Pirate's Cove

Excitable Aaron Baker gives the patriotism shtick for immigration a whirl in the Michigan Daily, and, this was published on September 11th, but, then, most liberals do not seem to care to remember that Islamists killed almost 3,000 that day

Aaron Baker: The patriotism of immigration

President Donald Trump’s position on immigration is blatantly unpatriotic. Through his comments and actions as a candidate and president, we know he is no fan of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere. Many Trump supporters say it’s only illegal immigration that the president is opposed to, but the fact is that the president’s war against legal immigration is equally, if not more fervent than his efforts against illegal immigration.

President Trump has proposed to cut legal immigration in half by weakening the family ties clause of our immigration system that allows legal residents to sponsor family members. He wants to limit naturalization for legal immigrants if they have ever used government welfare programs. He has also cut the number of green cards we grant and is lessening the number of asylum seekers we accept. And let’s not forget his leaked comments that he doesn’t want people — legal or illegal — from “shithole” countries each of which was poor and brown immigrating here. Why are Trump’s immigration policies unpatriotic?

See? It’s unpatriotic to disallow people from countries that share no values with us, who use up our social support systems (Aaron missed that those applying for citizenship must be self supporting to start with), and might want to bring in tons of people with them who also share nothing in common with us and refuse to assimilate. There’s a reason we were called the melting pot. People bring new things and become part of the whole, rather than simply residing here but being essentially separate.

 In one of former President Ronald Reagan’s last televised addresses as president, he explained why he felt America was an exceptional country: “America represents something universal in the human spirit … Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.” Reagan’s patriotism is rooted in the belief that American values are universal. That is, anyone should be able to become an American because the American identity is rooted in its values.

But, Reagan would not have approved of bringing in people who often hate America, who share no values, and want to be separate. It’s always cute when hardcore lefties try and quote Reagan.

This is called civic nationalism, where the national identity is based on shared values rather than a shared perceptible identity. Late Sen. John McCain echoed Reagan’s sentiment last May, when he said that you don’t even need to know English to be fully American, you only need to have American values. What are these values? I would say they are they are pretty clearly delineated in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They are a capacious set of values rooted in the basic liberal tradition of free speech, individual rights and due process. These values can incorporate a wide variety of political positions, ideologies, religions and cultures.

These would be the same American documents and traditions and such that Democrats despise and want to change.

But it was only in 1965, after the Civil Rights movement had left its mark, that America liberalized its immigration policy and became the country Reagan and McCain praised. From 1924 to 1965, America closed its doors with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. An ethnic and racial hierarchy was codified in a quota system that essentially only let Northern Europeans enter.

Back then, xenophobia was directed toward not only non-European groups, but also European groups perceived as threatening to the Anglo-American character of America. Italians, Jews, Irish, and at one point even Germans, threatened the homogeneity of the dominant culture. Italians, the Irish and the Jews were considered non-white races and faced widespread discrimination. Eventually, all of these groups integrated into the dominant culture, a process which changed the immigrant groups but also changed the country for the better. America, despite the incessant plague of xenophobia, has continually been shaped by immigrants.

And this is a lie as only a Democrat could put it. Mass immigration was shut down so that all those who came in up to 1924 could assimilate. Could become part of America. We could be one nation, rather than little enclaves.

Economic arguments against immigration similarly fall short of the facts and succumb to misperceptions. Immigrants contributeto the economy rather than slow it down. Immigrants are more likely than native-born Americans to start a business and contribute a net increase to the living standards of the average American. The impetus against immigration is largely a visceral fear that someone who looks different or practices a different religion can’t have the same values or way of life. But isn’t the true testament to the strength of our values the fact that we believe anyone can live by them?

And there’s the “fear of someone different” argument, a good standby. See, a Democrats view of patriotism is “changing everything because we hate what America is now.” Plus, they love the idea of having cheap, under the table labor to do chores around their homes.