Sonno L'Italiano Americano
An interesting thought from Julian Sanchez at Reason:
...a little thought experiment: Imagine you've got a community of proud Americans living abroad for whatever reason, say in England. And suppose that even if they're perfectly happy there and doing what they can to fit in to their adopted society, their identities as Americans remain important to them. Now imagine—and this shouldn't be a stretch—that they begin to feel as though they're under attack as Americans, that the prevailing attitude in the country has become anti-American. They respond by staging a rally at which they wave lots of American flags, asserting their pride in who they are and where they've come from. Do the people who're livid over the Mexican flags find any part of this offensive?
To the 3 of you who visit every so often - discuss.
On a side note, I've an Italian flag hanging in my office. I don't have an American flag. My father, an immigrant, has several American flags in/on his car. Hmm...
posted by Mr. mXp @ 2:25 PM
3 Comments:
I'm thinking that I don't know how to get around the legality issue. I'm for immigration and a complete over-haul of our system, including the addition of partner rights for same-sex couples (such as where one person is not a citizen). A friend of mine who identifies as an immigrant asked me at work: "Why should I go march in a parade with illegals when I worked my butt off to be here legally? Why should they get the same documents and rights I do?" -- and I still don't know quite what to say.
i was listening to wmcs 1290 a few weeks ago and the topic was giving driver's licenses to only citizens in Wi. a caller stated "a lot of people are arguing against this saying 'the illegals will still drive anyway, why can't we make sure they're licensed and legal.' and I know alot of brothers who have fines built up that they didn't pay. and they take away their license. but you know what - they are gonna drive anyway, so why don't we just let them keep the license if you are gonna make an argument about unlicensed illegals."
to which i can only say, wow, good point. this whole issue is not as black as white as many try to make it seem.
Now we're making progress in the discussion. Nothing is as black and white and brown as F Jim wants us to believe.
These are people's lives and our 230 year heritage. Solving it in a soundbite won't work.
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