Clown Car: 7/20/23
Inez begins by telling me about her recent move within NYC. This leads to a discussion about housing prices and the American dream, which finally transitions to a debate over immigration, nationalism, and social cohesion.
We had planned on discussing Trump’s coming indictment for his activities surrounding the 2020 election, but didn’t have time for it. We’ll get to it next week, by which time the indictment is almost sure to have been handed down.
The conversation closes with a discussion about Taylor Lorenz, and whether I was correct to praise her bravery on Twitter.
Listen here or watch on YouTube.
Links:
Me on Substack Reads, Taylor Lorenz a few weeks later
Me praising Taylor Lorenz
Amy Wax and Jason Richwine arguing for immigration restriction
Clown Car: 7/20/23
As a moderately conservative person living in bay area, I disagree with Inez's characterization of immigration and national cohesion. If you live in Palo Alto, Mountain View or Sunnyvale you are relatively isolated from crime and that is mainly due to the communities here being mostly white and Asian. Our kids attend school in Palo Alto and the class is about 50% Asian ( Chinese and Indian) and due to relatively conservative mindset of these immigrant communities our school does not have too many LGBT students. If the school was full of fellow whites, then it would be overwhelmingly culturally liberal with excessive focus on LGBT issues.
Secondly, crime is mainly a function of African American population. In Oakland or SF downtown, shoplifters, carjackers etc are overwhelmingly African American. I do not buy into this cultural cohesion narrative. I feel much safer living in a community with fellow middle class whites and new Asian immigrants rather than this culturally cohesive vision of White, African Americans and Latinos living together.
White and Asian communities share small 'c' conservative values ( focusing on family, lower rate out of wedlock births, etc) , Inez is right about bringing back social shame to address societal ills but that can only happen when majority of people in the local community adhere to these values. 72% of African american children are born out of wedlock, how do you bring social shame to such a community when out of wedlock birth is a norm.
Ken Boone did a Reddit AMA with his existing screen name and people read and reported on his past *public* comments. I’m not sure that’s the kind of example Inez was aiming for...