Comment by remarkEon
6 days ago
I think what you mean to say is that as a result of this ruling the voice of Americans can be diluted over time so that your preferred political outcomes can happen. Not everyone in my country believes that the concept of the nation state is stupid and should be done away with. I understand that there are many who do think this, and I have to live amicably among them, but it doesn't mean that I need to pretend that your ideas are good for me and my kin.
Sounds like you want to have unequal representation. Or rather, you want to keep your privilege by preventing other people from gaining equal footing. You are right that this is a pretty central element of American society. However, I think we're at our best when we concede that this sort of thinking is counter-productive in the end. Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth, so any efforts to prevent cooperation (in this case, by creating a subclass) is eventually self-defeating
So, again, America seems to be the only country where everyone else claims a positive right to enter and dictate what we do. You do not have this right. It never existed. You were convinced that it existed by a combination of overly generous federal spending and the center-left boomer generation winning a few elections here.
>Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth
This is an interesting claim to make when almost all of the leaps forward in technology advancement came either during a war, as part of the lead up to one, or within the context of a cold war. Similar to the entryist problem, everyone demands cooperation from the United States, no one asks for partnership.
>in this case, by creating a subclass
This is literally the point of the concept of the Citizen. A Citizen is prioritized in their own country. A non-Citizen is not. Something happened with education because it feels like we have to go back to deriving the point of the nation-state from first principles.
It does mean you need to pretend that. Reagan has a famous quote about it.
I mean, it's a free country, nobody can make you accept an idea you don't want to. But the nativist ideas you've adopted are not considered by most Americans to be acceptable. If you go around telling people that immigrants aren't real Americans, you will not be accepted even in many conservative circles. Even much of the Trump movement views nativists as useful dupes; the Vice President and Secretary of State, for example, clearly would not welcome your theories that their kin are diluting "the voice of Americans".
You are wrong. My ideas aren't "nativist", they are the mean feeling on this subject for 250 years in this country. It has taken a tremendous amount of effort to convince people that things like "borders", "state sovereignty", and "being discerning about who you let into the country" is bad, evil even. That's why you think you can throw around the word "nativist" as a pejorative. I don't like Ronald Reagan for many reasons, and I don't know which quote you are referring to (though I can venture a guess), so I'm not sure what the point of that appeal is. Like I said, if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine. But you won't get me to agree with you. If you want the country to be more left wing and increasing immigration gets you closer to that goal, just say that, it's cleaner.
There simply does not exist a substantial political movement of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations. It can't, because the vast majority of Americans do not satisfy this criterion. My own family is homegrown by any conceivable standard, but we've "only" been here for six generations, although perhaps we might go around telling people it's twelve if we didn't have the records.
And again, I'd really like you to consider the honesty of the people who've told you this is a thing. In your readings about this movement to protect the voices of people who've been here for a dozen generations, did they ever mention to you that the current President is a third-generation immigrant and the Secretary of State is second-generation? If not, why do you think they didn't?
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> if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine.
That smacks of entitlement. Yes. I know that the other side of the argument also smacks of entitlement. But I believe I have the 14th amendment on my side.
Also, there are a lot of assumptions baked into your statement. If you think that everyone here who can trace their roots back "a dozen generations" has your ideals, well, I've got $24 worth of trinkets to sell you.
Conversely, if you think that everyone here who is newly immigrated does not share your ideals, well, I have more trinkets.
The Mythology of America that I bought into was that it was a welcoming place where you could re-invent yourself in a way that was rarely possible in the country your were leaving.
And yes. I know it's a mythology--with kernels of truth to it.
But you have your own Mythology--and I find it unpalatable, both to me and my immigrant parents.
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