Paris Burning: How Empires End - Pat Buchanan

[rick_reno]

The last couple of paragraphs are what we should be paying attention to.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10116

The Romans conquered the barbarians—and the barbarians conquered Rome.

So it goes with empires. And comes now the penultimate chapter in the history of the empires of the West.

This is the larger meaning of the ritual murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, the subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid, the Paris riots spreading across France. The perpetrators of these crimes in the capitals of Europe are the children of immigrants who were once the colonial subjects of the European empires.

At this writing, the riots are entering their 12th night and have spread to Rouen, Lille, Marseille, Toulouse, Dijon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Cannes, Nice. Thousands of cars and buses have been torched and several nursery schools fire-bombed. One fleeing and terrified woman was doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

The rioters are of Arab and African descent, and Muslim. While almost all are French citizens, they are not part of the French people. For never have they been assimilated into French culture or society. And some wish to remain who and what they are. They live in France but are not French.
The rampage began October 27 when two Arab youths, fleeing what they mistakenly thought was a police pursuit, leapt onto power lines and were electrocuted. The two deaths ignited the riots.

Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, a candidate to succeed President Chirac, is said to have infuriated and inflamed the rioters. Before the rampage began, he promised “war without mercy” on crime in the teeming suburbs where unemployment runs at 20% and income is 40% below the national average. He has denounced the rioters as “scum” and “rabble.”

Like the urban riots in America in the 1960s, which the Kerner Commission blamed on “white racism,” Paris’s riots are being blamed on France’s failure to bring Islamic immigrants into the social and economic mainstream of the nation. Solutions being offered range from voting rights for non-citizens to affirmative action in hiring for the children of Third World immigrants.

To understand why this is unlikely to solve France’s crisis, consider how America succeeded, and often failed, in solving her own racial crisis.
While, as late as the 1950s, black Americans were not integrated fully into our economy or society, they had been assimilated into American culture.

They worshipped the same God, spoke the same language, had endured the same Depression and war, listened to the same music and radio, watched the same TV shows, laughed at the same comedians, went to the same movies, ate the same foods, read the same books, magazines and newspapers, and went to schools where, even when they were segregated, they learned the same history.

We were divided, but we were also one nation and one people. Black folks were as American as apple pie, having lived in our common land longer than almost every other ethnic group save Native Americans. And America had a history of having assimilated immigrants in the tens of millions from Europe.

But no European nation has ever assimilated a large body of immigrant peoples, let alone people of color. Moreover, the African and Islamic peoples pouring into Europe—there are 20 million there now—are, unlike black Americans, strangers in a new land, and millions wish to remain proud Algerians, Muslims, Moroccans.

These newcomers worship a different God and practice a faith historically hostile to Christianity, a traditionalist faith that is rising again and recoils violently from a secular culture saturated in sex.

Severed from the civilization and cultures of their parents, these Arab and Muslim youth may hold French citizenship and carry French passports, but they are no more French than Americans who live in Paris are French. Searching for a community to which they can truly belong, they gravitate to mosques where the imams, many themselves immigrants, teach and preach that the West is not their true home, but a civilization alien to their values and historically hostile to their nations and Islam.

The soaring Muslim population is a Fifth Column inside Europe.

Nevertheless, their numbers must grow. For not only do they have a higher birth rate than the native-born Europeans, no European nation, save Moslem Albania, has a birth rate (2.1 births per woman) that will enable it to endure for many more generations. The West is aging, shrinking, and dying.

Yet, to keep Europe’s economy growing and taxes coming in to fund the health and pension programs of Europe’s rising numbers of retired and elderly, Europe needs scores of millions of new workers. And Europe can only find them in the Third World.

Nor should Americans take comfort in France’s distress. By 2050, there will be 100 million Hispanics in the United States, half of them of Mexican ancestry, heavily concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans still believe by right belongs to them.

Colonization of the mother countries by subject peoples is the last chapter in the history of empires—and the next chapter in the history of the West—that is now coming to a close.

 

[BigG]

As a history buff, I think his conclusion is pretty accurate although I hate to think what the implications are.

 

[beerslurpy]

He's right, but I dont agree with the whole mexican vs hispanic thing. Most hispanics arent mexicans and they arent a criminal underclass.

The mexican thing is more of a social issue than it is a racial or cultural one. They are poor and uneducated and they should be Mexico's problem, but they keep hitching rides to the north. Maybe we should balance it out by going to housing projects and giving people bus tickets to canada or mexico?

 

[Beethoven]

Bump.

 

[bearmgc]

Thank you Beerslurpy for making that distinction. There are also many Hispanics of Mexican descent, who are Americans, and who are as proud of being American as they are of their cultural heritage.

 

[hillbilly]

Here's a piece responding to Buchanan.... I am not saying this a great response, or a bad response....just a response.

hillbilly


http://oregonmag.com/ParisBurning.html

Columns of Entropy Rise Over Paris
November 08, 2005 -- Pat Buchanan describes it in terms of the fall of the West. "Rome conquered the barbarians, then the barbarians conquered Rome." Pat often dons his twenty league boots, these days, but it is he, not the West, who has seen his best days. Rome, whose senate from time to time officially declared this or that caesar a god, will never select Buchanan for the pantheon.

Paris is a tourist destination, these days, nothing more. Eastern liberal college students traditionally spend some time there, casting about for culture and trying out their skill with the lingua franca. Painters pay homage visits to the Louvre, and places made famous by impressionists. Some writers try to be there as young men, and to feel the bad weather come in so they can rise in the night and close the shutters against the wind and the rain, for Paris is a moveable feast.

For all that, Paris is a wedding cake -- baked flour covered with fancy icing. Since fashion is important only to dilettantes, the only significant thing that happens in the entire nation is the production of wine, and the cuisine which has developed to accent the craft of the vine. Both are ephemeral, like the butterfly. Beautiful and briefly here, then gone. So, nothing happens in France. It is a nation of the senses, like a summer afternoon. The last time it had any gravitas on the world scene was when Rick Blaine's train pulled away from the station. Ilsa had not come.

Nukes in the hands of kooks

So, other than simple human compassion for injuries to the innocent during these riots, why should anybody care about the fall of France? Well, France has the Bomb. If the rioting Moslems from North Africa burn their way to power, or quiet down and breed their way to power, people whose loyalties lie elsewhere than with the West will have access to everything they need to prove that the chapter known as Revelations in the Christian bible was right all along. And, some writing in Indian (India) scripture, as well.

I wish I could credit the nuclear physicist who watched an explosion, and saw what he had wrought, but I just cannot recall the man's name. I'll guess it was Neils Bohr, but don't quote me on this one. Anyway, as the hellish fireball expanded into the sky, the physicist in question said, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Riots seem to prove the human tie to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which describes the natural processes operating in any field of energy, including the form known as matter -- that is, the inevitable decline of organization in such a field. The direction is eventually always toward more disorganization. Some people call it an increase in chaos. Cars are made shiny and then begin to rust. A woods is cleared and made into a productive farm, and sooner or later begins to return to its wild roots. A thing, like a nation, is built, and then begins to lose coherence. Google the term "entropy," which is a term for more of less, to grasp the physics of this.

To battle entropy in anything requires the application of energy to create or maintain the stability of the systems which provide the framework for order. You must apply the right amount of energy in the right way, to do this. That's where judgement comes in. Is there any judgement left in the heads of the people who control the energy needed to fix France?

Stormin' Norman nailed it

I am the last man anybody should ask about that. Decades ago a bit of a fan of the place, I have over time come to agree with General Norman Schwartzkopf, who said, "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordian."

Even when things were quiet in France, I didn't hold out any hope for the place. Now that fifth columns of smoke are rising in and around its historic districts, I look for Hemingway at Harry's Bar, and see an empty bottle of Bloody Mary mix. Buchanan is probably both right and wrong. France will fall. It's been falling for a long, long time. But, the question is, is the fall of France the same as the fall of the West, as Buchanan seems to imply? That depends on what is done, or not done, in the capitol of the West in the next few years. Europe, except for the former Soviet slave states, is sitting on a park bench, talking about the events of its youth. The only energy for freedom left on the planet is right here, in the U.S.A.

I heard somebody say (if memory serves, to local radio conservative, Victoria Taft, KPAM 860 AM, weekday evenings), that he hoped Paris would burn to the ground. Obviously, this fellow believes entropy (rust, if you prefer) can reach a stage where the only way you can build a car is to melt down the metal and pour yourself a new one from the lava of the liquified steel.

Apparently, this caller to Miss Taft's show thinks there will be a new Marshall Plan which will bring about the rise of France, and the rest of Europe, from the ashes of jihad. In this scenario, America, the world repository of freedom, finally cleans the decks of liberals and firing a broadside into the Sons of Mohammed, sends them to their Virgins in the Sky.

It's an idea with some merit, I think.

(LL)

 

[Old Fuff]

Not too shabby for a hillbilly I think ...

 

[Sindawe]

I wish I could credit the nuclear physicist who watched an explosion, and saw what he had wrought, but I just cannot recall the man's name. I'll guess it was Neils Bohr, but don't quote me on this one. Anyway, as the hellish fireball expanded into the sky, the physicist in question said, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

*SNORT* Lazy "Journalist". That was Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the The Bhagavad-Gita.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I haven't met any Mexican or American of hispanic descent yet who prefers the state of affairs in Mexican government to the state of affairs in American government. America has a remarkable ability to assimilate cultures precisely because it is open to anyone who is willing to work hard and people appreciate that.

It is particularly ironic that Buchanan, a Catholic, would list the cultural differences between immigrants and Western Europe and then make the Mexico/America comparison in the same story.

 

[Art Eatman]

For a dry, very objective and dispassionate view of the situation:

From Strategic Forecasting (StratFor.com ,Austin, Texas)

By George Friedman

For more than a week, France has been torn by riots that have been, for the most part, concentrated in the poorer suburbs of Paris. The rioters essentially have been immigrants -- or the children or grandchildren of immigrants -- most of whom had come to France from its former colonies. They are, in many cases, French citizens by right of empire. But what is not clear is whether they ever became, in the fullest sense of the word, French.

And in that question rests an issue that could define European -- and world -- history in the 21st century.

Every country has, from time to time, social unrest. This unrest frequently becomes violent, but that is not necessarily defining. The student uprisings around the world in the 1960s had, in retrospect, little lasting significance, whereas the riots by black Americans during the same period were of enormous importance -- symptomatic of a profound tension within American society. The issue with the French riots is to identify the degree to which they are, or will become, historically significant.

For the most part, the rioters have been citizens of France. But to a great extent, they are not regarded as French. This is not rooted necessarily in racism, although that is not an incidental phenomenon. Rather, it is rooted in the nature of the French nation and, indeed, in that of the European nation-state and European democracy -- an experience that distinguishes Europe from many other regions of the world.

The notion of the European nation stands in opposition to the multinational empires that dominated Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries. These were not only anti-democratic, dynastic entities, but they were also transnational. The idea of national self-determination as the root of modern democracy depended first on the recognition of the nation as a morally significant category. Why should a nation be permitted to determine its own fate unless the nation was of fundamental importance? Thus, in Europe, the concept of democracy and the concept of the nation developed together.

The guiding principle was that every nation had a right to determine its own fate. All of the nations whose identities had been submerged within the great European empires were encouraged to reassert their historical identities through democratic institutions. As the empires collapsed, the submerged nations re-emerged -- from Ireland to Slovakia, from Macedonia to Estonia. This process of devolution was, in a certain sense, endless: It has encompassed, for instance, not only the restoration or establishment of sovereignty to the European powers' colonial holdings in places like Africa or Latin America, but pressure from groups within the territorial borders of those recognized powers -- such as the Basques in Spain -- that their national identity be recognized and their right to democratic self-determination be accepted.

Europe's definition of a nation was less than crisply clear. In general, it assumed a geographic and cultural base. It was a group of people living in a fairly defined area, sharing a language, a history, a set of values and, in the end, a self-concept: A Frenchman knew himself to be a Frenchman and was known by other Frenchmen to be French. If this appears to be a little circular, it is -- and it demonstrates the limits of logic, for this definition of nationhood worked well in practice. It also could wander off into the near-mysticism of romantic nationalism and, at times, into vicious xenophobia.

The European definition of the nation poses an obvious challenge. Europe has celebrated national self-determination among all principles, and adhered to a theory of the nation that was forged in the battle with dynastic empires. At the heart of its theory of nationalism is the concept that the nation -- national identity -- is something to which one is born. Ideally, every person should be a part of one nation, and his citizenship should coincide with that.

But this is, of course, not always the case. What does one do with the foreigner who comes to your country and wants to be a citizen, for example? Take it a step further: What happens when a foreigner comes to your country and wants not only to be a citizen, but to become part of your nation? It is, of course, difficult to change identity. Citizenship can be granted. National identity is another matter.

Contrast this with the United States, Canada or Australia -- three examples where alternative theories of nationhood have been pursued. If being French or German is rooted in birth, being an American, Canadian or Australian is rooted in choice. The nation can choose who it wants as a citizen, and the immigrant can choose to become a citizen. Citizenship connotes nationality. More important, all of these countries, which were founded on immigration, have created powerful engines designed to assimilate the immigrants over generations. It would not be unreasonable to say that these countries created their theory of nationhood around the practice of migration and assimilation. It is not that the process is not painful on all sides, but there is no theoretical bar to the idea of anyone becoming, for example, an American -- whereas there is a theoretical hurdle to the idea of elective nationalism in Europe.

This obstacle has been compounded by the European imperial experience. France was born of a nationalist impulse, but the nationalism was made compatible with imperialism. France created a massive empire in the 19th century. And as imperialism collided with the French revolutionary tradition, the French had to figure out how to reconcile national self-determination with imperialism. One solution was to make a country like Algeria part of France. In effect, the definition of the French nation was expanded to incorporate wildly different nationalities. It left French-speaking enclaves throughout the world, as well as millions of citoyens who were not French by either culture or history. And it led to waves of immigrants from the former francophone colonies becoming citizens of France without being French.

Adding to this difficulty, the Europeans erected a new multinational entity, the European Union, that was supposed to resurrect the benefits of the old dynastic empires without undermining nationalism. The EU is an experiment in economic cooperation and the suppression of nationalist conflicts, yet one that does not suppress the nations that created it. The Union both recognizes the nation and is indifferent to it. Its immigration policy and the European concept of the nation are deeply at odds.

The results of all of this can be seen in the current riots in France. As evident from this analysis, the riots are far from a trivial event. These have involved, by and large, French citizens expressing dissatisfaction with their condition in life. Their condition stems, to some degree, from the fact that it is one thing to become a French citizen and quite another to become a Frenchman. Nor is this uniquely a French problem: The issue of immigrant assimilation in Europe is a fault line that, under sufficient stress and circumstances, can rip Europe apart. Europe's right-wing parties, and opposition to the EU in Europe, are both driven to a large extent by the immigrant issue.

All societies have problems with immigration. In the United States, there currently is deep concern about the illegal movement of Mexican immigrants across the border. There is concern about the illegality and about the changing demographic characteristics of the United States. But there is no serious movement in the United States interested in halting all immigration. There is a management issue, but in the end, the United States is perpetually changed by immigrants and the immigrants, even more, are changed by the United States. Consider what once was said about the Irish, Italians or Japanese to get a sense of this.

The United States, and a few other nations, are configured to manage and profit from immigration. Their definition of nationhood not only is compatible with immigration, but depends on it. The European states are not configured to deal with immigration and have a definition of nationhood that is, in fundamental ways, incompatible with immigration. Put simply, the Europeans could never quite figure out how to reconcile their empires with their principles, and now can't quite figure out how to reconcile the migrations that resulted from the collapse of their empires with their theory of nationalism. Assimilation is not impossible, but it is enormously more difficult than in countries that subscribe to the American model.

This poses a tremendous economic problem for the Europeans -- and another economic problem is the last thing they need. Europe, like the rest of the advanced industrial world, has an aging population. Over the past generation, there has been a profound shift in reproductive patterns in the developed world. The number of births is declining. People are also living to an older age. Therefore, the question is, how do you sustain economic growth when your population is stable or contracting?

The American answer is relatively straightforward: immigration. Shortages of engineers or scientists? No problem. Import them from India or China, give them advanced education in the United States, keep them there. Their children will be assimilated. Is more menial labor needed? Also not a problem. Workers from Mexico and Central American states are readily available, on a number of terms, legal and illegal. Their children too can be assimilated.

Of course, there have been frictions over immigrants in the United States from the beginning. But there is also a roadmap to assimilation and utilization of immigrants -- it is well-known territory that does not collide with any major cultural taboos. In short, the United States, Australia and Canada have excellent systems for managing and reversing population contractions, which is an underpinning of economic strength. The Europeans -- like the Japanese and others -- do not.

The problem of assimilating immigrants in these countries is quite difficult. It is not simply an institutional problem: A new white paper from Brussels will not solve the issue. It is a problem deeply rooted in European history and liberalism. The European theory of democracy rests on a theory of nationalism that makes integration and assimilation difficult. It can be done, but only with great pain.

It is not coincidental, therefore, that the rates of immigration to European states are rather low in comparison to those of the more dynamic settler-based states. This also places the Europeans at a serious economic disadvantage to the immigrant-based societies. The United States or Canada can mitigate the effects of population shortages with relative ease. The influx of new workers relieves labor market pressures -- encouraging sustained low-inflation economic growth -- and the relative youth of immigrants not only allows for steady population growth but also helps to keep pension outlays manageable. In contrast, the European ideal of nationality almost eliminates this failsafe -- so that while, as a whole, Europe's population is both aging and shrinking, the dearth of young immigrant workers spins its pension commitments out of control.

These are the issues that, over the next few generations, may begin to define the real global divide -- which will be not only between rich and poor nations, but between the rich nations that cannot cope with declining populations and the rich nations that can.

---------------- 30 -------------------

Note the contrast for assimilation: The US, Canada and Australia vs. Europe.

Art

 

[P95Carry]

Good and useful piece Art - provides much thought fodder!!

 

[Biker]

I haven't met any Mexican or American of hispanic descent yet who prefers the state of affairs in Mexican government to the state of affairs in American government. America has a remarkable ability to assimilate cultures precisely because it is open to anyone who is willing to work hard and people appreciate that.

It is particularly ironic that Buchanan, a Catholic, would list the cultural differences between immigrants and Western Europe and then make the Mexico/America comparison in the same story.

Unfortunately, America is becoming balkanized precisely because there are many Mexican immigrants who want to retain their culture and national id rather than assimilate. LA, last time I rode through that town, has turned into the US capitol of Mexico. There were C-stores that would not serve me because I didn't speak spanish.
Unacceptable...
Personally, I think that Buchanan was right on the money.
Biker

 

[longeyes]

Yes, assimilation is the key, but the old model is fracturing, thanks to forty years of welfareism, multiculturalism, and fashionable America-loathing by the elites. Whether it's fractured beyond repair yet isn't clear, but I'm not convinced that we are all going to end as one happy family here.

 

[O.F.Fascist]

I mostly agree with Pat, however I definately disagree about his opinion of Hispanics.

Mexicans != Muslims

 

[solareclipse]

his opinions are based upon large groups of ethnicly similar people, and mexicans do fall quite well in it.

they do not speak the language, they live in tight neighborhoods, they seek each other out.

i do make the distinction between mexicans and hispanics however.

his point is that influx of similar immigrants eventually makes assimilation unnecessary and impossible, as they do not have the need to seek anything outside their own community.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Unfortunately, America is becoming balkanized precisely because there are many Mexican immigrants who want to retain their culture and national id rather than assimilate.

Balkanized? Either you don't know what that word means or you are using it incorrectly in this context. Balkanize means basically to break up one group into many small mutually hostile groups. It is a little difficult to apply that definition when we are only discussing two groups to begin with. While you might not like seeing a large hispanic culture in LA, its presence there doesn't qualify as balkanization in either a historic sense or a more broad sense of the word.

LA, last time I rode through that town, has turned into the US capitol of Mexico. There were C-stores that would not serve me because I didn't speak spanish. Unacceptable...

Too bad. That is perfectly acceptable to me. I favor the idea that American shopkeepers can conduct their business in any language that suits them - free choice and all that. English is the language of money and global commerce throughout the world, let alone in America. Anyone who wishes to self-select for the bottom of the success pile is more than welcome to exercise their freedom of choice in my world.

America has been successfully integrating hispanic culture of varying types since we bought Florida from Spain over a hundred years ago. Look at the names of the defenders of the Alamo or the early pioneers of Texas and California. As Friedman points out above, America is a culture designed around assimilating immigrants. None of the complaints made about hispanic immigration are any different than the same comments made about Italian, Irish, etc. immigration (except that in comparison there is nowhere near the hostility to hispanic immigration that there was to some of the earlier waves of immigration).

his point is that influx of similar immigrants eventually makes assimilation unnecessary and impossible, as they do not have the need to seek anything outside their own community

On the contrary, Buchanan correctly realizes that it isn't immigration alone that is an issue; but the compatibility of the two cultures that are mixing. He takes great pains to point out the large differences in culture and society between the French and North African immigrants that will make assimilation more difficult. He then makes a great leap and decides that because America also has a lot of immigration (albeit from a culture that has coexisted peacefully with us for most of our 200 years as a nation, has the same religious underpinnings, and has been successfully assimilating into America since the 1840s), it will also have the same problems. That is a big leap because not only is Hispanic culture notably different from North African, American culture is significantly more elastic than French culture.

 

[longeyes]

Balkanize means basically to break up one group into many small mutually hostile groups. It is a little difficult to apply that definition when we are only discussing two groups to begin with. While you might not like seeing a large hispanic culture in LA, its presence there doesn't qualify as balkanization in either a historic sense or a more broad sense of the word.

The term is apt. We are not just talking about Mexicans but about several other Central American nationalities and sub-cultures, not to mention new entrants from farther south.

You believe shopkeepers can do what they want. Fine. But when their clientele is in this country illegally, we might have a problem with that logic.

I think the jury's out about how successful assimilation has been or will be with the current crop of undocumented immigrants. Looked at their educational drop-out rate recently? Not very promising. There is no longer the same pressure to assimilate; rather there is greater pressure to not assimilate but still draw on the dole.

As for the Balkans, where did the Kosovars come from and why were the Serbs angry? See any parallels?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

The term is apt. We are not just talking about Mexicans but about several other Central American nationalities and sub-cultures, not to mention new entrants from farther south.

Not unless those cultures are mutually hostile to each other as well as us. Unless you are characterizing certain LA street gangs as cultures, I don't see much of a case for Balkanization and certainly not one that would threaten the U.S. in general.

You believe shopkeepers can do what they want. Fine. But when their clientele is in this country illegally, we might have a problem with that logic.

Their clientele is in this country illegally because American corporations rely on the cheap labor they provide. As long as those corporations are economically bound to that cheap labor, the situation isn't going to change.

I think the jury's out about how successful assimilation has been or will be with the current crop of undocumented immigrants. Looked at their educational drop-out rate recently? Not very promising. There is no longer the same pressure to assimilate; rather there is greater pressure to not assimilate but still draw on the dole.

Sure because given the choice between assimilating into a wealthy, educated and comfortable society that makes it relatively easy for you to advance and maintaining the same society you immigrated into America to escape from, who doesn't ultimate choose to return their roots?

As for the Balkans, where did the Kosovars come from and why were the Serbs angry? See any parallels?

Beyond the fact that they all involved carbon-based lifeforms? The "Kosovars" depending on who you classify as "kosovar" come from an invasion of Europe by Ottoman Turks dating back to 1389 and there has been subsequent warfare (and genocide) by both sides from that date all the way into the 20th century (multiple occasions in that century). Forgive me if I don't really see the comparison between that and the U.S. and Mexico on either a geographical, cultural, or immigration rationale.

 

[longeyes]

Your definition of "balkanized" is lame, way too restrictive. Split hairs if you want, it's pointless. That said L.A. gangs do, in fact, constitute a culture, albeit a criminal one. And the various sub-divisions of "Latinos" don't always get along. You know perfectly well what those of us who have used the term "balkanized" mean by it.

Whatever the reason illegals are here they are still here ILLEGALLY. The corporations that hire them do not make the law here. Why justify what's going on because some businesses choose to break the law?

The people who want to succeed will assimilate. Why? Because there will be a ceiling on how far they can advance operating within their own sub-culture. Look at business enterprise in Latin America as proof.

The Kosovars were illegal immigrants who usurped Serbian territory. We know where that went.

 

[shootinstudent]

Split hairs if you want, it's pointless.

Pointing out that the history of Kosovo and the US/Mexico situation is totally different isn't splitting hairs.

The Kosovars were illegal immigrants who usurped Serbian territory. We know where that went.

Hmm, I don't know about you, but I think having entered a country and lived there since 1389 makes one no longer an illegal immigrant. Any other conclusion would make almost the entire population of the US "illegal immigrants" on Mexican land, right? The Serbs migrated there too...so I guess they're "illegal immigrants" also because the Romans had the land before there were any slavs there.

I don't know about you, but I have a lot more faith in American culture than to believe we'll turn into a bunch of crooks like the Serbs and start shooting little girls in the streets just to "drive out the invaders." I also don't think we'll open up rape camps any time soon to breed the Mexicans out of existence.

What I do believe is that longeyes has spent too much time reading pamphlets with titles like "WAR OF THE RACES IS COMING! PREPARE."

 

[Cosmoline]

I would not mind giving Southern California back to Mexico or anyone else who wants it. I've never been comfortable being in the same union with that place. For me, growing up in Oregon, the invaders from the south who would not assimilate and who destroyed my state were not Mexicans but rather rich, Anglo Kalifornians. I hate them very deeply, and in the right circumstances I wouldn't mind going to war and killing them. They overran and destroyed my homeland. It makes me sick to think I'm living under the same flag as those people from the south. I have a lot more in common with a Mexican illegal who comes up here to work.

 

[Waitone]

What I do believe is that longeyes has spent too much time reading pamphlets with titles like "WAR OF THE RACES IS COMING! PREPARE."

Insulting comment and should be withdrawn.

I haven't met any Mexican or American of hispanic descent yet who prefers the state of affairs in Mexican government to the state of affairs in American government. America has a remarkable ability to assimilate cultures precisely because it is open to anyone who is willing to work hard and people appreciate that.

A concise statement of the problem and clearly points out the insanity of the current administration's refusal to do ANYTHING about illegal immigration. US illegal immigration policy is a pressure relief valve on the Mexican pressure cooker. Impeding the overflow into the US will raise the pressure on Mexico's ruling class. As some point the rules will have to make meaningful societal changes or suffer a revolution. In failing to increase the pressure in Mexico, Bush and his enablers is increasing the pressure on the US. He is ensuring trouble down the road in the US all the while maintaining the status quo in Mexico.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Why justify what's going on because some businesses choose to break the law?

Stating the facts of life isn't the same as justifying them. Corporations have needed cheap labor for a long time, thus the waves or Irish, Italians, etc. The latest "yellow peril" isn't anything new or different.

As Buchanan correctly noticed, we NEED immigrants, both legal and illegal. Our society simply cannot survive at this level of economic success without them.

The people who want to succeed will assimilate. Why? Because there will be a ceiling on how far they can advance operating within their own sub-culture. Look at business enterprise in Latin America as proof

I think that is pretty much the same argument I just made. So at least we agree here.

The Kosovars were illegal immigrants who usurped Serbian territory. We know where that went.

Are you familiar with the phrase reductio ad absurdum?

To call a group of people who have lived in the area you reference for almost 700 years, "illegal immigrants" seems a bit of a stretch to me and it misses my point besides.

Let me boil this down to the basics for you:

1) America is not France.
2) Mexicans are neither Islamic nor do they represent the Islamic offshoots of peoples who have been fighting over the same slice of land for 700 years.
3) Pretending that because both North Africans in France and Mexicans in America are equivalent because they share a single trait of being less wealthy cultures immigrating into wealthier first-world countries ignores a tremendous number of important differences that will affect how well each assimilates in its new country. Examples of these differences include:

A) The majority of Mexicans share a common outlook on religion and western values with a majority of Americans (though if American values continue to liberalize that may not be the case forever)
B) Unlike the long history of Muslim/Christian conflict in Europe, relations between the United States and Mexico have been primarily peaceful and blessedly free of genocidal acts towards each other.
C) America is a culture that has been built since day one around assimilating immigrants into our culture. France was organized around entirely different ideas.

 

[telewinz]

Most Mexicans in America WANT to be Americans and adopt most of our culture. Most Americans of Mexican descent wish the influx of illegal aliens be brought to a halt. Go figure. In truth I feel their is little to fear, a patrotic American is of great value regardless of where he/she came from or when.

 

[wingnutx]

I consider the Mexican comparison to be mostly apples to oranges.

Their kids assimilate quickly, and they don't have that "I claim this soil for Islam!" sort of attitude.

I'm an EMT in Phoenix, and deal with tons of immigrants and their kids. The parents may not catch on so fast, but the kids mostly blend right in. That's who I use to interpret most of the time.

That said, I am all for controlling the border and controlling immigration, no matter where it is coming from.

edit: one branch of my in-laws are 2nd and 3rd generation Americans via Mexico. All the men are veterans, a few career, and all are successfull upstanding citizens. This is not unusual in the many 2nd/3rd gen families that I am friends with.

Islam is a whole 'nother story. Compare Indian to Pakistani immigrants in England. It's the religion that's corrosive.