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Cultural Migration: Left of Center View

America doesn’t really respect or “get” artists. Not surprising, the Puritans that founded the nation weren’t exactly know for their creative flair. But they did respect success. Success was God’s way of showing favor, a value we as a nation carry forward today. Nobody asks if American music, art or literature is any good, we’re just concerned with how many units it’s sold. Europeans on the other hand tend to discuss the craft itself, not just its marketability or practical applications.

So how is it that for the last 60 years or so America has dominated the world stage in almost every aspect of creative culture? Easy, we import it and then claim the good stuff as our own. But that trend may well end soon. During the oppression eras, foreign creative types would flock to the United States for the freedom to express themselves. We let them work as janitors and dishwashers during the day and then left them alone to be creative during their free time. If they were good enough at their craft we would support their impoverished existence by allowing them the privilege of teaching our children, or in some cases ourselves, for a little less that what we’d pay them to mow our lawns. So basically artists are just below gardeners on the social scale. That is unless they make it big, in which case they become royalty.

Every year American culture holds up one or two artistic folks and covers them with money and praise. The rest of the creative community saw this and agreed to perform for peanuts and a free domestic beer. But now, now other countries are starting to appreciate, respect and in a move completely foreign to the American government even support their artists, and not just financially but culturally as well.

Those wasteful foreigners, building community youth centers giving their kids instruments and instruction. Our law enforcement unions would never stand for that, what with the reduced crime rates, no gangs and such, once again they’re trying to take our jobs away. Why teach our kids to be painters and poets and we might end up like those pansy Norwegians what with the drinking and the getting along, almost not needing to build prisons at all. Their cities take pride in their opera the way we do our football programs. It’s crazy.

And it’s going to get worse. We try to screen immigrants to only allow those with something to contribute to our society into the country. By contribute we mean only those with a marketable skill, computer programmers, medical professionals, agricultural workers. We let in a couple of professors, but they pretty much just analyze creative people and their works, they don’t really add to the pile.

So where will we be in ten years, when all our colleges are full of foreign math students with 4.5 GPAs in engineering whose only bad grade came because they did their physics homework in Drama class. We take great national pride in the accomplishments of our various artists, but offer them no foundation or support. It is too late, now that art, drama and music has for the most part been expelled from our public school systems, the only chance we have of raising children who both indulge in and appreciate the arts is to allow others to educate them and us. Think of it as an IS96 for the soul.


Kyle Pesonen - Staff Writer | E-mail Comments on this column.

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Next week's subject: Gangs, Importing Criminals

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Last Week's View from the Left: Tariffs and Fair Trade

Previous Weeks Views from the Left:
Open Borders and the American Worker
ICE Raids Detain Thousands of Innocent People
Political Activism and Illegal Immigration
Integrating Other Cultures Into the American Dream
Employing Undocumented Workers
Bilingual Education
The Minutemen
Driver's Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants
Open Borders
Sanctuary Cities
Common Sense Laws
Rise & Fall
Outsourcing & Insourcing
English
Amnesty vs. Reality
Defining Immigration





Cultural Migration: Right of Center View

Our nation is a mosaic of different cultures and ideologies from around the world that has both brought unity and division to our nation. On the one hand, we have a rich tradition of celebration from fireworks that originated in China for our biggest national holidays to celebrations of unique cultural traditions such as St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo. These celebrations bring people together and promote cultural integration and acceptance. On the other hand we have things like La Raza and NAACP and other organizations based mainly on racial differences because we can’t seem to bring our acceptance of culture into everyone’s daily lives. While the organizations promote positive goals, the need for their existence speaks volumes about the unwillingness of some to accept people that are different from themselves as equals.

So is the importing of new cultures positive or negative. Does it cause more harm than good? It seems the answer to that question would depend on who you talk to. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I see an interesting duality of acceptance and exclusion between cultures on a daily basis. When you live in one of the most ethnically diverse places on the planet, you see interactions between virtually every culture from around the globe and you see the tight knit communities that form when people from the same place come together in a new place to support one another. If you go into just about any ethnic enclave, you will see both acceptance and exclusion.

For example there are two Chinatowns in Chinatown. There is the Chinatown where tourists are welcomed with open arms and treated as honored guests. The shop keepers and neighborhood people are friendly as can be to people they have never met before. They will tell you about the wonderful people and places to see in their city and happily answer questions about anything you see. Then there is another Chinatown where the people speak in whispers in Chinese and quickly become quiet when an outsider approaches. These same people who smile and welcome you to their shops are very guarded about the goings on of their community. They recognize that you are an outsider and will only accept you at arms length. Those not of China are not quite good enough to be a part of the family. At best there will be grudging acceptance of outsiders who marry into the family. Chinatown is truly a place of two distinct and different personalities when it comes to outsiders. So does one negate the other? Should the people in Chinatown be more accepting or is it their right to preserve their community culture as they see fit?

I think that the simple answer to the larger question of the impact of cultural migration is that importing culture into the US can be both a positive and negative thing. While there will always be those who will come into our midst and exclude us from their enclaves, there will also always be those who learn about other cultures, take pieces here and there from different ones and form new philosophies that make the world a better place. Without these cultures from abroad we would not have many beloved traditions and artists we celebrate today. Without Mexican heritage we would not have the incredible music of Carlos Santana while we down a Corona on Cinco de Mayo. Without Irish immigrants we would not have the St. Patty’s Day parades or the laughter brought by Denis Leary. And I can’t imagine the Fourth of July without the most wonderful of Chinese inventions lighting up the nighttime sky in celebration.

Troy Wilson-Ripsom - Staff Writer | E-mail Comments on this column. | Visit Troy's blog at http://reform-america.blogspot.com | Visit Troy's MySpace page at www.myspace.com/reform_america

Got a conservative viewpoint? We want to know what you think.

Next week's subject: Gangs, Importing Criminals

Send in your view from the Right to be our featured Right of Center View for the week.

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Last Week's View from the Right: Tariffs, Safety and Fair Trade

Previous Weeks Views from the Right:
Open Border Trucking Policies
Unions Defending Illegal Aliens
Political Activism and Illegal Immigration
Integrating Other Cultures Into the American Dream
Employing Undocumented Workers
Bilingual Education
The Minutemen
Driver's Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants
Open Borders
Sanctuary Cities
Let's Get It Right This Time
Once Again Congress Fails
American Jobs
English Also vs. English Only
Amnesty
Defining Immigration

Do Elements Within the La Raza Movement Pose a Threat to America?

La Raza means literally “The Race” in Spanish. The movement was formed in 1968 to promote the interests of the Mexican-American community. Like the NAACP and other affirmative-action minded organizations, La Raza has many members that are interested in being part of America and promoting equality for all Americans. The fundamental goals as stated by the movement are benign and represent the ideals of American diversity and cultural pride.

There is another movement affiliated with La Raza that has historically been more militant and still maintains documents within their organization that point to isolationistic views Read More

A Plan

The one major thing that seems to be lacking in the immigration debate is a real plan that addresses the legitimate concerns with illegal immigration. There are strong opinions on both sides and a lot of rhetoric but there isn’t really any solid plan being promoted to address the illegal immigration issue in a way that is both fair and logical.

So, that being said here is my idea:Read More

Trucking Cross Borders

This is mainly a concern for the trucking business. If we allow these people to come into our country, bringing cargo that we in America have, and can supply, then we are saying that the American working people are not needed, and have lost all say to legally enforced DOT (Department of Transportation) laws.Read More



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