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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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So, there's some talk downthread about Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants and such. Putting aside I guarantee in the late 19th century there was in fact plenty of examples of massive population changes, even in more rural parts of the country. Ironically, many of the same people who put forth those population changes are now the ones scared of immigration, so in 50 years, as is American tradition, these Haitian immigrants will be saying we shouldn't be letting in the Bangladeshi's or whomever.

But, the interesting thing is the questions about "why" anybody puts up with them and well, at least according to local business owners, because they're more likely to show up to do the job and not fail a drug test than the righteous pure American's currently living there.

https://youtube.com/watch?si=nke3DETnGvcaAHE4&v=FA80DOcJnu8&feature=youtu.be - Youtube video

https://x.com/otis_reid/status/1833578554778374462 - Quote from the factory owner.

Of course, 2016 J.D. Vance would probably agree with this factory owner about the get up 'n' go of this socioeconomic group of people instead of defending them from economic competition from supposedly mentally deficient Haitians.

Now, to quote a lot of Twitter, it is true the Haitians are ruining that community's traditions, by actually getting to work and not showing up high.

Putting aside I guarantee in the late 19th century there was in fact plenty of examples of massive population changes, even in more rural parts of the country. Ironically, many of the same people who put forth those population changes are now the ones scared of immigration, so in 50 years, as is American tradition, these Haitian immigrants will be saying we shouldn't be letting in the Bangladeshi's or whomever.

The various European groups that migrated to the US in the past were and are more similar to each other in terms of political views & shared cultural history than they are to the populations that arrived post WWII. Concluding that current migration is going to work out favorably from past European migrants being able to form a coherent new identity under vastly different socio-economic circumstances is a reach. From surveys like the GSS or others, it seems pretty likely that adding more migrants from places like Haiti, Central America or Africa isn't going to result in a smooth temporal continuity of extant American cultural sentiments about various things like immigration, free speech or the economy like you seem to imply.

As an aside, I remember reading a similar argument by you in the past, and sure enough going through my post history this turns out to be the third time I post this objection to the same kind of argument put forth by you. I don't expect you to concede, but given that you've never responded so far to me or others pointing out more or less the same thing, it'd be interesting to hear where you think this counterpoint goes wrong.

1.) If you would've told a British person they were basically the same as a Serb or Bulgarian in I don't know, 1851, they likely would've punched you and called you some weird slur nobody knows anymore. But, also, the whole "these ethnic groups are all similar too each other so that immigration was OK, it's just these people won't be able to do it," is literally the same argument made against Italians, Jews, Slavs, and hell, the Swedes at one time. This weird 'we're all white and should have solidarity' is a thing that never existed. As I've might've said before, as the descendent of Pole's, it's actually far more likely some ancestor of current non-college educated half-German guy in rural Ohio did a bit of light war crimes of ancestors of mine, as far as nothing bad has been done to my ancestors by non-European immigrants, so why should I, as argued below, have solidarity with them on racial lines?

2.) I'm quite sure the ole' American assimilation process (which continues largely the same way it always has despite protests to the contrary) will do it's work on Salvadorans, Venezuelans, and whomever else is the scary migrant group of the week. Yes, yes, the culture will change around that - welcome to being in the position of Bill the Butcher in 1863 upset the Irish were changing things or whatever. We're not some European country where people stay on the same patch of land for 9,000 generations. Things shift and change, and whatever you think was the perfect time that we globalists ruined was a time of ruin and destruction for some a generation or two older than you.

As far as imparting cultural sentiments, I don't know, Trump seems to be winning over Hispanic's fine. A little economic success leading to ladder pulling does not know color. It's an American tradition.

3.) Which is probably my inherent bedrock disagreement on where we don't agree - America's not getting worse to me. There are issues, as always, but in the long run, even with Trump, things continue to progress bit by bit.

I'm quite sure the ole' American assimilation process (which continues largely the same way it always has despite protests to the contrary)

Prior to the last few decades, assimilation resistance came from the minority.

Now it comes from the majority (or whatever we want to call the media blob that approximates the "majority" opinion regardless of what most people actually want), which is why people expect the process to not function like it did prior to Western liberalism's suicidal turn.

There is no such thing as assimilation resistance at least the way it actually matters in society, as opposed to being upset there's more aspects of cultural group x in American life. There's no evidence of the usual pattern changing - first gen speaking mother tongue, second gen speaking mixture, third gen speaking English and a little bit of the mother tongue, fourth gen not knowing the mother tongue. OK, the last part is a joke.

There is no such thing as assimilation resistance at least the way it actually matters in society, as opposed to being upset there's more aspects of cultural group x in American life.

What exactly do you think assimilation is? Do you think that if these immigrants continue all of their normal cultural practices, but do them in English, that should be good enough for us to stop complaining?

I mean, seemed to work out for Irish, Italians, Jews, and all the other formerly high-crime low-wage ethnic groups. Even among Hispanics, there's a rising tide of 3rd & 4th generation who are now very successful and just like the white ethnics are starting to vote on cultural grievance and status protection, just like Archie Bunker and such started to do so.

Outside of that, there's no evidence that sort of issues, say, Europe is having with it's immigrant population is happening in the US at any large scale in the long run. Sixth and seventh generation Algerians and Turk's aren't considered fully French or German, and this just isn't an issue in America, outside of a rump 30% of which there has always been a population that's been upset since we started letting those swarthy Swedes in.