of alien residents, of a casual concourse of adventurers, or of those whom the Constitution of the State has not admitted to rights of suffrage? -- James Madison, Federalist 43
So, the founders had in mind letting people come in no matter what their agenda?
Could you show me just where the writer says that?
The bunch thats been coming in for the last 20 years or so have not created any "prosperity" through their "industry",
Really? Then I guess all those small stores I see starting up are just an illusion.
I'll have to tell this to Hwoon and Kadarh, Dovovan, Sean, Dimitry.
What's so great about America (Must Read)
The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 7/3/03 | Dinesh D'Souza
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – The conventional wisdom is that immigrants come to America to get rich. This notion is conveyed endlessly in the "rags to riches" literature on immigrants, and it is reinforced by America's critics, who like to think of the United States as buying the affection of immigrants through the promise of making them filthy rich. But this Horatio Alger narrative is woefully incomplete; indeed, it misses the real attraction of America to immigrants, and to people around the world.
There is enough truth in the conventional account to give it a surface plausibility.
Certainly America offers a degree of mobility and opportunity unavailable elsewhere, even in Europe. Only in the US could Pierre Omidyar, whose ancestry is Iranian and who grew up in France, have started a company like eBay. Only in the US could Vinod Khosla, the son of an Indian Army officer, become a shaper of the technology industry and a billionaire to boot.
In addition to providing unprecedented social mobility and opportunity, America gives a better life to the ordinary guy than does any other country. Let's be honest: Rich people live well everywhere. America's greatness is that it has extended the benefits of affluence, traditionally available to the very few, to a large segment of society. We live in a nation where "poor" people have TV sets and microwave ovens, where construction workers cheerfully spend $4 on a nonfat latte, where maids drive very nice cars, where plumbers take their families on vacation to St. Kitts.
Recently I asked an acquaintance in Bombay why he has been trying so hard to relocate to America. He replied, "I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat."
The typical immigrant, who is used to the dilapidated infrastructure, mind-numbing inefficiency, and multilayered corruption of third-world countries, arrives in the US to discover, to his wonder and delight, that everything works: Roads are clean and paper-smooth, highway signs clear and accurate; public toilets function properly; when you pick up the telephone you get a dial tone; you can even buy things from the store and then take them back.
The American supermarket is a thing to behold: endless aisles of every imaginable product, many types of cereal, 50 flavors of ice cream. The place is full of unappreciated inventions: quilted toilet paper, fabric softener, cordless phones, disposable diapers, and roll-on luggage.
So, yes, in material terms, America offers the newcomer a better life. Still, the material allure of America does not capture the deepest source of its appeal.
Recently I asked myself how my life would have been different if I had not come to America. I was raised in a middle-class family in India. I didn't have luxuries, but I didn't lack necessities. Materially, my life is better in the US, but it is not a fundamental difference. My life has changed far more dramatically in other ways.
Had I remained in India, I would probably live my entire existence within a five-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious and socioeconomic background, possibly someone selected by my parents. I would face relentless pressure to become an engineer or a doctor.
My socialization would have been entirely within my own ethnic community. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance. In sum, my destiny would, to a large degree, have been given to me.
By coming to America, I've seen my life freed of these confines. At Dartmouth College, I became interested in literature and switched my major to the humanities. Soon, I developed a fascination with politics, and resolved to become a writer, which is something you can do in America, and which is not easy to do in India.
I married a woman of English, Scots-Irish, French, and German ancestry. Eventually, I found myself working in the White House, even though I wasn't an American citizen. I can't imagine any other country allowing a noncitizen to work in its inner citadel of government.
In most of the world, even today, identity and fate are largely handed to you. This is not to say that you have no choice, but it is choice within given parameters. In America, by contrast, you get to write the script of your own life. What to be, where to live, whom to love, whom to marry, what to believe, what religion to practice - these are all decisions that, in America, we make for ourselves. Here, we're architects of our own destiny.
"Self determination" is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of the US. Young people throughout the world find irresistible the prospect of being in the driver's seat of their own lives. So, too, the immigrant discovers that America permits him to break free of the constraints that have held him captive, so that the future becomes a landscape of his own choosing.
The phrase that captures this unique aspect of America is the "pursuit of happiness."
Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul analyzes that concept this way: "It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement.
It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away."
• Dinesh D'Souza is the author of 'What's So Great About America.' He is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/939842/posts
I think if you read more carefully you will find I disagreed with the writer of this article.
My question was, Invasion of terror or naturalization for immigrants? the invasion must be stopped!
There does that help you understand?
Ops4 God Bless America!