What is wrong with the argument that people simply prefer to live with others like them? I mean, why don’t standard preference satisfaction arguments win out here?
Well, you can still move wherever you want. Most of your fellow Americans though are disgusted by white nationalism, so you're going to have to infringe on all of their rights if you want to shape the demographics of the country in your preferred direction.
The list of places to move tends to shrink. Or as Obama put it to a reporter from the Atlantic: "every year, the situation improves."
Revealed preferences trump survey responses. The idea that the only alternative to extinction is to violently expel everyone of all other groups is a false dichotomy.
As for infringing on people's rights: what was the majority view in America in 1965 on the "ethnic mix of the country being upset" and on whites becoming a distinct minority? That wasn't a popular opinion, but policymakers did it anyway. What was the popular opinion in Britain on reducing themselves to a minority one generation ago? Again, probably not a mainstream view but policymakers just went ahead and did it. Brexit voters expected a reduction in immigration but nope, we're just going to keep doing it.
Can conservative whites reverse this? Probably not, but the idea that profound social and cultural changes are negligible next to hard metrics like GDP and IQ is soulless and misguided.
"As for infringing on people's rights: what was the majority view in America in 1965 on the "ethnic mix of the country being upset" and on whites becoming a distinct minority? That wasn't a popular opinion, but policymakers did it anyway. " This is silly. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 polled very well, passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities, and was signed by a then-popular president. No one, including the people who passed it, foresaw the demographic changes that would follow.
By the 1990s, it was clear that the United States would become majority-minority, and Bill Clinton was saying how great it was. I don't recall anyone of consequence disagreeing. The funny thing is, immigration and immigrants were pretty unpopular in the 1990s, but by 2015 immigrants had become much more popular, even though demographic change was completely impossible to miss by then. From the same link:
"In the 1990s, by wide margins, Americans saw immigrants as burdens on society rather than as strengthening the country through their hard work. Also, many thought that the growing number of newcomers would threaten traditional American values and customs."
"But slowly, opinions have begun to change over the course of the past two decades. By 2014, a healthy 57% majority had come to the opposite point of view, saying that immigrants strengthened the country through their hard work; and just 35% now say that the increasing number of immigrants is threatening American values. (As of January 2019, 62% say immigrants strengthen the country, while 28% say they burden the country by taking jobs, housing and health care.)"
As you said, it polled well because nobody expected this to happen. And public opinion about immigration policy tends to improve as you continue to admit immigrants and poll them about it.
If you are going to argue that a majority of whites always approved of becoming a small minority from the moment it became a logical and foreseeable outcome, that is highly dubious--but there is no sense in arguing about it, since the point is that governments shove foreseeable things down the population's throats against popular opinion all the time. Most Brits have wanted less immigration for a while, but it has no effect on policy. The idea that you'd be "violating people's rights" to agitate against top-down changes is patently ridiculous. People have no idea what's going on. Their opinions start to change quite a bit once you give them slightly more information (Vox: "telling people the immigration numbers makes them racist") or expose them to the consequences of the policies.
I think the USA is just fundamentally more pro-immigration than Britain is, for understandable historical reasons. After the '65 Act, the next biggest piece of legislation was the 1986 amnesty, which again passed both houses of congress and was signed by the president after decades of high immigration. And I don't think there's ever been a time when there's been broad popular opposition to legal immigration. Here in Tennessee, our large and conservative church is very involved in integrating immigrants into the community. If you go by house cleaners and roofers, you'll conclude that Tennessee is populated entirely by Guatemalans. If you go to a youth chess tournament, you'll conclude that the state is about 50% Chinese and Indian. People seem fine with that!
At least for the United States, I think the narrative that the government, knowing the consequences, shoved immigration down the population's throat against the people's wishes is just fundamentally misguided. First, the government didn't know the consequences of the INA in 1965. No one did! And there was a lot going on besides the INA. In particular, Latin America had always been underpopulated compared to North America, but over the 20th century that gradually changed. It is in the nature of immigration not to matter much in the short term but to have very marked long-term consequences. But anyway, it was clear that we were living in a new era of high non-white immigration by the 1980s, but there was no real appetite for stopping it. The policy argument was always about how much to do about illegal immigration, not about greatly reducing legal immigration.
"If you are going to argue that a majority of whites always approved of becoming a small minority from the moment it became a logical and foreseeable outcome, that is highly dubious". Well, maybe. But by the 1990s, it was foreseeable that America whites would become a minority, Bill Clinton said that was great, and no one gainsaid him.
"And public opinion about immigration policy tends to improve as you continue to admit immigrants and poll them about it." Sorry, that just doesn't explain 62%-28% margins in favor of immigration strengthening the country. Whether or not it should be, immigration is popular in the United States.
Very true, and it goes further back than that. It was the alleged arch-white supremacist Andrew Johnson who signed the first bill explicitly encouraging non-white (Chinese) immigration. With the exception of the Monroe-Lincoln period, the Democratic Party has always been the mainstay of immigrant rights, going all the way back to (the highly underrated) Aaron Burr.
While it's true that immigration was extremely unpopular within certain sub populations, e.g. white Californians who despised superior-IQ Chinese competition so much that they tended to flip parties every election in the late 19th century according to whichever president promised to shit on the Chinese more, anyone calling America historically anti-immigrant is talking purely out of their ass. The Gilded Age, one of our greatest periods, coincided with what was effectively the highest per capita rate of immigration in our entire history.
Not to give this short shrift, but this conflates "supporting legal immigration" with the US white population wishing to reduce itself from almost 90% to less than 50% in a single human lifetime. Scrutiny on illegal immigration is a proxy for this, since Hispanics are the biggest source.
This outcome was becoming logically inevitable during a period of time when the population (with high probability) did not want it. Of course I'm aware that the public is uninformed, lacks numeracy, and doesn't think much about ramifications. Maybe we need a feminist in here to give a lecture on consent...
Even if you poll modern whites, which includes a generation raised on diversity, 46% say that a white minority will "weaken American culture," 30% say little impact, and 23% say strengthen (per Pew). That only goes up to 30% total of Dems + Republicans saying strengthen, for all adults. The popularity of "immigration" is distinct from the popularity of this.
Anyway. The point is that in the US, this is not a scenario where the public is lined up cheering for white population decline, but some white nationalists want to sneak into the Oval Office and push a button that halts the decline at 50%, thereby "infringing on their rights." And they wake up on Monday, and they scream "NO! I felt a disturbance in the force, as if 3200 Hispanics were prevented from entering the country last night..."
A beefier argument would be that you're infringing on their right to a "strong economy" because you can't stop white population decline unless you accept general population decline. I don't really buy that, but I do think that it contains a greater quantity of beef.
>I think the USA is just fundamentally more pro-immigration than Britain is, for understandable historical reasons<
I guess that's possible. But the data don't seem to support such a view. What are you basing this contention on?
UK has about the same foreign-born share as the US, and in recent years has generally allowed a net immigration rate that exceeds that of the United States. The UK parliament (right wing government, no less) recently enacted legislation handing out residency permits to highly skilled foreign university grads who don't even have employment lined up. If you've graduated from MIT or NUS, you can just show up and start looking for a job. (It's hard to imagine *any* liberalization/pro-immigration measure getting to Biden's desk any time soon, even one as commensical as the one I just mentioned). Sure, the UK had Brexit (driven at least in part by anxiety over immigration) but the US elected Trump. And the data suggest the UK has replaced the inflow of Poles and Romanians with Indians and Nigerians.
I'm not suggesting the UK is massively more supportive of immigration than the US, mind you. I merely see no evidence for your contention that the latter is more pro immigration that Britain. If anything the numbers to me suggest the opposite.
Favorable views of immigration among some section of whites are a product of the broader great awokening psyop documented by zach goldberg. Yea some evangelicals and other religious orgs are so retarded and guileless to help settle populations ultimately hostile to the interests of their own posterity
"And I don't think there's ever been a time when there's been broad popular opposition to legal immigration."
Opposition to legal immigration in is inherent to our being. The putnum study shows that greater diversity means less social trust whether people recognize this affect or not.
People naturally seek out their own. White flight, prison segregation, dating preferences. Our preferences are obvious. In our natural state, we prefer our own. It is the politicians and elites who force immigration onto us in the same way that American politicians have pushed America continual state of war despite that total public disapproval.
No, they weren’t. They were anti-illegal-immigration, which you regard as a dodge, but in fact the line between legal and illegal immigration is in fact the line that most people draw.
The Elian Gonzalez case wasn't about Clinton being anti-immigration!! It was about restoring a child whose mother had died to his father in Cuba rather than assigning him to cousins in Miami. Nobody saw it as about immigration at the time, it was about the trade-off between family-law norms and Cuban-American public opinion.
Both parties talked about American being a country of immigrants all the time before Trump.
Yeah, the conservative immigration restrictionists simply need to set aside the concern for mass opinion that Richard expresses in his comment above ("Most of your fellow Americans though are disgusted by white nationalism, so you're going to have to infringe on all of their rights") in favor of the contempt for mass opinion that Richard endorses in his essay ("Basically, one can understand democratic capitalism as elites continually having to run circles around citizens, who would destroy our standard of living if they ever truly got what they wanted.").
Sure, most Americans are disgusted by white nationalism, quite rightly. But they're not disgusted by border controls, they seem keen on them. And in terms of revealed preference, people with more liberal attitudes to diversity move away from diverse areas at the same rate as people with less liberal attitudes. (That's according to Eric Kaufmann's research.)
The argument that you can move wherever you want is not a strong one! It's well known among economists that moving has externalities, and hence that Tiebout-style arguments ("just vote with your feet") fail in general. (See e.g. Bewley's 1981 paper "A critique of Tiebout's theory...")
You can make a more general argument that freedom to move within a country is widely accepted. Yes it is, but only in the context of strict restrictions at national borders.
Lastly, I didn't say anything about my personal preferences. I'm not even American!
You are declaring peoples' preference to live among and near people like themselves to be an overriding preference. But all evidence (and Bryan Caplan) suggests that this is a relatively trivial preference. The immigrants themselves clearly gain by moving, likes/dislikes aside (and the immigrants themselves may not necessarily like the people amidst whom they are moving). The dislike that the hosts may feel initially because of stupid and irrational reasons (or propaganda in the regular or social media) may dissipate very soon after real interactions with the immigrants. Their kids may not even share that antipathy in the first place.
As Richard pointed out literally in his opening paragraph, some people dislike immigration just because they are tribal. Likes and dislikes are a tribal, and not a rational, preference. People with influence in public policy should consistency ignore these preferences while paying lip service to them just to keep the peace. Things will smoothen out over time.
I've been hitting google scholar for something like "revealed preferences for diversity" - have you got any relevant evidence?
I don't agree with your second paragraph. At least, that's not how economists usually think. A preference is a preference is a preference. Liking grapes, or having a low discount rate, is not more rational than the opposite. Why should preferences over fellow citizens be different? Maybe there are good theories of what preferences ought to count (Bob Goodin talks about "laundering preferences"). But if so you've got to clarify that theory. Otherwise it becomes too easy to say "oh, the preferences I agree with are the rational ones".
In particular, it's not legitimate to say "there's no evidence that immigration reduces wages, so being against immigration is irrational". That's like saying "chocolate is bad for you, so eating chocolate is irrational." Maybe I understand the health risks and still just like the taste!
Let me clarify. When your likes and dislikes relate to public policy in a visceral manner without any thought process behind it, that's a non-rational preference and ought to be ignored by policy makers and enforcers.
Because those policies have consequences and externalities for the public at large and don't just affect you. What flavor of ice cream you like is of no consequence to anyone but you (and in a very limited way, to the likes of Haagen Dazs) but if tomorrow you claimed to have an aversion to asphalt (seeing it or smelling it or whatever), should the governments stop maintaining asphalt roads? Despite the fact that those roads deliver enormous benefits to lots of people?
Immigration benefits lots of people. Unequivocally, the benefit the immigrants. Restrictionists go out of their way to not consider immigrants to be people so that they can be ignored from a public policy calculation. But then, as Richard, Bryan, and others have pointed out, immigrants also benefit the host society in many ways. Your visceral reaction to them should not override all the benefits to the immigrants and the people who like them and will benefit from their presence.
So I think we agree that if someone just expresses a preference, that can be irrational or a whim. But what about a preference that is revealed in actual behaviour? If people are prepared to pay, say, £100K to live in a neighbourhood with others like them, why shouldn’t policy take that preference into account?
it wasnt really a widespread population choice to have mass migration from 60s onwards. That was an elite inflicted policy on the 90% white america, and for decades almost without change gallup polls showed most americans wanted FEWER migrants. The people passign the mass mgiration in 60s lied and said it wouldnt affect demographics, etc.
So youre whole argument is nonsense. This change in the mindset of population was one that came top down from people with a very different view of what america should be (and became). So similarly, if we have a different view of hwat america should or could be then top down decisions that push towards that are perfectly reasonable, and the argument should be around what that vision is: continued Brazilfication, or perhaps holding the line and *gack* through policy measures pushing for increasing the white % of the population de facto.
since say the 1960s there are 3 (at least) policies that the elites pursue regardless of the voters, that is to say, that are beyond the reach of democratic accountability: 1) endless war; 2) affirmative action (social engineering via race); and 3: massive immigration.
The ruling elites of both parties consider these sacred charges and nothing short of a violent overthrow of our govt can change this.
And much of America's wealth is based on centuries of being largely homogenous. Also, the idea that a constantly declining national IQ will not impact wealth is unworthy of any serious consideration. But Richard throws out some ideas I like.
"simply prefer to live with others like them" = "white nationalism"
i see what you did there!
and what do you call it when the Japanese prefer to keep their country Japanese? When people in Harlem don't want whites colonizing their neighborhood? When gay people prefer to live in and maintain their own enclaves?
To live among your own is a natural, universal preference, not bigotry or Nazism.
Yeah they're disgusted by it thanks to Social leftists and fiscal conservatives like you who make sure people are this way because it benefits the social left politically and it benefits the fiscal conservatives economically.
Infringe on who's rights? The founding fathers set up a naturalization system that only allowed white people to become citizens. I think if anything you're infringing on their rights of having a sovereign society? Why should they be obligated to allow in new people into their society?
Diverse neighbourhoods aren’t so bad as long as “diverse” doesn’t just mean majority black. Multiple races are OK, it means the neighbourhood is generally attractive, not just popular because rents are cheap and crime isn’t punished.
you are only partially correct. Yes, asians are better neighbors than blacks but cooperation and trust come out more when you are surrounded by your own race. Read the putnam study. Diversity is a negative thing.
Oh, I agree with you there. I would rather live among white people who culturally resemble me, but then I would be living among mostly old people. Immigration has to be considered in terms of alternatives. Many Canadians aren’t having babies, whether old-stock white Canadians or first-generation children of immigrants. (Too many trans people? /sarc). So to maintain our supply of young workers to pay the taxes for the welfare state we have to bring in 1% of our population EVERY YEAR, whether we really like it or not. We (and you in the U.S.) also have to compete with the birthrates of our native-born unproductive underclass.
Sure, it would be nice, and we’d have better social cohesion, if white families all had the average 2.3 children each that it takes for replacement but that hasn’t been happening for 60 years now. So we just have to try to get skilled immigrants from cultures that are enough like ours that they cut their lawns and don’t try to impose barbaric cultural practices on us. Fingers crossed it seems to be working. We don’t see white flight or burning crosses when a South Asian family moves in, and lots of respected, highly skilled doctors are South Asian. (We don’t do affirmative action for medical school in any way.). (Somebody did burn a cross on a new black family’s lawn in a small town in Nova Scotia only about 15 years ago. They weren’t immigrants—they’d just moved up the road from Halifax.)
Typically crime comes with poor people but actually the poorest whites commit less violent crime than the wealthiest whites so i dont really have a problem with poor whites. Although you do have the white trash whites who are just are flat out annoying however i think when it comes to poor people white people have the best poor people.... maybe it because i feel bad for them because no people have tougher than poor whites. They've been fucked by globalization, antiwhite polices and a host of all kinds of other bullshit. Yet are still considered privileged. Pisses me off, so its hard to give them a hard time for me. They've been through enough
Oh, for sure. The social values of poor people are just ick for us better-off—their values are why they’re poor and we worry they are contagious. But rents and property prices look after that. Poor people can’t afford to live where we do. I think I was trying to say that a neighbourhood The Economist calls “leafy” (= too expensive for poor people) doesn’t suffer if it has lots of desirable races in it. Even black people are OK if they are two-parent households like the rest of us, as long as they are fairly well-off and don’t play Reggae all night with the windows open.
The idea of being poor in America where you had to live among the violent black underclass and make a go of it is strong incentive to not drop out of high school. That a lot of them do drop out shows how messed up they are.
New Zealand proves that whites and east Asians can live together in one country and have it still be a good country. One of the safest in the world. Blacks are definitely the main issue, i would argue there's pros and cons to arab Muslims. Probably more cons though. If we could make like a white east Asian America with some Hispanics thrown in that would be ideal
I can only speak on personal anecdotes, but I've personally worked with several immigrants (mostly illegal) from Mexico. They are some of the most entrepreneurial people I've met, certainly some of the hardest working, and tend to praise America as a place to prosper. The two biggest complaints I've heard are about prices and "welfare for the lazy". They're fairly conservative, but this is also TX.
Sailer has explicitly argued against white nationalism in his debate with Jared Taylor, with one of his arguments being that white people dislike white nationalism. But immigration restrictionism has appeal even in countries with majority non-white electorates.
I used to read Sailer a lot (until the Trump election) but haven't read him much lately. Honestly, I found little daylight between his opinions and ideology and "white nationalism". Just that he didn't want to label it white nationalism because he was trying to be politically correct and actually create an impact (which he did; I think Trump's election win was at least partially seeded on Sailer's blog).
"Citizenism" applies to any country, regardless of race. People of all races think their governments should prioritize them over non-citizens, which is why Trump could get votes from people who aren't white. African-Americans are Americans, which to Sailer means we have an obligation toward them that we don't have to Africans. He has said that both AAs & NAs really were screwed over by the US in the past, so it makes sense to limit affirmative action to them and not apply it to any immigrants (currently a lot of the slots go to descendants of African/Caribbean immigrants).
Why white nationalism and not black nationalism or any other? Have you assumed the race of the questioner? If they are black would it change your answer? Why do people move to form communities with people like themselves in whatever country? You seem to be focusing on one "race" and possibly ignoring similar impulses in others.
What does it mean to live with people like you? Do you mean racially? Or having the same values? Would you rather live with a White liberal that talks about "White fragility" and "smashing capitalism", versus a conservative immigrant that loves America?
I feel like white liberals are a group that would be amazing if they just had diversity taken away from them. In a homogeneous society, that white liberal wouldn't even know the concept of white fragility, and would probably be pro-capitalism because there would be no black people for capitalism "to fail." They are naturally inclined to believe all the right things because they're smart and naturally open to new ideas. The source of white liberal craziness is purely the existence of other nonwhite groups in their presence (specifically black people) that warps their thinking on everything else.
So I'm going to go with white liberal here, under the assumption that it's in an all-white world.
"In a homogeneous society, that white liberal wouldn't even know the concept of white fragility, and would probably be pro-capitalism because there would be no black people for capitalism 'to fail.' "
And yet...the Nordic countries. Some of the most white and homogenous on earth, and they gave us extreme government intervention in the economy, the cradle-to-grave welfare state, universally-implemented feminist and queer pedagogies, some of the most obnoxious "green" movements, and *still* managed to find downtrodden brown people to simp over by bringing in large numbers of refugees in the 2010s (though they show signs of realizing their mistake at this point).
Empirically, your feelings have been shown to be, if not necessarily universally incorrect, then at least very capable of being very mistaken.
Their economic system worked great though intill they imported all these nonwhites. It was not only one of the safest regions in the world but also the happiest with the highest standard of living. Not to mention doing very well in education.
The antiwhite education that all western countries receive after ww2 is what lead to them supporting the mass importation of people. However the system of Scandinavia was always supposed to be a very soft version of national socialism. Mixed economy with homogeneous population. However with a socially left push boiling below the surface. That eventually took over unfortunately. I don't think i need to tell you the group of people who controlled funded and took part in the Frankfurt school. That's where all this antiwhite so called education came from
It's difficult to say. The Norwegians don't count because of all that oil money; they've done a good job with it, but they're basically just a lilly-white Saudi Arabia. The Swedes did OK, but their economy has always been markedly less dynamic than the U.S. (which, as you correctly say, was kinda the point), which cuts down on inequality and social unrest but sacrifices long-term growth and development. It's a value judgment.
Well America has oil money as well, every country has their resources. Im not sure why that means it doesn't count.
At a certain point economic growth has diminishing returns among ordinary people anyways and just becomes more economic growth for the elites who already have a lot of money anyways so its irrelevant. There's other things that matter other than GDP anyways. Obviously you dont want to be like a third world country but at the same time you dont want to sacrifice your culture, your people and your values for economic growth either. There needs to be a balance and the system should work for you. You shouldn't be working inherently for the system so to speak. I think to some degree Scandinavia had that balance for some time which is why I see them in high regard. I could do without the welfare programs but im not necessarily against social programs but i don't think we should have them to simply give poor people money. I believe in social programs to encourage behaviors in society. Like for example Victor Orban giving monetary incentive to have kids however for me he doesn't give nearly enough. I would give money to people to encourage socially right wing values in society and punish socially left wing values. That would help to normalize socially right wing values. Especially after the countless decades of socially left wing values being pushed and normalized on society to begin with
Sorry, I should have been more clear: I'm talking about a world in which Africans were never brought over as slaves to the Americas. The Nordic countries are culturally colonies of the US, so whatever starts here makes its way over there.
I think if race-based civil rights never caught on, we wouldn't have trans/queer movements like we have; they're predicated on the success of the race-based ones. Without black people in America, welfare wouldn't have become nearly as large as it has, as it was intended largely as a form of reparations, etc.
This is completely false. Most of the Scandinavian social democracy began shortly following Otto von Bismarck's prototyping in Germany in the 19th century. The Scandinavian immigrants to the US were among the earliest proponents of socialism/communism (aside from certain very early Irish laborer movements, some of the German '48ers, and the Eastern European Jews) and can be credited for why Wisconsin and Minnesota have had a socialist leaning predating FDR.
But really I was talking about American white liberals, not Scandinavians. Every American white liberal I talk to is usually pretty reasonable about everything except race and trans...and I think both of those ideas don't spread if not for the black rights movement paving the way. Italian or Irish rights or whatever fizzled into nothing, I don't see that being the impetus for what we have today. Just speculation on my part.
Yeah, its far less safe than it used to be but Scandinavia has a great economic model which has helped them become and stay one if the best regions to live. Probably the best actually. Or course Scandinavian people just naturally being amazing people doesn't hurt either
>I feel like white liberals are a group that would be amazing if they just had diversity taken away from them.
I don't think you know white liberals very well then. I'm almost thankful that they have supposed "racism" to complain about, if not for that, they could easily come up with a much more dangerous cause to put all their weight behind.
Any of the above, right? Government exists to maximize the utility of the population. If the population is homophilic, and there's a public goods aspect which means markets don't solve it, then the government should step in to limit immigration. Public economics 101.
I like this way of looking at things because it steps back a bit from what seems like a false dichotomy: "being anti-immigration is either about economic threat from lower wages, or it's irrational xenophobia".
It's perfectly obvious that at the group level racial differences express themselves in the sorts of societies that are built. African countries are radically different from east Asian countries and there would be no possibility of either converting to live like the other.
At a low level diversity works quite and probably generates wealth. But it is quickly the law of diminishing returns.
I was responding to the wording of the comment, I don’t necessarily agree with it. That said, most people in the US live among racially similar people...and increasingly politically similar people.
The reality is that most people in the US do live with people like them. The fact that maybe 5, 8, 10 million (or however many) illegal immigrants live in a country of 330 million people doesn’t really change the demographics of most neighborhoods.
I laughed out loud when I saw 10 million as the *high* range of his post. Boomers, man. It'll come for us all one day but when peoples' mental model freezes like this it's a sight to behold. It's like an elderly grandma giving a kid a nickel for candy, seeing some of the figures these people believe.
People who argue for the second-order effects of immigration (like a less populist electorate or whatever) can at least point to a benefit that may outweigh the cost of replacing the population, but that may (or may not!) be scant consolation to those dispossessed.
It's weird because everyone can kind of understand this when they look at the former Little Italies in the urban US. As some got richer they moved out to the suburbs, as others remained poor they were gentrified out or, in some cases, fled the burnt-out husks of the 1960s Civil Rights era. It's not exactly romanticism to say something was lost there. If, in the eye of the beholder, increased GDP or a more open society or more diversity or whatever *outweighs* that, that's a fine argument. But I think the argument needs to be made (as Richard, to his credit, does here. Many others do not.)
We are Americans and we get to decide how much immigration we want, where from and what their motivations are. Richard’s views are wonderful clickbait but have near zero public support.
I want people who come to America to be Americans. I am pro immigrant (coming from a family of immigrants) but we are playing a dangerous game setting immigration policy designed to create an immigrant mono-culture (Latino).
A melting pot (many countries/cultures/languages of able bodied, self-supporting immigrants in limited amounts is the way to go. The current policy prioritizes wards of the public, because of the way we anticipate they’ll vote - insanity.
The unlimited, pro-immigration case breaks down the minute one visits Africa. There are many hundreds of millions of people there who would be here tomorrow (nothing against Africans, they are generally productive immigrants). We are better off developing and investing in other countries than doubling or tripling our population with the world’s poor.
They’re right there in the preamble: “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty”. All of those can plausibly be applied to numerous externalities, and “the general welfare” would cover all of them. Common practice in the US and elsewhere is just that.
Hello Wyclif's Dust, this may be of interest to you:
"Mere months after record layoffs, a trade group representing Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and other technology giants is pressuring President Joe Biden’s administration to allow more temporary foreign workers to work in the United States through the H-1B visa program for people with specialized skills."
“Like them” is very subjective and multi dimensional, no? It means something very different for an American born and bred in New York compared to one born and bred in rural Vermont. Moreover, places like New York have been a salad bowl of immigrants for over a century. What we now call Middle America was one for Germans and Scandinavians in the 19th Century.
If you propose somehow severing the country that we have into homogenous blocks, I would like to see your plan.
You’re correct. But that’s because homophily really is multidimensional! For example, if you went to university, probably all your friends went to university as well. Ethnicity, nationality and culture are just some possible dimensions.
I didn’t propose anything, I just asked a question! I asked it because I think answering it can help to clarify how you think about this issue. Why aren’t people’s preferences over their neighbours, or fellow citizens, the same as their preferences for iPhones, maple syrup or clean air?
Are you referring to race? I've always felt like that's such a low brow attachment. I would much rather associate with a black person who was more similar to me in personality and education and income than a white person who differed from me on those dimensions. I can't understand why there's such an importance places on physical looks.
Apologies if race is not what you are talking about.
It appears to be low brow because it is so obviously true. East Asian countries and African countries are radically different and complex arguments about why that is the case do not bear the weight placed on them and the simplest explanation (people are different at a population level) is most likely to be true. It is only when value judgements are attached to these differences that problems arise. When one is critical of say Asian or African countries for not living like European ones. If diversity is to mean anything it is diverse ways of living that have grown up over Millenia
>Some people are naturally tribal and don’t like immigration. So they’ll use whatever justifications they can come up with to argue against it....Most anti-immigration arguments can be dismissed as emotional outbursts that mask concerns people don’t want to be completely honest about.
This is true, but it's only half of the truth. The pro-immigration side are equally dishonest about their real motivations.
Having observed the debate closely for a long time, I've concluded that few of the people most engaged on the issue of mass immigration, on either side, are actually motivated primarily by its economic effects. Yet most arguments made by mainstream figures, pro and anti, are economic ones. This lack of candor creates a haze of stupidity around the topic.
One thing that I appreciate about Bryan Caplan is that he's more honest than most of the mass immigration advocates. He wrote an essay titled "They Scare Me" in which he said that he was afraid of concentrations of Mormons, even though they were "the nicest bunch [he'd] ever met", because there was always a possibility that they might come after him with torches and pitchforks if they became too numerous and cohesive. Thus he advocated open borders in order to make Mormons, and every other group, into small minorities everywhere so that he would feel more safe.
If you observe closely, you will usually find this sentiment among mass immigration advocates. They feel alienated from the majority culture in some way, feel some degree of resentment or fear towards it, and therefore want to weaken it by bringing in large numbers of people from other cultures. Generally they aren't as forthright as Caplan about this, but they eventually show what they really think in unguarded statements on camera or tweets that they later delete.
Richard wants diversity because only a fractured electorate can prevent social democracy, and the markets are thus preserved to make us all richer and freer. Seems noble enough.
Caplan wants diversity because he's scared of Mormons. Utterly insane.
George Soros (or his son, can't remember who) said that one of the side benefits of diversity was that Jewish people won't be singled out as a target by a dominant majority - in an open society they can be less scapegoated.
What's interesting here is that it's about second-order effects. Cerebral, reasoned arguments for why this will result in a better outcome for broader society (or Jews, at least.)
But it doesn't strike me as the reason that most immigration activists or Democratic voters (but I repeat myself) are pro-immigration. Theirs seems to be a genuine belief in diversity as a good in and of itself. It's not "diversity is our strength because reasons", it's "diversity is our strength because diversity is our strength."
This leads inevitably and in a straight line to deification of the Civil Rights state. There's no way around it. You can't have people who want mass immigration for the sake of diversity and then say "but we're not going to enshrine the dignity of our diverse population in law." You can't fetishize anyone not of the native stock and not have that lead inevitably to special treatment when they get any power.
It seems to me a very risky gambit, to ride the tiger of identity-based immigration to benefit from a second-order effect. Then again, it's working so far, so perhaps I'm wrong. Caplan's not yet been defenestrated by a roving mob of LDS (more's the pity.)
> Cerebral, reasoned arguments for why this will result in a better outcome for broader society (or Jews, at least.)
My argument is that they're not motivated so much by the prospect of better outcomes for the broader society (if, by "broader society", you mean the current majority of a specific country) but rather by the fear that the broader society might harm some minority...like them.
I agree that the typical Democrat voter doesn't share this motivation. I was describing the smartest and most dedicated fringe- generally academics, media figures, and political activists who, through their work and ability, have an outsized influence.
Yeah, that's fair - a bit like how in the article free market economics is not a popular/populist position among the electorate, but it is among the elite.
That was my opinion too, but it doesn't seem to be much shared.
My opinion as far as that goes is 'slam shut the gates and let assimilation do its job'. As Richard's said, most Asians and Hispanics aren't venomously anti-white, and if you can knock down the diversity regime that benefits them for identifying as 'other', they'll be assimilated in a few generations. We did manage to steal a lot of good genes from China and India before the Chinese caught up.
I suppose my inclination is to think that, as long as people look different in a recognizable way -- which also means they're not intermarrying at very high rates and thus are also to some degree culturally distinct -- they will always see themselves and be seen by others as "different", won't be fully assimilated. That difference won't manifest itself in all contexts, but it will definitely manifest itself in some contexts.
If Asians and Hispanics are assimilated, they will mostly cease to exist as distinct groups and will have blended genetically into the white population. Which honestly, I could see happening to both of those groups in particular, as they do have high (25%+) intermarriage rates. At least for East Asians -- South Asians are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with extremely low intermarriage rates.
One only needs to look at the Irish in the 19th century or Italians in the early 20th century for examples. I think the same will happen to Hispanic people within 50 years.
>Theirs seems to be a genuine belief in diversity as a good in and of itself. It's not "diversity is our strength because reasons", it's "diversity is our strength because diversity is our strength."
Exactly. Richard is an outlier here, even saying that his calculation would be different if it were Japan deciding on whether to be open to mass immigration from Africa, but that since US immigration is overwhelmingly Hispanic we're fine.
He doesn't address this, but I wonder how this article would change if immigration to the US shifted to become overwhelmingly African. The second-order effects Richard is banking on here seems to be just blunting the problems that black people cause, more or less---displacing them in cities so the cities are less violent, decreasing support for welfare programs, etc. Would this calculus change for him if the immigrants were just more black people?
> The second-order effects Richard is banking on here seems to be just blunting the problems that black people cause, more or less---displacing them in cities so the cities are less violent, decreasing support for welfare programs, etc
The Unz essay that Richard quotes actually shows that Hispanic immigration has been good for East Palo Alto property values, not that it's been good for America. (It would only show the latter if the earlier residents of East Palo Alto all emigrated to Mexico, which they haven't. They've simply moved to other places in the US.)
And yes, going forward, support for mass immigration will increasingly mean support for mass African immigration. That's where the birthrates are highest and the gains to the potential immigrants largest.
Mexican immigrants have pushed blacks out of California cities. But just like NIMBY cities pushing out poor people, that doesn't reduce their number so much as make them some other city's problem. It would be coherent to say that rich cities in Silicon Valley shouldn't have the problem and instead poorer & less productive cities should.
Mexican immigration does indeed seem to be better than the North African immigration found in France (Belgium is an interesting case study in that you can compare NA vs Turkish immigrants living nearby).
Parts of Francophone Europe would be quite interesting for him to study - not just cities like Marseille and Paris but also some of the outlying towns.
For classical liberals, diversity is valued in hopes that it helps perpetuate and sustain a certain humanism, cosmopolitanism, or universalism - whatever you want to call it - that they see as a certain human ideal and part of the march of progress. It is seen in direct opposition to the nationalism, fascism, and racism that has led to so much misery and destruction in ages past. This tends to be my own emotional attachment to the concept of diversity. Mind you, I don’t like the way the concept has been distorted into a narrow, Marxist struggle of oppressor versus victim.
This feels a little like car-chasing to me; that is, classical liberal attachment to diversity is a consequence of the dominance of diversity, rather than diversity being something they'd favor in its absence. It makes sense but it seems kind of pat and rote.
What is it's title? As far as I can discover, no such book exists. What he DOES have is a pro-immigration book that cites many reasons for encouraging more immigration.
My argument above is that much of the surface-level economic reasoning about this topic is *motivated* reasoning. In his essay above, Richard claims this about the arguments of the anti-immigration side, and I agree. But I claim that it's true of the pro-immigration side as well.
Whether or not my claim is false, simply observing that the mass-immigration advocates make many economic arguments does not prove it false. I agree that they do.
You can always accuse every side of motivated reasoning, and you would usually be right! So, it's not a particularly helpful charge. My own support for much more open immigration is definitely economic. Your suggestion that pro-immigration people are motivated by alienation from their culture sound odd to me. I don't see how bringing in even less familiar cultures would help.
So am I - second generation - as are a majority of the people I grew up and most of my friends. And your comments have nothing to do with my lifelong experience. Native born Americans are often way more ungrateful.
As one example, Mexican immigrants show in poll after poll (admittedly these polls, being sensitive, are often years apart), no matter how you break them down (legal/illegal, citizen/green card), that they personally are loyal to Mexico and believe that other Mexicans should as well.
Native-born Americans didn't make a choice to be here and are irrelevant to any discussion of immigrant gratitude.
Jews are understandably incredibly paranoid that they're about to be pogromed at any moment. The fact that they mostly live very safe and prosperous lives doesn't seem to change this. And because of their dominance (esp in the 20th century) of most of media, culture and academia, we've had to rearrange quite a bit of our society in order to make them feel more comfortable. They really are the priests and prophets of our modern post-Christian sacralization of minorities and minority rights, and while this has been impressive when it comes to civil rights, it has been terrible for social cohesion.
You're talking about the educated, successful, typically liberal, non-Orthodox Jews, a group that is really a momentary phenomenon in the US. Their fertility rates are way too low to be anything other than momentary as a demographic force (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-demographics/). However orthodox Jews are growing rapidly and they are quite different from the first group as to their interest in reshaping society. Moreover they tend to be more conservative at 75% Republican (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/u-s-jews-political-views/).
So, the impact of Jews in the US will change dramatically over the next 50 years. I believe some non-trivial part of American exceptionalism over the last century has been the result of not pogroming Jews, letting them build and create free from persecution. Despite some of the effects on social cohesion, their contribution to the quality of life in the US has been enormous and positive. It's a bit of a tragedy that these smart, successful people don't have more kids, but what can we do?
"Despite some of the effects on social cohesion, their contribution to the quality of life in the US has been enormous and positive."
I cannot and will never deny this (my wife and son are Jewish!), though at the same time there seem to be so many liberal/Left Jews who refuse to acknowledge how great America has been to and for them and their people.
Did anyone ever hate America as much as Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn etc? They issued more damning speeches about our country than Krushchev!
My only point really is the obsessive and moralistic focus on the crimes of our ancestors and our inability to achieve utopia (which was very much the Jewish Left 20th-century project) has been a major contributing factor in our social dissolution.
(Also, the Orthodox of the 21st century will never have the same power or influence as the Left liberals of the 20th, because they will not have nearly the same power or prevalence in our media, cultural and educational institutions.)
Yes there is a group of secularized Jewish intellectuals in US history beginning with a group of them that fled the Nazis and came here shell-shocked and out for right wing blood that are odious. And this group is in great part responsible for many of the social cohesion issues you mention. Something about losing the theology of Judaism while keeping the intellectual tradition ends in a sort of nihilistic sophistry. But they did pursue a sort of misguided excellence in their own way. I mean no one will remember my name like that. So I think even their existence supports the overall point that freer Jews leads to more good, and perhaps with that we might need to accept slightly more bad.
What is wrong with the argument that people simply prefer to live with others like them? I mean, why don’t standard preference satisfaction arguments win out here?
Well, you can still move wherever you want. Most of your fellow Americans though are disgusted by white nationalism, so you're going to have to infringe on all of their rights if you want to shape the demographics of the country in your preferred direction.
The list of places to move tends to shrink. Or as Obama put it to a reporter from the Atlantic: "every year, the situation improves."
Revealed preferences trump survey responses. The idea that the only alternative to extinction is to violently expel everyone of all other groups is a false dichotomy.
As for infringing on people's rights: what was the majority view in America in 1965 on the "ethnic mix of the country being upset" and on whites becoming a distinct minority? That wasn't a popular opinion, but policymakers did it anyway. What was the popular opinion in Britain on reducing themselves to a minority one generation ago? Again, probably not a mainstream view but policymakers just went ahead and did it. Brexit voters expected a reduction in immigration but nope, we're just going to keep doing it.
Can conservative whites reverse this? Probably not, but the idea that profound social and cultural changes are negligible next to hard metrics like GDP and IQ is soulless and misguided.
"As for infringing on people's rights: what was the majority view in America in 1965 on the "ethnic mix of the country being upset" and on whites becoming a distinct minority? That wasn't a popular opinion, but policymakers did it anyway. " This is silly. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 polled very well, passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities, and was signed by a then-popular president. No one, including the people who passed it, foresaw the demographic changes that would follow.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/09/20/in-1965-majority-of-americans-favored-immigration-and-nationality-act-2/
By the 1990s, it was clear that the United States would become majority-minority, and Bill Clinton was saying how great it was. I don't recall anyone of consequence disagreeing. The funny thing is, immigration and immigrants were pretty unpopular in the 1990s, but by 2015 immigrants had become much more popular, even though demographic change was completely impossible to miss by then. From the same link:
"In the 1990s, by wide margins, Americans saw immigrants as burdens on society rather than as strengthening the country through their hard work. Also, many thought that the growing number of newcomers would threaten traditional American values and customs."
"But slowly, opinions have begun to change over the course of the past two decades. By 2014, a healthy 57% majority had come to the opposite point of view, saying that immigrants strengthened the country through their hard work; and just 35% now say that the increasing number of immigrants is threatening American values. (As of January 2019, 62% say immigrants strengthen the country, while 28% say they burden the country by taking jobs, housing and health care.)"
As you said, it polled well because nobody expected this to happen. And public opinion about immigration policy tends to improve as you continue to admit immigrants and poll them about it.
If you are going to argue that a majority of whites always approved of becoming a small minority from the moment it became a logical and foreseeable outcome, that is highly dubious--but there is no sense in arguing about it, since the point is that governments shove foreseeable things down the population's throats against popular opinion all the time. Most Brits have wanted less immigration for a while, but it has no effect on policy. The idea that you'd be "violating people's rights" to agitate against top-down changes is patently ridiculous. People have no idea what's going on. Their opinions start to change quite a bit once you give them slightly more information (Vox: "telling people the immigration numbers makes them racist") or expose them to the consequences of the policies.
I think the USA is just fundamentally more pro-immigration than Britain is, for understandable historical reasons. After the '65 Act, the next biggest piece of legislation was the 1986 amnesty, which again passed both houses of congress and was signed by the president after decades of high immigration. And I don't think there's ever been a time when there's been broad popular opposition to legal immigration. Here in Tennessee, our large and conservative church is very involved in integrating immigrants into the community. If you go by house cleaners and roofers, you'll conclude that Tennessee is populated entirely by Guatemalans. If you go to a youth chess tournament, you'll conclude that the state is about 50% Chinese and Indian. People seem fine with that!
At least for the United States, I think the narrative that the government, knowing the consequences, shoved immigration down the population's throat against the people's wishes is just fundamentally misguided. First, the government didn't know the consequences of the INA in 1965. No one did! And there was a lot going on besides the INA. In particular, Latin America had always been underpopulated compared to North America, but over the 20th century that gradually changed. It is in the nature of immigration not to matter much in the short term but to have very marked long-term consequences. But anyway, it was clear that we were living in a new era of high non-white immigration by the 1980s, but there was no real appetite for stopping it. The policy argument was always about how much to do about illegal immigration, not about greatly reducing legal immigration.
"If you are going to argue that a majority of whites always approved of becoming a small minority from the moment it became a logical and foreseeable outcome, that is highly dubious". Well, maybe. But by the 1990s, it was foreseeable that America whites would become a minority, Bill Clinton said that was great, and no one gainsaid him.
"And public opinion about immigration policy tends to improve as you continue to admit immigrants and poll them about it." Sorry, that just doesn't explain 62%-28% margins in favor of immigration strengthening the country. Whether or not it should be, immigration is popular in the United States.
Very true, and it goes further back than that. It was the alleged arch-white supremacist Andrew Johnson who signed the first bill explicitly encouraging non-white (Chinese) immigration. With the exception of the Monroe-Lincoln period, the Democratic Party has always been the mainstay of immigrant rights, going all the way back to (the highly underrated) Aaron Burr.
While it's true that immigration was extremely unpopular within certain sub populations, e.g. white Californians who despised superior-IQ Chinese competition so much that they tended to flip parties every election in the late 19th century according to whichever president promised to shit on the Chinese more, anyone calling America historically anti-immigrant is talking purely out of their ass. The Gilded Age, one of our greatest periods, coincided with what was effectively the highest per capita rate of immigration in our entire history.
Not to give this short shrift, but this conflates "supporting legal immigration" with the US white population wishing to reduce itself from almost 90% to less than 50% in a single human lifetime. Scrutiny on illegal immigration is a proxy for this, since Hispanics are the biggest source.
This outcome was becoming logically inevitable during a period of time when the population (with high probability) did not want it. Of course I'm aware that the public is uninformed, lacks numeracy, and doesn't think much about ramifications. Maybe we need a feminist in here to give a lecture on consent...
Even if you poll modern whites, which includes a generation raised on diversity, 46% say that a white minority will "weaken American culture," 30% say little impact, and 23% say strengthen (per Pew). That only goes up to 30% total of Dems + Republicans saying strengthen, for all adults. The popularity of "immigration" is distinct from the popularity of this.
Anyway. The point is that in the US, this is not a scenario where the public is lined up cheering for white population decline, but some white nationalists want to sneak into the Oval Office and push a button that halts the decline at 50%, thereby "infringing on their rights." And they wake up on Monday, and they scream "NO! I felt a disturbance in the force, as if 3200 Hispanics were prevented from entering the country last night..."
A beefier argument would be that you're infringing on their right to a "strong economy" because you can't stop white population decline unless you accept general population decline. I don't really buy that, but I do think that it contains a greater quantity of beef.
>I think the USA is just fundamentally more pro-immigration than Britain is, for understandable historical reasons<
I guess that's possible. But the data don't seem to support such a view. What are you basing this contention on?
UK has about the same foreign-born share as the US, and in recent years has generally allowed a net immigration rate that exceeds that of the United States. The UK parliament (right wing government, no less) recently enacted legislation handing out residency permits to highly skilled foreign university grads who don't even have employment lined up. If you've graduated from MIT or NUS, you can just show up and start looking for a job. (It's hard to imagine *any* liberalization/pro-immigration measure getting to Biden's desk any time soon, even one as commensical as the one I just mentioned). Sure, the UK had Brexit (driven at least in part by anxiety over immigration) but the US elected Trump. And the data suggest the UK has replaced the inflow of Poles and Romanians with Indians and Nigerians.
I'm not suggesting the UK is massively more supportive of immigration than the US, mind you. I merely see no evidence for your contention that the latter is more pro immigration that Britain. If anything the numbers to me suggest the opposite.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/
Favorable views of immigration among some section of whites are a product of the broader great awokening psyop documented by zach goldberg. Yea some evangelicals and other religious orgs are so retarded and guileless to help settle populations ultimately hostile to the interests of their own posterity
"And I don't think there's ever been a time when there's been broad popular opposition to legal immigration."
Opposition to legal immigration in is inherent to our being. The putnum study shows that greater diversity means less social trust whether people recognize this affect or not.
People naturally seek out their own. White flight, prison segregation, dating preferences. Our preferences are obvious. In our natural state, we prefer our own. It is the politicians and elites who force immigration onto us in the same way that American politicians have pushed America continual state of war despite that total public disapproval.
Why are you posting this?
No, they weren’t. They were anti-illegal-immigration, which you regard as a dodge, but in fact the line between legal and illegal immigration is in fact the line that most people draw.
The Elian Gonzalez case wasn't about Clinton being anti-immigration!! It was about restoring a child whose mother had died to his father in Cuba rather than assigning him to cousins in Miami. Nobody saw it as about immigration at the time, it was about the trade-off between family-law norms and Cuban-American public opinion.
Both parties talked about American being a country of immigrants all the time before Trump.
Yeah, the conservative immigration restrictionists simply need to set aside the concern for mass opinion that Richard expresses in his comment above ("Most of your fellow Americans though are disgusted by white nationalism, so you're going to have to infringe on all of their rights") in favor of the contempt for mass opinion that Richard endorses in his essay ("Basically, one can understand democratic capitalism as elites continually having to run circles around citizens, who would destroy our standard of living if they ever truly got what they wanted.").
Sure, most Americans are disgusted by white nationalism, quite rightly. But they're not disgusted by border controls, they seem keen on them. And in terms of revealed preference, people with more liberal attitudes to diversity move away from diverse areas at the same rate as people with less liberal attitudes. (That's according to Eric Kaufmann's research.)
The argument that you can move wherever you want is not a strong one! It's well known among economists that moving has externalities, and hence that Tiebout-style arguments ("just vote with your feet") fail in general. (See e.g. Bewley's 1981 paper "A critique of Tiebout's theory...")
You can make a more general argument that freedom to move within a country is widely accepted. Yes it is, but only in the context of strict restrictions at national borders.
Lastly, I didn't say anything about my personal preferences. I'm not even American!
You are declaring peoples' preference to live among and near people like themselves to be an overriding preference. But all evidence (and Bryan Caplan) suggests that this is a relatively trivial preference. The immigrants themselves clearly gain by moving, likes/dislikes aside (and the immigrants themselves may not necessarily like the people amidst whom they are moving). The dislike that the hosts may feel initially because of stupid and irrational reasons (or propaganda in the regular or social media) may dissipate very soon after real interactions with the immigrants. Their kids may not even share that antipathy in the first place.
As Richard pointed out literally in his opening paragraph, some people dislike immigration just because they are tribal. Likes and dislikes are a tribal, and not a rational, preference. People with influence in public policy should consistency ignore these preferences while paying lip service to them just to keep the peace. Things will smoothen out over time.
I've been hitting google scholar for something like "revealed preferences for diversity" - have you got any relevant evidence?
I don't agree with your second paragraph. At least, that's not how economists usually think. A preference is a preference is a preference. Liking grapes, or having a low discount rate, is not more rational than the opposite. Why should preferences over fellow citizens be different? Maybe there are good theories of what preferences ought to count (Bob Goodin talks about "laundering preferences"). But if so you've got to clarify that theory. Otherwise it becomes too easy to say "oh, the preferences I agree with are the rational ones".
In particular, it's not legitimate to say "there's no evidence that immigration reduces wages, so being against immigration is irrational". That's like saying "chocolate is bad for you, so eating chocolate is irrational." Maybe I understand the health risks and still just like the taste!
Let me clarify. When your likes and dislikes relate to public policy in a visceral manner without any thought process behind it, that's a non-rational preference and ought to be ignored by policy makers and enforcers.
Because those policies have consequences and externalities for the public at large and don't just affect you. What flavor of ice cream you like is of no consequence to anyone but you (and in a very limited way, to the likes of Haagen Dazs) but if tomorrow you claimed to have an aversion to asphalt (seeing it or smelling it or whatever), should the governments stop maintaining asphalt roads? Despite the fact that those roads deliver enormous benefits to lots of people?
Immigration benefits lots of people. Unequivocally, the benefit the immigrants. Restrictionists go out of their way to not consider immigrants to be people so that they can be ignored from a public policy calculation. But then, as Richard, Bryan, and others have pointed out, immigrants also benefit the host society in many ways. Your visceral reaction to them should not override all the benefits to the immigrants and the people who like them and will benefit from their presence.
So I think we agree that if someone just expresses a preference, that can be irrational or a whim. But what about a preference that is revealed in actual behaviour? If people are prepared to pay, say, £100K to live in a neighbourhood with others like them, why shouldn’t policy take that preference into account?
it wasnt really a widespread population choice to have mass migration from 60s onwards. That was an elite inflicted policy on the 90% white america, and for decades almost without change gallup polls showed most americans wanted FEWER migrants. The people passign the mass mgiration in 60s lied and said it wouldnt affect demographics, etc.
So youre whole argument is nonsense. This change in the mindset of population was one that came top down from people with a very different view of what america should be (and became). So similarly, if we have a different view of hwat america should or could be then top down decisions that push towards that are perfectly reasonable, and the argument should be around what that vision is: continued Brazilfication, or perhaps holding the line and *gack* through policy measures pushing for increasing the white % of the population de facto.
since say the 1960s there are 3 (at least) policies that the elites pursue regardless of the voters, that is to say, that are beyond the reach of democratic accountability: 1) endless war; 2) affirmative action (social engineering via race); and 3: massive immigration.
The ruling elites of both parties consider these sacred charges and nothing short of a violent overthrow of our govt can change this.
And much of America's wealth is based on centuries of being largely homogenous. Also, the idea that a constantly declining national IQ will not impact wealth is unworthy of any serious consideration. But Richard throws out some ideas I like.
"simply prefer to live with others like them" = "white nationalism"
i see what you did there!
and what do you call it when the Japanese prefer to keep their country Japanese? When people in Harlem don't want whites colonizing their neighborhood? When gay people prefer to live in and maintain their own enclaves?
To live among your own is a natural, universal preference, not bigotry or Nazism.
Yeah they're disgusted by it thanks to Social leftists and fiscal conservatives like you who make sure people are this way because it benefits the social left politically and it benefits the fiscal conservatives economically.
Infringe on who's rights? The founding fathers set up a naturalization system that only allowed white people to become citizens. I think if anything you're infringing on their rights of having a sovereign society? Why should they be obligated to allow in new people into their society?
They say they are, but where do they move?
White flight is still a thing. Nobody wanna live in the so called diverse utopia
Diverse neighbourhoods aren’t so bad as long as “diverse” doesn’t just mean majority black. Multiple races are OK, it means the neighbourhood is generally attractive, not just popular because rents are cheap and crime isn’t punished.
you are only partially correct. Yes, asians are better neighbors than blacks but cooperation and trust come out more when you are surrounded by your own race. Read the putnam study. Diversity is a negative thing.
Oh, I agree with you there. I would rather live among white people who culturally resemble me, but then I would be living among mostly old people. Immigration has to be considered in terms of alternatives. Many Canadians aren’t having babies, whether old-stock white Canadians or first-generation children of immigrants. (Too many trans people? /sarc). So to maintain our supply of young workers to pay the taxes for the welfare state we have to bring in 1% of our population EVERY YEAR, whether we really like it or not. We (and you in the U.S.) also have to compete with the birthrates of our native-born unproductive underclass.
Sure, it would be nice, and we’d have better social cohesion, if white families all had the average 2.3 children each that it takes for replacement but that hasn’t been happening for 60 years now. So we just have to try to get skilled immigrants from cultures that are enough like ours that they cut their lawns and don’t try to impose barbaric cultural practices on us. Fingers crossed it seems to be working. We don’t see white flight or burning crosses when a South Asian family moves in, and lots of respected, highly skilled doctors are South Asian. (We don’t do affirmative action for medical school in any way.). (Somebody did burn a cross on a new black family’s lawn in a small town in Nova Scotia only about 15 years ago. They weren’t immigrants—they’d just moved up the road from Halifax.)
Perhaps, but I think most people, if they have enough money, would prefer to not live around poor people, if they have a choice.
Typically crime comes with poor people but actually the poorest whites commit less violent crime than the wealthiest whites so i dont really have a problem with poor whites. Although you do have the white trash whites who are just are flat out annoying however i think when it comes to poor people white people have the best poor people.... maybe it because i feel bad for them because no people have tougher than poor whites. They've been fucked by globalization, antiwhite polices and a host of all kinds of other bullshit. Yet are still considered privileged. Pisses me off, so its hard to give them a hard time for me. They've been through enough
Oh, for sure. The social values of poor people are just ick for us better-off—their values are why they’re poor and we worry they are contagious. But rents and property prices look after that. Poor people can’t afford to live where we do. I think I was trying to say that a neighbourhood The Economist calls “leafy” (= too expensive for poor people) doesn’t suffer if it has lots of desirable races in it. Even black people are OK if they are two-parent households like the rest of us, as long as they are fairly well-off and don’t play Reggae all night with the windows open.
The idea of being poor in America where you had to live among the violent black underclass and make a go of it is strong incentive to not drop out of high school. That a lot of them do drop out shows how messed up they are.
New Zealand proves that whites and east Asians can live together in one country and have it still be a good country. One of the safest in the world. Blacks are definitely the main issue, i would argue there's pros and cons to arab Muslims. Probably more cons though. If we could make like a white east Asian America with some Hispanics thrown in that would be ideal
Europe is a prime example Arabs are second if not worst than blacks for white countries
I can only speak on personal anecdotes, but I've personally worked with several immigrants (mostly illegal) from Mexico. They are some of the most entrepreneurial people I've met, certainly some of the hardest working, and tend to praise America as a place to prosper. The two biggest complaints I've heard are about prices and "welfare for the lazy". They're fairly conservative, but this is also TX.
Sailer has explicitly argued against white nationalism in his debate with Jared Taylor, with one of his arguments being that white people dislike white nationalism. But immigration restrictionism has appeal even in countries with majority non-white electorates.
I used to read Sailer a lot (until the Trump election) but haven't read him much lately. Honestly, I found little daylight between his opinions and ideology and "white nationalism". Just that he didn't want to label it white nationalism because he was trying to be politically correct and actually create an impact (which he did; I think Trump's election win was at least partially seeded on Sailer's blog).
"Citizenism" applies to any country, regardless of race. People of all races think their governments should prioritize them over non-citizens, which is why Trump could get votes from people who aren't white. African-Americans are Americans, which to Sailer means we have an obligation toward them that we don't have to Africans. He has said that both AAs & NAs really were screwed over by the US in the past, so it makes sense to limit affirmative action to them and not apply it to any immigrants (currently a lot of the slots go to descendants of African/Caribbean immigrants).
Are you the only serious person?
Trump got elected in part because of his stance on immigration, this contradicts your "nothing to do with" claim.
Why white nationalism and not black nationalism or any other? Have you assumed the race of the questioner? If they are black would it change your answer? Why do people move to form communities with people like themselves in whatever country? You seem to be focusing on one "race" and possibly ignoring similar impulses in others.
I guess then you can have open borders when segregation and restrictive covenants become legally protected.
Most of those leaving have enough money to live anywhere they want. The majority of expatriates are 2%ers.
What does it mean to live with people like you? Do you mean racially? Or having the same values? Would you rather live with a White liberal that talks about "White fragility" and "smashing capitalism", versus a conservative immigrant that loves America?
I feel like white liberals are a group that would be amazing if they just had diversity taken away from them. In a homogeneous society, that white liberal wouldn't even know the concept of white fragility, and would probably be pro-capitalism because there would be no black people for capitalism "to fail." They are naturally inclined to believe all the right things because they're smart and naturally open to new ideas. The source of white liberal craziness is purely the existence of other nonwhite groups in their presence (specifically black people) that warps their thinking on everything else.
So I'm going to go with white liberal here, under the assumption that it's in an all-white world.
"In a homogeneous society, that white liberal wouldn't even know the concept of white fragility, and would probably be pro-capitalism because there would be no black people for capitalism 'to fail.' "
And yet...the Nordic countries. Some of the most white and homogenous on earth, and they gave us extreme government intervention in the economy, the cradle-to-grave welfare state, universally-implemented feminist and queer pedagogies, some of the most obnoxious "green" movements, and *still* managed to find downtrodden brown people to simp over by bringing in large numbers of refugees in the 2010s (though they show signs of realizing their mistake at this point).
Empirically, your feelings have been shown to be, if not necessarily universally incorrect, then at least very capable of being very mistaken.
Their economic system worked great though intill they imported all these nonwhites. It was not only one of the safest regions in the world but also the happiest with the highest standard of living. Not to mention doing very well in education.
The antiwhite education that all western countries receive after ww2 is what lead to them supporting the mass importation of people. However the system of Scandinavia was always supposed to be a very soft version of national socialism. Mixed economy with homogeneous population. However with a socially left push boiling below the surface. That eventually took over unfortunately. I don't think i need to tell you the group of people who controlled funded and took part in the Frankfurt school. That's where all this antiwhite so called education came from
It's difficult to say. The Norwegians don't count because of all that oil money; they've done a good job with it, but they're basically just a lilly-white Saudi Arabia. The Swedes did OK, but their economy has always been markedly less dynamic than the U.S. (which, as you correctly say, was kinda the point), which cuts down on inequality and social unrest but sacrifices long-term growth and development. It's a value judgment.
Well America has oil money as well, every country has their resources. Im not sure why that means it doesn't count.
At a certain point economic growth has diminishing returns among ordinary people anyways and just becomes more economic growth for the elites who already have a lot of money anyways so its irrelevant. There's other things that matter other than GDP anyways. Obviously you dont want to be like a third world country but at the same time you dont want to sacrifice your culture, your people and your values for economic growth either. There needs to be a balance and the system should work for you. You shouldn't be working inherently for the system so to speak. I think to some degree Scandinavia had that balance for some time which is why I see them in high regard. I could do without the welfare programs but im not necessarily against social programs but i don't think we should have them to simply give poor people money. I believe in social programs to encourage behaviors in society. Like for example Victor Orban giving monetary incentive to have kids however for me he doesn't give nearly enough. I would give money to people to encourage socially right wing values in society and punish socially left wing values. That would help to normalize socially right wing values. Especially after the countless decades of socially left wing values being pushed and normalized on society to begin with
Sorry, I should have been more clear: I'm talking about a world in which Africans were never brought over as slaves to the Americas. The Nordic countries are culturally colonies of the US, so whatever starts here makes its way over there.
I think if race-based civil rights never caught on, we wouldn't have trans/queer movements like we have; they're predicated on the success of the race-based ones. Without black people in America, welfare wouldn't have become nearly as large as it has, as it was intended largely as a form of reparations, etc.
This is completely false. Most of the Scandinavian social democracy began shortly following Otto von Bismarck's prototyping in Germany in the 19th century. The Scandinavian immigrants to the US were among the earliest proponents of socialism/communism (aside from certain very early Irish laborer movements, some of the German '48ers, and the Eastern European Jews) and can be credited for why Wisconsin and Minnesota have had a socialist leaning predating FDR.
Okay, I guess I lose.
But really I was talking about American white liberals, not Scandinavians. Every American white liberal I talk to is usually pretty reasonable about everything except race and trans...and I think both of those ideas don't spread if not for the black rights movement paving the way. Italian or Irish rights or whatever fizzled into nothing, I don't see that being the impetus for what we have today. Just speculation on my part.
Aren't they still considered highly desirable places to live?
Yeah, its far less safe than it used to be but Scandinavia has a great economic model which has helped them become and stay one if the best regions to live. Probably the best actually. Or course Scandinavian people just naturally being amazing people doesn't hurt either
>I feel like white liberals are a group that would be amazing if they just had diversity taken away from them.
I don't think you know white liberals very well then. I'm almost thankful that they have supposed "racism" to complain about, if not for that, they could easily come up with a much more dangerous cause to put all their weight behind.
Any of the above, right? Government exists to maximize the utility of the population. If the population is homophilic, and there's a public goods aspect which means markets don't solve it, then the government should step in to limit immigration. Public economics 101.
I like this way of looking at things because it steps back a bit from what seems like a false dichotomy: "being anti-immigration is either about economic threat from lower wages, or it's irrational xenophobia".
Nothing is more rational than so called xenophobia
The latter, for me.
It's perfectly obvious that at the group level racial differences express themselves in the sorts of societies that are built. African countries are radically different from east Asian countries and there would be no possibility of either converting to live like the other.
At a low level diversity works quite and probably generates wealth. But it is quickly the law of diminishing returns.
I was responding to the wording of the comment, I don’t necessarily agree with it. That said, most people in the US live among racially similar people...and increasingly politically similar people.
The reality is that most people in the US do live with people like them. The fact that maybe 5, 8, 10 million (or however many) illegal immigrants live in a country of 330 million people doesn’t really change the demographics of most neighborhoods.
You should probably look up the stats on what percentage of US population is foreign born and compare it to historical trends
I laughed out loud when I saw 10 million as the *high* range of his post. Boomers, man. It'll come for us all one day but when peoples' mental model freezes like this it's a sight to behold. It's like an elderly grandma giving a kid a nickel for candy, seeing some of the figures these people believe.
People who argue for the second-order effects of immigration (like a less populist electorate or whatever) can at least point to a benefit that may outweigh the cost of replacing the population, but that may (or may not!) be scant consolation to those dispossessed.
It's weird because everyone can kind of understand this when they look at the former Little Italies in the urban US. As some got richer they moved out to the suburbs, as others remained poor they were gentrified out or, in some cases, fled the burnt-out husks of the 1960s Civil Rights era. It's not exactly romanticism to say something was lost there. If, in the eye of the beholder, increased GDP or a more open society or more diversity or whatever *outweighs* that, that's a fine argument. But I think the argument needs to be made (as Richard, to his credit, does here. Many others do not.)
We are Americans and we get to decide how much immigration we want, where from and what their motivations are. Richard’s views are wonderful clickbait but have near zero public support.
I want people who come to America to be Americans. I am pro immigrant (coming from a family of immigrants) but we are playing a dangerous game setting immigration policy designed to create an immigrant mono-culture (Latino).
A melting pot (many countries/cultures/languages of able bodied, self-supporting immigrants in limited amounts is the way to go. The current policy prioritizes wards of the public, because of the way we anticipate they’ll vote - insanity.
The unlimited, pro-immigration case breaks down the minute one visits Africa. There are many hundreds of millions of people there who would be here tomorrow (nothing against Africans, they are generally productive immigrants). We are better off developing and investing in other countries than doubling or tripling our population with the world’s poor.
Gordon did say *illegal* immigrants specifically.
It boils down to the government being allowed the decision of what like others look like.
We usually expect governments to address externalities, no?
Only if they are mandated in the Constitution.
I'm not familiar with any that are.
They’re right there in the preamble: “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty”. All of those can plausibly be applied to numerous externalities, and “the general welfare” would cover all of them. Common practice in the US and elsewhere is just that.
Where is the requisite "in all other countries on the planet?"
It isn't the Constitution of the Entire Planet Earth.
My last sentence addressed other places than the US.
Hanania: Whites are disgusted with white nationalism
Also Hanania: A decline in social trust prevents socialism
Hello Wyclif's Dust, this may be of interest to you:
"Mere months after record layoffs, a trade group representing Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and other technology giants is pressuring President Joe Biden’s administration to allow more temporary foreign workers to work in the United States through the H-1B visa program for people with specialized skills."
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/diversity-really-is-our-strength
“Like them” is very subjective and multi dimensional, no? It means something very different for an American born and bred in New York compared to one born and bred in rural Vermont. Moreover, places like New York have been a salad bowl of immigrants for over a century. What we now call Middle America was one for Germans and Scandinavians in the 19th Century.
If you propose somehow severing the country that we have into homogenous blocks, I would like to see your plan.
You’re correct. But that’s because homophily really is multidimensional! For example, if you went to university, probably all your friends went to university as well. Ethnicity, nationality and culture are just some possible dimensions.
I didn’t propose anything, I just asked a question! I asked it because I think answering it can help to clarify how you think about this issue. Why aren’t people’s preferences over their neighbours, or fellow citizens, the same as their preferences for iPhones, maple syrup or clean air?
>others like them?
Are you referring to race? I've always felt like that's such a low brow attachment. I would much rather associate with a black person who was more similar to me in personality and education and income than a white person who differed from me on those dimensions. I can't understand why there's such an importance places on physical looks.
Apologies if race is not what you are talking about.
It appears to be low brow because it is so obviously true. East Asian countries and African countries are radically different and complex arguments about why that is the case do not bear the weight placed on them and the simplest explanation (people are different at a population level) is most likely to be true. It is only when value judgements are attached to these differences that problems arise. When one is critical of say Asian or African countries for not living like European ones. If diversity is to mean anything it is diverse ways of living that have grown up over Millenia
I meant just exactly what I said - see my other comment above.
>Some people are naturally tribal and don’t like immigration. So they’ll use whatever justifications they can come up with to argue against it....Most anti-immigration arguments can be dismissed as emotional outbursts that mask concerns people don’t want to be completely honest about.
This is true, but it's only half of the truth. The pro-immigration side are equally dishonest about their real motivations.
Having observed the debate closely for a long time, I've concluded that few of the people most engaged on the issue of mass immigration, on either side, are actually motivated primarily by its economic effects. Yet most arguments made by mainstream figures, pro and anti, are economic ones. This lack of candor creates a haze of stupidity around the topic.
One thing that I appreciate about Bryan Caplan is that he's more honest than most of the mass immigration advocates. He wrote an essay titled "They Scare Me" in which he said that he was afraid of concentrations of Mormons, even though they were "the nicest bunch [he'd] ever met", because there was always a possibility that they might come after him with torches and pitchforks if they became too numerous and cohesive. Thus he advocated open borders in order to make Mormons, and every other group, into small minorities everywhere so that he would feel more safe.
If you observe closely, you will usually find this sentiment among mass immigration advocates. They feel alienated from the majority culture in some way, feel some degree of resentment or fear towards it, and therefore want to weaken it by bringing in large numbers of people from other cultures. Generally they aren't as forthright as Caplan about this, but they eventually show what they really think in unguarded statements on camera or tweets that they later delete.
To be slightly less flippant...
Richard wants diversity because only a fractured electorate can prevent social democracy, and the markets are thus preserved to make us all richer and freer. Seems noble enough.
Caplan wants diversity because he's scared of Mormons. Utterly insane.
George Soros (or his son, can't remember who) said that one of the side benefits of diversity was that Jewish people won't be singled out as a target by a dominant majority - in an open society they can be less scapegoated.
What's interesting here is that it's about second-order effects. Cerebral, reasoned arguments for why this will result in a better outcome for broader society (or Jews, at least.)
But it doesn't strike me as the reason that most immigration activists or Democratic voters (but I repeat myself) are pro-immigration. Theirs seems to be a genuine belief in diversity as a good in and of itself. It's not "diversity is our strength because reasons", it's "diversity is our strength because diversity is our strength."
This leads inevitably and in a straight line to deification of the Civil Rights state. There's no way around it. You can't have people who want mass immigration for the sake of diversity and then say "but we're not going to enshrine the dignity of our diverse population in law." You can't fetishize anyone not of the native stock and not have that lead inevitably to special treatment when they get any power.
It seems to me a very risky gambit, to ride the tiger of identity-based immigration to benefit from a second-order effect. Then again, it's working so far, so perhaps I'm wrong. Caplan's not yet been defenestrated by a roving mob of LDS (more's the pity.)
> Cerebral, reasoned arguments for why this will result in a better outcome for broader society (or Jews, at least.)
My argument is that they're not motivated so much by the prospect of better outcomes for the broader society (if, by "broader society", you mean the current majority of a specific country) but rather by the fear that the broader society might harm some minority...like them.
I agree that the typical Democrat voter doesn't share this motivation. I was describing the smartest and most dedicated fringe- generally academics, media figures, and political activists who, through their work and ability, have an outsized influence.
Yeah, that's fair - a bit like how in the article free market economics is not a popular/populist position among the electorate, but it is among the elite.
That was my opinion too, but it doesn't seem to be much shared.
My opinion as far as that goes is 'slam shut the gates and let assimilation do its job'. As Richard's said, most Asians and Hispanics aren't venomously anti-white, and if you can knock down the diversity regime that benefits them for identifying as 'other', they'll be assimilated in a few generations. We did manage to steal a lot of good genes from China and India before the Chinese caught up.
I suppose my inclination is to think that, as long as people look different in a recognizable way -- which also means they're not intermarrying at very high rates and thus are also to some degree culturally distinct -- they will always see themselves and be seen by others as "different", won't be fully assimilated. That difference won't manifest itself in all contexts, but it will definitely manifest itself in some contexts.
If Asians and Hispanics are assimilated, they will mostly cease to exist as distinct groups and will have blended genetically into the white population. Which honestly, I could see happening to both of those groups in particular, as they do have high (25%+) intermarriage rates. At least for East Asians -- South Asians are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with extremely low intermarriage rates.
One only needs to look at the Irish in the 19th century or Italians in the early 20th century for examples. I think the same will happen to Hispanic people within 50 years.
>Theirs seems to be a genuine belief in diversity as a good in and of itself. It's not "diversity is our strength because reasons", it's "diversity is our strength because diversity is our strength."
Exactly. Richard is an outlier here, even saying that his calculation would be different if it were Japan deciding on whether to be open to mass immigration from Africa, but that since US immigration is overwhelmingly Hispanic we're fine.
He doesn't address this, but I wonder how this article would change if immigration to the US shifted to become overwhelmingly African. The second-order effects Richard is banking on here seems to be just blunting the problems that black people cause, more or less---displacing them in cities so the cities are less violent, decreasing support for welfare programs, etc. Would this calculus change for him if the immigrants were just more black people?
> The second-order effects Richard is banking on here seems to be just blunting the problems that black people cause, more or less---displacing them in cities so the cities are less violent, decreasing support for welfare programs, etc
The Unz essay that Richard quotes actually shows that Hispanic immigration has been good for East Palo Alto property values, not that it's been good for America. (It would only show the latter if the earlier residents of East Palo Alto all emigrated to Mexico, which they haven't. They've simply moved to other places in the US.)
And yes, going forward, support for mass immigration will increasingly mean support for mass African immigration. That's where the birthrates are highest and the gains to the potential immigrants largest.
Mexican immigrants have pushed blacks out of California cities. But just like NIMBY cities pushing out poor people, that doesn't reduce their number so much as make them some other city's problem. It would be coherent to say that rich cities in Silicon Valley shouldn't have the problem and instead poorer & less productive cities should.
Mexican immigration does indeed seem to be better than the North African immigration found in France (Belgium is an interesting case study in that you can compare NA vs Turkish immigrants living nearby).
Parts of Francophone Europe would be quite interesting for him to study - not just cities like Marseille and Paris but also some of the outlying towns.
For classical liberals, diversity is valued in hopes that it helps perpetuate and sustain a certain humanism, cosmopolitanism, or universalism - whatever you want to call it - that they see as a certain human ideal and part of the march of progress. It is seen in direct opposition to the nationalism, fascism, and racism that has led to so much misery and destruction in ages past. This tends to be my own emotional attachment to the concept of diversity. Mind you, I don’t like the way the concept has been distorted into a narrow, Marxist struggle of oppressor versus victim.
This feels a little like car-chasing to me; that is, classical liberal attachment to diversity is a consequence of the dominance of diversity, rather than diversity being something they'd favor in its absence. It makes sense but it seems kind of pat and rote.
I'm inclined to cut him slack over that antifeminist book, but I don't like his open-borders stance.
Bryan Caplan has many reasons for wanting more immigration. Reducing them to the Mormon thing is ludicrous and dishonest.
He wrote a whole book about them.
What is it's title? As far as I can discover, no such book exists. What he DOES have is a pro-immigration book that cites many reasons for encouraging more immigration.
My argument above is that much of the surface-level economic reasoning about this topic is *motivated* reasoning. In his essay above, Richard claims this about the arguments of the anti-immigration side, and I agree. But I claim that it's true of the pro-immigration side as well.
Whether or not my claim is false, simply observing that the mass-immigration advocates make many economic arguments does not prove it false. I agree that they do.
You can always accuse every side of motivated reasoning, and you would usually be right! So, it's not a particularly helpful charge. My own support for much more open immigration is definitely economic. Your suggestion that pro-immigration people are motivated by alienation from their culture sound odd to me. I don't see how bringing in even less familiar cultures would help.
https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960
That's his reasons. As you say, he's pro-open borders. I am not.
Plus immigrants tend to be ungrateful and just want to rebuild their own failed societies here.
Immigrants are the most grateful Americans if you actually talk to any.
I am one
So am I - second generation - as are a majority of the people I grew up and most of my friends. And your comments have nothing to do with my lifelong experience. Native born Americans are often way more ungrateful.
Right, so you're not an immigrant.
As one example, Mexican immigrants show in poll after poll (admittedly these polls, being sensitive, are often years apart), no matter how you break them down (legal/illegal, citizen/green card), that they personally are loyal to Mexico and believe that other Mexicans should as well.
Native-born Americans didn't make a choice to be here and are irrelevant to any discussion of immigrant gratitude.
Jews are understandably incredibly paranoid that they're about to be pogromed at any moment. The fact that they mostly live very safe and prosperous lives doesn't seem to change this. And because of their dominance (esp in the 20th century) of most of media, culture and academia, we've had to rearrange quite a bit of our society in order to make them feel more comfortable. They really are the priests and prophets of our modern post-Christian sacralization of minorities and minority rights, and while this has been impressive when it comes to civil rights, it has been terrible for social cohesion.
You're talking about the educated, successful, typically liberal, non-Orthodox Jews, a group that is really a momentary phenomenon in the US. Their fertility rates are way too low to be anything other than momentary as a demographic force (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-demographics/). However orthodox Jews are growing rapidly and they are quite different from the first group as to their interest in reshaping society. Moreover they tend to be more conservative at 75% Republican (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/u-s-jews-political-views/).
So, the impact of Jews in the US will change dramatically over the next 50 years. I believe some non-trivial part of American exceptionalism over the last century has been the result of not pogroming Jews, letting them build and create free from persecution. Despite some of the effects on social cohesion, their contribution to the quality of life in the US has been enormous and positive. It's a bit of a tragedy that these smart, successful people don't have more kids, but what can we do?
"Despite some of the effects on social cohesion, their contribution to the quality of life in the US has been enormous and positive."
I cannot and will never deny this (my wife and son are Jewish!), though at the same time there seem to be so many liberal/Left Jews who refuse to acknowledge how great America has been to and for them and their people.
Did anyone ever hate America as much as Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn etc? They issued more damning speeches about our country than Krushchev!
My only point really is the obsessive and moralistic focus on the crimes of our ancestors and our inability to achieve utopia (which was very much the Jewish Left 20th-century project) has been a major contributing factor in our social dissolution.
(Also, the Orthodox of the 21st century will never have the same power or influence as the Left liberals of the 20th, because they will not have nearly the same power or prevalence in our media, cultural and educational institutions.)
Yes there is a group of secularized Jewish intellectuals in US history beginning with a group of them that fled the Nazis and came here shell-shocked and out for right wing blood that are odious. And this group is in great part responsible for many of the social cohesion issues you mention. Something about losing the theology of Judaism while keeping the intellectual tradition ends in a sort of nihilistic sophistry. But they did pursue a sort of misguided excellence in their own way. I mean no one will remember my name like that. So I think even their existence supports the overall point that freer Jews leads to more good, and perhaps with that we might need to accept slightly more bad.