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Notes -
Ilhan Omar speaks to her own people, in her own language, and she is getting blasted for it.
The video itself, from what I think is the most original source I could find.
The headlines I've collected:
Ilhan Omar Deportation Calls Grow From Republicans
'Squad' member grilled for remarks about allegiance: 'Somalians first, Muslims second'
Rep. Ilhan Omar Faces Backlash on Social Media Following Viral Speech on Somalia
From her own, preferred, translation:
Nothing here is news to me. I also think Omar should be expelled from Congress and deported, but that's because she's committed immigration fraud to bring her brother into the US by posing as his wife. It's always been obvious to me that she's simply not American, will never be American, and can never be American. She's Somali, and here, in her native tongue, talking to her coethnics, she admits as much. Look at her preferred translation again, and consider who she lumps herself with.
This is the part that has been translated into Somalis first, Muslims second, and Americans not at all (emphasis mine). She does, eventually, say Minnesotans:
The video subtitles do not translate Minnesota, but it's clearly recognizable (sounds like "rare minnesoto" at ~1:38).
The "brothers and sisters" refers to Somali muslims, not the Scandinavian or German ethnics who have been in Minnesota for generations, those who are being replaced by Omar and her ilk. Not the yankees who moved west from New York and Pennsylvania. Solidarity is for blacks and muslims, not whites, not Americans.
I'm not trying to hide my biases here. I've long thought it obvious that this woman was a foreign agent, representing foreigners in the US congress at the expense of Americans. That offends me deeply. I can't even call her disloyal, because she's very clearly loyal to who she considers her own. I'm glad more people are noticing, and I hope that she is punished for her misdeeds eventually. I simply wish I could say, America for the Americans, our lands will not be taken from us, but I unfortunately that sentiment is only available for foreigners.
Hopefully Tlaib is next.
If the US military stayed within its own borders except when genuinely attacked in an unprovoked way, I would be more willing to grant that US nativists have a worthy moral argument. But as long as the US constantly attempts to exert its will on the world using force, I see no moral argument for why people from the rest of the world should refrain from trying to influence US politics for the benefit of their own countries or ethnic groups or why they should refrain from moving to the US and enjoying the benefits of living there while having absolutely no loyalty to it and instead just exploiting it for their own purposes.
To be fair, many US nativists are actually in favor of a less interventionist US foreign policy.
Wanting influence is one thing, living there is another. And even in that only some kind of influence. I am not an American for example and I don't see anything immoral in trying to influence American foreign poilicy against doing evil imperialist shit (and laudible for non Americans to prioritise opposing evil policy at their expense) but it destroys all boundaries and nuance to see all kinds of behavior as acceptable. I don't see why USA owes Somalians to let them go there and act as foreigners.
America owes itself to not let foreigners exploit its people. And it is immoral in general to support said exploitation, not a case of you having a point about nativists not having a sound moral reasoning.
Another thing to consider is the enormous amount of western help that goes to African countries.
And also that what you are doing here is being quite convenient for those who both like to invade the world and invite the world. Why not oppose both? I have noticed many of the liberals of this world and including in this forum have failed to be louder in opposing the neocons crowd. In a manner that is disappointing for someone who experienced them opposing the Iraq war as I also did at the time.
Anyway, it is interesting that you are an American who finds nothing immoral about non Americans exploiting Americans. Someone might even describe this attitude as a treasonous attitude and it won't be an uncharitable exaggeration. In actuality those who are uncharitable and booing as their outgroup, those who have standards and try to enforce them, would be incentivizing immorality in favor of exploitation.
Countries ideally should neither be invading the world, not letting themselves be exploited by the world. Something has gotten seriously wrong with the kind of people running things if you have reached that place. Combining pathological altruism with destructive imperialism is like having the worst of both worlds. Someone is winning in this process and it includes various lobbies, war manufacturers, the contractors, the state department.
I am not an American by birth, only by residence. I feel almost no loyalty whatsoever to America and am almost entirely happy to exploit it for my own benefit without feeling any sense of duty to it in return. I feel only slightly more loyalty to my ethnic group than I do to Americans (while recognizing that this is an irrational emotional urge), and none whatsoever to the government that currently rules my birth country. I do like Americans on average and feel a good bit of loyalty to certain specific ones who I am friends with but of course, I feel no loyalty whatsoever to the US government or to any abstract notions of "America".
I myself am not advocating for the moralistic argument and am quite content with leaving things at the selfish argument level, I'm just pointing out that US nativists could only be consistent by either grasping the selfish argument and abandoning moral ones or by advocating for non-interventionism.
In general, I simply do not respect borders, rules, or abstract notions of distinctions between nations or ethnic groups on any sort of ideological level. I am pragmatic - in practice, I respect the realities of such distinctions insofar as that is necessary to protect myself from violence, but I do not value borders, rules, or national distinctions in any ideological sense. When I cross a country's border, I have no sense at all that I am crossing some sort of line on a map that requires me to change anything about myself - I simply feel that I am moving from one place on the surface of this big rock, which is dominated by people who follow certain patterns of behavior, to another place, which is dominated by people who follow different patterns of behavior.
At the same time, I will of course not be so stupid as to not avail myself of other people's genuine ideological beliefs in things like borders and nations to benefit myself if it ever proves necessary. For example, I am perfectly happy to avail myself of the benefits of America's relatively strong rule of law while at the same time feeling almost no obligation whatsoever to America as a geographical, ethnic, or legal entity.
And I do not consider myself immoral for this. I do care deeply about certain Americans - to be precise, my friends and those I view as allies. And in that, I am very much American. How much does the average Democrat care about Republicans? How much does the average Republican care about Democrats? Most Americans, it seems to me, at least the ones who care a lot about politics, which includes most people on this site, in reality operate just the same as I do. Any US-dwelling right-wing Motte poster who feels more affinity to some foreign writer who agrees politically with him than he does to some SJW leftist who was born and bred in the US is just the same as I am.
This is the most incredible thing I've ever read. I'm kind of amazed by it, honestly. Amazed and impressed.
I'm sorry because this really isn't the place to make assertions without evidence, but I don't believe you. I think you are a liar, and if people were this coldly utilitarian about their community, let alone their country, civilization might be at genuine risk of breaking down and the hardcore red-tribers who believe civilization is constantly inches from the precipice are not full of hyperbole and hot air.
To clarify, it's not the fact that you see the benefit in doing as you claim that impresses me so. It's the fact that you think not doing so is rational and pragmatic. The borders, rules, abstract nations of distinctions between nations and ethnic groups on any sort of ideological level that you claim to not respect are the very same rules that draw lines between you and others.
The house metaphor is overused, tired, but still apt. Do you respect fences, doors, barriers? Do you not understand, as a self-avowed rational actor, that if you show that living in this manner is possible for you, then others will realize the same thing and apply the same lack of respect to your fences, doors, and barriers?
And again, as a self-avowed rational actor, you are willing to say this out loud? Are you insane? In your own words, while you understand the benefits of America's relatively strong rule of law, you feel no obligation whatsoever to America as a legal entity? You realize that what you are claiming is that that you like it when the laws govern others to your benefit but don't intend on following the same laws. Leaving all questions of morality aside, I struggle to believe you genuinely think this is a position with any pragmatic value at all.
So I don't believe you. I do not believe you are a pragmatic or rational actor, I believe you are reveling in taking advantage of a system designed to benefit you while caring nothing for its maintenance, under the belief that this is rational and logical behavior. Do so at your own peril, there's enough people who do the same already, but crowing about it makes other people who maintain the system you benefit from and contribute nothing to feel like maintaining the system less every day.
Again, I am making assertions without evidence, but I am willing to make a guess that you do not have offspring. If I am wrong and you are not a liar, and you genuinely hold this opinion, I wonder if you have any goodwill for those who carry your genes into the world and have to live in the countries - yes, countries! - of the future.
To wit - I never thought I'd see the day where ignoring the phrase "don't shit where you eat" is treated as a rational belief.
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You know, if I wanted to write an Ayn Rand-style novel about the evils of immigration, I could copy this and paste it almost verbatim into the mouth of one of the villains. I don’t say this out of any personal animus, but keeping out people with your selfish, exploitative, disloyal attitude is the single largest reason I want heavy restrictions on immigration. Whatever economic benefit you bring to the United States, I firmly believe the country would be better off forgoing it if it meant we would have fewer people like you. Call my attitude irrational, nativistic, whatever—when the chips are down, I and millions of Americans will make sacrifices for our communities and our country, while it’s pretty clear you’ll skip out to somewhere better the first chance you get.
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I think this is one place where the Internet has severely soured the discourse. I strongly suspect that the median answer in both cases is that they care more than you expect, and that the loud cases you see online aren't truly representative (although I worry they are becoming moreso).
There exists genuine disagreement about how best to care about, say, single-parent families ("encourage marriage"/"throw money at them") with both sides accusing the other of being counterproductive, but as a fairly moderate voter, I don't generally doubt the intent on either side. There are some obvious cases of motivated reasoning -- although it's often hard to tell when one's reasoning is so-motivated. I have friends across the political spectrum, and while the level of empathy I see for others varies, none of them seem to operate purely selfishly (although such people probably exist outside of my set of friends).
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I love America. I love George Washington. I love Thomas Jefferson. I love Betsy Ross. I love our stupid national anthem with notes that most people can't reach. I love the Constitution, and the Liberty Bell, and our National Parks. I love the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers. I love our aircraft carriers and our war planes. I love the Grand Canyon and the Bald Eagle. I love supermarkets and farmer's markets. I love our long and fraught journey to secure each citizen the greatest freedoms enjoyed by man on Earth.
I love them in the same way I love my parents, who I didn't choose and aren't necessarily the best, but they raised me as best as they were able. To say that one country is the same as another to me would be to say that one random couple is the same as my parents to me.
Is this something only people raised in America feel, or does anyone else feel that way about their homeland?
I would assume both your parents and your country (in general) are too far above the minimum acceptable level of "good" for you to consider not loving them.
I value the cultural connection to my people, and begrudgingly grant that having our own state is better for our culture and our people than not having one, much like having abusive parents is still often better than an orphanage. That does not mean I feel obliged to grant any warm feelings to my country as a political entity. Lately especially, it is far too focused on supporting its expansion at the expense of its people.
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I feel that way about Britain. I am... deeply annoyed by many of the things that large chunks of it have got up to lately, and the apparent suicidal instinct of its leaders, but it's my home. It has a great and noble history, rich traditions, beautiful landscapes, etc. etc. I just wish one of those traditions wasn't stamping on all the others.
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I feel...differently about Germany.
I'd certainly describe myself as a patriot. A nationalist even. But it's the culture, the language, the actual physical country, the people and their ways, and the everyday architecture that I love. Not the institutions, the state, the monuments and symbols. But that may have an obvious historical explanations. For the Americans, those things were always theirs - a democracy from the get-go, by the people and for the people. Tacky as their symbols might be, they are theirs. But for us Germans, the state was never truly a democracy; the most we ever managed was to be handed whatever form of democracy our betters thought suitable for us, by the state and against the people. We accepted it, of course, having always been a people of loyal subjects. We are now loyal subjects of our democratic constitutional order, but it's by social convention and pragmatism, and not in our hearts. As a people, we remain subjects, and our relationship to the state is little different to that our ancestors had to the Reich, or to their local princes. Those on high decide, and we obey. So what does that make the monuments, the symbols and the institutions? Those are the emanations of the ruling class, or the ruling gestalt entity anyways. They aren't truly ours. The local church, alright, that at least is or was relevant to people's lives. The ruins of a castle, picturesque and one can picnic there. But the statue of some Prussian Junker or King? Some neoclassicist monument to the Kaiserreich? A memorial to holocaust victims? The halls of government? None of that is of us and for us, but is of the state and against us. We are to obey in actions, but our hearts are irrelevant. Our constitution, our institutions, our relationship to the military, all that are artificial post-war creations installed to dictate specific behaviors to us. It's not from us. It's not for us. It's to make us behave.
At the most one could say that our tricolor flag, the black-red-and-gold, is by and for us. But in truth it was by a small subset of the population, ideologically charged and by no means organic. It's still our flag, we rally around it for identification and for sports, so I suppose we have taken to it.
Still, it's my country and my people and my language and my culture and my land, and all those are the best in the world. Obviously.
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Definitely not unique, I feel this way about Poland and there were are/many people who described their feelings this way (even if they targeted say willows rather than supermarkets and so on).
Many people in history also had opportunity to prove it be their deeds.
Similar applies elsewhere. I see nothing whatsoever to indicate that it applies uniquely to USA.
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I'd feel that way if my homeland was as free, and its society as well-regulated, as the US is.
It is not.
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The majority outside the West surely do. 89% of Pakistanis are prepared to fight for their country, vs Italy and Germany at 22%.
https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/39dqfw/would_you_be_willing_to_fight_for_your_country/
Considering Pakistan's track record, they're likely to lose. Yet they're still ready to try!
I'd take those numbers with a grain of salt; in 2021 we saw that a stunning 0% of Afghanis were willing to fight for "their country", which is nowhere near the 76% the survey says.
Eh, quite a few Afghans were willing to fight for their country. Against the remains of the forces the former occupying Americans had propped up, that is.
If you're defining "their country" that way then yeah, I guess you could say the number was actually about 3%. Maybe they were under-counting the Taliban; I don't think they even get cell reception out there (that isn't via a drone pretending to be a tower to launch missiles at devices that try to connect to it).
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I imagine the confounder with Pakistan is that they're next door to people they really, really don't like. Italy and Germany, meanwhile, have never really had beef with each other since, what, the dawn of the 19th Century?
They, uh, were on opposite sides in WWI. And again towards the end of WWII. Germany didn’t exactly get a long leash during the Cold War, but I guess half of it was on Italy’s side.
I understand that Italy's motivation in WWI was more against the Austrians than the Prussians (irredentism over Trieste, IIRC?), though I did forget about the second war.
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Proving who you call nativists had a point when they have wanted to exclude people from coming there because they wouldn't have the same sense of loyalty as natives. Since the common good of a country requires people who act based on a sense of duty towards others.
A pro exploitation attitute that doesn't see one having a duty to his fellow people is inherently immoral. You don't have limitless duty or unconditional to how they treat you, to ones country, parents, children, but you do have duties.
You also have duties even to foreign people and countries. Saying that any exploitation is fine, does itself passes a blatantly immoral line.
You can be loyal to your country, even if you don't feel affinity for far leftists due to the fact they don't feel loyalty to their country.
Also, you can care about people in some ways for what you have in common, even if you disdain them in other ways.
It is easier for me to not really care about people I disagree with strongly here since you are anonymous foreigners, but I actually do value some people in my life that I have strong disagreements with on political issues.
It is still true though that there is an inherent issue with a certain type of ideologue whose ideology make them actively very hostile to their own nation by origin. But it is a case of themselves excluding themselves from their own ethnic community by their own hostility, rather than nativists in all contexts caring about abstract differences over ethnic affinity.
Ethnic bonds matter to many people in a way that they don't to you.
To be clear, I think the idea that people don't have a duty to their country is immoral also for "foreign" countries.
It is simply not true that everyone treats the way you do nations as irrelevant and illegitimate.
The goverment is one thing, but the notion of X is its people. I would say that there is an inherent value to duty of doing things and also avoiding from doing (as in exploiting) people outside just one friends. And an individual who is part of an ethnic community benefits from this. It is friendship on a broader level.
A society made of people who feel a connection and a duty for each other is benefiting from them having said bonds and that is a good thing for them, no matter how irrational you find those feelings.
Now, I advocated that nationalism should respect other nations so we can have international peace so there are limits relating to ethnocentrism. Still ethnocentrism is a good thing, just one that shouldn't be limitless. The alternative to nations you represent is worse with the only thing to its supposed credit the idea that you find the ethnic bonds and the reciprocal duties as irrational.
Considering what is lost, it is a bad trade off.
Two wrongs don't make a right. So you should still have a problem with those supporting exploitation even if, which isn't the case, all the nativists supported immoral interventionism.
This is a false argument when not all groups have valid claims to being negatively affected by American interventionism.
Moreover, the enormous amount of western help towards African countries should matter.
I do think that someone who is an American nativist but does favor the USA screwing over non Americans abroad, is being selfish and morally hypocritcal. Although in a selfish manner their argument that nativism is in their own peoples interest has its validity.
It seems you have found this as an argument to use against nativists but aren't interested in the issue whether you are morally obligated to not just use it as a gotcha but ought to oppose the neocons and interventionists yourself.
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Little, if asked in those specific terms. A lot, if not asked in those specific terms. If you ask Republican Richard what he thinks about Democrats, he might give you a pretty negative answer, but if you ask him whether he cares about his neighbor, Democrat Dave, he will frequently say that he cares a lot. Dave and Richard disagree about quite a few things, like gay marriage, and how much the rich should pay in taxes, and what the best way to handle medical funding is, but Dave and Richard both fly American flags, they both have pickups trucks, they cheer for the same football team, they've lived in the same community for decades, and they have a beer on the porch together on Friday nights.
Note that Richard and Dave above are two real people that I know, just renamed for alliteration. They're common and ordinary, particularly in rural areas. Adding Rhajiv and Juan that don't give a shit about the United States makes things worse for Rich and Dave in the long run, even if Rhajiv is a decent software developer and Juan will do construction cheaply.
Many of my neighbors are what I would call "shitlibs". They're also very nice people and fantastic neighbors. I feel much more affinity for them than some political fellow traveler thousands of leagues away.
We may be on the same page then, I think. As I pointed out, I also feel a great deal of affinity for my own American friends. More than I feel for some random political fellow traveler thousands of miles away. It's just that I don't feel any additional level of affinity for people just because they are American.
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