Okay. But "we got the Iranians to attack our allies with missiles" is not much of an achievement, or at least, it doesn't indicate on its own that the war is going particularly well.

You neglected eleven days ago to specify what kind of situation would make you say that the five week special operation is going poorly. Care to update that or do you feel that the war is basically already a success since our allies got bombed?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

Schools need to educate every student in English. If there's math for kids who aren't able to do math, seems to stand to reason that there should be English for kids who aren't able to speak English. The fiscal argument seems nonsensical - kids get English lessons anyway.

Finally, if they want to assimilate, they will learn English whether or not it's in schools.

Making it harder to assimilate may make the situation develop not necessary in your favor.

If you're not doing that yourself, then you're not fit for this country in the first place. It's not the government's job to pay to assimilate every foreigner who wants to be here.

Kids generally don't get a choice about where they grow up and indoctrinating them into American cultural norms (like speaking English) seems pretty good.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

Everybody sends remittances.

This is just false. Forget about the guy who moved from Mexico. If you think the American born kids of every immigrant (who you don't consider Americans either) are sending remittances, I have to wonder how many such kids you've met, because it doesn't match basically any of the second generation immigrants I've met.

mandatory ESL

What do you think ESL is and why is it bad to have it in schools? It seems pretty obvious to me that ESL classes improve assimilation over not having them.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

I'm totally on board with Teddy here, but (and?) he's obviously staking out a position entirely different from yours. Consider a man who moves here from Mexico, acquires American citizenship, renounces his Mexican citizenship, speaks perfect (and exclusive) English, and flies an American flag in front of his house. Teddy would have no reservations about calling such a man an American, but you would never do so. Your positions are not at all similar.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

What did Teddy say that agrees with your, uh, limited conception of who is an American?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

Targeted killing of enemy combatants is not terrorism. Simple as.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

Everyone was cheering when Israel infiltrated a consumer electronics supply chain to plant hidden explosives inside batteries. That is actually pushing the boundaries of normalized warfare.

Did anyone not in Hezbollah get a pager with explosives in it?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

I never said foreign born. I said foreigner.

You did say foreign born:

That's because they don't want to be sent back where they came from. It's all motivated reasoning, all the way down, but the truth is just like last time the foreign born population crested 15%, there's a backlash coming, and this is laying groundwork to salvage some of what will be lost.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 4d ago

As far as I can tell, the discussion is about birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

sarker ketman hetman 5d ago

There's simply no risk of children of legal immigrants being sent back to where they "came from" and they don't fall under the foreign born population you mention in the next sentence, so the claim of self interested motivation on their part rings hollow. Your personal belief that people who live in the US their whole lives and assimilate to its culture are not Americans is, to put it lightly, a minority view in no danger of being advanced by any serious legal scholars.