Government tends to embrace immigration for the spoils.
During the War Between the States, the Union fielded hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and sons of immigrants, to slaughter Southerners in the deadliest war in American history.
In fact, the foreign-born represented at least twenty-five percent of the entire Union Army during the war, while an additional eighteen percent of the soldiery were men with at least one foreign-born parent.
Meanwhile, more than two million Union solders were under the age of twenty-one, more than one million were under the age of eighteen, and fully one hundred thousand were under the age of fifteen.
In total, immigrants and the sons of immigrants constituted roughly forty-three percent of the Union forces.
In one particular pamphlet, Confederate writer and diplomat Edwin De Leon informed French readers that the Puritan North had built its army "in large part of foreign mercenaries" composed of "the refuse of the old world," among which included "the famished revolutionaries and malcontents of Germany, all the Red republicans, and almost all the Irish emigrants to sustain its army."
Many of the desperate and unquestioning immigrants, who hadn't the slightest concept of American values or the new American form of government, welcomed the prospect of enlistment for the opportunities, the stable benefits and the promising adventures it seemed to present.
These immigrants weren't motivated by codes of morality or ethics, nor by the venerable Constitution which they swore an oath to uphold, but by uniquely personal interests whose costs, borne by their newfound nation, couldn't have possibly been high enough.
Most immigrants of the time were illiterate and effectively unaware of the Constitution, let alone the threatening implications of the invasive war on which they had embarked, which served explicitly to undermine the independence and compact for which America's patriots fought, for which nearly one hundred thousand died, not even a century beforehand.
The Union, under the strict control of the fledgling Republican administration during and after the war, strategically set out to politicize and polarize the United States, to promote the economic and political interests of the North at the immediate and total expense of the South, and to bolster their voting bloc across the country.
The same influences remain relevant today, wielded only slightly differently by parties under the same names.
While the modern Republican Party ingratiates itself with business interests, religious groups and older voters, the Democratic Party targets students, minorities, unions, feminists, wage-earners, indigents, eccentrics and immigrants.
In fact, research shows that roughly two-thirds of immigrants align with the Democrats, whereas only one-quarter favor the Republicans, the remainder of whom identify as independents.
Likewise, minorities are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic Party: in a 2018 Pew Research poll, ninety percent of blacks say they voted Democratic during the latest congressional races, compared to seventy-seven percent among Asians and sixty-nine percent among hispanics.
What's more, immigrants and non-citizens alike still serve the greater military and political agenda just as they did in the United States during the nineteenth century.
Indeed, non-citizens today even serve in the United States military as a means to naturalization — roughly eight thousand non-citizens enlist each year.
According to the Department of Defense, more than three percent of the entire U.S. Armed Forces is comprised of non-citizens and naturalized citizens, amounting to more than twenty-four thousand troops representing the United States military domestically and abroad.
What's more, immigrant and immigrant-born veterans still constitute more than thirteen percent of all U.S. veterans.
Meanwhile, according to the latest data, more than sixty-three percent of non-citizen households access welfare programs, compared to thirty-five percent of native households.
Among non-citizen households that remain in the United States for ten years or longer, that figure climbs to a whopping seventy-two percent; for naturalized-citizen households, that figure is fifty-seven percent.
Ironically, the naturalized citizen and the average member of the U.S. Armed Forces share at least one common bond: both have never read the Constitution which they have taken an oath to support and defend "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
And among those who even venture to skim the Constitution, it's as alien to them as Shakespearean literature, the King James Bible and the Latin language: in their minds, it's tantamount to poetry or an excessively wordy reading assignment from high school.
For most, they're just words, and malleable ones at that.
Ultimately, most Americans today merely assume that they know what it means to be American, but they rely exclusively upon a vague conception of the word they've engineered in their own minds.
To them, it's more of a nebulous feeling than a grounded understanding of the principles of liberty and sovereignty promulgated by its founding documents.
The average American today, let alone the average non-citizen or naturalized citizen, has virtually no connection with the important historical events of America's past, whether by knowledge or lineage.
Most Americans today are so deluded, and so indoctrinated and historically illiterate, that they've even preemptively abandoned or denounced the values and sacrifices upon which the United States were founded.
They'd much rather avoid sensitive subjects altogether, peruse their social media accounts and pacify their professors and generally everyone around them, instead of facing the truth and risking hurt feelings, or resentment among peers, by sharing it with their insecure family and friends, professors and classmates, who might finally stand to learn something.
I suppose they would have to first find it within themselves to conquer their own insecurities, to challenge everything they really thought they already knew, before they could even aspire to teach anyone else.
Alas.
It's so much easier to just go with the flow, watch a movie on Netflix, bounce mindlessly between videos on YouTube, talk about the game, reality TV or anything trivial instead of daring to engage in research or dialogue even remotely meaningful.
With the endless influx of immigrants, political correctness and totalitarian policies, there is apparently no limit on what can and will be censored either socially or politically.
And just as the War Between the States witnessed the blurring of lines between states and jurisdictions, so too are Americans today witnessing the blurring of lines between the citizen and non-citizen, between republican government and empire.
What does this all say about the relationship between immigrants and the United States government?
As far as the government's concerned, it's a match made in heaven!
Where there are people desperate enough to do just about anything to gain citizenship or to improve their lives, there's a government that promises it all.
And for most, the costs incurred for their salary, their entitlements or their vote, paid by others and Constitutional rights they have neither occasion nor inclination to know or respect, go largely unnoticed and are conveniently rationalized away by those ready to excuse the costs so they can happily enjoy the lives they've always imagined, and then some.
Principle is a hard sell, which is why, so often throughout history, so many people have been so ready to dispose of it for some perceived, even fleeting, benefit.
In the United States, politicians are just as eager to dispose of the wealth and freedom enjoyed by Americans as unwitting immigrants are welcoming of the prospect of facilitating their campaigns.
Unfortunately, the death of America was secured long ago, probably sooner than the ink had dried at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But of that which remains, today's politicians will predictably squander every vestige just as soon as they perceive a political or pecuniary advantage, and there's seemingly always a cohort of immigrants naive or greedy enough to do their bidding.
If only this practice were unique to twenty-first century America, the writing wouldn't be nearly as clear on the wall.
During the War Between the States, the Union fielded hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and sons of immigrants, to slaughter Southerners in the deadliest war in American history.
In fact, the foreign-born represented at least twenty-five percent of the entire Union Army during the war, while an additional eighteen percent of the soldiery were men with at least one foreign-born parent.
Meanwhile, more than two million Union solders were under the age of twenty-one, more than one million were under the age of eighteen, and fully one hundred thousand were under the age of fifteen.
In total, immigrants and the sons of immigrants constituted roughly forty-three percent of the Union forces.
In one particular pamphlet, Confederate writer and diplomat Edwin De Leon informed French readers that the Puritan North had built its army "in large part of foreign mercenaries" composed of "the refuse of the old world," among which included "the famished revolutionaries and malcontents of Germany, all the Red republicans, and almost all the Irish emigrants to sustain its army."
Many of the desperate and unquestioning immigrants, who hadn't the slightest concept of American values or the new American form of government, welcomed the prospect of enlistment for the opportunities, the stable benefits and the promising adventures it seemed to present.
These immigrants weren't motivated by codes of morality or ethics, nor by the venerable Constitution which they swore an oath to uphold, but by uniquely personal interests whose costs, borne by their newfound nation, couldn't have possibly been high enough.
Most immigrants of the time were illiterate and effectively unaware of the Constitution, let alone the threatening implications of the invasive war on which they had embarked, which served explicitly to undermine the independence and compact for which America's patriots fought, for which nearly one hundred thousand died, not even a century beforehand.
The Union, under the strict control of the fledgling Republican administration during and after the war, strategically set out to politicize and polarize the United States, to promote the economic and political interests of the North at the immediate and total expense of the South, and to bolster their voting bloc across the country.
The same influences remain relevant today, wielded only slightly differently by parties under the same names.
While the modern Republican Party ingratiates itself with business interests, religious groups and older voters, the Democratic Party targets students, minorities, unions, feminists, wage-earners, indigents, eccentrics and immigrants.
In fact, research shows that roughly two-thirds of immigrants align with the Democrats, whereas only one-quarter favor the Republicans, the remainder of whom identify as independents.
Likewise, minorities are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic Party: in a 2018 Pew Research poll, ninety percent of blacks say they voted Democratic during the latest congressional races, compared to seventy-seven percent among Asians and sixty-nine percent among hispanics.
What's more, immigrants and non-citizens alike still serve the greater military and political agenda just as they did in the United States during the nineteenth century.
Indeed, non-citizens today even serve in the United States military as a means to naturalization — roughly eight thousand non-citizens enlist each year.
According to the Department of Defense, more than three percent of the entire U.S. Armed Forces is comprised of non-citizens and naturalized citizens, amounting to more than twenty-four thousand troops representing the United States military domestically and abroad.
What's more, immigrant and immigrant-born veterans still constitute more than thirteen percent of all U.S. veterans.
Meanwhile, according to the latest data, more than sixty-three percent of non-citizen households access welfare programs, compared to thirty-five percent of native households.
Among non-citizen households that remain in the United States for ten years or longer, that figure climbs to a whopping seventy-two percent; for naturalized-citizen households, that figure is fifty-seven percent.
Ironically, the naturalized citizen and the average member of the U.S. Armed Forces share at least one common bond: both have never read the Constitution which they have taken an oath to support and defend "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
And among those who even venture to skim the Constitution, it's as alien to them as Shakespearean literature, the King James Bible and the Latin language: in their minds, it's tantamount to poetry or an excessively wordy reading assignment from high school.
For most, they're just words, and malleable ones at that.
Ultimately, most Americans today merely assume that they know what it means to be American, but they rely exclusively upon a vague conception of the word they've engineered in their own minds.
To them, it's more of a nebulous feeling than a grounded understanding of the principles of liberty and sovereignty promulgated by its founding documents.
The average American today, let alone the average non-citizen or naturalized citizen, has virtually no connection with the important historical events of America's past, whether by knowledge or lineage.
Most Americans today are so deluded, and so indoctrinated and historically illiterate, that they've even preemptively abandoned or denounced the values and sacrifices upon which the United States were founded.
They'd much rather avoid sensitive subjects altogether, peruse their social media accounts and pacify their professors and generally everyone around them, instead of facing the truth and risking hurt feelings, or resentment among peers, by sharing it with their insecure family and friends, professors and classmates, who might finally stand to learn something.
I suppose they would have to first find it within themselves to conquer their own insecurities, to challenge everything they really thought they already knew, before they could even aspire to teach anyone else.
Alas.
It's so much easier to just go with the flow, watch a movie on Netflix, bounce mindlessly between videos on YouTube, talk about the game, reality TV or anything trivial instead of daring to engage in research or dialogue even remotely meaningful.
With the endless influx of immigrants, political correctness and totalitarian policies, there is apparently no limit on what can and will be censored either socially or politically.
And just as the War Between the States witnessed the blurring of lines between states and jurisdictions, so too are Americans today witnessing the blurring of lines between the citizen and non-citizen, between republican government and empire.
What does this all say about the relationship between immigrants and the United States government?
As far as the government's concerned, it's a match made in heaven!
Where there are people desperate enough to do just about anything to gain citizenship or to improve their lives, there's a government that promises it all.
And for most, the costs incurred for their salary, their entitlements or their vote, paid by others and Constitutional rights they have neither occasion nor inclination to know or respect, go largely unnoticed and are conveniently rationalized away by those ready to excuse the costs so they can happily enjoy the lives they've always imagined, and then some.
Principle is a hard sell, which is why, so often throughout history, so many people have been so ready to dispose of it for some perceived, even fleeting, benefit.
In the United States, politicians are just as eager to dispose of the wealth and freedom enjoyed by Americans as unwitting immigrants are welcoming of the prospect of facilitating their campaigns.
Unfortunately, the death of America was secured long ago, probably sooner than the ink had dried at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But of that which remains, today's politicians will predictably squander every vestige just as soon as they perceive a political or pecuniary advantage, and there's seemingly always a cohort of immigrants naive or greedy enough to do their bidding.
If only this practice were unique to twenty-first century America, the writing wouldn't be nearly as clear on the wall.
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