I suppose if you suddenly were to find out that you were actually illegally present in the U.S., you'd be a good, law-abiding noncitizen and cheerfully go back to the country you don't know?
This "country they don't know" falsehood is parroted by some people, and I find it very disingenuous. You don't have to lie to make your case. People immigrate to the US from other countries at all ages, and get along just fine. There's no reason that an American can't immigrate to his/her place of birth either. Growing up American doesn't make a person dumb, you know.
Nations are basically large families.
Imagine you spent your whole life thinking you were part of Family A. But then, you discovered you weren't biologically part of Family A or actually adopted by Family A, instead Family A kidnapped you. Would you be inclined to stay with Family A, or would you seek out Family P - your biological family? Similarly, would you want to stay with Nation A or go seek out Nation P?
I would go seek out Nation P.
Do you disagree that nations are basically large families? Am I in the wrong to want to hypothetically seek out my biological family or nation of origin?
Or, do you disagree with my viewpoint and want me to shut up?
Immigration is the official process of adoption into this large family. Illegal immigrants are masquerading as family members. Yeah, the situation sucks for this guy, but he has not gone through the official adoption process either. Instead, he wants us to think that it is cool that he has been knowingly stealing opportunities from legit members of the American family, and that gall, that cheating behavior, just doesn't sit right with me.
I cannot condone it.
http://www.american-pictures.com/genealogy/we.are.all.cousin...
Sorry, dude, but I just can't have a productive discussion with you. This kind of xenophobic attitude is reprehensible in my opinion, and I just don't see either of us changing each others' minds.
Let's assume for a moment that he "stole" writing jobs from legal American citizens (or legal aliens). Let's also assume for the moment that the hiring processes for those jobs were concerned with finding the best candidate for the position.
I don't want a "real American" to fill that position. I want the best person for the job to fill that position. If a citizen/legal alien is actually the best person for the job, that's great. But if not: I don't care who it is, where he/she comes from, or what his/her immigration status is.
Maybe for a job like a newspaper/magazine writer, it isn't absolutely critical to have the best person possible in that job. But for other jobs it's certainly important, and regardless, I'm not willing to make that value judgement.
Pre 1940s Europe is a transnational jumble of overlapping ethnic groups. Result: war after war after war.
Post 40s and 50s after millions of people relocate to their linguistic and ethnic homelands and coalesce into new nations carved out of empires: lasting peace. Last major war was in former Yugoslavia, which failed to get with the ethnic nationalist program.
Hell, even Belgium is falling apart now. You are dead wrong on this. Ethnic nationalism is the only system that works, long term.
(Any answer other than "yes" is a cop-out or word-play.)
Wouldn't your statement then be implying that the US would be better off without a large part of its congress, its best teachers, and scientists?
In the long term - we are all heat decay. In the short term, all we need is a set of common values we agree on.
Would you be interested in a summary of 20th century armed conflicts, classified by the type of states involved? There are a couple in Asia and Africa I'm thinking of.
This is one of the things that's so great about America. It wasn't founded on an ethnicity; but an idea. But if you go to some of the other (more backward) countries, people still think of American as an ethnicity.