Saturday Forum

A Pennsylvania Reader Has A Two-Step Plan To Encourage Immigrants To Take Their Skills Back Home; etc.

From: D. F. Whipple (e-mail him)

Re: Randall Burns' Blog: Indian Immigrant Shot Down by Chinese Engineer

Burns has raised an important issue: the economic downturn is hammering immigrants. They're starting to realize that the American myth dangled in front of them while they slaved away in corporate dungeons is a bold-faced lie.

Since we're a long way off from getting a tough immigration policy passed in Washington, we need to take the lead in fostering the idea that immigrants should go home.

As a goal, we should use at least 50 percent of the immigrants who came here in the last generation.

Here's an example of what I mean.

I know at least one Indian in the hedge fund industry who's hanging on by a thread. If he loses his job—and he will—he's going to be unemployed with little hope of assimilating into the broader US job market.

Instead of watching his life's savings evaporate to zero, his best option is to return to India, where his modest life savings will buy a mansion, servants and the chance to start a business in a place where he's in the cultural majority.

Here are two things we need:

• First, to make the economic argument that any immigrant would be better off taking the skills he learned here and his American savings account and return to his original, native homeland. His other option is no longer practical: staying here in, for example, Northern Jersey or California's Silicon Valley.

• Second, to report on VDARE.COM anecdotes and examples of immigrants who are doing just that. This, hopefully, would spark a self-deportation trend by getting immigrants to think and talk among themselves that it's better to ditch their US fantasy and move on to greener pastures. Today, home must look better to many immigrants than they could possibly have imagined five years ago.

The immigration wave is more than forty years old and it won't be undone overnight. 

But we can use the prevailing economic winds to our advantage.

The Wall Street bubble and the immigration model have self-collapsed in large part because it required clobbering the American people.

Whipple, who worked on Wall Street for 11 years, earned a B.A. at Washington and Lee University and a M.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. His third novel, "Dasha," is available here.

A previous Whipple letter is here.

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An African-American Reader Says Whites Win Big In The Affirmative Action Race

From: Braveheart (e-mail her)

Whenever whites approach Affirmative Action they come down with collective amnesia.

They only refer to Affirmative Action as a negative for black people, and consciously choose to dismiss the fact that white women hijacked the program, used it to gain near- parity with white men, and now pretend that they never benefited from it in the first place.

White men almost always exclude white women from their affirmative action analysis. In their minds, Affirmative Action always boils down to the same thing: it's only bad only for black people.

The truth is that white men have benefited, even more than African Americans, because are married to, mothered by, and relatives of white women who have ridden the corporate and political gravy train to economic success.

Do white men really want their working white wives to stop benefiting from a measure that was initially designed to rectify centuries of government-mandated discrimination against African Americans and Native Americans?

I think not.

So they pretend white women are not germane to the debate -- and by extension, ignore that their enrichment from Affirmative Action does not exist.

Braveheart is an African-American woman who has opposed illegal immigration for 30 years. About blacks and immigration reform, she says: "When black people are quiet that means they don't support the person or the issue. You don't see black people supporting those who are demanding amnesty." Other letters from and about Braveheart are here.

Ed Rubenstein replies: Of course, white men whose wives, sisters, or mothers owe their jobs to affirmative action are de facto beneficiaries of the program.

That is, if they themselves haven't been displaced by their loved one's success. 

But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there is no intra-family competition. Is society better off?

Are whites as a group better off? Absolutely not!

Most white women who capitalize on affirmative action are well-educated, upper middle class individuals who, in the vast majority of cases, would have been hired even without the intervention.

Their husbands are usually equally well situated relative to the universe of white males.

Thus the program merely exacerbates the gap between upper and lower income whites, doing nothing for the latter. 

The same unintended consequence results in race-based affirmative action: educated Blacks and Hispanics win, their less advantaged counterparts lose.

Let's expand economic opportunity the old fashioned way: through education and hard work. 

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An Illinois Reader Says Mexican Pot Heads Grow Marijuana In His State, Too

From: Jedermann (e-mail him)

Re: Brenda Walker's Column: Mexican Gangsters Converting America's National Parks Into Gigantic Marijuana Patches

When I was in the military, I was stationed only seven miles from Point Reyes, CA half way between the Pacific Ocean and Petaluma.

That area was one of the most idyllic spots on the planet. But, after reading Walker's column, I guess it's not anymore.

Illegally growing pot in our national forests is more than a law enforcement issue. The military needs to be called in to restore order.

And the Mexican criminals are not only growing dope in California but also all over the country—even in the forest preserves surrounding Chicago.

Maybe Barack Obama will solve that problem too - just like he's promised to do with so many other social issues.

Jedermann is a technician from the Chicago area.

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A California Forester Says Climb To High Altitudes To Avoid Trouble With Mexican Pot Growers

From: Steve Funk (e-mail him)

I enjoyed Walker's excellent article on pot plantations.

In my forest service career, I was fortunate to work above 3,500 feet most of the time.  At this elevation, growing marijuana is marginally feasible, and the five times I saw evidence of cultivation on my district were just small time operations by local amateurs.  

Adjoining districts at elevations of 1,000 to 2,000 feet had a much bigger problem.  A fish biologist doing a stream survey was shot at once.  

If VDARE.COM readers are looking for a safe hike, the high elevation wilderness areas are still their best bet.

Funk is retired. His previous letters about global warming, censorship at the Sacramento Bee and Fox News' bias are here, here and here.

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A California Educator Says The Only Thing Politicians Know About Geography Is Where Mexico Is

From: Kristin Kroll: (e-mail her)

Why was everyone so amazed that Sarah Palin didn't know much about geography?

I wrote to VDARE.COM earlier saying that. in my experience, many high school graduates could not do long division with decimals.

The fact is that the only thing politicians know about geography is where Mexico is.

Let all of them—starting with George W. Bush— take this simple quiz before they go throwing stones at others.

Kroll is a Northern California educator. Her previous letter about Barack Obama's sexism is here. A second Kroll letter presenting a true-life racism quiz to VDARE.COM readers is here.  

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