While you are correct about Germany, you are completely wrong about France. Since 1789, the great debates in the country have been about 'What makes one French?' You see very little of the Volkist nonsense that causes the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon hearts to go pitter-patter.

The French believe theirs is a universal nation no less than America and immigration has been part of the story forever. Gambetta, PM in the 1870s, was the son of an Italian who started a grocery in Cahors. The issue for French people is first and foremost language. One must speak French and speak it reasonably well. The next issue is adhering to the national ideology, and here's the rub. Is that Catholic? What about Protestants from the Cevennes or Provence? What about the fact that most French are non-believers and that has been the case for about 150 years? A good Black Catholic like Henri Lemery could be in Petain's cabinet without anyone batting an eyelash. But, at the same time, Jews and Protestants were dismissed from the civil service unless they were military veterans and Jews were barred from the professions entirely. Yet, Petain's PM had a Jewish wife.

Germany is so structurally hostile to immigration, even that of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe or the Volga, that the notion that it could ever be an 'immigration country' seems ludicrous. And if they started to allow a large number of immigrants into the country, no matter where they are from, it would only be a short while before they fired up the ovens again.

Except that Germany is already only 10% German and there are no subsequent Lemerys in business, government or entertainment. Maybe a few mercenary soccer types.

Germany is 92% German. Most of the rest is Slavic, only 2% is Turkish, yet the Germans can't stop whining about them, showing how little has changed.

There is at least one Muslim in the current French cabinet. Jospin's PM would have been Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Jew. Mitterand had a Jewish PM, Fabius. Jospin is a Protestant. Giscard's hand-picked choice to be head of the EU was Simone Weill, a Jew. Many leading intellectual celebrities in France like Bernard-Henry Levy, Andre Glucksmann, even Jacques Derrida are Jews. The Ukrainian Beregovoy and the Lebanese Balladur were PMs. There are few Blacks at the upper end of the French spectrum but there are simply very few Blacks in France, well under 1%, although I do know one who was the Prefect of Bas-Rhin.

Le Pen was in a run-off in France, not Germany. The head scarf ban was in France. The French are who you think the Germans are.

Immigration (as opposed to any outside threat) is the only thing that has the potential to unmake America. These economists calculate immigration created net losses for native born Americans $68 billion in 2002.

Even if one accepts the notion that America is 'premised' on 'ideas', our unrestrictive immigration policies is creating a class within our borders which because of their numbers can exist indifferent to and unreachable by any American ideas and premises, something those of us who don't live in lilly white states are able to witness first hand.

carter:

The Klan says it's cost even more.

OJ,

LePen got a rousing 15% in the Premiere Tour enough to get him into the second. He narrowly beat Jospin, who lost votes to a whole slew of left candidates. In the Deuxieme he got 18%.

If there were a two way race between Bush and David Duke, Duke would be good for 18% wouldn't he?

Also, the FN has replaced the Communists as the party for working class people mad at everything to vote for. Any survey taken of FN voters shows that a substantial majority of them voted Communist at some time or other, the only major party in France where that is the case.

The head scarf ban also affected crucifixes, crosses and yarmulkes. This is a conservative or nationalist move?

carter,

Stuff and nonsense. Where I live, there are as many people who speak a non-English language as much as English in their daily lives. Between the commuter bus and my regular supermarket, I will hear Spanish, Tagalog, Russian, Armenian, Korean and Chinese on every given day. Coworkers of mine are native Spanish, Cantonese, Hindi and Tamil speakers as well. I get my veggies from a Korean guy in a market where Korean Gospel is playing all the time.

Everybody smarter than a toaster understands that in order to achieve in America beyond the rank of busboy or maid you have to speak, read and write English. They want their kids to speak English and demand that their kids learn it in school. It is the political class that hinders this.

How do I know this? Look at the ads of private concerns. There probably isn't a NYC subway car that doesn't have at least one company advertising in Spanish 'Aprenda Ingles!' There are infomercials on Spanish language TV and radio for cassettes and tapes to learn English at home in your spare time. On the #1 ranked Spanish Language TV show in America, Sabado Gigante, a variety show, they even run ads to 'Learn English the Sabado Gigante Way!' These would not exist if there were not a very large market for such companies. The fact that there is such a market for these products indicates that these folks don't wish to be stuck in a linguistic ghetto.

OJ, does the Klan actually care about how much immigrants cost the economy? I would assume they oppose immigration on purely racial grounds.

But the Klan's views have no relevance to the economic analysis I linked to. By the way the Communist Party of the United States shares your views on immigration and open borders.

Bart - you describe how immigrants can live and work speaking only to others of their own language, and they can watch televsion in their own language, you observe how the 'American political class hinders' assimilation, yet then support more immigration? I don't get it.

carter:

Folks who obsess over the "costs of immigration" are Klansmen with better manners. The period of "open borders" has seen twenty years of uninterrupted and unprecedented economic growth.

Bart:

Duke would get less than 1%, but can't get the nomination here. He did in France.

It's nationalism. Nationalism is racial.

Carter: You would agree, I trust, that to get a true picture of immigration we should also look at the contribution to GDP made by immigrants and their descendents. Accepting your $68 billion, and doing a little bit of rough math, leaves us with a net annual gain from immigration of, oh, let's say, $11 trillion.

David
The primary issue regarding immigration and the economy is "who" is immigrating and what niche they are filling in the the labor market. (also as you point out, which niche there descendants are going to fill) The only significant immigrant group in the last 15 years is Mexicans. They are in fact going into low wage jobs and are acting as a subsidy for low value added manufacturing, services, and agriculture. This certainly helps profits for those companies, but the point is those low value added industries and agriculture are not the future.

This is causing malinvestment in those industries (manufacturing, chicken processing etc) and agriculture, while the country would be better off directing it's capital to high value added enterprises.

If we could control are borders, and choose the appropriate types of immigrants we wanted (such as Eastern Europeans, Chinese, South Asians, and Koreans) who have a culture and inclination to go into more appropriate enterprises than picking strawberries, like for instance medicine, computers, engineering our country would be better off economically than it is now.

You refer to future generations. OK I think the country will be better off economically (and socially) with 10m Koreans in the second generation than 10m Mexicans in the second generation.

By the way if you and OJ have to continue the altruistic Ellis Island narrative, you can make that North Koreans instead of South Koreans, which should give you sufficient SOB stories to work with since North Koreans are presently living in under more severe conditions than Mexicans.

h:

We should take them all.

h:

We've always taken dross.

carter,

My Korean grocer knows that he can make more money selling vegetables to me, my Anglophone friends and neighbors than by just selling to Koreans. That incentive is sufficient for him to ensure that his kids are fluent in English even if he struggles.

Neither of my parents was raised in an English-speaking home and both of my parents have walls full of academic honors and graduate degrees. There is no reason why that cannot be replicated by today's immigrants. I work with immigrants every day and see how they act, how they raise their kids. It isn't a whole lot different from my parents' experience so I'm hopeful.

As for foreign language TV, I like to lie down and watch French language movies all the time, or listen to French music. My rendition of Edith Piaf's 'Je ne regrette rien' is to die for. Am I somehow being un-American?

h-man,

Your point is an interesting one and well-taken, if bluntly expressed. The trajectory of Mexican immigration is not that different from that of other Catholic working-class immigrants to the US, particularly Southern Italians. For centuries, people who came here to do scut work have pushed their kids to bigger and better things and our society has gained for it. When a billboard painter can become rich enough to buy the Anaheim Angels like Arte Moreno was, there's hope for anyone.

oj,

David Duke won the majority of White votes when he ran for Senate in Lousiana.

'Klansmen with better manners'? Nothing about professors Davis and Weinstein suggests they are anything of the sort, and that insinuation is about as reasonable as calling pro-immigrationists 'Communist dupes'.

Communists support it because of inanbe economic theories like those you cite--they think it'll wreck us.

H: Two indians were on the beach when the Mayflower landed. One turned to the other and said, "There goes the neighborhood."

Don't forget the Clovis people.

Linguistically, there's fairly good evidence that there were at least three waves of Siberian immigrants during the Pleistoscene. Then there's the archeological evidence of even earlier waves whose languages never survived, having been wiped out by the later waves.The waves would probably have continued if global warming hadn't melted the ice that made such primitive immigration possible. So the American Indians have little reason to complain about being done unto as they did to earlier immigrants. They were fortunate to have a ten thosand year or so time out in isolation, and other than some new crop staples (maize, potatoes, etc.), little to show for it.

David (and Raoul also)

Precisely my point. The pre-existing cultures are placed at risk. (yes I realize you are implying that the pre-existing culture was inferior to the immigrating culture, but sheer numbers can overwhelm and damage the previously accepted premises that the antecedent society was based on)

Bart

Gene Autry seemed like an adequate exemplar of Americanism and beisbol, and presumably Arte Moreno is also. I wish his fellow Mexican Americans were as ambitious as is, but sometimes the exception proves the rule.

Regarding David Duke it should be said that the primary issue in that campaign was (1) exploding crime rate and (2) Affirmative Action for minorities. On neither issue were Republicans willing to oppose the prevailing liberal/socialist zeigeist. Duke was the default candidate and now that Republicans have been willing to take up the cause Duke is back to doing whatever he does (holocaust denial etc.)

I dispute that in that campaign he received signifcant votes for repression of any group.

I find it interesting how Duke got into this thread due to the ornery nature of some people, who refuse to dispassionately discuss issues without resorting to ad hominen attacks.

h:

I find it interesting that you're defending him.

I try to be interesting. (but actually the defense is of the voters in La.)

Who voted against Bobby Jindahl because he's dark-skinned.

They may not ever have seen his face. "Jindahl" would spook anyone as a name without some explanation. Would you vote for someone named P. Diddy or Obama or Malcolm X, or Evelyn Waugh without knowing something about him?

After all in Louisiana someone with a sensible all American name like Waylon Thibodeaux might be reluctant to vote for someone with a furriner's name.

But have it your way Oprah.

h:

"spook" good one!

h,

Precisely the point I was making to OJ about the LePen vote. I have a great deal of trouble believing that 60% percent of White males in Louisiana are racists and anti-semites so vicious that would support a racist and anti-semitic candidate who had nothing else going for him. He was a vehicle for protest.

LePen's 18% in the 2d round of the last Presidential election in France was the same thing. The notion that the proves some kind of Nazi-like tendency among the French bespeaks only a malicious ignorance on the part of the person making the claim.

Bart:

You can't be serious. They're all French--they'
d like nothing better than to put you on a cattle car to the East.

Would you say the same about the Duke voters in Louisiana? And if not, is there any reason besides Francophobia?

Yes. I just did. Note the "all"?

Duke's margin came from Terry Bradshaw territory in Louisiana, where the WASPs live. The Cajuns were far more likely to vote for Johnston, preferring the crook to the hood. So what is your point?

Le Pen and Duke did as well as they did for racial/nationalist/darwinian reasons and nothing more.

Have you ever spoken to voters for either one?

OJ
You and Bart are right to vilify David Duke as a anti-semite and racist. He ended up with I think 41% of the vote in the final run-off with Edwards (who also is quite a work of art)

Above I gave reasons why Duke got the votes he did at that time. I could also say that Guiliani victory in New York a couple of years later was due to the same factors. Guiliani good, Duke bad, no problem from me. Don't forget that crime in major metropolitan areas was sky high at that time.

Vitters lost to Blanco 52-48. (you and Bart are better at research than me, but) Indications while I was on the web was that Vitters got 9% of the black vote despite earlier predictions of 17%. Surely this would indicate he got a significant majority of white votes. (black are approx. 30% of voters. The Vitters vote was similiar to the Landreau-Terrell results.

To move from those facts to cattle cars is too much for me to grasp.

Can't leave just yet. My understanding is that Vitters was only 32 years old. Not overwhelming negative, but certainly a rational reason other than racial prejudice as to his losing.

Geeze Bobby Jindahl not Vitters. (slaps head)

h:

He led in to the final weeks when she began playing up his skin color in rural LA. Then she pulled ahead. It was just racism.

"she began playing up his skin color in rural LA"

Now how in the h*ll can she do that, when over half of Democrat votes are almost always black. I sure would have like to have hear those radio ads.

She had blacks, needed whites. Knew how to get them.

http://www.brothersjudd.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=blanco+race

h,

I'm with you on this one. Duke and Le Pen both benefitted from a 'protest vote' not merely a racist vote. If 60% of Louisianans are vicious racists, then we are in real trouble as a nation.

As for Blanco, I thought she pulled the race against Jindal out by running on her Francophone heritage, right out of the Edwards playbook. She played up, not his skin color, but the fact that she was a francaise, acadienne.

In contrast to?

I think I remember somebody calling Jews in Germany un-German.

Adolf what's-his-name, wasn't it?

Yes, he was a Darwinist and considered them a race. Thus demonstrating the point.

For that to make sense, all German Christians would have had to have been darwinists, too, since they all agreed with him.

Could be but seems improbable.

That the Ukrainian Uniates and Croat Catholics, who subscribed to the same beliefs when presented with them, were also all darwinists surpasses any possibility of belief.

I understand how desperate you are to absolve Christianity of Jew-hatred, Orrin, but it won't wash.

Harry:

Christians hated Jews for two thousand years. Ten years of Darwinist rule in Germany nearly wiped out European Jewry.

Hate is easy. Exterminationism requires Darwinism.