What's so bad about amnesty?

[Max Raker]

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Actually, America was more a country of Anglo settlers than of immigrants. Immigrants were welcome, and welcome to assimilate, but it was the settlers first and foremost who built America and who laid the foundations (legal and physical) for the future America. The settlers were overwhelmingly of Anglo descent and brought with them certain beliefs, traditions and principles. Western culture did not evolve in a vacuum: its principles are based on Greek law and philosophy, English common law, European scientific achievements, and philosophical base of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The USA did not draw upon Chinese philosophy, Islamic jurisprudence, and the Mexican government model in order to form the Constitution. Any random immigrant from anywhere in the world will probably not share the Western values and beliefs simply because they have not been raised in our culture. To ignore this is to deny the reality of culture and philosophy and the existence of diverse value systems.

Maybe anyone (almost) can assimilate. That doesn't mean most will, especially if they come from a very different culture.

While Americans are bending over backwards to avoid even the appearance of partiality or race-preference, some immigrant groups are forthrightly and proudly proclaiming their intent to do things [/i]for their own group exclusively[/i] or proclaiming a primary allegiance other than to America. Many Mexican immigrants see their primary allegiance to Mexico and to Mexicans, not to the USA. Many Islamic immigrants see their primary allegiance to the umma, or Islamic worldwide community, and many want to see Shari'a over the U.S. Constitution. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE FOUNDERS INTENDED NOR, DO I BELIEVE, IS IT WHAT THE VERSE YOU QUOTED STANDS FOR.

America is intended to be open to those who intend to become Americans, not to those who intend to bring their tribalistic preferences to America's shores and to further their tribalistic aims here, or who will attempt to remodel the basic structure and function, and political and even legal system, of America in the model of their homelands.

Western culture is worth preserving and that is worth some selectivity in determining who becomes an American. Would-be Americans should share American and Western values, as well as not constitute a major drain on the economic system (I'm well aware the issue of the economic pros and cons of low-skilled immigrants is open to much debate, and I believe there exist legitimate pro and con economic arguments on both sides).

I'm just trying to point out that there is more to America than the existence of a mere economic system. There is a lengthy cultural and philosophical tradition and foundation. Opening the floodgates to unlimited, non-selective immigration may easily bring a huge assault on American and Western values right here in America, by virtue of the numerical ascendancy of those who hold other values, even values which are deeply antithetical to our own Western liberal values.

This is the Achilles Heel in the ACist or Libertarian position of open borders. To maintain a country with liberal values written into law, with equality of rights and of sexes, and freedom of belief and speech written into law, the majority of the populace must also favor those values. If the majority of America becomes populated by those who do not share such values of freedom and equality, the laws will eventually be changed in the opposite direction. Therefore it is imperative that to maintain a free state, also maintained is a majority population that favors a free state. We have seen how the freedoms of America have been bastardized and chiseled away at by craven politicians and legislators, and how an uninformed or apathetic populace has allowed this to take place. How much more will our freedoms be eroded by allowing America to become ever more populated by those from foreign cultures which do not even share our basic values and philosophies? Food for thought, and thanks for reading as I've got to go out.

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Interesting post, but I disagree. How is the large number of Mexicans coming into the US today different from the large waves of Irish and Italians in the past? These groups also took a few generations to become American and now they are a vital part of the country. You make it sound like Mexicans have such different values but their viewpoints on government and religon are similar to many americans.

[bkholdem]

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obviously the average white american earns more money than the average hispanic american. there is a well established link between poverty and crime. give me the comparison between whites and hispanics in any given tax bracket.

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Why not do your own work here? Afraid of what you might find? It's damn difficult to hit-n-run criticize your own research, ain't it?

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still haven't dropped the race crap hey heavily? I thought you would have slowed down after I pwned you in that other thread a little while back [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[HeavilyArmed]

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Western culture is worth preserving ...

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When self-loathing academics felt the need to trash this idea it opened the door to a host of culturally distructive behavior. I don't see this tide turning.

The funny thing is that Mexican culture has been a waste land for over a century. We're only just hitting the skids.

[mosdef]

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You play poker? It's all about the EV of hiring illegals. We can make it -EV. We won't.

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-EV for the illegals and -EV for most legals, but +EV for a small number of others doesn't add up to +EV overall. And if you don't care about +EV overall and only -EV to the illegals, that's just evil.

[NeBlis]

$100,000 prop bet ?? I will bet 100k that if you douches actually get rid of the immigrants our economy would suffer severely. Sad that you cant actually deport them all because I would have one of you idiots money.

for the 8 billionth time we benefit highly from immigrant workers. Our economy depends on them in many sectors. Getting rid of them is economic suicide.

You scum are letting your prejudices trick you into backing yet another multi-billion dollar government boondoggle. Congrats on being turned into democrats.

[bkholdem]

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You are backing yet another multi-billion dollar government boondoggle. Congrats on being turned into democrats.

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[bkholdem]

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i think what people are forgetting here is that there's absolutely no way to actually remove the 12 million illegals (or whatever the estimated number is). it's ridiculous to think otherwise. if you oppose amnesty, what is your legitimate counter solution?

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If you enforced the immigration laws in consistent and highly visible ways, the vast majority will self-deport. If a major farm or meatpacking plant were raided every day, people would stop hiring illegals. The jobs will dry up, and they'll go home.

If you're interested in stopping illegal immigration, that's the key. You have to come down very hard on those doing the hiring. No jobs = no immigration.

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That would cost an tremendous amount of money, first to conduct the raids, and secondly when the services and products produced by those companies escalate in price. The backlash would be terrible. Do you really want a War on The Labour Market on the scale of the War on Drugs?

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There is no will for this but...serious employer fines, $10K per illegal employed, coupled with bulletproof citizen ID would force most illegal aliens to self-deport.

You play poker? It's all about the EV of hiring illegals. We can make it -EV. We won't.

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Hell, if we fined one employer a gazillion dollars all the illegals would be out of work overnight. It would kinda suck buying a dunkin donuts coffee from that store for the forseeable future though, to recoup the gazillion they would probably be charging like $30K per cup of coffee. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[neverforgetlol]

Illegals are not going to stay out of america, and there's no reason to kick them out. ZOMG 1 BILLION PEOPLE WILL ENTER THE COUNTRY

[ShakeZula06]

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Nice thread hijack, too.

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???

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We all know that ACers think the use of force in such matters is abhorrent. Thanks for reminding us for the 23837238234032484th time.

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I didn't say that. I asked you what right someone has to impose his standards on businessmen and people born on the other side of an arbitrary line. But I suppose misrepresentation of arguments (I'm at least the second person you've done this to in this thread, and the other one wasn't even an ACist) and being a nit about grammar is much more convenient then evaluating your flawed positions.

[cpk]

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I didn't say that. I asked you what right someone has to impose his standards on businessmen and people born on the other side of an arbitrary line.

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1) They're equivalent. 2) The most interesting thing of all is that you have a point--no such right may exist. 3) It's still a hijack. You hijacker.

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*whine* But I suppose misrepresentation of arguments (I'm at least the second person you've done this to in this thread, and the other one wasn't even an ACist)

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FYP.

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and being a nit about grammar

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Hey, you did all right in that post. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]