Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Same Old Song and Dance. Image courtesy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. More here. While researching this week's Fox column, I found the following, which I thought was kinda' fun: Representative Tom Tancredo (R-6th/CO), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, declares that in the United States today the "vast majority of immigrants are low-skill, low-wage earners, and are a drain on this nation due to their level of poverty." He asserts that "we are reducing the standard of living for millions of Americans. We are creating linguistic ghettos where millions of immigrants speak no English while replicating living standards such as those found in Haiti, Calcutta and poor nations." Tancredo argues that "contrary to what has happened in the United States in the past in our history where immigrant families have come, labored hard, their children have then gone on to the next stage," the children of Mexican immigrants "are dropping out of high school, never getting to college, and Hispanic Americans...are not moving ahead and achieving the same sorts of goals as immigrants of the past." He warns that "Massive immigration in this country will determine not just what kind of Nation we will be, but whether we will be a Nation at all." Now, some history: In 1891, then-Representative Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) expressed similar worries about the wave of immigration that brought Representative Tancredo's grandparents from Italy to the United States. He warned "that immigration to this country is increasing and...is making its greatest relative increase from races most alien to the body of the American people and from the lowest and most illiterate classes among those races." He was speaking principally of the Italians, but also the Russians, Poles and Hungarians. He observed that these immigrants, "half of whom have no occupation and most of whom represent the rudest form of labor," are "people whom it is very difficult to assimilate and do not promise well for the standard of civilization in the United States." Lodge complained that many of them "have no money at all. They land in this country without a cent in their pockets." Of the Italians in particular he objected that many "stay but a short time in the United States" in order to "then return to their native country with such money as they have been able to save here." He warned that these sorts of immigrants, "who come to the United States, reduce the rate of wages by ruinous competition, and then take their savings out of the country, are not desirable. They are mere birds of passage. They form an element in the population which regards home as a foreign country, instead of that in which they live and earn money. They have no interest or stake in the country, and they never become American citizens." Dan Drezner relayed similar historical anecdotes in his New Republic critique of Samuel Huntington: Benjamin Franklin complained during the colonial era that Germans immigrating to Philadelphia "are generally the most stupid of their nation. ... Few of their children know English." In 1921, Arthur M. Schlesinger wrote, "The new immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, with its lower standard of living and characteristic racial differences has intensified many existing social problems and created a number of new ones." My guess is that if you'll go back and read the debate concerning each major of wave of immigration throughout American history, you'll see the same arguments, over and over again. TrackBack (0) | [The Agitator] 12:51:31 PM    comment () trackback () Gotta Ditch the Fanny Pack, Dude. Portable gadgets are tons of fun, but hauling all those gizmos poses a style and comfort conundrum. Luckily, some contraptions let real men tote their gear without jeopardizing their masculinity. Commentary by Lore Sjöberg. This column is available as a . [Wired News: Top Stories] Here's the reason offered for not using a fanny pack: This is great if you're trying to create a singularity of pure geekness that will open up a portal to an alternate universe where they're still making episodes of Reboot. But if there are even two working neurons in the style portion of your brain, the same neurons that explained that Mr. T's haircut won't look as good on you, then you're going to want to pass on this one. A more practical reason is that people in the know, including cops, will assume that you're carrying a gun in it. 12:02:44 PM    comment () trackback ()

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