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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   29050 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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Recently @RandomRanger accused me of strawmanning the Right:

Turok was being banned for being overtly aggressive and obnoxiously creating imaginary narratives like "The "Woke Rightist" looks at his race, sees a mostly imaginary mass of helpless unemployed drug addicts and demands tariffs so that they can rise to the lofty heights of sewing bras, picking fruit, hauling equipment, and digging ditches in the rain."

That's not what the 'woke right' thinks and he surely knows it. He need only check the MAGA rhetoric from Trump about good factory jobs, or the rhetoric from the right about the need to mechanize dull fruitpicking jobs and raise productivity. Why, they say, should millions of people be brought into the country if AI is going to destroy everyone's jobs? Or the need to have American wealth kept in America rather than sent off in remittances. Or them hating H1Bs as cost-cutting that interferes with developing talent. Or them not seeing the country as purely an economic zone but having responsibility to native citizens. It's an insanely uncharitable and aggressive butchering of other people's ideology.

Did I strawman the Right? Let's ask Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the United States secretary of labor:

FOX: I think American citizens are willing to do the jobs that illegal immigrants are willing to do.

LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER: Americans are willing to do the job. What we have to give them is the opportunity to have those jobs.

DeRemer refers to "Americans," the online racialist Right is talks about whites, but in both cases the vision is the same, uplifting the ingroup means getting them the opportunity to do the jobs currently done by the guy standing in the Home Depot parking lot. Is there any wonder high-income whites are moving away from the Republican Party? Working-class whites, too, don't want their sons working casual labor, which is why in the video DeRemer goes on to talk about how Americans will be given opportunity through being "skilled, upskilled, re-skilled" and how the Trump administration is increasing apprenticeships. Of course, few illegals do those high-skilled jobs, so upskilling Americans won't replace many illegals, but it's not like the Fox News host is going to point out the apparent contradiction.

Given that I've given an example from a cabinet-level Trump administration official, (not "nutpicked" from some rando on Twitter) I expect that @RandomRanger will withdraw his claim that I "obnoxiously created imaginary narratives" in the interests of truth and courtesy.

  • -38

There are reasons to “uplift the in-group” and you need to articulate why this is an innoble goal in and of itself. They are citizens; they have more in common with you if you are a wealthy white person; for evolutionary reasons, it is natural to have an interest in uplifting those that are similar to yourself; for reasons of national security, you do not want so many citizens who believe that the American project is not worth investing in; they may have a higher IQ than Hondurans; they may have different levels of compassion or a different taste in aesthetics which may be informed by genetics.

Is there any wonder high-income whites are moving away from the Republican Party

College-educated White males lean toward Trump. It’s just women who shifted a lot toward Harris.

Working-class whites, too, don't want their sons working casual labor

This may have something to do with the millions of migrants brought in to undercut wages, the exact thing we’re talking about. No, you can’t ever compete with them, because —

  • Remittance payments mean that they can afford a higher quality life while temporarily living a lower quality life in America

  • They are raised with values that are de-socialized by our ridiculous mandatory education culture, and this isn’t the kind of thing you can arbitrarily re-socialize at will

  • They often live in illegal accommodations, requiring less funds, and these require a network that natives aren’t a part of

  • They live within a culture where the women expect to marry laborers

I’m also not sure if you’re agreeing with him that it would increase wages, and just disagree that this is important, or if you think it won’t increase wages.

There are reasons to “uplift the in-group” and you need to articulate why this is an innoble goal in and of itself

I never said it was. I think uplifting the in-group by getting them jobs sewing bras, picking fruit, hauling equipment, and digging ditches in the rain is pathetic.

They are raised with values that are de-socialized by our ridiculous mandatory education culture, and this isn’t the kind of thing you can arbitrarily re-socialize at will

The fundamental difference between me and you is that I like white people more, which extends to liking first-world societies that white people built. I'm not concerned that these Guatemalans coming across the border are going to out-compete whites because they have a "better" culture.

  • -13

I think uplifting the in-group by getting them jobs sewing bras, picking fruit, hauling equipment, and digging ditches in the rain is pathetic.

Why? It works incredibly well for China, who has seen consistent gains in QoL. It worked well throughout the history of the West. Sewing bras is more conducive to wellbeing than stacking them on a shelf. Picking fruit is so Edenic that it’s the first recorded activity of humanity. In what world would “picking fruit” be pathetic? I think you are having trouble dissociating the image you have of these things now, with what they would look like if employers didn’t have a semi-slave class. There’s a farm near me where people — college-educated, white, smart — sign up to plant and reap for free. Because in return they get free room and board, and most importantly a social environment filled with other young white people. They work quite hard, then they drink in the evenings and dance and fuck and make music and so on. This is exactly what agricultural work was for nearly all of history. Not for the slaves, of course, but for the non-enslaved.

I'm not concerned that these Guatemalans coming across the border are going to out-compete whites because they have a "better" culture.

Well you ignored all of my points regarding this. If I also ignored all of the points I would agree with you.

I'm going to push back on this- no doubt you can get some heiresses to work on the partyfarm, but agricultural work is sufficiently terrible that it requires non-free or at least desperate labor to get done in sufficient quantities. Guatemalans, convicts, helots, the corvee- this is who's always done heavy farm work.

Now operating machines is fun and sexy and high status, so mechanization changes that, but some farming will probably never be mechanized. The alternative to strawberry pickers from Chiapas is either a) enslaved strawberry pickers[in America, these would probably be prisoners] or b) not having strawberries. Now migrant labor doesn't have to change the demographics of the country- we could send them back to Honduras or Oaxaca or wherever to enjoy their pay in a much lower cost of living locale when the season is over- but let's be real here, America isn't going to do the smart thing.

requires non-free or at least desperate labor to get done in sufficient quantities

What is your excuse for why China is able to do it while having a one standard deviation higher median IQ over America? Even Japan does not utilize as many foreign laborers as America.

China has many people who are far more desperate than America for similar reasons to Mexico(it's a middle income country with high income inequality), and also doesn't have full freedom of movement. People who have the option to be laborers in cities will prefer that to being agricultural laborers.

Then consider Japan, which only employs 50k migrants in its agricultural and forestry sector.

People who have the option to be laborers in cities will prefer that to being agricultural laborers

And if there is an absence of agricultural workers, the wages for agriculture go up, meaning the conditions become as desirable as WWOOFing, meaning people return to work in agriculture.

the wages for agriculture go up

Americans famously love when the price of consumer goods go up

Also Japan imports 60% of its calories

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What is your excuse for why China is able to do it while having a one standard deviation higher median IQ over America?

They likely don't; all those rural laborers don't show up in the IQ stats because they don't take the tests.

And the Japanese? How about the Japanese in the 80s?

Japan imports a massive amount of food. This would be pretty dumb for the US to do, considering the massive amount of farmland we have.

(I believe the US is a net food importer by dollars, but not by calories)

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