Quotes Tagged "borders"

The only true borders lie between day and night, between life and death, between hope and loss.

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

War is not just the shower of bullets and bombs from both sides, it is also the shower of blood and bones on both sides.

We are not sheep or cows. God didn’t create fences for us or boundaries to contain our nationalities. Man did. God didn’t draw up religious barriers to separate us from each other. Man did. And on top of that, no father would like to see his children fighting or killing each other. The Creator favors the man who spreads loves over the man who spreads hate. A religious title does not make anyone more superior over another. If a kind man stands by his conscience and exhibits truth in his words and actions, he will stand by God regardless of his faith. If mankind wants to evolve, we must learn from our past mistakes. If not, our technology will evolve without us.

When we image borders, we fail at imaging God.

Immigration is not a uniquely American problem. Aside from the former Communist countries, nearly every white country has accepted large numbers of immigrants, so there is a huge flow from non-white to white countries. There are two reasons for this. First, whites have built the most successful countries in the history of the world and others want to take part in that success. Second, only white countries permit large-scale immigration; others keep their territories exclusively for their own people. Different national views on immigration therefore parallel expressions of racial consciousness in the United States. Whites—the only people who dare not express racial pride—let in large numbers of immigrants who are changing their societies. Non-whites, who have a strong sense of racial consciousness, maintain their boundaries. No non-white nation praises diversity, nor do immigrants come to the West with the intention of sharing this gift with us. Most never heard of diversity before they came here. They come because their countries are unsuccessful. Once they are here, most probably want to live their lives essentially as they did before, but with a First-World rather than Third-World income. They want to keep their languages, religions, folkways, and loyalties rather than shed their foreign skins and become American.

It’s been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.

Clearly, our immigration policies should be reexamined. A convincing case can be made on environmental grounds alone that a nation of 300,000,000 needs no more people, especially since it would enjoy natural growth if the borders were closed tomorrow. How can we possibly claim to be fighting environmental degradation or hope for energy independence when we import a million or more people every year? How can we claim to be fighting poverty, crime, school failure, or disease when we import people who are more likely than natives to be poor, criminals, school failures, and to suffer from strange diseases? Immigration is even harder to justify when many newcomers speak no English, maintain foreign loyalties, or practice disconcerting religions. It is profoundly unwise to add yet more disparate elements to a population already divided by diversity. [D]emographers and economists are making dire projections based on the lower likelihood of blacks and Hispanics to become productive workers. These people go on to insist that the solution is to improve education for blacks and Hispanics, but the United States has already made enormous efforts to that end. There is no reason to think some kind of breakthrough is imminent. Clearly, the solution to the problems posed by an increasing Hispanic population is to stop Hispanic immigration. However, [...], our policy-makers are too afraid of accusations of racism to draw such an obvious conclusion. Americans must open their eyes to the fact that a changing population could change everything in America. The United States could come to resemble the developing world rather than Europe—in some places it already does. One recent book on immigration to Europe sounded a similar alarm when the author asked: “Can you have the same Europe with different people?” His answer was a forthright “no.” It should be clear from the changes that have already taken place in the United States that we cannot have the same America with different people, either. Different populations build different societies. The principles of European and European-derived societies—freedom of speech, the rule of law, respect for women, representative government, low levels of corruption—do not easily take root elsewhere. They were born out of centuries of struggle, false starts, and setbacks, and cannot be taken for granted. A poorer, more desperate America, one riven with racial rivalries, one increasingly populated by people who come from non-Western traditions could turn its back on those principles. Many people assert that all people can understand and assimilate Western thinking—and yet cultures are very different. Can you, the reader, imagine emigrating to Cambodia or Saudi Arabia or Tanzania and assimilating perfectly? Probably not; yet everyone in the world is thought to be a potential American. Even if there is only a small chance that non-Western immigrants will establish alien and unsettling practices, why take this risk? Immigration to the United States, like immigration to any nation, is a favor granted by citizens to foreigners. It is not a right. Immigration advocates often point to the objections Anglo-Americans made to turn-of-the-century immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Hungary, and other “non-Nordic” countries. They point out that these immigrants assimilated, and insist that Mexicans and Haitians will do the same. Those advocates overlook the fundamental importance of race. They forget that the United States already had two ill assimilated racial groups long before the arrival of European ethnics—blacks and American Indians—and that those groups are still uncomfortably distinct elements in American society. Different European groups assimilated across ethnic lines after a few generations because they were of the same race. There are many societal fault lines in “diverse” societies—language, religion, ethnicity—but the fault line of race is deepest.

Genres aren't closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

Violent ideologies can proliferate and spread; threats are no longer contained by borders and oceans; and adversaries are as likely to be found in cyberspace as on the battlefield.

American audiences very rarely deal with material outside their borders.

National borders have always been arbitrarily drawn by people, and in ancient times there was a lot of exchange of people and culture with the continent.

I have smuggled so many ingredients across so many borders, like shallot confit from Thailand, or a new sauce from New Orleans not approved by the FDA.

I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders.

Preemptive war is what Israel did in '67 with Arab armies on its borders.

The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all.

Poverty and ignorance, which beget terror, are not eradicated by firing artillery shells. Borders do not stop rockets, and barbed wire does not prevent terror.

Economic activity is moving from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean... Russia has a certain natural advantage because it also borders the Pacific Ocean.

The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian - and has imposed itself on other states.