Day 10 – O’Keefe – Which American Dream?
One concern that opponents of the Dream Act often express is that careless immigration policies threaten to alter or even destroy the American dream. So what’s the dream: wealth, or shared moral values, or both, or what?
Today, many Americans – in government, industry, and education – are deeply concerned about America’s ability to compete with Chinese education and industry. This sense of competition is extraordinarily revealing. To me, it seems obvious that America is light years ahead of China in protecting the things that matter, such as liberty, equality, and human rights. To me, it also seems obvious that this is not a “competition,” and that we should do anything we can to help the Chinese catch up with us in these critical areas of life. If they get ahead of us in cherishing liberty and equality, that would be startling but glorious, unequivocally wonderful!
The “competition” is not about human rights or the value of life; it’s about money and power. To respond to the competition, we are changing our educational priorities, emphasizing STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. I support more rigorous education in STEM subjects, enthusiastically. But will we diminish our commitment to literature and history, our ability to get inside the minds of others, habitually? To put it another way, what do we value? What are determined to pass on to the next generation?
Let me propose a thought experiment. Here’s a list of seven facts about America. Can we lose any of these seven traits and still be the same great nation that Washington and others founded, that Lincoln and others kept together?
#1 . We are the richest nation on earth.
#2 . Militarily, we are the most powerful nation on earth.
#3 . We have – or have had – a strong work ethic (often called a “Protestant” work ethic).
#4 . We enshrine in our founding documents a commitment to equality.
#5 . We enshrine a revolutionary attitude towards inalienable human rights.
#6 . We are proud of our history of generosity and hospitality.
#7. We are predominantly white.
Which of these can change, without changing American identity? (I recognize that I am skipping over at least one huge and complex aspect of American life that is critical to our identity.)
We can dump #7, right? We can’t dump #4 and #5, no matter what, right? What about #6?
100 years ago, we kept out millions of Chinese immigrants, because we considered them inferior. Now we want to compete with the Chinese, and are worried (some people are worried) that their work ethic and intelligence might overwhelm us. In retrospect, wasn’t it a colossal blunder to keep out those scrappy Chinese entrepreneurs?
Today, many Americans are deeply worried about family life, and about our ability to maintain an intelligent commitment to a family life that imparts traditional attitudes toward faith and family. And yet we keep out Latinos, and divide immigrant families! How dumb is that?
Mr. Parrott?
