A Nation of Assimilated Immigrants

Immigration is a contentious issue because it perturbs many people's self-image and sense of acceptance. "Do I belong here? Am I as American as you?" Few say it like that, yet those are the unspoken undercurrents fueling the fear and anger over the issue. Yet immigration also raises legitimate concerns about the allocation of limited social services (education, health care), taxes, unemployment, wage depression, crime, and the environment. How to address those issues without sounding like a racist hiding behind those issues?

Some politicians and pundits hide behind the mantra: "Legal immigration yes, illegal immigration no," a neat way of both supporting and opposing immigration, while avoiding the real question: "What should be legal?" How many do we admit, how quickly, using what standards, what consequences for those here illegally and what of their children? If legality were the real issue, we could solve the problem overnight by legalizing everyone.

I'm going to avoid those questions too, because I have no easy answers. (At least I am blatant about it.) Instead, I propose we focus on a proven solution to all our past immigration problems: Assimilation.

To say America is a nation of immigrants is like saying the sky is blue. It's both true and irrelevant. Every nation is a nation of immigrants; people have been migrating across the globe ever since we left Africa. Nor did the thirteen largely English colonies mean to establish a nation of immigrants. Many did not welcome America's first large Catholic influx in the 1840s, and Emma Lazarus's poem ("Give me your tired...") did not grace Lady Liberty until 1903.

More importantly, to say we are a nation of immigrants is an incomplete truth. A fuller truth is that we are a nation of immigrants who assimilated--who learned English, did not rely (through most of our history) on government safety nets, and sought to "become Americans" (a once-popular phrase).

Assimilation is not homogeneity. Marines and hippies, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Morrison, are equally American. Assimilation is not conformity to Norman Rockwell, but an erosion of tribal empathy for one's ethnicity and former homeland as one feels increasing attachment for the host culture and its people. Assimilation is the reciprocal price the immigrant pays for the benefit of acceptance. (Reciprocal, because contrary to the stereotype of discrimination always being a white or American thing, immigrants from all nations import their own share of prejudices.) Assimilation is thus the opposite of both rightist nativism and leftist identity politics; the former rejects the newcomer, the latter rejects the host.

America's strength has never been its diversity, but its ability to overcome diversity through assimilation. "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One) refers to the thirteen colonies, but could as easily describe our melting pot.

It is no insult to other cultures to say that America has its own. We say we are a multicultural nation because we worry it may offend to say otherwise, but also because it appears true from our surface diversity (skin color, food, clothes music). Yet American diversity is a mile wide and an inch deep. Beneath the surface most Americans share a sense of nationhood and fundamental values (even if Reds and Blues accuse each other of betraying those values). That sounds vague because, like obscenity, American culture is easy to recognize but difficult to define. Yet its truth becomes apparent to any American traveling abroad, many of whom say they've never felt so American as when visiting their ancestral homelands.

Surface diversity is enriching, but deep diversity can be dangerously divisive. Despite their more homogeneous surfaces, diversity runs so deep in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, the Mideast, and the tellingly "former" Yugoslavia that people have murdered one another to assure the dominance of their religious or ethnic group.

America too has suffered deep diversity, Jim Crow being only one recent example. Yet like the Borg, American culture continues to assimilate everything so it belongs to everyone. Chinese take-out and Italian pizza are not evidence of our multiculturalism, but things we've all come to know and share in. We speak a common language, we increasingly vote and marry outside our ethnicities, and we have at least a passing familiarity with most elements in our common culture. For example, I've only seen a handful of Star Trek episodes beyond the original series, and none featuring the Borg. Yet American culture is so pervasive, I know enough of the Borg to use them in an analogy.

Another reason Americans confuse themselves for a multicultural nation is that identity politics conflate race and culture. Shown a multiethnic group photo, many will thoughtlessly exclaim, "Oh, how multicultural!" But unless culture is genetically transmitted, an ethnically Chinese girl raised in Germany is culturally German, just as an Italian boy raised in China is culturally Chinese. Likewise, families raised in America are culturally American. Yet by confusing race and culture, Americans are dissuaded from promoting their own culture lest they appear exclusionary by celebrating something they've been convinced immigrants are genetically incapable of sharing in. (No one puts it like that, but those are the implied undercurrents of identity politics.)

This false notion of immutable identity fuels much mutual antagonism. Identity politics leftists encourage immigrants to be fearful and defensive over expressions of an American culture they portray as inherently hostile. Closed-borders rightists aggravate those fears, even as they themselves fear a hostile influx bringing poverty and revanchist fantasies. Assimilation disempowers both sides, depriving the left of a constituency, and the right of a problem. It does so by making immigrants more economically productive, while instilling in them a sense of national belonging that fosters cooperation and respect for American laws and customs. Thus does assimilation alleviate immigration's economic and social problems.

America owes nothing but offers much to those wishing entry, and makes no onerous requests; far less is required to assimilate into the U.S. than into most any other nation. Learning English is the big first step leading to all others, and most immigrants already wish to take it. Programs discouraging English (multilingual schooling, ballots, and documents) should be substituted for efforts to teach English. People concerned with immigration might consider voluntarist ways to assist the assimilation process. (Ironically, it may help to know a foreign language; I've begun studying Spanish.)

Between the extremes of identity politics and nativism lies the moderate assimilationist center. It's rooted in the American experience and it works.

Tammy Bruce Down on Libertarians

Heard Tammy Bruce on the radio just now, talking about her lifetime political journey. Right now she's very pro-Bush. She also said, "I tried being a Libertarians, didn't like that too much."

What Is PURPLE RAIN?

I remember when PURPLE RAIN, the Movie, came out some 20 years ago. But I only this year saw it.

The film was okay, but nothing special. Prince plays a young Minnesota rock singer struggling to "make it" in the music industry without "selling out" his musical vision. At the same time, he's struggling with his personal issues: his father's abusive past and his own sexist attitudes.

In the end, Prince "makes it" while maintaining his integrity, he comes to terms with his father, and he learns to be more sensitive to women.

The strength of the film is not the story, but the music, which is quite good. But MY BIG QUESTION: Just WHAT IS PURPLE RAIN?

I've listened to the lyrics, and I can't figure it out. Is it a metaphor for something? If so, for what? Or did he just call it Purple Rain because it sounded like a cool thing?

The Five Families of the GOP

A guide to the various camps in the GOP:

(1) Neocons. The real power in the driver's seat. They want war & empire, and they're getting it. They like big government and deficit spending. Very pro-Israel. Includes some Big Oil interests.

(2) Moderates. What some call RINOs or Country Club. They also include some Big Oil interests, but moderates want cooperation with other nations.

(3) Social Conservatives. Very opposed to abortion and gay marriage. Very pro-Israel. They have no power and get only a symbolic bone now and then. So the GOP made much noise over Terry Schiavo? Big deal.

(4) Libertarians. The GOP is screwing them big time. Libertarians want peace, foreign non-intervention, civil liberties, and less government spending, but they're not even getting the occassional symbolic bone. At most, they get empty rhetoric.

(5) Traditionalists. Aka Paleo-Conservatives. Many voted for Perot or Buchanan. Some care about abortion, but many do not. They're mainly concerned about national sovereignty and America First. Hence, they oppose foreign wars, foreign aid, immigration, and free trade. The GOP screws them most of all. They don't even get rhetoric.

Firefox Falls Short of Hype, and Other Software Problems

I don't see what the fuss over the new Firefox web browser is. For one thing, it's simply not true that Firefox prevents popups.

When I've used IE with Zone Alarm Pro (a firewall), I got no popups.

But when I use Firefox, I'm innundated with popups, regardless of whether I used Zone Alarm Pro with it or not. It makes me wonder if Zone Alarm's firewall is also worthless when I'm using Firefox.

To add insult to injury, Firefox always informs me along the top: "Firefox has just blocked one popup." Even as I'm staring at the popup before me.

Another problem, when I save images on Firefox, the browser seems to choke, taking a longer time that IE to save it. And Firefox will eventually freeze if I save too many images, unlike IE.

Does anyone know why I may have these Firefox problems, or how to correct them?

I'd also appreciate it it anyone can recommend good programs to fix Windows XP Pro (such as WinDoctor, which seems not to work so well with XP), or something to uninstall programs.

For some reason, I only partially uninstalled AdAware 6, so that it no long accepts updates. And it won't let me install AdAware 7 over it.

Terrorists or Guerillas?

I recall a definition of "terrorism" from my childhood in the 1970s, one that seems to have gone down the memory hole: "Guerillas attack military targets. Terrorists attack civilians."

The 1970s was a time when terrorism was much in the news. You had the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Red Brigades, the Weather Underground. The IRA and PLO were also much active. So terrorism was much talked about, even in the Weekly Reader, the paper of record for the grammar school set. :-)

I don't recall the above as a controversial distinction between guerillas and terrorists, though I never hear it used any more. Instead, the definition of "terrorist" seems to have broadened. But does anyone else remember this 1970s distinction?

Origins of the Term "Politically Correct"

The term "politically correct" is bandied about so much as to have become meaningless. But what really does it mean? Here's a history of the term (as best I know it).

"PC" has gone through four stages of meaning. "Politically correct" was initially coined by Leon Trotsky to refer favorably to those whose views remained in sync with the ever-shifting Bolshevik Party line. This was important, as "not PC" people risked prison or death.

"Politically correct" was revived (and again, used favorably) by 1960s New Left radicals who fancied themselves revolutionaries in the mold of Che, Castro, and Mao.

"Politically correct" was first used negatively by 1980s conservatives, following the publication of Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind. Conservatives embraced the term "politically incorrect" as a badge of honor to contrast their championing of free speech against campus leftists who used speech codes to suppress debate on sensitive topics. This was also when the term first became widely known by its acronym, "PC."

In these three previous stages, everyone agreed that PC meant Left, and "not PC" meant Right. But because liberals don't like a reputation of being anti-free speech, within a few years they did a turnabout, and called their opponents "PC" and themselves "not PC." Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect is representative of this fourth stage, creating the odd result of a self-proclaimed "not PC" show winning a very PC environmental media award.

However, despite liberals' turnabout, conservatives continued to refer to themselves too as "not PC." Thus "PC" has lost any specific meaning in this fourth stage, since everyone defines their position as the now chic "not PC," and their opponents as "PC." (A far cry from the days when Russians dreaded the Chekists who executed "not PC" people.)

-- Thomas M. Sipos