Dumb Political Correctness

Unless you have evidence of some failing by the news organization (meaning that they knew it was false or failed to take some reasonable measure that would have revealed it's falsity), the case would be DOA. There's a reason why news organizations very rarely have to pay out money on the cases. They're almost impossible to win.

It would never get in front of an Odessa jury. It would get tossed on summary judgment. The plaintiffs might appeal, but they'd lose. Texas appellate court judges probably don't like the national media very much, but they dislike civil plaintiffs and their lawyers much, much more.

 

So the waiter says he will get the help he needs.
What help would that be?
Dude don't make stuff up and post on your FB.

Class over.

 

He referred to it as "Africa w[inning] the World Cup." If that's not elevating their race over their nationality, I'm not sure what would be.

That was in his walk-back. The original comment clearly prioritized their race. And it's easy to promote this blended identity concept when things are relative peaceful. What happens when they're not?

You mentioned that you're an ethnic German and learned some German. Did your grandparents hope for a Nazi victory in WWII? I'll bet they didn't. Why not? Because they defined their identity as Americans, not as Germans. If we applied Trevor Noah's mentality, at a minimum they would have been conflicted.

What about the internment of Japanese during WWII? That sounds terrible to us now, but under Trevor Noah's mentality, it's very defensible. We assumed (like Trevor Noah did) that their identity was defined to a large extent by their ethnicity (being Japanese) rather than by their nationality (Americanism).

Well, you look at what American and cultural values are, and people who come to the United States (especially if granted citizenship) should be taught to embrace those values. If it's clear that they aren't going to, they shouldn't be granted residency. For example, if a North Korean tries to get a visa and says he wants to come to the US to promote North Korean-style Marxism, we should keep him out. I'm not one of these paranoid people who thinks that sharia law is creeping around every corner, but if a Muslim immigrant actually says he believes sharia law should become the law of the United States, he should be kept out.

Really? Have you hung around places like North Lamar or East Riverside in Austin? Spanish is far more commonly spoken than English is, and most of those people aren't learning English anytime soon. And I'm not pointing that out to judge anybody like many do. It's not their fault. That's just how we are. We learn new languages as needed and according to the immediacy of that need. If we don't need to learn a new language, we generally don't because it's a pain in the ***. I can speak a little German, because I see and hear it every day and occasionally need to know it, but am I fluent? Hell no. Why not? Because I don't have to be in order to function. 90 percent of the people I encounter (even Germans) speak English. If I try to speak German to them, they can immediately tell that my German sucks and will start speaking English to me. What if that wasn't true? What if I couldn't pay my bills, couldn't set up utilities, couldn't buy food, couldn't make money, etc. without being able to speak German? I would have become fluent long ago, because I wouldn't have had a choice.

Same goes with Hispanic immigrants (at least the adults). They can mostly get by in Spanish, so they are going to be much slower to learn English. Frankly, that's our fault, not their. We diminish their need.

A few points on this. First, we've never had as big of a wave of immigrants as we currently have. We're in uncharted territory just in terms of the size. We've never had more foreign born.

Second, we followed up previous waves with cutting immigration dramatically. They were temporary states of relatively open immigration. Anybody who suggests following that pattern today is called a racist.

Third, we've never had as many immigrants whose cultures were less Westernized. Past waves of immigrants came from places like Germany, Ireland, and Italy. There were certainly cultural differences, but they were basically Western. That's certainly a lot less true of immigrants today.

Fourth, we've never encouraged assimilation less than we do now. In some circles, it's a dirty word and xenophobic, and many sorta fetishize non-Western culture. Nobody treated it as a dirty word in the early 20th century (the last time we had anywhere near as many immigrants). It was expected that immigrants basically "become Americans" in their conduct, worldview, etc. That's what blending into the melting pot meant. That doesn't mean they all did with respect to everything they did, but that was the general expectation. And most did. Most of my ethnic background is 17th century Welsh. My ancestors undoubtedly spoke Cymric. The other portion is early 20th century Italian (or more accurately, thuggish Sicilian). How much Cymric and Italian do you think I know? None, and assimilation is the reason for it. Hell, I'm not even sure I know how to say the word "Cymric."

The point is that this is different. We're going in a direction which we've never gone. Will it all sorta "work out?" I hope so, but there is a line at which there's risk of it not working out.

One side note - @Garmel - can you let the record show that I'm disagreeing with Seattle Husker? I'm not dick-slapping, but I'm not kissing his ***. I'm respectfully taking issue with him. This is what it looks like. If I trash-talked or called him names, I don't think it would make my point any stronger.

 

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Do you need "help" to stop being a lying sack of ****? How about just stop being one?

 

This is a very good point. Also, I agree Trevor was definitely saying Africa over France. Given he is from South Africa and I believe still a South African citizen, I think it has more to do with the fact of his view point as an African. He may not be able to relate to second or third generation immigrants and just sees them as descendants of his continent winning a title for a foreign country. He is probably irritated about it... but, like you said with Japanese internment, imagine how bad it would be if everyone saw things that way.

 

And that's my point. That mentality is dangerous and in the long term can't be done selectively.

 

I was thinking of the situation where the customer name is rashly printed in WP before the customer had an opportunity to make his case to the restaurant manager (assuming it was a strong case), so it would be arguable that WP slandered a good man in their rush to have a news story. Since this appears to have worked out for the customer, I can only assume cooler heads prevailed. But I don’t think that will always be the case.

Note this story had the potential to ruining this man’s career. I would sue everyone and let the judge figure it out.

 

The point I would make links these two points together, I think. Our issue and the difference between past waves of immigrants relates to what I said earlier. People aren't coming here because they are buying into American values or wanting to identify with the American story - at least not as they once did. It's about leaving a situation they don't like, but importing their culture and community with them. There's no desire to become "Americanized", and most of the people pushing for more immigration don't want them to become "Americanized." Sometimes I wonder if it's the left's way of being able to feel cultured and well-traveled by being able to walk down the street to another neighborhood, as opposed to having to actually go to another country. But regardless, we value distinct, separate communities and cultures much more than we ever did.

It's a relatively benign point, but it's symptomatic that when the U.S. and Mexico played in soccer in California, half the crowd was pulling for Mexico. That's still "my country" and the U.S. is still "that place I came to make my life better, but I don't identify with it and don't really consider myself a part of its heritage."

One of the reasons that this is happening to me is that we've decided that if your culture wasn't around during the country's founding, then you don't have a stake in it. It's not "yours." But that's not the way people have previously felt - you become American, and the history of its founding is now relevant to you, because it's part of a shared heritage and a shared culture. Now, we want people to look back and say "that was irrelevant to me because my race wasn't represented." That gives us license to disrespect that heritage, and look for ways to destroy it or bend it to whatever culture I came from originally, so it will better reflect me, rather than reflecting the foundational concepts that framed America.

 

wow Prodigal. Well explained.

I see that all the time, People who feel no allegiance or feeling for how our country was founded or pride in being an American.Wearing a shirt with Mexican etc logo and waving a Mexican etc flag while getting a free education, free meals free medical care does not set well with me .
They only want what we will give them , what they feel they are entitled to.What they can take.
Not all but a disturbingly large %. And the numbers seem to be growing.


Then though I walked in a 4th of July parade and loved seeing all the clearly not the guilty white people wearing americana shirts and waving flags and shouting Happy 4th of July and God bless America.
Many many Asian looking people who certainly were not here in large numbers in 1776.

 

Stop me if you've heard this one before -- So VOX ran a poll ...

 

But what about the poop in the street?

 

In case you heard about the chant that broke out at a Sessions speech, but havent seen it -- these are high school kids

 

People ask where is Sessions. Apparently he doesn't have anything important to do back in D.C., so he's out talking to high school students!

 

I agree with most of your post, but I'm not sure about this part. I don't know that the actual immigrants' intentions are wildly different as much as the country they're entering was different. Would Italian immigrants have made a major effort to learn English had their Italian been accommodated the way Spanish is accommodated? Probably not. What if Italian immigrants came to a place in which the media and public education system routinely promote the idea that the United States is too hateful for them to assimilate and that their real identity is their ethnicity? I'll bet their attitudes would be different too.

This is definitely true. Of course, immigrants have long been associated with Democratic politics. That was definitely true of Italians and the Irish. However, as they assimilated and made money, they mostly identified as Americans and stopped voting as a bloc. I think Democrats learned their lesson from that. Avoiding or at least delaying assimilation and promoting grievance rather than patriotism is much smarter political strategy. Of course, it has been wildly successful with black voters and generally successful (though to a lesser extent) with Hispanics. The longer they're speaking Spanish, broke-*** poor, and dependent on government, the better off Democratic politicians are.

 

Until somebody comes along and shows them how Democrat politicians have essentially enslaved them. Trump is doing a decent job of that, and I wish this message was more thoroughly and directly incorporated into his speeches.

 

Two problems. First, Democrats have a counter-narrative that's reinforced by institutions sympathetic to their agenda (media and public education), which is to make immigration status synonymous with ethnicity and therefore, effectively part of one's identity. Second, Trump (and the GOP in generally) is too rhetorically sloppy and undisciplined to deal with it.

 

Fair point and it's definitely a generalization on my part. It's just my impression from what I've noticed and what I've witnessed in the past, and that's far from scientific. I'm sure there are plenty of variances in the individual motives.

 

Absent any data to back up my views, anecdotally my experience has been that immigrants generally do come to the US to improve their situation. My wife has taught many first generation Asian and Latin American (legal and illegal) families as a teacher. The illegal families tend to be more distant (no contact info) but her feeling is that this isn't a language barrier but rather due to fear of being caught. Those families generally don't have any valid contact info making it near impossible to reach the parents. One other generalization is that Latin American families don't value education as much as other cultures. Of course, it's very common that multiple families will be sharing a single apartment and the adults are working multiple jobs so where they lack education there is no question about their work ethic.

 

https://townhall.com/columnists/evansayet/2017/07/13/he-fights-n2354580

Great article.

 

Definitely true, and I think that has always been true. I don't think previous immigrants had some kind of ideological drive to be Americans. I think they saw it as a place with greater opportunity than their home country. I think the same is true of Immigrants today.

When I was dealing with illegal immigrants, I didn't notice much fear of being caught. (The dynamic might have been different with guys who were in the US alone and could easily return if deported than with families with children.) I did notice a lot of moving around. Addresses and cell phone numbers frequently changed.

I don't think they don't value it as much as that they put more emphasise on the more immediate need to make money. Going to school and college may be a wise long term investment, but it doesn't put food on the table tonight or pay next months rent.

Their work ethic is unquestionable. Working 60 - 80 hours per week is very common.

 

mc
Great oped
This made me smile
" but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics."

But I did not know this happened?
"CNN using their vast corporate fortune to hunt down a private citizen for having made fun of them in an Internet meme. This threat to “dox” – release of personal information to encourage co-ideologists to visit violence upon him and his family -- a political satirist was chilling in that it clearly wasn’t meant just for him."

Who was that?

 

Some teenager.

 

It was the kid who made the GIF where Trump is slamming CNN using WWF (or some other wrestling group) footage.

 

In order to protect themselves, the anti-ICE coalition in Portland has built ....

.... a wall

lol

 

LOL! You can't make **** up.

 

Well, you COULD...but why bother when the real stories are so good

 

Here is another tale of caution from social media
Quite the story

https://gizmodo.com/when-a-stranger-decides-to-destroy-your-life-1827546385

" ... The story was re-posted on other sites, including one called BadBizReport.is where it has been viewed over 95,000 times. It quickly became the top search result for Glennon’s name on Google. Within a year, Glennon was experiencing the repercussions: Her number of listings dropped by half. She estimates that she’s lost $200,000 in business since 2015.

She was mystified as to the post’s author. She thought it could be a rival realtor, or an acquaintance who was angry at her.

“I was looking at every person in my life and every stranger and wondering who did it to me and why,” Glennon told me by phone. “It makes you rethink every relationship in your life.”

Eventually, after $100,000 in attorney’s bills, Glennon was able to unmask the culprit. It turned out to be a complete stranger who had been offended by a comment Glennon had made about a news article on Facebook.,,,,"​