What exactly is wrong with having a different culture?
Where is it written that Americans all have to be the same?
Ok, call me a hatemonger.. but
not all cultures are created equal.
Even leaving out those cultures that still think it's a good idea to kill your daughter 'cause she was raped (*ahem*) .. ours is pretty darn special.
Western European culture has in the last several centuries abolished human slavery, created a scientific and technological revolution unprecedented* in human history, brought about a standard of living in which even our
poor have a living standard kings of old would envy, and in its American iteration restored the very concept of personal liberty, self-determination, Constitutional government.
I
like our culture, I think it's done a lot of good in the world, and I think yes, it should be protected. Yeah, we have our problems. God know we have our problems. But all things considered, our culture is a
good one.
Unchecked immigration in the numbers we're talking about from Mexico will invariably change that, and I think it's fair to ask upfront if that change is for the best. It's become stylish over the last couple decades to celebrate cultural diversity for
diversity's sake. I posit that cultural diversity is
not a worthy goal in and of itself.
When looking at other cultures and integrating them into our own, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask if it will help or hurt. For example, given the amount of sheer resources Mexico has at her disposal, she has
no reason aside from culture to still be a third world country.
Even if that were not the case, immigration in these numbers serves to balkanize any nation, and people come to hold their loyalties to their sub-group over that of their nation. I don't believe that's a good thing.
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
...Theodore Roosevelt
*even if some of us can't spell. :blush:
