Questioning Obama on Cynicism, Hope, and Immigration

By Jerry Kammer on November 3, 2014

In today's blog, I want to juxtapose an excerpt from President Obama's comments November 2 in Philadelphia with related thoughts, first from conservative writer Reihan Salam in Slate, and second from liberal law professor Peter Schuck's essay in the 1985 book Clamor at the Gates. I'll try to broaden the discussion in future blogs.

President Obama:

Cynicism is sometimes passed off as wisdom. There's nothing wise about it. Cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism never started a business or cured a disease or fueled a young mind. Cynicism is a choice, and hope is a better choice. Hope is what gave young people the courage to march for civil rights, and voting rights, and workers' rights, and women's rights, and immigrants' rights, and gay rights. Hope is what built this country, the belief that there are better days ahead, the belief that together we can build up our middle class, that we can pass down something better for our kids.

Here the president identifies the fight to expand the rights of immigrants, regardless of their legal status in the United States, as part of the noble liberal struggle to expand human rights. In this line of thought, immigration is an inherent good and those to seek to limit it are cynics. Salam and Schuck raise concerns that point in the opposite direction, suggesting that it is unwise to promote unconstrained immigration to the United States.

Reihan Salam:

Americans are, for obvious historical reasons, deeply romantic about the immigrant experience. More than one-tenth of Americans, like me, are the children of immigrants, and there are many more third- and fourth- and fifth-generation Americans raised with heady stories about flinty ancestors. The truth is that some immigrants are poised for great success in a society like ours, and others will have a tough time making their way into the middle class. If we accept that we have a collective responsibility for the well-being of every member of our society, as I think we should, it makes sense to select immigrants who have at least a fighting chance of making it.

Peter Schuck:

Having ordained an activist welfare state that increasingly defines liberty in terms of positive, government-created legal entitlements to at least a minimum level of individual security and well-being, the nation cannot possibly extend these ever-expanding claims against itself to mankind in general. Instead, it must restrict its primary concerns to those for whom it has undertaken a special political responsibility of protection and nourishment, most particularly those who reside within its territorial jurisdiction. Even this more limited task becomes impossible if masses of destitute people, many ill-equipped to live and work in a postindustrial society, may acquire legally enforceable claims against it merely by reaching its borders.


Topics: Politics