This article is an example of fitting data to provide the intended outcome. All it takes is a half objective analysis to note that this modern take on multiculturalism and migration is a disaster on many levels.
I have visited France, Italy and many other parts of Europe and the condition of major cities was all the needed to be seen. Paris does not look like it's in a first world country, large parts of it look like something out of a post-apocalyptic film.
I grew up dem and have always voted dem(clinton). However at this point, If the USA had an anti-immigration party they would receive my vote.
Often times studies are cited saying immigration is good for the economy. However, they do not break immigrants down by education and economic class. HB1 and undocumented are in the same category.
American taxes are such that only the top 20 percent get more then they pay into the system and the bottom 40-50 percent effectively pay a zero to negative effective tax rate's.
Cheaper labor in fast food and retail employees (largest employers in US) probably is not making up that difference. Its highly probable their gain is a citizens loss no matter where you are on the economic spectrum.
In Europe these trends are worse with high unemployment, debt, slow growth and generous welfare states create the perfect storm.
There is so much miss and diss information on the topic that It would take much longer than one comment to even scrape the surface.
56
@2-6 * "the top 20 percent get more then they pay into the system"
**top 20 percent pay in more than they receive**
3
Especially if that comment, namely yours, shockingly mischaracterizes not only the situation of said european metropoles but also falls into the fallacy of saying that "that is all I needed to see".
Not pretending that all is pink and rosa in the extended Paris area for example, but you evidently either do not know europe well enough to even pretend having insights. Period.
6
@2-6
as of 2013, the top 20% of American households owned 88.9% of the private wealth of the country: the top 1% owned 36.7%, and the other 19% owned 52.2%.
In terms of financial wealth (with the equity of home ownership subtracted) as of 2013, the top 1% owned 42.8% of it, and the next 19% owned 51.9%, leaving 5.3% for the other 80% of American households. (Down from the 8.7% of financial wealth owned by the lower 80% c.1983, a drop of more than 30% over a span of 30 years.)
So in 2013, the top 20% of American households owned 94.7% of the country's privately held financial wealth. https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
How much higher of a percentage of American private wealth do you think the top 20% of households should own, in order to address your complaint and restore fairness to the system?
4
When ISIS first came to prominence. Tens of thousands of Muslims from Europe raced to join them. What type of culture does everyone think raised these children? A culture that promotes peace, secular western values, and acceptance?
The Islamic world is extremely radical and they do present a real threat to western society and values through immigration. Immigrants eventually vote and immigrants have children they raise with their values. Clearly, values that led many of their children to join ISIS.
According to pew research in 2015 ten percent of Muslims worldwide believed ISIS was right and 20 percent believed terrorism was a valid means to an end. Between 50 and 70 percent believed in sharia law.
I do not want people who believe in Sharia law voting in my country. This is a direct threat to me and my way of life. I will support any government or candidate that stops this nonsense. This really shouldn't be considered radical.
60
The authors demonstrate a bias so large it can be seen from outer space. There isn't the slightest acknowledgement that huge demographic changes can involve cultural losses that are genuinely valuable and mourned. The assumption of the piece is that there are no losses - even when they are glaring. I began visiting the UK in the 1960s. The country I came to love then, especially its capital city, is now unrecognizable. Whole neighborhoods have disappeared into the maw of "multiculturalism" and the only time there is the slightest questioning of whether this is a good thing is when the neighborhood that disappears is minority-ethnic. Tony Blair is out there recommending a diminished sense of Englishness or Welshness or Scottishness - it all should be replaced by a sense of "Britishness" only no one really knows what that means any longer. Friends who feel about Paris the way I felt about London are returning from recent trips there in shock, and reluctant to return (I stopped going to London in 1990 when I looked around and realized that its quirky Englishness had vanished). The authors don't mention the attacks in Cologne in 2016 on New Year's Eve by men of North African and Muslim background, the Muslim grooming gangs in Britain, the complete loss of that peculiar civility that used to characterize London, huge as it was. Britain is a ruined country. The authors ignore, just-will-not-admit, that sometimes concerns around huge demographic changes are sadly justified.
91
It is not written that the world should stagnate so you may continue to enjoy it for yourself. Before you came on this earth, hundreds of years ago, it was something else...it's called change!
26
@elizabeth renant
At least the Europeans have a choice of who they let in, into their countries. The people in the many countries who were colonized and exploited by the Europeans had no choice but to put up with them. I guess they too must have felt, rightfully so in my opinion, that their countries were ruined by the colonists. Unfortunately, they had no recourse because might makes right. A lot of them died and many are still living with the legacy of their colonizers.
22
@elizabeth tenant Dear Elizabeth, as a Londoner I can attest to this loss of 'quirky Englishness'. These days John Cleese is rarely seen walking his albatross, and the grubby cockneys that used to tip their hats to him while they sat in the streets playing the old Joanna (piano to you), are a dying breed. I am sure that, as a tourist, the loss has touched you deeply, (city dwellers sometimes resent tourists for reducing their cities to caricatures, but not here in eccentric old Blighty), but even on dark days like today when we hear that others feel about Paris the way you feel about London (it is indeed a cultural loss to be mourned when Paris has lost it's sense of 'quirky Englishness') we struggle on, clutching pickled eels to our waistcoated chests. God save the Queen, guvna.
19
Rodney King said it long ago: "Can we all get along?"
No, Rodney, we can't.
If whites in the United States are a big majority, everyone knows who is in charge. Things are stable, if not ideal.
If there is no majority, there is chaos and a high risk of ethnic war:
Rwanda.
Yugoslavia.
Syria.
Iraq.
Europe during the Wars of Religion.
The Armenian Holocaust.
The Jewish Holocaust.
The Muslim Conquest of Iberia.
The Christian Reconquest of Iberia.
The Muslim Conquest of Eastern Europe.
The Christian Reconquest of Eastern Europe.
The Muslim Conquest of Anatolia.
The Muslim Conquest of Egypt and north
Africa.
The near-extermination of Native Americans.
The expulsion of the Poles from Germany.
The expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia.
The expulsion of the ethnic Germans from Russia.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
The Jewish conquest of Palestine.
The slow ethnic cleansing of whites in South Africa.
And big Kahuna of them all: The Partition of India.
Read your history and weep, people. And give up your silly, silly belief that human beings are any better than rival bands of apes.
60
@vbering
Did you leave anything out in your long list?
Maybe European pillage of resources and kidnaping of people in West Africa?
Maybe the US government ordained proclamation of those West Africans and their decedents to be non-human?
5
@vbering
In most of these cases the point is that there was a majority. It just didn't feel secure. This list is poor history and a crude excuse to behave badly.
2
@JJ “European pillage of resources and kidnaping of people in West Africa?”
North and West Africans were the ones who kidnapped and enslaved other West Africans. Europeans just bought them on the coasts.
1
Israel is a "minority" with a "majority complex" and is an ethnic outcome with similar characteristics to the majority fears that are addressed here. So this article only addresses one aspect of an evolving increasingly volatile phenomenon.
When considering the history of Sri Lanka, including the recently concluded long civil war, repeated invasions/colonization (Indians, Portuguese, Dutch, and English), and ongoing incidents of violence from many different groups, it is not surprising that many people in Sri Lanka have a legitimate fear of violence. The country is small and vulnerable to forces inside and outside its borders. The Easter attack by a group of Muslim terrorists against Christians illustrates that these are not false fears of violence. No country should tolerate violence. Violence based on race, religion, or national origin is particularly toxic. However, comparing people in Sri Lanka to white nationalists in Charlottesville seems inappropriate. The history is too different.
I am offended that the Times published a picture of Sri Laken monks studying, that was replaced by a picture of Sri Laken Buddhists praying, along with pictures of white nationalists marching, and a terrorist’s victim in Ireland, implying that these Buddhists as an organized group support violence based on false fears of peaceful neighbors who practice a different religion. They do not.
Sri Lanka has had significant Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist populations for centuries and will in the future. There has been violence from each group, based on a sense of us vs them. We should support and learn from the reasonable leaders of these communities as they struggle to create a peaceful diverse country.
1
I look forward to more ethnic and racial mixing over the generations. Perhaps having brown grandchildren will help some white folks understand that this isn't the Apocalypse.
4
Minorities are subject to "systemic discrimination" by the majority and its asserted "privilege." That's the Narrative the NYT has obsessively pushed forever.
Yet now the NYT is telling that all its prior reporting and punditry must have been wrong -- it's actually *great* to be a minority in your own country and any worries are just plain "false."
Pick a story and stick to it, NYT.
1
Maybe we should return to teaching Latin in the Schools. It seems a substantial part of the American public doesn't understand the Moto of the United States, "E Pluribus Unum".
2
I am in favor of increased immigration and diversity. I have very liberal views personally on the value of diversity and inclusion. That being said out front, I must point out that part of the 'fear' should be attributed to the realization that some ethnic groups do not share in this diversity-forward western-liberal viewpoint. I work in a high-tech field and it is abundantly clear that many (though, definitely not all) male Indian managers have very strong preferences to hire and promote Indian (male) subordinates. Like, if you interview 20 people, two of which are Indian, these managers will in EVERY case rank the two Indian candidates first and second choices no matter what the qualifications are. In academia, it is too common to see Chinese professors who only hire chinese graduate students, Indian professors who only hire Indian graduate students, heck I even knew a Greek professor who only hired Greek students. There are few departments in academics which have become nearly completely Indian or Chinese. The preference of 'hiring someone like me' can be very strong in many circles and people shouldn't be oblivious to this sad fact. This should be concerning -- a warning flag that even if we are welcoming and inclusionary, that those we welcome in and include may very well hold strong nativists views. I consider it a real challenge to be sure that through inclusion, we teach and spread the values of inclusion, both to the 'threatened' majorities AND the minorities.
4
Tribal identity is not a figment of imagination. People's identity is heavily influenced by the ideology they subscribe to. Ideology is tied to religions, politics, education; i.e. how people are brainwashed. What people believe reside in their mind, regardless of their skin color or ethnicity. Fact: many white Islam converts, men & women, joined ISIS to fight in Syria.
Even so-called "moderate Muslims" feel the pull of tribal loyalty to circle the wagon when Islam is under attack, as witnessed during the worldwide Danish cartoon protest a few years back.
Unique to Islam is fundamentalism. The Koran is believed by all true Muslims to be the direct words from Allah. What is written in the Koran must be followed. The harsh Shariah Penal Code recently adopted in Brunei is grounded in Muslim holy text. False Fears? Don't think so.
2
@Observer
Fundamentalism is not unique to Islam. Just about all religious groups have fundamentalists sects. Christian fundamentalists in the US seek political control in many real ways (ahem, reproductive rights, liquor laws, textbook changes, US-Israeli alliances, etc).
4
Quote: "the United States, which is projected to become “majority minority” — with whites less than half of the population — by 2050."
So the author admits that the fears of white people being replaced are apparently not so false?
2
@John Rohan
Anyone whose worries about 2050 revolve around the prospect of their arbitrarily constructed ethnic amalgam losing numerical majority status in the USA- rather than concerns like looming environmental catastrophe- has a screw loose, in my opinion.
5
We all get replaced by other human beings eventually. Who cares what color they are? We'll be dead anyway.
2
I am a Muslim. I understand and it is natural to feel threatened and fear of minority taking over and some Muslims have not made it easy either. In America, majority of Muslims are educated and they have come here for better opportunities and respect the good moral values the Americans have - telling the truth,honesty and charity. It is only a very few and I say it again very few of the Muslims that are violent, deeply angry or, as somebody said, trying to impose Shariah law. No, majority Muslims don't want Shariah Law.
51
@SP I spent a number of years working in severaI Islamic countries, from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia. I find Muslims to be ordinary people with the same ambitions and strivings for themselves and their families as everyone else. All preferring peace to mayhem. Many of the people I worked with went to college here in Boston. (I probably have to say I'm the American son of Swedish immigrants.)
6
Social scientists have been studying divided societies for a very long time. Whether the divisions are ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, geographic, or combinations thereof, conflicts arise largely based on perceptions of unfair distribution of power, status, or money. Perceptions. Or, as the article terms it, "sentiments."
Here in the US, right wing media has promoted the idea of whites-under-siege and at-risk for over 40 years. Social media has multiplied the effect. Even though American whites, as a group, have disproportionately more on every objective scale, many whites perceive they are losing. Similar messaging dynamics are happening all over the world.
32
@stephen beck When people have always had advantages, equality looks like oppression.
10
@stephen beck
The problem is that the majority of white people in the USA have in fact lost substantial wealth over the last 40 years. There's been a particularly steep decline since the 2008 recession, in fact. So the perception of many white Americans that they're losing economically is correct. The error is that they don't realize that most people in the "nonwhite" category- particularly in the black and Hispanic populations- have lost even more in those years. The majority of whites in the country have had their wealth and their futures eroded over the past 40 years, but it hasn't been a lateral transfer to nonwhites in a zero-sum game; the wealth has been transferred to the top 20% of households (who are mostly white, for what that's worth- but they don't constitute the majority of white households.)
According to the graphs and statistics found in this fairly comprehensive study, the financial wealth (i.e., leaving out money tied up in home ownership) of the lower 80% of households (using the category of all Americans) declined by more than 30% between 1983 and 2013. https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
According to other charts found in the same link, the median household net worth (including home ownership equity) of white Americans declined by nearly 30% between the years 2007 and 2013.
The declines for black and Hispanic households were even more drastic. But without data, it's easy to draw the wrong conclusions from subjective experience.
19
The key to civil societies regardless of the demographics is a neutral governing body...neutral to race, religion, national origin and so on. Ethnic groups or religious communities will always fear "the other", and the potential loss of control of things. Assimilation into a society from sects or races is crucial, and allowing "the other" to become part of that society with strict guardrails that do not allow one race, religion or even political party dominate or set limits on any other minority or majority.
31
This is just what happened 85 years ago in Germany, when the minority who had lived side by side with the majority for centuries found themselves ostracized, then had their citizenship, their homes, and finally their lives taken away. All because the majority bought the false and evil line that their neighbors were their enemies and had to be eradicated to keep the majority's culture intact.
We must never forget this lesson.
58
I am an American of Asian descent and I believe that whites do have a reason to fear. The amount of immigration these past 20 years is simply suicidal for any nation. Immigration is all well and good, but it must be controlled. Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.
What the multiculturalists do not seem to understand is, the reason why so many immigrants such as myself want to immigrate to America is because of its predominantly white protestant culture, a culture that embraces honesty, civic mindedness, kindness, good manners, freedom of speech, respect for the individual, for women and for the rule of law.
But as the country becomes more multicultural, America is increasingly losing these great cultural traits, because the newcomers come from cultures that do not embrace these values. This is made worse when we encourage each group to hold on to its own culture. The reason most immigrants had to leave their old country is because their old culture is bad, too much dishonesty, violence, misogyny etc. why encourage them to hold on to that bad culture that they are trying to run away from?
In small numbers, you assimilate them, in large numbers, they assimilate you. America needs a 40 year moratorium on immigration to absorb and assimilate all those who became citizens since 1980, for her own survival. Once whites become a minority, America will become the next Brazil. We are killing this beautiful country with over immigration. Please wake up America!
59
@Listen
Unfortunately, you could say exactly the same thing for many European countries and I would submit that Islam with the active development of a counter culture that is openly hostile to Western values represents an additional challenge to the ones cited in your post.
24
I hope you are right... I look forward to the US becoming the next Brazil. I love Brazil.
9
I’m black and have said the same thing to the usual shock of my white peers. We are just importing racial and class strife. It’s madness.
18
Many factors probably contribute to this phenomenon but the root cause is the power/money dynamic. Those with the reigns of power benefit most economically and fear the loss of that control will lead to diminished economic prospects. Sadly race and religion are often used as proxies for the violence we see in the world today. Sometimes money is the root of the evil. A better wealth distribution system and a little birth control might take some pressure off these social ills.
1
This sort of thinking makes no sense to me. Why does any group have to be "dominant," or have "higher status?" Who cares? It's like the human race never matured beyond age 12.
9
@Lyn. Agree. We are all one species, homo sapiens. It’s poor self esteem that makes one need to look down on another. We are all one people.
2
@Lyn
Then if you are a woman, you certainly wouldn't mind moving to Iran or Saudia Arabia, or as a Jew, moving to a Muslim dominant country?
2
@John Rohan
what content in Lyn's post inspired your inferences?
Very interesting study! Unfortunately it's also disturbing. As Jo Ann from Switzerland said my family is also an Earth family. If only everyone can see humans as Earth's people, focus on eminent threats such as global warming and work together to solve problems without seeing humans as Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim etc. and/or white, black, brown, yellow etc, the human race just might become a less endangered species!
5
Wait, so in the U.S., everyone who is not white is lumped together and now comprise the majority? There are more of certain minority groups than others and that also causes concern for some other minority groups (non-white per your classification and I belong in such a category) and this concern has nothing to do with the fear of being outbred.
The concern comes from common sense in regards to social cohesion and the effects of the safety net which is supposed to be for the benefit of ALL Americans. Even though I was born here, my parents were immigrants from a country that I can argue has suffered from US meddling as can countless others from the minority group and yet I still don’t feel the U.S. has an obligation to take in everyone from the motherland. There are troubling changes in every day situations from our public schools to the future of other public goods. It’s not about pulling up the ladder either as I am pro-immigrant but diversity means a well managed and truly diverse immigration system that benefits everyone and not just a couple of groups to the detriment of everyone else whether from the “majority” or “minority”.
5
The world is overpopulated, unequal with climate change making areas unlivable, etc. are all part of the stress we see worldwide, and normal. This was predicted in the '70's when there was actual efforts to deal with overpopulation, pollution and global warming. The powers that be, who control so many governments, including ours, could care less as they think they are above the fray. They may be for a while, but not forever.
We are fast becoming like rats in a cage and we know where that leads.
6
IT IS AN INTERESTING DYNAMIC, observable globally, that majorities feel threatened by minorities. The quick, but unconvincing answer is that the oldest human remains have, to date, been found in Africa. Meaning that we are ALL minorities if we live outside of Africa, because we are all immigrants. Likewise in Africa, those who live outside the area where the first human remains are found, may genetically be of a different group. So they may have journeyed from the place of the origin of the human species, into territory previously uninhabited by humans. It seems that in the majority who complain about being confronted with existential threats, are expressing their unconscious assumption of entitlement to continue to dominate. Not ceding the reigns of power is a story as old as human existence. It arises out of the sense of territoriality. If we feel that our territory is threatened, our brains switch from a reasoning mode in the prefontal cortex to a fight-or-flight mode that leads to reflexive reactions controlled by the amygdala. So people are hard-wired to react out of a fight-or-flight paradigm, as well as a tendency to engage in logical, planned thinking while the prefrontal cortex's executive functions occur. It's important to realize and accept these shifts in paradigms. The alternative is to automatically switch from logic to fight-or-flight without understanding the dynamic that is part the human brain.
2
I have nieces and nephews who are half Japanese, half New Zealanders with American passports, 2 grandsons who are half Indian among other things and I'm a mix of Irish/Danish though I'm also a fifth generation New Zealander with a Swiss passport. It's great fun to start feeling my family really is an Earth family.
7
As a British-born, white woman who has lived in the U.S. for some 40 years, I now live in Benin, West Africa, by choice. My partner is a black African man who runs a restaurant and micro-brewery and my hope, over time, is that the entire world will be fully integrated into what I call a "café au lait" society.
What possible need do we have to cling to the past if our present and future lives are fulfilling? Nothing but good has ever come from immigration -- welcoming into our midst those people who are courageous enough and often more driven to seek a better world and to make enormous contributions to their adopted land.
We forget, far too easily, that remaining in place is not an option for any of us. Change is inevitable and unless we learn to adapt we are truly doomed to repeat the same mistakes of history over and over.
7
Reading these comments, it seems we are well-primed for another spasm of global violence and genocide. I worry that we're truly incapable of learning from anything that happened before our own lifetimes, or loving one another as members of the same extended family.
Considering how we've reacted to the refugee crises of Syria and Central America, I fear we'll tear ourselves apart when hundreds of millions are displaced in the coming generations by climate change.
12
I carry no Brief for the Orangemen, whose paramilitary units are now essentially running the drug business in East Belfast and other Protestant areas. And Yes, they are violent, dangerous bad men. But right now, that is directed internally
Meanwhile, right now, all the political violence is coming from the “...new...” IRA. They are setting off booms. They have killed policeman. They just killed that young woman in Derry.
2
So... it is supposed to be a shock or a surprise that groups resist losing power and influence?
Has any group ever been happy to lose power and influence, especially in a domain they historically dominated or cultivated as their own? Like Ever?
Maybe if you guys compose an argument for why it is great to surrender power and influence to newcomers, then more people will be happy to do it? Maybe make it seem appealing? Instead of just calling it inevitable and then saying "deal with it"? Because as it is, a lot of people are "dealing with it" but not in the way you want them to.
25
It is not about majority or minority. It is about culture, institutions, safety net, rule of law, civil discourse, courtesy, etc. I am a naturalized (non-white) US citizen, and I am alarmed by the demographic trends in this country.
Each time I see a woman in a hijab, I feel diminished. I don't want to live in a society where women are restricted in this way. Each time I see hordes of spanish-speaking recent arrivals, I feel troubled - having one common language (English) is a beautiful thing and we are giving that up under the misguided belief that multi-lingualism is good. Yes, it is wonderful to know multiple languages. But that should not mean that newcomers get to dictate that their language should be officially recognized on drivers license tests, voting forms, etc.
The issue that troubles me most is the shedding of the safety net. A system that was put in place for the benefit of citizens and taxpayers is now being misdirected to benefit non-citizens.
I don't blame the newcomers - except when they break the law. I blame the three branches of government because they are failing to enact laws that will honor citizenship and that protect the interests of citizens.
The people who wrote this article are totally misguided, but because of their privilege, they are getting away with their bad arguments.
I am worried that if this continues and the Democrats fail to address this issue, Trump in 2020 is a sure thing,
39
a few data points, intended to supply perspective on this topic:
the ethnicity known as European Ashkhenazi Jews managed to rebound from a low of 350 individuals c.1200CE to an estimated 10-12 million today- a 30,000-fold increase in the population in 600-800 years. (350 is a minute genetic cohort- small enough to have produced some unfortunate genetic impacts, in terms of risk for inherited diseases. Fortunately, scientific and medical advances appear to be on the verge of remediating at least some of those sorts of impacts on the human population. If modern technological civilization manages to survive, that is.)
An estimated 36% of the humans on the planet in 1850 were Chinese. Today, 19% of the global total.
There are currently 12 million Brazilians who are ethnic Germans.
A few well-aimed keyword searches can provide all sorts of other interesting results along those lines.
Also, oh yeah-the natural systems of the planet are being overwhelmed by the effects of unchecked fossil fuels consumption, habitat loss, pollution, resource depletion, and other forms of heedless anthropogenic rapacity. From the coral reefs to the river deltas to the tundra, the vital organ to which we're all attached is increasingly stressed and diseased.
But go on, keep on ignoring the icebergs on the horizon to squabble over how to arrange the deck chairs on this spaceship...and make sure to keep all nuclear energy strictly quarantined, in bombs and ballistic missiles...
5
I’m sure when the first English settlers arrived in Virginia and Massachusetts, the Native Americans didn’t worry about being replaced either. Myopia at its most horrific.
12
Ah... So your point, I think, is the next ethnic majority in the US will be as brutal as the Protestant whites. If you are right, it’s not a very hopeful picture of humanity.
2
"...and white terrorism..."
Sigh... please. South Africans turning on Mozambiquans- is this white terrorism as well? Burmese terrorising Rohingyas? This anti-white nonsense is ideological-political illiteracy.
17
Up here in Canada, we hear a lot about our acceptance of increasing diversity in the population. I live in Toronto, where Canadian-born citizens of European ancestry are now a minority, and presumably will remain so, given the countries now sending most immigrants to Canada.
I now often find myself one of only one or two 'white' people in the bus, streetcar or subway carriage. Those public vehicles were full of 'white' people back in the 1960s. Where did they all go ?
Only this week, I visited a town an hour east of Toronto. Everybody in sight was white, just like my Toronto neighbourhood was, back in the 1960s.
I'm now wondering about the prevalence of 'white flight' in Toronto...Maybe we should ask a few questions about the real attitudes of Canadian 'majority' populations towards minority ones.
16
"We may soon become a minority."
"What are you afraid of?"
"They'll treat us the same way we treated them!"
24
You didn't even touch on Africa, Same dynamic constantly.
8
In yet another display of the left's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, we see them insisting that incorporating people into our society who actively want to destroy America and violate the values that made modern civilization possible is actually a strength and anyone who questions this is to be named and shamed.
The republicans are finally approaching their demographic wall and instead of taking full advantage of this, the progressives see an opportunity to go full developmentally disabled and drive away anyone who lives in the real unwoke world.
36
@James Hilland
which people are you referring to when you speak of those ' who actively want to destroy america'?
seems there are plenty of native born americans who fall into this catergory
5
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get outta' the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'...
Guess you missed that the first time around?
4
This is a really interesting problem. It seems that, on the one hand, immigration solves a lot of issues that growing societies face in terms of filling job vacancies, adding numbers to population in the face of otherwise declining birthrates, etc. On the other hand, controlling the rate of immigration, or the public perception of the rate of immigration, seems to be equally important so as to not upset the current population (lest they start getting violent or voting like idiots).
So, how do we continue to do what has be demonstrably beneficial, without letting ignorance and phobia spoil it? Fine tuning the dials is tricky?
And if that sounds elitist then tough beans. I am sick of placating stupidity. I want to do what is evidenced instead of reacting to people's reactions to xenophobic YouTube channels.
3
I think Japan has the right idea. National cohesion is more important than GDP growth numbers or other contrived macroeconomic data points. They have a modern country that works for them. Maybe they could generate a point here or there in economic growth if they admitted 1 million immigrants from around the world but is it really worth it?
8
@Ed
"Works for them" for how much longer?
Their population is cratering, old people are dying faster than babies are being born, and their demographic is top-heavy with retired senior citizens without enough young people working to support them.
Unless they do something quickly to reverse this trend, their entire economy is going to implode.
Good fences make good neighbors. I consider myself a liberal, but a realist as well. More people need to take birth control.
39
Does anyone at the Times fact check these pieces?
The BBC last year (19 April 2018) published an article estimating that Catholics will be a majority by 2021 because of higher birth rates. Comparing British census data from 2001 to 2011 also exemplifies this growth in Catholics.
The White Backlash section meanders through cherry picked facts, quotes, and pictures about Europe, the US, and Sri Lanka to insinuate that all whites concerned with becoming minorities in their own country are ignorant of the facts or right wing extremists (for example, why are only right wing extremists shown in photos when many mainstream whites are also concerned?). The claim that European whites are expressing the "same sentiments" as Sinhalese when the Europeans largely protest peacefully while Sri Lanka is plagued by racial and religious strife is deceptive.
As far as the replacement argument goes: 37% of London's population was foreign born as of the 2011 census, this does not reflect the second generation immigrants who do not look like traditional British. The traditional British portion of London's population (British or Irish ethnicity 47% of the population--a minority!) diminished by 15% between 2001 and 2011, based on British census data. So perhaps the British are right to feel a bit uncomfortable with current demographic trends in their own capital and country and immigrants continue to flood into the UK, a quarter million per year as of June 2018.
30
this is a very confused article. it begins with the premise of "false fears" and goes on to say "the United States, which is projected to become “majority minority” — with whites less than half of the population — by 2050".
it mentions northern ireland, and the fears of the protestant majority. then, it mentions how the catholic population has risen to be almost equal with the protestants. what?
also, the talk about the "conspiracies" of minority birthrates, doesn't really make sense. what is the proposed conspiracy? the proposal is that minority groups will outbreed the majority. there's no conspiracy involved, it's a matter of numbers, that they breed more, not that they are conspiring to do so. these things are usually observable, like in northern ireland, where census information and THIS ARTICLE prove that the protestants were right.
the native proportion of the population in european countries is decreasing. this is a simple fact. i really don't understand why you would write an article trying to contest this. you can make reasonable projections based on migration and birth for how long each ethnic group will hold the majority in their homeland
32
Integration is crucial. I wonder why, for example, are our local voting ballots in about six or more languages, plus English. I wonder because if you vote, you are a citizen. And if you are a citizen, you should be fluent by then in English. I can't help but think this encourages insularity.
I rather hope that first generations keep their customs and tongues and pass them on. But they have to integrate. Balkanization is a fast track to civil strife.
47
@Slipping Glimpser I would say that the insularity is on the part of those who can speak only English....
9
Think the Native Americans followed the sage advice as laid out in the article!
9
@AnnoyingTimes - What advice? It's a report.
2
I thought this was a good article. Some comments suggest that the authors oversimplified these complex situations, but I think that they rather highlighted particular aspects that the different conflicts shared. I found the evidence that fears about being outbred were at least one common factor to be compelling.
I hope that we can overcome these fears, which are exposed as irrational when you consider that all humans are descended from a common ancestor.
6
When I first came here in 1979, the vast majority of foreign residents were Korean. Now if you did all your shopping in convenience stores in Shinjuku, Tokyo, you'd think Japan was being overrun by Vietnamese, Filipinos and Chinese, who make up to 1/3 of the foreign population. However, that's only in Shinjuku and other large cities. The fact is we foreigners still make up about 2% of the population, and while the average Japanese would rather it didn't, the government is trying to bring in another half-million or more immigrants to make up for a ballooning labor shortage. Of course, the government would prefer they be North American or European, but it's a hard sell to attract them away from better working conditions in the West. After all, no North American or European CEO would want to succeed Carlos Ghosn at Nissan, as the Japan Business Federation's call for diversity would stipulate, so Nissan had to discontinue its Chairman position. That helps stymie the foreign invasion--for now.
6
I think it's facile to summarize all these different ethnic/religious conflicts from vastly different lands into just a case of minority complex of the majority.
Some Muslims do have a different way of thinking, signified by their lack of respect for females across the board. When you introduce something foreign and goes against your way of life, conflicts will happen, and the fear of being "replaced" is exacerbated by this.
40
@Brian But, dear Brian, the point is that today it is Muslims, yesterday it was Jews, before that it was the Irish in America, or the Huguenots coming to England. The communities who excite this fear are always changing; it is the crude fear of replacement and cultural clash itself that is constant.
17
You do not address Brian's point about fundamentalist Muslims' treatment of women, and how it differs from mainstream Americans' beliefs. This essential difference in how women are treated and valued is important. Women, and many men, do not see this as a trivial concern.
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@Stephen
Easy for you to take the high ground. Try to put yourself in the shoes of an ‘idolatrous kufr woman’ and think about what the Islamist ideology would then have in store for you...
15
So why do you think that these fears are "false?"
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@Eugene, the article doesn't say the fears are false. It says they exist.
1
@MCF The phrase 'false fears' appears in the article title.
6
@Eugene In Mihail Sebastian's novel "For two Thousand Years", which I recommend to you, a Romanian anti semite justifies his position by saying that his antisemitism is, 'political', unlike the 'religious' anti semitism of earlier times. conservatives today, who make muslims the object of their paranoia and fear mongering, rather than jews, are making the same utterly unconvincing distinction. i can't recommend the book strongly enough to you- it is a romanian jew's account of the rise of antisemitism in the 1930s. you will see trumpism and it's evasive style of argument -it's wheedling self justification and euphemising of it's own bigotry, perfectly preserved. it is a great pity it has survived outside of the book.
9
With birth rates well below replacement rates, the aging white majorities in the nations of North America and Western Europe have a basic choice: either they can welcome skilled hard-working immigrants in order to renew their labour forces and pay for their pensions in old age; or else they can do what Japan has done: shut the door, stagnate the economy, and run up massive levels of government and household debt in order to postpone the inevitable financial reckoning.
The Japanese, recently, have realized what their Asian xenophobia has cost them. Their government is finally opening the door to skilled and industrious immigrants needed to grow their economy. Meanwhile, the rising populist right in Western countries is agitating to shut the door, to cut back or to halt immigration, while the birth rates of their national majorities ensure stagnation.
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@Wally
Japans economy is far more productive and functional than any in Europe. I have been to many cities in Europe as well as to Tokyo. Tokyo is far nicer.
Secondly, Immigrants are draining Europe economies, not the other way around. They will never turn a profit for those countries. Borrowing or taxing money and giving it to immigrants is not replacing the population with skilled labor. Especially when that labor comes from Subsaharan Africa with no education.
Immigration is bankrupting states already way to generous with welfare.
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In examples like America, where minorities openly talk about a "majority of minorities", it is more of a Thucydides Trap than a paranoia.
8
Fear is the root of all evil. Almost all bad things happen because someone is afraid of something. We are forgetting the lessons of WW2 and this makes the world a more dangerous place.
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Human beings are damaged people. As David Brooks wrote in his recent column, insecurity and fear and prevalent and this drives very destructive forces throughout society and in politics.
There are two problems. The first is that people acquire insecurity and fear within their family life and this is amplified by their life experiences outside the family. This makes them both open to fear propaganda and to striking out at those they fear as a means of defense. Whether the fear is false or not is irrelevant; actually all fear is false because fear is a product of the mind.
The second problem is that there are unscrupulous politicians and self-styled leaders who are willing to take advantage of this dynamic, to light a fire under it till it explodes, providing them with the power they seek at any cost.
When even Buddhist monks encourage this dynamic, one can feel that all is lost. That we have irretrievably lost all touch with our humanity, which is not to be cruel to ourselves or others, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
This is a moment for all religions to band together, put their best foot forward, and counter this descent into human hell. It is also time for each of us to look at our own actions, especially within the family, and start raising children who are happy and secure. Which is why I wrote the book, Raising a Happy Child. This situation we find ourselves is not the natural human condition, which we must try to return to.
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@RLH - all fear is false? What's false about it?
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@MCF
I replied this morning, but I never got a notice that my reply was approved. So I'm replying again, because you ask a very important question. The facts that are the occasion of fear are not false. The situation is not false. But the emotion of fear, as with all emotions, are a product of the mind. It has no inherent existence and thus is "false." Whether one loses a job, or is diagnosed with an illness, or whatever, one has to deal with the situation, but fear is not a necessary part of it. The fear that we feel is a result of our insecurity and our worrying about the future. And if you are consumed by fear, you will not make good judgments about how to deal with these situations. Whereas if you face them with equanimity, which is possible, you will be at peace and make rational decisions. Given how we are raised and our life experiences, this is not an easy thing to attain, but it is possible.
This is the Buddhist explanation of why we suffer, because we are controlled by the emotions, cravings, and attachments of the mind, rather than experiencing things directly, with dispassion, with the attitude things are the way they are because it's just the way it is. If you want to learn more about this, go to www.thepracticalbuddhist.com.
Imagine sitting in Jerusalem around 1919. "Those Jews want to become the majority, to impose their Western/Jewish ways on our traditional Palestinian way of life." No, you say, waving your New York Times paper around. But guess what? Jerusalem is now part of a majority Jewish ethno state.
23
Liberals like to claim that they are the voice of reason but how reasonable is it to suggest that a society that is widely divergent in innumerable ways can be the most peaceful, productive society. It is not surprising that small, homogeneous countries in Europe are some of the richest, least violent places on the earth (e.g., Switzerland).
64
A country with four official languages is "homogeneous?"
9
@Benjo They are all proudly first and foremost Swiss and only secondarily German, French, Italian or Romansch, and have been thus for hundreds of years. Can you say that about any Western country that is now a hodgepodge of mutually hostile minorities, all resentful of the historic majority, whose ancient national identity is now called racist and xenophobic?
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@Tim Lewis Switzerland also has alarmingly high gun related crime (because of it's lax gun laws, but spare me) and is prosperous because it is the world capital of money laundering. Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world and is made up of four nations, not including unrecognised ones (the Cornish). Homogeneity is more a feature of the beggared Balkan statelets that, to great human cost, put a high premium on 'homogeneity' (see how their ghoulish hang-up on Muslims played out at Srebrenica).
9
Human nature, greed, wars, hatred, fear of the other. It's too much to overcome. These conditions will end when aliens from other planets visit us and we humans band together to protect our tribe. I've seen the movie.
9
Like other commentators, I find the use of the expression false fears in the title highly debatable when all serious demograpahic studies show that the non-European share of the European population has increased extremely rapidly over the last 40 years eg. % of births to non-European parents in France has doubled from 20% of the total in 2001 to 40% in 2017. Also, since recent immigrants are highly concentrated in our major cities, this trend is even more marked in urban areas.
Furthermore, since a majority of non-European immigrants are Muslim, see https://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/
and since a large share of this population adheres to the Wahhabi/Salafi variant of Islam promoted all around the world by Saudi Arabia since the early 1980's, see https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/publications/islamist-factory, this is both a natural cause of concern and is progressively generating more and more negative reactions.
Does the author think that people are blind and/or stupid and that they should simply acquisce and accept the progressive Islamisation of their societies?
I always wonder how "progressives" can reconcile their defense of the fundamentally regressive and anti-Western agenda of the Islamists (putting it mildly) with their promotion of a progessive social agenda. Anyone care to answer?
70
@Donna that question will never be answered in good faith because it is a paradox of modern progressivism.
17
@Donna You have, I'm sure quite accidentally, conflated Islam with Islamism in citing L'Institut Montaigne. The article you cite deliberately makes the distinction clear at the top. As to the fears about Muslims, they are no different from fears in older times about Jews, africans, catholics and so on. It is the fear itself that never goes away, while the communities subjected to it stay the same. If it weren't Muslims it would be some other group. Here in Britain it is not only Muslims, but Poles who are allegedly going to swamp us. In another decade it was Vietnamese boat people, or Jamaicans In America trump is now insisting that islamic terrorists are coming in through the Southern border (as though flying to Guatemala and then walking to Dallas were somehow the easy route). I always wonder how "conservatives" can reconcile these arguments with reality, while insisting their old demagogies are new and present dangers. The progressive argument is that this old tactic of fear mongering ought not to be indulged.
10
@Donna
I'll hazard an answer:
If it doesn't get social media buzz, validation or likes over the next 48 hours, it simply isn't relevant. It isn't about the agenda, it is first and foremost about feeling good about yourself.
Contradiction solved.
2
Immigrants commit far more murders in the United States than white nationalists because the United States has about 44.5 million foreign-born residents and only a few thousand white nationalists.
The Government Accountability Office conducted a 2011 study that showed 25,064 undocumented immigrants were arrested for homicides from August 1955 to April 2010. This works out to about 455 murders a year, just counting homicides committed by illegal immigrants.
According to a recent joint Homeland Security/FBI bulletin, white extremists killed 49 Americans from 2000 to 2016, about three murders per year.
Illegal immigrants commit on average about 445 murders a year while white nationalist on average commit about three murders per year.
"Criminal Alien Statistics," page 21. Government Accounting Office, March 2011 at https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11187.pdf)
"White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat" at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3924852-White-Supremacist-Extremism-JIB.html
12
@William Case
11 million undocumented immigrants commit 455 murders per year. That's a rate of 4.1 murders per 100,000 undocumented immigrants. This is in line with the overall murder rate in the United States, suggesting that undocumented immigrants are no better or worse than native-born citizens and documented immigrants, on average.
"A few thousand", let's call it 5000, white nationalists commit 3 murders per year. That's a rate of 59.9 murders per 100,000 white nationalists. This is 14.5 times the rate at which undocumented immigrants commit murders.
Clearly, white nationalists are 14.5 times more dangerous than undocumented immigrants, on a per capita basis. Lucky for us, there are far fewer of them.
30
@William Case
A quick search in the Anti Defamation League data base gives a list of 221 incidents, many with multiple victims, of right-wing and white supremacist murders from 2002 to 2019. Dylann Roof's murder of 9 people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC in 2015 counts as one "incident". Robert Bowers' killing of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg, PA in 2018 counts as one "incident".
The actual average number of murders by white extremists is somewhere between 25 and 50 per year, not 3 as you are trying to claim. That is a horrendous number for "only a few thousand white nationalists".
It is possible that an average of 455 undocumented immigrants are arrested (note that William Case's statistics were for arrests, not convictions). That is a tiny number out of a population of 12,000,000.
https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map?s=eyJpZGVvbG9naWVzIjpbIlJpZ2h0IFdpbmcgKEFudGktR292ZXJubWVudCkiLCJSaWdodCBXaW5nIChPdGhlcikiLCJSaWdodCBXaW5nIChXaGl0ZSBTdXByZW1hY2lzdCkiXSwiaW5jaWRlbnRzIjpbIkV4dHJlbWlzdCBNdXJkZXIiXSwieWVhciI6WzIwMDIsMjAxOV19
5
I think the problem is multi-faceted, as the authors describe.
I would separate certain issues from others.
Most of us do not really understand Northern Ireland, but it seems like an age-old religious war.
In the US, we have always had lone troubled young men who have latched onto crackpot theories of victimhood. They are the exception, but are dangerous. I do not think this is a new trend, but social media has surely connected them and helped them congeal their prejudices.
The Islamist threat around the world is real and dangerous to unsuspecting, welcoming societies. Islamist groups take advantage of Western naivete, and their goal is to replace Western civilization. They have convinced themselves that only their creed is valid and is required to right the world. That is a deadly supposition.
I do not think we know the origins of the Burmese tragedy, but I know from a Burmese Protestant family that religious tension and violence has been raging for at least 50 years.
I do not see how democracy can be blamed:personal and group insecurities have always existed in every society.
21th Century trends of reduced and less discriminating reading and thought processes can also play a role here: social marxism is spouted and creates general discontent with Western civilization/ It has been a creeping social philosophy spread in universities and media.
13
This is one of the rare news articles that highlights a root cause. Majority is a concept that is known to prevail in many ways other than just people numbers. The power of majority comes up with a responsibility when it comes to exercising it and this is where the just (as in justice) encounters all else that is not, e.g. greed, ego, the denial of infallibility etc. The resultant is pointless conflict and generational pain, one after another. Despite the human capacity to learn, we are poor learners when it comes to finding the balance between just and power, despite a well documented history.
1
Hmmm, maybe we all can't "just get along!"
But, wait.
If our ability to get along, to live with others who are not exactly like us in look or thoughts or beliefs was so strained, there would be no cohesion in this world at all.
Yet, here we are.
The VAST majority of humans can get along.
They see each other as individuals and natural human tendencies for empathy and neighborliness, courtesy and good will are the order of existence everywhere.
You and I, left to our own relationship and a chance to smile and break bread are fine.
It's a frightened dogmatic minority, with thoughts often whipped up by the cynical, power hungry leader or fanatic that drives the wedge.
If we learn that we can succumb to negative tribalism, if we are taught that this is a very dangerous place to go, maybe we can inoculate ourselves, build up antibodies to the disease of suspicion and enmity.
Humans are able to learn and adapt.
Let's teach something good and push back.
Let's always stress positive impulses and learn not to let fear cloud our better side.
The good people are everywhere, even among those with strong or dogmatic beliefs.
Good people… decent, thoughtful people rule the everyday world in everyday ways. You see it every day in countless ways.
If not, none of us would still be here.
18
‘False Fears’ says the title to the article. Charitably interpreted the meaning is that those scared are wrong to be afraid. While the demographic shift identified in the examples are in some cases demonstrably true not false -Protestants becoming the minority’s in Northern Ireland, whites ceasing to be the majority in America - those ceding their majority position should sanguinely accept the change.
Uncharitably interpreted the term ‘False Fears’ is symptomatic of some sort of social constructivism view - there are no ‘facts on the ground’ only representations - a shift in interpretive frame will reveal we can get beyond ethnic or religious partisan loyalties.
Beyond identifying a trend and admonishing those who cannot get beyond ‘like me’, ‘like us’, the authors are coy on this point, wallowing instead in the warm waters on their own virtue.
27
Democracy permits this to happen.
5
The narrative of this article was probably written right after the bombing with the thought that Nationalist Buddhist were the ones who did it.
6
Native Americans reacted violently to replacement by European settlers. But today the United States accepts more than one million legal immigrants every year. Today, the United States has 44.5 million foreign-born residents to, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. They make up 13.5 percent of the population.
12
The violence against Tibetans and Uighur by China shows that some cultures will dominate absolutely. China is doing everything in its power to destroy the Tibetan and Uighurs identity, language and culture and they are succeeding because no one will stand up to China.
16
One really can't discuss this subject without ever mentioning the paranoid aspects of fear. People imagine all sorts of bizarre and improbable threats not grounded to any reality. Why do we do this? Is it primitive animal urges bubbling up through the veneer of our conscious thought? One thing for sure: It's not good for anyone.
5
I am, still, a small d democrat. That said, it needs to be recognized that it is perfectly rational in a democracy for a majority group to resist changes that lead to their demographic decline. The big D Democrats who see everything in racial terms see this resistance as racist. In some cases it is. It certainly isn’t always. For example, how would the Democrats change their tune if a massive number of immigrants arrive who feel abortion is wrong and that everyone should own a gun?
85
@Jon F
"The big D Democrats who see everything in racial terms see this resistance as racist. In some cases it is. It certainly isn’t always."
In theory, humans are supposed to be rational and not so animalistic, and our reason lets us triumph over our own racist thoughts. That has allowed Democracy to flourish even if "they" overrun us; and the "they" have been German immigrants in Benjamin Franklin's day or Latino immigrants in our day.
People react animalisticly, myself included, when different skin-tones and different dialects move into the country. But we can reason, and we can accept that people will and do for the most part assimilate and become "American'. The immigrant's children will walk, talk, dress and consume the way you do now. It's always a just a matter of time and a matter of of you and me "thinking" rather than reacting.
8
Most immigrants from south of the border are Catholic and do believe abortion is wrong. So there goes that narrative.
23
None of this should be surprising. With good evolutionary reason, humans are intensely and inherently xenophobic -, 'other' is dangerous and frightening. Throughout human history, strangers could introduce disease or portend violent invasion. As a result, no society welcomes externally imposed demographic change, whether through conquest or mass immigration.
This may prove to be globalization's most difficult challenge - getting disparate people to overcome millions of years of evolutionarily logical suspicion and welcome millions of 'others' into their midst. A happy outcome is by no means assured.
69
@JBR
Genetic data shows that fears of replacement are not irrational paranoia. History is a story on one population replacement after another.
25
@JBR
Globalization is divided into winners and losers. Depending on your definition of what globalization is and when it started the West is losing. China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India are winning (won).
Globalization delivered for many impoverished nations however these drastic changes in power dynamics have seriously destabilized the world and this is only getting worse.
Globalization in its current form has failed for the US and frankly, I believe its highly probable only a matter of time before one of many countries, turn this new post-soviet world order extremely violent.
With relation to this article, immigration is dangerous and destabilizing if done poorly and it has been. Millions of uneducated immigrants who have been raised with completely different values and will raise their children with completely different values do not create multicultural utopias they create massive often violent slums.
28
In the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some Protestants alleged a danger that the Catholics would outbreed them.
6
This article has no mention of a bloody 30 year civil war in Sri Lanka between Sinhalese and Tamils that only recently “ended” with many issues still unresolved. You’d think that would have some bearing?!? It’s not as simple as the author tries to make it out
20
@HistoryRhymes - the article talks about that civil war in the 11th paragraph.
2
There's a reason that Kosovo exists today, when it was part of Serbian and Serbian majority fifty years ago. It filled up with Albanian Muslims.
32
WRONG.
When my family came to this country, we wanted to fit in as much as possible. Sure we spoke our native tongue at home, but we learned English and adopted all of the customs of our beloved new home.
Most people in the "majority" welcome newcomers who come to THEIR land who welcome their culture and want to be a part of it. The MELTING POT... a term that we hear little about these days I am afraid.
Its the newcomers, who come are welcomed but then not only want to form their own separate society but change the existing culture... whether it be language, dress, religion, treatment of women where the "majority" has a problem. As the article points out, this is not just in America, or Europe but World Wide
106
@Sara
It is the difference between an immigrant and an invader.
29
@Sara
Very true. You don't go to a foreign country, exploit their welcome, and start telling them what to do.
Whatever happened to "when in Rome, do as the Romans do?"
30
@Brian I'm not saying there won't be push back, but when you become a US citizen you get all of the rights and privileges that come with it, including having a voice in how the place is run.
Educating people on the Age of Enlightenment philosophy that the nation was founded upon can help make better citizens out of everyone that lives here. The logic/reason that framed the country is the "culture" that is inherently implied when reference is made to "American culture" (at least it ought to be). That's the software that needs to be mapped on to everyone's system of thought, so that we can all live compatibly with one another.
2