Thread: U.S. CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD

U.S. can't save the world

Saturday, December 20, 2008 1:47 AM EST
By David Gatz

"America cannot save the world." This was the answer given by John Muzik of the Painesville-based Rally Team, when asked to summarize his views on America's current immigration crisis. The Rally Team is a group of concerned citizens who are against illegal immigration but who favor legal immigration through an orderly and well-measured process.

There is much wisdom in Muzik's answer especially in light of some of the well-intentioned but decidedly risky approaches as to why we allow immigrants into America in the first place. It seems quaint now to remind people that the main purpose of immigration is to benefit the host nation; immigration to America was not meant to be a worldwide social service program. Yet, as Roy Beck of the restrictionist organization numbers usa points out, there has been a concentrated effort to make America responsible for alleviating conditions in Third World countries by taking in their people.

From the Rally Team Web site, www.grassrootsrallyteam.org, one can access a short video by Beck called "Immigration by the Numbers." In it, Beck notes that although America takes in 1 million immigrants from the Third World each year, poverty and despair still characterize their homelands. Moreover, each year the Third World nations add 80 million people to their populations.

In America, those million immigrants each year procreate and add to the pressures on our social, economic and ecological infrastructures. Beck maintains that the only society we radically risk changing by increasing our immigrant intake is our own. The best way to help Third World nations is not to take their poorest, or their best and brightest, but to help those countries try to devise ways to cope with their own problems. Beck believes that America's middle class, forged by modest birth rates and a strong economy, made it great; if the middle-class were to disappear, America would look a lot like the countries that we are trying to help, which would be disastrous for the world. Beck rightly points out that our anger over such a possibility should be directed at our policymakers, not at the immigrants themselves.

A September 2006 article by James Edwards in Christianity Today sees a different segment of the U.S. population victimized by unfettered immigration:

"The average Mexican worker earns one-twelfth what the average American makes. But there are 4.6 billion people in the world who earn less than the average Mexican. That's a lot of 'willing workers' whose immigration here, lawfully or unlawfully, will hurt the most vulnerable Americans: minorities, the disabled, recent legal immigrants."

This is an extremely important article because it keeps the American citizen in the forefront of the immigration debate while critiquing those who would cite their Bibles in favor of more immigration, legal and illegal. Basic to Judeo-Christian thought is the notion of "welcoming the stranger" and there is certainly nothing wrong with following such tenets.

But when welcoming the stranger becomes a utopian scheme to save the world or to stretch the fabric of the nation beyond its tolerable limits, we should also be aware of the admonition, pointed to recently by talk show host Michael Savage, in Hosea 8:7:

"For they have sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind; it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal; if it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."

The strangers referred to in Hosea are certainly not the same benign strangers referred to in Matthew 25:35 ("I was a stranger, and ye took me in."). The biblical stranger in Matthew is the recipient of act of graciousness; the strangers Hosea refers to are the tools of punishment for a wayward nation.

A country whose president celebrates the takeover of its own culture by Latin America's, as Bush has done, and whose elected officials feel more empathy for the citizens of nations other than their own, is indeed wayward. Furthermore, how do we expect all of these new immigrants to assimilate if our traditions are being constantly denigrated in the name of multiculturalism, the belief that all cultures are equal? We are killing the goose that laid the golden egg through misplaced compassion and utopian thinking.

There are 6.7 billion people on Earth and, as noted, 4.6 billion have a standard of living well below that of Mexico. Mexico has a higher standard of living than Nigeria, for example. By the standards of our religious organizations and our compassionate officials we should be allowing millions of Nigerians into the nation. Surely, the Nigerians deserve a better life. The life expectancy in Mexico is 75.6 years while in Nigeria the life expectancy is 46. You have a better chance of seeing your grandchildren grow up if you are born in Mexico than if you are born in Nigeria.

But then, why should we favor Nigerians when there is the democratic Republic of the Congo with a population of 63 million to consider? There, the life expectancy is lower than Nigeria's and a whopping 74 percent of the population is considered undernourished. But to favor the Republic of the Congo would surely be unfair to the denizens of Chad, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone all of which rank lower than the Republic of the Congo on the Human Poverty Index.

So, folks, America truly can't save the world through immigration. In fact, America, with its wayward elected officials and its confused, if compassionate, religious communities may not even be able to save itself.

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/200 ... 238942.txt

Americans are already giving just about as much as they can to impoverished nations. They do it not only through governmental aid, but also through private charity and philanthropy. The overall religious missions giving of US citizens runs about sixty billion per year. There are cultural and scientific exchanges, corporate donations, foundations, religious groups with general public support..... This money can go directly to helping people. Too much of the well-intended economic assistance goes in the wrong direction. Obama's global tax could very well go down the drain.

Originally Posted by Captainron

Americans are already giving just about as much as they can to impoverished nations. They do it not only through governmental aid, but also through private charity and philanthropy. The overall religious missions giving of US citizens runs about sixty billion per year. There are cultural and scientific exchanges, corporate donations, foundations, religious groups with general public support..... This money can go directly to helping people. Too much of the well-intended economic assistance goes in the wrong direction. Obama's global tax could very well go down the drain.

You forgot about the $700 billion US trade deficit, money that goes to countries poorer than the US.

If the U S helps itself by protecting its borders and stopping illegal immigration than it will be helping all the other countries in the world. What's good for the U S is good for the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by Justthatguy

If the U S helps itself by protecting its borders and stopping illegal immigration than it will be helping all the other countries in the world. What's good for the U S is good for the rest of the world.

this is what the American people need to hear and embrace.

So, folks, America truly can't save the world through immigration. In fact, America, with its wayward elected officials and its confused, if compassionate, religious communities may not even be able to save itself.

No we can't. Reminds me of the Titanic and everyone trying to fit in the life boats when there wasn't enough to begin with. There's a limit as to what can be expected.......without risking loosing even more. Making 10 thousand starving people into 20 isn't fixing the problem.....only lingering it on while a select few live un-bothered. Like Obama and his "plan" when he could do wonders for his own family if he coughed over his own money for the cause instead of forcing everyone to do it. I'd rather help individual people and know they get it, than give it to a government or questionable charity who scarfs off what they want and gives what's left over to the needy, or lets it rot or get sold off down the line.....or people just taking it because it's free and depriving the truely needy. There's too many corrupt leaders to trust them and we simply can't bring them all here. They hold some action and responsibility in the mix as well.

Failing free trade agreement,outsourcing,loss of manufacturing,nation building, declining education, uncontrolled immigration all contribute to the death of America, only if we reverse this trend can we once again be a world leader.

I think Americans are very tolerable of all cultures and most of us enjoy parts of most cultures...what we like about our own culture (at least use to) is the rule of law, we respect each others religion, we enjoy each others food, etc.

But we do not like our country being turned into anarchy and chaos by people who come here ILLEGALLY #1 and also by people who come here and refuse to learn our language, expect us to accommodate them with signs and interrupters in other languages....we hate the crime and gangs, the over crowding of housing and schools etc. I could go on but not enough time in the day!

This is not about race, we have nothing against your race, we do have something against the corruption you are use to living in and believe to be normal...we do expect people who move here to assimilate, and we do expect illegals to leave!

Of course the USA simply CANNOT save the world! As big as we are, we are still ONLY ONE country! And NO ONE country can do this!