David French on Native-Born Ingrates

 

David French has a new article on immigrants.

Immigrant citizens don’t owe a special debt of gratitude of to this nation — a debt over and above the gratitude that native-born citizens should feel for their home country. To be crystal clear, I believe Ilhan Omar and every citizen immigrant should be grateful for their place in this country. What I reject is the notion that native-born citizens like myself can demand a level of gratitude from immigrants beyond what we demand from native-born citizens.

In fact, to the extent that we should parse gratitude at all, I assert a simple proposition — the people who did exactly nothing to become citizens of the greatest nation in the history of the earth should be among the most grateful people on this planet. We should be grateful to God that we weren’t born elsewhere. We should be grateful to those who gave their “last full measure of devotion” to defend our nation and our Constitution. We should be grateful for those who endure great hardship to defend our liberty, safety, and prosperity.

Against the backdrop of this immense American gift, native-born Americans by the countless millions don’t trouble themselves to be educated enough about their own country to pass the basic citizenship test that we give to prospective citizen immigrants. All too many native-born citizens forsake the moral obligations of citizenship and instead focus only on reaping its considerable legal and constitutional benefits.

I think French is wrong.  I think my native birth is worth more, because my parents sacrificed a lot to make this country better.  My father and his brothers and fought in WWII.  My brothers-in-law fought in Vietnam.  I have been signed up for selective service for 35 years.  Together we have paid about a hundred years of taxes to build the $100 trillion of infrastructure the USA has.  Isn’t that worth something?  David French seems to say “no”.

My story is actually very common.  People fight and work and die to make the country better.  It seems to me that those sacrifices build up an inheritable equity and when we choose to share that equity with outsiders, the newcomers should be extra thankful to get a share.  I don’t care about civics tests, because I think that being American takes more know-how than can be summarized on a 3×5 card.  A lifetime of living American counts for a lot, even if somebody cannot summarize the first three articles of the Constitution.

I am not saying that immigrants can’t be great Americans.  I know many that are.  I am saying that great Americans are always thankful for the opportunity to be American and appreciate the efforts of those that built and sustained the greatest country ever.

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  1. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Brian Wolf (View Comment):
    His tweet used obviously racist language.

    My first response to this statement of “fact” is that it’s not factual at all. So I said I better check it out further. This was from Ayanna Pressley’s site. I don’t do twitter, so I do not have a direct connection. I think the tweet finishes with something to the effect, then come back and show us how you made things better…or how we can make things better. In either case, other than misspeaking  about inferring an immigrant status to all four Congresswomen, where is the racism? 

    • #121
  2. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/dems-to-tapper-on-racist-tweets-the-president-won-this-one/

     

     

    • #122
  3. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Unsk (View Comment):

    Franco: “They want to dilute our electoral power by holding the door open for tribal allies who aren’t in the least interested or invested in American values. This is obvious, even if it isn’t often articulated.”

    While I am not anti-immigrant, the issue of diluting the voting power of those who love and cherish America and it values by endlessly bringing in more immigrants who don’t is a very serious one.

    I live in a state, California that has been inundated with new immigrants, both legal and illegal, these last thirty some odd years. Many of these people are good people, but given the state of our media, our schools and other cultural forces, these people generally do not understand what made America great and vote that way. Also millions are voting who have no right to and I am talking legal and illegal residents.

    That said my state has roughly half of the estimated 3.5 million ghost voters nationwide or potential voters who are registered to vote but who don’t qualify and should not be allowed to vote.

    The consequence of all these factors allowed Hillary to gain over 4 million more votes in my state alone than Donald Trump, and this is from a state from 1952 to 1988 that voted Republican every Presidential election – save one – the LBJ landslide.

    Given all these factors, our current immigration system is decidedly unfair to those on the conservative end of political spectrum.

    No wonder they holler about the census question…

    • #123
  4. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    cdor (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):
    Even African-Americans, whose ancestors were brought here against their will don’t have as much criticism and bile as some of these recently arrived tribal colonizers.

    African Americans can be our county’s proudest and most loyal citizens…many, many are. This is an excellent issue for President Trump to promote.

    Interesting how our last president harped on about inequality but did little to help lift the quality of life for African-Americans – he did not invest in the inner cities, infrastructure, create jobs or bring manufacturing back, didn’t fight the drug war but advocated open borders, and in fact, his minister was clearly a terrible racist.  During that presidency, words like white privilege, safe space, gender-neutral, gender fluid, became common place, victims everywhere. And here we are.

    • #124
  5. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Frankly, bringing up Bush blows me away. Bush did not fight back. He let them paint him as Hitler.

    That is why he won such a resounding victory over Kerry because Hitler is so popular in America?

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    You keep calling things that were not racist, racist?

    No I don’t

    • #125
  6. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Brian Wolf (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    If you have any objection to anything foreign, you’re labeled an irrational hater. (French did not use the word “xenophobic,” but I think that his reasoning is based on this idea.)

    Do you have any evidence for this? French’s entire point is that gratitude is owed to America because it is better place to live then anywhere else. Where is his praise for the foreign? All the ladies of the “Squad” are American citizens none of them are foreign though Omar was born somewhere else she is an American. Trump didn’t criticize any foreigners.

     

    This is a good criticism, Brian.  I was projecting onto French a bit.  He does tend to go along with what I generally view as contrived Left-wing hysteria over the President’s provocative and trolling tweets.

    Here is a quote from a 2018 column (full text here) that expresses a bit of the weakness that bothers me about French, 

    While there are racists in this world, not all cultural criticism is racist. There is a need for the great Western democracies to be compassionate and humane, but not every material limitation on immigration is xenophobic. It’s just a fact that migrants were arriving from regions that are awash in anti-Semitism. A recent ADL global survey showed that a stunning 74 percent of North African and Middle Eastern residents registered anti-Semitic attitudes. In multiple Muslim nations, overwhelming majorities of Muslims citizens express support for the death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy.

    But in some quarters, it’s racist to call out racism and intolerant to call out intolerance.

    This disease is now infecting the American body politic. On some days, it feels as if the entire immigration debate is conducted about fictional immigrant populations, with identity politics often afflicting both sides of the debate.

    He makes a good point, but he is also wishy-washy, which concedes too much to the other side, in my estimation.  For example, saying that “not every material limitation on immigration is xenophobic” necessarily implies that some material limitations on immigration are xenophobic.  It allows xenophobia to be a legitimate argument — in fact, an epithet — in the debate, which concedes the linguistic high ground to the enemy.

    We need a stronger response.  It is perfectly legitimate to oppose immigration — even all immigration — on the grounds that immigrants tend to undermine and change our culture, and we don’t particularly want that kind of change.  It is fair to disagree, but I think that it is insulting to use the epithet “xenophobic” in the argument.

    Ditto, almost always, with the other epithets — racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, whatever.  In particular, our Conservative leaders need to stop using these terms, which stifle legitimate debate.

    • #126
  7. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    It is perfectly legitimate to oppose immigration — even all immigration — on the grounds that immigrants tend to undermine and change our culture, and we don’t particularly want that kind of change. It is fair to disagree, but I think that it is insulting to use the epithet “xenophobic” in the argument.

    Ditto, almost always, with the other epithets — racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, whatever. In particular, our Conservative leaders need to stop using these terms, which stifle legitimate debate.

    This is really good.  It responds to the globalist movement that is dominated by political collectivism that, turned loose in America, will destroy any chance for us to recover our market economy and protect individual freedom. Now that we have Trump as President we will be forced to fight the battle you have described here because those are the words the commies will use to described his policies.

    • #127
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Ditto, almost always, with the other epithets — racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, whatever. In particular, our Conservative leaders need to stop using these terms, which stifle legitimate debate.

    “-phobic” has been rendered meaningless. 

    Where it once meant actual fear, it now means noticing that someone from a different [X] might be meaningfully different from you. 

    • #128
  9. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    We need a stronger response. It is perfectly legitimate to oppose immigration — even all immigration — on the grounds that immigrants tend to undermine and change our culture, and we don’t particularly want that kind of change. It is fair to disagree, but I think that it is insulting to use the epithet “xenophobic” in the argument.

    I get what you are saying here.  David French is arguing for immigration restrictions but he grants too much cover to the other side.  I understand that but he is also trying to be truthful.

    So like your line “It is perfectly legitimate to oppose immigration– even all immigration– on the grounds that immigrants tend to undermine and change culture…”

    This of course is not true or its truth is dependent on context.  American has a long, long tradition of assimilation where our culture is not undermined but enhanced, changed true but for the better by immigration.  The baleful effect of immigration happen when the home country is close by and easily accessed, migrants group together in enclaves they dominate and their numbers are replenished regularly by new arrivals.  Even under just two of those conditions by effects can take place to at least some extent.

    In some strongly nationalistic countries founded on one ethnic group assimilation is more difficult and immigration must take place in a context very different from America and America can’t learn many useful things from comparing the American apple to a Hungarian orange. 

    Arguing for immigration restrictions now, in the American context, are perfectly defensible and right David French is trying to persuade readers that perhaps don’t share his pro-restriction view by being as truth as he can be and acknowledging his side is not perfect.  This is a very common form of persuasion and effective one. 

    I understand a desire for only full throttle defenses of one’s position that brooks no compromise but that kind of defense rarely persuades, in politics. 

     

    • #129
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