http://www.msnbc.com/news/606515.asp

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2001

Answers

IMO the new immigration is good. It adds a dynamic to NYC and to wherever it is happening (ie, everywhere) that energizes and enriches. It shakes up the status-quo. It tends to keep entrenched labor, business and political forces honest. It strengthens the economy.

My biggest concern is that it does not get totally out of hand. America is a sovereign nation. It does have a culture. It has a right to not be overwhelmed by aliens from wherever. The immigration must not occur so rapidly and uncontrollably that huge social dislocations occur (ethnic, class, environmental, criminal or economic). For the good of the immigrants as well as for the good of the present citizens, English must remain the official language. Immigration must be legal (Aye, there's the rub. How many of which group are to be admitted? How is illegal immigration prevented? Politics, politics)

Question on Russian immigration: does anyone know what percentage is Russian-Russian and what percentage is Jewish-Russian? Does the Russian "mafia" tend to be dominated by either of these groups?

-- Anonymous, July 30, 2001

100% of the population of the USA including the so-called Native Americans came from someplace else.

Your lament "right not be be over run" has been heard since 1608 in the 2nd year of Jamestown. And in the woods nearby, the Native Americans were looking at each other and saying, "There goes the Fucking Neighborhood. Its time for us to pack up and get out of here.".

-- Anonymous, July 30, 2001

True, but that was before it was the USA. Lighten up, I basically agree with you (unlike the good doctor).

-- Anonymous, July 30, 2001

Lars, if I didn't know better (and I really don't), I'd think you were a starry-eyed liberal.

It's painfully apparent you've never BEEN to NYC; at the very least, you haven't been there in ten years and/or seen the "real" NYC. Sigh.

Charlie, give it up. I don't even read the boards any more. I peruse maybe once a week. This was it. You have my email addy if you want to communicate. I just don't feel like wasting my time any more.

Not a bash to anyone; just the way it is.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2001

Sorry you've left the boards Patricia. I agree, there are better things to do.

So you may not see my reply for another week. Here's the deal--there is a significant strain of Conservatism that is very internationalist, pro-immigration, pro free-trade, pro free-market, pro-growth. This mentality is consistent with the economics of Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, Hayek and many more.

You're right, I haven't been in NYC since 1973. But most cities have had major demographic changes, not only NYC.

You know better than I that 100 years ago, WASPs were saying very similar things about Italo-Americans that you have said about Russian immigrants. It's human nature.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2001

There was a difference when the wasps (English) said things about the Italians. The Italians knew that the English were wearing animal skins for clothes and living in caves when the Italians had a civilization merely 2,000 years ago. Worse things were even said about the Greeks. This revealed a provincialism in the US that was laughable considering that Rome preserved the wisdom of Athens for posterity.

In many ways, Russian never was able to come out of the agrarian serf economy and attendant sociology pre-1917. Even in the fields of Sicily, the farmers sing Verdi.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2001