by Jack Campitelli | July 8th, 2011
Précis: Inappropriate cultures; failure to assimilate; non-traditional reasons for immigrating; quotas; equality unrealistic; just say no; history of immigration; reverse immigration; emigration; radical Islam; bread making; Koran; Shiva; Hindi; Old Testament; New Testament; Mexico; drugs; Patriot Act; liberals; circumcision
The beginnings. The first immigrants, largely émigrés from England and Scotland, carved tenuous beachheads in various areas of what was later to be called America. These “pilgrims” were or had been prosecuted for this or that and they were as happy to go as the country was to be rid of them. They were strange folk by anyone’s definition and they wanted religious freedom. Which they got. The other type of immigrant were “companies” – capitalist endeavors whose goals were to find easy pickin’s in the new world – large tracts of land full of commodities to be sold back to the civilized world.
A lot of these endeavors failed. And as a rule they took little notice of the indigenous populations that had been in America for thousands of years. And what notice they did take was not politically correct as we’d say these days.
Follow-on immigrants tended to come in waves coinciding with pre- or post-wars in Europe. Orientals wanted in on America, too, but ended up largely as indentured workers and perished by the thousands. Those that survived became moderately prosperous. They were “tolerated,” but barely. None rose to the level of the early anglo-saxon capitalist giants. Not for lack of trying. But for prejudice pure and simple.
Long and short, immigrants used to come to America for opportunity and freedom. Each new wave that got off the boat was often fleeced by those just landed before them and the “just off the boat” took their place at the bottom of the social ladder to start their assimilation. Immigrants tended to stay in neighborhoods with the same ethnicity. So some areas were predominately Irish, Italian, German, Jewish, Hungarian, and even Japanese or Chinese. But for the most part they almost immediately considered themselves Americans. They were proud that they were. They looked forward to full citizenship. Second and third generations slipped the bounds of ethnic neighborhoods and assimilated themselves into more commonplace homogenized neighborhoods and jobs. Life was good in America.
These immigrants expected nothing from government. And all they hoped for was a fair chance at a decent life.
As government expanded, the early immigrants headed West. Always one step ahead of government – always looking for freedom in the plains, in the mountains, finally at the Pacific. They took their largely protestant/Christian/Jewish religions with them. Full of ethics and values that built a nation. They were not all good. But most were. They knew they could only count on themselves and perhaps their close neighbors. Someone in the Rockies did not look to Washington D.C. to do anything for them. They moved West to rid themselves of such nonsense.
Times have changed. We know a lot more big words about how new cultures assimilate with older cultures. We have a government the size of a medium large state that has its fingers in everything. And immigration has changed. Few want to come to be Americans. They want to come here for jobs. Not necessarily freedom and opportunity. But because it’s better in America than where they’re coming from and they can get work. And they are increasingly wanting to retain the live with the culture they came with — not an American culture. I’m not saying this is good or bad, but something has changed. And the results are often not pretty.
The Eastern European cultures from former communist states have a lot of misconceptions and bad habits they’re bringing with them. They, for the most part, do not have a solid religious (of whatever kind) sense of good, bad, evil, and ethics. Their “ethics” were about survival and they oft bring a dog eat dog attitude to the locales they inhabit. Some of these folks are artists and technicians and are gracious and lovely people. Others make the old Italian mafia look like boy scouts.
These latter day immigrants are even more hell-bent on keeping and defending the culture they came with. They do not usually come for the dream of America. They no longer come for freedom and the ability to make their own life. They quickly fall into the various slots of benefits and entitlements that a socialist safety net provides. All provided by big government. And they look at this as a sign of weakness. They spit on it while their hand is out. They know you take what you can; what someone is stupid enough to give.
Then we have those who immigrate under false flags. They come to undermine America; to kill us. They come shrouded in veils whose metaphor is to keep hidden. These are mistakes made from too liberal entry requirements and, worse, corruption of otherwise good people from radicals of their ethnicity already here. This is clearly the root of evil and terribly difficult to deal with. The Arab expression is “the camels nose is already under the tent.”
America itself we know is going through the pains of confusion of purpose. Of unresponsive and irresponsible legislators. Of what feels like a powerless electorate. Of impressive greed imposed on increasing poverty. Not a good time to be bringing new arrivals onboard.
But . . . the landscape of immigration has changed. It has not changed for the good. We, by virtue of a government we little control, have let this happen.
In the New Testament the early writers talk of Christ being cautious of allowing too many new folks into the religion for fear it would corrupt. That the dough, metaphorically, could only absorb so much so fast without going bad. This is true of almost anything and it is certainly true of immigration and it is a fundamental fact that has been forgotten.
Some cultures flow easily into America because their values and beliefs are our values and beliefs. But other cultures have no common denominator. They have beliefs adverse to ours. This doesn’t make them “bad” but it should make “us” cautious. A few at time, until they have been successfully incorporated into the dough that is what is fundamental to America. And if they don’t incorporate, then they have to go. Not all ingredients are useful or good.
It is not unkind or Un-American to recognize that the good old days are gone. Mexicans are not, for the most part, coming to America for freedom. They want jobs and money. Some want to engage in drug trafficking. They’ll do what they have to. This is not the dream of America and not what “bring me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” was about. That was 250 years ago. We are a country now with edges, with boundaries, with troubles. We need to recognize that. It doesn’t seem right that we kill people trying to cross the borders without a visa. Seems sort of not the kind of people we are. But it also doesn’t seem right that we spend a billion dollars on fences that don’t work and perhaps the diversion of 30,000 troops to guard our southern border. We’re not that rich anymore.
In my travels around the world, I find very few folks who are ready for America. People, who you want to pick up and say, “Yes. You! Come with me. You have honesty, integrity, work ethic, and education. I’ll give you work the minute you get here. I want you as a neighbor.” (And, frankly, most Americans have forgotten what it means to be American.)
America in these last years should have learned a few lessons. We cannot fix everyone’s problems in the world. We can’t even fix our own. It is sad. There is real suffering in the world that we watch on TV or YouTube. And to make it sadder, we have our own problems. We have an America in turmoil; a government that is largely unresponsive and increasingly arrogant. We are on the verge of becoming one of those countries that people flee from – as many of the best and brightest are fleeing now. The wise ones do it quietly. But very few are the wealthy that don’t have businesses on foreign soil. Residency permits in place other places. Bank accounts in other places. They’ve done it quietly so as not to endanger their public images in America. Just as billionaire and millionaire Mexicans have businesses and residences in the United States as a hedge, so do thoughtful and prepared Americans have their chosen places as a safe haven just in case.
Many feel that America is off-course. And it’s not time to bring new people until we have fixed what is ailing in the land of the free, to quote Buffett. Jimmy, not Warren.
I’m sure some of you have made bread. Once you have the beginnings – the yeast, sugar, and small amount of flour called the sponge (as in what soaks things up), you let it germinate for a bit and then slowly add flour, a bit at a time, letting the sponge slowly absorb and incorporate the new flour until you get the right consistency. If you dump the flour in too fast, the sponge is overwhelmed and the batch is ruined.
It’s a metaphor, but there are many more just like it in our daily life. Too much of anything that overwhelms our ability to soak it up and incorporate it into the sponge that is our culture, leaves a mess. And that’s where we are. If we add the “Muslim” element into the mixture, it is too much. Someone did a study of the critical mass of Muslims it takes to start causing serious problems. We’re not quite there yet. But a lot of countries are. Not all Muslims want to kill us and destroy our way of life. But a certain percentage do. And if they don’t, radical imams, clerics, have done a good job of radicalizing second generation children. This is sad, because a lot of Muslims just want to escape the tyranny of Islamic theocratic fascism and find freedom in America. Unfortunately, they bring the seeds of trouble with them. If not in their hearts, perhaps in their children, some of whom, as they reach the teenage years of discovery and rebellion, are ripe for conversion to radicalism.
The Koran, like the Old Testament, and even Hindi texts, is full of jihad-type rhetoric. Just like Moses didn’t actually write the Old Testament, nor Jesus the New Testament, nor the god Shiva Hindi texts, neither did Mohammed write the Koran. All of these texts, sacred to their followers, were written by men with an agenda. The wanted to enforce dogma and legitimize their religions and make other religions, and peoples despised by God and ready for killing. Scholars can explain this as metaphor or diatribe, but it’s not construed by civilized persons as carte blanche for mass murder.
As we can see from concerns about the true background of the freedom fighters and demonstrators of the Arab Spring, radical Islam is quite good at insinuating itself into the sinew of a culture before its cancer is detected. The Spanish didn’t throw the Moors out for the hell of it.
So . . . until we’ve solved a LOT of other problems, including rooting out radical Islam that already exists here, it’s probably not the right time to bring in any more.
And rooting out radical Islam is almost anathema to what America stands for. We don’t like to mess with someone’s religion. And it’s hard to tell which religions want to kill you any more than it’s easy to tell which radical political American organizations are training to resort to violence if they don’t get their way. The freedoms of speech and religion guaranteed in our Constitution were never meant to shield rhetoric designed to destroy us. But it sure films poorly to show police ferreting out persons or organizations that have crossed the line. It looks like Nazi Germany and we don’t want that image of ourselves. And yet . . . what do you do? Pinochet, who lead a coup that killed President Allende in Chile, “said coup sponsored by the CIA”, killed a lot of folks who were socialists/communists which Pinochet and others felt were eating away at the heart of Chile. Years later, Chile is a thriving capitalist country and most folks are very happy that they are rid of socialist/communism and they are rabid about nipping anything in the bud that seems like it. Not true democracy. But, to them, you rid your country of cancer anyway you have to. Boy, that’s a tough call.
We have no easy answers to immigration but we have enough problems that if we want to continue to allow immigration, that we MUST do some things that are NOT-equal. All cultures are not equal when it comes to becoming American. We’re almost apologizing that we expect immigrants to become American. But that’s the bargain: To accept our values and laws or to find some other country. It is terrible to lump all of anything together and stereotype them as undesirable but we have to do it, perhaps, for a while until we get a handle on things.
I’ve done immigration lawyering and I’ve got to tell you that the INS or whatever the hell it’s called this week can be the least caring and stupidest bunch of bastards on the planet. Maybe they just get that way from thousands of folks trying to scam them. I don’t know. But we are not talking a pleasant bureaucracy to deal with. “Arbitrary and capricious” should be their motto. For the most part they try to follow rules that they are made to follow by someone upstairs. And often those rules are stupid and reactive to political manipulation rather than common sense or long term planning by common sense persons without either a liberal or conservative bias: ethical pragmatists.
It’s hard to live in times with no easy answers. Mexicans do take American jobs. Mostly the jobs no one wants to do. A Mexican executive vice president of marketing is not climbing the fence with the help of coyotes to steal an American executive’s job. Folks who are to be maids, dishwashers, cleaning persons, gardeners – the unseen who make all possible – are coming for survival and even safety. Yes, and some are drug dealers. The real answer to stopping the supply of drugs is to stop demand. That means locking up even more people (which is stupid and expensive) or it means two generations of practically brain washing education against drugs. In the churches, the media, the schools. You’re adults. You know by now that if there is demand for anything, someone will supply it. I’m not saying that taking steps to limit supply is not good. But it won’t do the job. And it’s damnably expensive. And drugs are way too lucrative not to inspire corruption at all levels. If we truly need a war on drugs, then maybe we need to get the hell out of Afghanistan and Iraq and tell Mexico we’re coming in. Clean it up or we will. Drug dealers can be very tough thugs but they are not a match to the U.S. military.
There seems to be some legislation in the works to allow marijuana and other natural drugs, and that might slow demand. But street drugs are almost a cultural right of passage. “As seen on TV.” We’re doing it to ourselves. The point is that the porosity of our borders on the South and our immigration policy for Muslims is hurting the country.
Taking “judicial notice” of it and taking severe and drastic steps to stop it seem warranted. As I’ve written before, for Mexicans, let’s get an easy visa program started that’s cheaper that coyotes. God knows we need these folks. We don’t need them on welfare and in our hospitals (unless they are here legally on a work visa). I don’t know how Amsterdam deals with all manner of drugs and still has one of the most productive economies per capita in the world. I’m not saying they’re a model, but it does seem to work and ours doesn’t.
I am concerned about “Mexican nationalism” being promoted in America. Neither Mexico or the U.S. gain anything by early Mexican land in California, Arizona and Texas becoming Mexico again. That’s a non-starter. More rabble rousing for us to deal with.
No one wants Pinochet-type death squads roaming the cities and countryside “taking care of these problems.” But, truly, what is the answer?
Every family either has children who’ve “gone bad” or they know of families that have such children. After they’ve bled your life dry on treatment programs and then stolen your TV and cleaned out your bank accounts, families universally, to survive, must draw a line in the sand and throw their own child to the wolves. It happens every day in every strata of society.
What do you do when a certain portion of society has “gone bad” and is threatening your life and livelihood – your survival and your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I dare say it is not a pretty answer. We do not have enough judges and due process to deal with it. It’s way past that. I’m not a fan of Dirty Harry justice. But Dirty Harry took over when common sense had left those in office and liberals had taken on too much power and prevented common sense justice. Dirty Harry’s city, San Francisco, wants to ban circumcision now. That’s the kind of arrogant power the, “we know better,” neighbors we have.
I have always detested the Patriot Acts as un-American. But . . . the ONLY thing I really think is missing is a couple of provisos: one, anything found pursuant to the Act and not by due process that is other than terrorist related cannot be used as evidence and becomes fruits of a poisonous tree. Meaning you can’t convict a money launderer of money laundering if you violated his rights all to hell claiming he was a terrorist. If he’s NOT a terrorist, then he walks. The second provision it needs is one that says any law enforcement official who deliberately and knowingly uses the power of the Act for other than terror fighting purposes, is subject to prosecution with a prison term of no less than 10 years. That last provision creates a sobering moment for someone wanting to play cowboy under the aegis of the Patriot Act. Those “common sense” provisions that would protect us all are missing. Probably for a reason. I hate to think what the reason it. I already don’t trust government too much.
So, as far as immigration, how would you deal with it if you were appointed “czar” for a day?
