Then we could argue that on the contrary, if anything a wave of immigrants coming here and facing hardship makes for an underclass that could quickly become a powderkeg of unrest, and that with a better safety net we can prevent that. Specificity helps everyone have a more productive discussion.

However, the point above is relevant to the problem of immigration in general, not to the problem of Moslem immigration in particular, which is the subject of this thread. And that brings me to your dismissal of mythago’s point: I haven’t heard ANYONE objecting to immigrants coming in from Albania (specifically, I mean: there are some who think the US should be hermetically sealed with barriers equivalent to the Berlin Wall along every border). Albanians are mostly Moslem. They’re also white. Funny how no one seems to care about them “fundamentally changing the character of the US.”

And, again, mythago said that that phrase was a dogwhistle (i.e. political code) for “letting weird brown people in.” If you don’t think that phrase has racial overtones, you’re living in a dream world. I think you probably got it from someone else, because it DOES have that dogwhistle meaning to racist whites. If you are a person of color, don’t think they’ll ever let you in the club. They won’t. But if they can convince YOU to parrot their dogwhistles, that lets them point to you and say “see, how can it be racist when that n—um, that fine person of color over there says it?”

Let me put more bluntly something I said earlier: if you don’t want to be treated like a racist, you can stop using racist code language. If you continue using racist code language, I (and mythago and perhaps others) will come to the conclusion that you are a racist (I for one am withholding judgement up to now because you didn’t seem to be aware that ‘fundamentally changing…’ was racist code language).

You know, I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, yellow, red, or blue with orange polka dots: racism infects everyone in this country. The important thing is that some fight it and others embrace it. But you can’t fight it unless you accept correction when you say or do something racist.

If you’re a person of color, then by arguing about “changing the fundamental character of the US” you’re carrying water for people who would just as soon see you as “strange fruit” dangling from a sycamore tree. If you are a person of no color (like me), then by arguing that point you’re carrying water for people who would just as soon see your neighbors so dangling.

Shorter: “Immigration from Islamic countries will fundamentally change the character of the United States” is racist code for “don’t let in those weird brown people,” and both ‘weird’ (Moslem) and ‘brown’ (Middle Eastern) are relevant. This is code whether you like it or not, whether you knew it was or not, whether you meant it that way or not. If you don’t want to carry water for racists, you need to stop using it. Claiming that it’s not racist if you didn’t mean it that way is nonsense.

You’ve announced an end to this conversation about five times and yet you keep replying.

You can insist on the differences all you want, and there were surely some. On the issue of immigration however, trying to paint today as ‘unprecedented’ remains as silly now as it was when you first did it.

David,

Dude, enough already. You’ve memorized plenty of facts about the 1850’s, but I disagree with your conclusions. If you really can’t see the difference between today and a time when the country had a vast fronteir, minimal governmental safety net, an ongoing war against an indegenous people, and such enourmous social upheaval that it shortly descended into civil war, then I’m not sure what point there is in continuing our discussion.

Since you do not know the color of the skin of my family, your racist prejudices must have led you to conclude that we are caucasian.

Huh? People who insist that *their* ancestors’ immigration was OK, unlike all these furriners currently invading the country, come in all colors. One of the leading anti-immigration activist groups in California is headed by a Vietnamese woman, if I’m not mistaken.

Which is to say, I realize you could barely type straight, hoping for the opportunity to get to play the race card on your own behalf, but….don’t give up your day job to start working as a psychic.

Uh, the governments which immigrants came from in the 19th century were largely autocratic and dictatorial. The immigrants nonetheless seemed to manage to handle our democracies effectively today. By contrast, lots of today’s immigrants come from places with working democracies (albeit with their own problems). That kind of suggests that they’ll integrate MORE easily than earlier immigrants did. You might well be arguing–whether you know it or not–for *higher levels* of immigration rather than lower.

I hear you. My own personal gravity well is getting deeper daily.

No it doesn’t matter (or at least it shouldn’t) if passing tourists in Hawaii need to sheild their eyes from your reflection or which toilet you use. Do you really want to post on a blog where everyone needs a melanin and testosterone icon next to their name?

Considering an entire category of ideas to be the exclusive province of one ethnicity is a very pernicious form of racism. It’s all too easy for “writing white” on a blog to become “acting white” by studying as an inner city kid. It’s the same kind of thing that get Clarence Thomas branded a “race traitor”. It’s exactly what mythago was doing, and I thing it is despicable.

Also, you seem to be under the misaprehension that I am talking primarily or at all about race. I am talking first and foremost about the democratic institutions of this country. I do not care what religion someone practices. I do care when they try to carve legal exceptions for themselves based on that religion. I do not care about the color of skin of an immigrant, but I do care about the type of government from which they are emigrating.

Currently, the state of democracy in, say. India is different from that in Mexico or Chechnya. In my opinion, that matters. I believe that absorbing the lessons of citizenship in a democracy takes time and can become overwhelmed. Per the looooooooong discussion above, others disagree.