Posted on 09/16/2003 3:11:23 PM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
He's an expert on the matter who rips the left and the right to shreds over their inability to handle the problem of immigration without limits, without purpose, and without question. Here's part of a discussion he had with Kathryn Jean Lopez on his book:
I recently spent an hour talking with a guest worker from an unnamed country not in this hemisphere on why he wanted to be here. He cited the desire to be able to move back and forth to his homeland, only coming here when he needed cash. He lamented the impact 9/11 has had on his green card application. And in the same conversation he admitted that in his home country, law is almost irrelevant. He also assured me that he didn't care about becoming an American.Lopez: If Californians were to read Mexifornia in part as a call to action, what lesson would you want them to take from it? And those of us outside of California, too.
Hanson: Seek the truth, and shed the old fears of being called a "protectionist" by the free-market Right and a "racist" by the manipulative Left. Hand-in-glove, the two have conspired to create an alternative society of illegal aliens who are used by both groups, remain in the shadows of the law, and are fed the half-truths and excuses of "at least it is better than in Mexico" by the former, and "the borders crossed you, not you the borders" by the latter.
If we make the hard, tough decisions now, a number of positive consequences will result in the next two decades: a more united society here at home; pressure on Mexico from dissatisfied Mexicans without recourse who will force needed social and economic change there; improvement in the minimum wage and conditions for unskilled American citizens who need jobs here; and a revised school curriculum that emphasizes real knowledge rather than therapy.
Luis, things have changed since the Vietnam war. America has become even more than it ever was before in the minds of the third world human being. People don't come here to become "Americans" anymore. They come here to sample the good life and then do whatever comes to mind next. America is now Hollywood, the all-powerful D.C. Capitol, a private sort of IMF, and mother Theresa -- all at once. Starry eyed foreigners see a lot to like here. But there's an edge to that gleam in their eyes. It's something to take, not share for many. It's time for Americans to start asking, "What's in immigration for me, my family, and our nation's future?" The answer is very complicated. Do we want to be isolated from the world as we continue to grow in power and influence? No. Do we want to invite the best people from foreign countries here to settle, make their intellectual mark, and have big happy families? Yes. But from lands where the rule of law is unknown, and political and religious values are scattered all across the spectrum, we are bringing people in large numbers to share our country without even knowing what the consequences may be. It's all a theory, just what will happen.
Am I xenophobic? I wasn't before 9/11. But in Silicon Valley, I started noticing a pattern after that horrible day: people came here only to get rich. None of them cared about our true history. Some who didn't care about history at all were better Americans, continuing to plan big families, buying houses, settling down, making friends, and encouraging coworkers to join the military -- than others. But they were rare. Some quoted Milton Friedman and Samuel Adams while advocating subtle forms of Marxist ideology in the same breath. Others preferred to stick to the libertarian defenses of immigration and vice. But none matched the pattern of the immigrants my older parents had known. In fact, you're one of the first ones I've encountered who is an exception to these rules.
We have to move forward into a period where immigration is 100% legal, planned, and vetted by an agency that has the ability to screen incoming applicants for viability. I know you point out the Germans who annoyed Benjamin Franklin. But I do not believe that the "hidden hand" is going to solve the problems of rampant unemployment, lawlessness, fractured culture, and lack of assimilation that has begun to overtake us. Our immigration numbers had been increasing at a fantastic rate up to 9/11, and the impact of it was just too unpredictable. Most of the people who came earlier through Ellis island had a dream to become one of us. Now, from tech workers to farm workers -- legal and illegal, many of these people don't even plan to assimilate their children. One janitor told me that he didn't need to learn English because his whole community spoke Spanish and there was no point to get an education. These aren't isolated conversations I've had.
I maintain that if we slow down the immigration rates, limit entry to legal visitors and applicants, and screen people for political, religious, and cultural ticking time bombs, we can improve the situation. I'm not talking about ending immigration, I'm talking about eliminating the tolerance of massive and unplanned immigration for convenience of special interests who have no commitment to America's future. Tell me what a multinational corporation cares for America when it brings over someone from a third world country to work in an office here, paying 1/2 the going salary? The invisible hand is going to hurt us if we don't give it some guidance. On 9/11 it did just that.
The American Revolution should spread. Immigrants should come here, learn our culture and our politics, and build up a fire in themselves to take our revolution out to their own homelands. But this is a time-consuming process, and is fraught with unpredictable twists and turns. We should at least be willing to take people one at a time through a legal set of steps in bringing them here. Right now in many cases, the rule of law is trashed from the getgo, and yet our very democracy depends on the rule of law to protect the weak from the strong. Undermining it from the bottom is not going to secure our freedoms in the future.
He's a college classics teacher; I'm more of an expert on the matter than he is.
Pick a topic, either speak about immigration, or border jumpers...one or the other.
If you want to discuss immigration, there's no such thing as "immigration without limits, without purpose, and without question", border jumpers are not immigrants.
You want some non-propagandized facts on immigration?
Here’s a link, pay particular attention to page 5. You may not like what you read, but you better understand the reality of it, and that it needs to be addressed BEFORE the immigration issue gets addressed.
BTW, this guy is an "expert" on the subject the same way that a bus driver is an expert on mass transportation.
"I recently spent an hour talking with a guest worker from an unnamed country not in this hemisphere on why he wanted to be here."
I recently spent an hour talking to an American with roots going back to the revolutionary war, he hates what this country stands for, he called us "Imperialists" and "mass murderers", he's considering moving to Europe...should we judge all Americans based on this guy's sentiments just like you just based your judgement of all immigrants on the feelings of the one immigrant you spoke to?
I will hazard a guess that I speak with more immigrants on a daily basis than you speak to in a month...the overwhelming majority are here to work hard and get ahead.
And they came to stay.
"Immigrants should come here, learn our culture and our politics, and build up a fire in themselves to take our revolution out to their own homelands."
Make up your mind.
Do you want them to come here and be good Americans, or to come here long enough to take what they need and go home?
I think you've really missed the point, because citing evidence that some immigrants are good prospective Americans doesn't relate to Hanson's arguments. Of course there are good immigrants. But Americans would like to manage immigration to this country rationally. All we're asking is to know who's coming and why. Right now it's a sort of free for all. We have a right and an obligation to limit immigration as the times dictate. That's all Victor Davis Hanson is saying. I don't think you're arguing for illegal or open immigration, so you must be somewhere between the "no immigrants" and "any and all immigrants" position yourself. Hanson is 100% right.
The multiculturalists also challenged a central element of the American Creed, by substituting for he rights of individuals the rights groups, defined largely in terms of race, ethnicity, sex and sexual preference. Multiculturalism and the Fall of Western Civilization
(5) The Demographic Imperative
Global Progressives declare that demographic changes require Americans to alter their value system. The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the United States as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures and their children enter American life in record numbers. At the same time, the global interdependence of the world’s peoples and the transnational connections among them will increase. All of these changes render the traditional paradigm of American nationhood obsolete. That traditional paradigm based on individual rights, majority rule, national sovereignty, citizenship, and the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is too narrow and must be changed into a system that promotes "diversity," defined, in the end, as group proportionalism.
(6) The Redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals"
Global Progressives are redefining democracy from a system of majority rule among equal citizens to power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. For example, the current Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 1995 that it is "undemocratic" for California to exclude non-citizens, specifically illegal aliens, from voting. Former Immigration and Naturalization (INS) general counsel, T. Alexander Aleinikoff declares that "[we] live in a post-assimilationist age" and states that majority preferences simply "reflect the norms and cultures of dominant groups" (as opposed to the norms and cultures of "feminists and people of color"). James Banks, one of American education’s leading textbook writers says: "To create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power." In effect, Banks is saying, existing American liberal democracy is not quite authentic; real democracy is yet to be created. It will come when the different "peoples" or groups that live within America "share power" as groups.
(7) Deconstruction of National Narratives and National Symbols
Global Progressive elites have been busy in recent years deconstructing the traditional narratives and national symbols of Western democratic nation-states. In October 2000, the British government-sponsored Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain issued a report that denounced the concept of "Britishness" as having "systemic…racist connotations." The Commission, chaired by Labour life peer Lord Parekh, declared that instead of defining itself as a nation, the UK should be considered a "community of communities." One member of the Commission explained that the members found the concepts of "Britain" and "nation" troubling. The purpose of the Commission’s report. according to the chairman Professor Parekh, is to "shape and restructure the consciousness of our citizens." The report declared that Britain should be formally "recognized as a multi-cultural society," whose history needs to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned."
In the United States in the mid 1990s, the proposed "National History Standards," reflecting the marked influence of multiculturalism among historians in the nation’s universities recommended altering the traditional narrative of the United States. Instead of a Western nation formed by European settlers, American civilization is described as a "convergence" of three civilizations, Amerindian, West African, and European that created a "hybrid" American multi-culture. Even though the National History Standards were ultimately rejected, this core multicultural concept that that United States is not primarily the creation of Western Civilization, but the result of a "Great Convergence" of "three worlds" has become the dominant paradigm in American public schools.
On issue after issue, a wide range of Western NGOs are attempting to achieve political ends that they would not be able to achieve through the normal democratic process. They do so by going outside the liberal democratic framework, using extra-constitutional or post-constitutional means. These issues include:
policing United States borders
legal rights of non-citizens in a constitutional regime
THE NGOs
The major NGOs supporting transnational progressivism include:
• Amnesty International USA
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.
ANTI-ASSSIMILATION ON THE HOME FRONT
It is significant, but little noticed, that many of same NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and international law professors who have advocated transnational legal concepts at UN meetings and in international forums are active in U.S immigration and naturalization law. On this front the global progressives have pursued two objectives: (1) eliminating all distinctions between citizens and non-citizens and (2) vigorously opposing attempts to assimilate immigrants into the "dominate Anglo culture."
Thus, Louis Henkin, one of the most prominent scholars of international law when discussing immigration/assimilation issues attacks "archaic notions of sovereignty" and calls for largely eliminating "the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen permanent resident" in all federal laws. Columbia University international law professor Stephen Legomsky argues that dual nationals in influential positions (who are American citizens) should not be required to give "greater weight to U.S. interests, in the event of a conflict" between the United States and the other country, in which the American citizen is also a dual national.
Two leading law professors (Peter Spiro from Hofstra, who has written extensively in support of NGOs, and Peter Schuck from Yale) complain that "since 1795" immigrants seeking American citizenship are required "to renounce ‘all allegiance and fidelity’ to their old nations." In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, they advocate dropping this "renunciation clause" from the Oath. They also reject the concept of the hyphenated American and prefer what they call the "ampersand" individual. Thus, instead of thinking of a traditional Mexican-American who is a loyal citizen, but proud of his ethnic roots, they prefer immigrants (or migrants) who are both "Mexican & American," who retain "loyalties" to their "original homeland" and vote in both countries, thus ignoring the solemn Oath of Renunciation and Allegiance.
University Professor Robert Bach was the author of a major Ford Foundation report on new and "established residents" (the word "citizen" was assiduously avoided) that advocated the "maintenance" of ethnic immigrant identities, supported "non-citizen voting," and attacked assimilation (suggesting that homogeneity not diversity "may" be the "problem in America.") Bach later left the Ford Foundation and became deputy director for policy at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the Clinton Administration, where he joined forces with then INS general counsel T. Alexander Alienikoff, to promote a pro-multicultural, anti-assimilation federal policy. Alienikoff, a former (and current) immigration law professor, has characteristically declared, "we need to move beyond assimilation."
It has been well-documented (through Congressional hearings and investigative reporting) that the financial backing for this anti-assimilationist campaign has come primarily from the Ford Foundation, which in the 1970s made a conscious decision to fund a Latino rights movement based on advocacy-litigation and group rights rather than on civic assimilation. On this front, the global progressives have been aided if not always consciously, certainly in objective terms, by a "transnational right." It was a determined group of transnational conservative Senators and Congressmen that prevented the Immigration Reform legislation of 1996 from reducing unskilled immigration. The same group worked with progressives to block the implementation of a computerized plan to track the movement of foreign visitors in and out of the United States. Whatever their ideological, commercial, or political motives, the constant demand for "open borders" and "free movement" of people as well as goods by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages and by certain commentators, lobbyists, and activists on the transnational right has strengthened the anti-assimilationist agenda of the global progressives. View as HTML Hudson Institute | October 26, 2001 | John Fonte
I talk tp people,
You aren't informed well enough to discuss this issue, much less debate.
We do not have an immigration free for all in this country, we have a problem with border jumpers.
Yes, I responded before I understood what you were saying, I'm sorry. I'll re-read your comments more carefully and try to make something of an intelligent response later.
It sounds as if you're suggesting that this man's ideas are less valuable because he is not an academic or professional expert on immigration. I disagree for two reasons: first, immigration is a public policy issue with political and civic implications, and therefore it requires more than professional reasoning to make such decisions. In other words, it's not something like daily nutritional requirements for children that can be ascertained scientifically. A student of the classics may be quite appropriate to think about population upheaval and civilizational change.
I'm a bit surprised that you tried to impeach his contributions on the basis of his lack of specialty in this area. I could dismiss your experience as an immigrant on the same basis: you're in the field, you're not an analyst. I see your point of view regarding immigration with ambivalence. You have personal motivation to represent immigration as a success. But you also offer us a moral conscience as we often weigh immigration matters with inhumane callousness here on Free Republic. Moreover, you are a superb example of an immigrant who learned our history and language better than most of us know either, internalizing and crystallizing the very best of our ideals. You are the quintessential immigrant's immigrant. You could teach Arnold Schwarzenegger a thing or two about American patriotism! But I still believe you are blinded to the dangers facing us now with the massive ethnic shifts that we are unleashing on this country through massive immigration.
Victor Davis Hanson demands that we set aside traditional views immigration's impact, and treat it with a more cool and detached perspective. You are preferring to see the positives without the negatives of hyper immigration as we've seen it over the past 15 years here. This country is a different place than it was just 20 years ago, and to me it looks like an ethnic train wreck waiting to happen. Without throttling this influx, we may see a massive departure from traditional American cultural values and without time to adjust. You speak of assimilation. I warn you about American acceptance. We, too, must adapt to newcomers. We also must have time and resources to react. Recently immigration has come too fast, too soon, and without preparation. It's one of those experiments in democracy that we make based on our ideals -- without knowing the result.
Pick a topic, either speak about immigration, or border jumpers...one or the other.
No, they are appropriate to discuss together. Our country's political climate has changed so much because of Latino immigration that we have to have political party debates especially for them. Our conservative politicians have become afraid to deal with immigration from Latino countries as a political issue because of the many voters represented among them. We have no idea how many voters who are Latino are legal. And while Latinos are often conservative politically, I am not sure about their ability to assimilate long-term given the comments I've heard. Because of birthrate issues, some which you cite yourself, Latinos could outnumber Anglo groups within a few decades even without additional immigration. What does that mean to the future of America? With so many people coming here who aren't attuned to our cultural value systems, our respect for the rule of law, and our own European history, what will be the results? Nobody knows. But laissez-faire approaches to immigration dismiss all of these concerns with a sweep of the historic hand, pointing to the melting pot that is America. I say in the past, this has worked well. But I believe we need a respite from the current wave of immigration to assess and adjust. That's all I'm asking.
If you want to discuss immigration, there's no such thing as "immigration without limits, without purpose, and without question", border jumpers are not immigrants.
I see what we have today as grossly inflated immigration rates as compared to what we can handle culturally. Border jumpers as well as legal immigrant quotas, if those even exist, are exceeding our society's ability to manage the change. And this should be no surprise as the rest of the earth's population has been growing at an exponential rate for the past 2,000 years. It has doubled in my lifetime. Of course those billions are going to get a glimpse of the American way of life and sense that it's better than what they have. But it's time for us to take some caution about the teeming throngs outside our gates.
Here’s a link, pay particular attention to page 5. You may not like what you read, but you better understand the reality of it, and that it needs to be addressed BEFORE the immigration issue gets addressed.
Yes, our population growth is down. But why is that? How can we turn it around? There is a lot of talk about forcibly preventing women from ending their pregnancies but little about why they would want to do so in the first place. Economic factors, materialism, fear of loss of independence -- all of these add up to girls who don't get married or young women who marry but fail to carry their pregnancies to term, perhaps waiting too long to try to have families while the couple ekes out a living as a dual-income family. These are issues that may not be improved by immigration. I think 9/11 turned around a lot of people on the matter of materialism. I think we are moving away from the no-child couple configurations already. I hope so.
I recently spent an hour talking to an American with roots going back to the revolutionary war, he hates what this country stands for, he called us "Imperialists" and "mass murderers", he's considering moving to Europe...should we judge all Americans based on this guy's sentiments just like you just based your judgment of all immigrants on the feelings of the one immigrant you spoke to?
It's not just one or two people here in the Valley. Maybe that's what has me discouraged. A lot of people came here only to get rich, not just immigrants.
I will hazard a guess that I speak with more immigrants on a daily basis than you speak to in a month...the overwhelming majority are here to work hard and get ahead. ... And they came to stay.
Perhaps, but you should see the mix of people here!
I asked you to clarify whether you think that immigrants should come to stay and become good Americans, or to learn and absorb to take back to their countries. You stated both in the post I was responding to.
I want both, but I think it's time to envision stricter limits on what we can expect from either. And about your early American friend who thinks America is an imperialist violator of international human rights and economic sovereignty? I encounter those kinds of sentiments from Americans on college radio stations, TV network news sources like CNN, and the newspapers like the New York Times every day. Bringing in more immigrants from Latin America, the mideast, or other third world locations is not going to improve that situation enough to encourage stricter limits.
I want reformed guest/tourist visa policies, reduced H1B visas, reduced immigration, screened immigration, immigration sharply curtailed from Latin American and mideast/Islamic regions, and totally eliminated illegal immigration coupled with deportation of current illegals. While this is happening, I would eliminate anything but critical government services to illegals here, and use their approach to government agencies as a means for sweeping them up for deportation. No amnesty, no second chances, no exceptions. I also would like to see an elimination of dual language instruction beyond language remedial courses, and absolutely no government services provided in Spanish except for dire emergency situations. What I expect in return for this is the opportunity to assimilate the millions and millions of foreign people who have come here already. Once that's been accomplished, let's reconsider our options. We're losing this country's cultural core by degrees. It's that core that made it what it is, the thing to which most immigrants are attracted. We have to protect it as humanely as we can, but ultimately it's going to require discomfort. We don't know where we're going with immigration as it stood before 9/11. It's time to be a little more cautious while we sort out the implications of massive ethinic proportional changes we've already unleashed on ourselves.
Hispanics are convicted of commiting 4 times as much crime per capita as whites.We don't need a lecture on how they are going to fit in. Well, in jail cells perhaps.
The aricle says "scholar", and you painted him as an expert.
Most people never read past the title of an article, and when that title missrepresent the body, it becomes propaganda disguising itself as news. If the topic of border jumpers, A.K.A. illegal immigrants, is being discussed, there's no need to propagandize the subject.
Let's create a headline...
"Researcher claims a cure to cancer is near."
Mr. Joe Smith, a pollster from Maine, believes that a cure for cancer will be available to the public in the near future. "I've spoken to people in my neighborhood, and they all believe this to be a fact" -- said Mr. Smith.
This guy is a researcher, and he has an opinion on the cure for cancer, does the title accurately describe the contents?
No.
"I could dismiss your experience as an immigrant on the same basis: you're in the field, you're not an analyst."
Then you would be wrong.
The opinion of someone involved in an event always carries more weight than the opinion of one observing a part of it from a distance, otherwise, newscasters would never have guests on their shows to discuss events they were involved in.
"But I still believe you are blinded to the dangers facing us now with the massive ethnic shifts that we are unleashing on this country through massive immigration."
You cannot both claim concern for balkanization, and concern yourself with an ethnic shift in the nation. If in fact, being American supercedes all ethnic and cultural traits, and you in fact expect immigrants to set aside ethnicity and cultural traits to become a homogenous Americans, you cannot betray your own words by turning around and claiming that we need to somnehow control the ethnicity and culture of inbound immigrants, you would be betraying your own concept of America.
What you are saying is: "To be good Americans, you must drop all allegiance to, and semblance of your ethnic and cultural heritage. Being American means setting those traits aside, because being American is about rising above ethnic and cultural differences. However as Americans, we will concern ourselves with the ethnic and cultural traits of inbound immigrants, because we don't believe America can survive without certain specific ethnic and cultural traits."
It's a circular argument.
Thanks for the kind words by the way, it seems to me that you see me as some sort of an exception, well then, if I am an exception to one end of the spectrum, then I would like to point out, that most people who have an issue with the current pattern of immigration, constantly point to the other extreme, also exceptions, to make their case.
Immigration into the U.S. is a orderly and systematic, the problem is the illegal immigration. The other problem is that immigration control advocates use the illegal immigration problem to attack all immigration, and that's when I go nuts.
One last thing...
We could encourage immigration from Euro nations, and try to maintain the ethnic balance in our country, but the net-net of that would be the introduction of massive numbers of Euro-socialists into our population.
"Nuff said?
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