What we are witnessing in the West is the great test of liberal democracy. On the one side, all over the West we see recalcitrant mainstream parties digging in their heels on polices that benefit the global elite at the expense of the local populations. On the other side you have local populations trying to force change on their government through the liberal democratic processes. The theory says the politicians, as a matter of survival, will yield.
So far, that has not been the way to bet. Instead the main parties find new ways to subvert the will of the voters. In Greece the Germans laid siege to the country until they broke the will of the people. Closer to home, the German government is unleashing a wave of Muslim terrorism on their people, presumably as a form of intimidation. In France, the main parties have teamed up to block the third party from winning.
You don’t have to be a seer to see what’s coming. If through the accepted democratic process the will of the people is thwarted, then the people will lose respect for those processes. If the people in charge already look upon these processes with contempt, there’s no one left to support the status quo and the whole things falls to pieces. Perhaps the post-democratic world imagined by the global elite is what emerges, but 100 years ago all the smart people had similar thoughts.
Richard Fernandez has his own take on the coming collision :
There remains the belief that Western leaders can still fix this problem with a little tweaking. But the time for easy action has passed. The Golden Hour in which to prevent irreversible damage has lapsed, neglected by a Washington too sure of its own fantasies to act decisively. Now the storm has broken and Merkel is downstream of a dam opened by the policy of "leading from behind". The valve with which Obama had hoped to shut down the Islamic civil war has been turned the wrong way to full open. Worse, the wheel has broken off in his hand and he is staring at the snapped spindle.A search of this blog for political correctness shows some interesting posts including discussions of Cultural Marxism. This attempt to undermine a free society includes ideas such as multiculturalism and political correctness. The constraining of speech is meant to also control thought and generate conformity with the desires of those in power. It is an attempt to avoid the competition of ideas in the public arena.
That human tide of misery will combine with the denial which this generation of Western leaders are capable of to produce a separate catastrophe, still in the future, itself foreseeable, which can still be avoided. If only ... if only... those who missed the chance the first time now wake up to act this second time.
Yet as Friedrich Hegel once observed what history teaches is that humanity learns nothing from history. Our Tower of Babel is helpless to save itself. Ironically if Europe survives it will be on account of the ghosts: in the remnants of the culture the left has come close to killing; the providence of a God they no longer believe in; the stirrings of memory of a nation they have doomed to oblivion; the struggles of a half-remembered honor we are told to disown.
The fact is, for West to survive, it must become something other than what our PC leaders have tried to make it. For it is written that "the stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone." It's poetic justice to be sure but we have to accept the justice if we are to save what's left of the poetry.
John Fund makes the point that authorities are in denial and continue to take a do nothing approach to the matter:
See something, say something.” We’ve all seen ads from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that ask people not to turn a blind eye to suspicious activity. But all too often the reality, both in the U.S. and even more so in Europe, is that neighbors, politicized police departments, and the mainstream media act as if the slogan should be “See Something, Do Nothing.”
...
Ostrich-like behavior that puts political correctness ahead of security concerns is even more prevalent in Europe.
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For Americans, the more pertinent question is this: Are we allowing political correctness to destroy the very values of individual responsibility and truth-telling that have helped immigrants assimilate successfully throughout our history? Or, under the thumb of PC, are we increasing the risk of terrorist violence? If the answer to both is yes, the unhappy political conditions might be such that Americans would feel tempted to rip up the welcome mat for foreigners.
We used to do a decent job of assimilating immigrants:
Today, our elites are far too “sophisticated” to promote Americanization. As immigrants, refugees, assylees and others come and settle here, they are actually taught that this is a racist, Islamophobic country and that they are victims. In fact, much about how they live—from social standing to actual tangible benefits—will depend on their status as members of an aggrieved, protected group.
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Discussion of this issue has nearly become taboo, because the Left pounces on anyone who will take it up. One can surmise, of course, that the Left pounces as hard as it does because it realizes that an internally riven society is an essential ingredient of regime change—or “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” as some call it.
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The word “assimilation” itself was used by President Washington and embraced by all the Founders on down to Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Ronald Reagan. Most importantly, the report calls for presidential candidates of both parties to debate this existential matter.
This is a debate we haven’t really had. Elites in the academy and the arts, the bureaucracy and politics, decided on their own to stop assimilating newcomers and move to the multi-group model.
Undoing the damage of multiculturalism, affirmative action, and the entire culture of victimhood won’t be easy, and working only toward cultural and economic integration will not be enough. After all, 2013 Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev and last year’s San Bernardino’s Syed Farook were “culturally integrated.” Patriotic assimilation is key. But first, we need to be able to talk about it—without being shouted down.
Assimilation can help but it will not be enough to deter the strongest believers in Islamic supremacism.
In order to decide how we should deal with this matter and many other important matters we need to have serious discussion about competing approaches. The imposition of political correctness makes this nearly impossible.
Some of our supposed betters are discouraging people from bucking political correctness, power hungry statists that they are. PC also contributes to warping behavior to the point of people failing the Turing Test.
There are plenty of people looking to get free from this form of control:
GOP candidates in the single digits might take a hint from Trump -- show the American public that you can speak awkward truths in the face of hysterical PC criticism. You are probably going to lose anyhow, but if you are going to sacrifice millions in futile campaign spending and endless rubber chicken banquets, die for a good cause, and, given our current political landscape overflowing with dishonesty, what could be a more noble cause than killing the beast of PC
Then we have the leftist intellectuals on campus today:
Political correctness – the academic aping of the class struggle — has increasingly generated campus hijinks unintentionally redolent of the cartoonist Al Capp’s 1960s depiction of S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything). Recently, referring to the plague of campus hoaxes regarding rape and race, capped off by the ruckus at Oberlin College because of the cultural “disrespect” shown by serving General Tso’s Chicken with steamed instead of fried rice, I was asked by a well-educated friend, “how did academia come to this sorry pass?”
...
“The postmodern campus aggrievement industry,” notes Arthur Milikh, writing in City Journal, aims to introduce a new standard of wisdom: judging the highest achievements of human knowledge by the unreasoned, spontaneous feelings of uncultivated minds.
We may finally be approaching the point where the PC chickens are coming home to roost.
But the big new development in 2015 is that the left’s culture war came back to attack the very institutions that hatched it.
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It is on campus that the left has created a quasi-totalitarian system of social conformity — as the base from which they have tried to impose those rules on everyone.
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But the universities can’t escape having the same quasi-totalitarian system imposed on themselves, and that’s what came to a head this fall at the University of Missouri, Yale, and Claremont McKenna College — with many other campus activists itching to get in on the revolution. The universities, those utopias of multicultural tolerance, have found themselves accused of being shot through with “systemic racism,” and protesters have demanded the firing of administrators, all the way up to the presidents of universities, for such crimes as daring to question the Halloween Costume Inquisition.
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There are two centuries of chickens coming home to roost, because that’s how long ago academic intellectuals began toying with the idea that ideas don’t matter and everything is just a raw power struggle.
But while the new political correctness may seem irresistibly strong — at least when it is employed against soft targets like university administrators — that masks an underlying weakness, what I called the Paradox of Dogma: “If you try to shut down public debate, is this a way of ensuring that you win — or an admission that you have already lost?”
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A swing back to the right, I concluded, is not at all inevitable. Rather, the fragility of the left’s dominance presents us with an opportunity. And given the number of people who thought their moderate liberalism made them safe from political correctness but who are now discovering how foolish that was, there is plenty of fuel for a backlash.
Anyone who values a free society should realize that this battle needs to be fought.
209 comments:
1 – 200 of 209 Newer› Newest»This harkens back to a discussion I had with Peter on immigration, where my point is that a society has a limited capacity to absorb immigrants before the society itself loses cohesion and is damaged. It appears now that, due to progressive efforts, our society's ability to absorb immigrants is non-existent. Immigrants, particularly those who are illegal or from very different cultures will not only not be held to any standards by our elites who will demand impossible compliance from citizens. I can't imagine a ruling class that treats its own citizens as second class to foreigners will end well.
my point is that a society has a limited capacity to absorb immigrants before the society itself loses cohesion and is damaged.
If we turned the clock back a century or so, SH, and you were looking at the teemimg, cacophonous, multi-ethnic, multilingual, poverty and crime-infested mess of sweaty humanity that was East Manhattan, mightn't you have recoiled and said the same thing, as many did? If so, you would have been wrong.
I agree with zman's point about Western elites giving their primary loyalty to sweeping global abstract principles rather than the welfare and security of their populations. In fact, they have come to see their populations as obstacles. But I'm not comfortable with where the rest of this post goes, especially on immigration. The nostalgic notion that past immigrants were a more grateful, hard-working breed or that we were more competent at assimilating them doesn't pass the test of history.
There have been many waves of immigration from many places and there have been corresponding nativist reactions based on the assumed ethnic, religious or cultural inability of immigrants to become "good Americans", on their stealing jobs and also on loyalty, crime and security concerns. In many cases, these concerns weren't completely without some factual foundation (c.f. The Godfather, East European communists in the 20s, romantic IRA supporters, etc.). I accept that a more patriotic public education system played a role in integrating them, but the main assimilative factor was time--specifically the transition from first to second generation--and the acceptance of the second generation as full-fledged Americans by the public. Anglospheric countries have been very good at this, European countries have not.
Immigration is a messy, dislocating affair in the first generation with a lot of attendant bumps, grinds and failures (a surprising number go back home). SH's point is a perfectly fair response to a political class that has lost any ability to deal with pragmatic conditions and limits on immigration and refugee policies, but it's a very general, abstract point that can cover an ugly nativism.
I'm sorry if I've told this tale before, but at my son's college graduation a couple of years ago, I was blown away by the number of grads (at least half out of several hundred) who were first or second generation new Canadians from the third world. It was jarring at first, but my cautious, cynical eye was unable to detect any subversive undertones, public financial bloodsucking or other threats to the public order such as I am warned about frequently in the blogosphere. All I saw were giggling, excited students with large, proud families in a range of dress snapping pictures and preening. Most were headed into the job market armed proudly with their new diplomas or to post-grad work (to be fair, there were no gender-studies or pomo English Studies grads). I was left with little doubt I was witnessing a very good thing that would benefit both my community and country.
There are quite a few very difficult immigration challenges facing us today that demand some tough decisions be made, and they aren't being made. Selection, numbers, legality, variety, etc. need to be addressed and they aren't. I don't have all the answers, but stereotyping immigrants, especially in comparison to past ones, isn't one. The promise of the Statue of Liberty is still worth believing in.
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[Quote from Mike Gonzales, at The Federalist] After all, 2013 Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev and last year’s San Bernardino’s Syed Farook were “culturally integrated.” Patriotic assimilation is key. But first, we need to be able to talk about it—without being shouted down.
[Howard] Assimilation can help but it will not be enough to deter the strongest believers in Islamic supremacism.
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Interesting, in order to eradicate a "bad collectivism" [Islamic supremacism], we need to infuse on them a "good collectivism" [Patriotism].
I don't know where my individualistic Libertarian friends here went hiding, but I start to miss them...
Peter;
Where, exactly, did I stereotype immigrants? I think you are also, quite falsely, equating the suggestion of any limitation as a complete ban, otherwise you anecdote would be irrelevant. Pointing out that you can kill yourself by drinking too much water does not imply one thinks water is a bad thing.
SH:
I don't think you stereotyped immigrants, but more and more people seem to be doing so. Nor do I think a limitation equates with a ban. In fact, I'd go further and argue that the inability of the government to set and enforce limitations is driving people to a nativist position more than their actual experience with immigrants. My point is simply that the well-justified demands for control over the whole mess shouldn't morph into a general opposition to immigration on the theory that today's immigrants are somehow a different breed than those of the past.
Peter;
There's nothing I can do about that. I put the blame squarely on the MAL who (1) inhibit any open and frank discussion of the subject and (2) actively prevent enforcement of our social norms on immigrants. And even you, when you say we must be careful in talking about it to avoid stereotyping - that feeds it as well.
"[The] unwillingness to ‘dare to say how things really are’ is driven by a fear of populist far-right parties — like the Sweden Democrats — and of the plebs who vote for them. That is, it is motored by its own prejudices. This self-silencing presents itself as a good, progressive urge to protect immigrants from the prejudicial views and behaviour of the natives, yet underpinning it is an even darker prejudice which views Germany’s or Sweden’s or Britain’s own masses as so volatile, so hateful, that they cannot possibly be allowed to know ‘how things really are’. Officials lie, or at least hide the truth, in order to keep in check the tempers of the populace: a species of tyranny that echoes the self-aggrandising lies told in Maoist China about food production to a population that didn’t have enough to eat."
-- source
Clovis,
If by patriotism you mean jingoism, then we are in agreement. However, like ideology, modest pride in culture and country can be useful.
Just to emphasize, this post is about pushing back against PC to open the way for fruitful public discussion of a number of issues that need to be addressed.
More specifically, on the Islamist matter perhaps this is a better approach:
A way to counteract that liberal lie may be to take notice of the fact that, just as there are Christian cultures, ranging from the general American Christian culture that condemns sin but not sinners to the Westboro Baptists, there are Muslim cultures too.
Many, or at least some, American Muslims don’t support jihad and/or terrorism. Is that because they’re not Muslim? No -- it’s because they’re culturally American. Just as there are American Catholics who support contraception there are American Muslims who believe in the traditional American way of life.
Those Muslims are culturally American even though their faith is Islam, or at least their own version of Islam. They don’t support raping women who are “immodestly” dressed and they accept that America is a pluralistic society.
Instead of framing the argument against Muslim immigration based on religion, we can explain the problem in terms of people’s cultural beliefs.
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By taking a blanket condemnation of Islam, and hence all Muslims, out of the equation we remove a key weapon from the arsenal of liberal lies. Imagine how much weaker a reply liberals would have to:
We should not allow immigrants, especially young men, from societies that allow rape, religious persecution, and individual violence into America
than to:
We should not allow Muslims into America.
To add to what Howard said, once in a while I think about other places in the world I would consider moving. The flip side of that coin is the set of places there's basically no way I would move to; most (if not all) Muslim countries are in that set.
Why? Not necessarily because they're Muslim. For whatever reason, they're violent, nasty societies and there's no way I'd want to live there.
But just as I wouldn't want to live there, I definitely don't want here to become more like there. No matter what, a large influx of people randomly chosen will make here more like there. Even if the melting pot was working and in perfect condition.
Peter makes the point that immigrants in past ages were also nasty, perhaps no worse than today's immigrants. It's a good point but I'm wondering if the context is being considered appropriately: the entire world 100 years ago was much more primitive than it is now, including the United States. When I think of societies that aren't particularly educated and are fairly violent I'm wondering if there is a greater gap between their cultures and the culture of the United States now than back 100 or more years ago. I'm sure immigrating to the United States will pull them forward.
The question is will they pull us back?
Bret,
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The question is will they pull us back?
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They sure will. They are inferior minds, just like me, for the place they were born.
Clovis, why the chip on shoulder?
Clovis,
Nice try, but Brazil has a lower percentage of muslims than the United States so trying to stick yourself in as an example is completely unconvincing to me.
Since culture is in the mind, I do indeed think that they have, on average, inferior minds. Not genetically inferior, but the content of their minds is poisonous to the society I wish to live in (I'm sure their completely thrilled with their own societies). Allowing some to immigrate? Probably no problem. Allowing a large number to immigrate? Maybe not such a good idea. At least not for me.
Actually, the problem is precisely the opposite.
The problem is that they're superior to "us".
("Us" = any other culture/religion/stream/faction/ideology.)
And it's their duty to make "us" see the light.
Their solemn obligation.
So that "we" give them what is their due.
As "we" should. (As the Good Book says.)
Otherwise, they will just take what is their due.
As they should. (As the Good Book says.)
Oh, and you don't want to annoy then, or make them upset. Or angry.
Oh, and they get annoyed and upset and angry rather easily.
(As one should when one is superior.)
File under: You have a problem wid dat?
Bret,
Still, I come from an inferior culture, so it must follow I share that quality.
I truly miss our former individualistic friends - sorry to repeat myself, but you guys are awful when you get into collectivist mode. Or should I say you are collectivists of an inferior kind? Because Progressivism sure looks better when compared to this sorry xenophobic discourse disguised as 'pride in the culture and country'.
And introducing for your viewing pleasure....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TIfMAP4Q1yk
(Just someone we can feel superior to because he's so, ugh, unprogressive.)
File under: But even if he's right, he's wrong.... Right?
But wait!!
There is hope!!
(Says someone whom we dearly hope we can believe---and therefore, we do believe her. We must believe her!! We have no choice but to believe her....)
http://www.jpost.com/JpostMessages.aspx
Sorry, bad link. Here's the correct one:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Muslims-are-the-front-line-warriors-in-the-battle-against-radical-Islam-says-Pakistani-activist-441881
'The question is will they pull us back?'
Have you met any recent immigrants to the US?
Clovis, it's hardly xenophobic to want those who share our values and not those who want to destroy us to come share our land.
To do otherwise, is madness.
Erp,
You get me wrong. It is not the closing of the borders, or the limitation to immigration that I call xenophobic. I have little problem with that and see it as part of the responsibilities of any country.
It is the general derision for other humans beings in display up above that I find pitiful.
Derision? You mean Harry insulting me?
Oh no, that's just tough love.
Um, I think he's referring to micro-aggressions.
You are not expressing the right kind of emotions.
And you are not sufficiently contrite about it (assuming you even notice it).
Worse, you are not even willing to give those who would do you harm the benefit of the doubt.
And on top of that you have the nerve to not call lies "the truth".
Alas, you are severely remiss; according to, um, the neo-libertarianism(?) ethic.
Nor do you love your neighbor as yourself, it would appear. (No, you would rather make sure you and your dear ones are safe---which makes you a moral imbecile.)
You really ought to get with the program....
File under: But how do you know they wish to do you harm until they actually do it? AKA "Peace in our Time"?
And now for the little chuckle of the day:
http://newobserveronline.com/muslim-anti-semitism-drives-jews-from-europe/
File under: A little chuckle is good for the soul. (Even a very, very little chuckle.)
Barry,
Should the women fly Cologne too, and maybe create a women-only country somewhere?
Barry,
By the way, I love the final phrase of your link:
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If Jews really wish to avoid genuine European anti-Semitism, then it is about time they stop being utterly hypocritical about politics and social ordering—and allow Europeans the same right which they demand for themselves in Israel, namely an ethnically homogenous state.
----
It just says it all.
Actually, I think that ultimately, Jews will be blamed for encouraging the European states to self-destruct.
(Just another "Jews declare war upon Europe" moment....)
Gosh, did I say, "ultimately"?
To be sure, "the Jews", having started WWI, WWII, having founded the murderous Soviet Union, and having "invented" Capitalism---that scourge of humanity---as well as being responsible for ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/WhatEver (one must stay contemporary)---oh, and I forgot: committing genocide against the Palestinians---should be able, easily and quite effortlessly, to take the latest "initiative" (above) in stride.
(It helps to have a sense of humour.)
As for European states wishing to retain certain vestiges of their national characters, and be able to feel secure in their own homes, well one can easily agree that that is an outrageous demand. On every level.
Barry, I think Clovis agrees with that last paragraph and doesn't realize it's sarcasm.
Truth is, not only are there Moslems and Christians living and working freely in Israel, there are probably some atheists and pagans as well, some are even in the Knesset.
There are practically no Jews in Moslem lands, especially in the Middle East.
Jews and Moslems are two sides of the same Semitic coin. One side, for reasons historically well documented, selected for brains and the other for the opposite.
Our friends on the left have the tiger by the tail aligning themselves with Islam. They are so cluelessly arrogant, they think once they complete their goal of one world socialism, Islam will gladly give over power to them.
Clovis, you know very little about women if you think an all female country would work at any level. :-)
SH:
I don't disagree with what you say, although I was talking about immigration generally, not uncontrolled and unwelcome human tides. Frankly, I don't know how anyone could object to what you say. My problem is that it is so general it doesn't lead to much practical guidance.
Bret:
The question is will they pull us back?
That fear has been expressed in the past about Catholics, Jews, Southern Europeans, East Europeans, Orientals, East Asians, Hispanics, Caribbeans and many others. Not only that, when it was expressed, those who worried in the nativist cause could and did point to religious and cultural beliefs and norms in their home countries that appeared to be in conflict with American values. I can't foretell the future, but the history of immigration seems to show that, despite all manner of social, cultural, religious and political dysfunctions, most of these immigrants assimilated with little coercion and much enthusiasm within a generation. Just as the slogan on the Statue of Liberty said. Yet today, many are talking as if today's version won't because their values are incompatible.
We hear a lot of talk about "integration" these days. In the past, that meant do what you can to earn your keep, obey the law and give us your ultimate loyalty. It did not mean arriving at Ellis Island speaking perfect English, becoming instantly self-supporting and sending the kids straight from the pier to try out for the school football team. That kind of assimilation and adoption of what SH calls social norms takes at least a generation and it can be a bumpy ride.
It is naïve and anti-historical to imagine there is or ever was some pure cultural construct called "American" that immigrants could or did fit into it seamlessly and quickly. To some extent, it's a two-way street. Immigration does affect and change the culture, even profoundly. The States would be a very different place if early 19th century Anglo-Germanic social and cultural norms and values still prevailed, as many nativists wanted them to. When the Nazis called America a "mongrel society", they were being rhetorically insulting more than factually incorrect. I believe I can even point to some differences between Canada and the States that can be linked to different immigration patterns, but in neither case did large numbers of immigrants simply instantly shed all their cultural baggage and blend indistinguishably with those already here.
So, I'm not denying things like the Mexican border sieve and the German refugee invasion pose huge problems and that the political will to make hard, pragmatic choices must be found. All I'm saying is that if the history of immigration is considered a formative, glorious success story, why has it suddenly become something that might suck out our precious bodily fluids? To be honest, I think at least part of the answer is that too many Americans have lost confidence in the American dream.
Um, erp, you forgot to mention the satanists....
Thank you for the correction, Barry.
Peter, everything you say is correct about orderly immigration, not the hoards of people from all over the globe, not only Mexicans, many of whom are criminals crossing the border, being welcomed, transported to communities all over the country, given drivers' licenses, added to the welfare rolls and even being allowed to vote in some areas.
They didn't come here because of the American dream of the past, they came here for the fascist dream of killing that old, outdated dream and that may be why so many of us have lost confidence in it.
What we have now isn't immigration, it's invasion.
Oh, I don't think worrying about "hordes" of immigrants is a recent development.
Do you think Americans in the 1920s surveying Ellis Island and East Manhattan said to themselves "Now, that's the kind of orderly immigration I can support!"
Amen, Peter.
Instead of getting their panties in a twist about the latest iteration of the Yellow Peril, the nativists ought to closely examine the Americanization of the Japanese.
Thanks, Harry, but lest the regulars here think I've gone over to the dark side, I happen to be arguing this very topic on a leftist blog I occasionally play gadfly on. Smart guys, limited ranting, respectful arguing (more or less) etc. The issue is the German refugee problem. No matter how hard, dispassionately and moderately I argue that Germany/Europe has to get control over the situation and impose some limits, restrictions, selectivity, etc. or face a dangerous political crisis, the consensus seem to be that living wherever one wants is an absolute human right, Europe owes these people for past sins, nothing can be done to stem the tide and only right-wing crypto-fascists wouldn't agree. To be frank, I find the whole subject very dangerous and inflammatory on both sides.
Japan, eh?
An excellent example! Yep, Japan sure is a country that really embraces those "...poor...tired...huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." etc.
(Forsooth, one of Anders Breivik's preferred cultures---and the man knew what he was talking about!)
Gosh, any idea what THEY think of Arabs? (Or Iranians?)---Yes, I know, totally beside the point.... Of course it is.
Now Japan's a fascinating culture, to be sure; but it would be nice---after having a gaijin ole time---if they had a few more children. (A few millions of more children....)
Yellow peril? Heh. (Or did you mean White peril?)
File under: Five degrees of constipation.
Peter, those immigrants had to have sponsors and prove they wouldn't be a burden on the taxpayers, also if they were sick, they were sent back. It was very very different then than it is now.
"I argue that Germany/Europe has to get control over the situation and impose some limits, restrictions, selectivity, etc..."
Gosh, Peter, you HAVE gone over to the dark side....
Harry, why is it our responsibility to monitor the level of Japanese Americanization and what does it have to do with hordes of non-refugees invading our southern border? FYI - refugees don't consist of men between the ages of 18 and 35 who appear to be in fine physical shape just looking for some action.
We had several hundred Vietnam refugees in the small Vermont town where we lived. They were families with children and old people who were sponsored by a collaboration of all the churches and synagogues in the area.
In fact, it was amazing how quickly they became part of the community. That is the American way. To my knowledge, not one woman's underwear was groped nor were rocks thrown at the police ...
You are the undisputed king of the non-sequitur?
I try not to use crude language, but holy shit! How ignorant are you guys about your own country?
Since we were speaking about immigration into the United States, it should not have taken too much thought to have figured out I meant the Americanization of the Japanese who emigrated to the United States, where they were not allowed to own real estate, or become citizens etc. Yet they Americanized in spite of the efforts of the racists (continuing to this day, see the works of Michelle Malkin) to prevent them.
How much easier would it be to Americanize people if you suggested to them, hey, join the club?
Well, clarity begins at home....
Still, if the point is that minorities were treated poorly in the past, then few will argue with you.
But times change, one hopes, at least. Every ethnic group has its stories. Some had it bad; some had it worse. Most every group, somehow, has gotten over it.
And even the host countries---some of them---feel some remorse. And shame....
Then again, some people argue that because Christianity was often sanguinary in the distant (and perhaps not so distant) past, then Islam has every right to be so in the present. Or at least one should bend over backward trying to "understand" it.
Not sure that's a convincing argument, though. Maybe in the universities. And in the media. And in government (perhaps with certain agendas).
But good luck with it.
Because in the absence of any policy that addresses the hard problem of massive Moslem immigration and built-in, cultural difficulties in integrating, we're going to need it. In spades.
Gee, wasn't it was your hero Frankie who put Americans of Japanese descent in camps, Harry, but he gets a pass from you and your cohort because he pulled Uncle Joe's chestnuts out of the fire and then gave him as much of Europe as he could before the devil finally gave him his due.
You're starting to sound like those wind-up dolls that are unwinding and slurring their repertoire of code words more and more slowly.
Not an effective debate technique BTW.
Again, PC is the problem...
This post by Scott Sumner caught my attention:
Those who haven’t been paying attention to social trends over the past 50 years might wonder why extremely liberal students would be afraid to talk about race. Let me put it this way, would it have made sense for Chinese students to speak up in 1967, if the teacher asked for an airing of views on the good and bad points of Mao’s ideas?
...
You might think that you’re safe, because you are one of the “good guys.” Your motives are pure. But views that seem reasonable today will at some point be hopelessly reactionary. It’s only a matter of time before Noah gets into trouble. (Nothing new here, this phenomenon goes back to at least the French Revolution.)
...
PPS. Ask my wife (who was a victim of some “macroaggressions” during the Cultural Revolution) what American PCism reminds her of.
Such an environment is not conducive to finding constructive approaches to problems in a free society.
Hmmm. PC? Or mere stupidity?
Though one could indeed argue that PC is a most powerful stupidity "accelerator"....
...even as it, weaponized, provides the moral underpinning for Orwell's perennial---and ubiquitous---jackboot.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2016/01/09/earthquake-planning
And so, who among us will be able to say in years to come, "How was it possible that we just didn't see it?"
And as in most things, there will, no doubt, always be someone else to blame.
File under: Ah, but we meant well....
... when I was a kid I could never figure out how such an obvious little jerk like Hitler could try to conquer the world. Later, I figured it out. Edmund Burke said it best, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Ah, old people... never tire of predicting the worst of all futures.
I sure hope you youngsters do a better job of it than we did.
Mr. Eagar;
"How much easier would it be to Americanize people if you suggested to them, hey, join the club?"
You have no comprehension whatsoever of my point, nor similar ones by Brett and Howard. Our point is precisely that, due to political correctness and progressive politics, immigrants are not asked to "join the club" but are told the club is a horrid, disastrous pile of racist, homophobic, and xenophobic garbage they should never ever join. I would think very different of modern immigration if we would, in fact, tell immigrants to "join the club".
SH,
Only by taking the exception as the rule you can conclude that.
Today's immigrants adapt way faster than in past. Even Muslims, by the way.
Quite tellingly, no one here yet presented first hand experience to the contrary. Stop reading 'news' and go out there to see for yourselves.
"...never tire predicting the worst of all futures."
Ah, but you have a distinct (and perhaps unfair) advantage over all of us.
After all, Brasil is "The Land of Tomorrow".
Always.
And forever?
Barry,
Forever young is our motto!
BTW, I appreciate you writing my country's name in Portuguese form. You far surpassed my expectations at that, or was it by accident?
obrigado.....
Clovis, here's a video of someone who took your advice.
Wishing doesn't make it so.
Erp,
We could have a honest discussion about immigration and how to avoid disasters like Calais.
But whining doesn't make it so.
'are told the club is a horrid, disastrous pile of racist, homophobic, and xenophobic garbage they should never ever join.'
Oh really? They are being told that?
I agree they are being shown that though not by leftists. That's your team
Clovis, Calais is a faucet dripping for want of a washer and what we're experiencing is every dam and reservoir in the country splitting open.
Harry, why, in the opinion of your cohort, do all these gazillions of strapping young men go through so much trouble to get to to such an inhospitable place? Perhaps, the Sultan will be able to clarify it for you.
Um, erp, I'm not sure it's fair that you link to someone as clear-sighted as the Sultan of Knish. (On the other hand, I'm also pretty certain that no one will pay any attention to him, given that he tells us what we don't want to hear and points out what we would prefer not to look at.)
This being said, it would seem that the least you can do---you seem to be, after all, a decent person---is give equal time to the victims of the Cologne New Year's Eve festivities:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/636306/Muslim-cleric-imam-Cologne-sex-attacks-victims-fault-perfume-Germany-migrants
Barry, I'm guessing you don't follow the fashion world, so you probably aren't aware of what the fashion forward folks are showing at Fashion Week. I looked for the link, but the head scarves and burqa-like apparel ain't there anymore. I'm starting to take it personally that if I don't take screen shots of something, it disappears from the ether.
Clovis;
"Only by taking the exception as the rule you can conclude that".
No. I would also note that writing about actual immigrants does not in any way address my point, indicating that you are still failing to understand it even in broad form. It is about the actions of the progressives and the ruling class in the USA and how they handle immigration.
I want to thank Mr. Eagar for so rapidly demonstrating my point. That's exactly what I am talking about.
I refer to the racist armed rightwing slobs patrolling the Rio Grande and that demonstrates Guy's point about leftists?
Ohhhhkay.
Harry, you are correct. Fascists usually are rather careless about personal hygiene.
'http://newobserveronline.com/muslim-anti-semitism-drives-jews-from-europe/
File under: A little chuckle is good for the soul. (Even a very, very little chuckle.)'
If your goal is to persuade people that Islam is uniquely different from and worse than other religions, complaining about Muslims driving Jews out of Europe is a crazy way to go about it.
Well, I'm crazy about irony, I guess....
Nuts about paradox.
Bonkers about ambiguity.
But don't take my word for it. One might ask the Christians in Mesopotamia (if you can find any left). Or in Asia Minor. (They're probably crazy about irony, too. If yo can find any left.
(Or maybe the Christians in NE Nigeria are more accessible.)
Or maybe you can ask the Shia in Saudi Arabia. Or the Sunni in Iran. Or the Isma'lis Pakistan (or in other places---Calgary, perhaps?)
Barring that, I'm sure the Yazidis would be happy to help out.
Or maybe it's just me who's crazy....
File under: All Cretans are liars. I should know. I'm a Cretan....
SH,
---
I would also note that writing about actual immigrants does not in any way address my point, [...]
---
That's quite an intriguing statement, SH.
So I should discuss immigration by first absolutely ignoring what's the actual reality out there?
Clovis, I'll ask you a question: What in your opinion should be our attitude toward the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens crossing our border with little, if any, scrutiny, many of whom have criminal records and have previously been deported ...
They are not immigrants nor refugees and the left's attempt to change the meaning of those words to include this cohort, doesn't change the fact that we are breaking the law by allowing them free access to our country and showering them with freebies including drivers' licenses. It's madness.
I agree, Barry. Islam is a horrible religion. But you are not showing that is is uniquely horrible by complaining that it is driving Jews out of Europe. Another religion owns that franchise.
Harry, are you back in the 15th c. again because in the 20th c. it was Fascists and Communists who drove out (and worse) European Jews and in the 21st century, fear is driving Jews out of Europe, not religion. They are rightfully fearful that the police are not protecting them from violent criminals who just happen to be Moslem immigrants.
Clovis;
"So I should discuss immigration by first absolutely ignoring what's the actual reality out there?"
You're being deliberately obtuse now, so whatever. Let me know when you're willing to have a discussion by reading what I write.
Erp,
I could answer your question, if it had anything to do with the present topic.
As I understand here, the argument is that *legal* immigration should be severely limited, because there are too many inferior people out there who would be hopeless at adapting to your superior society.
When presented with the fact that the majority of immigrants today actually adapt faster than in past, I am accused of missing the point or, in your case, you invoke the brown invasion, and both answers sound like SQUIRRELS to me, to borrow our friend's expression.
erp, you say you know some Jews.
I do not believe you. But if you do, ask them who drove their ancestors to America. Very few will say fascists and communists. They will say Christians
My friends were were not immigrants. They were first or second generation Americans, so their forefathers came in the 19th c. You really need to set the timetable because I'm getting whiplash. These people were victims of the pogroms in Mittel Europe and Russia and although it was awful and many were displaced, it can't be compared in scope with the 20th century. The Jewish diaspora has had many players, but they were minor league compared to modern times.
...and how about you stop trying to play gotcha until you supply answers to the questions in your inbox.
Clovis, I am stunned by your comment. Please point out where anyone on this blog has ever said anything remotely like this: that *legal* immigration should be severely limited, because there are too many inferior people out there who would be hopeless at adapting to your superior society.
All of us here are the children of immigrants. I have said repeatedly that our people (all immigrants) are our treasure simply because the best and brightest from all over the world who want to live in freedom have come here and assimilated. What we don't want is the balkanization of multi-culti with different pockets of people who don't want to assimilate eating away at our values.
We, a very diverse people, have made our country a mecca for people who share our values and that's how I want to keep it. Whatever your outward appearance, you are welcome to join us, but it you want to destroy what we've built, you are not welcome here.
This absolutely floors me: in your case, you invoke the brown invasion,... You must supply a quote because I never said anything like that, what I said and what I mean is that we are being invaded by illegal aliens, not refugees, not immigrants, who look more like military recruits than people fleeing for their lives or seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
BTW - I don't even know what you mean by "brown." North Africans, Middle Eastern people and Eastern Indians, including Pakistani's, are Caucasian. Do you consider them brown? There are Negro Moslems, e.g., Somali's and many others of varying skin color, but why is this something you seem to dwell upon.
Do you suppose if hundreds of thousands of blue-eyed Swedes were invading our borders, I wouldn't mind?
Erp,
I just summarized the positions exposed in this very thread, you only need to go back and read Bret's comments, among others.
Of course, I did so using non-PC language, since PC looks to be a very bad thing too. Why, can't you take it Erp?
Language aside, if you disagree with the content, you should take it to Bret and Howard, I am by your side on your (suddenly found) positive view of immigration in the long term.
And I am absolutely sure you wouldn't mind "hundreds of thousands of blue-eyed Swedes" crossing your borders.
How am I so sure? Well, half a million do every year, and you do not look to be the least bothered by it.
Clovis,
My position on immigration hasn't changed one whit since I first learned about the U.S. and its place in the world at about age seven or eight.
You may apologize or provide a quote in which I referenced "brown" people in any way whatsoever.
Half a million or half dozen Swedes are not coming into this country illegally to my knowledge. If they are, they should be summarily tossed out too.
You might be amused by this.
I'm wondering who's paying the freight for all these people to travel around the world, providing cell phones, accommodations, walking around money ... and I have a feeling it's us taxpayers. I understand that at the present time, every man, woman and child in the U.S. owes almost $300,000 to support the debt.
To quote Alfred E. Neuman, What Me worry!
Erp,
So the quote I provide:
"Clovis, I'll ask you a question: What in your opinion should be our attitude toward the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens crossing our border ..."
Unless you deny that you mean the southern border, where by large and far the illegal crossing are brown Latinos, I think there is no mischaracterization of it as "brown invasion" - a term I used, not you, but which obviously means the above picture you were talking about.
And I will even answer your above question now: you should, well, build a Wall.
A very big, half a trillion dollars one, for such a superior culture ought to do no shoddy work.
Though you should hire some illegals to do it (just like most other constructions in the US), it might save you some bucks.
Clovis,
I came across this when I was looking for a chart of human skin colors. It probably goes a way in explaining your seeming preoccupation with skin color.
I think #130 on this chart of Skin Tones is closest to my skin color and wondered which number would, in our opinion, qualify as the cut off point for those whose skin is "brown."
As for a wall, we wouldn't need one if our law enforcement were allowed to do their jobs as they had been doing before lefties took over.
... should be "your opinion"
Erp,
We used to be a society dealing well (i.e. better than most countries) with race issues, IMHO.
But then we imported all this affirmative action nonsense from your superior society, and things have been getting pretty weird. How could that be?
The short version is that self-reliant well informed people can't be kept on the plantation. I've already said many times, that race relations would have progressed in a orderly manner without the left fomenting race hatred which has resulted in the disgrace we have today.
Oh my, I forgot to ask the Copts. They might have something to contribute to the conversation, as well....
Anyway, Harry, this song's for you:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/637451/RAF-foils-airline-terror-plot-four-British-cities-pop-song-code
I sure hope the information on how the Brits are watching their skies is as bogus as the Normandy invasion info was.
Looks like everyone will have to watch everything. And watch everyone else, too.
Constantly. It will be like a Global NTSA---for your every move!!
(How many security cameras have been installed by the London municipal government? Magna camera!!)
Kind of like the days of the Shogunate returning with a vengeance (to the West---not to Japan).
On the other hand, maybe there ought to be a new Nobel Prize---granted for innovative ways of blowing people up and/or otherwise killing and maiming. (That would even up the playing field and perhaps satisfy those who complain that the Nobels are unfairly weighted towards Jews. Perhaps.)
Finally, something in which to excel. A boost in self-esteem---for multitudes. (Though maybe that's been the point all along....)
File under: Nobel Prize goes back to its roots.
'the best and brightest from all over the world who want to live in freedom have come here and assimilated'
Not even approximately true. Not true of the Pilgrims or Puritans, of the Africans or the Irish, not true of the half-million Germans who entered in the Twenties. Not true of the Japanese.
Don't you know anything about the country you live in?
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=entries+of+jewish+immigrants+to+us+by+year&view=detailv2&&id=2EF8D715E26ED1EE120AAE25AE6573EE62876033&selectedIndex=1&ccid=lpNhUdb5&simid=608007592907310404&thid=OIP.M96936151d6f9c592e07476073cda1a13o0&ajaxhist=0
Harry, your chart proves my point that the country started to go to h*ll in a handbasket in the 60's as far as illegal immigration as well as everything else is concerned.
I'll ask even though there's little hope of an answer, if not for reason stated, why did all those people come to this country ... and please this time, a straight forward answer, not some oblique reference to nonsense.
Hunger. About the only identifiable group that emigrated to America for freedom were the Forty-Eighters.
The chart proves that most Jews who came here were fleeing Christianity. They were so far from fleeing communism that many of them were communists.
My friend who owns the pawn shop grew up in a 'vertical shtetl' in Brighton Beach. He likes to say that all the Russian Jews in Brighton Beach were not just communists. 'They all belonged to the Revolutionary Communist Party.'
When Jews did want to flee fascists, you people wouldn't let them in. A mere 100,000.
Of the 500,000 Germans who entered in the 1919-1932 period, almost all returned to Germany when Hitler took over. They weren't here for the freedom.
The Japanese were not allowed to own real property or become citizens. They weren't here for the freedom.
The Africans weren't here for the freedom.
Harry, thanks for clearing that up. :-)
The pogroms were a way of keeping the peasants from revolting and probably had little to do with religion, except the priests were egging them on.
They all came for the freedom to eat regularly ... and it was your hero, Frankie, who turned away Jewish refugees.
The Brighton Beach Ruskies were interesting. Many went back to Russia after Reagan defeated the Soviets.
Several of our neighbors were among those Germans who didn't go back when Hitler came into power. Your numbers seem way too high and I'm not wasting time checking them out.
Japanese couldn't buy property is a very misleading statement.
They only correct statement was about your favorite buckaboo, slavery, although in modern times, many African immigrants of all races came to join us.
erp, I don't know which is worse, your appalling ignorance or your vicious racism. As usual, you make assumptions that are wildly inaccurate. The Brighton Beach Jews of whom
I speak settled there before World War II. None ever returned to Russia.
I did not say Japanese couldn't buy property, I said real property. I notice you fail to address that they couldn't become citizens.
Your claim that legal immigrants wanted to assimilate is also wildly inaccrate. Ever hear about 'Abie's Irish Rose'?
Yes, I've heard of Abie's Irish Rose and actually most of the people I knew were in the process of becoming Americans, rather than Irish, Jewish, German, Japanese ... It wasn't always a smooth transition especially with the old folks who often had a hard time reconciling to the new ways, but somehow we muddled through without the benefit of a federal program.
You may not be aware that during the Carter years, quite a few Jews left the Soviet Union and settled in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn. When it was safe to return, many did so, so I guess it was Communists, not Christians who caused them to leave in the first place because after the Commies were ousted, the Christians came back too.
Appalling racism???? What's appalling is that you see this country through the wrong end of the prism.
Funny thing is they keep coming.....
Harry, anecdote isn't beanbag, but here's a pretty typical story of immigrants in the 20th c.
I heard from an old (in both senses of the word) friend that her grandchild had gotten engaged and we were in stitches about the road taken for these two 20-somethings to hitch up.
My friend was born in Connecticut, her mother was of German descent, her father Italian (of course we know neither of those designations is a complete history of their blood lines). They were both born in NYC as were their parents.
She married a guy from the mid-west who can trace his American heritage back to almost the beginning. He's of mostly Scots/English background, but with American Indian, French and who knows what other mixes thrown in.
Their son, the soon-to-be bridegroom, is engaged to a girl whose mother's background is Cuban (both she and her parents were also born in NYC -- go figure). The Cuban part of the family is most likely a mixture of many different parts and her father's family is from Japan -- he and his parents were born in California -- finally a furriner. :-)
These two kids are very typical Americans coming from upper middle class backgrounds, the girl is a lawyer and the boy an economist, both working in our vast bureaucracy in Washington.
We wish them a long and happy life together ... and a lot of good luck because they'll need it if they want to live the good life they've lived so far.
You said they wanted to assimilate and now you say they didn't. Which was it?
Their descendants assimilated, yes, even the ones whose parents sneaked in.
Racism. In nearly every post of yours it shines through.
Yes, they wanted to assimiliate, but the reality was difficult especially for the older people. I knew a lot of these people and it's obvious in your southern genteel society, they were in short supply, so you had to rely on "studies" and "historians" whose job it is to advance the narrative.
Definition of racist. How does it apply my comments and I don't post here.
You might like to learn the meaning of words before you use them like sneaked-in, a nice euphemism. Example: the kids sneaked-in to see the circus. No. Illegal aliens didn't sneak in, they broke the law, i.e., committed a crime entering the country illegally. Maybe in the past the younger generation of illegals wanted to assimilate, but that's old hat now. Diversity City is where it's happening.
Clovis wrote: "Language aside, if you disagree with the content, you should take it to Bret and Howard..."
It looks to me like you've synthesized a number of quips into quite a picture inside your head. I might like to respond, but I don't quite recognize anything I've said in any of your comments. Examples: "Inferior minds..." - nope, I didn't write that; "I come from an inferior culture..." - nope, I didn't write that; "brown invasion," - nope, I wasn't writing about any countries in this hemisphere (I specifically said Muslim countries).
So I don't know how to respond.
Clovis wrote: "I truly miss our former individualistic friends - sorry to repeat myself, but you guys are awful when you get into collectivist mode."
Good example of why collectivism should be minimized, no? If I wasn't going to be in a tightly woven collective with these new folks, I likely wouldn't care nearly as much. Since I'm forced to be intimately entangled in the collective, yes, I care who joins.
Bret,
---
Examples: "Inferior minds..." - nope, I didn't write that;
---
Actually, you did: "Since culture is in the mind, I do indeed think that they have, on average, inferior minds."
But I agree I synthesized your points in sarcastic ways, of course.
---
Good example of why collectivism should be minimized, no?
---
Good point.
Though racism was an intrinsic part of your society right in those times when you place it as having the most minimalistic government.
Maybe people of the left confuse racism with the natural desire of people to be around those who share their values -- not because they are inferior or superior.
The left can't see people as individuals. That's their fatal flaw They see people as belonging to this or that special interest group. We are all equal under the law, but not equal as luncheon companions. :-]
The beauty of our country is that we have corrected the inequities of the past to point where we now have an entitlement culture that is worse than the one it supposedly corrected.
People who the left has designated as deserving of affirmative action for past wrongs are now stigmatized by their outward appearance as not being able to compete with the population at large.
Harry, if you think this isn't true, it's because you haven't faced reality.
those who share their values
What values do you have in mind, erp? Beyond luncheon etiquette, I mean.
Peter,
The rule of law and the FF docs... and it's not luncheon etiquette, it's luncheon conversation.
A lot of my life was spent in the company of those who didn't share those values. They were lefties like Bernie Sanders and Harry who got the vapors when presented with the facts as not catalogued by their pet historians and studies ... and they came in all the colors and ethnicities -- and even a good assortment of the 57 sexes as identified by their leaders -- the good lord made ...
and BTW, if I may ask, what are your values?
'The left can't see people as individuals.' says the woman who believes Tyson is not qualified for his job.
Provide the actual quote, not your translation into left wing newspeak gobbledygook ... and if you can't, have the courtesy to apologize.
Clovis wrote: "Though racism was an intrinsic part of your society right in those times..."
And, of course, it still is. It's pretty easy to show that statistically, here in the US, that whites marry whites more often than random couplings suggest and blacks marry blacks more often than random couplings suggest (even correcting for likelihood of interactions between the races). I call that "racism where it counts" because if it wasn't for that specific racist motivator, there would be a continuum of races here (sort of like Brasil, I guess) rather than distinct races. All other racial issues would then dissipate.
But as I've written before, individual racism only hurts the individual racist while collective/institutional racism (such as slavery, Jim Crow Laws, etc.) is unconscionable. Reduce the power and reach of the collective and you mitigate the damage of collective racism.
It is absurd to say that individual racism hurts only the individual racist.
My racist uncle, who owned thriving businesses in the "Chicagoland," refused to open branches in the city of Chicago, where he would have been obliged to hire blacks.
That perhaps hurt his assets, it certainly damaged the prospects of black jobseekers in Chicago.
While that is a somewhat baroque example, it is silly to assert that individual racism does no damage to others where the racist has economic power.
And why did the blacks not start their own banks?
They did. Some did OK. Most were sadly undercapitalized.
You jump to a conclusion, though. He was not a banker, he was a dry goods merchant and jewelry retailer.
But let us stay with banks. Do you know what happened to would-be black entrepreneurs in the South?
... "Pick me, pick me" ...
They were by whipped by Catholics or was it Capitalists oh gee, I can't remember -- they might have been Protestants or was it the Trilateral committee, the Templars or the Masons, but fur shur, they were all racists -- right wingers, no wait, they're fascists and on our side. Hold on. I'll get it in a minute.
:-)
LoL!
Bret,
---
I call that "racism where it counts" because if it wasn't for that specific racist motivator, there would be a continuum of races here (sort of like Brasil, I guess) rather than distinct races. All other racial issues would then dissipate.
---
I think Brazil doesn't help your argument: though we have something closer to "a continuum of races" compared to the USA, it is wrong to assume all other racial issues then dissipated. It is easy to show that wealth here correlates well with color.
Correlates how?
Clovis,
Oh, okay. From the various pictures of folks in Brazil (how do like it spelled?) that I've seen, you mostly look kinda the same color to me.
So are they wealthy because of racism? Are they wealthy and racist? Or just wealthy? And which color is it that's wealthy, anyway?
Lastly, I didn't say that "all other racial issues [would] then dissipate," only that it would "mitigate" the damage where "mitigate" means "to lessen in force or intensity. Nonetheless, maybe you're right that it wouldn't do that. Perhaps we humans can fine tune our discriminatory capabilities to distinguish incredibly slight variations in skin tone. Who knows?
Harry,
No. Why don't you tell us?
I don't know if you guys remember Tim Reid's show, Frank's Place. It only lasted one season, probably because it portrayed blacks aka coloreds like regular people. One of the episodes was about light skin being preferable and that at one time, there was such a thing as the brown paper bag test which was used to determine whether one's skin was acceptable in black society.
It was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing and thought it was horribly pathetic that such a thing existed and if I understand Clovis, in Brazil the lightness of one's skin is in direct correlation to one's wealth.
At least we are spared that. In fact, we have completely Caucasian nutcases pretending to be black in order to garner goodies. The actual skin pigmentation no longer being a factor similar to one's sex not determined by one's biology but by one's ability to game the system.
Mr. Eagar;
"My racist uncle, who owned thriving businesses in the "Chicagoland," refused to open branches in the city of Chicago, where he would have been obliged to hire blacks.
That perhaps hurt his assets, it certainly damaged the prospects of black jobseekers in Chicago."
No, it didn't damage the prospects of black jobseekers in Chicago. I didn't give you $1000 today, even though I could have. Did that make you poorer?
Bret,
----
So are they wealthy because of racism?
----
When we had slavery, that was true to some extent. Nowadays, hardly so.
----
Are they wealthy and racist? Or just wealthy?
----
Some yes, some not.
----
Lastly, I didn't say that "all other racial issues [would] then dissipate," only that it would "mitigate" the damage where "mitigate" means "to lessen in force or intensity.
----
No, Bret, you exactly said "All other racial issues would then dissipate", just take a look three of your posts above.
You and SH are suffering from some cognitive dissonance, where you do not recognize your own words - I am trying to always quote it literally to make no room for misquoting accusations.
----
Perhaps we humans can fine tune our discriminatory capabilities to distinguish incredibly slight variations in skin tone. Who knows?
----
Actually, we can, as Erp's brown paper bag example clearly illustrates.
Erp,
---
I understand Clovis, in Brazil the lightness of one's skin is in direct correlation to one's wealth.
---
It is, but please notice the meaning of "correlation".
By the way, the same is true for the USA, so I don't get why you play to be surprised.
SH,
---
No, it didn't damage the prospects of black jobseekers in Chicago. I didn't give you $1000 today, even though I could have. Did that make you poorer?
---
Your example is disingenuous.
The answer, of course, is no - because you portrayed a zero sum game.
But business, individually and even more collectively, add value to the economy (i.e. it creates money that didn't exist before).
So if places where some specific race are avoided on purpose for a long time and range of businesses, yes, that region is made poorer. (Notice the comparative, it is made poorer compared to the other places that are making themselves richer by their more pronounced economic activity).
That said, Harry didn't prove so by only one example of some small business.
Clovis, I’m not surprised and if I sounded as if I were, please forgive the ambiguity of my words, only want to clarify since I have no direct knowledge of situation.
Clovis;
"You and SH are suffering from some cognitive dissonance, where you do not recognize your own words - I am trying to always quote it literally to make no room for misquoting accusations."
Except you didn't quote any of mine, so I don't appear to be the one suffering cognitive dissonance.
My example is not disingenuous, it precisely models Eagar's claim. You, personally, have not opened any stores in Chicago which means you are hurting the job prospects of blacks in Chicago just as much as Eagar's uncle. Does that make you racist too? Or maybe that's why it's so bad in Chicago for blacks, because there are literally billions of people around the world not opening stores there and damaging job prospects for them.
As for a zero sum game, that makes Eagar's case worse, not better. Consider an alternate reality where his uncle didn't exist and therefore, as in this reality, he never opened a store in Chicago. Would that damage job prospects too? If not, why not? However, economics is not a zero sum game as you note, therefore the existence of those successful not in Chicago stores boosts the overall global economy which improves job prospects for everyone, even if to a very tiny degree.
Looks like, once again, I am playing catchup.
[Peter:] In fact, they have come to see their populations as obstacles. But I'm not comfortable with where the rest of this post goes, especially on immigration. The nostalgic notion that past immigrants were a more grateful, hard-working breed or that we were more competent at assimilating them doesn't pass the test of history.
…
All I'm saying is that if the history of immigration is considered a formative, glorious success story, why has it suddenly become something that might suck out our precious bodily fluids? To be honest, I think at least part of the answer is that too many Americans have lost confidence in the American dream.
[Clovis:]Still, I come from an inferior culture, so it must follow I share that quality.
I truly miss our former individualistic friends - sorry to repeat myself, but you guys are awful when you get into collectivist mode
Peter and Clovis, you seem to be saying the same thing in different ways. However, I think you are both missing the point, and in so doing are tarring people with a brush they don't deserve. Perhaps worse, you are trading in the very PC traffic that the OP criticizes.
The, since it is simpler, first. You both effectively demonize critics of current immigration. Peter, by posing a false dilemma (and implicitly accusing critics as being both deluded and paranoid). Clovis, by accusing critics as being racist, pure and simple.
That is PC at its worst. You have both assumed politically correct poses in order to ostracize everyone who disagrees. After all, there isn't a hint that there might, just might, be intellectually coherent argument against contemporary immigration, both here and in Europe, that has nothing to do with racism. Why bother finding out, if the less than enthusiastic are beyond the pale?
Ross Douthat recently wrote an Op Ed in the NYT, Ten Theses on Immigration. It isn't short, and it links to a couple lengthy articles. They are all worth reading, and don't have heck all to do with race. Here are a couple quotes:
3. Culture is very real, and cultural inheritances tend to be enduring. Present-day America attests to that fact: We pride ourselves (justifiably) on our success assimilating immigrants, but centuries after their arrival various immigrant folkways still define our country’s regions and their mores. The Scandinavian diaspora across the upper Midwest still looks a great deal like Scandinavia — hardworking, gender egalitarian, with high levels of civic trust, higher-than-average educations and incomes, etc. The cavaliers, servants, and slaves migration to Tidewater Virginia obviously still shapes the Deep South’s entrenched hierarchies of race and class. The Scots-Irish migration to Appalachia and its environs is still heavily responsible for America’s sky-high-by-Western-standards murder rate. And of course the wider world is full of similarly striking case studies.
…
4. Cultural commonalities help assimilation; cultural differences spur balkanization. That is, the more a foreign-born population has in common with the nation it’s entering — in terms of everything from language to religion to family structure to education levels to cultural habits — the more easily it can make itself truly at home in its adopted country.
…
8. Native backlash against perceived cultural transformation is very powerful, and any politics that refuses to take account of it will fail. Even if you suppose, that is, that mass immigration would be an unalloyed good in a world where Western populations could manage to overcome their (or what you think of as their) bigotry and nativism and racism, in the world that actually exists politicians have to account for those forces and not simply assume that the right Facebook rules and elite-level political conspiracies can perpetually keep a lid on populism. If you make choices that very predictably empower the National Front or Pegida or Trump, you cannot wash your hands of those consequences by saying, “oh, it’s not my fault that my fellow countrymen are such terrible bigots.”
To which I might add that, to the extent the US has successfully assimilated immigration from all over the world, most of that assimilation occurred before the left started its drive towards balkanization, and cultural relativism.
Skipper, you make my case far more eloquently than I did. We're off for a fun day in the glorious halls of medicine. I look forward to finding Harry's replies to my requests for citations or apologies in my inbox when I return. Wish us well.
[harry:] Since we were speaking about immigration into the United States, it should not have taken too much thought to have figured out I meant the Americanization of the Japanese who emigrated to the United States, where they were not allowed to own real estate, or become citizens etc. Yet they Americanized in spite of the efforts of the racists (continuing to this day, see the works of Michelle Malkin) to prevent them.
Harry, as I have suggested elsewhere, if you have a point, stop with the coy suggestions and make it.
(continuing to this day, see the works of Michelle Malkin)
I can't claim any particular familiarity with Michelle Malkin, but I have often heard her accused of being a racist, albeit without a shred of evidence. Do you have any — and please be specific, with links — or are you just scratching the defamatory itch that plagues progressives?
"are told the club is a horrid, disastrous pile of racist, homophobic, and xenophobic garbage they should never ever join."
Oh really? They are being told that?
Yes, by you. Every time you discuss Christians (pro-tip: that is most of America), and erp, frequently.
Although, and I detect a pattern here, without a shred of evidence. Alternatively, you have absolutely no idea what the word means.
[erp:] I look forward to finding Harry's replies to my requests for citations or apologies in my inbox when I return.
Good luck with that. Based on extensive evidence, Harry, like all progressives, is allergic to evidence, and immune to shame.
Clovis wrote: "No, Bret, you exactly said..."
Huh, you're right. I hope I'm not developing Alzheimer's - I didn't remember writing that.
In that case, I disagree with me too! :-)
Perhaps mitigate, less likely to completely dissipate.
Skipper:
Thanks for telling me what I said implicitly when I thought my explicit words did the trick. We're all Freudians now, eh? I assure you I am not so naïve to take a "the more immigrants from wherever, whenever, the better" position. I am simply trying to measure the new nativism against the empirical reality of immigration history and keep the debate focused on practical issues like numbers and border security without slipping into ethnocentric stereotyping.
With respect to Douhat's #3, that is so sweeping as to be almost meaningless. Is he lamenting the fact that past immigration wasn't restricted to Scandinavia and arguing that Appalachia would now resemble rural Norway if it had? When he visits Chinese-American communities, does he detect echoes of bound feet, pigtails and emperor/ancestor worship? Does he understand he is basically saying America's entire immigration history was a gargantuan mistake based on astoundingly blind choices?
With respect to #4, my point was that, while it is obviously true at the time immigrants first arrive, it is not true for their children and still less for their grandchildren. I thought that minor miracle used to be called American exceptionalism.
And with respect to your "to which I would add", I confess I don't know how to respond. Past waves of immigration gave rise to nativist worries that the immigrants would bring communism, papism, disease, crime, etc. with them from their home countries and somehow harm the public order as a consequence. Now I'm faced with the argument that, while I may be right about the past, the concern today is that today's immigrants may have promise when they first arrive but will soon be infected with good ol' homegrown American leftism/PC and thus undermine the Republic. Talk about turning nativism on its head! That's the argument of someone who sees his country's future from inside circled wagons, no?
A not totally coherent but somewhat interesting British article claims that:
"Muslim communities are not like others in Britain and the country should accept they will never integrate, the former head of the equalities watchdog has claimed."
He also claims it's the "deepest form of disrespect" to assume that they'll ever be like the rest of us.
In other words, he seems to disagree with Peter.
'No, it didn't damage the prospects of black jobseekers in Chicago.'
Really, allocation of capital doesn't affect labor?
Auwe! All those hours I have spent listening to rightwingers bless investment were wasted!
'That said, Harry didn't prove so by only one example of some small business.'
I didn't think it would be necessary. But apparently all that talk we Americans have been subjected to by McConnell about job creators was BS.
I don't think he can be said to disagree with Peter, Bret, principally because Peter's views are too protean and confused to be capable of agreement or disagreement. (We seem to be bouncing around in this discussion as to who we are talking about.) At an individual level, what he says is clearly tosh, but in terms of actual communities in 2016, I'm less confident. I just can't make sense of it despite Skipper's expert Koranic analysis.
You know those scientific materialists who simply cannot get their heads around the idea that we are alone in the universe and will doggedly insist "they" must be out there in the face of endless searches for evidence coming up short? That's me a bit when I read things like Muslim communities are not like others.... That can't be right and I reject it summarily--until I watch the daily news. :-)
'without a shred of evidence' You should read the 1-star reviews of her book 'In Defense of Internment' at Amazon. One of them is mine:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R8IPY4QSN5MQV/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0895260514
Can't speak for citizens of the UK, but I don't want people here who can "never be like the rest of us," i.e., law abiding citizens who live in peace with our neighbors, believe in and uphold our Constitution, salute our flag, etc.
Don't like our ways, stay away.
SH,
---
Except you didn't quote any of mine, so I don't appear to be the one suffering cognitive dissonance.
---
Up above, right after I literally quoted your own phrase, you answered me "Let me know when you're willing to have a discussion by reading what I write." I can only interpret that you forgot what you wrote.
---
Consider an alternate reality where his uncle didn't exist and therefore, as in this reality, he never opened a store in Chicago. Would that damage job prospects too?
----
No, and that's why I was careful in phrasing my point as I did. You may want to read it again.
And please notice that it is meaningless to compare 'alternate realities' by use of sample spaces of zero measure.
Skipper,
----
Clovis, by accusing critics as being racist, pure and simple.
----
Gee, I wonder if you can quote me saying the R word at all.
I do not think Howard, Bret or Erp are making their points with any motivation over color or ethnicity. I trust their word that what bothers them most are the cultural matters involved.
And at that I maintain my criticism: by equating the culture to the individual, they are practicing the kind of collectivism they usually denounce.
You might say: "Too easy to tell us that from your high chair, far away from Islamism and their terror targets, not to mention the lack of burkas in your bikini paradise, isn't it?"
Well, not quite. I've been once a third-world emigree living in a Superior society, and I can tell you what it is like being judged by your supposed culture, instead of your own self.
[Peter:] Thanks for telling me what I said implicitly when I thought my explicit words did the trick.
I hate playing catchup.
I am simply trying to measure the new nativism against the empirical reality of immigration history and keep the debate focused on practical issues like numbers and border security without slipping into ethnocentric stereotyping.
Then it is worth asking why there is a "new nativism" in the first place. After all, I'll bet at least half the people posting here are, at most, two generations removed from some other country. My mom came from England; my dad's grandparents, Germany; my wife's grandparents, Germany and Hungary. Erp has a similar story. Since that is true of many Americans, who know full well the value of immigration, then what accounts for what would seem to be counterintuitive "new nativism".
Douthat isn't nearly as sweeping as you take him for. Culture persists for an amazingly long time. Christian/Enlightenment cultures have far more similarities than differences. Islam, the other way around. So, isn't it worth asking those affected how much they want Islamic neighbors? I think it an entirely valid concern that having Islamic immigrants who are here because of problems inherent to Islam isn't perhaps the best idea ever?
Apologies if I misunderstood you, but the gist of your comment, just as with the term "new nativism" seemed (to me) to imply that certain questions are off limits in decent society. Whether you meant that, or not, that is very much the case here in Europe: certain topics about certain groups are verboten because they might give the wrong people the wrong ideas.
And it is working out super peachy fine.
And with respect to your "to which I would add", I confess I don't know how to respond. Past waves of immigration gave rise to nativist worries that the immigrants would bring communism, papism, disease, crime, etc. with them from their home countries and somehow harm the public order as a consequence …
Yes, of course. But the zeitgeist was: welcome to the US. Now shut up and color. Then, there was a pronounced notion of cultural superiority to which immigrants had to adopt. Whether that notion had any validity is beside the point — at the time it was all about get along by going along.
Now? It's all relative.
Now I'm faced with the argument that, while I may be right about the past, the concern today is that today's immigrants may have promise when they first arrive but will soon be infected with good ol' homegrown American leftism/PC and thus undermine the Republic.
So there's absolutely nothing to the notion that leftists are essentially encouraging illegal immigration in the hopes of creating a huge new class of client-voters?
[harry:]'without a shred of evidence' You should read the 1-star reviews of her book 'In Defense of Internment' at Amazon. One of them is mine:
Where you once again prove that you shouldn't be allowed to use the word racist, because you have no earthly idea what it means. Oh, and for the bonus round, you once again demonstrate the dangers of argument by analogy.
Pro-tip: the IRA and Imperial Japan were not the same; treating them as if they are is worse than a rookie mistake.
Since I haven't read her book, I have absolutely no idea whether she marshalled a convincing case for interning Japanese during WWII. But unless she argued they should have been interred because of their race, then she isn't a racist for writing the book. If her argument was, instead, based upon the potential threat due to allegiance to Japan, then that isn't a racist argument. It may be wrong, but it isn't racist.
Oh, if you think that The sabotage scare can be nearly as completely dismissed, since the roundup did not get well under way until the war was six months old, at which time there had not been any incidents of sabotage reported. There never were. then your problems with logic go far deeper than mere rookie mistakes.
Ever hear the phrase "History is no indication of future performance."
Just to make perfectly clear, clear enough, I hope, so that even you can't abuse the obvious, I think interring the Japanese was a huge blot on America's honor.
But then I'm making that judgment in the comfy environs 70 years removed from Pearl Harbor (you did know that a Japanese dentist was sending intelligence about fleet movements to the Japan, do you not?).
That makes it easy to be smug.
Regarding Malkin's alleged racism, by all means deliver specifics. If that is the best you can do, then your accusation carries exactly as much heft as your repeated defamations of erp: none.
As a refresher, here is the definition. Racist: a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
[Hey Skipper:] Clovis, by accusing critics as being racist, pure and simple.
----
[Clovis: ] Gee, I wonder if you can quote me saying the R word at all.
Okay:
They sure will. They are inferior minds, just like me, for the place they were born.
January 17, 2016 at 6:30 PM
Still, I come from an inferior culture, so it must follow I share that quality.
January 18, 2016 at 2:09 AM
And I am absolutely sure you wouldn't mind "hundreds of thousands of blue-eyed Swedes" crossing your borders.
How am I so sure? Well, half a million do every year, and you do not look to be the least bothered by it.
January 23, 2016 at 8:45 AM
Using the R-word isn't required to accuse others of being racist. You asserted that people of one group consider themselves to people of another group. That fits the definition to a T.
Of course, you may very well, almost certainly are, right that some people are motivated purely, or largely, by racism. But that doesn't mean everyone is, and trotting out that motivation, as Harry does without hesitation, aims to render all arguments beyond civil discourse.
For example: I think Islamic countries have inferior cultures. Am I a racist for thinking so? Does the fact that I think so mean I think all Muslims are therefore inferior?
Skipper, I don't judge other cultures. If it works for them, fine, but I don't want people here unless they share our our values.
Our motto is Out of Many, One.
Hey Skipper wrote: "...at the time it was all about get along by going along."
I assume you realize that's way overly simplistic?
Well, Malkin (who is hapa-pinay, which helps explain her) didn't write a book justifying interning Italians in 1942.
So there's absolutely nothing to the notion that leftists are essentially encouraging illegal immigration in the hopes of creating a huge new class of client-voters?
Pretty much nothing, unless it happens by way of self-inflicted wounds on the right. Does that reflect more their hope or your fear? Either way, it's highly patronizing and basically implies immigrants have all the intellectual skills and independence of lab rats waiting to see which side dangles the bigger prizes.
Let me tell you a tale. The most multi-ethnic city in North America is Toronto, having gone in two generations from a bastion of Anglo-Canadian Waspism to more than 50% non-white, almost all first and second generation immigrants from almost everywhere in the world. For years it's city government was controlled by what I will call genteel, latte-sipping leftists--anti-suburb, anti-car, anti-development, endless race and gender-based and other loony politically correct initiatives, more bike paths, higher taxes, etc. In 2010 a big fat garrulous, youth football coaching, populist right-wing council member nobody had ever taken seriously roared into office unexpectedly with more than 50% of the vote. It was as if Rush Limbaugh was suddenly elected mayor of Manhattan. Suddenly Toronto politics was all about infrastructure, development, lower taxes, privatization, etc. I had never heard of him, but the heart failure among the beautiful people was hilarious to watch. Lots of media jokes about their fleeing to Calgary (like Manhattan types fleeing to Dallas). Predictably, it was explained by the leftist establishment as one of those "angry white men" yahoo revolts they like to blame their losses on. The problem with that was he also won the non-white vote. Go figure.
He proved to be a completely unsuitable coke-addled hothead and was replaced last year by a more mainstream establishment conservative, but he retained a significant base of multi-ethnic support right to the end. To his credit, despite all manner of politically incorrect and genuinely offensive utterances, he never once to my knowledge talked about excessive immigration or suggested anybody was culturally unsuited for anything. He was a failure in many ways, but he caused a tectonic shift in Toronto politics that is still very much alive. He was despised by many, but nobody ever succeeded in pinning a racially divisive label on him.
It may very well be that, as we speak, the Dems enjoy a higher level of support among immigrants. Part of that may reflect their urban concentrations, but don't you think part of it is because the right is falling prey to nonsense rhetoric about cultural suitability? It's perfectly right and fair to talk about numerical limits on immigration and selectivity factors. Both the reality and symbolism of losing control of the border are toxic and have to be addressed. I suspect a large number of new Americans would agree with that, but they are hardly going to buy into the notion that their family histories and cultures, of which they are no doubt as proud as we are, makes them unsuitable to be "real Americans". I wouldn't and I can't imagine you would either.
Skipper,
----
Using the R-word isn't required to accuse others of being racist. You asserted that people of one group consider themselves to people of another group.
----
I think you failed to demonstrate I accused anyone of racism. Let us check your own definition given above:
"Racist: a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another."
The quotes you provided point out to cultural points, as was in discussion, instead of race. And I am sure you know there are Muslims of different races, by the way.
---
Of course, you may very well, almost certainly are, right that some people are motivated purely, or largely, by racism.
---
I can't possibly be right about that, since I never offered such a point.
---
For example: I think Islamic countries have inferior cultures. Am I a racist for thinking so? Does the fact that I think so mean I think all Muslims are therefore inferior?
---
No, I do not believe you are racist for thinking Islamic countries have inferior cultures.
I am perfectly fine if you want to propose a metric over which we can judge how good cultures are.
But I do have a problem if you infer, from the opinion over a collective (the culture), an opinion over individuals you do not even know (just because they happened to be born in said culture). Even so, I still wouldn't call you "racist" - since your objection to this collective is not racial at all - but, more precisely, "bigoted".
The argument I am surprised no one gave me, yet, is: when talking about massive immigration - like absorbing a million Syrians - we are talking about a collective, hence it would be fair to judge them as such.
Maybe I could accept the point above, were not for the fact there isn't a massive immigration of Muslims to America. You guys are cowering from getting meager few thousand Syrians.
[harry:] Well, Malkin (who is hapa-pinay, which helps explain her) didn't write a book justifying interning Italians in 1942.
So let me see, writing a book that justifies something that did happen makes her guilty of racism because she didn't write a book justifying something that didn't?
You do see the problem, don't you?
(who is hapa-pinay, which helps explain her)
Until you explain hapa-pinay, it doesn't explain a damn thing.
Oh, and in the realm of explanations, I can't help but notice that you have yet to do that which, if your accusation is true, should be trivial: provide a specific example of Malkin's racism.
But I do see you have moved the goal posts, this time to a place that can't exist.
[Bret:] I assume you realize that's way overly simplistic?
Yes, of course it is, and something of an exaggeration, too. But still, the pressure to assimilate was far greater in previous waves of immigration than now.
[Hey Skipper:] So there's absolutely nothing to the notion that leftists are essentially encouraging illegal immigration in the hopes of creating a huge new class of client-voters?
[Peter:] Pretty much nothing, unless it happens by way of self-inflicted wounds on the right.
Well, the puts people in a bit of a bind, doesn't it?
In the mid-90s, if memory serves, the republican candidate for governor campaigned, in part, against immigration from Mexico which according to him, was increasing crime, and was burdening state finances (among other things).
All of which was true, and which the left used to destroy Republicans in California for at least a generation.
So, you are right. A self inflicted wound, except the alternative, do nothing, increases the size of the client state, which by and large votes for the party of largesse.
That doesn't belittle immigrants; rather, it recognizes the obvious. People like free stuff, and often vote accordingly. How else to explain why women strongly tend to vote for the left?
Also, to be clear, I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that immigrants will vote this way; rather, I don't think it beyond the realm of possibility that is the left's hidden agenda.
It may very well be that, as we speak, the Dems enjoy a higher level of support among immigrants. Part of that may reflect their urban concentrations, but don't you think part of it is because the right is falling prey to nonsense rhetoric about cultural suitability?
I do not doubt that some people, most of them probably on the right, do just that. Just like here in Europe.
However, when people on the left — Obamster, I'm looking at you — can't even acknowledge that Islamic terrorism is Islamic, draw fatuous parallels between religions, and demonize even questioning whether it is a good idea to allow thousands of Muslims from a part of the world where Muslims are trying to get away from Muslims because Islam has nothing to do with that.
I think it is near as dammit to certain that, should we allow thousands of Muslim refugees into the country, that there will be among them people happy to commit the next terrorist outrage.
However, taking a completely utilitarian view of morality, far fewer people will die if we let them in, than will if we don't.
And I also think it heinous that the left accuses people who object to mass immigration as racists, when like as not many of them are objecting out of pure self interest.
[Clovis:] I think you failed to demonstrate I accused anyone of racism. Let us check your own definition given above:
Your comment is a good example of distinction without difference.
You impugned others motives by accusing them of thinking in a racist way: ascribing to all individuals of a class those characteristics which describe the class itself. Racism, sexism, etc, are all faulty syllogisms -- which is exactly what you did in those quotes.
Let me help: Islam is a violent religion. All Muslims are Islamic. Therefore, all Muslims are violent.
Put that way, I'm sure you see the problem. And that is exactly what your quotes did.
Muslims aren't a race, but when you accuse others of that final step in the syllogism, you are accusing them of exactly the same thinking required to be a racist, or a sexist, etc.
Skipper,
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Muslims aren't a race, but when you accuse others of that final step in the syllogism, you are accusing them of exactly the same thinking required to be a racist, or a sexist, etc.
---
Yes, of that I am guilty. So you now have exactly what is my point.
And instead of playing the PC card on its head (where I must be bad for telling exactly what I see), you could first try to tell me where I am wrong - in case you think I am.
[Clovis:] Maybe I could accept the point above, were not for the fact there isn't a massive immigration of Muslims to America. You guys are cowering from getting meager few thousand Syrians.
I think it pollyannish not to assume that a few thousand Syrians will not within that number contain some ISIS sympathizers.
So the question really is this: how many dead Americans is too many to justify letting in x-thousand Syrians?
Well, that answer depends rather depends on a huge unknown, doesn't it?
Clearly, there are people who think zero dead Americans is the right number.
There is, as I noted above, an moral argument against zero, but rather than demonize those think it is, make the argument. I'll bet it is harder than you think.
Also, I can't help but note that Islamic countries aren't exactly rolling out the welcome mat for their co-religionists. In fact, quite the opposite. I certainly don't think we should use Islamic countries as our moral guides, but it is curious.
Islam comes in many versions and heretofore they kept their populations in check by routinely killing each other. We interfered with this-time tested method of peace keeping and population control by attempting to instill our values into this hostile environment, so now there are hordes of fighting age Moslem men with no traditional holy wars to fight available for whatever new-fangled or variation on old-fangled modern holy wars their "leaders" can dream up like reviving the old dream of a Caliphate.
I think it pollyannish not to assume that a few thousand Syrians will not within that number contain some ISIS sympathizers. So the question really is this: how many dead Americans is too many to justify letting in x-thousand Syrians?
OK, I have my calculator out, Skipper. Do I subtract the American lives saved by Syrian immigrants who become heart surgeons? Geez, if Americans had historically thought that way, you'd have a population made up exclusively of a few million direct descendants of English religious dissenters. There certainly would be no such thing as an Irish or Italian-American.
Also, using massive, out-of-control waves of desperate illegal immigrants and/or refugee-migrants to illustrate a general argument about cultures begs a lot of questions. Would you be sanguine if millions of poor, single German men were swarming the border in the dead of night on the basis of an assumed cultural compatibility?
Mr. Eagar;
"Really, allocation of capital doesn't affect labor?"
No. Allocation of capital affects labor. Therefore...?
Clovis;
Why don't you point out where this statement of yours, "You [Bret] and SH are suffering from some cognitive dissonance, where you do not recognize your own words", applies to me. None of the examples you provide in that comment are my words. The comment you recently referred is you quoting me and then going off on a non-sequitor. I don't see how pointing that out is failing to recognize my own words. My claim is your words have nothing to do with mine.
With regard to cognitive dissonance, consider this -
"if places where some specific race are avoided on purpose for a long time and range of businesses, yes, that region is made poorer. (Notice the comparative, it is made poorer compared to the other places that are making themselves richer by their more pronounced economic activity)."
So, it's made poorer and not made poorer (becoming wealthier slower). The latter is, of course, precisely what I am claiming, but I can't tell if you agree with me or not, because this is what my example points out, along with my counter-factual, both of which you dispute. Eagar's claim is the job seeks in Chicago have lower/fewer job prospects do to the non-opening of stores, otherwise those prospects would not be "hurt", a claim I find ludicrous.
Peter, I don't believe that multi-culti in Toronto can be compared with our breached borders. Those folks didn't come in across the tundra, so they must be in Canada legally.
See the difference?
Peter, I'd like to make using a hyphen to divide our citizens a capital crime with death made as painful as possible.
Harry, hapa-pinay??
Malkin is from the Philippines. You have a problem with that?
All good satire is based on reality.
[Peter:] OK, I have my calculator out, Skipper. Do I subtract the American lives saved by Syrian immigrants who become heart surgeons?
Of course you do. Isn't that obvious?
In order to convince people who disagree that allowing Syrian refugees to immigrate into the US, you have to convince them that the US will benefit. Since it isn't possible to convince anyone that there aren't risks associated with them that don't, and haven't*, attended other immigrant groups, then you must convince them that the gains outweigh the costs.
Demonizing people — the promiscuous use of Islamophobia comes from only one direction — is not only arrogant, it is a recipe for failure. See Europe, right now.
Would you be OK with the entire male population of Ramadi emigrating to Canada tomorrow? After all, the conditions there are very unCanadian, and they could be killed at any moment.
I'll bet you would be very not OK with that.
Clearly, then, the composition of the refugee population makes a difference. Just as clearly, there must be, in principal, even though we can't divine it exactly, some dividing line between populations we should admit, and those we should not.
IMHO, refugees from mid-East conflicts are substantially different than from anywhere else. Not only because of religion, but because there are almost certainly going to be wolves in sheeps' clothing. See Europe, right now.
* That statement requires qualification. Immigrants from South and Central America have brought gang activity that wouldn't have existed otherwise, and organized crime would have been of an entirely different magnitude without immigrants from Sicily. But neither of those groups had any basis in attempting to impose an existential threat to Western civilization.
Would you be sanguine if millions of poor, single German men were swarming the border in the dead of night on the basis of an assumed cultural compatibility?
The problem with hypotheticals is that they often conceal as much as they hope to reveal. Without knowing why millions of poor, single, German men were swarming our border — at the moment a completely inconceivable situation — how could I possibly know whether I should be sanguine, or not?
Argument from hypotheticals is almost as fraught as argument by analogy.
The most multi-ethnic city in North America is Toronto, having gone in two generations from a bastion of Anglo-Canadian Waspism to more than 50% non-white …
I'm not sure if Toronto is meaningfully more multi-ethnic than Seattle, San Francisco, or LA:
The racial/ethnic/cultural composition of Los Angeles as of the 2005-2009 American Community Survey was as follows: Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 47.5% White: 41.3% (Non-Hispanic Whites: 29.4%) Asian: 10.7%
I lived in San Marino in Southern California when I was in high school and college. Between 1978, when I moved away, and 2000, the city went from 98% white to almost 80% Asian (primarily Chinese).
Bad things that happened:
(Besides appallingly bad driving, that is. I have no idea why this is, but Chinese women are magnetically attracted to the left lane, and constitutionally incapable of driving faster than 90 kph -- 55mph in old money.)
[Clovis:] you could first try to tell me where I am wrong - in case you think I am.
Clovis, I'm sorry, I've lost the bubble here. I have my excuses -- I have flown all night, and I'm on my second Scotch trying to get my brain to spin down so I can get some sleep.
What is it that I think you are wrong about?
SH,
---
So, it's made poorer and not made poorer (becoming wealthier slower). The latter is, of course, precisely what I am claiming, but I can't tell if you agree with me or not, because this is what my example points out, along with my counter-factual, both of which you dispute.
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Made poorer with respect to what?
If with itself, it is "not made poorer". If with other regions ABC that receive more investment for having no blacks, it is made poorer than ABC in future (even though it was not made poorer than itself when compared with its past).
If I invest my money in bank A, instead of bank B, it is not wrong to say that A was made richer than B - hence B was made poorer than A, even though both banks can be said to be extraordinarily rich in absolute terms.
See that comparing so with the universe of people who would never put money on either A or B is quite to miss the point.
Usually, there is no morality play related to whether I invest my money in bank A or B. It is assumed everyone follows what they judge best for their own financial interests.
Harry point can be taken, ultimately, as that there is a morality argument if your decision is based solely on the color of A or B's owner.
Bret's point is that, ultimately, only the person who takes solely the color of the owner to make his decision, is worse for doing so.
My own opinion is that both that person and the discriminated bank owner can end up worse. Society gets a loose-loose outcome here in the end.
Skipper,
---
What is it that I think you are wrong about?
---
Well, let it rest, and have yourself a good rest too.
SH,
A few corrections:
First, forgive me to mistype "lose" as "loose". Only losers make such a mistake.
Second, let me make the comparative explicit in the two last paragraphs:
"Bret's point is that, ultimately, only the person who takes solely the color of the owner to make his decision, is worse for doing so." (Where worse is compared with the set of outcomes where such decision were not color based)
As a last thought, I am by now quite aware that your main Libertarian argument is that govt action to "ensure" no discrimination ends up causing even worse outcomes (as compared to the situation where govt does no such thing).
My own opinion is that it is, as most things, hard to calculate so beforehand. IOW, there may be situations where the cost of govt intervention is greater than its benefit, and there may be situations where it is lower. I postulate that societies wise enough to differentiate between both are the ones doing better.
Skipper, hope you're well rested and ready to do battle with the elements again today. One last comment on racism: in your opinion, is it racist for both Clovis and Peter to assume that because Swedes and Germans are not "brown" we would welcome them with open arms?
... just asking. :-)
Erp,
Considering that you brought up the Swedes, you are accusing yourself of racism.
Notice that I only answered your question by enouncing a trivial fact: the number of Swedish visitors you get per year.
By the way, if you get the population of Swedes per the number of Swedish visitors to the USA, and make the same math for, let us say, Mexico, you'll find out Swedes are the truly invasors!
Just in keeping with their Viking tradition...
Clovis, not so. You brought up Swedes, not I.
Oh dear, one more case of cognitive dissonance:
---
[Erp] Do you suppose if hundreds of thousands of blue-eyed Swedes were invading our borders, I wouldn't mind?
January 22, 2016 at 6:48 PM
---
You won't find me mentioning Swedes before that.
'* That statement requires qualification. Immigrants from South and Central America have brought gang activity that wouldn't have existed otherwise, and organized crime would have been of an entirely different magnitude without immigrants from Sicily. But neither of those groups had any basis in attempting to impose an existential threat to Western civilization.'
Sicilian gangsters did not have an ideology, but there were Italian and Spanish anarchist immigrants in the mix who did, and it was existential. Irish immigrants brought in their feuds; and I commend to your leisure reading the chapter on immigrants from what he calls the British "borderlands" in David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America."
The amount of violence attributed to those latter immigrants is beyond anything anyone -- even scairedy-cat Ted Cruz -- imagines from ISIS.
(That would be a very good book for erp to read as well.)
And, of course, if you know your history you know very well the threat that all right-thinkin' 100% Americans saw from letting in Catholics.
------
'My own opinion is that both that person and the discriminated bank owner can end up worse. Society gets a loose-loose outcome here in the end.'
Precisely. Bret taps int a commonplace of liberal economic history when he finds that economic racism retards development for the racist, but this misses the other half of that: It retards the growth of assets of the asset-holding class; but it is even more dire for the workers.
It is perverse to argue that racism in the US South was only bad for the landowners.
Clovis, Now I remember. You said I/we objected to the hordes invading borders because they were brown, and I replied: Do you suppose that if the … as a sarcastic reply to you. You said something about half a million Swedes immigrate every year and I said if they’re illegal they should be tossed out or words to that effect.
Harry, I remember aog often using the expression, "The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good." It's a notion I don't think you understand. Every immigrant did not arrive here a reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson, but we muddled along learning how to live with diverse peoples until we became one people and then others joined us ...
You can ridicule that concept and make sly remarks about how this or that group weren't team players, were ostracized, etc., but in the end the grandchildren of those old mafiosi, No-Irish-Need-Apply, Whites-Only and other victims of the prejudices of earlier times would probably be difficult to single out among a group of ordinary Americans.
That's just the fact.
In fact, this summer, you can burst with pride as I do, when at the Olympics in Brazil, Team U.S.A. marches in waving the Red, White & Blue and showing all and sundry that our kids come in every color and ethnicity. It's the only part of the Olympics I watch -- well maybe figure skating.
Harry wrote: "...but it is even more dire for the workers."
Not really, no. To the extent that the racism drives down their wages, it makes them more attractive to be hired by non-racists, driving their wages back towards parity (given productivity and other factors are taken into account).
And indeed, historically in the U.S., this often (but not always) happened.
My ancestors, being Jewish immigrants early last century faced tremendous discrimination as did many immigrant classes (Chinese/Asians, for example). So the WASPs wouldn't hire us. No big deal. We started are own enterprises, hired our own (and everybody else), and became successful with remarkable rapidity (usually the first native born generation did substantially better than the ancestors in the old country). Same for the Chinese and most other discriminated against immigrants (which was most of the non-WASPS).
Simple economics in action. It worked and would still work if there weren't for meddlesome interventions. To the extent that Jews were discriminated against, it hurt the WASPs more than the Jews and created profit opportunities for Jewish businesses.
Exactly right Bret. Why aren't enterprising blacks, hispanics and whites pooling their welfare largess and buying up depressed real estate (see Detroit and other inner cities) putting able-bodied people to work under-the-table rehabing the buildings and renting them to the needy, pocketing their welfare checks in addition to their own. Ditto opening fast food emporia serving regional specialties, providing day care, laundry and other services up to and including banking.
When we drove through the barren Indian lands out west where the inhabitants were to be seen sitting in front of broken down stores (yes, just like in the movies), we both said if they let loose some Israelis or Japanese the place would look like the Garden of Eden in no time flat.
Harry will pipe up and tell us that's because they've been beaten down so long, they've lost their ambition to change. I say baloney to that. It's because there was no BIA or other federal programs determining every factor of daily life in the good old days.
2 things: You are falling for one of the oldest anti-Jewish canards, all-Jews-are-rich, and another, all-Jews-are-clannish.
Jews were just as Jewish in Germany as here, but both here and there, plenty of Jews did not advance very far up the economic ladder. In Germany in the '20s,
the most common occupation of a Jew was tailor.
Now that I work with a successful Jewish businessman, I get to watch how often he steps up to assist indigent Jews. Very admirable of him, but there is no shortage of needy Jews here, even though it is only recently there were enough men to form a minyan.
You can say the same about, f'rinstance, Japanese. The obstacles in their way were at least as big as those facing Jews, and many overcame them. But not all.
You asked what prevented blacks in the South from starting businesses and also advancing. They did well after 1865, but with the return of white supremacy, the local code restricted them to a few sectors (undertaker, barber etc.) Any black entrepreneur who entered white sectors (road contracting for example) would be threatened to withdraw, and if he persisted, his machines would be destroyed, his house burned; and sometimes he'd be beaten up.
This happened elsewhere as well, mostly to a lesser degree. When my racist Uncle Pat, who was shanty Irish, was bidding for some failed Woolco stores, he was warned off because the (Italian) mob was interested.
(I did not come by my distaste for American business morals from reading books.)
It was not always or only racism. Classism worked its baleful work as well. White sharecroppers also did badly. But white croppers, if they could get a toehold out, didn't have their businesses burned down because of the color of their skin.
There is a good book about the general impoverishment caused by racist economics; and someone wrote a longish review of it:
http://www.mauinews.com/page/blogs.detail/display/2123/Book-Review-122--Breaking-the-Land.html
Harry wrote: "You are falling for one of the oldest anti-Jewish canards, all-Jews-are-rich, and another, all-Jews-are-clannish."
My previous comment was strictly about my Jewish ancestors' experiences and observations. I wasn't talking about "all" Jews.
Harry wrote: "...the local code restricted them to a few sectors..."
That would be institutionalized racism. I've said many times that institutional racism is downright evil and indeed hurts those of the race being targeted. Note that even if it wasn't the "law" (legislated), if a racist societal code is enforced by violence, that it is still institutional racism.
I did not mean legal code, although that was in effect, too.
Nobody among your ancestors failed to grab the brass ring? A fortunate family.
If you're qualified but an employer will not offer you a chance because of your skin, I'd say you have been harmed.
If enough employers act like that, each as an individual, you start to see social as well as individual effects. It will not do to say, 'Go elsewhere.' There often will not be an elsewhere.
We do not need to cite Jews or southern blacks to learn about this. Burakumin
Harry wrote: "There often will not be an elsewhere."
There's always an elsewhere - it's called starting your own business. And you will have an immense advantage is nobody else will hire people of your race.
Bret,
----
That would be institutionalized racism. I've said many times that institutional racism is downright evil and indeed hurts those of the race being targeted.
----
Here I believe resides the weakest point of your only-the-racist-is-worse-after scenario.
Where racism is widespread, it hardly remains contained to individual single decisions, its institucionalization (be it as law or as custom) easily follows.
'starting your own business'
By borrowing from your relatives, of course, as Romney advised.
Reality is different
Harry, where did the relatives get their money? Probably the same place Protestants got their pots of gold?
BTW - Romney, as you must know, gave away the money his father left him and made his money, the old fashioned way, he earned it, as BTW did his father.
Unlike your cohort, they didn't steal it from the taxpayers or take bribes from foreign governments for favors or sell our secrets to them.
I don't know tat because it isn't true.
[erp:] … is it racist for both Clovis and Peter to assume that because Swedes and Germans are not "brown" we would welcome them with open arms?
No, it isn't racist, it is presumptuous.
They presume, without evidence, that the only reason you object to some immigrants is because of some superfluous characteristic, and that you would welcome other immigrants because of some other superfluous characteristic.
Which means they presume, not only without evidence, but contrary to heaps of it, that the only difference between two groups is a superfluous characteristic, and that, therefore, the only possible reason you could, presumably, prefer one group over another is that single characteristic, because no other exist.
You racist h8r.
[harry:] Sicilian gangsters did not have an ideology, but there were Italian and Spanish anarchist immigrants in the mix who did, and it was existential …
The amount of violence attributed to those latter immigrants is beyond anything anyone -- even scairedy-cat Ted Cruz -- imagines from ISIS.
I'm calling bovine excreta.
Until, of course, you provide us with some evidence of that those latter immigrants did, and compare it to what the ISISholes have managed. Which, I am sure, will also reveal why there were refugee flows from the Italian and Spanish anarchists dwarfing those from the ISISholes' caresses.
However, since I am sure that will not happen, I am sorry that, by blowing even more nonsense out of your hat, you will have to make yet another trip to the haberdashery.
Harry, Salon (and doncha love the ever-so-snooty name for a lefty blog) begs to differ.
They say Romney could afford to give away his inheritance because he benefited from being born his father's son.
Usually I don't suggest anyone read this kind of drivel, but this one's a classic.
Skipper, I was always partial to the tall, dark & handsome types. Blond, blue-eyed types seemed effeminate, no offense intended if you are one of those types. It all evens out to gray in the end anyway.
:-)
Skipper,
---
No, it isn't racist, it is presumptuous.
---
And yet, it is the truth.
Not because of any "superfluous characteristic", but because they also are Superior cultures. Actually, the originally Superior One.
Who are they who are superior?
They presume, without evidence...
Don't your own words count as evidence, Skipper? Culture persists for an amazingly long time. Christian/Enlightenment cultures have far more similarities than differences.
It's pretty clear what you are doing. In the bad old days, people ascribed negative stereotypes and social dysfunctions to race and colour. You reject that, I know--who doesn't beyond a small, fevered minority? But now you present a theory of cultural variation and persistence that accomplishes much the same. It doesn't seem to matter to you that the history of immigration in the States and the Anglosphere shows that culture does not persist for a very long time in the sense that it prevents loyalty and integration into public life. One generation or less pretty much does the trick. Furthermore it also shows that immigrants are generally not prisoners of their home cultures in matters that count (I presume you aren't talking about traditional recipes and holidays). Plus you don't even acknowledge that the motivation of many immigrants is and always has been to leave much of the home culture behind.
You are in Europe and are witnessing a migrant horror show. No country can sustain such an uncontrolled invasion. Serious questions about numbers, selection, security and modern political Islamism have arisen and must be answered without politically correct handwringing. But there is no need to come up with sweeping general rules that describe immigrants as prisoners of their cultures for "an amazingly long time" with little more capacity to change themselves than to change their race. (Have you checked out how all those Vietnamese boat people are doing these days?) It seems you are picking up some unfortunate European ways of thinking.
I'll close with two questions. If Christian/Enlightenment cultures are to be preferred, what's the problem with lots of Mexicans? And if cultures last for an amazingly long time, isn't it sheer folly to let any Germans in given their violent, undemocratic cultural expressions in the 20th century? Way, way too early, in my view.
In partial deference to Skipper and SH, I will say that progressives/elites/the left generally are proving to be hopeless on this issue. I don't know if there ever was an era when reasoned, intelligent debate on immigration prevailed. It seems to me pretty obvious and proven that a successful immigration policy will be based on: a) limits to numbers and the will to enforce them; b) selectivity on family status and vocational training and a clear dictinction between immigrants and refugees; c)a variety of source countries; and d) a welcoming, optimistic, patient population. Unfortunately in Europe and the States, mainstream politicians have been hopeless at enforcing any of the first three of these and are leaving their populations with the impression nothing can be done to stop and control it. Many on the right are responding by indulging in facile, ahistorical cultural stereotyping and hauling in the welcome mat, which will of course polarize and fuel tensions. It's all very tragic.
Actually erp, he used his gifts from his father to support himself and his family until he got started in business.
Poor people don't get to do that
'you provide us with some evidence'
I already did when I directed inquiring minds to Fischer's study of persistent folkways. He attributes the extraordinary violence of our most violent areas to that. Since I grew up surrounded by that violence and I know the kinds of rationales that were (and still are) used to justify that kind of behavior, I find it plausible.
Interesting, isn't it, that Britain absorbed a great many Moslem immigrants in the '60s and '70s but all the bombs were set off by the Irish?
Harry, If by "gifts" from his father you mean his genes, then I buy it, otherwise, to quote, Skipper, bollocks.
What kind of violence did you grow up with? Are we back to whippings?
[Peter:] But now you present a theory of cultural variation and persistence that accomplishes much the same.
Not a theory, but rather an observation that I think is at least arguably true.
I agree completely with you that the history of immigration into the Anglosphere shows that the persistence of cultural characteristics isn't a barrier to full integration into their adopted countries. Not quite sure how to explain Quebec, but rare is the rule that is ironclad.
Plus you don't even acknowledge that the motivation of many immigrants is and always has been to leave much of the home culture behind.
On a recent, related thread, I think I made a distinction between pull, and push, immigration. With few exceptions, immigration to the US was very much pull: the attractions of life here, and Canada, Australia, etc, motivated people to make the huge leap of faith and come here.
Not so now. What is going with the mideast is causing push immigration — getting the heck out of there.
I don't think it beyond reason that the difference push and pull will reflect in differing desire to assimilate. I doubt many Syrians getting the heck out of there are doing so because they want to become post-religious Westerners.
I'll close with two questions. If Christian/Enlightenment cultures are to be preferred, what's the problem with lots of Mexicans?
Problem for whom? Mexican society is plagued by mordida: the bite. That is the term given for the pervasive corruption in Mexican society. How much of that do we want to import? How about the violence in Juarez?
Illegal immigration has almost certainly lowered the wages for lower skilled workers, but without it, our agricultural industry would collapse.
IMHO, Mexican immigration has been a net positive for the US, even after gang violence and higher crime. There have been lots of demonstrable problems, but even more benefits.
Unfortunately in Europe and the States … ahistorical cultural stereotyping and hauling in the welcome mat, which will of course polarize and fuel tensions. It's all very tragic.
+11
Fun fact: UK population density: 244 per square kilomter. US: 33. One thing's for sure, we aren't running out of room.
[harry:] Interesting, isn't it, that Britain absorbed a great many Moslem immigrants in the '60s and '70s but all the bombs were set off by the Irish?
I can't tell which is more difficult: finding that factoid relevant, or interesting. That's a real toughie.
[Hey Skipper:] Regarding Malkin's alleged racism, [Harry,] by all means deliver specifics. If that is the best you can do, then your accusation carries exactly as much heft as your repeated defamations of erp: none.
Back when some Muslims who have nothing to do with Islam didn't shoot up a bunch of cartoonists in Texas because a good guy with a gun got in the way, Popehat, a legal blog focussing on free speech issues, had a post about the whole schlamozzle. Ken White, while clearly on the side of free speech, criticized Malkin for being provocative. In that post, and the comment thread (my google-fu isn't working tonight), he, and commenters frequently stated Malkin is a racist.
Having never read a thing Malkin has written, I had no idea. I assumed, though, that if that many people were saying she was a racist, then a racist she must be.
So I followed links to people saying Malkin is a racist, based upon other people saying Malkin is a racist, etc. But I never actually found a link to anything she, herself, actually said.
Harry reminded me of this. He emphatically charges Malkin with being a racist, yet there is, so far, a deep space vacuum where evidence should be.
Must be his professional devotion to accuracy.
Sicilian gangsters did not have an ideology, but there were Italian and Spanish anarchist immigrants in the mix who did, and it was existential. Irish immigrants brought in their feuds; and I commend to your leisure reading the chapter on immigrants from what he calls the British "borderlands" in David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America."
The amount of violence attributed to those latter immigrants is beyond anything anyone -- even scairedy-cat Ted Cruz -- imagines from ISIS.
Harry, absent evidence, of which you have provided none, and almost certainly will not, you are blowing out your hat again.
In other words: bollocks.
Clovis wrote: "Where racism is widespread, ... its institucionalization (be it as law or as custom) easily follows."
Indeed. In fact, if the individual racist realizes he's hurting himself, he may well be motivated to institutionalize his racism via law or custom backed by violence so everyone else is forced to share his burden.
Note also that I'm not saying individual racism is commendable, desirable or anything else positive.
Nonetheless, if non-institutional racism remains non-institutional, racism only hurts the racist.
erp, as anyone who has read Romney's own account of his life knows, Romney supported himself through college and the early years of his marriage by selling stock he was given.
Poor people don't get to do that.
'the motivation of many immigrants is and always has been to leave much of the home culture behind'
At least for rich countries, the motivation of many immigrants has been to get rich and go back to their poor homeland as rich people.
At least for rich countries, the motivation of many immigrants has been to get rich and go back to their poor homeland as rich people.
Other than on account of your say-so, is there any other reason I should suspect that of being true?
... Skipper it may be true of some, but a very small percentage. Here's a true story, a friend of my mother's, a Greek woman, spent her entire life pining for Greece. Her husband was a successful business man and when he retired, they sold everything they had and went "home."
They were back in less than three months. Apparently she didn't transmorgrify into the young girl she was when she left many decades earlier.
Harry, boo hoo. All people play the hand they were dealt and BTW what did Romney's father sell to put himself through college?
I'm on pins and needles, what was ... the extraordinary violence of our most violent areas ... Since I grew up surrounded by that violence ..., please tell where, when, what and who was the
violence all around you that makes you an expert on violent people.
[Bret:] Nonetheless, if non-institutional racism remains non-institutional, racism only hurts the racist.
I'm with Clovis on this. Racism in the north wasn't institutionalized like in the South, but it very much hurt blacks then, and continues to do so now. (I'm not a Coates fan, and think reparations would be an excellent example of watching what you wish for, but there is no denying that The Case for Reparations makes for a sobering read.
And I doubt whites suffered nearly as much from racism as the blacks did. Which inverts your formulation.
[erp:] Here's a true story, a friend of my mother's, a Greek woman, spent her entire life pining for Greece.
One of the pilots over here has a wife who is miserable (and, therefore, so is he). Germany isn't America. Different in detail, but qualitatively, in general, pretty much the same.
Some people simply refuse to adapt.
You, and he, haven't emigrated to Germany I'm presuming. It's just a gig that has a time limit? That would have been great fun when I was your age, however, a permanent move would have been a deal breaker. I vowed for better or worse, but not on foreign soil. I kissed the ground when we crossed the border into Montana after touring Canada for a month and the last time we came back from France, I was taken off the plane in a wheel chair -- long story.
No, we haven't emigrated. Five years (the longest we may stay; two is the minimum) isn't forever, but it is a lot longer than a vacation.
Some people adapt, others don't.
I wouldn't have minded a couple of years in Australia or New Zealand. In fact, strangely enough, in our little town that time forgot, there are a couple of Aussies married to American girls and one of the brilliant surgeons who saved our daughter's life is a Kiwi. The other, an orthopedic surgeon who invented a new procedure written up in the medical books, just to allow her to move her arm, is a black boy born in Harry's world, both of them in their 30's. I bless them both with every breath.
Hey Skipper wrote: "...but it very much hurt blacks..."
Did it hurt Chinese? Jews? Anyone else?
Skipper,
---
[Harry] At least for rich countries, the motivation of many immigrants has been to get rich and go back to their poor homeland as rich people.
[AOG] Other than on account of your say-so, is there any other reason I should suspect that of being true?
---
Well, you could ask someone from a country that provides illegal immigrants to the USA.
Hey, what a coincidence, I happen to live in such a country!
There is certainly a very common type among Brazilian illegals in the USA: the low income one that lets all his family in Brazil, goes to America to spend some years working in construction gigs, saving every miserable penny and living only a bit better than a indigent.
He doesn't live like a rich when he comes back, but he usually builds a middle-class (for Brazilian standards) house and starts some small business with what he saved. Plenty of stories like that.
Skipper,
---
Problem for whom? Mexican society is plagued by mordida: the bite. That is the term given for the pervasive corruption in Mexican society. How much of that do we want to import?
---
I protest you placing it as some cultural trait that would naturally follow them when emigrating, like fajitas.
Bribes are not a "culture", but a hallmark of failing States. It is almot a corollary for societies where republican and/or public moral values are poorly implemented or distributed. Bribes are the fever, not the infection.
You make sure your newly arrived immigrants get to understand a bit of all this civic pride you guys are so good at (and I mean it), and that fever will never appear.
Clovis, I agree completely. Unfortunately it also goes the other way when the rule of law collapses. Many, many years ago, my father-in-law sold his rental properties in Brooklyn when the feds came in and told him he had to rent to welfare recipients and that he'd get a kickback.
Oh, and Harry, he was really lucky because he only went to the 3rd grade, so he didn't have to worry about selling his stock to pay college costs and became quite well-to-do too (not at the Romney level) using the gifts he got from his father, a good brain, a strong body and a keen sense of right and wrong.
Well said, Clovis, but have a heart for poor Skipper. He's trying to figure out how to seal the border against mordita but keep the fajitas.
Given last night's results in Iowa, I wonder what Skipper's culture meter would make of a Canadian-born Hispanic President. Worrisome from the perspective of encouraging mordita, I imagine, but at least they would be very polite about it.
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