Ayn Rand was an Illegal Immigrant
Posted by JohnConnor352 8 years, 4 months ago to Politics
Can anyone who staunchly opposes greatly increasing the numbers of immigrants allowed in here legally (including barring those who came illegally to have a path to citizenship) please respond to this article?
It is a few years old, but applies more even now than then.
It is a few years old, but applies more even now than then.
Ayn Rand did what she had to to escape a deadly totalitarian dictatorship and bypass mindless bureaucrats in the way, but she didn't "lie and bend every rule to gain entry" with "perjury" and the distorted tale from a 1984 speculative biography with no credibility -- and which doesn't mention the distorted story the article claims it does.
Ayn Rand knew she would be killed by the Soviets for her outspoken ideas and longed to come to America to make her own way, living by her own means under political freedom. Her family had been in contact with other family members in Chicago who had emigrated to the US decades before, and she arranged to visit them.
Her family found that the Soviet dictatorship was not allowing people to leave permanently if at all. The family in Chicago provided an affidavit that she would stay with them and that they would guarantee to finance her, which they did. After graduating from college as a history major she had enrolled in a Russian film production school to learn how to write scripts, and to get out of the country she had to tell the Soviets that she would return after researching the American film industry, which the Chicago family was associated with. That got her a six month passport, which was enough to get out of the Soviet Union.
She knew that she would possibly not be able to remain permanently in the US, at least at first, and anticipated possibly having to go to Canada and trying again later. As she left her family in Russia in early 1926 she had expected that the Soviet regime would not last, that she would be returning to visit her family, and that she would eventually be able to bring her whole family to the US after establishing herself and becoming self-sufficient.
In order to get into the US she had to obtain a visa from the US consulate in Latvia, which was still an independent country but pandering to the Soviets out of fear of being taken over. Upon arriving she learned that many White Russians were trying to permanently emigrate and were being denied. She had expected that if she couldn't get a visa for the US at all she would slip out out into Europe to avoid being forced back to Russia, but found that potential emigres were being closely guarded and she would not be able to do that.
It was not illegal to immigrate into the US, and the illegality under the Russian communists was irrelevant, but the bureaucrats were blocking those with permanent intentions. While talking to the agent in the US consulate, trying to convince him that she was just visiting in Chicago -- which she would have if necessary -- and without mentioning her longer term intentions, she noticed that the official paperwork falsely stated that she had a fiance in America, which record she had to counter and truthfully deny. A man had proposed to her in Russia, and in order to block the bureaucratic land-mine it occurred to her to tell the agent that she was coming back to him. She was one of the few able to get out at that time. On the way to the ship in France she turned 21 years of age.
She obtained the renewals she had to in the US, and did not have to go to Canada. There is no evidence that she married Frank O'Connor just to become a citizen, quite the contrary. She married Frank in 1929 and 2 1/2 months later got her green card, becoming a citizen in 1931. Obviously it would have made sense to time the wedding appropriately rather than ask for trouble with bureaucracy. Under the circumstances Ayn Rand would have had a right to do much more to save herself from the communist dictatorship and the mindless bureaucrats judging people by "intent".
None of this had anything to do with today's immigrants who support welfare statism or worse, with the expectation of government support in whole or in part, and illegally coming with the complicity of US collectivists looking to turn the US into a third world culture with imported votes to help pull it off.
Ayn Rand always supported the right to immigrate and to escape dictatorship in order to live an independent life in a free society. She opposed the notion of statist economic protectionism for "jobs" to block immigration, but did not support a cultural invasion to turn the US into a third world country with guaranteed welfare as enticement to illiterates demanding a collectivist government, sprinkled with terrorists accelerating the process.
It is that libertarians take " non-initiation of the use of force" as their primary philosophical axiom. Objectivism recognizes that this is not an axiom and must be proven itself separately. The end result of this is that libertarianism does not see any action that does not harm someone else is unethical, while objectivism sees wasting your life in an opium den as unethical.
Libertarianism is a political and collective control belief system based on political philosophy.
Objectivism is a system that allows and assists any individual to assess any belief system or any other, belief system be it political, religious, commercial, secular, moral or other wise - giveit an honest appraisal and determine it's validity or lack thereof, in short it's worth. The question asked and answered is it useful - comes after testing. The only grader or evaluator is the individual thinker using observation and testing.
First Law - Become conscious of yourself and your ability to think and reason.
Second Law - Continually observe the nature of all observed with two question in mind. Is it Useful or could it be useful?
Third Law Having worked out a system of morals, values, standards, and ethics apply it to the outcome of anything discovered under the 2nd Law.
Try it on any belief system especially the control systems of the collectives as a 'thing' whose nature can be studied and determined.
What follows is in two parts.
Did you follow what you determined to be true
Or what you determined to be false..
A side I'm now thinking about is the morality of using one choice to destroy the other choice and so far I have no moral problem assuming they are the only current choices, the act changes the parameters and the changed parameters will allow an ultimate win.
Evil versus flawed would be an example as it will allow the rejection of flawed at a later time while the reverse argues against that ability.
It also required the reverse of standard thinking and not using the greater evils definitions to determine the outcome.
A project under construction....
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
This made us great because it gave us cheap labor looking for opportunity and willing to sacrifice the present for a better future for themselves and their families. This does not work in a welfare state where we attract more moochers and those that do not contribute more than they take. It is also difficult to bar those that have elected to be our enemy as opposed to refugees from a state that coerces its people to act in a hostile manner to us. Our immigration policies are out of date and do not reflect current conditions. As long as we refuse to address the issues honestly and revise these laws to work in the best interest of the country and the immigrants we will have a problem. We have made immigration an emotional issue for political purposes without any thought of how it should work within today's conditions.
Our immigration laws, outdated or not, are just useless pieces of paper. For generations, by now, the government refuses to implement them.
That in turn reflects deep seated differences among very vocal advocates of the various issues involved, with no prevailing fundamental philosophy underlying the immigration law suitable to our times.
That in turn reflects that vast groups of people think of themselves as hyphenated Americans, letting the melting pot freeze.
That in turn reflects the divisive efforts of many politician touting "diversity" as a more fundamental value than American unity.
That in turn reflects a long process, which started with the ascendance of the "progressives" (crypto sympathizers of various brands of collectivist ideologies - socialist, communist or fascist), the initiators of irrational and utopian ideas about governing philosophy and deniers of the primacy of the Constitution.
That in turn reflects an ongoing process, starting with the poor parenting by the so called greatest generation, as an initial manifestation of that process, which a cold hearted scientific mind has no choice but to describe as a DECAY.
Population density forces limits and restrictions, the way blowing air into a balloon eventually stretches it to the breaking point. By then the new world starts replicating the practices of the old countries, repeating the power struggles, repressions, ideologies that had failed before and had given rise to the move to new territories, and the cycle repeats. Only there is no more new world to escape to. We have to invent an accommodation among all the individuals who still aspire to the founding principles within an ever more deteriorating culture.
It needs to be said, though, that more immigrants do not mean more unemployment. They actually stimulate more jobs to service and supply the extra population. They can enrich the culture with new creativity and skills. Eliminate the welfare state, and all will need to earn their own keep. People not habituated to a paternalistic government will actually take pride in their own productivity, the classic “work ethic”. “Find a need and fill it” is still the best motivator for initiative and inventiveness. New immigrants are a valuable resource to attain that goal.
The other problem is that the people of those times were coming to America because of the promise of a new life free from tyranny, where they could adopt American values. The people trying to come here now don't even want to be American and certainly don't want to adopt American values!
I have no problem with an immigration policy that really reflects the needs of our current country. But what it is being used for right now is neither cheap labor nor the American ideal, but for votes. The Democrats want to change the voting demographics and create a slave state to support them. What else do you call the current situation with all the illegals?
People still come to and enrich America under these terms. Others are denied entry because of an unjust and shortsighted immigration law. If they are illegals, they are not fully protected and they have been taught that the laws do not mean anything. These people are victims of a corrupt system but they establish a baseline of illegal activity that escalates to human and drug trafficking which leads to violence and reaction. Under this cloud we get a steady stream of problem immigrants, terrorists, criminals and moochers. Bad laws always lead to massive problems and unintended consequences.
The Democrat version of statist principles currently benefits most from this situation but if the Republicans can figure out how to gain this advantage they will in a heartbeat. All of our problems stem from a class of professional politicians that only care about their power and enrichment and a public that lets them get away with it. As long as we elect POLITICIANS to office this will only get worse. They and their cronies know this and they ALL will gang up to prevent anyone, not one of them from gaining access to power and revealing all the dirt behind the curtain.
We have a staggering unemployment rate right now - about 15% - and it's even higher the lower down the education scale you go. We have the people - what we don't have are the laws which allow them to work for what they are worth. Their skillsets aren't worth more than $5/hr, yet minimum wage laws insist that we pay them double that - and provide healthcare benefits!
"If I am allowed to come to your country, I will not be a burden. I will obey your laws. I will become an American. You must promise me that I will not be abused. I will be protected under your law and I will be allowed the opportunity to improve myself and my family."
Yes! 100% Yes! The problem, however, is that the majority of immigrants we have now aren't interested in this. They don't want to become Americans.
"Others are denied entry because of an unjust and shortsighted immigration law."
Please detail what portions of our current system you see being problematic. I will probably agree, I just want details rather than generalizations.
We are enabling those that do not want to speak our language and observe our laws and customs by bilingual schools, signs, etc and by being politically correct. If you don't want to be an American, don't come.
The immigration laws are a patchwork of amendments that are knee-jerk reactions to every situation we have encountered since the early part of the 20th century, see link: http://www.fairus.org/facts/us_laws
Rather than address modern immigration reform, we keep adding band-aids and playing political football. We want and need immigrants but it must be a win-win deal. We do not need people we feel sorry for. We don't need to take in people only because they have no other place to go. They do not need to be like us but they need to want to become like us.
"We are enabling those that do not want to speak our language and observe our laws and customs by bilingual schools, signs, etc and by being politically correct. If you don't want to be an American, don't come."
"We want and need immigrants but it must be a win-win deal. We do not need people we feel sorry for. We don't need to take in people only because they have no other place to go. They do not need to be like us but they need to want to become like us."
Agreed and Agreed.
"see link"
Thanks for that. It was informative.
There is an Italian movie, "The Golden Door" that gruesomely portrays what first generation Europeans had to go through to get here and to stay. Their children fought WW II and built a great economy. My wife is a granddaughter and our children do not know or care where their relatives came from. The striving gives the country vitality and the reaching of a comfortable place in society is a reward. We, and our schools, need to teach this as a virtue and make sure that every citizen has a basic understanding of Capitalism. Not doing so is and will continue to be our downfall.
That is something immigration officials can not detect, nor can they track, never mind have the will to do anything when they over stay their visa's.
Illegal immigrants that do not announce their presents, have no excuse and should be deported when caught. NEVER should we give them so much as a library card, never mind taxpayer services. There is no law that says everyone else in the world has the right to come here and their is nothing in our constitution that says we have to.
To the bigger question: Should we increase the numbers of immigrants in this country...the rational answer is No. It would only cause more problems at the taxpayers expense. At least in my state, there is just not enough jobs to go around.
I often wonder why anyone would want to come here as of late anyway because it's clear we about to become just as bad as the country they probably came from...maybe even worse.
As for limited immigration, Vetted to the max, sure, our country has thrived upon individuals like that, they usually become among America's staunchest defenders.
As for islam/muslims?...well they will have to grow up a bit first. They must gain a conscience and have sufficient self control, not to mention accept our laws the way they are and ask for no special treatment.
Right now, We absolutely have no ability to vet these people out. It is imperative that we get it right. The confounding factor is that they are all taught to lie in their mystical book in an effort to conquer the non believer.
So, until they can demonstrate they have reformed, gained a conscience and self control and wish to Become American...we can't let them in.
Some liberal government creatures think that mere exposure to our culture would cause spontaneous awareness and therefore ascend into a conscious human being. That is just not so. Even if it did, it would take several generations to do that provided there was no pull from the world they came from. Never mind, the fact that the political and idiot-ilogical climate in western societies do not intend to allow or to empower, that to happen.
Area by area, to cities, to states. Willing to wait until their numbers dominate.
Same goes for marxist, communist and socialist...they'll go along to get along but continue to secretly change things little by little using alinsky like tactics...they too, are not awake, and might never awaken just like muslims. This has been a problem for 8000 years in the only true division between us; conscience/no conscience; whether forms of conscience be fear of consequence or willful rational moral thought.
as an "any means to the desired ends" affair. . there are
zillions of these, and they lie and cheat until they win. -- j
.
every minute, and most vote D ... -- j
.
I wonder if the liberals and progressives would obey that command seeing they have more in common with monkeys than with mankind.
PS...I got that little tidbit from my Dad who grew up in Boston.
Immigration is good for an economy.
Speaking "the language" is irrelevant to whether an immigrant is "doing it right" or not.
Ellis Island didn't "vet to the max." We did just fine with those immigrants.
Do you really trust a DMV employee equivalent to vet an immigrant?
That's al I have the energy for. Off to happy hour and pizza.
No one today is qualified to properly vet anyone that wants to come here.
Why the hell would you bring billions of moochers into our country, How the hell would that be good for the economy...these are not the days of our grandfathers...what worked then Does not apply now...it's a very different world.
You didn't read the whole thing, people that have skills and a desire are good for our economy...not the creatures obobo and gang are letting in.
Enjoy your pizza and give that some thought.
"Illegal" today is an issue because of the welfare state, and refugees are an issue because of terrorism. Eliminate the WS & terrorism, and require immigrants to assimilate and learn English, and there is no immigration problem.
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Nothing has changed in the past 90 years so we should just compare Rand's situation 90 years ago as if it was identical to the situation today.
I am against all Illegals and additionally against ALL of Obama's immigration policies. Based on the fact that these immigrants nearly all receive some form of government assistance paid for by the US taxpayers.
If we would end ALL government hand outs, my position would be very different. However as long as I am footing the bill (even if in a miniscule way). I say NO to all this.
As a caveat, I have to add, that the very recent epidemic of religious and racial terrorism certainly adds a new layer of complexity to the issue
I'd love to have open borders. However, I have a problem with hose who either want to come and not assimilate or, taking it a step further, want to attack. Yeah...pesky details...
about robbery. . entering the u.s. and sucking at the
government teat illegally is robbery. . it is not a good
idea to encourage people to do this.
Rand did not do this. . she contributed by working
her ass off to benefit herself, and by consequence,
everyone else -- tremendously. . as I have heard
her history, she maneuvered her travel visa into
citizenship legally. . I am damned glad that she did! -- j
p.s. to your question, we do not have the jobs for
immigrants, right now. . the politicians have erased
them and left welfare in their places.
.
It's just a Libertarian attack on the philosophy of objectivism using subjective pie in the sky mystic fairy tails.
So before anyone wastes there time on this garbage wait for the poster to prove it.
Kidding aside, this is not a document to disparage Ayn Rand. It is an attempt to take away unfair stigmas from illegal aliens, as the opinion of the writers is that the law preventing their entry is unjust and therefore refusing to restrict ones one actons in response to the law is not unethical in itself
That particular one I suspect is a trap brought out when needed or for some just waiting for the day you didn't wear steel soled jungle boots because -after all this is the desert..
limits because I have a car which is safe at 100. -- j
.
I would ask, however, would such actions be immoral, if they were true? If so, why?