Positive Liberty

Some brief reactions to Kuznicki’s thoughts on immigration.

It is certainly true that many, if not most, of our very greatest Americans have been immigrants. I owe my philosophical grounding to one of them, Ayn Rand. But the question is one of assimilation, and note that Kuznicki writes, “after a generation or two—and often much sooner—they turned out pretty much like any other group of Americans.” From what I’ve heard and observed, it seems to take generally two or three generations. The grandparents don’t speak English; the children speak both languages; the grandchildren are fully Americanized. The problem, then, is that there is a flow rate, but we are currently experiencing such an influx that this process is not able to keep up. My concern here is cultural. Immigrants bring marvelous input which we cannot and should not do without; but they need also to assimilate that into a general comprehension of the cultural groundwork. Aristotle tells us that “man is the only animal whom [Nature] has endowed with the gift of speech…[which] is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.” Where people do not share a common language—or a common vocabulary of cultural comprehension—civil society becomes increasingly difficult, and finally impossible.

Secondly, I strongly disagree with the idea of “keep[ing]” birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship, I am convinced, is untenable as a matter of constitutional law. Kuznicki makes good points about a permanent non-citizen class, and the channeling effect that birthright citizenship has—well, I guess they’re good; I don’t know of any research on this—but I think that eliminating birthright citizenship will not create a permanent class of resident aliens if the requirements for obtaining citizenship are properly designed, and if the incentives are correct—which means, eliminate the welfare state.

That is the real solution to almost all of the immigration problem.

What’s funny is that although I’m primarily concerned with cultural and civic assimilation, I actually have real qualms about making “civics class…mandatory for all.” Although I would like to impose such a requirement, it would violate the natural right to avoid education (yes, that is a natural right). I strongly disapprove of mandatory government education.

As you can see, I’m of two minds about these issues.

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