My Immigration Angle

From my perspective, there are two parts to The Immigration Issue.

First:
Cliché and annoying as it is coming from people who misuse this statement, this country was founded by so-called immigrants. Now, it is only a cliché, and as such it is provable wrong - there was no “country” to which to immigrate, we were actually refugees to begin with, pioneers with a vision, willing to risk everything including the wrath of the greatest superpower of the age in order to carve out a better life.

Please note: the country was not actually founded by those hearty, enterprising, desperate HARD WORKING people, but two hundred years later by people who had been born here, raised here, and lived most of their lives here (except for those who visited other places because we had made such a success of ourselves we could travel). There are no “Founding Immigrants”, it is the Founding Fathers. This is not to downplay immigrants. Why?

I would say ‘let us go back to one of the most robust stretches in American History’ but the fact is, part of my point is going to be there is only a short stretch of time that has NOT been robust. Let us analyze the role of immigrants, ignoring present day. First, it might come as a shock to Americans that immigration is not actually normal. There have been very few examples throughout history of people immigrating. There have been very few places worth immigrating TO. Always, it has been opportunity which has drawn the immigrant. The opportunity that only comes when one is free.

Immigrants came to this country with a clear goal in mind: to achieve. It wasn’t that every pair of feet that trod across Ellis Island dreamed of becoming famous or opulent. And it wasn’t the dream of opulence or fame that immigrants brought to us. We already had that in heady measure. What immigrants brought was the truth. The awful, gut-wrenching, heart-rending, shocking truth that in so many places in the world, there was not freedom. They came from places where they could NOT choose what they wanted to be when they grew up - they were TOLD. They could NOT save up for retirement, they weren’t PAID. They were part of a machine, a cog or a lever, a bolt or a hard piece of frame. The lucky few who escaped came to America filled with the energy and knowledge that now they could work for their own benefit - for the benefit of their children! Their efforts were not going to be stolen by some overlord, but they could actually save up! If they had a talent or a skill, they could pursue that instead of being forced into baking or blacksmithing or tanning. If they had a talent or skill for baking or blacksmithing or tanning, they could do it their way and excel!

Immigrants came and filled out this country with drive and determination. They came with the endless years and generations of enforced humility before them - the humbling recognition that sometimes you were part of a greater whole. If you were lucky, you got to choose what part, and the greater whole served you. If you were normal, you were forced into a place and shape and the greater whole served some remote, dangerous piece.

Today’s average American, if we are to believe the evidence paraded before us in the media (unfortunately, both old and new media), has lost sight of this. Today’s average American is not filled with the passion to achieve. We have gone from expecting to enjoy the fruits of our labors to expecting to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labors. We don’t need to see the slaves toiling away, the parts of the machine, we don’t need to force our neighbors to work for us, but we all want to be the overlord. The one who does not work, but only receives.

Then, tragedy of ironies, we flail around our space screaming out in idiotic pain and misery that our life has no meaning - and often chose the worst causes and meanings to which to attach ourselves. But that is another blog (wow I am now in the habit of figuring out my next blog posts by the tangents in my previous).

That is part one. The essential role of immigration and immigrants. I have known only one immigrant with certainty and closeness. He became an American Citizen before my very eyes. He was an immigrant from Lebanon, full of amazing stories told with almost fearful humility. He arrived at JFK Airport with eight dollars and a suitcase. He spoke English before he came. By the time I met him he had put himself through school, taught himself a skill (webmaster, before that was popular) and was perhaps the most technically knowledgeable amongst us. He had a Brazilian girlfriend and they seemed very good together. I will never forget the day he was sworn in as an American Citizen. The light and fire in his eyes overflowed until they were a part of me, too.

Second:
Discrimination. Yes, I will use that word. It used to be a good word, and some little bit of its intended meaning remain. When you tell someone, after eating a delightful food, viewing an amazing painting, or enjoying some other impressive luxury, they have discriminating taste, you are complimenting them. They chose wisely. To discriminate used to mean to choose wisely. Now it has been turned into an ugly word to suggest exactly the opposite.

We (again I mean to include conservatives, though liberals are welcome to exclude themselves) are not attempting to discriminate by race, by gender, or even by sexual practices (with some legal limits). But we do need to be more discriminating. How? What is the measure? What could this blogger actually mean?

Actually, I think there is a very simple line, though it is not one that is easy to see, and it is possible to dissemble your way across the line. The simple discrimination should be: do you wish to come to this country with the classic immigrant’s vision - that is, do you come here to work hard and be rewarded by yourself for yourself?

Unfortunately, too many people now cross the boarder to be provided for. They come here to be rewarded, but not by themselves, nor for themselves. They come without intention to build anything, nor to leave anything, but to consume - too often without contributing anything in return.

Yes, many people come here expecting to work. Many people do tough jobs that the elite in this country feel is beneath them. Those are the ones who get held up as the “normal” entrant to this country. Though it would be nice to pray that such is true, the fact is that they are still not the immigrants we seek.

Have you checked out Australia’s immigration policy?

I have.