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I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europeans. Perhaps, but still... it's compli
by mechanical_fish 16y ago
I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europeans.
Perhaps, but still... it's complicated. Ask an Irish-American in the 1800s, a black American in 1840 or 1930, or a Japanese-American in 1944:
http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-remembers-his-internment/ http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-rememb...
From the earliest days of the USA, it has taken a lot of fighting to keep the ideals alive in practice as well as on paper.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoAsk a Jewish Frenchman in 1942, an Indian Briton in 1920, or 5th generation Korean immigrants to Japan today. America may have struggled to keep its ideals alive in practice, but at least it has such ideals. And it has been far more successful at living up to them than just about any other country in history. We should celebrate that even as we strive for further improvement (current anti-immigration sentiment in America is far too prevalent, for example).
- jerf 16y agoCurrent anti-illegal-immigration sentiment is pretty prevalent. If there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I do notice a lot of people trying their hardest to conflate the two, though.
- pyre 16y agoWell, there are a lot of people that think that we should prevent Chinese immigrants...
- mechanical_fish 16y agoIf there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I've watched several highly-educated friends try to get green cards, jumping through hoops all the way. The fact that emigrating to the USA has been deliberately engineered to be very difficult is a relatively polite, bureaucratic, impersonal form of anti-immigrant sentiment, but it is definitely real.
- mechanical_fish 16y agoI don't disagree at all. American culture actually seems to be unusually good at resisting xenophobia. But that skill was developed through practice.