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

Thank you, Rikomalpense. Since my opponent has continued to present new information this last round, I should be entitled to do the same. Affirmative Case: Continuations A1: People prefer other people of the same culture; having different cultural identities creates disunity My opponent has conceded that cultural differences create disunity, unease and tension within a country. However, the ramifications of this can vary. Whilst separation within communities is the weakest form of these, outright hatred is the strongest, as I showed you last round (with the Muslim responses to Southpark). Let me be clear before I make this argument: I do not hate Muslims or Islam. I am merely showing you that Islamic culture struggles to assimilate into different countries, and vice versa. It is a great example of what happens when cultural tensions are high. Cultural differences can create outright hatred between people. Consider the relationship between Muslim groups and some parts of the rest of the world. In a specific example, “41% of the general public in Spain says most or many Muslims in their country support Islamic extremists. But just 12% of Spain’s Muslims say most or many of the country’s Muslims support extremists like Al Qaeda” [2]. See the high tension? Other examples of serious problems is that in 2006, “29% of Jordanians view[ed] suicide attacks as often or sometimes justified” [2]. Another statistic from 2006, “61% of Nigeria’s Muslims say they have at least some confidence in bin Laden” [2]. Have a look at what these statistics do to the relationship between Muslims and Westerners: It is not that either culture is inferior. It is not that some Muslims and some Westerners cannot be friendly to each other. It is that these cultures living together cause serious damage. Recently, it only took one Islamic Extremist to bring Sydney to a standstill [9]. It is differing cultures that create these atrocities. My comment: " It [interaction with other cultures] not "inevitable"; we are arguing whether it should happen!!" “No, we are arguing whether full cultural assimilation should occur within a particular country. In the modern-day globalized world, interaction with other cultures is inevitable…” In this argument made numerous times by my opponent, my opponent continually uses incorrect, conflated definitions which results in circular reasoning. This is why she incorrectly paraphrases my quote with “interaction” instead of “living”. The definition given by my opponent was: “Immigrants: People who've migrated to another country permanently or for a relatively long period of time.” The underlined implies that they are living in that country, not simply interacting (interacting, as I explained, could happen for far less time). Without this incorrect conflation, my opponent’s argument here becomes: because living with other cultures in inevitable, we should allow other cultures to come into our country. This is a circular argument because the premise is embedded within the conclusion, hence it is fallacious [1]. “It is, in fact, relevant. Full assimilation is superfluous if differing opinions within a culture may be just as diverse as between cultures.” The majority of the time, that will not be the case (and so with the burden of proof equal, I win this point). A person born into Islamic culture of Saudi Arabia (culture involving Sharia Law, Hilal food, anti-gay marriage etc.) will, on average, have a far different culture to someone in New Zealand (Criminal court law, animal rights, legal gay marriage). Even if someone from New Zealand’s cultural background is very similar to someone’s in Saudi Arabia’s, then he or she will have little trouble immigrating, and thus this leaves my opponent’s point defunct. Natural racism (also involving points under ‘Academic Success’ and ‘Natural Divisions’) My opponent seems to think that forcing people of different races together creates less tension. This is not the case. Similar to what happened with cultural differences, let me give you a diverse range of examples. For example, in 2002, 58% of Mexicans thought that the U.S.A belonged to Mexico [4]. Another example? In 2005, 72% of American Blacks were in favour of Affirmative Action for minority groups, whilst 49% of American whites opposed [5]: For monetary compensation for slavery, “67% of Blacks support it whilst 4% of Whites did, too.” [6] In Korea, “according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare… 1.72 children per every 1,000 from multicultural families are exposed to such violence. The rate is about three times higher than that of children born to Korean parents - 0.55 per 1,000” [8]. The common factor between these different examples: race. “it has been found that the large majority of genes are employed in "responding to environmental signals” … that the amygdalas (associated with emotion, specifically the detection of threats) of those who had racially diverse peers reacted less than those who didn't.” Here, my opponent concedes my point. The fact that despite racial diversity, people are only reacting less shows that racism is natural, albeit capable of being lessened. You will find this means that whilst people do not react in a racist way, they still have racist feelings, hence my studies’ findings that my opponent has largely ignored. “Furthermore, there is often more genetic variation within so-called 'races' than outside of them” People’s racist feelings towards others are based on outward appearance, not inner genetics. You could not say that these races look the same: “There is more genetic diversity in Africa, who are all supposedly part of the 'black' race, than outside of it” That is because “black” is not technically a race (think of all the different types of blacks); it is too broad a term. My opponent claimed that racial tension is something that can be lessened through education and immersion within other races. I negated this with my .75 comprehensive study [7, page 31]. My opponent has not responded to this comprehensive study with anything more than pointing out that the correlation is not 1.0. At best they are going to hide their inherent racial preference (until an anonymous poll comes along). At worst, you are going to have race wars, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Overall, this has the same overall negative effects to multiculturalism. This destroys the idea that we should mix races together to make people less racist and more inviting of other cultures. It is unfortunate that this is the case, but it is the truth. Correlation Issue My opponent has essentially dismissed my correlation examples based on not harbouring 100% certainty. I have shown moderate to very highly correlated studies which support exactly what I was arguing. For example, the 0.81 and 0.88 are considered on the top-end of “highly correlated” [3]. As I argued, there is a super strong chance of my arguments being correct, especially since I referenced multiple studies (reference no. 7). Simply because I have not shown 1.0 correlation, my opponent moves the goal-posts and dismisses my arguments. I ask you, as the voter, to consider how fair this is. A2: Language barriers My quote: "Users from foreign countries" = potential immigrants; this has everything to do with the debate. “No, it does not. Pro fails to take in account that immigrants, once immersed in English culture, improve their English significantly…” But this is the thing: one immersed in English culture. Until then, they are a massive burden in social interactions and to the taxpayer (if your country adopts free English lessons, like my opponent suggested). Then, as my source suggested, the best ESL people have vocabularies of less than half of English only speakers, and the worst have around 5%. My opponent recently claimed that I lied about my source, but I referenced the +-10% variance they thought the study had. As to why else she thinks it is too limited to use? We do not know; she did not reference that part. As for Con’s source that I did not address last round, whilst there are cognitive benefits to bilingualism, as shown above and in other arguments, there are far more damaging negative aspects of allowing immigrants to not fully assimilate. This is why despite these benefits, since the burden of proof is shared, immigrants should still be required to fully assimilate. My opponent’s disastrous Aboriginal Persons example My quote: “Aboriginal people of different countries were invaded by other people who did not fully assimilate!" “The point of the example was to show how full cultural assimilation can be borne of the idea of cultural imperialism...” Again, with this example, she has it the wrong way around: the invaders are the ones not integrating, not the Aboriginals. How can my opponent talk about full cultural assimilation when it is about absolutely zero cultural assimilation? Again, this serves as a very good reason that immigrants should be fully integrated, or else these “cultural imperialists” will try and force their culture upon Aboriginal Peoples and other mother-cultures. Please remember that the burden of proof is shared Thank you Rikomalpense for this debate, and thank you for reading this debate :) References [1] http://www.logicallyfallacious.com... [2] http://www.pewglobal.org... [3] http://www.andrews.edu... [4] https://www.numbersusa.com... [5] http://www.gallup.com... [6] http://law.jrank.org... [7] http://www.rrojasdatabank.info... [8] http://www.koreatimes.co.kr... [9] http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au...