My Country, 'Tis of Thee

From: "John Tequila”
To: “Tracy”
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 15:50:07 -0700

I thought this was kinda cool when I read it..
Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an
AMERICAN in 1907.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

--Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Tracy wrote:

I agree with John


Slangwhanger-in-Chief wrote:

T-

Thing is, if my ancestors (Y**** 1717, McC** 1860) had needed to act illegally to emigrate here, they would have done so. Because of when they got here, they just didn't need to. It is simply an accident of history that when they showed up on the docks, legal immigration consisted of somebody with a pen or rubber stamp saying, "Yep, you're here all right. That makes you legal."

It is only since the California anti-Asian panic of 1875-1900 (to which Roosevelt Minor was referring) and the reaction of 1910 against Eastern Europeans, Jews, Italians and altogether not-quite-white immigrants, that the US began imposing quotas on people. Since the quotas are always adjusted for domestic political reasons wholly unrelated to the human demand or to the economy, they are morally irrelevant and only dismally enforceable. In fact, they helped kill a huge proportion of the 6 million Jews murdered by Hitler.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the white countries most legally open to immigrants because they need population for economic growth. Vast though we are, I fail to see how we are any different. As we always have, we need everybody who wants to come here, for whatever reason, from whatever country, in whatever linguistic condition, with whatever skill level. If the world's largest economy cannot make use of such volunteers, then there is something wrong with that economy, not with the volunteers.

Of course it takes them a while to get used to being here. Maybe a couple of generations. Last autumn I thought about retiring to Bratislava, Slovakia. Beautiful city. Inexpensive. Vibrant. Civilized. I would have to bring my own money but, for an American, that is not as difficult as for a Slovakian. My desire to be there would have been sufficient legality, but even after I learned the language I would not have belonged. So what. All they needed was my money. And all we need from the immigrants is their work, their decency, their strength, their hope, and their desire to contribute to the future of the United States by having their children here.

You know even a monolingual Spanish-speaking first-generation illegal Mexican with no education, no money and no healthcare in the barrio of East LA is making a greater contribution to the US economy as a whole than are any or all the white millionaires in Hollywood. Because you know that poor bastard wetback is working, and you know that what they do in Hollywood, however profitable, no more meets the definition of work than does selling drugs nowadays or charging tolls for merchants to cross the Rhine by your castle in 1250 AD.

Now, if we would like to abolish the California agriculture sector, the mountain states sheep and mining sectors, the midwestern truck garden sector, the Florida orange sector, the Texas ranching, vegetable and cotton sectors, the northeastern corridor restaurant, taxi and hotel sectors and the nationwide construction sector of the economy, then all we have to do is start throwing every employer in jail who hires an illegal.

But immigrant-aimed prevention is despicable, daft and doomed. As Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano says, "Show me a fifty-foot wall and I will show you a fifty-one-foot ladder."

Slangwhanger-in-Chief