Via "
Mugsy's Rap Sheet":
Today I received another one of those email chain letters forwarded by an "apolitical" friend that probably isn't aware that the "popular wisdom" she is promoting is "
latent racism" in disguise. An excerpt of that letter with my response follows:
Newspapers simply won't publish letters to the editor which they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or which does not agree with the philosophy they're pushing on the public. This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that should have been published; but, with your help it will get published via cyberspace!
(...)
Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer.
(...)
And here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that...
The problem with this example is that in the late 19th to early 20th century (~1880 to ~1920), the U.S. opened it's borders to attract more people to move to America to bolster its burgeoning Industrialization that had just seen the creation of the telephone, the automobile, the electrification of our cities and the airplane industry. Increasing the size of the U.S. workforce so dramatically at that time helped America's development enormously in the wake of World War I (called "The Great War" at that time, before we had sense enough to start numbering them) and prepared us for the "World War II" that we didn't know was coming.
By contrast, the United States has grown increasingly isolationist, closing its borders and alienating itself from the outside world. Mexico, the country from which we receive the greatest number of immigrants (both legal and not) has a population of nearly 250 million people, yet the United States issues fewer than 10,000 legal visas (apx 4% of the population) annually.
(...)
Because we've made entering our country so difficult with borders in near lockdown, those who sneak across, come to stay... permanently. And because they know they probably will not be able to sneak back in if they go back home, often bring their entire families with them or else would likely never see them again.
There is something sinfully wrong with blaming illegal immigrants for a problem we ourselves created.
(...)
History has shown what happens to countries that isolate themselves from the outside world: China, once the inventor of gun powder, rocket propulsion and from whom Marco Polo introduced "spaghetti" to Italy, built The Great Wall of China, cut itself off from the outside world, and quickly became one of the poorest and technologically under-developed nations on the planet until reopening its doors and allowing the outside world back in during the latter half of the 20th century. Ditto for the Soviet Union behind "the iron curtain" and East Germany behind The Berlin Wall. All of these nations fell into economic, scientific and cultural decay after cutting themselves off from the outside world. While nations like the U.S., with its open borders and welcoming of immigrants grew from "a minor agricultural state" of mostly farmers to one of the great global super-powers in a span of just 50 years.
But today we seem to be following in the path of early China, Russia and East Germany.
(...)
(Read the full story on "
Mugsy's Rap Sheet")
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
