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Why the current immigration debate pisses me off.
Jason
God EmperorArrakis Moderator
America was not "discovered" by Columbus. Long before Columbus set sail to discover a safer and quicker route to India — accidentally stumbling upon the Americas — native inhabitants had well-established cultures, histories, languages, religions, and complex social structures. The diversity among native tribes and nations gave the Americas a rich and thriving tapestry of pre-existing human civilizations that long predated Columbus. However, as word spread of this "new" land, more and more European settlers eventually arrived in larger numbers in order to seek their fortunes or to begin new lives free from oppression. It is because of this relatively recent episode in the history of our country that the current immigration situation makes me so angry.
The current landscape of America is dramatically different from the landscape a scant five hundred years ago. The native tribes and nations that once called this vast body of land home are all but gone—the proud descendants of those various tribes and nations now subjugated to minute plots specifically allocated for the "native" inhabitants of this great country. What we now call America today — the predominately white, democratic society founded by men like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson — was the result of European immigrants who came to start a new life. On what grounds, then, do we as Americans have to condemn the immigrants that seek to do the same today? What right do they have to turn them away?
Did the Europeans who flocked here in droves ask the permission of the native inhabitants before they immigrated? Did the European settlers seek to abide by the laws of the people who already inhabited this land before they made this their home? Did the European invaders care about how their arrival would affect the native populations and environment? In light of this country's history — a history of being founded by mostly European immigrants who more or less disregarded the fact that these lands were already populated by pre-existing civilizations — how can anyone in our government turn around and say that illegal immigrants are not welcome? How do they justify such a hypocritical immigration policy in a country founded by illegal immigrants?
The current landscape of America is dramatically different from the landscape a scant five hundred years ago. The native tribes and nations that once called this vast body of land home are all but gone—the proud descendants of those various tribes and nations now subjugated to minute plots specifically allocated for the "native" inhabitants of this great country. What we now call America today — the predominately white, democratic society founded by men like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson — was the result of European immigrants who came to start a new life. On what grounds, then, do we as Americans have to condemn the immigrants that seek to do the same today? What right do they have to turn them away?
Did the Europeans who flocked here in droves ask the permission of the native inhabitants before they immigrated? Did the European settlers seek to abide by the laws of the people who already inhabited this land before they made this their home? Did the European invaders care about how their arrival would affect the native populations and environment? In light of this country's history — a history of being founded by mostly European immigrants who more or less disregarded the fact that these lands were already populated by pre-existing civilizations — how can anyone in our government turn around and say that illegal immigrants are not welcome? How do they justify such a hypocritical immigration policy in a country founded by illegal immigrants?
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Comments
You are opening a veritable can of worms here. The fate of the native peoples of Turtle Island is a wound in the American and European psyche which may never be fully healed. Every pious platitude uttered by our political overlords is made against that background.
Did you see the images of President Bush in front of "Mount Rushmore" at the start of his presidency? What more obvious declaration of total insensitivity? A presidential endorsement of the desecration of the sacred Black Hills. Equivalent to Walmart putting a neon sign on the Bodhi Tree.
It is therefore essential that the incoming population from the 16th century should assert their "!manifest destiny". After all, it was obviously the will of the deity that earlier settlers had wiped out the native population around "Plymouth Rock" by plague so that the next lot of Europeans could find it empty.
We have the same anti-immigration mentality arising over here but that's nothing new either. My grandparents came here from Hanover in wave of Jewish immigration in the middle of the 19th century. There was serious opposition from those Jews who had arrived 100 years earlier.
Grasping. That's what it is. Grasping to hold what we appear to have and to take what we have not yet got.
There was a time when the US was a refuge but no refuge is for ever, Jason dear, other than our refuge in the Triple Jewel. Hold onto that.
They all resisted the Europeans just as each unique tribe of American Indians resisted conquest from other distinct tribes.
America today resists what some perceive as an other "invasion". The same "invasion" has occured in Europe and the UK. It occurs in Australia, India, and Africa. Rather than "invasion" or immigration it is a merely migration of peoples across the world. Or perhaps an exodus......
The U.S. tries to control it with political rhetoric. Speeches, slogans and banners will have no impact. Laws may have none, with the current approach, laws will never be passed. I don't sweat it, things change, peaople change, population distribution changes; it is a proven historical process. Why do so many get so worked up over something any way?
Because some of us do not take it for granted that human beings have to go on behaving like animals. Unfortunately, the current political process appears to be dominated by Hobbesian fatalists who take your attitude, Tenzing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klQtI_rVeTM
My preferred "attitude" is to not take to the extreme views; neither too far left, nor too far to the right. Not violently for or against illegal immigrants or laws regarding immigration whether to prevent or allow.
Remember, there is that little thing called the "Middle Way?"
Calm, cool, reasoned and rational approaches are what are called for in all social engineering issues. Of course this eliminates most politicians ...........
But, those who choose to, can take extremist positions and can continue in promulgating their suffering.
I just wish such extremists would stop causing more suffering for so many others.
Peace and best wishes in you quests!
My apologies again.
Where I do take issue with you is that I do not believe that there is any 'middle way' when it comes to our attitude to the Trail of Tears or Auschwitz. What would such an attitude consist of?
Most of the "illegals" who come here work harder and for much less pay and at much greater risk of being hassled, victimized or arrested and deported than any of the "legals". So why bother them?
Palzang
Simon, there is always a Middle Way, but not always the best choice in all situations. In a circumstance like Auschwitz, one doesn't always have the time when so many lives are at stake.
But IF so many other Nations had not totally ignored what was going on in Germany earlier in the process, perhaps more could have been saved. When nations or people as individuals choose to ignore the suffering of others and the plight of other Nations, that is an extreme.
We can't ignore, but at the other extreme we can't demand instant change.
I don't know the solution to immigration problems in the US and other countries, but I know that the years that the "problem" has been ignored creats more inertia that is now making change so hard, harder than it should have been.
Yes, I am equally curious.
Ah, but we can. Consider the plight of black slaves in the 1800s and the brave abolitionists. What was the 'middle way' in eliminating slavery? Let us try and apply a 'middle ground' solution to it. After all, those 'extremist' abolitionists like Brown and Garrison were just too far left. But Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were too far right not wanting to budge at all on the issue of slavery.
Just because we find a 'middle way' answer does not mean it is good or correct. After all, extremism is only extreme in light of its culture and time. What was radically extreme (even seen as terrorism) in the 1800s is today common sense.
I agree with you, and that was basically the whole point of my initial post. In addition, I think that many of our economical problems have more to do with how our economy is structured, managed, and regulated than anything else. While it has been amazingly successful in the past, it is woefully unprepared for many of the challenges that we currently face in the growing global economy. While it seems that illegal immigration has become a serious problem, many of the reasons why are more propaganda than fact.
Listening to the spin that many politicians are putting on this issue, it seems as if they are trying to turn illegal immigrants into scapegoats while taking our attention away from the President's boondoggle in Iraq. In all honesty, I think that people should be far more worried about America's growing trade deficit with China and the fact that the dollar is getting support from rising inflows of Chinese capital rather than the inflow of predominately unskilled migrants willing to work long hours in blazing hot, pesticide-covered fields.
Jason
I was referring to how to have addressed the issue of the genocide with a moderate path. At the time countries chose to ignore it and therefore, allowed it to develop and happen.
I said,
I must have done a poor job explaining this. I apologize for the confusion I've caused.
Have a nice day........
But what is the middle path to the solution of genocide, the Holocaust, slavery, the Apartheid, imperialism? It seems that the opposition to these enterprises has always been seen as extreme at one time or another.
If I knew the answer to questions of such magnitude, I'd be a fool to be hanging out on the internet. I am certain that there is always a middle way solution, avoiding extremes, for most every problem.
I believe a wise man once said the same thing .............
but, I am just an insignificant bug.............
One example of what I feel is a troubling attitude that our government representatives have taken towards illegal immigrants is a statment made by Trent Lott, Republican Senator from Mississippi, on how to deal will illegal immigration at the border. He said, "People are at least as smart as goats. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times, they quit trying to jump it" (Time, vol. 170, No. 2). To a person like me who sees the majority of illegal immigrants as human beings struggling to survive rather than troublesome domesticated animals, such statements seem to do nothing but dehumanize these people. I really hope that we can come up with a more compassionate, humane, and viable solution to this problem than erecting a giant electric fence along the border between Mexico and the United States. If that is the best idea that our government representatives can come up with, we seriously need to start thinking about electing some new representatives.
Sincerely,
Jason
Electric fences ........ even on animals - that isn't right and to compare that use to something for humans is a disgrace .............
Are Politicians still part of the Human race????
Well, that's kind of obvious! Maybe we should build an electric fence around the Capitol to keep all them goats in!
Palzang
Be cheaper and better for the rest of the country!!
:bowdown: :bigclap:
Growing up in South Dakota I knew several Indians (that's what they called themselves) who went up to Canada every summer to escape the South Dakota heat. In days of old many Native Americans moved hundreds of miles in a few months for one reason or another.
What bothered me most about the HABITAT people in Davidson was that they thought of the "Hispanics" as illegal rather than as Native Americans, which they truly are. Most of the people called "illegals" have Indian blood.
SO THERE!
This attitude is endemic throughout the world, alas! Look at Palestine: the incomers have corralled the native Canaanites (Palestinians) behind walls. We did the same here, in the UK, by pushing our own native peoples to the margins in Wales. It has taken nearly 800 years for self-government to return.
That being just plain mean is the Middle Path, as opposed to just being Purely Evil?
:rockon:
I am saying that there is no 'middle' when it comes to genocide. If we do not oppose it, we endorse it.
Forgive me, Tenzing, if I am being slow. Can you explain to me what you mean: what would be a not-extreme opposition to genocide? I can understand, for example, the need to "forgive but not forget" as Lord Russell of Liverpool put it at the Japanese War Crimes trials. Is that what you mean?
So what would be an extreme position to take against genocide? Violent opposition? I'm not sure there is any other kind.
One extreme would be to turn your head and act as if nothing is happening. Many politicians and businessmen did this in the 30's and 40's. Let us ignore what China (70,000,000+) has done since Mao's revolution. How many more can die? How many died this week? How many will die during the Olympics ............ ???
Another would be the reaction many had against Germans who had nothing to do with Hitler's genocide. All painted with the same Holocaust brush. Or, lets eliminate all Chinese since they are all to blame for the over 70 million deaths.
Once we've finished killing the killing will stop, no?
And I guess you would favor more violence to end violence? I'm sure you are wrong. Someone much wiser than either of us said that violence is not the way.
Can the problem with "extremes" be seen yet?
Well, it's just that I can't seem to recall any particular genocide or mass persecution that was not stopped with either violence or assassination (or that simply ran out of people to kill). Despite my lack of faith in war, I do believe that on rare occasions, violence can be used for good.
I think the best answer to violence of any kind, whether it be genocide or homicide or spousal abuse or whatever, is to attain liberation. Only by attaining liberation can one hope to benefit other beings in a meaningful, ultimate way. Any solution to violence arising from ordinary mind is doomed to failure simply because it does arise from ordinary mind. Ordinary mind can't fully comprehend the effects of any given action. Only enlightened mind can.
Obviously violence isn't an answer to anything. You can't combat violence with violence without engendering more violence. It's like growing apples. When you want to plant an apple orchard, you plant apple seeds. If you plant corn seeds, you won't get apple trees, you'll get corn plants. It's the same with violence. If you plant the seeds of violence, what you're going to get is more violence. If you plant the seeds of peace, you're going to produce peace. It's really that simple. "Turn the other cheek," Jesus said. He didn't say, "Bash the bastard's head in!"
Palzang
"I do not question that loving one's oppressors - Cambodians loving the Khmer Rouge - may be the most difficult attitude to achieve. But it is a law of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it.
Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent - for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things.
Therefore, only loving kindness and right mindfulness can free us."
This man speaks from a position of being inside a genocide.
As I have said, I believe that there cannot be a compassionate attitude towards genocide which is anything other than against it.
The next question is what we do about it. Of course, as Palzang says, the ideal is that all achieve liberation. The reality is that such an ideal is not envisaged for all beings in time to save the victims: even the Buddha predicted long ages in which the Dharma itself would be lost.
Gandhi was asked how non-violence could have stopped the Nazi horror. His answers are unsatisfactory and my own thoughts are just as unsatisfactory. They go like this:
* Genocide is abhorrent and should be opposed;
* Violence is abhorrent and should be avoided;
* What the heck can the non-violent do against the violent?
* I don't know and I am sure that there is an answer somewhere. It will probably involve great suffering for the non-violent opposing the violent.
* Genocide is abhorrent and should be opposed; - Agree as well as torture, murder, capital punishment, abortions, etc.
* Violence is abhorrent and should be avoided; - Agree
* What the heck can the non-violent do against the violent? - Be Non-violent and show compassion for all.
How can the loving person even contemplate such a thing?
As to what to do about violence and genocide, well, what better teacher than Gandhi? True, he couldn't completely stop all the violence, but he did defuse most of it with his nonviolent opposition. He certainly did better at it than we're doing in Iraq!
Palzang
I read something very interesting in 'Song for the King' (Saraha). It make a connection for me that I hadn't understood before. With realization comes intolerable compassion due to an intimate understanding of how all other sentient beings suffer from delusion. Rarely am I in that state of understanding and compassion, but perhaps the answer to this knotty question can only be answered while in that state?
When not filled with compassion for others (the Right View), I have to resort to 'Right Action'. Right action is to stop genocide...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
You tell me, how are you going to oppose such actions without violence?
People often take what the Buddha said about one thing and try to apply that to another, but perhaps this is not always appropriate. When it comes to the middle way (majjhim-patipada), for example, the Buddha said that the middle way is the Noble Eightfold Path which, by avoiding the two extremes of indulgence in sensual pleasure (kama-sukha) and self-torment (atta-kilamatha), leads to enlightenment, to deliverance from suffering, to nibbana.
Therefore, I believe that when people ask what is the "middle way" when it comes to genocide, they are applying this term inappropriately. There is no middle way when it comes to genocide. Genocide is an awful fact of samsara that has the potential to arise because there are human beings whose minds are defiled by greed, hatred, and delusion. There are worldly solutions to genocide, of course, and those can be either violent or non-violent.
In my opinion, non-violent solutions are more in line with the Dhamma than violent solutions because those solutions would not only arise out of compassion for the victims of genocide, but they would also follow the teachings in the Kakacupama Sutta (MN 21). Unfortunately, most people would probably find cultivating compassion for those who were committing genocide and sacrificing their own lives in a peaceful way in order to stop them difficult.
Sincerely,
Jason
Palzang
No, I would disagree. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Nuremburg trials. You see, I myself just got back a few weeks ago from Germany. I visited the infamous concentration camp at Dachau while I was there. I saw firsthand the gas chambers, the incinerators, the whips, and other grisly torture devices. So no, I could never feel compassion for the men responsible for that. Only for the victims.
Palzang
I disagree with this statement, and I think this view can be harmful.
Jason
Palzang
I think we need to be very careful about saying "there are no victims in Buddhism". It can be heard as uncaring and, even, as blaming. Take your own case as an example. You have shared with us how tough you found your sexual orientation and the way in which you were treated as a result. To have said, at that time, to adolescent you that it was simply a result of kamma/karma would hardly have helped to come to terms with who you are and who the tormentors are. How long did it take you to grasp the truth that you now see?
We can say as often as we like that kamma/karma carries no blame but we need to understand that this is not how the message is often received. Nor can we separate ourselves from the way in which what we say is received: a communication has two ends after all.
Having known you for some time now, I doubt whether you would say this to the bereaved relatives of 7/7 or 9/11 or your beloved Mongolians. You may believe it but the first thing is to bring comfort and support. Where possible we need to strive to improve the situation of those who are suffering. Perhaps you may wish to carry, in your mind, the thought that the people whom you are comforting are receiving the blessings of kamma/karma by meeting your compassion.
Across the 'faiths', we find those who refuse to be victims. We have stories of Tibetans thanking their Chinese torturers, Jesus forgiving his killers and many more. These are examples of the fact that victimhood is external and internal. Back in the 1980s, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, we fought hard to remove the expression "AIDS victim" from the public debate. Much strength arises from the refusal to be a victim but we also need to understand that the vulnerable cannot be truly responsive until they are empowered to transform 'imagined' victimhood into authentic vulnerability.
As ever, this is done by compassionate action.
Harlan, dear friend,
Pastor Bonhoeffer says. somewhere, that all love partakes of the same nature. The difference is only one of what he calls "depth". To try to separate love, loving-kindness and compassion and to corral them into tight distinctions may be self-defeating.
Your 'Spock' quotation ("The needs of the many....") is one that I have found extremely difficult until I understood what it really means. It means that an individual can choose to subsume their own desires and, even, needs and life to those of others. It cannot, I assert, be used as an excuse to treat another individual badly on the spurious grounds that it will benefit the many. The examples are everywhere and are deep in our mythologies.
At my university, there is a college called Corpus Christi. In the quadrangle there is a column surmounted by a pelican. In Christian iconographt, the peilcan symbolises the sacrificial love of God: the pelican, myth says, in times of famine, will pierce her own breast to feed her young with her own blood. It is her choice.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it can be misinterpreted. People are very good at projecting their own delusions onto anything. But of course this is not the correct view of the statement that there are no victims in Buddhism. The statement is meant to engender equanimity in one's view. Everyone has all sorts of karmic seeds waiting for the right time and conditions to ripen. Therefore we can't point a finger at someone who had some horrible karma ripen (such as the Jewish - and other - victims of the Nazi Holocaust) and say, "Oh, you must have been very bad! You got what you deserve!" That's not at all the way to look at it. The correct view, if I may be so bold, is to look at all sentient beings with equanimity, both the ones who have committed atrocious, heinous acts and the ones they did them to because we've all done worse, much worse, at some time or other in the past. So no one has the right to turn up their nose at anyone, no matter how reprehensible they may appear to us.
As for my own experience with my sexual orientation, I never recall blaming society or feeling like it was anyone else's problem other than my own. True, I didn't know how to handle it in a positive way, but that's no one else's fault. Could society have been more open and accepting? Sure, of course, but that's society's problem, not mine. Do you see what I mean? Everybody's got their own bag of problems.
Palzang
Indeed, I do see what you mean, Palzang, and I hope that you understand that my concern is simply for how we share this teaching, the words we use and the actions that we take. When we say "There are no victims in Buddhism", we could as well say "There are no persecutors in Buddhism": both are contingent results of long fruition. What I learn from my daily reading of the Dhammapada is that, even in the face of such accumulation of kamma/karma, the Noble Eightfold Path, truly and humbly followed, permits escape from such poisonous fruit.
In my previous learning as a Catholic, I was taught that each of us had a responsibility to avoid being a "cause of scandal" and I fear that bald statements can so scandalise the hearer that they fail to hear the compassion that underlies them. As I learned from those of my family who survived the Shoa and my clients who died of AIDS-related infections, we are only victims if we so choose.
Pascal says the same thing too: the universe may crush us but we are so constructed that, knowing we are being crushed, we are stronger than the universe itself because we can choose to know what is happening. As with everything else, it's all in the mind.
There are sufferers. They need not be victims.
Palzang
I also understand the potential harm of making blanket statements about the Jewish vicitms of the Holocaust being murdered as a direct result of ripening kamma, especially since that in itself is not something that we can even know for a fact because we are unable to see all of the causes and conditions that went into each individual situation.
Let us not forget that while the Buddha taught all conditional phenomena arise due to causes and conditions, he did not teach that everything is due to kamma alone. To be more specific, Buddhism teaches that things are not causeless (a-hetuka), but neither are they due to one single cause (eka-hetuka). Hence, there are other causal factors.
Essentially, a number of factors condition our experience — seasonal laws (utu-niyama), biological laws (bija-niyama), psychological laws (citta-niyama), kammic laws (kamma-niyama), and natural laws (dhamma-niyama) — and often it is a combined effect of past and present kamma along with other casual factors that determines the result.
In addition, the Buddha denied that kamma was fatalistic, which means that people are not determined by one or all of these conditions and there is an element of free will (attakara) that a person can excercise. In effect, there is no way to confirm that one act is (i) present kamma, (ii) the result of past kamma, or (iii) a combination of both.
In conclusion, I believe that telling a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, or rape vicitms, or abused children, et cetera that they are not victims of unspeakable acts is a terribly misguided thing to do, particularly when such a statement has the very likely potential to me misinterpreted by people with little or no understanding of Buddhist doctrines.
Jason