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I would like to spotlight this comment by @urquan in last week's thread because it touches upon something that I feel warrants it's own discussion seperate from all of the drama surrounding the death of Renee Good. Specifically this line here...
Over the years I have often heard cosmopolitan liberals express a sentiment to the effect "the United States has no culture". I used to find this deeply frustrating, and even as a teenager it seemed obvious to me that there were clear cultural distinctions between the East Coast and West Coast, North and South, never mind between the US and UK or the US and France. We have an entire host of uniquely American, myths, stories, heroes, sports, holidays, figures of speech, etc... How could anyone be so blind as to think that the United States has no culture? It was as I got older that I came to understand that what they really meant was something more like "the United States has no culture worthy of consideration". The more I think about it, the more I think it is this distinction that the modern culture war is really being fought over.
In the blue corner we have liberals and post-modernists who seem to view the idea of nationalism and a national identity as something distinct from one's political, racial, and sexual identity as either "fake and gay" or something to be deconstructed and dismantled. To the extent that the existence of a distinct American national identity is acknowledged, it is as something to feel embarrassed about and apologize for.
...and in the red corner we have this guy. Yes I am aware the commercial itself is for an electric car, but let's be real, its a Cadillac, and I think we all know who that character would have voted for in 2024.
This ties into the rest of @urquan's post and what I see as the core appeal of Trump. I think that a large part of the reason that Trump evinces such strong reactions, both positive and negative, is that he gives off this vibe of being quintessentially capital-A AMERICAN in a way that I don't think any US President really has since the Cold War.
I have been accused of "trolling" and "rage-baiting" by users here for quoting Teddy Roosevelt's "Hyphenated-American" speech, but its something I stand by, and that I feel bears repeating.
It is that sense of one's real heart-allegiance that I feel is sorely missing from much of the modern immigration debate.
Isn't doing things in your own financial self interest > doing things for the "common good" a part of traditional American customs and values? Capitalism > socialism, individualism > collectivism, libertarian hands off government > nanny state, and similar concepts are a strong part of the American cultural core historically in my eye. The "American Dream" is precisely this idea of an opportunity to work hard and be rewarded for your own success in a free market. So I'd contest that coming to the US "because they see dollar signs" is in opposition to American values, because I believe seeking personal economic success is an American value.
I think it's especially funny to see this coming from the "conservative" side of things now. Not so long dismissing people as "too greedy" or claiming companies are "exploiting immigrant labor" and other such concepts were a predominantly progressive view. Famous conservative voices like Reagan, Goldwater, Friedman, Thatcher, William F Buckley Jr, Ayn Rand etc etc (you can find tons of examples of old school conservatives with similar views) were supportive of immigrants coming to their countries and working for a better life for themselves. A lot of this stemmed from the capitalist views these voices had, that economic self interest is a good thing for society as a whole and that people who make money through business are not "exploiting" society and greedily stealing from everyone else, but contributing to society through providing goods and services. If they were to look at things today, many of those classic conservatives would focus their blame on the welfare state and big government handouts rather than immigration. As Friedman said “There is no doubt that free and open immigration is beneficial—so long as it’s not combined with a welfare state.”
One great example of this being Reagan's whole speech where he basically says that immigrants of the time are in some sense more American than actual native born citizens with the argument that the immigrants (especially the ones fleeing the communist countries) understood this and held a love for the US and our economic freedoms and embrace of working hard for yourself and your family.
This is eminently reasonable; immigrants ... embrace of working hard for yourself and your family are not really what most people are upset about.
Most people are upset with immigrants who:
If you eliminate (or even harshly cut back on) the number of immigrants, legal or otherwise, exploiting the above, I bet you'd see a lot more positivity towards them.
1, 2 and 3 are obviously problematic, especially cause we shouldn't put up with anyone immigrant or native. Criminal behavior, welfare fraud or working with foreign.goverments isn't acceptable.
But this is just untrue. You're not just a worker selling your labor to a business, you're a customer buying other people's labor from a business too. Lower costs for businesses is lower costs for consumers, which you are one. This logic suggests that more people = poorer conditions, and yet it doesn't seem to pane out much in real life. In fact the opposite seems to be true and larger populations seem to be such an advantage that China, despite being ruined by socialism for decades, still manages to be a major economic and political player in the world. And despite the world population being 4x bigger than the 1920s we'll all significantly wealthier on average.
The same logic would also argue for cutting birthrates (after all, those children will want jobs in 18 years) and even eliminating fellow natives who also compete for your job. But in the same way you don't have to worry about it because each worker is a consumer and creates demand for new jobs.
To clarify more on what I mean; if you have a glut of people in a certain profession, then the wages for that profession will be lower (aka, it's a buyers marker). One thing that we saw here in Canada was that we had a lot of positions that were unable to be filled (at the current wage) shortly after the pandemic; this obviously leads to companies competing to get workers into them, which is good if you are a worker. I do acknowledge that increasing the size of industry will provide more jobs overall - the issue becomes when immigration is used as a "depress wages" button. I had the exceeding misfortune of doing job applications shortly after Canada got 5m+ new immigrants (as in, roughly 2.5% of our population); it was a nightmare as every position I applied for had 150+ applicants in the first 30 seconds. Eventually, the industry will be able to absorb them; but it won't be fast, and I only have these 80 odd years on earth. If the industry supports it in 5 years, I'll have lost 5 years where I could've been earning better wages (and as everyone knows, investing makes earlier money grow much more than later money).
To be fair, in an ideal world (for me, personally) I'd be the only person providing the service that I'd do, and I'd be able to name my price. In reality, I have a lot of sympathy for not driving people out of their home because they can't get a job there. People who were born in a country don't really have the option to leave and go elsewhere - especially when they're middle class. What this ends up being is a situation where businesses hire from the immigrant pool, knowing that they are less willing to pursue labour and employment code violations (as that may get them kicked out), which saves them money. The people who lived there before can no longer do so because the businesses have done a form of gentrification to them, pricing them out of the market. And the wealth inequality grows worse and worse.
Specifically with regards to birth rates, there is an upper limit to how quickly women can produce children - and once a country has reached a place where children don't often die young, there are also resource constraints on them. I think it's unreasonable to assume that women would suddenly jump to producing 8 children per woman when our current TFR is around 1.5 or so; even if they did, this still behaves very differently than having a similar number of immigrants pumped into the system. Women can only produce 1 child every year or so (give or take); there is time to see the developing trend, and build more housing, add more jobs, etc. as the children reach maturity. By comparison, dropping the immigrants in at around 1m per year leaves no time to expand; there are physical limitations on how quickly a business can build a new factory, or new houses can be built. As we've seen up here in Canada, the government inviting the immigrants in took no care in making sure we had space for them.
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