Ann Coulter on Immigration


Headhunter,

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

Makkun,

A question: are ATMs, street signs, and so forth now in English and Arabic?[/quote]

No, but we’ve got some in English and Chinese.

I often have to choose between English, German, French and Italian.

No, but the person on the other end often has a strong Hindi or Gujarati accent.

[quote]Ann points out how we accomodate Hispanics in our country. What would the reaction be to something similar in yours?

Just curious.
[/quote]

I see it every day. People just get on with it. What’s your problem with that?

I live in a city with about 25% foreigners, and work in an environment with people from about 60 nations. It’s fun, when you are relaxed enough to enjoy that.

Makkun

PS: The picture depicts my local council’s service offers in a variety of languages.

I wish we could get a barbell into Ann’s hands and feed her more protein. Might make a nice “Powerful Image” someday.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
A question: are ATMs, street signs, and so forth now in English and Arabic? When you drive up to an ATM, do you have to choose between English and Arabic? When you make a phone call to a business, do you have to choose between English and Arabic?

Ann points out how we accomodate Hispanics in our country. What would the reaction be to something similar in yours?[/quote]

Do you really have ANY idea of what you’re talking about?

In Europe, the language problem is completely different from anything we have here.

Each EU country has their own official language. That means over a dozen of them. Each country has to accommodate that for both business and tourism purposes, and not only all ATMs will give you a choice of at least a half-dozen languages, all street signs are PICTOGRAMS. Not words, but exclusively pictograms, so that anyone, from any country, can understand them.

And this despite of the fact that each country has an OFFICIAL language. Do you realize how much of a difference that makes? As someone said above in this thread, if congress had the balls to make English the official language, rules would change here.

Of course it pisses me off tremendously that tax money is spent in interpreters for kids in High School that refuse to learn English. It also pisses me off that then those kids expect to be given a High School Diploma, even though no decent college in the US would accept them without doing an English exam. It also pisses me off that a full 70% of the people in the region I live have English as their second language, and every time I go anywhere – a shop, a doctor, anywhere – I have problems communicating. That is, of course, forgetting about the amount of students of mine that barely speak English (fortunately, that’s mainly their problem… :-)).

… but the point is: we brought this upon ourselves by not having an official language.

Much in the same way we brought all those “unskilled workers” here, not because of some law from the 1960s, but because of our greedy corporations that will do anything to get their nice little slaves.

Do you know why Portugal, for example, has an unusually low number of Muslim immigrants (for European standards)? Because people there have been tired of fighting them for almost 1,000 years and refuse to give any Muslim a job. Sounds like discrimination? It is – but at least they have the balls to put their actions behind their words (which have been “Muslims are our enemy” for almost a millennium), rather than doing what Americans do: complain a lot about illegal immigrants but having no problem giving them jobs at the first opportunity, or continuing to support corporations that hire them in droves.

So, stop pointing fingers at the “invaders” and start pointing them at where the problem lies: our greed and our lack of legislation!

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi

She is spot on!
[/quote]

By the way, I’ll ask you the same question I asked my colleague Thomas Sowell about this during one of our customary very heated arguments: don’t you think it is extremely strange that you, a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand admirer, an objectivist, have such a non-libertarian view on immigration?

Wait, let me answer that question for you:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4620

I guess you’re like those religious zealots who choose the parts of the Holy Scriptures that they like, and conveniently forget what they don’t…

Or, to put it in just one word: a hypocrite.

hspder–

You son of a bitch, you converted me. Good job. I think the big buzzword here should be citizenship, not entry. Let them come, they just better not expect to vote, have their kids become citzens, or get any benefits that citizens pay for.

Mike

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Let them come, they just better not expect to vote, have their kids become citzens, or get any benefits that citizens pay for. [/quote]

The problem with stopping immigrants from getting citizenship – or making it more difficult – is that it invites people to come, accumulate money, and then leave with it, which is obviously a bad deal for the country.

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, I am absolutely NOT in favor of an amnesty, mainly for reasons of principle – the most obvious of it being the fact that it would be a slap in the face of all the people that are in line legally.

My belief is that we should kick all the illegal / undocumented aliens, fine the companies that hired them, and then change the law to make LEGAL immigration – with a full path to citizenship – much easier, and then see who comes back. To stay.

[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi

She is spot on!

By the way, I’ll ask you the same question I asked my colleague Thomas Sowell about this during one of our customary very heated arguments: don’t you think it is extremely strange that you, a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand admirer, an objectivist, have such a non-libertarian view on immigration?

Wait, let me answer that question for you:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4620

I guess you’re like those religious zealots who choose the parts of the Holy Scriptures that they like, and conveniently forget what they don’t…

Or, to put it in just one word: a hypocrite.
[/quote]

So, anyone who wants to have a nation of laws is a hypocrite? I see. Did you use Modus Tollens or Modus Ponens to come up with that little gem?

Ms. Rand was not an anarchist, as you imply. True, she advocated minimal government, with an objective administration of just laws. So, how do you get from that that she advocated 11 million illegals?

You libs are a laugh-riot: You resort to name-dropping and name-calling, and think that constitutes an argument. LMAO!!

I can see why Sowell has heated ‘arguments’ with you: You first have to know what an argument is.

[quote]makkun wrote:
Headhunter,

Headhunter wrote:

Makkun,

A question: are ATMs, street signs, and so forth now in English and Arabic?

No, but we’ve got some in English and Chinese.

When you drive up to an ATM, do you have to choose between English and Arabic?

I often have to choose between English, German, French and Italian.

When you make a phone call to a business, do you have to choose between English and Arabic?

No, but the person on the other end often has a strong Hindi or Gujarati accent.

Ann points out how we accomodate Hispanics in our country. What would the reaction be to something similar in yours?

Just curious.

I see it every day. People just get on with it. What’s your problem with that?

I live in a city with about 25% foreigners, and work in an environment with people from about 60 nations. It’s fun, when you are relaxed enough to enjoy that.

Makkun

PS: The picture depicts my local council’s service offers in a variety of languages.[/quote]

You missed the point: are all these things done to accomodate illegal aliens? Read the article (it WAS moved) and see the context.

At my wife’s university senate, someone actually got up and asked, “What are we doing to protect the rights of our faculty who are here illegally?”. My response would have been, “Uh…fire them?”

We are being inundated by lawbreakers. That’s one of the points here.

Makkun,

Reading your post and Alwyn’s QoD several weeks ago (about the people he works with at the universities) is actually really unnerving. It’s almost as if you see the issue as the US vs. everyone else, when it is nothing of the sort.

It’s not that we don’t want people to immigrate to the US. Hell, half of us on this board would annex Mexico, straighten out their government, reign in their economy, and make them all citizens. It’s just that our government (largely for tax purposes, but also census, healthcare, and labor/productivity purposes among many others) would like to know about it when they do. If I switch jobs and residences within the US, the government likes to know. If I switch jobs and residences in Germany, England, France, etc. their respective governments like to know. If I move from the US to Chile, Egypt, Spain, Canada, etc. one or both governments want to know (even for vacation, I need a passport). So why should illegal aliens expect to move occupation and residence into and within this country without anyone knowing? Why should we further accomodate them by not calling them ‘illegal aliens’? Depending on the estimates (Sen. McCain), 1M illegal immigrants have shown up in the US since Jan. 1 this year. If a projected 1M undocumented Americans showed up in any country in the world, with whatever they carried with them, in that amount of time, it would be called an invasion.

I admit, HH goes a little far saying we shouldn’t offer services in several languages (We’re largely capitalists, if it pays to learn the language, we’ll do it.), but he’s right in that often the other language isn’t written for the grad student on a visa who speaks passable English or the newly minted citizen who just stepped off the boat.

Please tell me this is just a misperception on my part and not yours.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Ms. Rand was not an anarchist, as you imply. True, she advocated minimal government, with an objective administration of just laws. So, how do you get from that that she advocated 11 million illegals?[/quote]

She did advocate free immigration, i.e., if we had a libertarian government they would not be illegal.

Her close follower describes the whole objectivist reasoning behind it very clearly in the second article I linked. He clearly decriminalizes it.

Get it now? Or do I need to bring out them crayons?

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
You missed the point: are all these things done to accomodate illegal aliens? Read the article (it WAS moved) and see the context.[/quote]

You’re the one completely missing the point. They are LEGAL over there, because it is much easier to get in legally. Not as easy as your muse Ayn Rand would like it to be, but definitely easier than here. They do not have a problem with illegal immigrants precisely because of that.

This thread has “immigration” in the title, and the conversation leads me to believe this would be a good place for this article:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042106A

Overqualified Immigrant
by Ilya Shapiro

If the federal government ever gets its act together and passes a much-needed immigration reform, I’m giving up my legal career and taking up a profession that will actually allow me to become a U.S. citizen. Like gardening. Or construction. Or anything else that counts as “unskilled.”

And maybe I’ll also fly to Cancun for some sun-and-fun. And come back illegally. (I’m tan and speak fluent Spanish; think I could pass?) Or I’ll have a Miami friend take me out on a boat – so I can come back on a raft.

Because I sure ain’t gonna get a green card the way I’m going: English-speaking, highly educated, law-abiding, and patriotic. I’m precisely the type of person Uncle Sam would never dream of inviting to be a permanent resident. Unless I got married – which’ll happen sooner or later, right?

You see, as I follow the overheated rhetoric about guest-workers and homeland security, legal versus illegal immigrants, and the needs of American business and American labor, I can’t help but smile and shake my head. And then go home and cry.

Because no matter how hard I work, how good I am at my job (my day job or this writing thing), how brilliant (and sincere) a personal statement I write espousing my love for this country, its people and values, I will never be able to achieve that which is being offered to certain classes of “undocumented” aliens under any of the proposals being batted around Congressional water coolers. That is, every plan under consideration – save the “enforcement only” ones that don’t even attempt to deal with the reality of 12 million illegal aliens – contains a measure that allows unskilled foreign workers to be put “on the path to citizenship.” This path is simply unavailable to skilled workers like me.

I’m not trying to be cute here: from President Bush to Kennedy-McCain to Kyl-Cornyn, every immigration policy proposal would allow a certain number of unskilled laborers to obtain legitimate work visas for a number of years. As one or two terms of such a visa run out, those who are still gainfully employed would be able to apply to convert their work visas into permanent resident (green card) status – holders of which can apply for citizenship five years later.

This seems to me a perfectly reasonable reform – even if you don’t grant any amnesty whatsoever for existing illegals; and if these visas are only available to people applying from outside the United States – there should be some mechanism for importing workers for jobs that can’t be filled by Americans at prices Americans employers want to pay (because of limits to what American consumers want to pay). And if these “guest-workers” prove themselves to be good citizens, they should be able to become, well, citizens.

The problem for me – and for the mere tens of thousands of professionals like me – is that our visas don’t work that way. Under an H1-B – of which only 55,000 new ones are statutorily authorized for each year – a highly skilled individual (like a software engineer from Bangalore) can work for a particular American employer for six years (two three-year periods). At the end of that time, unless the employer is willing to begin the arduous process of green card sponsorship and can convince the Labor Department that no American possesses even the minimal qualifications for that job – it is irrelevant if that hypothetical American is far less qualified than the non-American – the foreign professional has to leave the country. No exceptions.

For those of us who are that special brand of foreign professionals known as Canadians, there’s also the option of a TN (NAFTA-created) visa. (A TN differs from an H1-B only in that it lasts one year instead of three, and can theoretically be renewed an infinite number of times instead of once.) Either way, there is no “path to citizenship” – and thus, for me, no way to fulfill the higher purpose that has long been my dream: the service of my adopted country.

Despite living here my entire adult life and career, despite my fancy degrees, I cannot work in the State or Defense Departments, in the challenging and critical Justice Department jobs for which I am otherwise qualified, in Executive Office positions, or in any other legal or policy-making posts for which this country has trained me. I cannot even “put my money where my mouth is” (in terms of my support of our engagement in Iraq) by serving in the military JAG Corps – or even enlisting as a simple infantryman.

Nothing in any proposed immigration reform changes any of this.

Which is why my resolution to come in on the ground floor of the landscaping industry is only partially in jest. After all, America is worth spending time on your knees in the dirt for. But, really, why have such perverse incentives in the first place?

Ilya Shapiro, whose parents took a wrong turn at the St. Lawrence Seaway when immigrating from the Soviet Union, is a Washington lawyer who writes “Dispatches from Purple America.”

[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Ms. Rand was not an anarchist, as you imply. True, she advocated minimal government, with an objective administration of just laws. So, how do you get from that that she advocated 11 million illegals?

She did advocate free immigration, i.e., if we had a libertarian government they would not be illegal.

Her close follower describes the whole objectivist reasoning behind it very clearly in the second article I linked. He clearly decriminalizes it.

Get it now? Or do I need to bring out them crayons?
[/quote]

Ahh…a follower is not her. Keep trying.

Color all you want with your crayons. I’m surprised an intellectual would keep crayons in his desk. Is that for relief after Sowell rips you a new one?

Libs…a laugh a minute!!

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
This thread has “immigration” in the title, and the conversation leads me to believe this would be a good place for this article:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042106A
[/quote]

It is, and this is truly a great article, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

I’ve stated many times that the Green Card process should be simple and automatic for the people who already fit the requirements for the H1B and TN visas. These are people we want to keep in our country, not kick out after a few years because they dared to do things legally.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Ahh…a follower is not her. Keep trying.[/quote]

Ayn was an immigrant herself. Find me a single quote from her that supports tough immigration laws as being objectivist, and I’ll be happy to concede.

Alternatively, come up with a consistent objectivist reasoning against free immigration, and I’ll concede.

Until then there’s no amount of insults that can get out of the hole you dug yourself into: you were the one continuously praising her and praising Greenspan for being a follower. And now that you disagree with her view, you refuse to admit it or provide a quote that shows her opinion on it – you sulk. You take infantile stabs at “libs”, like we were some sub-human race.

Very mature.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Is that for relief after Sowell rips you a new one?[/quote]

“rips you a new one”? We might be catty, but our discussions are actually very civilized. They’re stimulating. We meet for lunch every week we are in campus. We like keeping our brains active. We have some level of respect for each other. We both earned it.

In fact, I have even more intense discussions with some of my liberal friends – in particular about this issue of immigration, as you might imagine. Yes, us sub-human libs like to argue with each other a lot.

A discussion is about making each other think. Sometimes we even change each others minds. And that’s OK, you know? Two minds always think better than one, even when they do not agree.

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
hspder–

You son of a bitch, you converted me. Good job. I think the big buzzword here should be citizenship, not entry. Let them come, they just better not expect to vote, have their kids become citzens, or get any benefits that citizens pay for.

Mike[/quote]

No, I think the exact opposite is true. Integration and citizenship should be our goal for immigrants. Having a permanent underclass of foreign citizens who do not integrate into your culture is a terrible idea. Look at Germany and its Turkish guest-workers: a non-citizen underclass that is increasingly at odds with the mainstream secular, tolerant culture. Or see France and the riots, although I think a lot more of the French North Africans are citizens. That is not the direction we should be going.

[quote]hspder wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
This thread has “immigration” in the title, and the conversation leads me to believe this would be a good place for this article:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042106A

It is, and this is truly a great article, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

I’ve stated many times that the Green Card process should be simple and automatic for the people who already fit the requirements for the H1B and TN visas. These are people we want to keep in our country, not kick out after a few years because they dared to do things legally.
[/quote]

Absolutely. We should keep the best and brightest.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
danmaftei wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
makkun wrote:
danmaftei wrote:
I fear for the outcome of this thread…

Considering who started it, I think your fears are not unfounded.

Makkun

Don’t be afraid boys! Intelligent dialogue, if you are capable of it, is always welcome! Begin anytime.

HH

HH, I’m not discussing this topic because I know very little about immigration, and as such I don’t feel qualifed to talk about it.

Regardless, I still fear for the outcome of this thread… if it’s anything like your last ones, it’ll be a rep vs. dem pissing match in about a page.

I thought you were setting up your account to ignore me. What happened?

[/quote]

I couldn’t find the ignore button… :frowning:

What happened to “who the hell are you?”

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Integration and citizenship should be our goal for immigrants. Having a permanent underclass of foreign citizens who do not integrate into your culture is a terrible idea.[/quote]

Amen!

Double Amen – just look at the problems Europe, and particularly France, is having.