Immigrants ought to fully assimilate culturally for the good of the host country

Thank you, rikomalpense. Affirmative Case: reponses A1:People prefer other people of the same culture; having different cultural identities creates disunity “I concede the point that people tend to prefer people of the same culture.” Concession accepted. Due to this concession, it should now be apparent that cultural differences are a source of tension, unease and disunity, hence why immigrants should assimilate fully. But I will give you a quick (due to character limit) example of the products of cultural diversity: A cartoon of Muhammad sparks outrage and death-threats from Muslims around the world [6]. In the words of Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi of the Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, “Whoever has done this [drawing], he has challenged the honor of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get [huge rewards]” [7]. “However, as interaction with different cultures and ethnicities is inevitable in today's society…” And later, under ‘Foreign Interaction’: “While "interact" and "living" are not equivalent in meaning, it does not change the fact that "living" with different cultures is conducive towards "interacting" with them.” My opponent begs the question in saying that “as interaction [implied as ‘living’] with different cultures…is inevitable”, we should allow immigrants to keep at least part of their own culture (the resolution) [5]. It not “inevitable”; we are arguing whether it should happen!! Also, again, my opponent’s logical fallacy of false equivalence conflates “interaction” with living. For example, foreigners could visit a country for a couple of days and interact, all without necessarily living there. People could also “interact” with others via the internet, and that clearly is not living together. “Furthermore, 'opinions and attitudes' can differ within the same culture, which does not necessarily mean that having a monoculture will result in more amity between people.” This is a red herring [4]. Yes, ‘opinions and attitudes’ can differ within the same culture. However, they will differ between different cultures, which is the point. Whether opinions differ within cultures is irrelevant to whether they differ against different cultures. Racism “multiculturism is important to allow people to work past this natural impulse, as monocultures breed ignorance, as mentioned before.” Multiculturalism does not allow for people to work past this natural impulse. Racism is natural, and my opponent is saying that “ignorance” leads to racism (under ‘forced full assimilation’: “having a monoculture encourages racism”). This is wrong: In a 1997 study, performed on African people, it was found that, “high ethnic diversity is closely associated with low schooling, underdeveloped financial systems, distorted foreign exchange markets, and insufficient infrastructure” [1]. In a 2003 study which also evaluated past study findings, this study found that despite “there [being] often multiple plausible ways of partitioning the “ethnic groups” of a country… It is interesting to learn, then, that despite sharply different formulations of “ethnic group,” the aggregate measure of ethnic fractionalization based on the Atlas Narodov Mira (a previous study that this new one looked a) data and the data presented here are moderately well correlated, at .75” [2]. Furthermore, “Very similar correlations obtain between the Soviet ELF [Soviet Atlas study data], and the “ethnic” and “linguistic” fractionalization measures produced by Alesina et al. (2002). Roeder’s (2002) several measures correlate at around .81 with my measure F and at about .88 with the Soviet ELF. So as a measure of aggregate ethnic diversity across countries, fractionalization appears to be fairly robust to the looseness of the concept of “ethnic group” [2]. In other words, there is a super strong correlation between people dividing based on ethnic and/or linguistic differences. “Even in a world where it were possible to completely assimilate all immigrants to the dominant culture, if they were still of a different ethnicity, they would still face racism” Race is not equivalent to culture, and so I do not have to show that racially different people should fully assimilate. All I have to show is that people of different cultures to the country that they live/ intend to live in should assimilate fully. So, you cannot expect people to stop being racist (at least at the sub-conscious level) because it is an evolutionary by-product, and thus it occurs naturally. Correlation and causation issues “Of course, as Pro noted previously, correlation does not imply causation.” My opponent attempts to ‘move the goalposts’ here, which is another logical fallacy [3]. She argues that because it is not the cause, the obviously strong correlation (which suggests a cause, rather than the cause) is not sufficient as evidence, despite me referencing 3 different studies (now 4: my second reference this round which mentions a super heavy .81-.88 correlation with linguistics). Is it reasonable to assume that this is not a factor, despite having medium to heavy correlation in 4 studies? Conversely, my opponent’s correlation/causation fallacy came about because she argued that arranging blocks in a particular pattern (“Block design”) was helped by knowing more words. “She claims that "people are definitely basing relationships on cultural factors," but there is no evidence that the two are not simply associated with each other.” In conjunction with the 3 other studies, I think it is unfair for Con to say I have “no evidence”. A2: Language barriers “Pro claims that bilingualism harms a country due to the fact that the United States is primarily monolingual.” No. I used the US as an example for having multiple languages in a country. “The United States is a country that comparatively makes it difficult to be an immigrant and to learn the language” Here, my opponent makes an unreferenced, unargued, bare assertion. “…if [the USA] would adopt a similar practice as Canada, who provides free English and/or French lessons for immigrants, there would likely be much fewer problems with a lack of English proficiency.” Fewer to what degree? What if it were a small degree? My opponent has not shown the degree to which this will have an impact, and hence fails to meet her burden of proof. “Testyourvocab.com is not a trustworthy source- it likely includes many, many users from foreign countries who are not immersed in an English-speaking culture…” “Users from foreign countries” = potential immigrants; this has everything to do with the debate. My opponent continues in the paragraph to say that immigrants should have access to “free [English] classes”. Obviously, this is going to cost the country money, and disunity until the immigrants can speak decent English. Again, for all the supposed benefits of bilingualism, there are problems with engineering this for a country. (From my opponent’s argument title: ‘Foreign Interaction’)“… and the numerous positive effects [of bilingualism], such as increased visual-spatial skills and social benefits from interacting with different cultures directly, clearly outweigh them [3].” Since this is a direct quote, go to her 3rd source. Control+f ‘clearly outweigh them’. It is not there. This is another time my opponent has lied about what her sources say. Rebuttals Foreign interaction “…but even recognizing the problem [of racism] is much better than pretending it does not exist.” This is addressed under ‘Racism’; you cannot make people non-racist. “It has been found that bilingualism in itself indeed has positive effects on the brain.” There are benefits to bilingualism, but the negatives are discussed earlier under ‘A2: Language barriers’. Forced full assimilation “The examples of Aboriginals in Canada, America, and Australia clearly show the cultural imperialist nature of forced assimilation: in Canada for example, Aboriginal children were wrenched from their parents into residential 'schools' where they were malnourished, beaten, and even sexually abused- something that the Aboriginals greatly objected against [4].” My opponent argues for my side of the debate by essentially arguing that Aboriginal people of different countries were invaded by other people who did not fully assimilate! Assimilation involves the foreigners adapting to the country (i.e. the non-Aboriginal people). This full assimilation did not happen, and my opponent shows you the results. “As in the examples of Japan and Sweden, having a monoculture encourages racism due to cultural beliefs…” Racism is a biological product, addressed under ‘Racism’. Academic success “…family environment, which is based heavily on culture, is a significant factor.” A “significant factor” = 10%? I will let the audience decide for themselves. “…multicultural environment attracts more immigrants, which in turn would attract East-Asians who …do better academically, which contributes to the economy.” …and brings about cultural tension, which my opponent has already conceded. Besides, a country could adopt a mono-culture without having to import East-Asians; this is a debate on cultural homogeneity, not racial homogeneity. Natural divisions Race =/= culture. References [1] http://williameasterly.files.wordpress.com... [2] http://www.rrojasdatabank.info... [3] http://rationalwiki.org... [4] http://www.nizkor.org... [5] http://www.nizkor.org... [6] http://www.theguardian.com... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org...