The notion that an immigrant is 'valid' only by contributing to his new society strikes me as a category error. One can be both an immigrant and a parasite. By the same token, the founding principles of America are owed to the reasoning and norms of British-descended Heritage Americans - their immigrant status is incidental. I don't believe 'being contributing immigrants' provides any sufficient basis for a coherent national identity or social contract.
I've also found that such 'nation of immigrant' arguments have accompanied the push for ever more multiculturalism. This comes without any interest in preserving the norms and policies that made the society worth living in for the nation that originally built it.
In practical reality, immigrants 'contributing to society' still often leaves the people of this original nation worse off. The concept is perfectly coherent with them serving as cheap labour to depress wages, fuelling the insanity of housing prices, and generally putting pressure on the cost of living. This will be the case even for well-intentioned immigrants.
Likewise, the norms of many immigrants mean they'll reflexively support and normalise policies that allow more authoritarian and invasive forms of government. Once again, these immigrants can be perfectly well-intentioned. The difficulty of fully comprehending a foreign culture and the society it builds is enough to produce this effect. The same myths that declare countries like America as 'Nations of Immigrants' celebrate this sort of adulteration of its founding mindset in terms of the cultural 'melting pot' instead of speaking of what it truly implies.
The West in general has allowed an enormous number of dysfunctional practices under the justification that contributing to society means you're a valid part of its host nation. I for one am sick of living with the consequences.
The notion that an immigrant is 'valid' only by contributing to his new society strikes me as a category error. One can be both an immigrant and a parasite. By the same token, the founding principles of America are owed to the reasoning and norms of British-descended Heritage Americans - their immigrant status is incidental. I don't believe 'being contributing immigrants' provides any sufficient basis for a coherent national identity or social contract.
I've also found that such 'nation of immigrant' arguments have accompanied the push for ever more multiculturalism. This comes without any interest in preserving the norms and policies that made the society worth living in for the nation that originally built it.
In practical reality, immigrants 'contributing to society' still often leaves the people of this original nation worse off. The concept is perfectly coherent with them serving as cheap labour to depress wages, fuelling the insanity of housing prices, and generally putting pressure on the cost of living. This will be the case even for well-intentioned immigrants.
Likewise, the norms of many immigrants mean they'll reflexively support and normalise policies that allow more authoritarian and invasive forms of government. Once again, these immigrants can be perfectly well-intentioned. The difficulty of fully comprehending a foreign culture and the society it builds is enough to produce this effect. The same myths that declare countries like America as 'Nations of Immigrants' celebrate this sort of adulteration of its founding mindset in terms of the cultural 'melting pot' instead of speaking of what it truly implies.
The West in general has allowed an enormous number of dysfunctional practices under the justification that contributing to society means you're a valid part of its host nation. I for one am sick of living with the consequences.