I have long since come to terms with the insistence of quite a few of my American acquaintances that, being an immigrant, I would never truly understand what being a REAL American meant.
“I have long since come to terms with the insistence of quite a few of my American acquaintances that, being an immigrant, I would never truly understand what being a REAL American meant.” There is no such thing as a “REAL” American. There is tremendous variance in every culture, especially cultures with lots of freedoms. I do not know but believe that variance exists in North Korea but it is suppressed.
Oh, I am aware of that. But not everyone thinks that way. I have had numerous instances when someone mouthed off about immigrants in front of me, not being aware I was one because I barely have any accent. And then, when I told them I was an immigrant and an advocate for the immigration reform, they turned on me, as if I tried to deceive them, somehow, by not being obviously foreign. Like I tried to sneak into some secret society by pretending to be one of the members.
Like many immigrants, I came to this country legally, speaking good English and being educated in a sought-after profession. I became illegal by following instructions handed to me by what was then the Immigration & Naturalization Service. It took me fourteen years - to a week - from when I landed here to when I was sworn in as a citizen, and I consider myself luckier than most.
Like many immigrants, I speak more than one language and have a better knowledge of American geography, history, literature, and government structure than most people who were born there. And for that.... I am routinely beaten over the head with the fact that I wasn't born here so how could I POSSIBLY understand that mysterious American soul. It takes too much energy to argue about it, so I don't bother anymore. People who believe I am a deficient American cannot be convinced otherwise anyway.
Ok. This gets to the obvious question. Were your friends and possibly you MAGA types? I guessing you are not since you believe in immigration reform. However, if you are not and you hang with people who are, you can’t play with scorpions and complain when you get stung.
I’m guessing you were not hanging with MAGAs but just hanging with ignorant people.
So why do you like de Tocqueville, assuming you do, and do you have other philosophers you like?
Guessing by the little hints you have provided you most likely worked with computers either software or hardware. Is software, don’t tell me are software people piss me off. 😡😀♐️♐️♊️
Huh? Where did you even get that idea? First of all - they were not my friends. Nowhere in the post did I say that people who said that to me were my friends. I said "acquaintances". Just.... people I've encountered through the course of my life - including LONG before the term "MAGA" even existed, and long before Trump's candidacy was a gleam in anyone's eye.
Second, one need not be an extreme conservative to be utterly ignorant about immigration. When PATRIOT was introduced we, immigrants, warned that it was eventually going to impact everyone. But Americans were looking for a scapegoat after 9/11 and only cared how to keep us - dangerous immigrants - at bay. So, PATRIOT passed, immigration process got harder, the system got even more clogged up than it already was, and THEN, finally, Americans began to realize this was going to affect them too.
I'd spent many years educating people about immigration - usually in response to the "why don't they just follow the process?" type comments. Some of them were very receptive to being informed. Some got hostile. One person in particular stands out - a POC, a self-proclaimed liberal, voted for Obama both times, BUT strongly believed that we should adopt Iran's policy of executing immigrants on sight the moment they cross the border illegally.
I do work with computers - I am a data analyst, among other things.
Since you have worked in data analytics you have full understanding of distributions. You also understand that when you say “Americans” there is a strange multi-modal distribution around what being an American means.
If this assumption I write next is incorrect, then Mea Culpa in advance. It seems to me you are very angry. If wrong then again Mea Culpa. Incidentally I use that phrase as it is convenient not because I’m Catholic. I have no formal religion but I do worship at an altar. I worship at the altar of curiosity.
I do not believe in executions yet recognize that the world doesn’t behave by what I believe. I get angry, I get sad, I get detached all within the span of a breath. So, feel free to express your anger. Anger is a natural emotion that gets a bad rap, but that is only my opinion.
Incidentally, all the things you say about Americans is preaching to the choir for me.
Ok I read a few of you other posts. I do not frequent the other sites mentioned. I did not respond to your post to talk sex.
I responded because I found your take interesting.
If you write more posts about your thinking and observations I would like to read them as I always love learning. If not, no problem.
I have one question that you do not need to answer but I’m curious. You say you are not native to the USA. So I’m curious as to where you are originally from. I’ve travelled in many countries around the world and have no illusion that the USA is some great place blessed by some mythical god.
So you are not French. I was curious because de Tocqueville is someone I knew a little about but very little. I’m not that well read in political writings and, frankly, I’m not sure one can start any real analysis of politics based solely on economics as many do, though I believe economics or what people believe they know about economics does have a big influence on politics. What little I do know, de Tocqueville comes across to me as very bright but his analyses show some coloring from his privileged and Catholic backgrounds. Also, apparently there is disagreement from scholars about what he meant.
I did not come from a privileged background and I’m neither religious nor theistic. Thus, the colorization of my views are different.
Camus grew up in Algeria. I believe their views on colonialism may be 180 degrees apart.
STEM. Great. What did you eventually study? My own background is math and science as an undergrad and Decision Science in grad school.
As a Ukrainian, May I surmise you ARE NOT a fan of Putin?
Thank you for replying to another one of my posts. Peace Corps may help but not sure how much help. Multi-variable, hidden variable and non-linear variables with lots of complicated correlations among the variables, complicates any proposed solution, a solution that likely, IMO, does not exist. In Bayesian terms, that is my prior probability.
“I have long since come to terms with the insistence of quite a few of my American acquaintances that, being an immigrant, I would never truly understand what being a REAL American meant.” There is no such thing as a “REAL” American. There is tremendous variance in every culture, especially cultures with lots of freedoms. I do not know but believe that variance exists in North Korea but it is suppressed.
Oh, I am aware of that. But not everyone thinks that way. I have had numerous instances when someone mouthed off about immigrants in front of me, not being aware I was one because I barely have any accent. And then, when I told them I was an immigrant and an advocate for the immigration reform, they turned on me, as if I tried to deceive them, somehow, by not being obviously foreign. Like I tried to sneak into some secret society by pretending to be one of the members.
Like many immigrants, I came to this country legally, speaking good English and being educated in a sought-after profession. I became illegal by following instructions handed to me by what was then the Immigration & Naturalization Service. It took me fourteen years - to a week - from when I landed here to when I was sworn in as a citizen, and I consider myself luckier than most.
Like many immigrants, I speak more than one language and have a better knowledge of American geography, history, literature, and government structure than most people who were born there. And for that.... I am routinely beaten over the head with the fact that I wasn't born here so how could I POSSIBLY understand that mysterious American soul. It takes too much energy to argue about it, so I don't bother anymore. People who believe I am a deficient American cannot be convinced otherwise anyway.
Ok. This gets to the obvious question. Were your friends and possibly you MAGA types? I guessing you are not since you believe in immigration reform. However, if you are not and you hang with people who are, you can’t play with scorpions and complain when you get stung.
I’m guessing you were not hanging with MAGAs but just hanging with ignorant people.
So why do you like de Tocqueville, assuming you do, and do you have other philosophers you like?
Guessing by the little hints you have provided you most likely worked with computers either software or hardware. Is software, don’t tell me are software people piss me off. 😡😀♐️♐️♊️
Huh? Where did you even get that idea? First of all - they were not my friends. Nowhere in the post did I say that people who said that to me were my friends. I said "acquaintances". Just.... people I've encountered through the course of my life - including LONG before the term "MAGA" even existed, and long before Trump's candidacy was a gleam in anyone's eye.
Second, one need not be an extreme conservative to be utterly ignorant about immigration. When PATRIOT was introduced we, immigrants, warned that it was eventually going to impact everyone. But Americans were looking for a scapegoat after 9/11 and only cared how to keep us - dangerous immigrants - at bay. So, PATRIOT passed, immigration process got harder, the system got even more clogged up than it already was, and THEN, finally, Americans began to realize this was going to affect them too.
I'd spent many years educating people about immigration - usually in response to the "why don't they just follow the process?" type comments. Some of them were very receptive to being informed. Some got hostile. One person in particular stands out - a POC, a self-proclaimed liberal, voted for Obama both times, BUT strongly believed that we should adopt Iran's policy of executing immigrants on sight the moment they cross the border illegally.
I do work with computers - I am a data analyst, among other things.
Ok. Not friends. Mea Culpa.
Since you have worked in data analytics you have full understanding of distributions. You also understand that when you say “Americans” there is a strange multi-modal distribution around what being an American means.
If this assumption I write next is incorrect, then Mea Culpa in advance. It seems to me you are very angry. If wrong then again Mea Culpa. Incidentally I use that phrase as it is convenient not because I’m Catholic. I have no formal religion but I do worship at an altar. I worship at the altar of curiosity.
I do not believe in executions yet recognize that the world doesn’t behave by what I believe. I get angry, I get sad, I get detached all within the span of a breath. So, feel free to express your anger. Anger is a natural emotion that gets a bad rap, but that is only my opinion.
Incidentally, all the things you say about Americans is preaching to the choir for me.
Ok I read a few of you other posts. I do not frequent the other sites mentioned. I did not respond to your post to talk sex.
I responded because I found your take interesting.
If you write more posts about your thinking and observations I would like to read them as I always love learning. If not, no problem.
I have one question that you do not need to answer but I’m curious. You say you are not native to the USA. So I’m curious as to where you are originally from. I’ve travelled in many countries around the world and have no illusion that the USA is some great place blessed by some mythical god.
I am originally from Ukraine. I came to the United States on a Soros scholarship for science and engineering students at the age of 19 - 30 years ago.
So you are not French. I was curious because de Tocqueville is someone I knew a little about but very little. I’m not that well read in political writings and, frankly, I’m not sure one can start any real analysis of politics based solely on economics as many do, though I believe economics or what people believe they know about economics does have a big influence on politics. What little I do know, de Tocqueville comes across to me as very bright but his analyses show some coloring from his privileged and Catholic backgrounds. Also, apparently there is disagreement from scholars about what he meant.
I did not come from a privileged background and I’m neither religious nor theistic. Thus, the colorization of my views are different.
Camus grew up in Algeria. I believe their views on colonialism may be 180 degrees apart.
STEM. Great. What did you eventually study? My own background is math and science as an undergrad and Decision Science in grad school.
As a Ukrainian, May I surmise you ARE NOT a fan of Putin?
Thank you for replying to another one of my posts. Peace Corps may help but not sure how much help. Multi-variable, hidden variable and non-linear variables with lots of complicated correlations among the variables, complicates any proposed solution, a solution that likely, IMO, does not exist. In Bayesian terms, that is my prior probability.
Gotta go. Bye.
Thank you. Absolutely spot on in today’s politics.
Every time I go back to his writings - just at random, just to have something smart to read - I am surprised. And educated.