RoR: Forum

The hard reality is that if Republicans truly want limited government and free markets, they must sell that vision of the country to all groups rather than disparage those seek the American dream.

Actually, the hard reality is that most of the Republicans don't understand limited government or free markets and don't want either of them (certainly most of those who are elected, apart from traditional lip service during a campaign). Only a tiny portion of the Republicans understand what limited government and a free market really are.

The other thing I'd point out is that we should NOT be playing identity politics. That is a game that doesn't fit those who believe in individualism. It is not groups or demographics that we should be addressing, but rather everyone... addressing them with the principles of liberty, and pointing at the democrats as they play ethnic politics - ridiculing them for trying to enslave the poor and those of color with lies and promises of trinkets when all the Washington elites really want is control - control over everything from drink cup size, to phone conversations, to how much you get to keep of a paycheck, to what kind of light bulb you can buy.

I'm not in the least excited about appealing to people because they are of a certain race, or because the came here illegally in large numbers, or because they are choosing to vote Democratic because they think like a group and want to side with the party that promises the greatest entitlements. Those are all losing positions. Those are all just me-too politics and will put us in second place forever in race that only has two participants. If we adopt the politics of groups, we lose.

We either explain and demand real liberty and make clear it only comes with a small government, it belongs to every single human being by right, and it effects them, their future, their family and even to the children and grand children they may not even have yet... we explain that... or we lose.

The Progressives are in a long con. The only cure is to wake up the mark - and that's every one who doesn't see that it is just a giant con game. We need to let everyone know that anytime a politician or spokesperson or talking head, or news source describes a political or economical issue in terms of groups, their individual right to their body, their life, their liberty, their future just faded a tiny bit. Fades until it can no longer be seen, and everyone is owned by the image of group and that image is controlled by an elite in Washington.

People have to get to the point where the mention of a group (blacks, Hispanics, young women, etc.) arouses instant suspicion and a focus on what liberty is being threatened or what trinket is being offered. What slight of hand is behind those words?

Post 1

Thursday, June 20, 2013 - 3:46am

I agree with Steve. I think that Ed's post accepted too many questionable - and unquestioned - premises. Rather than helping the Republican party appeal to Hispanics, it would seem more appropriate for the Atlas Society to take the message of individualism as a celebration of the immigrant work ethic.

Hispanics do not have a work ethic -- but immigrants do.

As for welfare, the problem is welfare, not who gets it. Whether it is food stamps (now a debit card, actually) or public schools or public parks, the services are there for everyone. Would you complain that progressives are getting millions of Hispanics to use city water -- or claim that if they came here "illegally" they have no right to it?

We cannot untangle that without staying focussed on first principles: Reality, Reason, Individualism, Capitalism, and Romanticism. Only a broad philosophical revolution will provide the foundation for adjusting the details of social life. We say that the choice to think is primary. Another way that I learned it is that the door to motivation opens from the inside. Appeal to the individuals who perceive themselves as such. That is the slow, hard work of correctly selling the right ideas.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/20, 3:50am)

Post 2

Thursday, June 20, 2013 - 1:08pm

I agree with the spirit of Michael's post, and most of what he has said, but for a few quibbles.

He wrote, "Hispanics do not have a work ethic -- but immigrants do." Actually, a work ethic is an individual thing, and one can ascribe it to a group only on a statistical basis. 'Hispanic' is wide net... but most Hispanic cultures do show a strong work ethic, and most Hispanic immigrants also show an above average work ethic. But that doesn't mean that some immigrants, legal or otherwise, don't abandon work in favor of welfare.

Michael is right that the problem is welfare as such, more than who gets it, but there is a sub-problem regarding who gets it. When people come here illegally that is much like the difference between people you've invited to a party in your home eating and drinking versus someone who sneaks in the back door and starts eating and drinking. If they came here illegally, they really don't have a right to anything that is common property of those who are here legally.

He is right that our attack must be against collectivism and its destructive effects, the lies of those whose real drive is control, and the message has to be about individuals, families, and freedom under a small government and the way that American dream can and will play out... if we throw out the Progressive control freaks and their lies.

The Hispanic community need only see how the Progressive would take us in a direction that would make America just like the countries they escaped when it comes to a failed economy, and corruption - the two products guaranteed to come out of large government.

Post 3

Friday, June 21, 2013 - 10:56am

Steve:

Living where you do, you know this far better than I do, but I've spent some time down near Tucson recently (looking for clear skies) and, well, I'm more than a little confused about this whole issue. The folks I met down that way, no doubt many of them having immigrated in some fashion across the border, seemed to me to be conservative, hardworking family folks. Had the chance to visit a few 'real' Mexican restaurants -- not the chains, but the tinroof open air shacks painted green and white and red... and what I found in those establishments were crowds of retired white folks eagerly seeking out the best food in town, sitting next to the immigrant population.

That wasn't any kind of scientific poll, just my impression.

I also have the same impression about the Cuban immigrant culture in Florida; most of these folks, to me, always came across as some of the most conservative folks I've ever met.

Again...not a scientific poll, just my impression. M13 and the LA/NY/Chi etc. gangs can't be the entire story of Hispanics in this nation, and yet, all the many examples of decent folks end up getting swept up into this issue somehow.

So how has the Left created this meme that they are the last true hope of Hispanics in this nation? They've done an excellent job, I think, of teasing out the insane right and driving them insane with this issue, making them look like stuttering fools and racists simply because they don't want folks here 'illegally' and have our immigration policy be consistent and coherent. This is another example, I think, of the issue not really being about immigration or even Hispanics, but simply, the hunger for power to 'change' this once free nation into the next example of National Socialism using many of the same tactics that worked in other nations; deliberate Balkanization, the fomenting of divisions among fueding 'groups' -- a selling of the idea that the only path to political survival is to seek out and belong to the most powerful 'group' which in the end must be our very own National Socialists, led of course by a select elite cadre of paternalistic megalomaniacs in what used to be a nation of peers as individuals.

regards,
Fred

Post 4

Friday, June 21, 2013 - 1:58pm

Fred,

I think your take on this issue is very accurate, and well described. Most of the Hispanic immigrants are good people, happy to be here, and hard working. There is a significant drain on state resources from those who do draw on public resources, but that is a problem of tax-funded welfare which should be stopped for everyone. Take government out of the business of trying to provide for peoples education, health, and financial well-being and that problem would stop.

There is a very small percentage who are violent, but if law enforcement wasn't trying to stop drugs, and if much of the immigrant population wasn't isolated as 'illegals' that wouldn't be a big problem.

You are also right that the left is using this as a wedge issue to make the Republicans look bad (not that Republicans need much help looking bad), and the left keeps driving home 'Group-Identity' politics as a fundamental assumption of how politics should be done, along with all of the attendant mythology of entitlement and big government as the only answer to all problems (real and made up).

I favor a secure border, but with easy to cross doorways for people that want to work. Anyone without a criminal record should be able to come in. The card they get when they cross the border to work would be like the equivalent of a social security card, but the payroll taxes collected would go to paying border expenses. No public welfare benefits, but not just for guest workers... no tax-funded welfare for anyone. (And nearly all the cartel drug violence would go away if drugs were legalized, and human trafficking was no longer a viable business.)

There should be a distinct separation from being able to work here versus being a citizen who can vote. We already have enough people, who although born here, have no idea what liberty is, what is going on in the world of politics, or what liberty requires. If we not only remain stupid as a society, but vote that stupidity, it is hard to see things getting better.

We say that any law which clearly violates the constitution, and particularly any law that violates an individuals rights, isn't a valid law. This has to translate to votes as well. If we keep acting as if anything that gets a majority vote is okay, then the quality of the voter will end up as the determinant of how fast we go down hill. Of course the root of this problem is that the constitution isn't being observed.

Immigration shouldn't be about race, it is about culture. Our culture is being destroyed (I'm talking about that part of the culture that expects personal responsibility and understands personal liberty and individual sovereignty) and one of the forces involved is the massive influx of people who don't speak the language, don't understand our history, or have any sense of what it takes to maintain the freedom that provides the opportunities they came for. Part of this problem arises out of being 'illegal' - which makes them more isolated and less likely to assimilate.

If we are ever to be a really free country once again, we have to fix our educational system (as we have spoken of here many times), but we also have to protect what part of our culture does connect with the liberty of our past. When you bring in people at the rate of tens of millions over, say, a decade or two, you will change out a part of the previous culture for the culture of the new immigrants. In this case it would be a culture of people inured to a peasant's life in a corrupt political setting where you need permission from a ruling class to do pretty much anything. That isn't the viewpoint we want more of.

In Tucson you saw some of the very best that our culture has received from Mexico and points South, but if you go another 20 minutes South into some of the canyon country, you could find yourself in an area rife with violence, and down in Nogales, you will see a part of the United States in name only... in practice it is old Mexico. It has reverted to a third world area.

I think we have to fix our educational system, and, if I had it my way, there would be citizenship test that would be required (of everyone, not just new immigrants) before they could vote. And I would have a small poll tax - I want to discourage those who aren't keenly interested. And I wouldn't be that much upset if only property owners were permitted to vote. This whole idea that everyone SHOULD vote is crazy. Why do we want people who know nothing of the issues to vote on them? As long as voting is a mechanism by which the political system is changed, and liberty is thereby promoted or lost, we need different processes involved in voting.

There is a chicken and egg kind of thing going on. If we had a culture with a deep and abiding understanding and respect for the constitution, then we wouldn't have to worry so much about people voting badly. We honor the constitution and it protects our liberty. But if the culture isn't as strong on the constitution, then the danger from democratic tyranny is far greater, and there is a stronger need to ensure votes aren't going to take us farther from liberty.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 6/22, 10:51am)

Post 5

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 8:30am

Steve:

Your post is why this place is called the Rebirth of Reason...

regards,
Fred

Post 6

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 10:51am

Thanks, Fred.

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 7:40am

Here is my message to the Republicans/Conservatives/GOP regarding the issue of Immigration:

Dear Republicans:

Asserting an existential threat from immigrants from statist wastelands coming to corrupt the republic under the domination of an opposing political party is as new to America as apple pie and turkey dinner. This same statement was quite literally lobbed at the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the Eastern Europeans, the Russians, and on down the line to the present. None of them could assimilate. None of them knew what our republic was all about, they would ruin it, etc. etc.

Crockett, a disaffected Democrat-turned-Whig Congressman picked up the very same arguments against a recent and very ill looked upon group of immigrants--the Irish--that were common among many Whigs who blamed their electoral defeats on Democratic monopolization of recently enfranchised immigrants. And, just like the hapless Whigs, you're advocating a policy directly aimed at the immigrants themselves, as opposed to simply welcoming them to the table and explaining why your ideas are better. The Republican party triumphed in the North not because it adopted the Whig anti-immigrant policy, but because it dropped it under Seward and Lincoln. The Irish, parenthetically, were alleged to be unfit to live here because they were slavishly subservient to the Pope, had no tradition of republican government, and, in some arguments, were described as intellectual and racially inferior (being Celtic) and thus unfit for self-government.

As to the issue of ideas, the issue of why William Jennings Bryan wanted inflation, why Ted Roosevelt wanted to permanently block productive use of millions of square miles of land, why Wilson wanted a central bank and income tax, why Oliver Wendell Holmes thought that Congress could enact any law it felt like, why Hoover and then FDR intervened and imposed central planning into the economy, confiscated gold, etc etc. was not because of socialist immigrants.Mark my words, standing athwart immigrants in American history is the quickest way to be swept aside, forgotten, and ridiculed—and achieve nothing at all.the whole idea of stopping election fraud by sealing the border is really absurd. The Democrats have been turning elections for ages without any immigrants. If voting fraud or the issue of non-citizen voting is the issue, then focus on that rather than creating a police state to fix the election process .

George W. Bush got nearly half the latino vote simply by speaking in spanish and empathizing with them as voters. Instead of your suicide proposals here is a mildly plausible proposal, for instance the GOP agrees to dismantle the entire quota edifice in immigration in exchange for a delayed but non-deportation based road to citizenship that one can pursue or not but means nothing as far as staying and working in the country is concerned. That would immediately have the Democrats on the ropes because organized labor will never sign onto this proposal, but all the prospective and recent immigrants will know is that the new Republican plan would have made their migration a million times cheaper, easier, and safer and will allow them to help their relatives with remissions or coming over to help make their American dream possible sooner.

(Edited by Michael Philip on 6/24, 7:53am)

Post 8

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 1:09pm

Michael,

Your post is written as a letter to the GOP, but it immediately follows my post on immigration... and I'll address what you wrote as if you read mine, and as if it is, to some degree, an argument against what I wrote.

You said:

Asserting an existential threat from immigrants from statist wastelands coming to corrupt the republic under the domination of an opposing political party is as new to America as apple pie and turkey dinner.

What I wrote is that if we do not abide by the constitution as a limit on government power, and instead treat the vote as the final arbiter, then we are going to need to change how we handle voting or we will end up being the newest of the statist wastelands. What you wrote doesn't address the issue of a nation that is moving away from the constitution as the supreme law of the land, to a country where majority rules even if it makes for tyranny.
----------

You said:

...just like the hapless Whigs, you're advocating a policy directly aimed at the immigrants themselves, as opposed to simply welcoming them to the table and explaining why your ideas are better.

You mischaracterize what I wrote. If you believe that the border should be wide open, say so. If not, then where is it we disagree?
----------

You said:

If voting fraud or the issue of non-citizen voting is the issue, then focus on that rather than creating a police state to fix the election process.

Securing the border is NOT creating a police state. And I did offer suggestions for fixing the election process.
----------

Here is your immigration suggestion:

...the GOP agrees to dismantle the entire quota edifice in immigration in exchange for a delayed but non-deportation based road to citizenship that one can pursue or not but means nothing as far as staying and working in the country is concerned.

I believe that is nearly identical to what I propose when I said, "I favor a secure border, but with easy to cross doorways for people that want to work. Anyone without a criminal record should be able to come in." I just don't want anyone to vote who doesn't understand the language, has been here long enough to absorb some of the culture, and demonstrates some knowledge of what liberty is and what it takes to maintain it. What is your voting criteria?
-----------

You said:

...the whole idea of stopping election fraud by sealing the border is really absurd.

Who are you arguing with? Maybe this was just aimed at some Republican positions, because I never said that election fraud would be stopped by sealing the border.
-----------

You said:

...all the prospective and recent immigrants will know is that the new Republican plan would have made their migration a million times cheaper, easier, and safer and will allow them to help their relatives with remissions or coming over to help make their American dream possible sooner.

I thought that I was clear that the GOP should not play Group Identity politics. They will lose if they do. And it is unprincipled to attempt to buy votes by granting permissions in exchange for votes. The government's only valid purpose is the protection of individual rights. Making the migration of millions of people into the country "cheaper, easier, and safer" is NOT protecting the rights of American citizens. Nor would I ever choose George W. Bush as a model the GOP should follow. If getting votes requires changing the policies to suit the wishes of people who aren't even here, then this whole issue of votes DOES need to be addressed. If the GOP wants to remain a viable party, they have to fight the entire idea of Group Identity politics and advocate liberty as the required state for individual and family success.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 6/24, 1:14pm)

Post 9

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 5:46pm

Steve Wolfer wrote: "I believe that is nearly identical to what I propose when I said, "I favor a secure border, but with easy to cross doorways for people that want to work. Anyone without a criminal record should be able to come in." I just don't want anyone to vote who doesn't understand the language, has been here long enough to absorb some of the culture, and demonstrates some knowledge of what liberty is and what it takes to maintain it. What is your voting criteria?

You are going to miss your friend, Bartlett. In case you did not read his true confession on this forum, Frediano Bartoletti is the descendant of a criminal. .. and he ain't alone...

You seem to think that "good" people are clever sheep who abide by all the rules of the herd except when they invent a new source of electricity. Were you one of the good little boys who was feminized by the public school system to sit down, shut up, and do as you were told? Sure, I was raised the same way... but I was in trouble all time... right up through high school when not acutally taking geometry, I was busted for carrying a geometry compass that was a lot like a shiv: it opened all the way out.

It is a difficult problem in social engineering to have a vibrant society with no crime. So far, the choice seems between the Renaissance and the cuckoo clock. It is not an isolated example. In the broadway play South Pacific (based on James Mitchner's novel) Emile de Becque admits that he came to Bali Hai to escape the law after killing a man. You should re-read Ayn Rand's biography of Gale Wynand.

(And what crimes? Clearly, you would not exclude "political" criminals who speak out... but those are often buried under other charges... tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and bribery ... and how would you sort that out?)

Post 10

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 6:17pm

Michael,

You seem to think that "good" people are clever sheep who abide by all the rules of the herd except when they invent a new source of electricity. Were you one of the good little boys who was feminized by the public school system to sit down, shut up, and do as you were told?

You clearly do NOT know what I think. And your little description is insulting. Did you intend it to be so?
---------------

Referring to my statement that we shouldn't let criminals come in, you said:

And what crimes? Clearly, you would not exclude "political" criminals who speak out... but those are often buried under other charges... tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and bribery ... and how would you sort that out?

Give me a break, Michael. Have I ever given anyone reason to believe that anything other than initiation of violence, threats to initiate violence, fraud and theft should be criminalized? I know that you consider rape, murder, armed robbery, etc., as vile actions - are you saying you would not want government to turn away people who are murders, robbers, rapists?

Post 11

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 6:59pm

Well, Steve, you seem a little over-controlled to me.

Sure, I know that you would mean only crimes with victims that you and I both would recognize. But our Objectivist utopia aside, how would this work in the real world. I just told you that Fred's grandfather was a criminal. He said so. Now, do we do without Fred? Just erase him, like in a time-travel story?

People who commit crimes of violence are not all reprehensible anti-mind social metaphysical muscle mystics. Some of them are just people. Like you. Well, probably not like you.

Look, say that the U$A is an Objectivist society. This brings up my ever-expanding limited government. Over in Ruritania, one Nikolos Vallach wants to emigrate to the U$A. But he is accused of murder. He claims that he is being framed by an oppressive government. Now, does your FBI come to Ruritania to investigate my claim? The Prince Black Michael of Ruritania is going to consider that an invasion.

I mean, historically, you must accept at least theoretically that in the USSR and Nazi Germany some people accused of murder really were murderers, while others may not have been. Is your FBI to be the policeman to the world?

And you are evading the deeper issue: crime is a kind of social innovation. Criminals accept social goals but employ socially unacceptable means to achieve them. Robert King Merton's strain theory.

How do you avoid keeping out the pirates of Silicon Valley?

Post 12

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 7:43pm

Michael,

Well, Steve, you seem a little over-controlled to me.

Well, Michael, I really don't know what to do with that statement. I guess I'd have to know what that looks like in your mind before I could address it.
---------------

But our Objectivist utopia aside, how would this work in the real world.

I don't dichotomize the world in to a set of principle that would only work in an imaginary world, and a "real world". I mean that congress, who is currently doing its usual, ugly job of wrestling with making the worst of an immigration bill, should write language that states a work-visit card will be issued to anyone who requests one provided they do not have a record for violating any of the mentioned crimes in their country (or ours from a previous visit).

You didn't answer my question. Do you believe the government should stop someone they KNOW to be a violator of individual rights to come into the country?
---------------

People who commit crimes of violence are not all reprehensible anti-mind social metaphysical muscle mystics. Some of them are just people. Like you. Well, probably not like you.

No, Michael, they are not "just people" - they are the source of the only means by which liberty can be destroyed. The initiation of violence is the heart of evil in a world of actions. If you can't see the moral relativism in your statement, you need to stop and think about that for a while.
---------------

This brings up my ever-expanding limited government.

Which is without the slightest shred of logical support. But then I've said that before. You take an aspect of government and claim that to do it at all is to open the door to unlimited growth. An offical needs to record the entrance of an immigrant, so they need a pen or a pencil, and you make from that an argument that if we grant them the need to have a pencil it is the same as granting them the need to mine for carbon for the pencil lead, grow forests for the wood, have trucking companies to transport materials, and factories to build the pencils. It doesn't follow. It isn't logical or necessary. Your leap from the statement that people can and are falsely accused would force us to either abandon any quest to stop violent offenders from coming in, or we are forced to police the world, meets that category of foolishness.
--------------

And you are evading the deeper issue: crime is a kind of social innovation. Criminals accept social goals but employ socially unacceptable means to achieve them. Robert King Merton's strain theory.

Too much academia and not enough logic, Michael. "Social goals"? They want to have money or property? So what? They use violence, theft or fraud and those are unacceptable, immoral, and anti-social. They destroy liberty and harm people and are unjust. I'm not evading some deeper issue, I'm putting it square in the cross-hairs and pulling the trigger.
--------------

How do you avoid keeping out the pirates of Silicon Valley?

I don't call people who innovate in new technology and offer it voluntarily to those who want it, "pirates". I don't propose to keep out people who get what they want by trading, only those with a history of getting what they want with violence, theft or fraud.

Post 13

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 9:29pm

I wasn't responding to your post Steve, just what I heard from conservatives and republicans on immigration which is to whom it was addressed in the first place.

On citizenship, this is a different matter all together.My focus was on legal residency. Having said that, I personally am not concerned about people not speaking the language and I think that's a non-issue and I do sure hope that people coming here don't assimilate into the bad ideas that many of the american citizens themselves have adopted and are sadly proud to uphold. Either way, the USA never had an ideology of assimilation, as that is just a good description of leftist collectivism.

(Edited by Michael Philip on 6/24, 10:42pm)

Post 14

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 2:32am

Michael,

We disagree.

If we had a minarchy in place, all of this would be so much more inconsequential. Language wouldn't matter very much. There wouldn't be as much of a need for people who come from collectivist culture to grasp what individualism is. We would still need to attend to safeguarding liberty by understanding what it is and how to protect it, but voting wouldn't be such an issue, citizenship would be of little matter, by definition we would have very few laws, but they'd be the right ones, and the market would be constantly and rapidly responding to meet peoples needs such that big government wouldn't be missed (except by those few whose craving for power is intense - the rest of us would be happily pursuing our own goals). It would require much less of society to maintain minarchy than it would to get us from here to there.

You said, ...the USA never had an ideology of assimilation, as that is just a good description of leftist collectivism." Assimilation should be seen as a process, not an ideology. The particular things that are or are not assimilated make a difference. If great masses of people arrive and don't assimilate the understanding of individualism and freedom, and continue to keep the collectivist peasant-elite views of their old country, it will be a problem. To learn and adopt the ideas of individualism and individual rights and individual sovereignty is the kind of assimilation we need and that is in no way "leftist collectivism."

Post 15

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 6:35am

I disagree Steve

Even without the ideal of limited government, speaking a different language isn't necessarily a bad thing. An immigrant who speaks Spanish or French or German doesn't take away anything from the culture. Assimilating into the better aspects of American culture (whatever that is left of it) or for that matter injecting better ideas into it doesn't mean that we all speak a single uniform language. That's hardly individualism or individual rights and more like conformity. Citizenship is also isn't the big issue that people make it out to be and a distinction between legal residency and citizenship needs to be made, even if the Democrats don't bother doing so otherwise we risk looking at the process of voting as the end all be all of liberty like some political parties do when it really isn't.

Another thing to keep in mind is that people who come from more collectivist cultures don't necessarily hold the bad views their cultures are steeped in. It's always good to keep in mind that ideas are not people and that people have free will and ideas don't. This point is important because it needs to be considered with the context of judging our own culture and other people's cultures

Post 16

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 7:03am

Steve, the point of the "unlimited constitutional government" is that a piece of paper no matter how cleverly written is powerless. People have to agree to it. And if the common culture is different than the words on the paper, they will be ignored or reinterpreted. That is why the 170 or so other "constitutions" around the world have not delivered 170+ United Stateses of America, but only just more of the same bad old ways of doing things. Here in the USA, after 200+ years, we have big government because that is what most people seem to have wanted. Each of them individually and in groups found opportunities to force themselves on everyone else. And here we are.

Despite your disclaimer against an idealist/realist dichotomy, you and all of us here do have a constructed standard against which we measure political events. Pure laissez faire capitalism has never existed anywhere. Yet, we seem to think that it is real enough to measure the rest of the world against.

What we do know - like physics which explained the telegraph and then PET scans - is that certain causes and effects are necessarily linked. When you have a welfare state and you have immigration, then some immigrants will come for the welfare. The real solution is to do away with welfare. Attempting to tweak the laws about work visas is not an answer.

Moreover, since "welfare" (so-called) is just another aspect of a system that includes city water and state universities, you cannot deny them to people. How about trial by jury? Is it only for citizens? It used to be that jury duty was only for citizens. Now they draw jurors from licensed drivers. But, you always could serve in the military without being a citizen. It was one way to prove that you wanted to become a citizen. So, the proicess of assimilation is contextual. You cannot write a 25-word law to define what you want of other people. You are expecting the unreal.

The answer - if there is one - would be found in a truly capitalist society in which the government's only role in "immigration" would be to prevent an actual military invasion. Short of that, it is none of their business whom you hire or invite to live in your home.

Post 17

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 7:25am

Michael P.,

It isn't so much that speaking a different language takes away something. It is more that it keeps the person cut off to a degree from the culture he is now in the middle of. It make him less informed, less capable of communicating, less capable of participating effectively in democratic aspects of the country.
-------------

Assimilating into the better aspects of American culture (whatever that is left of it) or for that matter injecting better ideas into it doesn't mean that we all speak a single uniform language. That's hardly individualism or individual rights and more like conformity.

Individualism isn't diminished by speaking a common language. And sharing a common language doesn't mean a person is conformist. Society can be an extraordinary value - for everyone - and in no way does that mean that individualism requires we speak different languages, or live in isolation, or take great pains to be different.

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. Ayn Rand, Virtue of Selfishness
-------------

Another thing to keep in mind is that people who come from more collectivist cultures don't necessarily hold the bad views their cultures are steeped in.

I agree. But I want to point out that the reason we are losing our liberty, and have been for over a century, is that a smaller and smaller percentage of the population understand liberty and its requirments. This is mostly the fault of the educational system, but it is also true that we are 'importing' ignorance of liberty as well. This 'importing' is by far the smaller fraction, but it does exist.

Post 18

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 8:12am