"Zelda 2 was radically different and radically sucked"
"Sucked?" "Radically?" There were bad NES games, and there were bad Zelda games (namely, the ones made by Philips for the CD-I). Zelda II was certainly neither.
And it wasn't as radically different as you seem to think. Miyamoto wanted to introduce more swordplay elements, at least more than "They only take damage from three sides." Overhead gameplay simply didn't allow what he wanted in combat, but overhead was still needed for exploration.
If nothing else, Zelda II was more of a predecessor of Ocarina of Time than the original game was: 3D allowed a far more fluid mixing of exploring and fencing than was possible on the old NES.
You just can't get a good fight against Shadow Link in a strictly overhead game.
... that'll be at least another five years for the next version of Windows to come along, then. It'll take at least that long for hardware manufacturers to start writing 64-bit drivers consistently. I got a brand-new 64-bit laptop and it didn't even include the option of 64-bit Vista. Heck, Microsoft's own anti-virus offering doesn't even work in 64-bit.
Windows 9x may not have liked it, but at least it could use 16-bit drivers.
"What is wrong with a woman being passive or submissive?"
Because there is a difference between deferring to the will of another because you know trust the individual in question and deferring to the will of another because they happen to have a Y-chromosome. The former is an exercise of free will, the latter is not.
"-Femininity is seen as Weakness -Bitchiness is seen as Strength -Disagreeableness is seen as Independence -Passive is seen as Doormat -Submissive is seen as Slave"
The original poster appears to be insisting that the direct opposite of each of these statements is always true, and it isn't; "bitchiness" isn't always strength, but it isn't always weakness either. The original poster was conflating lesbianism (a biological mandate) with feminist extremism (a fringe political movement), after all.
"Most men who travel are stunned by how Feminine, Agreeable and Better the Women outside the West and Anglosphere are."
And here you seem to be conflating "feminine" with "agreeable." It is possible for a woman to disagree with a certain man and not be a man-hating ultra-butch dyke.
"Many of us who travel find the Women better than U.S. women. What are you afraid of?"
Because you're equating "better" with "malleable." I will certainly not deny that women from different parts of the world are different from each other, but this apparent window-shopping, looking for women from different locales that are more likely to bow to the will of a man, any man, for no better reason than that's because how they were raised, is utterly distasteful to anybody that values personal liberty. Seeking women who give their consent because they don't know they can withhold it? How is that any better than taking advantage of a child?
"It seems that, at present, with the social breakdown happening in the United States, almost all science reporting contains some dishonesty."
This is "social breakdown" in the US? Not that 1960's, not even the 1860's, but this? I know the "... but with a whimper" bit, but isn't this taking things to the extreme?
"The U.S. is the developed country in which women have the most disfunctional relationships with men."
Got a link? I mean, just sticking with the G8, Japan comes to mind.
And here's a question: what about the places where men have the most dysfunctional relationships with women?
"Lesbians, for example,"
"Lesbian" isn't a synonym for "feminist extremist." Or "feminist" in general, for that matter.
"a way of convincing women who have relationships with men to have sex with another woman. "
I'd wager there are more men out there trying to convince women to have sex with other women than there are lesbians, let alone lesbians who would try that.
"If you have observed how hostile women are in the U.S. toward men,"
Of all the women I've met and talked to on a daily basis throughout my life, I can count the number of women I've met genuinely hostile towards men on one hand. If anything, there were more women "out to get me" in another sense, and coming from a Slashdotter that's saying something.
"Women in Brazil are certainly not perfect, and they are sexist, also. However, women in Brazil are, in general, far more confident of themselves, far happier,"
You can be sexist and comfortable with yourself while still being passive and submissive.
"and far more creative and functional in their relationships with men than women in the United States."
"Functional?" They cook and clean?
"Anyone wondering whether I am in a position to know about Brazilian women can reflect on the fact that I am posting this comment from Brazil."
The phrase you're looking for is "anecdotal evidence."
"The social breakdown in the U.S. is so advanced that often even men are hostile toward men."
Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
"As an owner of a paintball field I'm around guns a hell of a lot."
Those aren't guns.
"(nothing to get your ass moving like a guy shooting 15 balls a second at you)"
Nothing? There's these things called "bullets." They don't sting, bruise or leave welts, they pierce, penetrate and perforate (at least). Sometimes they kill, other times you're not that lucky.
"Paintball has helped me find my instincts"
I will give you some credit: you're not claiming that it's your mad FPS skillz that entitle you to play armchair tactician. But if you truly believe your abilities in a non-lethal game better enable you to defend yourself against somebody shooting at you, I'm sure your local military recruiter would be more than happy to help you put your money where your mouth is and put your Rambo skills to the test.
Wait, Rambo isn't quite the right comparison. More like Jack.
"There are already established providers of blacklists, such as spamcop. Why not work with them and help develop easier ways for users to report spam via their email client?"
Because, as humorous as this sounds, the government has more accountability.
They do if they expect anything resembling employee loyalty. Pay cuts plus a murky employment future will leave you only with fair-weather employees all too willing to jump ship when a better offer comes along, ultimately making lean times leaner for the company.
One would think that the events of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries have shown that the company needs its employees as much as the employees need the company, if not moreso.
A cynical approach to hiring only nets you cynical employees.
"Isn't the Wii graphically more powerful than either the Xbox or the PS2?"
The GameCube itself is more powerful than the PS2 and the games published for it have been on par with the Xbox. Even if the Wii truly is a "GameCube 1.5," it shouldn't take more than a slight nudge to outperform the older two consoles.
"Yeah, it's the first console since the 80's to perform upgrades to components rather than replacing them outright."
Actually, the Dreamcast was the first Sega console that didn't share hardware with its predecessors. The SG-1000 mark II and mark III were both pin-compatible with their predecessors, the Game Gear was little more than a handheld mark iii, the Megadrive/Genesis required little modification to continue that backwards compatibility, and it might have been possible to make a similar adapter for the Saturn to play 16-bit cartridges at least.
"Why does anyone think that primaries must be binding?"
Otherwise the candidates are chosen at the party convention. Party leaders don't like not knowing what will happen, which is why modern "conventions" are as scripted and boring as they are.
"Why do states feel they get to regulate primaries at all?"
Because the parties don't supply their own polling places, poll workers, etc. etc. If the state pays for the elections to happen, they should get to say where and when they happen.
"The Democratic Party is a private organization. (The same for any political party, it's not just the DNC)"
No. Both major parties have special recognition and privileges from the state governments and federal agencies. Why do you think "ballot access" is such a big deal to the minor parties?
"Why does the state fund an election cycle which benefits nobody but the political parties?"
Because 99% of the state legislators deciding funding are party members.
"Why should the state be able to, as it does in many states, tell the Democratic party that "Your sworn enemies, the Republicans, get to vote in determining who you will put up against them in the election"?"
The price of using state resources to conduct party affairs.
"But certainly this is not a matter that the government should be involved in at all."
Explain to your grandmother why she has to drive for an hour to get to the nearest primary polling place, when the polling place for the general election, provided for by the state, is within walking distance.
"Is there some unwritten rule that we must vote for the guy with the most money? Or is it actually codified into law?"
Voting doesn't matter. Elected officials pick and choose those who get to vote for them when the district lines are drawn, which is where the obnoxiously high incumbency rate comes from. It's not that the guy who gets the most money is going to win, it's that the guy who's going to win gets the most money (to influence them after they return to office).
Does that mean the Beloved Party is prepared to go back to actually picking their presidential candidate at the conventions? Will the Other Beloved Party be following suit?
Well, if nothing else, this will make the conventions interesting and potentially historically significant again, but not necessarily for the reasons the parties will like.
Another possible outcome is that, if Florida's "non-binding" primary vote is ignored, Florida may decide to put forward its own electoral slate, committed to their original choice rather than who the party puts forward. This makes things even more "interesting."
"Natural-born citizens are allowed to live their lives as slackers if they want to."
And what, exactly, makes establishing a second class citizenship either ethical or just, let alone democratic or republican?
"Not learning and participating in the common language, politics, and culture is not taking part."
You're presuming that it is not possible to take part in the politics or even the language without also having to conform to the "culture."
"When I say "they", it should be clear to you I'm not talking about ALL immigrants. I'm only talking about the people who don't want to assimilate."
This seems only to reinforce my statement that you seem to believe that freedom of association should only be extended to those you would choose to associate with. Your only basis for denying a naturalized citizen all the rights and privileges they are entitled to is whether or not they modify their own personal behavior to better suit your tastes.
"Look at many parts of the USA to see how more extreme interpretations of the Bible have changed laws and freedoms."
And yet, as natural-born citizens, their rights to have noxious opinions, join cults and indoctrinate their children in their distasteful habits is protected by the constitution so long as they don't affect anybody unwillingly. You would deny extending those same rights, privileges and protections to naturalized citizens based solely on their birthplace.
"We're still talking about people who don't want to assimilate, but want to become citizens. It's these people who fail to recognize the importance of the French ideals and liberties."
If it were truly necessary to be assimilated in French culture to truly grasp the ideals laid out in the Declaration, then the English-speaking United States would not be a republic. The whole point of the document is that it is the "Rights of Man," not "Rights of French Man." Picking and choosing who was entitled to these rights and who was not based on the nature of their birth and upbringing would have been no better than the arguments used by the ancien regime to justify their monarchical rule.
If language and culture and religion were truly so necessary to grasp, understand, appreciate and exercise the rights and privileges we hold sacred, then only France or the United States would be a liberal democracy, not both.
"How different were the laws in Ireland compared to the laws in the USA at the time of the immigration wave?"
Except that I'm the one here arguing that adherence to the law should be the only demand made of naturalized citizens, you're the one insisting that adherence to cultural mores should be added to the list of requirements. Besides, Catholic Irish weren't involved in making laws in Ireland at the time, which is why they left.
"One final time you misunderstand. I'm considering the possibility that enough Eastern Europeans and non-Muslim Africans will immigrate as well to dilute the influence of the North Africans and Middle Eastern immigrants."
No, you don't understand, so I'll repeat the question: If a person meets the legal requirements for citizenship, what does it matter where they were born? Not only have you decided to put naturalized citizens on a lower tier than natural-born citizens, but now you seem to be subdividing the naturalized people, declaring some countries of origin more desirable than others. Maybe you had best exclude the Chinese while you're at it.
"The great thing about the U.S. throughout its history (and quite a few other countries more recently) has been the acceptance of other cultures up to a point."
I bring up the Irish as an example of an immigrant group that fought very vigorously against assimilation (at bayonet point in Mexico, even), living in their own neighborhoods, choosing only to associate with each other, establishing their own schools to indoctrinate their children in an alien religion (that was greatly feared by the vast majority of Americans at the time). The Irish didn't assimilate to the United States so much as the United States assimilated to the Irish.
"Just don't try to import "the troubles" to this country,"
"The Troubles" is more or less why the Irish are here to begin with. And they didn't bring "trouble" so much as it found them, thanks to the common heritage of the English and the natural-born Americans. The only reason this has faded from conscious memory today has less to do with the Irish being better able to assimilate to Protestant America than to Protestant England and more to do with America doing a better job of adapting itself to Catholic citizens.
"If someone wishes to keep some tradition that doesn't fit with the local values and sets them apart from everyone else, that's up to them as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's freedom."
Here you seem to be saying that immigrants should only be required to learn and abide by the law (my stance), rather than going the further step of "insisting that immigrants learn the language and the culture" of your first post.
"Hmm, I see lots of people wearing green, but I've never heard any of them speaking Irish."
Catholic schools in this country would likely not exist if Irish Catholic immigrants hadn't pushed for their establishment to counter the Protestant assimilation efforts in US public schools. But US culture adapted to the papist wetbacks in its midst to the point of electing one president, while the Irish immigrants never did turn orange.
"Nor have any of those people with Irish names had any problem understanding me or fitting in with my Enligh-speaking American culture."
You seem to be assuming that it's always been that way.
"Which explains why the people who try not to assimilate are marginalized and the people who assimilate succeed."
Do I really need to point out examples where both of these statements have ended up not being true?
"Those who fought or now fight assimilation, don't."
I'll keep that in mind next St. Patrick's Day.
"I don't want to see another government hand-out program that institutionalizes the problem. (...) That means convincing anyone who moves to this country (or any nother country) to do their best to fit in."
Pick one.
"Please don't make assumptions about how my family got along once they got to this country."
What else was there to expect from "None of them expected to be able to continue speaking German or Lithuanian once they got here so they learned English?"
"If people don't want to assimilate, they should not become citizens."
Why are you trying to give legal force to these unspoken "rules?" Why should immigrants be forced to go beyond the basic legal requirements of citizenship?
"If they don't assimilate, they are taking over the country and trying to make it like where they came from."
If the "they hate our freedom" argument held any water, they wouldn't be emigrating to begin with. But it is convenient to use to justify your requirements to assimilate as it attempts to justify your xenophobic attitude by making it into an "us or them" proposition. Does freedom of association only apply to those who you would be willing to associate with?
"If the native French people as a whole don't want to eventually be living under an Islamic government,"
Islam is wholly incompatible with republican ideals? Freedom for everybody, so long as you have a Christian background?
"they should not let in everyone who wants to move there and remake the country that way."
If French ideals and liberties can't be seen to apply to those from other cultures, then perhaps it's time to change the name of the document to the "Declaration of the Rights of White Men."
"If France removed controls on immigration and let people freely move in, that's what could happen."
Yeah, and accepting all those Catholic Irish immigrants managed to destroy the United States, I'm sure.
"Though I wonder about what the proportion would be of Eastern Europeans to African to Middle Eastern/North African."
If they are able to meet the requirements for naturalization, does it matter where they were born?
Slashdot Mirror
"Zelda 2 was radically different and radically sucked"
"Sucked?" "Radically?" There were bad NES games, and there were bad Zelda games (namely, the ones made by Philips for the CD-I). Zelda II was certainly neither.
And it wasn't as radically different as you seem to think. Miyamoto wanted to introduce more swordplay elements, at least more than "They only take damage from three sides." Overhead gameplay simply didn't allow what he wanted in combat, but overhead was still needed for exploration.
If nothing else, Zelda II was more of a predecessor of Ocarina of Time than the original game was: 3D allowed a far more fluid mixing of exploring and fencing than was possible on the old NES.
You just can't get a good fight against Shadow Link in a strictly overhead game.
... that'll be at least another five years for the next version of Windows to come along, then. It'll take at least that long for hardware manufacturers to start writing 64-bit drivers consistently. I got a brand-new 64-bit laptop and it didn't even include the option of 64-bit Vista. Heck, Microsoft's own anti-virus offering doesn't even work in 64-bit.
Windows 9x may not have liked it, but at least it could use 16-bit drivers.
"What is wrong with a woman being passive or submissive?"
Because there is a difference between deferring to the will of another because you know trust the individual in question and deferring to the will of another because they happen to have a Y-chromosome. The former is an exercise of free will, the latter is not.
"-Femininity is seen as Weakness -Bitchiness is seen as Strength -Disagreeableness is seen as Independence -Passive is seen as Doormat -Submissive is seen as Slave"
The original poster appears to be insisting that the direct opposite of each of these statements is always true, and it isn't; "bitchiness" isn't always strength, but it isn't always weakness either. The original poster was conflating lesbianism (a biological mandate) with feminist extremism (a fringe political movement), after all.
"Most men who travel are stunned by how Feminine, Agreeable and Better the Women outside the West and Anglosphere are."
And here you seem to be conflating "feminine" with "agreeable." It is possible for a woman to disagree with a certain man and not be a man-hating ultra-butch dyke.
"Many of us who travel find the Women better than U.S. women. What are you afraid of?"
Because you're equating "better" with "malleable." I will certainly not deny that women from different parts of the world are different from each other, but this apparent window-shopping, looking for women from different locales that are more likely to bow to the will of a man, any man, for no better reason than that's because how they were raised, is utterly distasteful to anybody that values personal liberty. Seeking women who give their consent because they don't know they can withhold it? How is that any better than taking advantage of a child?
"Then you can tell them that you're seeing a minor glitch in the AE-35 unit that if left uncorrected will cause a fault in less than 24 hours"
I know what you and the suits are trying to do, Dave.
"It seems that, at present, with the social breakdown happening in the United States, almost all science reporting contains some dishonesty."
This is "social breakdown" in the US? Not that 1960's, not even the 1860's, but this? I know the "... but with a whimper" bit, but isn't this taking things to the extreme?
"The U.S. is the developed country in which women have the most disfunctional relationships with men."
Got a link? I mean, just sticking with the G8, Japan comes to mind.
And here's a question: what about the places where men have the most dysfunctional relationships with women?
"Lesbians, for example,"
"Lesbian" isn't a synonym for "feminist extremist." Or "feminist" in general, for that matter.
"a way of convincing women who have relationships with men to have sex with another woman. "
I'd wager there are more men out there trying to convince women to have sex with other women than there are lesbians, let alone lesbians who would try that.
"If you have observed how hostile women are in the U.S. toward men,"
Of all the women I've met and talked to on a daily basis throughout my life, I can count the number of women I've met genuinely hostile towards men on one hand. If anything, there were more women "out to get me" in another sense, and coming from a Slashdotter that's saying something.
"Women in Brazil are certainly not perfect, and they are sexist, also. However, women in Brazil are, in general, far more confident of themselves, far happier,"
You can be sexist and comfortable with yourself while still being passive and submissive.
"and far more creative and functional in their relationships with men than women in the United States."
"Functional?" They cook and clean?
"Anyone wondering whether I am in a position to know about Brazilian women can reflect on the fact that I am posting this comment from Brazil."
The phrase you're looking for is "anecdotal evidence."
"The social breakdown in the U.S. is so advanced that often even men are hostile toward men."
Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
"As an owner of a paintball field I'm around guns a hell of a lot."
Those aren't guns.
"(nothing to get your ass moving like a guy shooting 15 balls a second at you)"
Nothing? There's these things called "bullets." They don't sting, bruise or leave welts, they pierce, penetrate and perforate (at least). Sometimes they kill, other times you're not that lucky.
"Paintball has helped me find my instincts"
I will give you some credit: you're not claiming that it's your mad FPS skillz that entitle you to play armchair tactician. But if you truly believe your abilities in a non-lethal game better enable you to defend yourself against somebody shooting at you, I'm sure your local military recruiter would be more than happy to help you put your money where your mouth is and put your Rambo skills to the test.
Wait, Rambo isn't quite the right comparison. More like Jack.
"There are already established providers of blacklists, such as spamcop. Why not work with them and help develop easier ways for users to report spam via their email client?"
Because, as humorous as this sounds, the government has more accountability.
"This is where the libertarian in me comes out and wonders if these things aren't better left to the private sector."
You mean like the past ten years?
The "private sector" is where all this spam is coming from to begin with!
They do if they expect anything resembling employee loyalty. Pay cuts plus a murky employment future will leave you only with fair-weather employees all too willing to jump ship when a better offer comes along, ultimately making lean times leaner for the company.
One would think that the events of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries have shown that the company needs its employees as much as the employees need the company, if not moreso.
A cynical approach to hiring only nets you cynical employees.
The idea worked so well for the Pullman Company in the past, so why not?
There's those of us who've played too much Final Fantasy XI and have apparently become quite fluent in both systems. >.>
"But does anyone really worship the Gods of Redmond?"
Quite a lot of us do! All hail Satoru Iwata and Reggie Phil-Amis!
Oh, you mean that campus down the street. Nevermind.
"Isn't the Wii graphically more powerful than either the Xbox or the PS2?"
The GameCube itself is more powerful than the PS2 and the games published for it have been on par with the Xbox. Even if the Wii truly is a "GameCube 1.5," it shouldn't take more than a slight nudge to outperform the older two consoles.
"Yeah, it's the first console since the 80's to perform upgrades to components rather than replacing them outright."
Actually, the Dreamcast was the first Sega console that didn't share hardware with its predecessors. The SG-1000 mark II and mark III were both pin-compatible with their predecessors, the Game Gear was little more than a handheld mark iii, the Megadrive/Genesis required little modification to continue that backwards compatibility, and it might have been possible to make a similar adapter for the Saturn to play 16-bit cartridges at least.
How about you just translate the original Super Famicom game and put it on the Wii Shopping Channel unadulterated? Or is that too much to ask for?
Because, as I alluded to before, they can get away with it.
"Why does anyone think that primaries must be binding?"
Otherwise the candidates are chosen at the party convention. Party leaders don't like not knowing what will happen, which is why modern "conventions" are as scripted and boring as they are.
"Why do states feel they get to regulate primaries at all?"
Because the parties don't supply their own polling places, poll workers, etc. etc. If the state pays for the elections to happen, they should get to say where and when they happen.
"The Democratic Party is a private organization. (The same for any political party, it's not just the DNC)"
No. Both major parties have special recognition and privileges from the state governments and federal agencies. Why do you think "ballot access" is such a big deal to the minor parties?
"Why does the state fund an election cycle which benefits nobody but the political parties?"
Because 99% of the state legislators deciding funding are party members.
"Why should the state be able to, as it does in many states, tell the Democratic party that "Your sworn enemies, the Republicans, get to vote in determining who you will put up against them in the election"?"
The price of using state resources to conduct party affairs.
"But certainly this is not a matter that the government should be involved in at all."
Explain to your grandmother why she has to drive for an hour to get to the nearest primary polling place, when the polling place for the general election, provided for by the state, is within walking distance.
"Is there some unwritten rule that we must vote for the guy with the most money? Or is it actually codified into law?"
Voting doesn't matter. Elected officials pick and choose those who get to vote for them when the district lines are drawn, which is where the obnoxiously high incumbency rate comes from. It's not that the guy who gets the most money is going to win, it's that the guy who's going to win gets the most money (to influence them after they return to office).
Does that mean the Beloved Party is prepared to go back to actually picking their presidential candidate at the conventions? Will the Other Beloved Party be following suit?
Well, if nothing else, this will make the conventions interesting and potentially historically significant again, but not necessarily for the reasons the parties will like.
Another possible outcome is that, if Florida's "non-binding" primary vote is ignored, Florida may decide to put forward its own electoral slate, committed to their original choice rather than who the party puts forward. This makes things even more "interesting."
"Natural-born citizens are allowed to live their lives as slackers if they want to."
And what, exactly, makes establishing a second class citizenship either ethical or just, let alone democratic or republican?
"Not learning and participating in the common language, politics, and culture is not taking part."
You're presuming that it is not possible to take part in the politics or even the language without also having to conform to the "culture."
"When I say "they", it should be clear to you I'm not talking about ALL immigrants. I'm only talking about the people who don't want to assimilate."
This seems only to reinforce my statement that you seem to believe that freedom of association should only be extended to those you would choose to associate with. Your only basis for denying a naturalized citizen all the rights and privileges they are entitled to is whether or not they modify their own personal behavior to better suit your tastes.
"Look at many parts of the USA to see how more extreme interpretations of the Bible have changed laws and freedoms."
And yet, as natural-born citizens, their rights to have noxious opinions, join cults and indoctrinate their children in their distasteful habits is protected by the constitution so long as they don't affect anybody unwillingly. You would deny extending those same rights, privileges and protections to naturalized citizens based solely on their birthplace.
"We're still talking about people who don't want to assimilate, but want to become citizens. It's these people who fail to recognize the importance of the French ideals and liberties."
If it were truly necessary to be assimilated in French culture to truly grasp the ideals laid out in the Declaration, then the English-speaking United States would not be a republic. The whole point of the document is that it is the "Rights of Man," not "Rights of French Man." Picking and choosing who was entitled to these rights and who was not based on the nature of their birth and upbringing would have been no better than the arguments used by the ancien regime to justify their monarchical rule.
If language and culture and religion were truly so necessary to grasp, understand, appreciate and exercise the rights and privileges we hold sacred, then only France or the United States would be a liberal democracy, not both.
"How different were the laws in Ireland compared to the laws in the USA at the time of the immigration wave?"
Except that I'm the one here arguing that adherence to the law should be the only demand made of naturalized citizens, you're the one insisting that adherence to cultural mores should be added to the list of requirements. Besides, Catholic Irish weren't involved in making laws in Ireland at the time, which is why they left.
"One final time you misunderstand. I'm considering the possibility that enough Eastern Europeans and non-Muslim Africans will immigrate as well to dilute the influence of the North Africans and Middle Eastern immigrants."
No, you don't understand, so I'll repeat the question: If a person meets the legal requirements for citizenship, what does it matter where they were born? Not only have you decided to put naturalized citizens on a lower tier than natural-born citizens, but now you seem to be subdividing the naturalized people, declaring some countries of origin more desirable than others. Maybe you had best exclude the Chinese while you're at it.
"Because it's not their country and being there is a privelige, not a right?"
So they're citizens, but only second-class citizens? It would be far more ethical to refuse entry to begin with.
"The great thing about the U.S. throughout its history (and quite a few other countries more recently) has been the acceptance of other cultures up to a point."
I bring up the Irish as an example of an immigrant group that fought very vigorously against assimilation (at bayonet point in Mexico, even), living in their own neighborhoods, choosing only to associate with each other, establishing their own schools to indoctrinate their children in an alien religion (that was greatly feared by the vast majority of Americans at the time). The Irish didn't assimilate to the United States so much as the United States assimilated to the Irish.
"Just don't try to import "the troubles" to this country,"
"The Troubles" is more or less why the Irish are here to begin with. And they didn't bring "trouble" so much as it found them, thanks to the common heritage of the English and the natural-born Americans. The only reason this has faded from conscious memory today has less to do with the Irish being better able to assimilate to Protestant America than to Protestant England and more to do with America doing a better job of adapting itself to Catholic citizens.
"If someone wishes to keep some tradition that doesn't fit with the local values and sets them apart from everyone else, that's up to them as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's freedom."
Here you seem to be saying that immigrants should only be required to learn and abide by the law (my stance), rather than going the further step of "insisting that immigrants learn the language and the culture" of your first post.
"Hmm, I see lots of people wearing green, but I've never heard any of them speaking Irish."
Catholic schools in this country would likely not exist if Irish Catholic immigrants hadn't pushed for their establishment to counter the Protestant assimilation efforts in US public schools. But US culture adapted to the papist wetbacks in its midst to the point of electing one president, while the Irish immigrants never did turn orange.
"Nor have any of those people with Irish names had any problem understanding me or fitting in with my Enligh-speaking American culture."
You seem to be assuming that it's always been that way.
"Which explains why the people who try not to assimilate are marginalized and the people who assimilate succeed."
Do I really need to point out examples where both of these statements have ended up not being true?
"Those who fought or now fight assimilation, don't."
I'll keep that in mind next St. Patrick's Day.
"I don't want to see another government hand-out program that institutionalizes the problem. (...) That means convincing anyone who moves to this country (or any nother country) to do their best to fit in."
Pick one.
"Please don't make assumptions about how my family got along once they got to this country."
What else was there to expect from "None of them expected to be able to continue speaking German or Lithuanian once they got here so they learned English?"
"If people don't want to assimilate, they should not become citizens."
Why are you trying to give legal force to these unspoken "rules?" Why should immigrants be forced to go beyond the basic legal requirements of citizenship?
"If they don't assimilate, they are taking over the country and trying to make it like where they came from."
If the "they hate our freedom" argument held any water, they wouldn't be emigrating to begin with. But it is convenient to use to justify your requirements to assimilate as it attempts to justify your xenophobic attitude by making it into an "us or them" proposition. Does freedom of association only apply to those who you would be willing to associate with?
"If the native French people as a whole don't want to eventually be living under an Islamic government,"
Islam is wholly incompatible with republican ideals? Freedom for everybody, so long as you have a Christian background?
"they should not let in everyone who wants to move there and remake the country that way."
If French ideals and liberties can't be seen to apply to those from other cultures, then perhaps it's time to change the name of the document to the "Declaration of the Rights of White Men."
"If France removed controls on immigration and let people freely move in, that's what could happen."
Yeah, and accepting all those Catholic Irish immigrants managed to destroy the United States, I'm sure.
"Though I wonder about what the proportion would be of Eastern Europeans to African to Middle Eastern/North African."
If they are able to meet the requirements for naturalization, does it matter where they were born?