Are the House Democrats Insane?

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Clarissa

November 30, 2012

I’m not getting this at all:

The STEM Jobs Bill eliminates the “diversity visa lottery” program – which is open to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. — in order to reallocate the slots to foreign STEM graduates. A competing bill sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.) would create 50,000 visas for STEM graduates without eliminating the diversity visa program.

Why not eliminate the stupid visa lottery? There is a much better way of bringing in immigrants than giving a chance to all kinds of criminals and people who would never be able to adapt.

This is what the stupid Democrat bill has to say:

The Republican proposal would kill the Diversity Visa, a long-standing immigration program that ensures diversity among new immigrants and provides one of the few legal pathways to enter the United States. Supporters of legal immigration should not have to kill other immigration programs to increase STEM visas.

If there is an immigration program that deserves to be killed, it’s the visa lottery. Assigning the “diversity” buzzword to it does not make it better. Are we still so unenlightened that we believe that diversity is universally good? Any kind of diversity?

Yet again, I want to quote one of my favorite philosophers:

We white Leftist men and women [should] leave behind the politically correct process of endless self-torturing guilt . . . [Western] politically correct self-flagellation is an inverted form of clinging to one’s superiority. . . The positive form of the White Man’s Burden (his responsibility for civilizing the colonized barbarians) is thus merely replaced by its negative form (the burden of the white man’s guilt: if we can no longer be the benevolent masters of the Third World, we can at least be the privileged source of evil, patronizingly depriving others of responsibility for their fate (when a Third World country engages in terrible crimes, it is never fully its own responsibility, but always an after effect of colonization).

I also recommend this old post of mine that illustrates the ridiculousness of some folks’ obsession with diversity.

Stupid Democrats need to get out more if they are ever to stop being so in thrall to their own stupid buzzwords.

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16 responses to “Are the House Democrats Insane?”

Kellen

November 30, 2012

I am personally biased towards the visa lottery program because that’s how we got residency. We were turned down for a green card through the normal system, despite my father having the required credentials, holding the same job in the US for 7 years during our attempts to gain residency. So I’m glad the Visa lottery allowed us to stay here.

But it does seem like a silly way to bring in diversity – plus I have heard that people in foreign countries who have no real interest in living in America apply for it year after year in hopes of being able to be a green card holder, and then *maybe* they’ll think about moving here. It seems weird that it would be available to people who aren’t even attempting to apply through other channels too.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  November 30, 2012
  
  People like your family wouldn’t even need the lottery if normal immigration channels were open instead.
  
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musteryou

November 30, 2012

This, from the blog entry, is completely true:

“if we can no longer be the benevolent masters of the Third World, we can at least be the privileged source of evil, patronizingly depriving others of responsibility for their fate (when a Third World country engages in terrible crimes, it is never fully its own responsibility, but always an after effect of colonization).”

I can’t comment on USA immigration policies, but the lack of ability on the part of most Westerners to engage in rational discourse, without mincing their words, is very disturbing to behold. For example, from a Facebook discussion on “primary processes” recently, I explained that some cultures are more imbued with them than others. I added that this has both positive and negative consequences for cultures who are less so imbued and more imbued.The positive consequences (obviously, in my view) are that people who approach the world in such a way are more able to intuitively accommodate others, if they so wish. A negative aspect would be that the magical thinking aspect of primary processes would lead more often to accusations of witchcraft — which is also what we see more often in most parts of Africa. So, there are positive and negative aspects to this. I also mentioned that Western culture tends to be devitalized relatively speaking, through not involving this full-bodied approach to life. At the same time, it was good not to be accused of being a witch.

This is of course a touchy topic, full of opinion and representations of subjective experience. Nonetheless, some people cannot touch upon it easily, if at all. They bring up all sorts of qualifying statements like, “We can’t make comparisons between cultures…” even though I have explicitly been making them. They also freely affirm that Western culture is lacking in something (which is falsely attributed to a moral lack in the form of Western materialism). African culture is only to be envied and aspired to, not criticized. Despite the fact that I have already criticized it, by saying I find refuge in Western culture which does not easily attribute witchcraft to people, the issue is side-stepped with the statement that Europe also experienced a witchcraft craze in the medieval era. That was something I already knew, but it is illogical to make the comparison meaningless, by seeming to associate present day Africa with a more ancient European time.

It seems to me that no matter how hard I work to establish that there may be pluses and minuses within different cultures, most Westerners reflexively work to establish a moral hierarchy, where they (as Westerners) appear on top, due to their ability to split hairs more finely.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  November 30, 2012
  
  I have absolutely no problem saying that not all cultures are equally good, valuable, and valid. From the point of view of my system of values, of course. I hate this prissy PC idiocy where we are supposed to pretend that all cultures / people / countries deserve equal respect just because they exist. I don’t think that existing is any sort of incredible achievement.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    November 30, 2012
    
    Sure. I just wish people would stop playing psychological games that compromise their intellectual integrity. People actually can’t read, nowadays, because they are quite literally trapped within a philosophy of solipsism. All they have is their subjective judgement — and they are afraid to state it, often rightly so.
    
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cliff arroyo

December 1, 2012

Two words: Disparate impact.

If visas are awarded on the basis of scholastic merit then not all groups will be equally represented and that would be a crime against humanity.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  December 1, 2012
  
  I really hope you don’t believe this.
  
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cliff arroyo

December 1, 2012

Which part do you hope I don’t believe and why?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  December 1, 2012
  
  That there is anything wrong with selecting immigrants on merit, achievement, how much they will contribute, how well they will adapt.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    December 1, 2012
    
    Sorry I fogot that you don’t necessarily (or ever?) get sarcasm.
    
    To be as clear as possible.
    
    I think that selecting immigrants on the bases you mention is rational and good.
    
    I was surmising (only half-seriously) that the Obama administration would be against this because if you use your criteria then not all groups would be equally represented and the Obama administration is _very_ devoted to the idea of disparate impact (which ultimately will penalize any meritocracy).
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      December 1, 2012
      
      “Sorry I fogot that you don’t necessarily (or ever?) get sarcasm.”
      
      – I’m so baffled by this entire situation that I don’t even know who is serious about this and who isn’t. I’m sorry I doubted you! I just didn’t expect this level of stupidity from the Obama administration.
      
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anon

December 1, 2012

While the stated goal seems to be diversity for diversity’s sake (which I agree is a bit odd – people really need to learn to better explain the motives for encouraging diversity), I think part of the reason they have the lottery is to be more egalitarian when it comes to opportunities. After all, in the great romanticized picture of America, this is the land of opportunity that everyone wants to come to in order to get their fair chance to succeed. So if we want to live up to that ideal, we need to give immigration opportunities to people who haven’t had the opportunity to succeed in their own country. I am sure there are people who are smart and hard working who live in countries where their circumstances don’t allow them any upward mobility, and I do want to give them a chance to come to the states… but I think the lottery system is just an easily implemented bandaid to create those opportunities in a very broken system.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  December 1, 2012
  
  Well, this is exactly what I’m saying. Immigrants are supposed to conform to some fantasy of what they are like, a fantasy that might have nothing whatsoever to do with them. I find the idea that all immigrants have failed to achieve anything in their own countries and wish to emigrate because they are losers to be quite offensive. I know many many people who emigrated from my country. We are Jewish, so we have seen our friends and relatives emigrate starting in 1975. Eventually, pretty much everybody we knew emigrated. And out of all these people, not a single one emigrated because they lived in poverty and were less successful economically than anybody else.
  
  For me, for instance, emigration has meant sacrificing a higher standard of living for a much lower one. That was a conscious choice. But the fantasy you are talking about needs to imagine me as a dirt-poor person living in a cardboard box in my country and emigrating because I wanted to be better fed.
  
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  1. anon
    
    December 1, 2012
    
    Indeed (though obviously I don’t feel the pain of these stereotypes as viscerally as you, having never immigrated myself). But these fables of American immigration make use feel so good about ourselves – we’re so damn magnanimous! 😉
    
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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

December 1, 2012

Who is the philosopher you quote? I’d like to read more!

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  December 1, 2012
  
  The one I always quote. 🙂 Slavoj Zizek.
  
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