Gringos here in Mexico talk endlessly about how they love and admire the Mexican people, how friendly the natives are, how wonderful the culture is and, by strong implication, how wonderful the gringos are for appreciating Mexico. Actually they don’t. They live in gated communities in the hills, can’t speak three words of Spanish, and have surprisingly little contact with the country. They have invented a Mexico that doesn’t exist, and have fallen in love with it.
Thus many of their ideas about Mexicans are wrong, compounded equally of ideology and wishful thinking. The same happens in America. This will one day give birth to surprising children.
The truth is that Mexicans are about like people the world over, which means that regarding them with syrupy condescension as fuzzy heartwarming Pedros and Marias is a mistake. They don’t much like Americans, regarding them as arrogant and rich. The distaste is no more than distaste: they do not dream of lynching Yanquis. Nonetheless, regarding Mexico as a nation of smiling maids and obedient gardeners overlooks a somewhat darker picture. They would not be quite so smiling and obedient if they had a better economic choice.
An interesting observation: In five years I have encountered no hostility from Mexicans who have always lived in Mexico. The five or six men who were aggressively hostile all spoke barrio English. They had spent time in the US. Think about it.
The US would be well advised to take certain realities into account when it ponders today’s unrestricted immigration. Those who favor immigration tend to hold an idealized view of the newcomers. They are so-o-o-o hardworking! Yes, in the first generation. They just want a better life! So they do. They are just like Italian and Polish immigrants of the last century. No, they are not. They are Mexicans.
Mexico is a third-world country—yes, an upper third-world Latin American country, functioning reasonably well, and not Haiti or Bangladesh. It’s a nice place to live, which is why a half million North Americans are here. Yet Mexico is very, very different from America. If America and England are a few inches apart, Americans and France a few more, Mexico is several feet off in the distance.
While gringos and Mexicans live next to each other here in amity, they do not mix. They can’t. A retired executive from Boeing has nothing in common with a man with a fourth-grade education who will never read a book in his life. Pepe is smiling and amiable while working in the garden. He is also a grown man, not a teddy bear. If the retired engineer met Pepe in Pepe’s favorite bar, the engineer might come to a very different understanding of Pepe.
It is one thing to have Mexicans in America while they still fearful of being deported. They are polite and brown and eager to work. This encourages the tendency to which Americans are prone, to patronize them as just the nicest babysitters and garbage men. Why, they are almost like real people.
It will be a different thing when they are legal and have a voting majority in the Southwest. They understand perfectly that their day is coming. A couple of years back I listened on the radio to a Mexican-American politician from Texas. He pointed out that when the Mexican children now in school reach the age of eighteen, they will control the government of the state. He was not hostile, did not say as Barack Obama’s minister did, “God damn America.” Yet he saw what was coming, and was well pleased. From the Mexican point of view, they are getting back states which rightly belong to them.
They assuredly are. Shortly the US will have a southern tier of states under Mexican-American control.
The hopeful idea is that they will meld as did the Irish and Italians and Vietnamese. The flaw in this happy ointment is that they do very poorly in school—better than blacks, but well below whites and Asians. This is not a problem of the first generation only, in which case it might eventually cure itself, but of later generations also. It looks innate, or at least as if it will continue. Then what?
Then they will have no choice but to be waiters and garbage collectors. The first generation will tolerate it, happy to be making what seems to them good money. A few will succeed and move up. Most won’t. The second generation, relegated forever to jobs of low pay and less esteem, will become resentful. Inevitably they will see the relegation as indicating discrimination, not incapacity. The young, unable to compete, will gravitate toward others who can’t and we will have another permanent underclass. If you don’t believe me, watch.
The United States advertises itself as a land of opportunity, and in fact is, but only for the bright. A poor kid who pops 1500 on his SATs can get into a good university and come out as anything he chooses. Universities look for such students. A kid who barely reads has no chance. For him, there are no opportunities.
Why is it unlikely that the immigrants will improve scholastically? For reasons a fair few understand but nobody talks about. Intelligence. Mexico consists of three layers, or maybe two layers with a spectrum between. The governing class is white, and at about the European level on IQ tests, not surprising because they are European. You have the mestizos, who do conspicuously less well, and the pure Indians, lower yet. The white upper class is not swimming the river.
IQ is a forbidden topic, but it tracks reality depressingly well. No country below Laredo has ever produced anything important in the sciences. And while in any group there are exceptions, it is the majority who determine social results. This bears thinking about. Reality does not respect politics. Holding one’s breath and turning blue will change nothing. Insisting that something can’t be so or shouldn’t be so doesn’t change whether it is so.
Inequality can be seen in the streets here. In Guadalajara, una ciudad muy guera, a very white city, you have highly sophisticated people who talk of the arts on the radio as intelligently as any in America. They go to the opera, buy in good bookstores, and serve competently as doctors and technicians. In the villages you find people with far more Indian blood and almost no academic achievement or interest. Out in the hills there is, dead serious, a lot of witchcraft.
It’s a different world. And coming to a mall near you.
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Gringos and Pepe
Saturday, January 5, 2008
What If They Went Home?
*WHAT IF 20 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS VACATED AMERICA ?
*By Frosty Wooldridge
*
*www.frostywooldridge.com
*
* Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican visitor's lament" -- 10/25/07.
She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?"
That's a good question - it deserves an answer. Over 80 percent of
Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America ? The answers may surprise you!
* * In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico,
it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school
systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave
highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominate language again.
*
* * In Colorado , 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids
and grand-kids - would move back "home," mostly to Mexico . That would save Colorado an estimated $2 billion, (other experts say $7 billion), annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
*
* * Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and
the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens.
Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegal's.
*
* * Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop
out/flunk out rate via thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41
different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our grid locked cities in Colorado . Denver 's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.
*
* * In Florida , 1.5 million illegal's would return the Sunshine State
back to America , the rule of law and English.
*
* * In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegal's would free up
hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime- free experience.
*
* *
If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home" --
*
* *If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home," the U.S. economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in
American schools that now must content with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
*
*We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A. , 20,000 members of the " 18th Street Gang" would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!
Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!
*
*Drain on America 's economy; taxpayers harmed, employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America 's economy - which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California , Georgia andFlorida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.
Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid
locking our cities. It would also put the "progressives" on the horns
of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our
greenhouse gases.
*
*Over one million of Mexico 's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville , Texas to San Diego , California in what the New York Times called, "colonias" or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America 's new " Third World " inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona ; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
*
*High integrity, ethical invitation...
*By Frosty Wooldridge
*
*www.frostywooldridge.com
*
* Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican visitor's lament" -- 10/25/07.
She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?"
That's a good question - it deserves an answer. Over 80 percent of
Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America ? The answers may surprise you!
* * In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico,
it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school
systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave
highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominate language again.
*
* * In Colorado , 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids
and grand-kids - would move back "home," mostly to Mexico . That would save Colorado an estimated $2 billion, (other experts say $7 billion), annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
*
* * Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and
the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens.
Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegal's.
*
* * Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop
out/flunk out rate via thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41
different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our grid locked cities in Colorado . Denver 's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.
*
* * In Florida , 1.5 million illegal's would return the Sunshine State
back to America , the rule of law and English.
*
* * In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegal's would free up
hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime- free experience.
*
* *
If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home" --
*
* *If 20 million illegal aliens returned "home," the U.S. economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in
American schools that now must content with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
*
*We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A. , 20,000 members of the " 18th Street Gang" would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!
Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!
*
*Drain on America 's economy; taxpayers harmed, employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America 's economy - which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California , Georgia andFlorida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.
Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid
locking our cities. It would also put the "progressives" on the horns
of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our
greenhouse gases.
*
*Over one million of Mexico 's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville , Texas to San Diego , California in what the New York Times called, "colonias" or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America 's new " Third World " inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona ; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
*
*High integrity, ethical invitation...
La Raza On the Dole
La Raza has been on the governments dole for several years. They want to take away America as we know it. You doubt what I say? Check out their website AFTER you scroll down. I have put their website’s address at the bottom of this message.
Steve Merrill, Oklahoma
*** Illegal immigration should have stopped on September 12, 2001. Actually a few dozen years before that, but too many Amerikans cannot remember much further back than that.
*** Remember, if you are serious about doing something about illegal immigration, or more appropriately, the INVASION, at the very least, start by acting like an American and get, then STAY informed.
*** If the government of the United States was serious about the invasion, they would do more about it.
*** If you do not think this is an invasion, then try and stop it.
*** "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing." --Albert Einstein
*** "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, 1941 (What has changed?)
*** "We have room for but one flag, the American Flag. We have room for but one language, the English language, and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people." --President Theodore Roosevelt.
*** Turn in an illegal alien today. ICE Phone Number: (866) 347-2423. Toll free and you do not have to give your name. Just all the information you can think of.
*** The American media reports the news under the privilege granted to them under the First Amendment. But they also have the moral responsibility associated with that right to report it without a leftist slant.
Steve Merrill, Oklahoma
*** Illegal immigration should have stopped on September 12, 2001. Actually a few dozen years before that, but too many Amerikans cannot remember much further back than that.
*** Remember, if you are serious about doing something about illegal immigration, or more appropriately, the INVASION, at the very least, start by acting like an American and get, then STAY informed.
*** If the government of the United States was serious about the invasion, they would do more about it.
*** If you do not think this is an invasion, then try and stop it.
*** "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing." --Albert Einstein
*** "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, 1941 (What has changed?)
*** "We have room for but one flag, the American Flag. We have room for but one language, the English language, and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people." --President Theodore Roosevelt.
*** Turn in an illegal alien today. ICE Phone Number: (866) 347-2423. Toll free and you do not have to give your name. Just all the information you can think of.
*** The American media reports the news under the privilege granted to them under the First Amendment. But they also have the moral responsibility associated with that right to report it without a leftist slant.
Spanish Debate?
Now we are in trouble when the Republican Party conducts a debate in Spanish instead of the language of voting-English.
Monday, November 5, 2007
And They Tell Us it is No Problem
The Morristown-Hamblen Chamber of Commerce thinks that there is no problem with illegal immigration in Hamblen County.
Here at T-FIRE we are certain of one thing, and it is that the percentage of school populations in Hamblen County Schools that are considered "Hispanic" was not nearly as high as late as five years ago as the Citizen-Tribune (a paper that all but favors illegal immigration) is reporting that they are this year:
Fairview- Marguerite, 33.7 percent Hispanic; Hillcrest, 26.6 percent; Lincoln Heights Elementary, 32.3 percent; and West Elementary, 25.7 percent.
Either there has been a massive influx of new legal immigrants from Mexico and Latin America who have followed the law, a large portion of the population of Puerto Rico have relocated en masse to East Tennessee, or there has been a massive increase in the number of illegal aliens in East Tennessee in the last decade, some of whom have had children while here so that they can milk the system.
What hypothesis do you think most likely?
Here at T-FIRE we are certain of one thing, and it is that the percentage of school populations in Hamblen County Schools that are considered "Hispanic" was not nearly as high as late as five years ago as the Citizen-Tribune (a paper that all but favors illegal immigration) is reporting that they are this year:
Fairview- Marguerite, 33.7 percent Hispanic; Hillcrest, 26.6 percent; Lincoln Heights Elementary, 32.3 percent; and West Elementary, 25.7 percent.
Either there has been a massive influx of new legal immigrants from Mexico and Latin America who have followed the law, a large portion of the population of Puerto Rico have relocated en masse to East Tennessee, or there has been a massive increase in the number of illegal aliens in East Tennessee in the last decade, some of whom have had children while here so that they can milk the system.
What hypothesis do you think most likely?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Spineless Republicans and the La Raza War
Why are Republicans so spineless? Love them or hate them, at least thecrazy left is willing to fight for possession of this country.
Look at "LaRaza"-they are openly calling for war against European-Americans. (They don't like blacks much either).
Then there are the attacks by the left against Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. Name the Republican that has stood up against these attacks. It certainly wouldn't be Hatch, Graham, McCain, Spector, Martinez, Lugar,Lott, Kyl, Craig, Hagel, Brownback or Ensign. Ten of these twelve are outright turncoats. They would all fit comfortably in the Democratic partyand love giving America to the illegals. So, at best, you have 36-37 Republican Senators and even some of them are suspect.
When you study the numbers you realize why we can't get sensible legislation and why we have to fight like hell to stop a cloture (60+) vote on bad legislation. So will the Republicans have enough votes to sustain a veto of the S-CHIP legislation that increase the current cost from $9 Billion to $32-60Billion? It will be nip & tuck because most of the spineless politicians will not stand up to reign in spending. They will simply vote to buy thevotes they need to get re-elected.
However, there is one hope. If they can convince 22 million non-smokers people to smoke at least a pack a day, they can hold the excess spending to about $20 billion. Guess they're all silent salesman for the cigarette companies. Remember: The major concern with CHAMP & SCHIP (respectively from eachchamber) is that this bill increases illegal immigration costs to Americans.The R. J. reported that 2/3 of the state's children on this program are Spanish Speaking.
Look at "LaRaza"-they are openly calling for war against European-Americans. (They don't like blacks much either).
Then there are the attacks by the left against Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. Name the Republican that has stood up against these attacks. It certainly wouldn't be Hatch, Graham, McCain, Spector, Martinez, Lugar,Lott, Kyl, Craig, Hagel, Brownback or Ensign. Ten of these twelve are outright turncoats. They would all fit comfortably in the Democratic partyand love giving America to the illegals. So, at best, you have 36-37 Republican Senators and even some of them are suspect.
When you study the numbers you realize why we can't get sensible legislation and why we have to fight like hell to stop a cloture (60+) vote on bad legislation. So will the Republicans have enough votes to sustain a veto of the S-CHIP legislation that increase the current cost from $9 Billion to $32-60Billion? It will be nip & tuck because most of the spineless politicians will not stand up to reign in spending. They will simply vote to buy thevotes they need to get re-elected.
However, there is one hope. If they can convince 22 million non-smokers people to smoke at least a pack a day, they can hold the excess spending to about $20 billion. Guess they're all silent salesman for the cigarette companies. Remember: The major concern with CHAMP & SCHIP (respectively from eachchamber) is that this bill increases illegal immigration costs to Americans.The R. J. reported that 2/3 of the state's children on this program are Spanish Speaking.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The Reconquista?
(Note: The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Tennesseans for Immigration Reform and Education-T-FIRE. However, this piece does present an alternative view-the notion that the Mexican Government has another reason for encouraging so many of its people to come across the U.S. border illegally. It is worth pondering...)
This is tough news for all peace-loving Americans. But after the illegal immigrant protests over the last year or two, any American who doesn’t now recognize that we are engaged in a war of sorts with Mexican Reconquistas is either practicing aggressive ignorance or has sided with the Reconquistas against the USA.
This state of war exists now just as a state of war existed between the United States and the terrorists before September 11, 2001. Most Americans were too naive to see we were at war before the World Trade Center attacks burned that message into the national consciousness. The terrorists had been making war on the United States for years before 9-11, but we were too comfortable in our illusions to recognize that fact. However, we are no longer so naive.
As Americans, we have relearned a hard lesson since those attacks. We have relearned that we do have enemies in this world.
FIGHTING A WAR IN THE WRONG PLACE?
Thousands of our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. These volunteer heroes are fighting to bring the refreshing waters of Stability, Democracy and Freedom to peoples who before have only known the parched deserts of tyranny and despotism. But while our own current ‘Greatest Generation’ fights across the sea, a foreign occupation force, the Reconquistas, are busy invading the United States of America. War has come to our homeland through our backdoor. We need our heroes to come home to defend us now!
VIVA LA AZTLAN!
Reconquistas are ‘illegal immigrant’ invaders from Mexico who, with their government’s support, are swarming northward, posing as itinerant, slave-wage workers.
The Reconquistas believe that California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and other Southwestern states were ‘stolen’ from them in the First Mexican-American war of 1846. Using history as their excuse, the Reconquistas believe that they can grab undefended American territory for Mexico through policies of ‘illegal immigration,’ invasion, infiltration, intimidation and eventual re-conquest (thus the name ‘Reconquistas).
The Reconquistas already have a name for their future captured American lands… AZTLAN.
This is tough news for all peace-loving Americans. But after the illegal immigrant protests over the last year or two, any American who doesn’t now recognize that we are engaged in a war of sorts with Mexican Reconquistas is either practicing aggressive ignorance or has sided with the Reconquistas against the USA.
This state of war exists now just as a state of war existed between the United States and the terrorists before September 11, 2001. Most Americans were too naive to see we were at war before the World Trade Center attacks burned that message into the national consciousness. The terrorists had been making war on the United States for years before 9-11, but we were too comfortable in our illusions to recognize that fact. However, we are no longer so naive.
As Americans, we have relearned a hard lesson since those attacks. We have relearned that we do have enemies in this world.
FIGHTING A WAR IN THE WRONG PLACE?
Thousands of our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. These volunteer heroes are fighting to bring the refreshing waters of Stability, Democracy and Freedom to peoples who before have only known the parched deserts of tyranny and despotism. But while our own current ‘Greatest Generation’ fights across the sea, a foreign occupation force, the Reconquistas, are busy invading the United States of America. War has come to our homeland through our backdoor. We need our heroes to come home to defend us now!
VIVA LA AZTLAN!
Reconquistas are ‘illegal immigrant’ invaders from Mexico who, with their government’s support, are swarming northward, posing as itinerant, slave-wage workers.
The Reconquistas believe that California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and other Southwestern states were ‘stolen’ from them in the First Mexican-American war of 1846. Using history as their excuse, the Reconquistas believe that they can grab undefended American territory for Mexico through policies of ‘illegal immigration,’ invasion, infiltration, intimidation and eventual re-conquest (thus the name ‘Reconquistas).
The Reconquistas already have a name for their future captured American lands… AZTLAN.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Brits Do It Better
Apparently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn't taxed enough of our hard-earned money. Now, she wants a "windfall" profits tax on any stock earnings you might have. Who would benefit from this new tax? Among other groups, Pelosi wants to give the money to illegal aliens!
"We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans."
So Pelosi's solution is to dole out ever-more taxpayer dollars to illegals by raising taxes on citizens and legal residents, so that those in this country legally will have to subsidize those who are not on a writ-large basis.
Contrast this to Britain, whose Labour Government (a party that has its roots in the socialist trade union movement of the 19th Century) is preparing to limit its quota of non-European immigrants to those who have learned English before they are allowed into that country. Note that the position of the Conservative Party in Britain, traditionally the champion of the middle class, religion, and the nuclear family, is now in a bind. In the Tories' rush to be seen as the "compassionate" party, they have (up to now) neglected to address the immigration problem in Britain. Sound familiar?
Perhaps the Mother Country can teach us a thing or two again
"We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans."
So Pelosi's solution is to dole out ever-more taxpayer dollars to illegals by raising taxes on citizens and legal residents, so that those in this country legally will have to subsidize those who are not on a writ-large basis.
Contrast this to Britain, whose Labour Government (a party that has its roots in the socialist trade union movement of the 19th Century) is preparing to limit its quota of non-European immigrants to those who have learned English before they are allowed into that country. Note that the position of the Conservative Party in Britain, traditionally the champion of the middle class, religion, and the nuclear family, is now in a bind. In the Tories' rush to be seen as the "compassionate" party, they have (up to now) neglected to address the immigration problem in Britain. Sound familiar?
Perhaps the Mother Country can teach us a thing or two again
Thursday, September 6, 2007
The New Slave Traffic
Back in 2003, Professor Victor Davis Hanson of Cal State Fresno wrote a book called Mexifornia that caused a sensation. It was the issue that, as Hanson put it, is "the 800-pound gorilla that nobody wants to touch." The cultural Mexicanization of the Southwest:
I got interested in the issue because I’m a fifth-generation farmer and I’ve watched changes in my community. The local school that I used to go to, which was about 60 percent Mexican or Mexican-American, [featured] assimilation, no ideology of “the border crossed us, we didn’t cross the borders”; no bilingual education, Chicano history, just simple assimilation. Those products of that school are quite successful; they run our hometown now. However, just before I came I looked at the rates of schools that are meeting California achievement levels, and in that same school – it’s a mile and a half – it’s 100 percent Mexican, and 9 percent met the minimum level of reading competency, and about 7 percent in mathematics, so something radical has happened.
But the key to it all in history is that the people who join this society must do it in numbers or in a fashion that allows them to be fully integrated and assimilated. Helots in Sparta didn’t work. Metics in Athens didn’t work. Resident aliens in Rome didn’t work, but people in the Empire who were given citizenship did work, and when they were assimilated with Italian culture, it worked.
Hanson is right, of course. Many people like to say "the border crossed us, we did not cross the border." The great difference between the days of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War, and our day today is that the Tejanos and the Californios of that time were thrilled to be free of Mexican rule, they were very proud of their new country, and they wanted to be Americans. Today, many Hispanic children aren't being taught in the English language in American class, and are being taught as if they are Mexicans or Latinos before they are Americans. In some cases they are told that they aren't Americans at all. Part of this is because of the environment and the labor that migrants and their children are subjected to as much as it is the education system.
One way I wanted to write the book, then, is to say, how did this system perpetuate and will it continue and who benefits and who loses? So I looked at each different group. Ostensibly, a person who comes from Mexico and makes $10 an hour in cash feels that he’s reached a bonanza compared to $10 a week, let’s say, in Oaxaca, and it looks great. But I’ve noticed a tragic life cycle: that we and the Mexican government almost traffic in human capital. While it looks good in the beginning, somebody typically – and again, I’m generalizing, but I’ve seen empirically, over my lifetime – people will come from Mexico at 18, 20, usually single males predominantly, they’ll work very, very hard, they’ll be delighted that they’ve had more money in their life, they can send money back and become almost heroic in their village for doing so. But if you follow that work in concrete, hotels, restaurants, landscaping, agriculture, that’s not a rite-of-passage job for people who are here illegally and who don’t know English. It becomes a permanent position, and human nature being what it is, your body cannot withstand that type of work.
So ultimately, at the age of 40 or 50, that dream has sometimes turned into a nightmare because a person may have a bad back, a bad shoulder, and then the employer who either paid cash or low wages or didn’t have a health plan says, well, go to the neighborhood clinic, workman’s comp, Section 8 housing, and the entitlement industry then picks up that added cost. Meanwhile, the children of that immigrant, whose father or mother may not know English and may not be documented, then develops a very different idea. Often he has not, or she has not, been to Mexico. She doesn’t speak Spanish in the same fluency as her parents did, doesn’t read Spanish necessarily, doesn’t know English to the same degree that people that he or she will have to compete with, and has a very different view of America. Often rates of incarceration or gang activity are higher commensurately with the population. But more importantly is the reaction to the employer, and they will tell you, don’t bring anybody onto the cement crew who speaks English because the second generation will not work like the people from Oaxaca. This is the standard – and so then we just renew the cycle and traffic in human capital.
So employers who hire illegals are not interested in bringing new Americans here and melding them into our larger cultural mosaic of peoples from all over the world (as many on the Left say), but are more interested in trafficking in human beings in what has become a modern version of the slave trade.
How are we treating American citizens of Mexican heritage who are here legally and who have done everything right according to the law? In Dr. Hanson's example, pretty crappy:
And this whole illegal universe ripples in very strange places. For example, when I'm teaching a class in the humanities, a student will come to me, often Mexican, of Mexican heritage, who’s a citizen, or a person from any heritage, from Nevada, Arizona, and say, why do I have to pay $5,000 for tuition when somebody who’s here illegally from California pays two thousand? And I usually use the standard argument, well, perhaps their parents – well, no, no, he’s only been here five years, or he doesn’t pay California State income tax. And often they’ll say, well, should I go down to Mexico and come in illegally and then perhaps I’ll get a discount?
And Californians, says Hanson, have come to depend on the new slavery to maintain their wealthy way of life.
In between it’s the California suburban average citizen who likes the idea of cheap food, going to a restaurant pretty cheap, and has developed the lifestyle of the 19th century aristocrat in some ways. Whoever thought that a Californian who was middle class, perhaps with a combined income of $100,000, could have somebody from Mexico here illegally to cut his lawn, clean his home, watch his children? And then at the same time that’s happening, he’s upset that if he goes and he looks at certain statistics of poverty, incarceration, education, that some of these groups who come from Mexico are represented in proportions that are higher than their representation in the population. So there’s all of this strange political mix, and the result in California, which we’re always a therapeutic society, is simply not to talk about it.
We have it pretty good here in Tennessee. We have a low cost of living, pay no income tax, and in East Tennessee many-if not the majority of us, are landowners. With the thousands upon thousands of people who are now pouring into our towns and hamlets from south of the Border each year and who are performing backbreaking labor at a menial wage, are we endanger of becoming dependent on a "new slave traffic," just as Hanson says has happened in California?
I got interested in the issue because I’m a fifth-generation farmer and I’ve watched changes in my community. The local school that I used to go to, which was about 60 percent Mexican or Mexican-American, [featured] assimilation, no ideology of “the border crossed us, we didn’t cross the borders”; no bilingual education, Chicano history, just simple assimilation. Those products of that school are quite successful; they run our hometown now. However, just before I came I looked at the rates of schools that are meeting California achievement levels, and in that same school – it’s a mile and a half – it’s 100 percent Mexican, and 9 percent met the minimum level of reading competency, and about 7 percent in mathematics, so something radical has happened.
But the key to it all in history is that the people who join this society must do it in numbers or in a fashion that allows them to be fully integrated and assimilated. Helots in Sparta didn’t work. Metics in Athens didn’t work. Resident aliens in Rome didn’t work, but people in the Empire who were given citizenship did work, and when they were assimilated with Italian culture, it worked.
Hanson is right, of course. Many people like to say "the border crossed us, we did not cross the border." The great difference between the days of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War, and our day today is that the Tejanos and the Californios of that time were thrilled to be free of Mexican rule, they were very proud of their new country, and they wanted to be Americans. Today, many Hispanic children aren't being taught in the English language in American class, and are being taught as if they are Mexicans or Latinos before they are Americans. In some cases they are told that they aren't Americans at all. Part of this is because of the environment and the labor that migrants and their children are subjected to as much as it is the education system.
One way I wanted to write the book, then, is to say, how did this system perpetuate and will it continue and who benefits and who loses? So I looked at each different group. Ostensibly, a person who comes from Mexico and makes $10 an hour in cash feels that he’s reached a bonanza compared to $10 a week, let’s say, in Oaxaca, and it looks great. But I’ve noticed a tragic life cycle: that we and the Mexican government almost traffic in human capital. While it looks good in the beginning, somebody typically – and again, I’m generalizing, but I’ve seen empirically, over my lifetime – people will come from Mexico at 18, 20, usually single males predominantly, they’ll work very, very hard, they’ll be delighted that they’ve had more money in their life, they can send money back and become almost heroic in their village for doing so. But if you follow that work in concrete, hotels, restaurants, landscaping, agriculture, that’s not a rite-of-passage job for people who are here illegally and who don’t know English. It becomes a permanent position, and human nature being what it is, your body cannot withstand that type of work.
So ultimately, at the age of 40 or 50, that dream has sometimes turned into a nightmare because a person may have a bad back, a bad shoulder, and then the employer who either paid cash or low wages or didn’t have a health plan says, well, go to the neighborhood clinic, workman’s comp, Section 8 housing, and the entitlement industry then picks up that added cost. Meanwhile, the children of that immigrant, whose father or mother may not know English and may not be documented, then develops a very different idea. Often he has not, or she has not, been to Mexico. She doesn’t speak Spanish in the same fluency as her parents did, doesn’t read Spanish necessarily, doesn’t know English to the same degree that people that he or she will have to compete with, and has a very different view of America. Often rates of incarceration or gang activity are higher commensurately with the population. But more importantly is the reaction to the employer, and they will tell you, don’t bring anybody onto the cement crew who speaks English because the second generation will not work like the people from Oaxaca. This is the standard – and so then we just renew the cycle and traffic in human capital.
So employers who hire illegals are not interested in bringing new Americans here and melding them into our larger cultural mosaic of peoples from all over the world (as many on the Left say), but are more interested in trafficking in human beings in what has become a modern version of the slave trade.
How are we treating American citizens of Mexican heritage who are here legally and who have done everything right according to the law? In Dr. Hanson's example, pretty crappy:
And this whole illegal universe ripples in very strange places. For example, when I'm teaching a class in the humanities, a student will come to me, often Mexican, of Mexican heritage, who’s a citizen, or a person from any heritage, from Nevada, Arizona, and say, why do I have to pay $5,000 for tuition when somebody who’s here illegally from California pays two thousand? And I usually use the standard argument, well, perhaps their parents – well, no, no, he’s only been here five years, or he doesn’t pay California State income tax. And often they’ll say, well, should I go down to Mexico and come in illegally and then perhaps I’ll get a discount?
And Californians, says Hanson, have come to depend on the new slavery to maintain their wealthy way of life.
In between it’s the California suburban average citizen who likes the idea of cheap food, going to a restaurant pretty cheap, and has developed the lifestyle of the 19th century aristocrat in some ways. Whoever thought that a Californian who was middle class, perhaps with a combined income of $100,000, could have somebody from Mexico here illegally to cut his lawn, clean his home, watch his children? And then at the same time that’s happening, he’s upset that if he goes and he looks at certain statistics of poverty, incarceration, education, that some of these groups who come from Mexico are represented in proportions that are higher than their representation in the population. So there’s all of this strange political mix, and the result in California, which we’re always a therapeutic society, is simply not to talk about it.
We have it pretty good here in Tennessee. We have a low cost of living, pay no income tax, and in East Tennessee many-if not the majority of us, are landowners. With the thousands upon thousands of people who are now pouring into our towns and hamlets from south of the Border each year and who are performing backbreaking labor at a menial wage, are we endanger of becoming dependent on a "new slave traffic," just as Hanson says has happened in California?
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