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The interesting thing is that despite what America did to these Filipino soldiers, they still chose to be American and sacrificed the majority of their life to

The interesting thing is that despite what America did to these Filipino soldiers, they still chose to be American and sacrificed the majority of their life to do so. American immigration really is the ultimate test of loyalty. Makes you wonder how many natural-born Americans would still choose to be American if they had to go through the immigration experience first. Now that's an idea. People aren't born American citizens but as probationary citizens, and they only become full citizens after fulfilling a series of trials. Imagine what kind of society would emerge from the other end.

plasticchris 6y ago
This is part of the premise for starship troopers (heinlein)
- logical_proof 6y ago
  I always reflect on this right here when the subject comes up. I first read Starship Troopers as a high schooler in 1999. It impacted me greatly and I took what I wanted to from the book thinking it made me wiser. Upon reflection now 20 years later I think the book is a strong warning against incentivizing civic duty. A strong sense of civic duty and a respect for law must be value enough without reward for a democracy to remain healthy. I am open to the notion that 20 years from now I will think that 2020 me was equally foolish to 1999 me.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    It has been some decades now, but that warning also escaped me on first reading. I certainly appreciated the film adaptation, which was a bit less subtle...
    - logical_proof 6y ago
      “I’m doing my part” - yeah that movie nailed it in a way that I think was subtle the other direction.
    - mudita 6y ago
      The film has very little to do with the novel, actually. Verhoeven, the director, hated the book: “I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring … It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right-wing book.” The film is basically intended as parody of fashism, while the book is much more positive about the military and an exploration of an alternative society, where everyone has to do voluntary military service before having the right to vote and hold office (later Heinlein claimed that 95% of the Federal service is civil service, but the book itself seems to imply it’s mostly military). Personally I find the book much more interesting than the film. While the film is a parody its message is actually not that complex and in my memory seems to me to boil down to “Fashism is bad, mkay”. In contrast to this, the book is partly deeply problematic, but contains much more original though and interesting world-building with a political system, which is somewhat orthogonal to the established political dimensions of thinking. Which leads to criticism, when people like Verhoeven lazily project it down to the dimensions, they are familiar with. It’s a bit like a weirdtopia instead of an utopia or dystopia: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cWjK3SbRcLkb3gN69/building-weirdtopia https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cWjK3SbRcLkb3gN69/building-w... Personally in my mind I group this book somewhat together with non-fiction book “Shake Hands with the Devil “ by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire. As a German the thought that you could have pride in being part of a military felt foreign and distant, for example routinely thanking soldiers for their service is still unthinkable for me and these two books in very different ways made me have more empathy with a perspective where being a soldier for a democratic society is something you can be proud of. By the way, somewhat fittingly for the original blog post, the main character in the book is implied to be of Filipino descent (but played by a white in the film).
  - halostatue 6y ago
    Heinlein was serious about the proposal.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      Yep. It was written in a fit of patriotic enthusiasm for the Cold War, and Heinlein was still offering defences of the political system two decades later after his own politics had moved on. I do think there's merit in reading books that were utterly serious about their ideas as satirising them though. The conquistador heirs, oil barons and philosopher pirates in Atlas Shrugged make so much more sense as parody of how the 'self-made man' tends to accumulate wealth than in a parable about the ills of not enough capitalism
filleduchaos 6y ago
> American immigration really is the ultimate test of loyalty. Frankly, more and more people are starting to wake up to the fact that it's a bullshit test. Partly because immigration really doesn't have to be all that, and partly because of the global...decline of the United States' image since the turn of the century. When I was a kid moving to the US was the goal, now only a handful of people I know have it at the top of their relocation list (and some have lost interest in even visiting). Canada and the EU are much more popular destinations for people looking to move to a western country.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Canada is great. It’s virtually indistinguishable from America for the typical person. I don’t know where you’re from, but as a Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, but I wouldn’t emigrate to the EU. 76% of Americans say that a naturalized citizen is a “real American” and just 13% disagree: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-06/the-inclusiveness-of-nationalities-ipsos-global-advisor.pdf https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/.... In France it’s 55-28. In Italy it’s 41-36. There is no place in the world more welcoming to immigrants than America. Look at what’s happening in the EU. America has been dealing with huge levels of illegal immigration for decades and for the most part we’re still very positive on legal immigration. Europe accepted some refugees from the Middle East like five minutes ago and already right-wing nationalist parties are winning elections left and right.
  - throwaway0891 6y ago
    If you have a look at "legal immigrant that lived here their entire lives is a real <demonym>" the US goes say down in support. It's clear they see it as a purely legal status, not necessarily as acceptance in a society. That survey probably conflates ethnicity and nationality, as many countries use the same word for both. Like Hungary for example. PS: There's no way 50% of Brits think gaining citizenship doesn't make you British, unless they don't speak English. That's what the word means!
    - pjc50 6y ago
vore 6y ago
That's literally fascism. Creating a society of citizens around who passes an arbitrary test of "are you really American" is as clear-cut of a definition of fascism as you can get.
- kergonath 6y ago
  Yeah, the whole thing sounds dangerous and deeply disturbing. Surely, we need less nationalism and more understanding, not the other way around. Blind loyalty tests are just a way of controlling people and apply peer pressure. It is a perfect description of an abusive relationship, as well as the standard totalitarian play book. Try: - ”you aren't born my son but as probationary son, and you only become my real son after fulfilling a series of trials (that I decided arbitrarily to satisfy my arbitrary sense of how you should be)”. - “you are my probationary spouse, and you only become my real spouse after fulfilling a series of trials.”
marcus_holmes 6y ago
adding racial purity to the test for citizenship in 5...4....3..

plasticchris 6y ago

This is part of the premise for starship troopers (heinlein)

logical_proof 6y ago
I always reflect on this right here when the subject comes up. I first read Starship Troopers as a high schooler in 1999. It impacted me greatly and I took what I wanted to from the book thinking it made me wiser. Upon reflection now 20 years later I think the book is a strong warning against incentivizing civic duty. A strong sense of civic duty and a respect for law must be value enough without reward for a democracy to remain healthy. I am open to the notion that 20 years from now I will think that 2020 me was equally foolish to 1999 me.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  It has been some decades now, but that warning also escaped me on first reading. I certainly appreciated the film adaptation, which was a bit less subtle...
  - logical_proof 6y ago
    “I’m doing my part” - yeah that movie nailed it in a way that I think was subtle the other direction.
  - mudita 6y ago
    The film has very little to do with the novel, actually. Verhoeven, the director, hated the book: “I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring … It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right-wing book.” The film is basically intended as parody of fashism, while the book is much more positive about the military and an exploration of an alternative society, where everyone has to do voluntary military service before having the right to vote and hold office (later Heinlein claimed that 95% of the Federal service is civil service, but the book itself seems to imply it’s mostly military). Personally I find the book much more interesting than the film. While the film is a parody its message is actually not that complex and in my memory seems to me to boil down to “Fashism is bad, mkay”. In contrast to this, the book is partly deeply problematic, but contains much more original though and interesting world-building with a political system, which is somewhat orthogonal to the established political dimensions of thinking. Which leads to criticism, when people like Verhoeven lazily project it down to the dimensions, they are familiar with. It’s a bit like a weirdtopia instead of an utopia or dystopia: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cWjK3SbRcLkb3gN69/building-weirdtopia https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cWjK3SbRcLkb3gN69/building-w... Personally in my mind I group this book somewhat together with non-fiction book “Shake Hands with the Devil “ by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire. As a German the thought that you could have pride in being part of a military felt foreign and distant, for example routinely thanking soldiers for their service is still unthinkable for me and these two books in very different ways made me have more empathy with a perspective where being a soldier for a democratic society is something you can be proud of. By the way, somewhat fittingly for the original blog post, the main character in the book is implied to be of Filipino descent (but played by a white in the film).
- halostatue 6y ago
  Heinlein was serious about the proposal.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    Yep. It was written in a fit of patriotic enthusiasm for the Cold War, and Heinlein was still offering defences of the political system two decades later after his own politics had moved on. I do think there's merit in reading books that were utterly serious about their ideas as satirising them though. The conquistador heirs, oil barons and philosopher pirates in Atlas Shrugged make so much more sense as parody of how the 'self-made man' tends to accumulate wealth than in a parable about the ills of not enough capitalism

filleduchaos 6y ago

> American immigration really is the ultimate test of loyalty. Frankly, more and more people are starting to wake up to the fact that it's a bullshit test. Partly because immigration really doesn't have to be all that, and partly because of the global...decline of the United States' image since the turn of the century. When I was a kid moving to the US was the goal, now only a handful of people I know have it at the top of their relocation list (and some have lost interest in even visiting). Canada and the EU are much more popular destinations for people looking to move to a western country.

rayiner 6y ago
Canada is great. It’s virtually indistinguishable from America for the typical person. I don’t know where you’re from, but as a Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, but I wouldn’t emigrate to the EU. 76% of Americans say that a naturalized citizen is a “real American” and just 13% disagree: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-06/the-inclusiveness-of-nationalities-ipsos-global-advisor.pdf https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/.... In France it’s 55-28. In Italy it’s 41-36. There is no place in the world more welcoming to immigrants than America. Look at what’s happening in the EU. America has been dealing with huge levels of illegal immigration for decades and for the most part we’re still very positive on legal immigration. Europe accepted some refugees from the Middle East like five minutes ago and already right-wing nationalist parties are winning elections left and right.
- throwaway0891 6y ago
  If you have a look at "legal immigrant that lived here their entire lives is a real <demonym>" the US goes say down in support. It's clear they see it as a purely legal status, not necessarily as acceptance in a society. That survey probably conflates ethnicity and nationality, as many countries use the same word for both. Like Hungary for example. PS: There's no way 50% of Brits think gaining citizenship doesn't make you British, unless they don't speak English. That's what the word means!
  - pjc50 6y ago

vore 6y ago

That's literally fascism. Creating a society of citizens around who passes an arbitrary test of "are you really American" is as clear-cut of a definition of fascism as you can get.

kergonath 6y ago
Yeah, the whole thing sounds dangerous and deeply disturbing. Surely, we need less nationalism and more understanding, not the other way around. Blind loyalty tests are just a way of controlling people and apply peer pressure. It is a perfect description of an abusive relationship, as well as the standard totalitarian play book. Try: - ”you aren't born my son but as probationary son, and you only become my real son after fulfilling a series of trials (that I decided arbitrarily to satisfy my arbitrary sense of how you should be)”. - “you are my probationary spouse, and you only become my real spouse after fulfilling a series of trials.”

marcus_holmes 6y ago

adding racial purity to the test for citizenship in 5...4....3..