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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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What do you suppose America's worst and dullest are doing right now

They're in prison, living off welfare that illegal immigrants are ineligible for, or employed in sectors that actually have to check for employment authorization and consequently have pay more as a result. For example, cashiering at big box stores. Walmart actually make an effort to hire people with work authorization (though Warlmar's contractors are a different story.) American citizens have strictly more negotiating power than non-citizens so for the same level of intelligence and conscientiousness, they're eligible for better jobs. Or to restate that in another way-- for an equivalent job and pay rate, the noncitizens are probably going to be smarter and more conscientious (because if they weren't, the employer would just hire a native in their place.) See: every story about attempting to hire americans for farm work instead of illegals.

Actually, I can personally attest to this being true because I spent a few weeks detasseling corn as a teenager. The attrition rate for the program was incredibly high and included myself-- american teenagers just would not stick around. I found out later that the bulk of the work ultimately ended up being done by migrant labor. So self-evidently, the immigrants were more conscientious than the natives.