site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Personally I always thought Texas and other border states were just playing national politics with the border crisis. Creating a crisis as an issue to run for re-election on.

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/07/new-york-adams-emergency-migrant-buses

NYC has received 17k migrants since April. That seems tiny compared to what Texas has dealt with.

Adams said the city is receiving on average 5-6 buses a day. I will assume 40 people per bus or about 240 a day. That’s about 75k a year and he says it will cost the city a billion a year.

Now 75k a year of migrants is probably NYC fair share of migrants for how many are coming. NYC population around 9 million or 1/35 of the US.

He says it’s not an issue they asked for, but they did declare themselves a sanctuary city.

Maybe Adams is actually a Republican. Because his complaining is exactly what Republicans would want from busing them for political reasons. Conversely maybe Texas GOP complaining about migrants was not just politics but a real issue they were having trouble dealing with. I assumed it was politics.

I think this also shows some weaknesses with the blue city state capacity. The basic agreement before was we have some globally competitive people we can tax a lot to fund our local poor plus civil servants. Blue cities aren’t that good at building more housing and infrastructure anymore. It’s about $20k a year for them per migrant. Texas and the south can just give them a mortgage for $20k to buy a used a trailer and use their land which can house multiple people though jobs might be a problem theirs only so many meat processing plant and ranch hands you need.

Honestly NYC should just ship them to Chicago and write a $20k a head check. There’s plenty of abandoned property on the southside that needs people (though has violence issues but better than where they came from).

If Adams was going to be a good Democrat he should just pay the tab and tell Abbot he will take his proportional share.’

An interesting side note to consider - if your ultimate goal is to get rid of immigrants these stunts may be counterproductive.

“It’s safe to say what’s going on is a pull factor, which is somewhat ironic given the criticism from some of these same governors involved in this about various pull factors that they claim already exist,” Magnus told The Times. He said social media plays a part in the problem because it is enticing “when migrants hear that there are buses that will take them to locations where they are told they will receive benefits and job.” Magnus noted that human smugglers use the same information to lure migrants.

Well the intent isn't to deter migrants directly, I'm sure the intent is to get the Federal Government to act on border security, which would hopefully THEN deter the migrants.

Or at least, make blue states share the costs.

Blue states already share the cost, and annoying municipal officials is not going to persuade Democratic legislators to spend vastly more on border security (which Abbott and Desantis already know).

I'm assuming that faceh is not only talking about economic cost but societal too. And well as to your second point: "The beatings buses will continue until morale border policy improves"

As has been noted repeatedly, immigrants mostly live in blue states. The "societal costs" are already shared. That's not the issue. The issue is that nativists don't want any significant immigration at all.

"The beatings buses will continue until morale border policy improves"

The overwhelmingly pro-immigration voters living in areas with already high immigrant populations are not going to change their mind because a few more show up. It just doesn't affect their lives that much. You're more likely to see the Feds cut a big check to affected blue states than you are to see a major opinion shift. This policy is grandstanding by Abbott and Desantis to further build their lib-owning credentials.

immigrants mostly live in blue states.

That's a bit of a misleading phrasing. "Immigrants" as a class are different than the types of persons who have no other option but to "sneak" in.

The ones crossing the border are almost certainly a much, much larger burden and net drain on resources than those that follow "proper channels."

Hence, even that one Democrat mayor in Texas is shipping migrants out.

I challenge you to show that blue states, especially Northern ones, have as many undocumented immigrants as Southern border states.

"Immigrants" as a class are different than the types of persons who have no other option but to "sneak" in.

All immigrants, legal and illegal, tend to wind up in blue states. Red states tend to be lacking in economic opportunity and the comparative lack of major cities or pre-existing communities makes them relatively unattractive.

The ones crossing the border are almost certainly a much, much larger burden and net drain on resources than those that follow "proper channels."

What's your model?

I challenge you to show that blue states, especially Northern ones, have as many undocumented immigrants as Southern border states.

"Southern border states" includes includes California. If you mean "traditionally southern states" (or just red states on the border), that's literally just Texas.

As for where illegal immigrants end up:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/11/us-metro-areas-unauthorized-immigrants/ (this is measuring by metro area, rather than state, and some of the cities spill across state borders - New York being the most prominent)

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigration-statistics/Pop_Estimate/UnauthImmigrant/unauthorized_immigrant_population_estimates_2015_-_2018.pdf

Per DHS numbers, out of the top 10 states, we have

Blue States (CA, IL, NY, NJ, WA): 4.33M

Red States (TX, FL, GA, NC): 3.33M

Purple States (AZ): .33M

CA and TX account for about half of their respective categories.

An older (2016) study from PEW gives us the tally below for all statse: https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-by-state/

Red States: 4.22M

Blue States: 5.76M

Purple States: .62M

If you want to compare Texas to the northeast, that's 1.6M vs 2.3M (states counted: CT, DC, MD, MA, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VA)

These are good numbers to use, but I suspect that as soon as I scale them for the population of the respective states it will make things a little clearer as to how each state has been faring in shouldering their share of the influx.

Here's a 2016 study from Pew that estimates the total number of 'unauthorized' immigrants and their percentage of population on a state by state basis:

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-by-state/

See also @netstack's post below which indicates Texas and Florida have far more immigrants in absolute numbers than anywhere but California, and that as a percentage of the population its heavily skewed towards border states.

To get REALLY specific: based on these numbers, in order for Martha's Vineyard to have a similar share of immigrants in their borders, which I've arbitrarily set at 3% to approximate the ratio of the whole U.S., the community of 15,000 people would need to have 450 illegal immigrants living there.

They declared a crisis over Fifty. So they really aren't prepared to shoulder their fair share at this rate.

Do you disagree?

More comments