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That is frustrating. I do wish skilled immigration was generally very permissive in the US. Even though it already directly impacts my ability to get programming jobs (my profession).
I've always had a sense that "stop illegal immigration" is the bailey while "stop all immigration" is the motte. I think Vivek and Elon didn't realize that when they waded into the H1-B visa debate a few weeks ago.
There is this weird emotion I get watching anti-immigration stuff. Its maybe like being the first hipster in your grade level that gets into music, and you find all these awesome classic rock songs. And then everyone else starts getting into music and they just like pop garbage. Don't read too much into that metaphor. Its just the feeling.
I recently joined a family society. On my mother's side we can trace our ancestry back in the US to the 1620's. My dad's family is what I consider more recent immigrants. They came here about 150 years ago sometime after the Civil war. My dad is anti-immigration, my mom is not.
... I just realized what the feeling is. Its elitism. I feel a sense of elitism over most of the anti-immigration people I personally run into. Just as a matter of demographics most people in the US came here or are descendants of people that came here within the last 100 years. The same way that you might look at a guy with a broken hispanic accent who just attained citizenship saying "shut down the border" is how I look at most people saying "shut down the border". Or the same way you might look at a person, still dripping wet after pulling themself onto the lifeboat and saying "we can't let anyone else on".
"Hey scum stop talking about founding stock as if you are part of the founding stock, you are a recent jumped up German immigrant. Be happy we let you in and stop trying to gate keep." Is what I'd say in my head to my dad if we was annoying enough to talk about "founding stock".
Anyways, I hope the political winds shift back on this issue. Middle class immigrants seem like the best immigrant class to get, I don't understand why the US makes it so hard.
You know, unless I had some independent reason to think theyre crazy, I would take that as strong evidence that its in my interest what theyre saying.
And since were doing credentials: My family has lived within an hour of here longer than europeans have been to america.
I knew I shouldn't have included the lifeboat one. Its a terrible immigration metaphor. Our "lifeboat" is an entire freaking continent. So its more like some guy washing up on the beach from a ship wreck and then saying "don't let anyone else come ashore".
But also part of the point is not what he is saying, but how he is saying it. "we can't let anyone else on". Like when did "we" become a "we".
I assume you don't live in America? In that case I say "go for it" whatever immigration policy floats your boat. I don't think most countries have a strong enough culture to assimilate immigrants. American culture dominates the world, so most of them come halfway pre-assimilated. And America is generally rich enough to have economic opportunity for them.
The country has limited space. It cannot absorb everyone who wants to come. That's why the lifeboat metaphor works in the first palace.
America is one of the least dense countries in the world. It is a net exporter of food. The US is about three times larger than India in size.
"The country has limited space" is only true in the trite and meaningless sense that it is not actually infinite. But it is certainly not running out of space or even getting all that tight.
The lifeboat metaphor is the ultimate "their is a fixed pie of resources" perspective. And if I believed that "fixed pie" story to be true I'd agree on immigration restrictions. But it's objectively not true and I'd have to lobotomize all the parts of my brain that know anything about economics to believe it.
I don't want strangers and foreigners in my space, regardless of how dense it's already populated. That space is the inheritance of my great grandchildren, and I'm not willing to give it away in a profligate manner, for any reason.
Go live in a treehouse in the woods and own all the land around you. Why should you get to dictate who is in public spaces? Strangers are a necessary part of civilization. People with foreign cultures, beliefs, and genes are a natural consequence of an expansive market that can provide nearly anything.
China, Japan and South Korea say otherwise. You can't just throw out vague platitudes like that like they are iron laws. Countries exist that have figured out (or preserved the knowledge) how to take the goods off the market, and leave the people that made them.
All weak cultures that have barely survived the dominance and ascendancy of US culture. They have barely survived by keeping out all foreign borns, and then just copying the parts of our culture that they can. I don't want to emulate such weak cultures.
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