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The meltdowns in response to the ruling have been pretty incredible, looking at a lot of comments on X would have you believe that the SC just decided to institute birthright citizenship today, instead of them just not changing the law of the land precedent of >150 years. No one alive knows a US without birthright citizenship.
If it's so damaging, why are we one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations not just in the world but in history? Even if you're a pessimistic doomer who can't appreciate the country today because you've gone too fast on the hedonic treadmill and who thinks the 90s or the 60s or the roaring 20s or whatever were Peak America, those times were also under birthright citizenship.
Conservatives even considered it a point of pride! Here's the great Ronald Reagan on immigration https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-presentation-ceremony-presidential-medal-freedom-5
But modern "conservativism" isn't conservative. It's a corrupted cult of personality based around grievance politics, and racial grievance politics is just a subcategory of that. If modern "conservatives" had any balls left, they would rise against the welfare state they think is attracting parasites, and not against stuff like H1B visas, scientists, engineers, and other great additions to the country. It's not very complicated
Micheal Tracey even made a great point about how victimhood complexes have consumed these "conservatives" so much that they've even largely stopped caring about abortion.
If someone lives in America but does not "become an American" (like it's impossible to "become a German"), then they are not who the letter-writer is talking about. Something like 90% of the immigration debate is about assimilation, and you can't dismiss concerns about poorly-assimilated residents by pointing out that it's not impossible in America.
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AI + death of Western manufacturing means that mass bodies are less important to running a productive economy. Social spending/gibs are large and getting larger each year as a result of a large population of those who can't easily be employed productively. Moving to a developed nation is now maximally a 36 hour experience of plane transfers and you retain complete communication with everybody from your homeland.
It doesn't require a gigantic genius to see how this confluence of factors might make it a bit different than when Destiny was being Manifested. Your absolute best case scenario is that the genius quotient of the newcomers is high enough to somehow produce sufficient outliers to cover the rest, but as increasingly lower layers of the barrel are able to emigrate that seems unlikely.
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Where are you seeing these "meltdowns"? I've seen a lot of grumbling about Roberts being a coward (making this a day ending in 'y') and mockery of Jackson but nobody on the right that I've seen seems to be particularly surprised by this outcome. Pretty much everyone I know was expecting a 7-2 decision with Thomas and Alito in dissent. If anything the fact that we got Kavanaugh and Gorsuch at least nominally on side with the option for future legislation left open feels like a reason for cautious optimism. We may not have scored, but we did move the ball downfield.
Sean Davis, CEO of the federalist, among many other crazy ideas suggested the dissolution of the union and forced sterilization of all tourists which is definitely the biggest meltdown I've seen. But there's been others. Micheal Tracey points out the issue here
Link? If your characterization is accurate I would acknowledge that as warranting a sincere "WTF Dude?" but most of the responses that I've been seeing have been more like this one. You can dismiss it as "cope" if you like, but I don't think Pinsker is entirely wrong.
Time will tell.
From here:
I don't think Tracey's summary is accurate -- which shouldn't be a surprise, given Tracey's general behavior in other contexts -- and this is pretty explicitly a parade of horribles rather than a real proposal, but I don't think Davis is being particularly healthy as a response, either.
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Because America “Akshually” sucks to live in now. And I can say that because I’ve been living in Argentina. Immigrants actually are kind of awful. We’ve been essentially ethnically cleansed out of NYC. I’m sick and tired of being exposed to gun violence in Chicago. San Francisco is a boring Asian town now which use to be like the people from Full House. Besides the quality and safety of our cities declining we’ve made it worse by not building housing in our cities and also subsidizing immigrants so that you either need to make 7-figures or live on welfare to live in a big city. The fact that the American Dream of living in a big city doesn’t exists anymore Akshually does mean immigration sucks and black crime killed neighborhoods. So sure America is great if you want to live in a 5k sq foot house with a giant truck far enough away from any immigrants to not deal with them, but if you actually want to live in an community then the American Dream dead.
It just better not living around immigrants in ways not captured by GDP goes up. The social contract was broken in America and people realize that now.
So sure quote Reagan. The issue with Reagan is he was wrong. The Italians successfully became Americans but that’s it. Of course the Italians invented Western society so perhaps it’s never should have been surprising they eventually assimilate.
NIMBYism is not the fault of immigrants.
Immigrants in the US commit crime at a lower rate than natives. Native Black people do commit crime at a very high rate, which can ruin neighbourhoods, but that has nothing to do with immigrants.
What exactly is the problem? Just the fact that they're Asian?
You have zero good sources for immigrants commit less crime. Because the US does not have good data. I believe it’s Sweden that has good data on immigrants. And they commit a lot more crime.
Harvard discriminated against Asians in admissions for a reason. I don’t make the rules but even the elites decided Asians kill the vibes of a place.
Google "immigrants commit less crime" and you'll find studies galore. We can have a look at one in particular if you like. The profile of immigrants in the US and Sweden is very different and it is entirely plausible that immigrants to Sweden commit more crime than natives and immigrants to the US commit less crime than natives.
The reason being they're extremely racist? I mean, what you are saying about Asians is racist by any reasonable definition.
I know those studies exists. They all have flaws and the top one is grouping blacks with natives. We don’t want more black level crime. Classification on status is also a big issue.
The Swedish studies show a very agreeable issue - you need to heavily filter immigration at a bare minimum. If crime is the only standard then you need to be very racists in selecting who immigrates.
Sure Harvard is being racists. Is racism wrong?
Once you accept human biodiversity and differences in athletics and intelligence then there are almost certainly personality difference. US natives find Asians boring. Asians probably find us natives loud and obnoxious.
Since I’ve worked in trading. Citadel loves hiring Asian math Olympiad winners. They probably do make better market making algorithms and GDP goes up. But for a work environment I would much prefer being around a bunch of old floor traders. To me they are just cooler guys to hang out with.
How convenient that Blacks are too rowdy and criminal, Asians too boring and presumably not criminal enough, and your own race is just right.
Well I mean yes. Every race evolved to optimize for the living conditions they grew up in. I am not saying any race is better than others. It’s just each race prefers living with their own race.
Asians do not let non-Asians immigrate to their countries. Africans well are on video saying kill the boer and want to expel whites from S Africa. It’s a fairly universal belief to want to segregate.
And hey look we still see distinct voting patterns by ethnicities decades and centuries after they came here.
https://x.com/xwanyex/status/2072701003372060913?s=46
Not the majority view in South Africa, even among Blacks.
What point are you making exactly? The Irish, Italians and Germans shouldn't have been allowed in?
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He's not saying he's better than Asians. He's saying that lots of people with an American passport are still different people from his people and he wants to be around people like him. I can relate.
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What is your urban community like in Argentina?
You see a neighborhood with children, adults, old-people all living and enjoying an urban environment. People playing in the park.
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Look, I love this country and would love it if all the mottizens lived here, but are you sure this is not just "I have American resources in a poorer country"?
Poor nomads left years ago. I have no idea how locals pay the bills but Argentina is not cheaper than the US anymore. Buenos Aires rent is maybe 30% lower than Miami when adjusted for unit quality. A few things are cheaper meat, Ubers, alcohol. Pizza is very weirdly the same. Groceries vary product type.
I would say there is no COL benefit versus living in Pittsburgh. People forget how cheap America can be. Status games are cheaper as locals don’t have expensive things. But status games don’t generate real benefits just relative benefits.
Not getting accosted by black homeless guy though is priceless.
Huh, this strengthens my view that we're due for a ~20% devaluation. Hopefully after I close on my mortgage.
That makes sense to me. It’s undervalued now.
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My impression was that people only liked Argentina because mass Italian immigration in the 19th century made it whiter and more culturally European than its Latin American neighbors. Otherwise it would have the cultural cachet of Ecuador or Venezuela.
I don't think recent immigrants have much to do with this.
I can't say I've seen a boring Asian town with this many homeless people, drug addicts, and shoplifters roaming the streets. And at least Asian cities build apartments.
Argentina also semi did genocide to eliminate black and brown populations so they are tiny today.
“ Argentina because mass Italian immigration in the 19th century made it whiter and more culturally European than its Latin American neighbors”
Correct they imported the right people. And got rid of the bad people. That is the entire right-wing argument that Countries are people not creeds. Argentina has cultural cachet because Italians always have cultural cachet. Along with Italians always seeming to have a failure point of funny money.
Agree on Chicago’s declining not being related to recent immigrant. The woke mind virus killed Chicago. The city was always super racists which allowed Chicago to be heavily black but also safe in many parts of the city.
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NYC is still plurality white and I know plenty of people living there who love the life. This "ethnic cleansing" does not seem to impact them.
Chicago sucked even worse in the "good old days!"
This is what people want! So many American voters want the NIMBYism, and the boring sprawl culture. We don't build because citizens are constantly opposing new construction. I think it's lame too, but it's obvious that people genuinely disagree and love extreme sprawl without construction. You can see this with your own eyes if you visit any local city council meeting when new construction comes up as a topic.
The main form of federal welfare that helps with housing is section 8, and those are highly limited. It also only applies to renters (therefore about 2/3rds of people are not applicable at all), and only 12% of renters have it. Other things like project based rentals are even less common.
But also you don't need seven figures. The median household income in my state's big city of Charlotte is ~83k. Not even six figures. Given that is the median, plenty of people live with less than that.
The American dream is an immigrant concept! The dream is coming to the land of opportunity, working hard and building up your life through your sweat and tears because of our historical libertarian freedom loving meritocratic ideals. Crime rates are also misleading, they are hyperlocalized. Unless you hang out on the kill streets (and if you're not a useless loser working part time at a McDonald's, you should be able to avoid it) then you avoid most crime.
People like Jensen Huang, a Taiwanese immigrant from a middle class family, Jan Kuom, a Ukranian immigrant raised in poverty, or Hamdi Ulukaya whose family were Kurdish dairy farmers before moving are living proof it still exists. You just need to be worth something. Stuff like the many Indian and Chinese immigrant workers in tech companies is lower level examples of this too. In the US if you can't make something of yourself and you want to, it's because you suck. It hurts to hear the truth, but it is the truth.
Nope, GDP is the best metric and is great in part because of basic mathematics https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/the-boring-reason-gdp-is-inevitable
But why even throw in a random complaint about GDP to begin with except to signal economic illiteracy?
“ So many American voters want the NIMBYism”
Is Charlotte a big city? I haven’t lived there in 20 years but I thought it was car-centric sprawl.
Chicago also wasn’t a shithole until posts 2016. They did effective segregation before then so the bulk of the crime was contained to neighborhoods avoided.
14th biggest city in the country.
That doesn’t mean anything in the US. Houston is the 4th largest city. Zero walkable neighborhoods. It’s one giant suburb.
I take it you've never set foot in Houston to injudiciously repeat that classic trope. All neighborhoods within the I-610 loop are walkable by any metric. Montrose is a genuinely pleasant neighborhood replete of ambient cafes. Museum District too. EaDo's nightlife experience is just as good as any other major city in the Western world. MetroRail is a system that is utilized by medical professionals commuting to work. Rice Village and the Medical Center add a density of educated professionals and vast amenities. Hermann Park is a serious urban park and I will say that the US does parks in particular better than most European countries. Beautiful biking trails along the Buffalo Bayou in the heart of the city. You only know Houston from trite, outdated tweets. I don't get the singling out of Houston when Dallas and Phoenix would strengthen that argument, though even those cities have developed substantial pockets of walkability that were nonexistent in the 1990s.
Worth a watch:https://youtube.com/watch?v=0fMTaNYYvwE?si=b5V8XKnuqY_P5T0C
I did live in Houston for a month during Covid. I’ll be honest I not consider most of that video as highly walkable. And most would seem like you need to drive into a strip of things to do and not walk from him.
I'm curious as to what your standard for walkable is. Mine is simply that commercial areas are accessible by foot with sidewalks and walkways. Sure, most of Houston is highly residential and not replete of neighborhood stores like a city with more urban bones such as NYC or Chicago, but during its population boom in the 1970s, downtown was a gargantuan parking lot, and it wasn't until the early 2000s that its utility was no longer confined to office workers. It is absolutely possible to walk to your local HEB within the I-610 loop. If you are looking for a place where you can find a cafe and a supermarket immediately at your doorstep, then as you leave major cities that simply is non-existent in most of America, and for that matter, northern Europe due to the regulatory constraints of the zoning law.
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Well yeah, people in Houston and Charlotte don't want much walkable neighborhoods. If they did, they wouldn't constantly vote against dense construction and bike lanes and the like.
My initial comment was that diversity and immigration are bad. Yes people in America vote against dense construction. People do NOT like living in diverse dense neighborhoods. They don’t like living next to black people.
Yet homogenous societies live in dense neighborhoods. Buenos Aires where they literally genocide blacks and Indians is dense and walkable. European cities are dense and walkable. Chinese cities are dense and walkable. Tokyo is dense and walkable.
So yes you prove my point. People do not like living in diverse societies. When people are in homogenous societies they suddenly choose to live close to each other.
Singapore is by no means homogeneous. There were race riots in the 1960s. Malays are economically less successful than the Chinese, and probably more prone to crime. Housing has racial quotas to ensure every building is in line with the national makeup. None of this stops them from living densely.
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A lot of these are either from historic choices, lack of land, and/or poverty. Europe is consumed with NIMBYism too, they're worse than the US now in many parts! Hong Kong has long been a NIMBY hub.
Am I supposed to believe this is from racial tensions?.
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Yeah, I had the impression that Charlotte, like almost all Southern cities, had exactly one walkable White neighborhood which you won't be living in unless you can afford million-dollar houses or $3000 rents. (Edit: and like all such neighborhoods nowadays, if your politics are anything other than "left-liberal shading towards DSA", you won't feel welcome there and you won't be making any friends. Expect pride flags and "In This House We Believe..." signs everywhere.) And, like most Southern cities, the public transportation in the postwar neighborhoods consisted of maybe one bus per hour, and there are no "third places" there unless you count Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
What? Densely populated urban areas will skew left just about anywhere in America (bar some pockets of Miami, thanks to Cubans, and Las Vegas, due to Mormons), but Southern cities are the ones that are more likely to have a substantial Republican minority, with neighborhoods that see 30-40% of their residents voting for Trump. Off the top of my head, you have Fort Worth, Jacksonville, and Virginia Beach (I don't consider Virginia to be a Southern state, but it's no less Southern than NC) which are some of the largest cities in the nation to have elected Trump. There are plenty of affordable, decently conservative neighborhoods around the SMU campus in Dallas and Houston's Energy Corridor/Memorial area (unsure if you mean walkable in a more purist sense, but you absolutely can walk to the supermarket and other retail spaces). Oklahoma City and Tulsa have plenty of solid downtown neighborhoods that are only 50-60% Democratic. In New Orleans, you have the tranquil Lakeview neighborhood entirely removed from the unsavory elements further east in the city, as safe as any suburb. Nashville, Memphis, and Birmingham's majority-white neighborhoods are not DSA strongholds, you have some rebellious partisan Democrat college kids but also many Republicans born and raised in the city. If you can handle a neighborhood that is only plurality-white, you'll have plenty more options made available.
If your idea of Southern is limited to Atlanta and Charlotte, then you may very well be right.
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This is just completely untrue and historically illiterate. I was born and raised in Evanston, and am now living there again, and there was plenty of violence, murder, and gang shootings in Rogers Park and the Howard street corridor when I was a kid there in the 90s. Chicago, like most American cities, saw a spike in crime and violence that peaked there in 1974 at 970 homicides, still the record. It hit a slightly lower headcount but higher per capita rate in 1992 (948 homicides, but a higher rate due to a smaller population). Neither has been matched since. Not in 2016 (which saw around 762), and not during the peak of the COVID-era surge (which topped out around 800). It's been a continuous decline since then, and we had 416 last year, a 60-year low.
For reference: Rogers Park is the northernmost neighborhood in the city, and Howard Street is the literal Chicago/Evanston line. You will notice this is not 'contained' to the South or West sides of Chicago, it's the doorstep of the North Shore, some of the wealthiest lakefront real estate in the Midwest.
The southwest "bungalow belt" was safe - but it fell, starting around 1980. Its last hurrah was "Epton: Before It's Too Late" in the 1983 mayoral campaign which Harold Washington won.
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The Loop and River North were safe from like 2006-2016. I don’t know when that area got safe but it very march declined after 2016. Having gun violence at my RN condo and a scary stolen car incident in River North told me to peace the fuck out. Rogers Park I agree has issues. Had stay there for a month with a friend a few years ago.
Hey man, I get it. My family actually moved us out of Evanston while I was in elementary school for the same reason. Within the same month, I think my brother both got mugged on the way back from school, and our apartment on Dobson, just a block or two off of Howard, got broken into. We ended up moving to Aurora, and it's only in the last couple of years that I've come back to Evanston.
Funnily enough, Howard Street's problems trace back to a weird jurisdictional accident: it became the Chicago/Evanston line, got physically cut off from Evanston services by a cemetery and the L tracks, and by the 80s was so full of cheap vacant buildings that a documented heroin market moved into right around the Clark/Howard stop. North Rogers Park basically just started subdividing their homes and larger apartments into smaller and cheaper units immediately after WW2 and never really stopped or replaced their aging buildings, and lo and behold you've got a slum and all the complementary problems high-density, low-income housing with poor services brings.
River North is a bit of a different story. It's a nightlife strip packed with 5am bars, and the local alderman actually tried to kill those licenses because drunk crowds plus guns kept ending in shootings. When the 2020 riots hit, River North and the Mag Mile got specifically targeted, not randomly, because that's where the concentrated high-end retail was, by organized crews with U-Hauls. Then COVID brought a citywide carjacking wave that hit the North Side especially hard just because it's dense with cars and pedestrians, and downtown emptied out during the day as offices went remote, so you lost the foot traffic that used to keep the nightlife crowds in check.
Juneway Terrace, the northernmost street in Rogers Park was (is??) known as Juneway Jungle.
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Rodgers Park actually does have some really nice old apartments basically on the water. The demographics completely change as you get like 3 min away from the lake. Just old historical buildings that could be a great neighborhood.
River North wasn’t violence for a long time. I knew everyone in the club scene. There was a place called Cuvee that was high end. Then I guess it declined and I showed up one time and I still knew the doormen, but now they were bullet proof vest. There was a time when River North was just upper class kids from the North Shore.
Chicago had other issues leading to decline, but the violence making it into the wealthier neighborhoods and business drove a lot of people away. Chicago was two cities for a few decades. Post 2016 was a second White-Flight. I left the same reason Citadel left.
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