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Mon 24 May, 2010 02:10 pm
I spent some time at my granddads place this weekend(it was my grandma's birthday) and we got to talking about the illegal immigration issue here in the U.S.
Anyway, to make a long story short, he eventually got around to drawing a comparison to the fact that, unless one is a native American, and he and I are not, then a large number of those who call themselves Americans came here illegally; or in some fashion that didn't involve needing green cards, etc.. And that being the case, I think he was making the argument that we should just not really care about the illegal alien issue at all.
Now, I wanted to argue that the two situations(people coming over on the Mayflower(for instance) and people crossing the Rio Grande today) were different but I could really only come up with one argument at the time, that being, that, at that time, there was not a law in place against such things.
I realize that is quite a weak argument and I guess I could add a few more but I was curious what ya'lls take on the difference(if you think there is one) between the two are. And if you don't think there is a difference, why don't you?
The two other arguments that I thought of since the conversation with my grandpa was that, first, two wrongs don't make a right. Us coming over here and essentially booting out the Native Americans was wrong and by the same token, illegal aliens coming to this country today, is wrong.
And second, there, conceivably, was no economic structure in place like we have today to where the funds leaving the country and lack of taxes being paid into the country by such illegal aliens would tank the society.
Anyway, I hope I was clear, I sort of struggled with how exactly to ask the question in an understandable manner, but it is what it is.
Thoughts?
@Amperage,
Amperage;168178 wrote:I spent some time at my granddads place this weekend(it was my grandma's birthday) and we got to talking about the illegal immigration issue here in the U.S.
Anyway, to make a long story short, he eventually got around to drawing a comparison to the fact that, unless one is a native American, and he and I are not, then a large number of those who call themselves Americans came here illegally; or in some fashion that didn't involve needing green cards, etc.. And that being the case, I think he was making the argument that we should just not really care about the illegal alien issue at all.
Now, I wanted to argue that the two situations(people coming over on the Mayflower(for instance) and people crossing the Rio Grande today) were different but I could really only come up with one argument at the time, that being, that, at that time, there was not a law in place against such things.
I realize that is quite a weak argument and I guess I could add a few more but I was curious what ya'lls take on the difference(if you think there is one) between the two are. And if you don't think there is a difference, why don't you?
The two other arguments that I thought of since the conversation with my grandpa was that, first, two wrongs don't make a right. Us coming over here and essentially booting out the Native Americans was wrong and by the same token, illegal aliens coming to this country today, is wrong.
And second, there, conceivably, was no economic structure in place like we have today to where the funds leaving the country and lack of taxes being paid into the country by such illegal aliens would tank the society.
Anyway, I hope I was clear, I sort of struggled with how exactly to ask the question in an understandable manner, but it is what it is.
Thoughts?
Well, you are correct in your idea of it not being illegal immigration if there is no law stating such, as by definition to be illegal it must break a law. However, was it ethical immigration?
I'm not going to make a point beyond that, this is an interesting topic and I would like to see it expand, however.
@Amperage,
It seems to me it is always a mistake to justify the wrongs of the present by quoting the wrongs of the past. One has to justify illegal immigration now on the basis of current circumstances not based on the circumstance 300 years ago.
@Amperage,
Native-Americans are partially Mongols who migrated to the Americas by crossing the Bering Strait and what not. Then the Mongols (the Native-Americans) were displaced by Europeans colonializing the New World.
Since the founding of America, immigration has been rather open between the USA and the East, especially since the policies of Teddy Roosevelt.
I think one interesting way to analyze the impact of developing immigration in the USA is to look at the various ethnic enclaves (such as Little Italy and Chinatown) and ethnicity-based restaurants in the USA such as Sbarro (Italy) and PF Chang's (China) and Taco Bell (Mexico) and compare their successes to those of American restaurants such as Burger King and Red Lobster.
What is the relationship between ethnicity economics in capitalist USA and ethnicity couture in consumerist USA? Can such an analysis yield insights into the economic quality of America's development of immigrant communities?
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