A reader sends me this article, written by a British journalist who became an American citizen. I was going to read it all but I felt myself slipping into a coma before I’d even got through a quarter of it, so I’ll just leave you with this:
I have been thinking lately about a letter that I received from President Barack Obama in the fall of 2011.
…
That year, I was one of roughly six hundred and ninety thousand people to get this letter, along with Certificates of Naturalization from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service confirming that, as the President put it, “this great Nation is now your Nation.”
…
It spoke of the sacrifices made by generations of immigrants who had come to the U.S. in the pursuit of a better future. Obama called it “the price and the promise of citizenship,” and concluded, “We embrace you as a new citizen of our land, and we welcome you to the American family.”
Okay, right. But:
[Trump] tweets about undocumented immigrants ready to “infest” or “invade” the nation, and anyone who takes offense at the suggestion that his words echo Nazi propaganda hasn’t looked at Nazi propaganda of late.
So this new, proud immigrant who America has welcomed with open arms and with the expectation of contributing something positive and upholding responsibilities sees fit to accuse the President of distributing Nazi propaganda. There’s gratitude for you, eh?
I used to say that I was just as American as Sarah Palin. (Now I would say that I am just as American as Donald Trump—or, certainly, as Melania Trump, who also arrived in America as a young woman.) Did I feel like an American? To paraphrase Gloria Steinem, this is what an American feels like. I was one. I am one. Like it or not.
Ah yes, the idea that handing someone a passport simply makes them American, French, or British. How’s that working out for national unity?
Now, in the summer of 2018, thirty years after arriving in New York with two duffel bags and a scholarship from N.Y.U., I am exercising my choice: I’m leaving.
Good news for America I’m sure. The bad news is she’s moving to London.
She’s also making that ridiculous conflation that the dishonest left love to make of legal and illegal immigration. She was a legal immigrant. She had to be screened, show some commitment to the US, be tested for that commitment and so on (though here clearly that failed) Trump wants to stop illegal immigrants. Who could be literally anyone that crosses the border.
Love the ads I got for this post: “How to really fuck women. Mega-boners all night long. See how.”
I second Mal’s observation on legal versus illegal immigration. This is a distinction often intentionally blurred, like that between “war refugee seeking asylum from political persecution” and “illegal economic migrant scumbag lying about their origins”. Currently, every black sub-saharan African picked up by a do-gooder boat within 200 metres of the Libyan coastline is a “refugee”. Or so we are told.
That said, that you can, even wrongly, accuse the president of Nazi propaganda, or pretty much anything you want, without repercussion, is one of the things that makes America great.
“That said, that you can, even wrongly, accuse the president of Nazi propaganda, or pretty much anything you want, without repercussion, is one of the things that makes America great.”
There are loads of Chinese students in British universities, some of whom stick around after graduation.
If they ever take a look at the newsstands, or online, or spend a moment listening to all the student demonstrations that take place, they surely can’t have failed to notice how much we lampoon and denigrate our elected leaders.
I wonder what they make of it all – that as a country we are disunited, disorganised and disloyal? Or that we are free?
On topic: America’s a big place. Very diverse (I mean this in the wider sense, not the skin-shade-tallying headcounting manner). The liberal urban areas where middle-class migrants often have lived and worked aren’t “America”. They’re American, but “not America”, as the Beyond The Fringe crowd put it. I think few people can possibly even experience “America” – to in their lifetimes to have spend serious time in more than a handful of the 50 states, to have had the small-town experience, and the glorious wilderness, and the thousands of acres of farmland, and the big bustling metropolis? One of the best things about the US presidential election system is that it forces candidates on at least a whistlestop tour of swathes of the country, and to have to engage with segments of the electorate who might be outside the comfort zone of their political base.
Oh, she’ll have fun when trying to open a bank account wherever she moves to.
Bet she’ll blame Trump for that too, even though it was her beloved Barack’s fault.
I don’t remember Barry welcoming illegal immigrants when he was in office.
Doubt the yanks will be tearing up at the prospect of this fuckwit heading back to Blighty. I didn’t read the article and won’t, but I’ll bet there is a far more material reason for her leaving the US.
Paper Brits,paper yanks etc, time and sweat equity earns you a place not a certificate.
That said, that you can, even wrongly, accuse the president of Nazi propaganda, or pretty much anything you want, without repercussion, is one of the things that makes America great.
It is, but what remains to be seen is whether a country which imports people who actively seek to undermine one half of the legitimate political setup immediately upon arrival will be able to maintain such greatness. Frankly, I don’t think immigrants should be permitted to take part in the political process until they’ve been resident for at least ten years, if at all (and I include myself in that). If they want to change a society, they can change their own, not someone else’s.
‘… that you can, even wrongly, accuse the president of Nazi propaganda, or pretty much anything you want, without repercussion, is one of the things that makes America great.’
This clip should be mandatory viewing for every American. See also latest from Mark Steyn (last guest spot on Tucker and latest Clubland Q&A) where he ridicules the American backslapping over the 2016 election’s ‘peaceful transfer of power’, as if all other Western nations collapsed into civil war after their elections.
The Newsroom’s Will McAvoy: ‘And with a straight face, you’re going to tell students that America’s so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, BELGIUM has freedom. So, two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.’
While that freedom is being eroded, that applies as much to star-spangled awesome ’murca as anywhere else.
E.g. in Britain we recently fined someone for making a joke video about a nazi pug; in U!S!A!land, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was imprisoned for making a video that USG didn’t like.
E.g. in Britain, our coplets come after people for even politely questioning muslim women (see Matthew P. Doyle); in the US they get fired and made virtually unemployable (see Justine Sacco, Pax Dickinson, Brendan Eich)—or arrested for swearing in frustration at an inefficient 911 service when trying to get an ambulance after their father has a seizure (Adrianne Ledesma).
Etc.
All Western Civilisation, no nation excepted, is on the road to Hell, and the only difference between any country is how far they’re along and how fast they’re travelling; but everyone is on the same road to Hell.
“So, two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.”
Seems someone can’t count. Or has an abnormally low standard for “freedom”.
Moreover, bigger countries (let’s say above 80 million population) seem disproportionately likely to be “unfree”, so as a proportion of the world’s population Americans, Brits, Australians, and west Europeans are lucky to have what we do. China, Russia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Vietnam, DR Congo, Iran and Turkey are pretty obviously members of the unfree club, or have governments rapidly trying to take them that way. But there are serious issues over democratic control, government corruption, censorship/free speech or with the justice system in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and the Philippines, and if you’re on the wrong end of social problems or government dysfunction in Brazil or Mexico or India then you’re arguably not “free” for practical purposes (I guess “as free as you could expect to be for a poorer country” is a thing).
in Britain, our coplets come after people for even politely questioning muslim women […]; in the US they get fired and made virtually unemployable
So that conflation of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ is a British thing, apparently.
MyBurningEars: ‘Seems someone can’t count.’
Take it up with the scriptwriter. It’s a TV show, not a political science lecture. The basic point the character made is correct: Americans patting themselves on the back for their ‘freedom’, as if America invented it and kept the recipe for themselves, achieves nothing and distracts them from trying to resolve their many problems.
MyBurningEars: ‘But there are serious issues over democratic control, government corruption, censorship/free speech or with the justice system in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria …’
A 2012 Pew Report found that ‘Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate. / More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters. / Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.’
A disturbing account from a volunteer poll-watcher:
USAland has its own political corruption to deal with.
As for their justice system, Mark Steyn has remarked how stacked it is: ‘the feds win 99.5 per cent of cases (97 per cent without a trial)—a scorecard that would impress Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-Un.’ He described the Robert Mueller verdict as ‘a noble stand—particularly when you’re looking at two centuries in gaol. So today he beat the rap on ten charges and was convicted on eight others. That was something else I noted in Conrad’s case—the multiple-charge racket. In the Black case, he prevailed on nineteen-twentieths of the US Attorney’s case, but the one-twentieth he didn’t win was enough to ruin his life. That’s how it goes with multiple-charge bingo: You have to win on all; they have to win on just one.’
For my own part, I’ll note that a justice system that can kill an innocent man on camera as he cries and begs for his life and tries desperately to comply with the contradictory instructions being screamed at him, and then exonerate the uniformed killers, is basically 3rd World-tier.
Daniel Ream: So that conflation of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ is a British thing, apparently.
U!S!A!fanbois love them their technicalities: destroying someone’s livelihood for expressing an opinion is just Jim Dandy, is it? (Now they’re no longer working, they’ll have all the more time to appreciate our goshdurn-wonderful ’murcan freedom!)
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
If only you a greater attention span, you might have reached the end of that sentence and read about Adrianne Ledesma’s arrest ‘for swearing in frustration at an inefficient 911 service when trying to get an ambulance’ after her father suffered a seizure.
“I’ll note that a justice system that can kill an innocent man on camera as he cries and begs for his life and tries desperately to comply with the contradictory instructions being screamed at him, and then exonerate the uniformed killers, is basically 3rd World-tier.”
Now that one I’ve absolutely got to grant you. Almost mentioned it myself – was going to make a specific point about the state-authorised extra-judicial killings in the Philippines, but that if the US police shot you then you’re not going to be feeling the freedom either. I suppose if you wanted to draw a distinction it’s that US cops can be too trigger-happy (and with racial bias in the results too) whereas what’s going on in the Philippines is “worse” in that those killings are targeted and politically sanctioned. But that difference is of little use to the victims.
@ScotchedEarth – “All Western Civilisation, no nation excepted, is on the road to Hell”
The American superhighway to Hell is quite an interesting one to drive down with some major signposts along the way.
Whist the Reds were running amok in Europe relentlessly assassinating all of their best Kings, Queens, Czars, Dukes, etc it was inevitable that some cancerous poison pills would slip into the US unnoticed amongst the many good European immigrants that sailed there back in the day. Some anarchists like Emma Goldman were out there blatantly terrorising and organising but the real threat that has proven indestructive right up to this very day is the unnamed and all powerful “Fellow Travellers”.
A drive down the US Highway of Hell will take you past the public milestones such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR, the censure of McCarthy, the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, 9/11, the War on Terror…………………………
“Frankly, I don’t think immigrants should be permitted to take part in the political process until they’ve been resident for at least ten years, if at all (and I include myself in that).”
I think it depends, Tim, in large part upon whether said immigrant is what we might call a “good faith immigrant”.
By way of example, when I left the UK for the USA, I went several years without voting. Clearly, I was not able to legally vote over here until I became a citizen. And, while I was legally entitled to vote in UK elections, it didn’t seem right to vote in theirs after I’d thrown in my lot with the USA.
None of that was particularly onerous to me because I had long been a US Constitution fanboy and it was all part of a plan in which I came not to change the society but to belong to it.
I like to think that I’m more representative of immigrants from the UK than the brainwashed cunt who wrote the article is. My friends here would agree – indeed several of them have said that the UK’s biggest problem today is that anybody who’s any use leaves and comes over here. That’s how this country got started, after all.
I’ll grant that establishing some kind of purity test is next to impossible but would assert that that difficulty plus Chesterton’s fence mandates against your proposal. If I’m right, you’d be throwing out an awful lot of babies, to get rid of a little journalistic bathwater.
Don’t get this. I thought all the snowflakes were fleeing the foundering SS.Brexit. She coming back to re-arrange the deckchairs before it sinks beneath the waves?
Any bets on whether she renounces her US Citizenship or not? Of course she won’t. Dual citizenship can be useful when you owe no real allegiance to anyone.
I think it depends, Tim, in large part upon whether said immigrant is what we might call a “good faith immigrant”.
I dunno. If you want to move to another country it is by definition more preferable than the one you’re leaving, and the inhabitants have made it that way without your input. I’d not have a problem with the vote being denied to anyone who wasn’t born a citizen: if you want to have a say, stay at home. I explained this in more detail here.
Any bets on whether she renounces her US Citizenship or not?
Given how hard that is to do, no. And she wouldn’t even if it’s easy.
Dual citizenship can be useful when you owe no real allegiance to anyone.
Indeed.
Another immigrant speaks:
@MyBurningEars: ‘US cops can be too trigger-happy (and with racial bias in the results too)’
The militarisation of their law-enforcement is a real problem:
Balko, Radley. Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (2013)
Balko, Radley. “ ‘Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book’: The new warrior cop is out of control.” Salon, July 7, 2013.
Hinkle, A. Barton. “It’s time to train officers not to shoot dogs.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 7, 2013.
Fund, John. “The United States of SWAT?” National Review, April 18, 2014.
Burns, Jack. “Police Cadets Quit, Expose Dept. for Training Cops to View Public as ‘Cockroaches’ they’re at War With.” The Free Thought Project, May 1, 2018.
Race was not a factor with Daniel Shaver as not only was he white, Mesa county is only 4% black. There was also the shooting of Philando Castile, a black shot by a Hispanic cop; but video shows no evidence of the cop being worried he was dealing with a black gangster, the encounter beginning amicably enough before the cop freaked and emptied his magazine into Castile. Note that Castile informed the cop that he was carrying within half a minute of him arriving at his side-window.
If a squaddie deployed to Northern Ireland (Op. Banner 1969–2007) had stopped even a known terrorist who announced that he had a firearm on him, that would serve to reduce rather than increase tension—the squaddie would assume the terrorist was surrendering, otherwise why announce it? He would be far more worried about the terrorist keeping quiet about a carried firearm, getting ready to use it at first opportunity.
Note comments on this post. Many believe it reasonable for a citizenry to sit petrified of so much as twitching if a cop stops them (e.g. comments by Jimmy, Jen CF, Fort Cannon, Diane Howard, etc). Fort Cannon’s post is particularly interesting: he smugly writes that he is a ‘retired cop’ and when stopped, first announces that he’s ‘a cop’—i.e. cops are special and get privileged treatment. Also, describing himself as ‘a cop’ rather than a retired cop means he’s committing the offence of impersonating a police officer—ironic, given thread’s debate on whether Castile’s firearms permit was valid due to a previous conviction for possessing controlled substances.
As bad as British police now are (and getting worse), the public doesn’t fear being killed by them (as long as we don’t find ourselves facing armed police levelling HKs in our direction). And when stopped by them, we can stretch our legs, reach into the glove compartment or pockets for documentation, fags or sweeties, scratch our nuts or arses; all without asking permission or getting mags full of hollowpoints emptied into us. That there are Americans terrified of doing any of that on a routine traffic stop who still witter on about Muh Freedom is retarded.
America is nothing special compared to most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and whatever other countries are considered ‘First World’—a little better in one or two areas and a sight worse in many others. That is the point explicitly made by Mark Steyn—Americans pat themselves on the back for things that are absolutely normal by First World standards.
And the real point is that the West is going down. All of us. And we’ll not stop our civilisation dying if we’re patting ourselves on the back, proclaiming how great we are when we are anything but.
This (abbreviated) excerpt from the article:
Allen; You’re not wrong about the “no real allegiance to anyone”
She covers that:
While Donald Trump was being sworn in, a few blocks away limousines were being torched, shops smashed, and the cops were popping tear gas into crowded streets.
The Pacific Northwest cities embarked upon a fortnight or so of rioting.
During the election campaign the Mayor & Police Chief of a west coast Sanctuary city declared that rioting & violence against people attending a Donald Trump speech was justified, and not a police or law & order matter.
I do not know of another western liberal democracy where such things happen during an election campaign or during “peaceful” transfer of power.
Australia?
Belguim?
Britain?
Canada?
Denmark?
Finland?
France?
Germany?
Ireland?
Japan?
New Zealand?
Norway?
Sweden?
Switzerland?
Only in America – as the saying goes.
a) They can’t impeach Donald Trump soon enough for me. This damn stupid trade war of his impoverishes every single person on the planet, especially those of us who live in what some call sh*th*les and others call developing nations.
b) Rebecca Mead I hope that you find benefits scrounging more profitable in your native UK than in your adopted US. Way back in the day, there was little or no safety net for immigrants. If you didn’t make it you starved. Now the entire purpose of illegal immigration is to be caught by that safety net. Legal immigrants are harshly screened to ensure they will never be a burden on the state.
Steve,
Yes I saw that. It would appear her only purpose for becoming a US citizen was for purely personal financial reasons, and convenience. I always hope that people who come to the US to become citizens are doing it for a few better reasons.
“Real” Americans don’t pack up and leave when their candidates lose elections.
She’d probably counter that Trump is Hitler so it’s no longer business as usual. I remember the time when Bush II was Hitler and there was no exodus of the dissidents. Bush had Florida and the presidency handed to him by the Supreme Court so there was a whiff of usurpation about his presidency until 9/11. In contrast, Trump survived recounts in several states. They only confirmed his procedural legitimacy.
Good point, Steve @6:09am, I’d forgotten (or conflated it with the ongoing antifa violence before and after their election). Also, during Obama’s tenure, there was much outrage at various displays (parade floats and the like) mocking him, and in one case a rodeo clown was ‘permanently banned from performing at the [Missouri State Fair] ever again’, belying the contention that one can say about POTUS ‘pretty much anything you want, without repercussion’.
So, not only are some Americans boasting about matters normal by First World standards, they’re boasting on false grounds—the very things they’re boasting about are deteriorating.
Bardon @5:55am; I’d dispute much poison needing to sail west, it being already there. There is much exaggeration, myth and lies surrounding the foundation of the United States; you might appreciate this series of articles, a revisionist look at American history from US Army Maj. Danny Sjursen—latest here (has links to all previous instalments).
Since when does any citizen, immigrant or not, owe a shred of gratitude to a president or any other state functionary? Maybe that’s how it works for subjects, but certainly not for citizens.
Since when does any citizen, immigrant or not, owe a shred of gratitude to a president or any other state functionary?
No, but I think the state of a country’s immigration policy can be fairly criticised if new citizens immediately set about calling the president a Nazi.