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Agreed. For a guy like that I’d buy him the ladder.
My objections to where we are on immigration has little to do with the immigrants themselves. Ultimately I object to the state of affairs where a country setting it’s border policy on its own best interest is considered barbaric, where both sides of the government want to keep the spigot open but one pays lip service to closing the borders, and mostly to the state of affairs where the will of the people, as clearly understood as it can be, is deemed wrong by the DC area code and hence to be thwarted at every opportunity.
Yes, we must set the immigration policy based on our interests and that is not barbaric. Not open borders, selective borders. And it is not about racism (don’t forget Irish need not apply) it is about quality. America is a preferred destination because we integrate immigrants. It changes us too. It has for 241 years.
Put it another way, you’re not going to find as ardent an anticommunist as Solzhenitsyn born in the USA. I’d value him more highly than any number of antifa redacted. That man was an American before he ever set foot on our soil. It would have been criminally foolish to keep him out. It does not therefore follow that everybody and his chain-migrating Aunt coming into this country is also spiritually American.
Combine with that a total lack of confidence the government is letting people in with the country’s best interest in mind.
Yes, very well put. We need Americans in spirit and that does not inherit by blood. And I have no trust in the current arbiters Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?.
It strikes me that this raises the question of “who decides?”. Since the SJW universe will complain about whatever criteria there are, how do we not let that get gamed.
Let me say, game under way. There are rules, and lawyers, and fees to be paid to get in.
But there is no perfect process.
No, but the best is to first get back to true federalism and the checks and balances we had. The second step is to take over the world. Let in countries who want to become states of the union. We did it with Texas. Anyone messes with us gets added forcibly. Let us carry American exceptionalism to the rest of the world. Then, there won’t be any problem with immigration. ?
It’s not possible to know who will become a good and productive citizen. Whatever criteria we establish will give rise to a global industry of false stories and false documents to prove them because the demand to come here is strong and global, but that doesn’t free us from establishing criteria and trying to enforce them. By definition this excludes illegal immigration which includes the largest source of illegals, overstaying one’s visa, so the first thing we must establish is a way to know who is here, when they came and when they leave. Moreover, if we want them to leave as required there must be a way to exclude them from work and welfare because we’ll never be able to round them up and send them home. This seems pretty basic but isn’t because some people want workers, some want an underclass and one party wants an assured supply of loyal voters.
America is not Christ… or any religion…
He was a good man. We were blessed he came here (especially the 4 men), but such an exemplary man could have done something good for others regardless of where he was.
So… only American if you think and believe American.
Does that mean we can kick out the communists because they aren’t American?
That’s a great idea! Glad you thought of that. Let’s send ’em all to Canada.
Works for me. Let’s boot California while we’re at it.
I think there is so much fear in our world that we are trying every perfect way that we can to protect ourselves. Stopping all immigration is not the way. But stepping back and using practical screening criteria is the way to put in safeguards. And let’s send @arahant to Canada! ;-)
I think that if we accept that some people are not American based on their thoughts then we have accepted that policing people’s thought is ok. That’s a dangerous way to go. Who decides what “American” means?
Immigration quantity should also be controlled. A population can assimilate a certain percentage of immigrants and we should seriously open the discussion to what that limit could be.
Going south for the winter might not be a bad idea.
Reading this young man’s story brings a tear to my eyes.
But even so, I’m not a believer in “we need smart selection”. That’s the equivalent of “we could balance the budget if we could just get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse”. Any filter we use is going to be crude, imprecise, and subject to gaming. And even (or especially) “good” immigrants – educated, hard working, etc. – are likely to displace an American from a job and thus be unwanted.
We do need a throttle on immigration, but I’m wary of any system that thinks it can pick the good ones. The best we can probably do is set a hard cap and weed out the obviously bad.
And most importantly: everyone wants cheap goods and services.
We can wax romantic all day about who is an American in spirit before they ever set foot on our shores. But let’s be real: most immigrants are here because we want to save money, full stop. If we weren’t sending a huge demand signal with our pocketbooks, they wouldn’t be able to come and stay in such huge numbers.
That’s why I’m skeptical of phrases like “the will of the people, as clearly understood as it can be” when it comes to immigration. People express one will to pollsters and at the ballot box. They express another will whenever they go out to eat or want to build a home.
If the private sector could come up with a way of certifying organic food (even though organic is more expensive), it could also find a way of certifying restaurants/construction companies/temp agencies/etc. as “only legal labor”. Why hasn’t that happened? Because we like the benefits of immigration, both legal and illegal.
Rant over, sorry for the threadjack.
I agree heartily with this. From minor things like various foods to perspectives on life and the world, we have much to learn from each other. Becoming insular is to choke off our own growth.
I haven’t heard anyone argue for stopping all immigration since Pat Buchanan in 1992. Did I miss something?
No problem with legal immigration. I would prefer that we allow in those who want to be Americans and not just be (fill in the blank, Mexican, Guatamalan, Somali) who just happen to live in America.
I don’t think that’s true, Mendel. We could come up with a system for attempting to prove that workers are legal, but the only people who would benefit are those who supply ever more and more expensive fake documents.
This is one of those things where people are speaking as if from behind carnival masks.
A. We are not a “Nation of Immigrants” any more than any other modern nation is. It just depends what period of time you want to focus on.
B. We cannot speak of “immigration ” in the abstract. That’s like talking about “bacteria” in the abstract. Some are good, symbiotic with us. Some will make us very sick. And if your goal is a healthy body, you will understand the differences, take the precautions.
I agree completely.
We are not a “Nation of Immigrants” but we are a nation shaped by immigration.
The point of my post was just that. Immigration is not good or bad on its own, it is something that should be managed. And that is hard, but is worth our effort.
On immigration, consider me a supporter of Derbian Minimalism.
Oh come on. I’m sure most Americans would support an anti-elite immigration policy that subjected elites to direct labor market competition. It just isn’t possible as a practical matter, our elites are far too powerful for that (if you don’t believe me, feel free to cite the part of the Constitution that mandates that abortion must be legal). A more tractable approach to our labor market problems is to just cut the overall level of immigration.
I agree. Contrary to what people keep,saying, we don’t need immigrants. Yes, that’s what I said, okay? and I dare anyone to prove otherwise. We need to raise our birth rate. Immigrants arrive because they need us. They can make more money here.
As with the benefits of diversity, claims that immigrants making us stronger are unsupported by data. This is not to say that I want to stop either, but rather that we shouldn’t found policy on gaseous bromides.
Uh, no.
…
The average IQ for a person from Ghana is about 73.
You typically need an IQ of about 83 to even enter the US Army.
And many countries have average IQs lower than that.
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
“There is no chance of Ghanaian immigrants as a whole being self-supporting in the modern American economy.”
…
Ghana is often given the distinction of being the first former colony in Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence, yet 7% of Ghana has applied for visas to immigrate to the United States. Thus, it has been argued that 60 years of independence has not been such a great success.
Two-thirds of Ghana supposedly speaks English at least. If citizens from Ghana were to learn something helpful from an English-speaking country, they should probably return to improve their native country as best as possible.
Diversity is not a benefit. Diversity in itself is not a “good” , and there has never been a serious claim, nor a serious study, asserting that it is.
I have thought quite a lot about this. Remember the mythology of the Tower of Babel, when the human race became polyglot? God confused tongues to frustrate the power humans had when they could work in mutual understanding.
The drive to transform cohesive, largely homophone nations into polyglot holding pens has a similar impetus, I think. It is: to frustrate and destroy government by, for, and of the people. And if the people cannot govern themselves, because there is no mutual understanding among them–
Why, then, obviously, control must be imposed from above
by an all powerful oligarchy of faceless ideologues.
It’s for our own good.
Bravo. I wish I could like this again.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122415577989
Sometimes, I wonder if people actually want smaller government when they keep pushing ideas and policies that lead to big government.
And what test or battery of questions measure the quality of a person or their potential? I find it deeply ironic that for people who express such skepticism about government competency you think them competent enough to know what is in the interest of the nation with respect to the populace, labor market, or culture.