Neelix causes another government shutdown because he wants a bigger border wall

[Worffan101]

Yeah, I am sure that a lot of Yugoslavians said the same thing under Tito. But of course, maintaining this required an oppressive, invasive government. As soon as the government lost power, suddenly people started seeing themselves a lot less in terms of state loyalty and a lot more in terms of ethnic identity. If we do not get our borders under control, we are headed for a civil war.

That is literally the single dumbest, most insane thing I have ever heard anybody say. You are completely detached from reality if you genuinely believe any of that nonsense.

Yugoslavia was a mishmash held together by a strongman who balanced the interests of three ethnic groups who hated each other plus the one that didn't really want to be part of the mess, not a stable democracy that was literally founded by immigrants and has consistently absorbed levels of immigrants exponentially greater than any European nation with only minor outbursts of xenophobia. To put it another way; without immigration, our country would still be the Eastern seaboard, minus Florida, and a weak, insignificant nation on the global scale. Without immigration, Yugoslavia still would've blown up because three groups that had been in the same area for thousands of years all hated each other for the dumbest possible reasons and scumbags like Milosevic fanned the flames.

Also, if you really think that Americans see ethnic identity the way Europeans do? You clearly have never been to Europe. Americans hate people because of their skin color and appearance, Europeans hate people because of their clothing and traditions. It's the #1 most obvious difference between American and European bigotry.

Quite simply, your scare-mongering here has severe internal logic deficiencies and is completely detached from reality.

[Antiboyscout]

Yeah, I am sure that a lot of Yugoslavians said the same thing under Tito. But of course, maintaining this required an oppressive, invasive government. As soon as the government lost power, suddenly people started seeing themselves a lot less in terms of state loyalty and a lot more in terms of ethnic identity. If we do not get our borders under control, we are headed for a civil war.

That is literally the single dumbest, most insane thing I have ever heard anybody say. You are completely detached from reality if you genuinely believe any of that nonsense.

Yugoslavia was a mishmash held together by a strongman who balanced the interests of three ethnic groups who hated each other plus the one that didn't really want to be part of the mess, not a stable democracy that was literally founded by immigrants and has consistently absorbed levels of immigrants exponentially greater than any European nation with only minor outbursts of xenophobia. To put it another way; without immigration, our country would still be the Eastern seaboard, minus Florida, and a weak, insignificant nation on the global scale. Without immigration, Yugoslavia still would've blown up because three groups that had been in the same area for thousands of years all hated each other for the dumbest possible reasons and scumbags like Milosevic fanned the flames.

Also, if you really think that Americans see ethnic identity the way Europeans do? You clearly have never been to Europe. Americans hate people because of their skin color and appearance, Europeans hate people because of their clothing and traditions. It's the #1 most obvious difference between American and European bigotry.

Quite simply, your scare-mongering here has severe internal logic deficiencies and is completely detached from reality.

Oh don't mind me, just a Californian here who had to learn about the Zoot Suit Riots and the LA Race Riots (specifically the burning of Korea Town)

[G-Man]

That is literally the single dumbest, most insane thing I have ever heard anybody say. You are completely detached from reality if you genuinely believe any of that nonsense.

That does not mean much from someone who posts this:

Nobody else can really DO this. We can get millions of free citizens in 25 years--citizens who work, pay taxes, bring billions of dollars of value to our GDP.

The implication being that giving people voting rights magically turns them into loyal, assimilated Americans is cargo cult thinking.

Europeans will ask "how are those _insert country name here_ people accepted?" and we'll say "What _insert country name here_ people? Those are Americans. Sure, 25 years ago their parents immigrated here, and there's some nativists who still hate them, but those idiots are dying off and these guys, wherever their parents came from, they're just Americans."

Very few of these people think of themselves as "just Americans." Identity politics is growing in the U.S. And the fact that you celebrate people who think differently from you "dying off" does not give me confidence that things are going to get more unified in the future.

Also, if you really think that Americans see ethnic identity the way Europeans do? You clearly have never been to Europe.

I think that as we have growing communities of different cultures, Americans will start seeing ethnic identity much more similarly to how Europeans do.

[Worffan101]

G-Man, everything you say is in direct defiance of nearly 250 years of American history. Your mindless paranoia is the exact same xenophobic bullshit that got us nonsense like the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and No Irish Need Apply signs.

Immigrants make us stronger and have built our economy at a shocking pace throughout this country's history, which is how we went from an agrarian backwater in the 1840s to a military powerhouse with a million men under arms 25 years later to the "I Win" button without which the Entente would've lost WW1 45 years after that. My mother's great-grandparents? German immigrants, her family helped build our auto industry in Detroit. My paternal grandmother's mother's side? Scots-Irish immigrants who fought in the Revolution with George Washington. Paternal grandmother's father? F***ing Italians going back to time immemorial, came over and worked in the steel industry in PA. paternal grandfather's side, such a mixed bag of generic white that we don't know where the Hell all of his ancestors came from.

They all thought of themselves as Americans by the time the first member of the first generation born here grew up.

Do you have any fucking idea how unique that is? We bring people in, we put them in American public schools with American kids of all stripes, they grow up watching our trash TV and eating our shitty fast food and thinking our pop stars are cute and our athletes are cool. They grow up seeing themselves as Americans first and get pissed off when assholes say they're not American because they do XYZ thing different at home, because they're fucking Americans and how dare these assholes who watch the same trash TV and the same shitty fast food criticize them because of what language their parents speak?

People like you are poisoning this country's greatest strength, and it sickens me. The sooner all of you xenophobes pack up and move to Antarctica to build your little Mexicanfrei dystopia, the better, in my opinion. We'll be over here slowly assimilating the world like the Borg and maintaining what is still by far the world's most powerful economy and best military and highest standard of living. And most people around the world will WANT us to assimilate them.

In short? You're full of it.

[Karha of Honor]

G-Man, everything you say is in direct defiance of nearly 250 years of American history. Your mindless paranoia is the exact same xenophobic bullshit that got us nonsense like the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and No Irish Need Apply signs.

Immigrants make us stronger and have built our economy at a shocking pace throughout this country's history, which is how we went from an agrarian backwater in the 1840s to a military powerhouse with a million men under arms 25 years later to the "I Win" button without which the Entente would've lost WW1 45 years after that. My mother's great-grandparents? German immigrants, her family helped build our auto industry in Detroit. My paternal grandmother's mother's side? Scots-Irish immigrants who fought in the Revolution with George Washington. Paternal grandmother's father? F***ing Italians going back to time immemorial, came over and worked in the steel industry in PA. paternal grandfather's side, such a mixed bag of generic white that we don't know where the Hell all of his ancestors came from.

They all thought of themselves as Americans by the time the first member of the first generation born here grew up.

Do you have any fucking idea how unique that is? We bring people in, we put them in American public schools with American kids of all stripes, they grow up watching our trash TV and eating our shitty fast food and thinking our pop stars are cute and our athletes are cool. They grow up seeing themselves as Americans first and get pissed off when assholes say they're not American because they do XYZ thing different at home, because they're fucking Americans and how dare these assholes who watch the same trash TV and the same shitty fast food criticize them because of what language their parents speak?

People like you are poisoning this country's greatest strength, and it sickens me. The sooner all of you xenophobes pack up and move to Antarctica to build your little Mexicanfrei dystopia, the better, in my opinion. We'll be over here slowly assimilating the world like the Borg and maintaining what is still by far the world's most powerful economy and best military and highest standard of living. And most people around the world will WANT us to assimilate them.

In short? You're full of it.

Do you have any fucking idea how unique that is? We bring people in, we put them in American public schools with American kids of all stripes, they grow up watching our trash TV and eating our shitty fast food and thinking our pop stars are cute and our athletes are cool. They grow up seeing themselves as Americans first and get pissed off when assholes say they're not American because they do XYZ thing different at home, because they're fucking Americans and how dare these assholes who watch the same trash TV and the same shitty fast food criticize them because of what language their parents speak?


Check your pop culture, it could belong to CDanada easily. You measn the Prussian style schooling makes someone American?

Politically neutered or reading from the SJW script athletes and artists who dare not to be anything but Leftists will turn people into Americans?

An what does being American mean in 2018? Certainly nothing unique looking it what is allowed as Mainstream Culture.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I doubt there's much difference in being American than any other country depending on how developed it is. America itself is kind of distinct though since it's this mini quasi continent with its state-union structure. So it's more like saying you're European, but without any particular national heritage that you get on a broad scale with Germany or Spain. So that in turn shapes American identity. I guess Australia kinda has that also, actually being a continent that was spawned by a penal colony, though it's not as grand as America, so it's actually the opposite and more resembles a discrete US state or small EU country.

On one hand you have the ideals that America has espoused traditionally like what Worffan is saying, and on the other hand you have people advocating for generic conservative ideals that eschews any type of specific character. Just a get-off-my-lawn attitude against illegal immigrants, communist progressives, "big" government and its welfare state. I suppose they champion opportunity and apple pie, but that's not something very exclusive about America at this point or tangible in the case of pies and flags.

[Yukaphile]

Identity politics never left, G-Man. It's always been here. It's just lately a bunch of white people wanna force us to focus on white man identity politics instead of non-white male identity politics. People like Sanders.

[Karha of Honor]

I doubt there's much difference in being American than any other country depending on how developed it is. America itself is kind of distinct though since it's this mini quasi continent with its state-union structure. So it's more like saying you're European, but without any particular national heritage that you get on a broad scale with Germany or Spain. So that in turn shapes American identity. I guess Australia kinda has that also, actually being a continent that was spawned by a penal colony, though it's not as grand as America, so it's actually the opposite and more resembles a discrete US state or small EU country.

On one hand you have the ideals that America has espoused traditionally like what Worffan is saying, and on the other hand you have people advocating for generic conservative ideals that eschews any type of specific character. Just a get-off-my-lawn attitude against illegal immigrants, communist progressives, "big" government and its welfare state. I suppose they champion opportunity and apple pie, but that's not something very exclusive about America at this point or tangible in the case of pies and flags.

Homeschooling was reborn in America, the number of guns owned by law abiding citizens who are non violent must be higher than anywhere else and it probably still leads in First Amendment aboslutism in terms of citizens believing in it or at least claiming it.

I don't see the Second Amendment and Homeschooling movements as generic.

[G-Man]

G-Man, everything you say is in direct defiance of nearly 250 years of American history. Your mindless paranoia is the exact same xenophobic bullshit that got us nonsense like the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and No Irish Need Apply signs.

We had pretty severe immigration restrictions from 1924 to 1965. And the Chinese Exclusion Act itself proves that the U.S. did not have a "take all comers" policy for all of its history.

Immigrants make us stronger and have built our economy at a shocking pace throughout this country's history, which is how we went from an agrarian backwater in the 1840s to a military powerhouse with a million men under arms 25 years later to the "I Win" button without which the Entente would've lost WW1 45 years after that. My mother's great-grandparents? German immigrants, her family helped build our auto industry in Detroit. My paternal grandmother's mother's side? Scots-Irish immigrants who fought in the Revolution with George Washington. Paternal grandmother's father? F***ing Italians going back to time immemorial, came over and worked in the steel industry in PA. paternal grandfather's side, such a mixed bag of generic white that we don't know where the Hell all of his ancestors came from.

Straw man. You are portraying this as pro-immigrant vs anti-immigrant, whereas the question is whether or not the United States gets to decide whom it wants to let in as immigrants or not.

It's rather like responding to someone who is advocating for "affirmative consent" by talking about what a wonderful thing sex is. It's not anti-sex to demand that people get consent before having sex, and it is not anti-sex to say that you have the right to give consent to some and to deny consent to others (in fact, there really is no point to consent if you are not allowed to withhold it) I notice that when talking about legal vs. illegal immigration, the standard response is "they had to come illegally because they had no legal avenue to get here." That assumes that we have to let in everyone who wants to come, have no right to be selective at all, and I think the problems become clear if you apply the same standards to sexual consent.

Ultimately, the problem with giving birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and tourists is that it strips from the United States the ability to decide whom it wants to bring in. It effectively dismantles our immigration and naturalization screening systems.

They all thought of themselves as Americans by the time the first member of the first generation born here grew up.

Great, but the problem is, back then immigrants were expected to accommodate the native-born. We did not have much of a welfare state. Those who failed often wound up going back home. Nowadays everyone is expected to accommodate the newcomers, the government provides for those who can't succeed, and our media and education system are constantly trying to denigrate and castigate the majority ethnic group, promoting resentment and hate in the name of "combatting privilege."

Again, I am not saying that people from anywhere in the world cannot become American, I am saying that it is not automatic, and that giving someone citizenship or having them live in the United States isn not in and of itself enough.

Do you have any fucking idea how unique that is? We bring people in, we put them in American public schools with American kids of all stripes, they grow up watching our trash TV and eating our shitty fast food and thinking our pop stars are cute and our athletes are cool. They grow up seeing themselves as Americans first and get pissed off when assholes say they're not American because they do XYZ thing different at home, because they're fucking Americans and how dare these assholes who watch the same trash TV and the same shitty fast food criticize them because of what language their parents speak?

I can't help but notice that the actual examples you gave from your own life came here at least a hundred years ago, and yet the general case you are using them to prove is basically from the culture of the last 50 years.

Does everyone think of themselves as Americans first? Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) once said “I have only one loyalty, and that’s to the immigrant community.” (And he is a native-born US citizen from Puerto Rico)
https://www.newsweek.com/pushing-obama- ... form-70093

Again, the issue is not whether or not we can assimilate people, it is whether or not our current immigration policies are working toward that or against it.

People like you are poisoning this country's greatest strength, and it sickens me. The sooner all of you xenophobes pack up and move to Antarctica to build your little Mexicanfrei dystopia, the better, in my opinion. We'll be over here slowly assimilating the world like the Borg and maintaining what is still by far the world's most powerful economy and best military and highest standard of living. And most people around the world will WANT us to assimilate them.

The question is, do they want to adapt to the culture that gives us such a high standard of living, or do they just want to benefit from the standard of living without culturally and socially adapting to the customs that allowed this to happen? Currently the philosophy seems to be, don't adapt at all, we'll accommodate you, and if any of the benefits of the culture elude you, we'll just blame the U.S. for racism and xenophobia, and not consider that certain cultural customs may be necessary for the benefits to exist.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I doubt there's much difference in being American than any other country depending on how developed it is. America itself is kind of distinct though since it's this mini quasi continent with its state-union structure. So it's more like saying you're European, but without any particular national heritage that you get on a broad scale with Germany or Spain. So that in turn shapes American identity. I guess Australia kinda has that also, actually being a continent that was spawned by a penal colony, though it's not as grand as America, so it's actually the opposite and more resembles a discrete US state or small EU country.

On one hand you have the ideals that America has espoused traditionally like what Worffan is saying, and on the other hand you have people advocating for generic conservative ideals that eschews any type of specific character. Just a get-off-my-lawn attitude against illegal immigrants, communist progressives, "big" government and its welfare state. I suppose they champion opportunity and apple pie, but that's not something very exclusive about America at this point or tangible in the case of pies and flags.

Homeschooling was reborn in America, the number of guns owned by law abiding citizens who are non violent must be higher than anywhere else and it probably still leads in First Amendment aboslutism in terms of citizens believing in it or at least claiming it.

I don't see the Second Amendment and Homeschooling movements as generic.

Hardly flattering in terms of national identity.