Re: Why Americans Hate This “Immigration” Debate
- From: Alan Lichtenstein <arl@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:57:50 -0400
I am shocked that I actually agree with something the queer one posted. But we must remind the queer one that the author, a member of the Regean Administration, bears complicity in this problem because it was Regean who legitimized the first crop of a few million illegals in the mid-1980's. given their reproductive proclivity( as the author correctly points out ), they have vastly increased their numbers disproportionately.
Sordo wrote:
Why Americans Hate This “Immigration” Debate.
April 3rd, 2006
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5383
One of the most striking features of the immigration debate now raging
in Washington is that none of the Democratic or Republican proposals
seem to hold any appeal for ordinary Americans—which is why this debate
is generating so much frustration among voters that no matter which
proposal Congress adopts, the issue itself threatens to shatter both
parties’ bases and dominate the November elections.
Simply put, the debate in Washington isn’t about “immigration” at all –
and that’s the problem.
To ordinary Americans, the definition of “immigration” is very specific:
You come here with absolutely nothing except a burning desire to be an
American. You start off at some miserable, low-paying job that at least
puts a roof over your family’s head and food on the table. You put your
kids in school, tell them how lucky they are to be here – and make darn
sure they do well even if that means hiring a tutor and taking a second,
or third, job to pay for it. You learn English, even if you’ve got to
take classes at night when you’re dead tired. You play by the
rules—which means you pay your taxes, get a driver’s license and insure
your car so that if yours hits mine, I can recover the cost of the
damages. And you file for citizenship the first day you’re eligible.
Do all this and you become an American like all the rest of us. Your
kids will lose their accents, move into the mainstream, and retain
little of their heritage except a few words of your language and – if
you’re lucky—an irresistible urge to visit you now and then for some of
mom’s old-country cooking.
This is how the Italians made it, the Germans made it, the Dutch made
it, the Poles made it, the Jews made it, and more recently how the
Cubans and the Vietnamese made it. The process isn’t easy – but it
works and that’s the way ordinary Americans want to keep it.
The Two Hispanic Groups
But the millions of Hispanics who have come to our country in the last
several decades – and it’s the Hispanics we’re talking about in this
debate, not those from other cultures—are, in fact, two distinct groups.
The first group is comprised of “immigrants” just like all the others,
who have put the old country behind them and want only to be Americans.
They aren’t the problem. Indeed, most Americans welcome them among us,
as we have welcomed so many other cultures.
The problem is the second group of Hispanics. They aren’t immigrants –
which is what neither the Democratic or Republican leadership seems to
understand, or wants to acknowledge. They have come here solely for
jobs, which isn’t the same thing at all. (And many of them have come
here illegally.) Whether they remain in the U.S. for one year, or ten
years – or for the rest of their lives – they don’t conduct themselves
like immigrants. Yes, they work hard to put roofs above their heads and
food on their tables – and for this we respect them. But they have
little interest in learning English themselves, and instead demand that
we make it possible for them to function here in Spanish. They put
their children in our schools, but don’t always demand as much from them
as previous groups demanded of their kids. They don’t always pay their
taxes – or insure their cars.
In short, they aren’t playing by the rules that our families played by
when they immigrated to this country. And to ordinary Americans this
behavior is deeply – very deeply – offensive. We see it unfolding every
day in our communities, and we don’t like it. This is what none of our
politicians either understands, or dares to say aloud. Instead, they
blather on – and on – about “amnesty” and “border security” without ever
coming to grips with what is so visible, and so offensive, to so many of
us – namely, all these foreigners among us who aren’t behaving like
immigrants.
The phrase we use to describe foreigners who come here not as
“immigrants” but merely for jobs is “guest workers.” And we are told –
incessantly – that we need these “guest workers” because they take jobs
that Americans don’t want and won’t take themselves. This is true, but
it’s also disingenuous. Throughout our country’s history, immigrants
have always taken jobs that Americans don’t want and won’t take
themselves. For crying out loud, no foreigner has ever come to our
country out of a blazing ambition to dig ditches, mow lawns, bag
groceries, sew clothing or clean other people’s houses. If we hadn’t
always had a huge number of these miserable jobs available that none of
“us” would do – there wouldn’t have been a way for immigrants throughout
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to step off the boat and find
work.
A willingness by “immigrants” to start at the bottom – so they can move
up the economic ladder or at least give their kids a shot at the higher
rungs – is precisely how the system is supposed to work. And it always
has. (My own family is one of the tens of millions that did precisely
this. My grandfather came from Poland and found work as a pocket-maker
in New York’s garment district. The pay was low, the hours were long,
and when the old man finally retired he could hardly move his fingers or
see without thick glasses. Yet one of his sons, my uncle, became a
lawyer with a fancy practice on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His kids
did even better; his son wound up chairman of Stanford University’s
history department, and his daughter became a famous art critic, moved
to London, and married an Englishman who became a member of the House of
Lords. What is astonishing about this story is that – it isn’t
astonishing. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time, and it’s
why ordinary Americans don’t want to change the system that made it
possible.)
Blame the Birth Rate
One fact that hasn’t been part of the immigration debate is this:
During the past two decades our national birth rate has dropped to just
below the 2.1 births-per-woman replacement rate. So we really do need
to “import” people because – to put it bluntly – we haven’t bred enough
of them ourselves to do all the work that needs to be done in an
affluent, ageing society like ours. But then, we’ve always needed
“more” people to do the work we want done. And we’ve always brought
them in from elsewhere – as immigrants.
Yet today we have millions of foreigners among us who have come here to
work, but not to immigrate. Our politicians tell us that we must accept
this because – for the first time in our history—we’ve reached that
point when we need “guest workers” who aren’t immigrants to keep our
economy growing. If this is true—and isn’t it odd that no one has
troubled to explain why it’s true – then we must find some way to
distinguish between “immigrants” and “guest workers” so that they aren’t
treated the same just because they both are here. And if it isn’t true
that our continued economic growth requires “guest workers” who aren’t
immigrants—then the entire concept of “guest workers” that lies at the
core of virtually every proposal now before Congress, including amnesty
for those who are here illegally, must be abandoned in favor of
something that makes sense.
Until our elected officials come to grips with the real issue that’s
troubling ordinary Americans – not a growing population of foreigners
among us, but rather a growing population of foreigners among us who
aren’t behaving like immigrants – public frustration will grow no matter
what bill Congress passes in the coming weeks. It could lead to the
kind of political explosion that none of us really wants.
Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special
Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of
the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. His DVD on The Siege of
Western Civilization has become an international best-seller.
- Prev by Date: Re: Paul Krugman: No more illegal immigrants
- Next by Date: Re: Mexican Illegals vs. American Voters
- Previous by thread: The "Condi and Jack Show" Makes a Diplomatic Debut in Iraq
- Next by thread: Re: Lack of Senior Geared Activities jim stevens
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
