Victory Soap v. 2.0

I've never gotten in a sweat about those panic stricken folks screaming about, for example, the influx of immigrants from Mexico.

Okay, I do believe illegal immigration is a major problem from a national sovereignty standpoint, but the huge majority of people coming to the US want to be Americans, or at least enjoy the advantages being American brings. While the racist idiots such as MeCHA (if I have the mix of caps and lower case right) get far more than their share of attention, they are a tiny minority, and further nearly all of them are US born idiots suffused with the typical adolescent self loathing most Western youngsters go through.

I can't see a downside to people coming here from whatever cultures, provided they come to be American. Nearly all of them do want that, even if they end up opening Pho shops or sell big chrome wheels to pimp your ride. Who cares if their last names are Nguyen or Sanchez or even Mohammed so long as they buy into America? Those who do not are a problem, but not one that reflects on the millions of other immigrants.

Oh, and only a moron would prefer ad hominem arguments.

Are you calling me a moron?

Well, he's set himself up so that he can't call you one without calling himself one.

Immigration is like much in life, a moderate amount is healthy but too much is damaging.

No, not at all. I'm merely saying that people who use ad hominem arguments are stupid shitsucking assweasels.

I mean, nobody could disagree with that.

Except a total moron.

AOG -- yes, I agree. But my point is the reason to be against illegal immigration isn't because of the race (or ethnic group) of the immigrants, but because it's breaking the law. The reason to be wary of too many immigrants coming from a society with a culture markedly different (in belief system and customs) from the host society isn't because the immigrants will "outbreed" the people in the host society, but because the differences in belief systems and customs between the two will cause tension and friction if not controlled in some manner. That's why our country sensibly used to insist immigrants subordinate their own native ways to a certain "American standard." The fact that we've undercut ourselves in this area is due to a number of factors, but none of them are because the race of the immigrants is "different" from ours.

But that's just here. Europe's problem is that they seem to have allowed too many immigrants into their countries without bothering to assimilate them in any way. This is probably due to the fact that the prejudices and bigotry that we Americans are always flagellating ourselves over are actually much stronger and more entrenched in European countries. It does not seem to even have occurred to very many Europeans that their immigrants were 1) there to stay and not just short-term laborers, and 2) that these immigrants were human beings like themselves and therefore had families, beliefs, imperatives, and so on, that they took as seriously (or even more so) than Europeans did. Europe's been coasting for a while on their reputation as the center of Western culture, but their coasting days have come to the end.

One more objection I have to all this "it's in the blood you're born with it" theme of the anti-immigrant contingent -- saying culture is genetic is an easy out; if you're born knowing how to obey Western laws, or at least having a tendency to prefer peaceful arbitration instead of settling everything with a knife fight (which the argument of the blood-'n'-birthers boils down to), then you don't have to go to much effort to learn anything or be trained in your native customs, do you? You can... just coast. And turn into Europe.

As I understand it, there's also, in Europe, a 3) actively encouraged immigrants not to assimilate, but to form enclaves. More "multicultural", you know. That whole "melting
pot" idea is so American, after all.

Anyone claiming culture is genetic is going to have a difficult time showing it, is all I know.

(Pedantic note: Argument ad hominem is the claim, roughly, that "you're wrong because you're [something bad]".

Mere insult, however, along the lines of "you're wrong and you're [something bad] (but you'd be wrong even if you were a saint, because your position is simply not correct)" or more commonly "the incredible and obvious wrongness of your position is evidence that you're a complete idiot" is not ad hominem.

Well-deserved insult is neither a logical fallacy nor necessarily a bad thing, and it is fun.)

Okay, well deserved insult. Fine, there are plenty of candidates for those. Actually, way too many because if we ensured that everyone who deserved one got it it'd cheapen them considerably.

Anyway, I can't see how anybody could claim culture is genetic (although from what little I understand of Chomsky's theory on innate language it seems that particular theory might be made a vehicle for such a claim - not that I see it would be defensible). P.J. O'Rourke once observed that a Japanese baby raised in Riyadh would be - an Arab.

The flaw in that argument is that the xenophobic and racist culture of Arabia would never accept a Japanese baby as one of its own.

But Europe's real problem is that they accepted huge numbers of immigrants who had no intention to assimilate, and never expected them to do so anyway. So today, even though their children have been born in, say, France and are French citizens, they are not and will not actually be French culturally. They have allowed a huge hostile alien population to establish itself in their midst.

In retrospect, really dumb. What boggles my mind is that you wouldn't have needed hindsight to see it was dumb.

Mark Steyn (steynonline.com) often has some very un-KKK-like things to say about relative birthrates.

Just because some idiots concur with an idea does not automatically invalidate said idea.

We have perhaps found a new logical fallacy here: "Supported by unpleasant people, therefore false". Can somebody who knows Latin turn this into a catchy phrase, like "post hoc ergo propter hoc"?

It's not a new logical fallacy at all, but then you prove by your inability to understand what I wrote that you don't know very much about logic. I didn't say the situation was false because people I disliked believed it, I said that the growing tendency of too many people who are worried about the birthrates of white Northern Europeans and their descendants is to head down that good old slippery slope into xenophobic hysteria. This makes me not want to have anything to do with the discussion, never mind my own beliefs about the situation.

Mark Steyn... Mark Steyn... gee, his name sounds familiar. Should I have heard of him?

Thank you for the link to the logical fallacy, but I would have preferred a Latin name for it.

Many kooks participate in most arguments these days. I'm curious why slippery sloping kooks keep you out of the very interesting birth rate discussion. I think you would have something worthwhile to say.

The q-tip / knife fight crack was pretty cute.

"I would have preferred a Latin name for it."

Why, are you a Latin snob? We speak English here. Since there is no particular reason to "prefer" Latin over English for describing these or any terms, except for having another Latin phrase to wow the stupids with, you must be one of those people who go around saying "faux pas" instead of "mistake." In any case, there are plenty of Latin translation sites as well as books that can help you turn that boring old English into swinging, hep Latin.

"I'm curious why slippery sloping kooks keep you out of the very interesting birth rate discussion."

Because I don't want to talk to racists. When they enter the discussion, I leave it. Look at it this way: some people are fascinated by excrement, poking at the stinking pile with a spoon, wondering what made up its contents, how long it had been there, analyzing the strength of the stink. I am not one of these people.

As a matter of fact I do have things to say about the apathy and self-hatred that is driving (for want of a more supine, feeble word) people in the wealthier countries to self-extinction, but I'll get to it when and where (and if) I please.