Political Roundtable Part IX

[pcbothwel]

KKK Doughnuts has an interesting ring to it though... but in all seriousness, I actually challenge that assumption of needing to protect people.
Example. KKK Deli opens up and says "Whites only". Fair enough, you've just eliminated about 40% of Americans and your market share is dwindling.
Then you have to take out all the white people who would detest a place that would be that openly racist.
Then you take out the group of white people who may not "appalled", but they still dont agree with it.
The next group you have are white people who may be racist, but wouldnt dare be seen by their friends, neighbors, or coworkers in an openly racist deli.
So really you have reduced yourself to the extreme minority of white people who are racist and they dont care who knows it. Oh, and you lose a couple of them because your food sucks.

And seeing as 90% of Americans approve of gay marriage and 95% would vote for a black president, you're out of business and quick. Ain't the free market something else...

[pineappleheadindc]

KKK Doughnuts has an interesting ring to it though... but in all seriousness, I actually challenge that assumption of needing to protect people.
Example. KKK Deli opens up and says "Whites only". Fair enough, you've just eliminated about 40% of Americans and your market share is dwindling.
Then you have to take out all the white people who would detest a place that would be that openly racist.
Then you take out the group of white people who may not "appalled", but they still dont agree with it.
The next group you have are white people who may be racist, but wouldnt dare be seen by their friends, neighbors, or coworkers in an openly racist deli.
So really you have reduced yourself to the extreme minority of white people who are racist and they dont care who knows it. Oh, and you lose a couple of them because your food sucks.

And seeing as 90% of Americans approve of gay marriage and 95% would vote for a black president, you're out of business and quick. Ain't the free market something else...

We're having two different discussions. I was trying to review the actual LAW and jurisprudence. You're having a philosophical discussion.

But, sticking to an actual fact set, I would tell you that in my personal lifetime, "whites only" has been a honest to God reality in our America -- regardless of your overly simplified, unnuanced, and false trust that "whites only" would be something the free market would take care of. The free market did not eliminate it. Laws that banned it eliminated it.

[pineappleheadindc]

.
By the way, I just abhor how "religious liberty" is being used as an excuse to hate on entire classes of people. As a public service, I've provided, below, a simple checklist for anyone to use to check if their "religious liberty" is being violated. Y'all can thank me later.

[TGW]

KKK Doughnuts has an interesting ring to it though... but in all seriousness, I actually challenge that assumption of needing to protect people.
Example. KKK Deli opens up and says "Whites only". Fair enough, you've just eliminated about 40% of Americans and your market share is dwindling.
Then you have to take out all the white people who would detest a place that would be that openly racist.
Then you take out the group of white people who may not "appalled", but they still dont agree with it.
The next group you have are white people who may be racist, but wouldnt dare be seen by their friends, neighbors, or coworkers in an openly racist deli.
So really you have reduced yourself to the extreme minority of white people who are racist and they dont care who knows it. Oh, and you lose a couple of them because your food sucks.

And seeing as 90% of Americans approve of gay marriage and 95% would vote for a black president, you're out of business and quick. Ain't the free market something else...

It's this type of thinking that makes me laugh at libertarians.

There are establishments in America today that pretty much operate as "white only" establishments. They don't need a penny from the other 40% of Americans. Perfect example would be Congressional Country Club here in Potomac, MD. Are they openly racist? No. Are they a "members only" club that restricts membership to pretty much white people? Yes they are. I worked there as a cook back when I was in high-school, and I can name 2 black members during my entire tenure there: Michael Jordan and Buck Williams.

As for white people not supporting racism, well Michael Slager, Darren Wilson, and George Zimmerman received hundreds of thousands of dollars for their defenses. Pretty sure they wouldn't have gotten a penny if they had shot white people.

[dckingsfan]

Your recollection is....Accurate. Somehow people tend to believe that whatever political party they are against has cornered the market on evil, ignorance, anti-americanism, racism, hatred, killing, etc... While both parties practice the same war time acts and treat the citizens of their country the same. Don't be fooled by a Donkey or an Elephant--- apart from Trump all of these guys are singing from the same sheet of music. Which is WHY no body in establishment wants Trump to win- (Btw... I'm not a fan of Trump...I am just giving you my opinion)

Time to start a party

Yeah now that the basketball season is over and we have all this time on our hands....lets start a party that leads righteously. Wait...who gets to decide what is righteous? If it's ME - then let's roll ..but if it's you...we should slow down and have elections.

I would think that party would leave the righteous behavior to the hard political left & right

Actually, isn't that what the Rs and Ds have become, the parties of the righteous?

[DCZards]

CobraCommander wrote:
Your recollection is....Accurate. Somehow people tend to believe that whatever political party they are against has cornered the market on evil, ignorance, anti-americanism, racism, hatred, killing, etc... While both parties practice the same war time acts and treat the citizens of their country the same. Don't be fooled by a Donkey or an Elephant--- apart from Trump all of these guys are singing from the same sheet of music. Which is WHY no body in establishment wants Trump to win- (Btw... I'm not a fan of Trump...I am just giving you my opinion)

The so-called establishment are not the only ones who fear a Trump presidency. So do an overwhelming majority of women, Hispanics, blacks and young people.

In Trump's America women are jailed for having an abortion, illegal immigrants are rounded up and put on buses headed back to their home countries, and Muslims are kept out of the US and mosques are shut down.

The Repub establishment doesn't hate Trump because of the book he's singing from. They oppose him because they're politically astute enough to recognize that a Trump candidacy for president would drag down the entire Repub party.

[nate33]

Pop's post appeared to assume that Obama supporters have unconditional acceptance
or agreement with everything he does. I assure you that is not the case.

Going back to DCK's post about people wanting to kill us or at minimum, hate us,
I think everyone agrees that we want and need to be protected from those ready
to perpetrate violence or harm against us. The fine line is how best to do that
in a way that doesn't create more people of a similar ilk in the process. This is
obviously not an easy problem. I don't think anyone believes it is. Well, actually
I think there are some people who do think and propose simple fixes for these
complicated problems and I can think of at least one who gets a lot of media
attention for his simple fixes. These simple fixes sound plausible to those who
have not studied or don't understand history because they don't ask themselves
(or anyone else) the question, Then What? Or they rationalize immorality in response
to threats.

I agree with you Jim that that is not the case. I reread my post and can’t find anything there that would lead one to believe that I thought it was the case, so not sure where you came up with that.

Setting that aside, and assuming you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are both R’s and D’s that support illegal immigration for a myriad of reasons. Some for business purposes, some for reasons of compassion, etc.

The president is a smart man. He knows that by taking in as many Latinos, Muslims and Asians as possible, either through prosecutorial discretion or through the refugee process that eventually D’s may be able to dominate future elections. He also knows that by providing them with govt. welfare ASAP after their arrival he will ingratiate himself and his party to them and earn their loyalty. The icing on the cake is that the 48% of working Americans that pay no income tax (overwhelming D’s) won’t have to finance the scam.

It’s Machiavellian of course but probably the fastest, cleanest implementation of Cloward-Piven that I’m aware of. I admire the President’s intellect. I just wish he had used it to strengthen, not weaken the country.

Or perhaps he (the President) thinks it's the humane/prudent thing to do.

We can debate if he's right or not but it doesn't necessarily have to be the Machiavellian motives you ascribe to him.

Don't get me wrong. It's an added benefit but might not be his sole motivation.

Just something to consider.

No, Popper's summary is absolutely correct. Obama's is perfectly willing to weaken the country in order to increase the power of his party. Why else would the party who is in favor of women's rights, gay rights and general socially liberal principles import hundreds of thousands of Sharia Law-advocating Muslims who are diametrically opposed to those beliefs? Why would the party who is interested in shifting limited resources to take care of the poor want to further strain the safety net by inviting more poor, uneducated people?

[dobrojim]

Pop's post appeared to assume that Obama supporters have unconditional acceptance
or agreement with everything he does. I assure you that is not the case.

Going back to DCK's post about people wanting to kill us or at minimum, hate us,
I think everyone agrees that we want and need to be protected from those ready
to perpetrate violence or harm against us. The fine line is how best to do that
in a way that doesn't create more people of a similar ilk in the process. This is
obviously not an easy problem. I don't think anyone believes it is. Well, actually
I think there are some people who do think and propose simple fixes for these
complicated problems and I can think of at least one who gets a lot of media
attention for his simple fixes. These simple fixes sound plausible to those who
have not studied or don't understand history because they don't ask themselves
(or anyone else) the question, Then What? Or they rationalize immorality in response
to threats.

I agree with you Jim that that is not the case. I reread my post and can’t find anything there that would lead one to believe that I thought it was the case, so not sure where you came up with that.

Setting that aside, and assuming you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are both R’s and D’s that support illegal immigration for a myriad of reasons. Some for business purposes, some for reasons of compassion, etc.

The president is a smart man. He knows that by taking in as many Latinos, Muslims and Asians as possible, either through prosecutorial discretion or through the refugee process that eventually D’s may be able to dominate future elections. He also knows that by providing them with govt. welfare ASAP after their arrival he will ingratiate himself and his party to them and earn their loyalty. The icing on the cake is that the 48% of working Americans that pay no income tax (overwhelming D’s) won’t have to finance the scam.

It’s Machiavellian of course but probably the fastest, cleanest implementation of Cloward-Piven that I’m aware of. I admire the President’s intellect. I just wish he had used it to strengthen, not weaken the country.

This fails to account for the fact that BHO has overseen the deportation of more illegals
than his predecessor by far (off the top of my head and without bothering to reference).
Or is your implication that Bush was either foolish not to deport more or more humane than
BHO and therefore predisposed to not pursue higher levels of deportation?

As far as your 48% train of thought goes, maybe Rs should spend more time thinking about
ways that would help to increase the incomes of those too poor to currently pay taxes due
to wage stagnation instead of complaining about a policy (EITC) that they cheerfully passed
and made happen as being helpful to lower income, but still working, families. Investing
in infrastructure might be one way to create good domestic jobs that would provide useful
things for the country. Too bad the Rs were too focused on obstruction to provide any
cooperation on the sort of things the parties used to agree on.

[dckingsfan]

wage stagnation...

Think that is caused more by deficit spending, bubble economics and Fed spending than anything else.

I don't think either party really gives a damn about this - at least not by their actions or proposals.

[nate33]

In Trump's America women are jailed for having an abortion, illegal immigrants are rounded up and put on buses headed back to their home countries, and Muslims are kept out of the US and mosques are shut down.

He immediately walked back that abortion comment. Trump is inexperienced on handling these kinds of ambushes from the media and screwed up in his response. That lack of dexterity when dealing with the media may in itself be a reason one shouldn't vote for Trump, but Trump's stance on abortion isn't any different than any other Republican in the field. I fully believe he is actually much more moderate on abortion, or perhaps the word is ambivalent. He clearly hasn't thought much on the matter, which is appropriate because the President doesn't really have anything to do with abortion.

I'm fully in support of the other two items in your statement. Illegal immigrants should be rounded up and put on buses back to their home countries. This is actually our legal position already. It's just that nobody enforces it. In practice, self-deportation would resolve the issue. You stop giving illegal immigrants welfare and you institute e-verify to prevent them from working, and most will leave. A few high-profile raids might help motivate others to leave as well. The notion that you have to go do-to-door to round up each and everyone one of of 12 million (or perhaps 30 million) illegal immigrants is just silly alarmism designed to shut down honest debate on the issue.

Muslims should be kept out of the U.S., or rather, our immigration system should be adjusted to only admit people who have a high likelihood of positively contributing to our economy and integrating into our culture. Being Muslim would be a big strike against you, but it's possible that other factors could outweigh that negative. And any mosques that are hotbeds for terrorist activity (if they do indeed exist like they do in England) should be shut down just as we would shut down any business that was a hotbed for gang activity.

[nate33]

This fails to account for the fact that BHO has overseen the deportation of more illegals
than his predecessor by far (off the top of my head and without bothering to reference).
Or is your implication that Bush was either foolish not to deport more or more humane than
BHO and therefore predisposed to not pursue higher levels of deportation?

This is a deliberate deception by the Democrats and media by using semantics. Bush didn't "deport" as may illegals because he stopped them at the border and immediately "returned" them without officially arresting them and entering them into the system. Obama massively curtailed the number of "returned" immigrants and slightly increased the number of actual "removed" (or "deported") immigrants. In reality, Bush physically removed a lot more illegal immigrants than Obama.

How is it possible that the two sides could look at the same data and see such different things? The key is how you define the term “deport”—and what you think about a broad change in policy that started during the Bush administration and has continued under Obama.

Under Bush, the majority of immigrants that the U.S. sent home were simply “returned.” Nobody took their fingerprints or put a permanent mark on their immigration records. Instead, U.S. authorities put them on buses and sent them back across the border. Between 2001 and 2008, there were over 8.3 million of these informal “returns,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. There were, by contrast, just 2 million “removals.” Those are the more formal deportations—the ones that go through some form of individual review, with an officer if not a judge, and become part of deportees’ permanent records.

But in the second half of the Bush administration, DHS decided to up the number of “removals” and limit the number of “returns.” The government hoped to deter immigrants from sneaking back into the country by making it clear that the U.S. knew who they were—and could punish them more harshly if they showed up again. Under Obama, DHS has stuck with this policy. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of deportations and informal returns was roughly the same—about 1.6 million each. Add up all the relevant numbers, you’ll see removals are on track to end up higher under Obama than Bush (Lind’s point in Vox) but that removals plus returns will end up higher under Bush than Obama (Davis’ point in The Federalist).

https://newrepublic.com/article/117412/deportations-under-obama-vs-bush-who-deported-more-immigrants

[Wizardspride]

I agree with you Jim that that is not the case. I reread my post and can’t find anything there that would lead one to believe that I thought it was the case, so not sure where you came up with that.

Setting that aside, and assuming you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are both R’s and D’s that support illegal immigration for a myriad of reasons. Some for business purposes, some for reasons of compassion, etc.

The president is a smart man. He knows that by taking in as many Latinos, Muslims and Asians as possible, either through prosecutorial discretion or through the refugee process that eventually D’s may be able to dominate future elections. He also knows that by providing them with govt. welfare ASAP after their arrival he will ingratiate himself and his party to them and earn their loyalty. The icing on the cake is that the 48% of working Americans that pay no income tax (overwhelming D’s) won’t have to finance the scam.

It’s Machiavellian of course but probably the fastest, cleanest implementation of Cloward-Piven that I’m aware of. I admire the President’s intellect. I just wish he had used it to strengthen, not weaken the country.

Or perhaps he (the President) thinks it's the humane/prudent thing to do.

We can debate if he's right or not but it doesn't necessarily have to be the Machiavellian motives you ascribe to him.

Don't get me wrong. It's an added benefit but might not be his sole motivation.

Just something to consider.

No, Popper's summary is absolutely correct. Obama's is perfectly willing to weaken the country in order to increase the power of his party. Why else would the party who is in favor of women's rights, gay rights and general socially liberal principles import hundreds of thousands of Sharia Law-advocating Muslims who are diametrically opposed to those beliefs? Why would the party who is interested in shifting limited resources to take care of the poor want to further strain the safety net by inviting more poor, uneducated people?

A lot of assumptions about Muslims in that post Nate....

[nate33]

No, Popper's summary is absolutely correct. Obama's is perfectly willing to weaken the country in order to increase the power of his party. Why else would the party who is in favor of women's rights, gay rights and general socially liberal principles import hundreds of thousands of Sharia Law-advocating Muslims who are diametrically opposed to those beliefs? Why would the party who is interested in shifting limited resources to take care of the poor want to further strain the safety net by inviting more poor, uneducated people?

A lot of assumptions about Muslims in that post Nate....

Please elaborate.

I've posted data on this several times already. Somewhere between 50 and 75% of Muslims want to institute Sharia Law. Sharia Law is manifestly incompatible with Western governance. It's basically a theocracy that is brutally restrictive of women's rights.

[popper]

Pop's post appeared to assume that Obama supporters have unconditional acceptance
or agreement with everything he does. I assure you that is not the case.

Going back to DCK's post about people wanting to kill us or at minimum, hate us,
I think everyone agrees that we want and need to be protected from those ready
to perpetrate violence or harm against us. The fine line is how best to do that
in a way that doesn't create more people of a similar ilk in the process. This is
obviously not an easy problem. I don't think anyone believes it is. Well, actually
I think there are some people who do think and propose simple fixes for these
complicated problems and I can think of at least one who gets a lot of media
attention for his simple fixes. These simple fixes sound plausible to those who
have not studied or don't understand history because they don't ask themselves
(or anyone else) the question, Then What? Or they rationalize immorality in response
to threats.

I agree with you Jim that that is not the case. I reread my post and can’t find anything there that would lead one to believe that I thought it was the case, so not sure where you came up with that.

Setting that aside, and assuming you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are both R’s and D’s that support illegal immigration for a myriad of reasons. Some for business purposes, some for reasons of compassion, etc.

The president is a smart man. He knows that by taking in as many Latinos, Muslims and Asians as possible, either through prosecutorial discretion or through the refugee process that eventually D’s may be able to dominate future elections. He also knows that by providing them with govt. welfare ASAP after their arrival he will ingratiate himself and his party to them and earn their loyalty. The icing on the cake is that the 48% of working Americans that pay no income tax (overwhelming D’s) won’t have to finance the scam.

It’s Machiavellian of course but probably the fastest, cleanest implementation of Cloward-Piven that I’m aware of. I admire the President’s intellect. I just wish he had used it to strengthen, not weaken the country.

This fails to account for the fact that BHO has overseen the deportation of more illegals
than his predecessor by far (off the top of my head and without bothering to reference).
Or is your implication that Bush was either foolish not to deport more or more humane than
BHO and therefore predisposed to not pursue higher levels of deportation?

As far as your 48% train of thought goes, maybe Rs should spend more time thinking about
ways that would help to increase the incomes of those too poor to currently pay taxes due
to wage stagnation instead of complaining about a policy (EITC) that they cheerfully passed
and made happen as being helpful to lower income, but still working, families. Investing
in infrastructure might be one way to create good domestic jobs that would provide useful
things for the country. Too bad the Rs were too focused on obstruction to provide any
cooperation on the sort of things the parties used to agree on.

Bush was foolish not to do a more effective job enforcing the borders. I believe he also ignored the visa over-stay problem and if I'm not mistaken, allowed the 9/11 terrorist to plot and roam free after their visa's expired. R's do spend a great deal of time thinking about ways to increase the incomes of those too poor to pay income taxes. I could write 10 pages off the top of my head but it would be far better for you and anyone else that's interested to get that information straight from the primary sources and not filtered through my addled brain. There are numerous reports, studies and recommendations available if one has the time and makes the effort to seek them out.

[DCZards]

In Trump's America women are jailed for having an abortion, illegal immigrants are rounded up and put on buses headed back to their home countries, and Muslims are kept out of the US and mosques are shut down.

He immediately walked back that abortion comment. Trump is inexperienced on handling these kinds of ambushes from the media and screwed up in his response. That lack of dexterity when dealing with the media may in itself be a reason one shouldn't vote for Trump, but Trump's stance on abortion isn't any different than any other Republican in the field. I fully believe he is actually much more moderate on abortion, or perhaps the word is ambivalent. He clearly hasn't thought much on the matter, which is appropriate because the President doesn't really have anything to do with abortion.

I'm fully in support of the other two items in your statement. Illegal immigrants should be rounded up and put on buses back to their home countries. This is actually our legal position already. It's just that nobody enforces it. In practice, self-deportation would resolve the issue. You stop giving illegal immigrants welfare and you institute e-verify to prevent them from working, and most will leave. A few high-profile raids might help motivate others to leave as well. The notion that you have to go do-to-door to round up each and everyone one of of 12 million (or perhaps 30 million) illegal immigrants is just silly alarmism designed to shut down honest debate on the issue.

Muslims should be kept out of the U.S., or rather, our immigration system should be adjusted to only admit people who have a high likelihood of positively contributing to our economy and integrating into our culture. Being Muslim would be a big strike against you, but it's possible that other factors could outweigh that negative. And any mosques that are hotbeds for terrorist activity (if they do indeed exist like they do in England) should be shut down just as we would shut down any business that was a hotbed for gang activity.

I disagree with pretty much everything you've written here (surprise, surprise) but I'm not going to waste your time--or mine--debating this. I long ago accepted the fact that you and I have--and will probably always have--very different political/world views.

I do have one question though. What exactly do you mean when you say "integrating into our culture"? Is there a single American culture? I don't believe there is. In fact, I suspect that you and I may also be very different culturally as well. Shouldn't ethnic and religious minorities be allowed to maintain their own culture, traditions, customs and rituals as long as they abide by our laws?

[dckingsfan]

...as long as they abide by our laws?

Can of worms officially opened...

[popper]

In Trump's America women are jailed for having an abortion, illegal immigrants are rounded up and put on buses headed back to their home countries, and Muslims are kept out of the US and mosques are shut down.

He immediately walked back that abortion comment. Trump is inexperienced on handling these kinds of ambushes from the media and screwed up in his response. That lack of dexterity when dealing with the media may in itself be a reason one shouldn't vote for Trump, but Trump's stance on abortion isn't any different than any other Republican in the field. I fully believe he is actually much more moderate on abortion, or perhaps the word is ambivalent. He clearly hasn't thought much on the matter, which is appropriate because the President doesn't really have anything to do with abortion.

I'm fully in support of the other two items in your statement. Illegal immigrants should be rounded up and put on buses back to their home countries. This is actually our legal position already. It's just that nobody enforces it. In practice, self-deportation would resolve the issue. You stop giving illegal immigrants welfare and you institute e-verify to prevent them from working, and most will leave. A few high-profile raids might help motivate others to leave as well. The notion that you have to go do-to-door to round up each and everyone one of of 12 million (or perhaps 30 million) illegal immigrants is just silly alarmism designed to shut down honest debate on the issue.

Muslims should be kept out of the U.S., or rather, our immigration system should be adjusted to only admit people who have a high likelihood of positively contributing to our economy and integrating into our culture. Being Muslim would be a big strike against you, but it's possible that other factors could outweigh that negative. And any mosques that are hotbeds for terrorist activity (if they do indeed exist like they do in England) should be shut down just as we would shut down any business that was a hotbed for gang activity.

I disagree with pretty much everything you've written here (surprise, surprise) but I'm not going to waste your time--or mine--debating this. I long ago accepted the fact that you and I have--and will probably always have--very different political/world views.

I do have one question though. What exactly do you mean when you say "integrating into our culture"? Is there a single American culture? I don't believe there is. In fact, I suspect that you and I may also be very different culturally as well. Shouldn't ethnic and religious minorities be allowed to maintain their own culture, traditions, customs and rituals as long as they abide by our laws?

I don't think there is a single American culture but the following encapsulates much of my thoughts on the matter. I would add to the following that we are a nation of laws (or should be), not men.

Edit - Our shared cultural philosophy should be, IMO, based on the following.

From the Declaration of Independence
……. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. ……..

From the Constitution
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The "Oath of Allegiance is an oath that must be taken by all immigrants who wish to become United States citizens.
The current oath is as follows:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.[2]

the phrase "so help me God" is optional and that the words ‘on oath’ can be substituted with ‘and solemnly affirm’.

If the prospective citizen is unable or unwilling to promise to bear arms or perform noncombatant military service, they may request to leave out those clauses. The request must be based on "religious training and belief",

[nate33]

I disagree with pretty much everything you've written here (surprise, surprise) but I'm not going to waste your time--or mine--debating this. I long ago accepted the fact that you and I have--and will probably always have--very different political/world views.

Fair enough. I can respect that.

I do have one question though. What exactly do you mean when you say "integrating into our culture"? Is there a single American culture? I don't believe there is. In fact, I suspect that you and I may also be very different culturally as well. Shouldn't ethnic and religious minorities be allowed to maintain their own culture, traditions, customs and rituals as long as they abide by our laws?

As you might imagine, this is another place where we are going to end up disagreeing.

I think the notion that you can have wildly differing cultures living in harmony is dangerous and untenable. A society must be governed by laws. In a free society, the cost of law enforcement is extraordinarily high. The cost to prosecute and imprison a murderer is $17M. It's about $500,000 for a rapist or armed robber. It's about $41,000 for a simple theft. The only way for a country to enforce the law and remain solvent is to have consent on what constitutes a crime, and a social contract where most citizens are law abiding and do not commit such crimes.

The problem is, when cultures differ, the people can't agree on what constitutes a crime and what punishment is suitable. A Muslim might consider homosexuality to be a crime punishable by a lashing, this is insane to someone of Northern European descent. In Latino cultures, the women tend to have children very young. It may think it's perfectly reasonable for a 25-year-old Mexican to procreate with a 16-year-old girl, which sounds like rape to me. Chinese immigrants may prefer to settle a theft matter "in house" though family channels rather than through law enforcement.

These types of cultural disagreements extend beyond crime and punishment. Those of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic descent have a culture heritage that lends them to be more laissez-faire economically. And to the extent that they favor social safety nets, it is discouraged to abuse them. This is partially due to them developing a wider circle of trust, which limits corruption. They feel bad screwing over people they don't even know very well. This is why the Scandinavian welfare states remained solvent for so long. Other cultures have a smaller circle of trust. They only feel bad when they screw over immediate family or tribal members. These cultures have proven to be utter failures at participating in, or running welfare states. The people immediately abuse the system and it collapses. This is why socialist countries throughout Latin America fail over and over again. It's simply not the ideal type of government for their people. Likewise, the cultures of the Middle East thrive best under rigid authoritarian schemes. It's the only way to maintain order and avoid civil war.

There is no practical way to smoothly blend these wildly differing cultures. The U.S. understood this up until 1965. This notion that the U.S. was always a "proposition nation" that took in immigrants from all cultures is completely false. All immigration practices prior to 1965 favored only European immigrants, or limited all immigration. Since 1965, the pattern has changed. The end result is going to be disastrous, and has only been mitigated by massive deficit spending to appease the disparate groups. When the printing presses stop working and there is actual competition for limited resources, things will get ugly. What happens when Michigan stops paying for Detroit? What happens when California can no longer afford police? What happens when the welfare checks stop supporting Somalians in Maine and Minnesota? What happens when the poor whites of Appalachia stop getting welfare checks?

[Zonkerbl]

We were also a wildly racist nation until 1965.

WWII taught us that racism is not a tenable basis for US culture.

There is a culture that will work in the U.S. It is based off the scientific method in the courtroom, separation of church and state in the classroom, tolerance for all religions, races, sexes, gender identity, respect for each other's rights, an understanding that the state serves the people and not the other way around.

Forcing everyone to adhere to the white male Christian cultural ideal will NOT work. It is based off of a lack of respect for non-white, non-male non-Christian people and is fundamentally opposed to the principles in the U.S. Constitution.

[TGW]

No, Popper's summary is absolutely correct. Obama's is perfectly willing to weaken the country in order to increase the power of his party. Why else would the party who is in favor of women's rights, gay rights and general socially liberal principles import hundreds of thousands of Sharia Law-advocating Muslims who are diametrically opposed to those beliefs? Why would the party who is interested in shifting limited resources to take care of the poor want to further strain the safety net by inviting more poor, uneducated people?

A lot of assumptions about Muslims in that post Nate....

Please elaborate.

I've posted data on this several times already. Somewhere between 50 and 75% of Muslims want to institute Sharia Law. Sharia Law is manifestly incompatible with Western governance. It's basically a theocracy that is brutally restrictive of women's rights.

This is a intellectually dishonest response, Nate. Yes, there is a majority of muslims who want Sharia law, but most of those muslims say sharia law should apply only to their country’s Muslim population, not Western countries.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/