The unchecked wave of immigration into the United States

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Immigration is what America is built on. Hell, immigration is what New Zealand is built on, only the nation of New Zealand is alot younger. The thing is, communities change and morph as global, environmental and social forces inevitabley change. The USA is what it is today due to the massive waves of immigrants of the 1870s, 80s and 90s. Unrelenting belief in the idealized citizen-state nation can be restricting at best. You have to flow with the tide of global human forces and develope methods of understanding and accepting your new neighbours, even if it means you won't be as 'prosperous' as you were before they arrived. You're going to have to share and share alike. Change is inevitable. As Hunter has said, you just have to work hard. Flow with the flood, don't try to push it back, you can't win. In NZ we are facing huge waves of Asian immigrants. A great deal of them don't speak English, and many don't want to. Their culture is alot different to mine but so be it, I'm just gonna have to get used to it and make an effort to get along with and understand them. Maybe we can make a new culture based on the emalgamation of our own heritages. Hell, isn't that what America prides itself on doing? We're all just homo sapiens sapiens in the end *shrug*.

Hi there H. Correct me if Im wrong, but I was informed that New Zealand is closed to immigrants unless A. They are wealthy and can prove to be a benefit to the economy, or B. They have skills that the NZ government wants to promote.
There was a detailed story on the Discovery Channel about NZ and this is what they were basicly saying about its immigration standards.

Some countries may have been built on immigration but too much of anything is abad thing. Even Water, if you drink too much you will die due to electrolyte imbalance. (or maybe drowning)

[ 11-02-2002, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by Grojlach: MagiK, don't pay too much attention to Johnny. He is, of course, exaggerating. The problem is that after some lunatic killed the right-winged politician Pim Fortuyn, a very strange atmosphere emerged in our country, one in which voicing your (left) opinion was not done. In the weeks after the murder, the leftwingers were more or less gagged, directly given the blame for the drama because they were seen as Fortuyn's political "nemesises". As in, they disagreed on practically everything he stood for, especially the immigration policies Fortuyn had in mind; Fortuyn also made some offensive remarks about the islam, called it a retarded religion. Unfortunately, a part of the Dutch people saw him as some sort of Messiah, "because he said what we we were all thinking" (yeah right ); and when he was killed, people voted en masse for him a week later (he wasn't taken off the list), giving his party a huge amount of seats for the Parliament, enough even to participate in a Government coalition. Which resulted in a crisis of Government in our country within a hundred days (a new record! ), as this new inexperienced party couldn't stop fighting with eachother... In that period, there was at least one schandal a day, whether it was about false credentials, supposed bribes, harassment or just childish fighting. The thing is, ever since Fortuyn first made a political appearance there's a much clearer difference between left and right again in our country; a bit of an "us against them" mentality. And both sides can't help but annoy the heck out of one another, pushing themselves in the victim role and pointing the blaming finger for not being able to voice their opinions freely in the other side's direction, like Johnny just demonstrated. [img]tongue.gif[/img] In truth, airing anti-foreigner sentiments is already so accepted that it's almost frightening, despite what Johnny said. Like I said in an earlier post in the International Hatred thread: I think you may have just been more illuminating in one paragraph than I have ever been in a whole thread [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] That really gives me a good look into a lot of stuff I had no idea about. Altho I do have to say it sounds like Holland has all the same problems we do here with government types [img]smile.gif[/img] quote: There are a lot of anti-foreigner sentiments in our country just the same. Not necessarily racism, but at least an unhealthy and narrow-minded bias against other people's culture, ways, opinions *and* presence. Sure, there are some criminals among those foreigners (or actually most of them already have the Dutch Nationality, but apparently some people can't help but call people "foreign" for simply having a different skin colour ); just like there are criminals in every society, race and religion. It's just that generalizing has become so "normal" and "accepted" in our country, up to a point that it makes me feel sick in the stomach when I turn on the News. Every loud-mouth can just yell whatever he/she wants, never mind that it's highly generalizing, unfair, biased and against any law or International resolution whatsoever. For example... We have politicians who are against expansion of the European Union, which is fair enough, as long as the argumentation is a bit sound. But no, this politician (Winnie de Jong) is against this expansion because she doesn't want all those gypsies from Eastern-Europe to travel freely to our country because "they're all criminal" (!). And that's a politician, apparently representing a part of our Society...

Furthermore, our Minister of Immigration actually talked about sending "foreign" criminal people with the Dutch Nationality out of our country; people with the Dutch Nationality! In other words, banning a member of our Society from that same Society, sending them off to a country they've probably never even been before (second generation Morrocans, for example); something which is against the Dutch law and against any possible International law. And there are many more examples as well. Oh, and neither of these people ever had eggs or rocks thrown at them. In fact, the fact that they never had eggs thrown at them is probably the best indication how normal it is nowadays to voice anti-foreigner sentiments.
Though the atmosphere in our country *is* harsher after the murder; right after Fortuyn was killed, a large group of lunatics was rioting in front of the Government building, yelling "murderer!" in the direction of the politicians within, making many others at home fear for a possible lynch mob. About every important left party member has received at least one death threat, loaded guns by mail, you name it... Some of them still can't leave the house without bodyguards. One of them even had to flee our country because of those threats (Melkert, the biggest political opponent of Fortuyn). Heck, even the later leader of Fortuyn's party received death threats from his own voters, "because he wasn't able to push Fortuyn's ideas into the Government plans well enough".
The political situation in our country is one big mess at the moment, let's just keep it at that.
Anyways, if Johnny had made the above statement back in April, I would have agreed with him; people voicing anti-foreigner sentiments back then *were* met with eggs and pies being thrown at them; but ever since Fortuyn had been killed, none of that actually happened any more. The situation in our country has changed so drastically in that period that Johnny's words can't be applied whatsoever anymore. In fact, the very opposite of what he said is true, as now people just yell whatever the heck they want without ever getting the egg against their head that they actually deserve; saying the borders have to be closed partly is one thing, but currently there are far worse things being said that are closer to racism and generalizing than Fortuyn's opinions ever were. It almost makes me feel ashamed that there's so much hatred in a large number of fellow Dutchies. [/QUOTE] [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] I am really glad you posted this. I learned a lot of good information, even if it is about a tough subject. I had no idea immigration was that big a deal anywaher but here, and perhaps Australia, I understnad they have some major issues downunder as well.

I think IR had a couple of points in his argument worth commenting on in more depth too. One of the things that allowed the US to become economicly successful is the fact that every one was supposed to speak one language. I think there is a severe need for all Americans (native born and immigrant) to learn to be able to speak english. We could trim the national debt by about a third if we could just limit all the governnment documents to one language instead of 3 or 4.

There is a need as LoA pointed out for the unskilled labor market, but that should also be controlled. The real problem is unchecked immigration instead of a carefully managed immigration policy and checks to insure immigrants are not just criminals fleeing prosecution in their own countries.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by MagiK: Hi there H. Correct me if Im wrong, but I was informed that New Zealand is closed to immigrants unless A. They are wealthy and can prove to be a benefit to the economy, or B. They have skills that the NZ government wants to promote. There was a detailed story on the Discovery Channel about NZ and this is what they were basicly saying about its immigration standards.

Howdy Magik.
The National government was quite tough on immigration, and politicians such as Winston Peters (a prominent 'Right-Wing' Member of parliament) are lobbying to get even tougher and completely deny foreign migrants access to NZ residency. The current left-wing Labour Government (in power since 1999) is a little more relaxed toward the issue, and thus a substantial amount of people from overseas have been settling in NZ in the past few years. A great deal of the immigrants are educated professionals: Doctors, professors and the like (the former Afghani foreign minister before the Taliban took power currently lectures at my hometown university!). However, many are also uneducated labourers (of which we do have need [img]smile.gif[/img] ). Most settle in the larger cities of the North such as Auckland and Wellington, substantially swelling the populations in those regions. The ethnicity of immigrants is predominantly Asian and Polynesian, however there is also a growing Middle-Eastern population as well.

Now, after saying all of this, my point is that I think a loosening of cultural identities could (not necessarily is mind you) be useful in easing tensions between 'immigrants' and 'citizens', despite the technicalities and paperwork surrounding their migration. How does one 'loosen cultural identites'? Primarily through education of the young, and that's what I plan to devote myself to once I get my teachers degree [img]smile.gif[/img] The land is there to be lived upon and shared, if we can pool our physical and mental resources and work toward establishing a new culture, one that relies less upon the official formalities of centralized legislation and more upon the fluid directivness of locally-operated community council then I think these problems of 'illegal immigrants' will be severly weakened. If a non-citizenship-based social culture can be developed for the next generation, one based upon effort of workload and quality of skill rather than ancestral point of origin then there will be infinately greater hope of avoiding these kinds of disputes.

At the moment this is all just empty idealism, I realize that fully. That's why I/we are going to have to work hard in the next few decades at ironing out the flaws and making it all practical reality. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by MagiK: Some countries may have been built on immigration but too much of anything is abad thing. Even Water, if you drink too much you will die due to electrolyte imbalance. (or maybe drowning)[/QB]

but can you Prove that America will suffer from immigration,
Since IIRC business love cheap labour that immigrants (legal or otherwise provide)
Why do you think that so many business are relocating to Mexico?
To take advantage of cheap labour, What about all those fruitpickers they import to california?

Also If you don’t like it, Don’t support capitalism or globalisation, Since free flow of capital and labour is part of the object of those two.

[Timber Loftis]

To attack Iron Ranger a bit ( ), I'll say that you should learn foreign languages because as an American you live in waaayy too insular a country. As well, foreign language studies key you in to different ways of thinking (as thought and speech are so intertwined): how the German language creates new words (wirkstoffen = ingredients [though my spelling is probably wrong], literally "the stuff that makes it work"); the way the romance languages can juxtapose noun, verb, and modifier locations within a sentence and still be equally correct grammatically; the very notion of character languages - these are interesting and cool things to learn. But, I think you knew that, and your point was rather that an immigrant should learn the native language. Like all statements of common sense, that is one I will not argue with.

As to Hierophant's "universal humanism" vs. the MagiK/LoA argument that we need to limit immigration in this country - I must side with MagiK and LoA here. Quite simply, there are not enough resources on the planet to support everyone at the level of existence I now enjoy. And I'm not about to share. Quite seriously, be it luck of birth, good fortune of geography, or whatever, I happen to be a *have*, albeit modestly on American terms, and whether it's fair or not, I'm not about to willingly become a *have not*. Throwing the borders open will bankrupt the US in the long run. My government already provides half the international welfare on this planet, and I'm sick of it invading on my life. The least we can do is maintain our high, white, electrified and poisoned pickett fence around this counrty.

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Howdy Magik. Snip: lots of good stuff At the moment this is all just empty idealism, I realize that fully. That's why I/we are going to have to work hard in the next few decades at ironing out the flaws and making it all practical reality. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for that information, one thing I need to remember about the History, Discovery, Learning channels is that their information may be dated in some cases.

I agree to an extent that the land is there to be lived upon, but I think that when immigrants move to a country they should be embracing the culture and lifestyles that the people who founded that nation established in the first place. It is after all those qualities that made the place what it is that the immigrants want to move to. If not, why not stay home and live in the culture your own people built?

[ 11-04-2002, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by Eisenschwarz: but can you Prove that America will suffer from immigration, Since IIRC business love cheap labour that immigrants (legal or otherwise provide) Why do you think that so many business are relocating to Mexico? To take advantage of cheap labour, What about all those fruitpickers they import to california? Also If you don’t like it, Don’t support capitalism or globalisation, Since free flow of capital and labour is part of the object of those two.

Yes I can prove that...well not me personally, the Government has already done it for me, LoA's story is very typical around the nation. What is good for Business is not always good for the people. (are you surprised at that?) The reason so many business are relocating to Mexico is because in mexico they do not have government gaurentees to protect the workers, there are few if any minimum wage laws, and they can exploit the cheap labor market. Which is why to survive here in the US you really need to be in something other than a labor position(well that and the legal and illegal immigrants). The service type industries are where the most future growth will be if there is not some kind of check on immigration and crackdown on exploitation of foreign labor. NAFTA would have been good if all it had done were to alleviate the tarrifs on goods and services shipped between the nations, unfortunately it has had some really nasty side effects. .

[ 11-04-2002, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Timber Loftis]

I'm starting a related WTO thread to keep from going too [img]graemlins/offtopic.gif[/img] here.

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Eisenschwarz: but can you Prove that America will suffer from immigration, Since IIRC business love cheap labour that immigrants (legal or otherwise provide) Why do you think that so many business are relocating to Mexico? To take advantage of cheap labour, What about all those fruitpickers they import to california? Also If you don’t like it, Don’t support capitalism or globalisation, Since free flow of capital and labour is part of the object of those two.

Yes I can prove that...well not me personally, the Government has already done it for me, LoA's story is very typical around the nation. What is good for Business is not always good for the people. (are you surprised at that?) The reason so many business are relocating to Mexico is because in mexico they do not have government gaurentees to protect the workers, there are few if any minimum wage laws, and they can exploit the cheap labor market. Which is why to survive here in the US you really need to be in something other than a labor position(well that and the legal and illegal immigrants). The service type industries are where the most future growth will be if there is not some kind of check on immigration and crackdown on exploitation of foreign labor. NAFTA would have been good if all it had done were to alleviate the tarrifs on goods and services shipped between the nations, unfortunately it has had some really nasty side effects. .[/QUOTE]Ahh, But Is it not hypocritical?
Look at those people who denounce immigration, and look at those people who are most in favour of the free market and capitalism, You will find the two often meet.