Goodness gracious I love Ann Coulter.
From Larry O'Connor:
Lib Dem Bob Beckel gets it right, for once:
From Larry O'Connor:
Her observation that radical Muslim immigrants are are assimilating us, not the other way around, is perceptive. They are bringing the violence and hate of their homelands to our country.
The connection between the terror attacks at the Boston Marathon and the push for "immigration reform" in the US Senate continues to play out in the media. The latest and most provocative statements came Monday night from Ann Coulter on Fox News' "Hannity" show.
When the question of whether there needs to be better "tracking" of foreign nationals in our country Coulter countered it "shows that we need better immigrants."
After showing dead terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife wearing a hijab Coulter addressed the issue of assimilation and whether the current immigration policies are working. "Assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. No, they’re assimilating us into their culture."
Lib Dem Bob Beckel gets it right, for once:
Democrat Beckel Calls For Moratorium On Student Visas For MuslimsIt's just common sense.
I thought her comment about arresting the wife for wearing a hijab was out of bounds, but I understand her point about society changing to suit immigrants, and not vice versa. "Liberals" like to tell us that we're all immigrants and that "nativists" have always had a problem with this, but there are real differences between the current wave of immigration and previous ones. The big two are welfare, which hardly existed at all prior to the Great Society, and the fact that immigrants were expected to change themselves not their adopted country. We've totally lost sight of that.
ReplyDeleteTRISH
Yo TRISH, have you ever read Samuel P. Huntington's Who Are We? It's a very detailed demographic study of the United States, from colonial times to the present, including elements such as race, ethnicity, and religion. There is a chapter or chapters on the most recent wave of Hispanic immigration from south of the border. His basic thesis is that this new group of immigrants (many of whom are illegal aliens) are very different and it would be foolish to pretend that they aren't. It's very difficult to assimilate a large block of immigrants who all have the same language, particularly when they can return to their home countries so easily, and particularly when assimilation becomes a bad word in and of itself.
DeleteJQ
'... immigrants were expected to change themselves, not their adopted country'.
ReplyDeleteRemind me again about how inconspicuous St Patrick's Day is in America, particularly in New York. About how no one, let alone very recent Irish immigrants, celebrates it.
Actually, America's famous 'melting pot' of immigrants is a myth. Each wave of immigrants tends to congregate for a while for mutual support, before dispersing and assimilating to some degree.
Muslims will probably do the same as all the previous waves of migrants, including retaining their religion, as did east European Jews and Italian Catholics.
The degree to which immigrants assimilate is always an open question. St. Patrick's Day is of course more of an Irish-American holiday than an Irish one.
DeleteEven so, a little St. Patick's Day hardly means that Irish-Americans are not fully American. They are. More recent groups of immigrants have decided to keep their separateness, or were prodded to by leftists.
Muslims may assimilate in time. We'll see. I think it will be up to the non-Muslim majority. If we cater to them, they won't. If we remake out society to please them, it will only convince them that it is us who need to change.
The melting pot was not a myth when I was a kid. My parents, one generation removed from the old country, took it to heart. They didn't become white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, but they did grow up red, white, and blue. They never doubted for a moment where their allegiance was.
>>Each wave of immigrants tends to congregate for a while for mutual support, before dispersing and assimilating to some degree.<<
Yeah, that's the melting stage of the melting pot that you dismiss as a myth.
JQ
JQ,
DeleteThe 'melting pot' occurs in retrospect. When immigrants first come into a country, and this includes Australia (which is growing at 1.7% per annum and has just been estimated to have reached 23 million - mainly due to immigration), the new entrants don't assimilate and are regarded with suspicion.
Not catering to the new migrants won't cause them to assimilate more quickly. It will just make them feel more isolated and cause them to congregate amongst themselves longer.
Your parents, if one generation from the 'old country', weren't immigrants. I take it you mean that they were born in America, not coming there as children? If that's the case, then peer pressure would have caused most of their assimilation.
Ah, so we need to cater to them to make them assimilate. That's the most bass-ackwards thing I have ever heard.
DeleteMy parents were born here. Their parents were not. They were the Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw calls them. They were aware of ethnic roots but they were American to the bone. They never saw a contradiction there and neither do I.
The experience of World War II had a lot to do with their Americanization. Men from many different backgrounds fought under the same flag--Jewish kids from Brooklyn next to hillbilly Scots-Irish kids from North Carolina, next to Lebanese-American kids from Ohio.They all came home proud Americans.
That tradition isn't dead but it's fading. The trend is toward seperateness. People who like to call themselves liberals tend to think that the very concept of assimilation is kind of chauvinistic. We should be asking them what we can do to make their lives easier. Should we stop displaying the American flag? Should we celebrate your holidays? How about writing everything in your language so you don't have to learn ours? Tax-payer funded interpreters? Whatever you need, we'll do it!
Assimilation doesn't happen instantly. Of course there are ethnic enclaves, and those closer to the old country will always seem more ethnic. The melting part of the melting pot is a process that make take a few generations. It will never happen, however, if we make assimilation a bad word and do everything we can to refurbish society to suit their so-called needs, which is to say their wants.
JQ
JQ,
DeleteAnd the Americans of Japanese descent born in America before the Second World War? We're they allowed to enlist and fight for their country? And Afro-Americans. What proportion of combat not support troops did they comprise?
You're missing the point. Newly arrived immigrants have to be made welcome. They won't be able to assimilate immediately or completely. The experience of your family illustrates it. Your grandparents would have brought a lot of baggage from their home countries. Your parents, being born there, would have been influenced more by their peers than their parents, your grandparents. You, as a result, would be little different to someone whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower. And probably wouldn't be able to understand your grandparents' language, if they were non-English speakers.
Actually, migrants are a very valuable resource. Australia is starting to realise this. We don't want them to lose their language and culture. Australia is a trading nation. We need to understand our trading partners, in particular China, which is becoming an increasingly important customer, more important than Japan. Mandarin is a fiendishly difficult language. There are moves to have Australian students learn at least one foreign language, preferably an Asian one, including Indonesian, Indonesia being our nearest neighbour.
Where do we get our teachers if not from migrants and their children who have retained their native language? One of our census questions (repeated every 5 years) addresses this point, asking which language(s) are spoken at home.
>>And the Americans of Japanese descent born in America before the Second World War? We're they allowed to enlist and fight for their country?<<
DeleteYes. Like the late Daniel Inouye. One of the best books I have read in the past year was America's Secret Army, about the Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). Many Japanese-Americans fought in the CIC and did some really brave things. Blacks were mostly in support units.
Yes, not all troops were treated the same. I understand that. All I'm saying that white immigrant stock came home just as American as anyone else. They still had ethnic roots that they were proud of but they were Americans.
The melting process is a slow one, and that's okay. It's still a melting pot. It's not a myth. Even so, the melting pot image is rather politically incorrect today. A lot of people regard it as a relic from a less enlightened time. The implication of such thinking is that we're increasingly uncomfortable with asking immigrants to change anything about themselves. Something has to give way, so we often find ourselves remaking our society in their image. Immigrants are supposed to adapt to their new society, but as we've increasingly discovered, society is adapting to the immigrants.
JQ
Saying the older bomber’s wife should be thrown in prison for wearing a hijab is no different from saying someone should be thrown in prison for wearing a cross, or a yamaka. If Coulter gets just a little bolder, she’ll be suggesting we round up all Muslims. Coulter is a hateful, disgusting, bigot, and so is Egnor.
ReplyDeleteBob Beckel isn’t liberal Democrat anymore; he’s become a right wing asshole for money.
-KW
I agree with you on the hijab comment. I think she thinks she's being funny, which she isn't. Beckel, however, is still a hug leftie.
DeleteJQ
I didn't listen to all of Coulter's comments, so I didn't hear what she said about the wife. Obviously the wife shouldn't be arrested unless she committed a crime.
DeleteIt's not like she made a YouTube video or something.
You're a pretty disgraceful bigot yourself, KW.
DeleteJoey
'I didn't listen to all of Coulter's comments...'
DeleteMust be your attention deficit disorder kicking in again.
Agreed. Making a YouTube video isn't a crime. But breaking conditions of parole release is, with reincarceration being the penalty for a breach. Harsh, but fairer than three strikes mandatory sentencing.
@bach:
DeleteHillary told the father of a fallen seal at his son's funeral that she was going to arrest the man responsible for the YouTube video.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/10/25/Fallen-Seals-Father-Hillary-Told-M-Dont-Worry-Were-Going-To-Arrest-The-Man-That-Did-This
The "parole violation" wasn't the real reason that a bunch of cops made this guy did a perp walk in front of international media. He is still in jail.
He was obviously scapegoated. There is no rational debate about that.
Stop lying bach. It makes you look even more foolish than usual.
It seems the conservative position is anyone who makes a video that upsets Muslims should have all warrants nullified and be immune from arrest.
Delete-KW
@KW:
DeleteYou apologies for the government's blatant act of scapegoating removes any pretense you might claim to be a supporter of basic civil rights.
Many Americans "could" be arrested for any number of pretenses. The government singled out this guy to divert attention to the video and away from their own mistakes in Benghazi, in order to minimize bad press before the election.
Any normal person is made very uncomfortable by shit like that. You really are a thug, KW.
Many Americans "could" be arrested for any number of pretenses.
DeleteExplain how actual parole violations are a "pretense".
Prison for a hijab? Nah. Wrong approach. It isn't a crime. It IS stupid, however, and so the appropriate thing to do is to point fingers, mock and laugh.
DeleteYou said it David. Personally, I flip off anyone with an anti-abortion bumper sticker.
Delete-KW
They're a pretense because they aren't the real reason. Just ask Charles Woods.
DeleteThe Torch
KW, I'll ask you the same question I've asked others. Is Charles Woods lying?
DeleteThe Torch
Michael,
DeleteHillary Clinton told Charles Woods at his son's funeral that she was going to arrest the man who made the video? Memories of events when under stress are notoriously unreliable. You, as a surgeon, would certainly have experience of that. Whenever you communicate the prognosis of one of your patients to his or her relatives, you probably realise that you'll have to do it repeatedly, else they'll misunderstand.
Anyway, Hillary Clinton doesn't have any influence over state law forces in their enforcement of parole breaches. Someone who has committed computer fraud and is released on parole with the condition that he doesn't use a computer is just as liable to reincarceration as a paroled pedophile who approaches too closely to an elementary school, if staying away from children is one of the parole conditions.
The Torch,
I don't know whether Charles Woods is lying. He could be just mistaken.
Who the hell is Charles Woods? If he’s a guy quoted in a Breitbart story then I give it very little credence. The Buffoons at Breitbart have been caught telling so many lies, and running so many scams, that I don’t even pay attention except when their lies are so blatant that the lies make news. Anybody that cites Breitbart is a gullible hack.
Delete-KW
Charles Woods is the father of Tyrone Woods, the dead SEAL.
DeleteYou're trying to impugn the "buffoons at Breitbart" because they have been caught telling lies (though you haven't named any.) Charles Woods is not Andrew Breitbart and he doesn't work for Andrew Breitbart. He's simply a grieving father who said that Hillary Clinton assured him, at his son's funeral, that the filmmaker would face punishment.
He did not "misunderstand." I was waiting for that one. By saying that he misunderstood, you can maintain the fiction that the filmmaker is in jail because of a parole violation without calling Mr. Woods a liar. How does one misunderstand, We're going to get that filmmaker and put him in jail, don't you worry?
I think we all know what a pretext is but some of you are being very, very obtuse. Think of Al Capone. He was eventually put in jail fro tax evasion charges though everyone knew that those were just the only charges that would stick. He was given the maximum sentence because it wasn't really about the tax evasion and everyone knew it. The feds were on his ass because he was a ruthless gangster. Did Al Capone cheat on his taxes? Yes. But that wasn't the real reason he was in jail.
The Torch
Juan Hernandez, "immigration activist" and former advisor to the McCain campaign:
ReplyDelete"I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.'”
Good article on the subject: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/mexicos-northern-strategy/
Joey
Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Eric Rudolph, and on and on. Clearly the U.S. needs better citizens.
ReplyDelete