Welcoming New Americans

It is often baffling to me how small-thinking our leaders are when it comes to the issue of immigration. It's a hotly debated topic these days, but it seems that neither "side" of the issue have the concept down correctly, nor understand the wider implications of the issue.

The "left" views immigration negatively due to its alignment with the statist socialist element. Immigrants, it is argued, jeopardize American jobs by providing a glut of labor, and jeopardize American wages by being willing to perform the same tasks as unskilled American laborers for far less money. Additionally, the "left", with its catalogue of social programs and welfare interests, tends to view immigrants as a competing interest in the battle over the tax spoils made available by said programs. At its base, the "left" wants to enjoy the fruits of America's productivity, made possible by the principles and convictions of the founding fathers, without the necessity of conviction or allegiance to any country, any principles, and without conviction.

The "right" is afraid of immigrants for more simplistic reasons, in most cases. They fear exotic traditions, religions and ideas. They fear racial diversity and they, too, smell a threat in the foreign immigrants willing to take up work for lower wages than their American counterparts. At its base, the "right" wants to enjoy and indulge every privelage obtained by prospering in America without having to recognize any basic principles or rights which created that prosperity.

Fear and social ossification from the left. Fear and cheauvanism on the right. To what end? And why are these scared statuesque maggots telling the talent of the planet where they belong, and to what end their lives should serve?

What most people fail to recognize is that American values and a constant flow of foreign immigrants are interdependent. Without the values instituted by America (its basic, defining values), the best and brightest of the world would not be tempted by our shores.

Without a tide of new people, ideas and experiences, America would fail to be the true leader in technology, creativity and prosperity it is. America's defining values such as free enterprise, equality of opportunity and the welcoming arms our borders still display to the world (relative to other nations) are what have made us what we are. Our wealth and might are due exclusively to this trait. Americans who wish to preserve these values should welcome those who share them and want to contribute to them (with their productivity and creativity).

Many scholars often ponder the immense respect which foreign-born Americans have for their adopted country compared with the castrated half-men who epitomize our natural-born leaders. Immigrants almost universally had to endure some of the most horrible adversity known to man to make it to America and survive and thrive here. They understand why, how and to what end this country is theirs.

Perhaps birth should not be the only criterion for citizenship in a country like America, where ideas, not people, form the basis of what we are. Perhaps, in order to graduate to full citizens at adulthood, every man and woman should take that oath that only immigrants who worked and sweated for it must take today: that they will uphold the consitution, defend their new homeland, and that they appreciate and understand the values and the way of life created and perpetuated by one country above all...

Life, liberty, and seeking our own productive, guiltless, self-motivated happiness as rights, not as permitted entitlements. It's what we're here for.