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"But I don't want to have so many immigrants that we can't turn them all into Americans. I want immigrants who respect womens' rights, consider racists to be so
by codegeek 12y ago
"But I don't want to have so many immigrants that we can't turn them all into Americans. I want immigrants who respect womens' rights, consider racists to be social pariahs, find corruption to be intolerable, embrace gays, etc"
If I understand you correctly, you are making the assumption that things like respecting women's rights etc. are primarily an American virtue and not as much with other cultures ? I would agree with you generally that America is probably the most open country even with its challenges but I am not sure if your point is relevant in the context of immigration. Here is why. Immigrants come to America for many reasons. Your dad's was not wanting to bribe for every little thing and probably many other factors like that. But in my experience, most immigrants are just looking for better opportunity and america provides that. It is hard to objectively quantify their virtues, beliefs etc.
So what I am getting at is that your point seems ok in theory but very difficult to implement in reality. If you want to restrict immigration, it certainly cannot be done based on perceived virtues. Plenty of immigrants assimilate in the local culture while plenty preserve their own at the same time. Nothing wrong with both as long you are not hurting anyone. In fact, what makes America special is you could look different, speak different, eat different but at the end of day, you are American as long as you have some common core beliefs including hard work, take nothing for granted, the drive to succeed and the perception of self independence.
- Retric 12y agoThe core problem is bribery is both a way of life for more than 1/2 the worlds population and a huge economic drain. If you mix say 200 million people from China and 200 million from India you would quickly end up with yet another society where bribery is the norm. Granted the cap on immigration is probably well below the cultural assimilation rate, but just because we could accept say 2 million people a year does not mean 20 would not be a huge problem. On top of that the US has a huge investment in infrastructure roads, bridges, railroads, water, sewage, schools, etc which needs to be expanded when increasing the population. So, while allowing lot's of doctors to emigrate is probably a net gain, adding migrant workers is probably a net loss to the economy on average.
- davidw 12y agoPeople said the same thing about Italian and Irish immigrants 100 years ago. And yet, things didn't fall apart.
- Retric 12y agoFeel free to look up the crime rates 100 years ago and say that again. Immigration is extremely valuable, but scaling things up tends to create significant issues. The Italian's might have been more famous, but there where wars fought in US city's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Mob http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Mob
- rayiner 12y ago> In fact, what makes America special is you could look different, speak different, eat different but at the end of day, you are American as long as you have some common core beliefs including hard work, take nothing for granted, the drive to succeed and the perception of self independence. Why are those the core values? I can think of several off the top of my head that are more important. What makes America a better place to live than Bangladesh is not that we believe in hard work and independence while people in Bangladesh do not. Beliefs are a part of it, but not those specific beliefs.
- tptacek 12y agoI think you'd be surprised how much "respecting women's rights", given a broad interpretation of that notion, is localized the US and a few other countries. Surprisingly big swaths of Europe have issues with it. (A fair critique of what I just said might take into account the attitudes of, say, rural Missouri; however: immigrants don't as a general rule come here from Bangladesh to settle into the Ozarks).