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@Danielle
It wasn't that long. There were about ~40 years with little immigration during the infancy of our country between 1790-1830; the immigrant population actually exploded decades before the Civil War largely in part to the Irish potato famine. However even though the influx of immigration changed over time, my point is that this country has seen a significant amount of immigration since its inception. Yes there was a temporary lull between the 1920s and 1960s, but that was 60 years ago. What are you - like 30 years old? There have been 30+ million immigrants that came here since you were born with the last two decades bringing more immigrants than ever before. So for you to say you "like the way things are" just seems weird since the number of immigrants doubled over the span of your life. The way things are = diversity. And going back to a previous topic, a lot of immigrants tend to be (at least socially) conservative which would seem to increase the chances of preserving the cultural elements you value. You probably have more values and political views in common with a Mexican immigrant than a native Californian.
That's true, this has been happening my entire life. But it didn't hit everywhere at the same time. The community I grew up in changed a lot over the course of my life due to immigration. And to be perfectly honest, I simply did like it much better before. Why wouldn't I? It went from a place where almost everyone shared my culture to a place where most people did not, and I felt like an outsider. Who wants to feel like that? The elementary school I went to is now an "immersion" kids, and the (minority) of white kids there receive instruction in Spanish. I mean come on, my native language isn't even the language of instruction anymore and I'm supposed to feel nothing? I don't know. I don't think that's a natural or a healthy way to view your society. And I question how much I should have to justify simply having a preference. I think multi cultural spaces are good, necessary, and important but I question the wisdom of insisting that everywhere has to be that way.
For the highlighted bit I actually think you could be right, it might actually come back to bite liberals in the end. Hispanics really do seem to be assimilating to working class white culture (and Asians assimilate incredibly quickly to upper middle class liberal culture but there are far fewer of them.) So many Hispanics live in California and New York that I don't know if they will ever be a right leaning group over all but I could see Mexicans in Texas and Arizona being kind of like Cubans in Miami.
But we all agree there are limitations. What about the people who want to ban guns? Should we get to vote on slavery? What if we can prove it's in the economic interest of the country ? As I said elsewhere, we can't divorce individual rights from the immigration debate. Even if you don't think immigrants qualify for rights per se, what about the Americans who want to hire a foreign worker or sell their house to someone born in another country? Conservatives claim to be the ones who prioritize individual rights whereas leftists tend to be skeptical of private property. I am not. The rejection of immigration rights and the shrugging off of institutionalized bigotry and free trade is far more dismissive of private property rights than anything I believe.
Well, this is getting into what's possible vs. what's possible in the current system. In the current system, we do have a centralized government that makes the vast majority of policy decisions for 350 million people, many of whom have basically zero to do with one another. So yeah I want my positions to win since I have to live under whoever wins. But in principle I support the original idea that states were, well, STATES, that were essentially a part of an economic and military union like the EU. So in that system yes states should be allowed to ban guns. Slavery is a different issue because it's an issue of rights. Slavery totally upended Christian ethics a millennia in the making and the consequences still negatively impact the descendants of everyone who was around for that time to this day. I wouldn't want to be in a union with a state that still practices slavery.
Immigration wouldn't be an issue if state governments could dictate their own policies, if New York wants to be a multi cultural area and Iowa doesn't good for both of them as far as I'm concerned
They make the journey because they live dangerous, depressing, dead-end lives and want the opportunity for a better one. That's why all immigrants that aren't slaves come here. That's why your ancestors came here. It's interesting how you've chosen to frame and justify the policies that exclude some. I suspect it comes from your intuitive understanding that what they endure is tragic and unjust which brings up some cognitive dissonance. As I was saying to Pie, this is why it's so hard for me to take the anti-choice position seriously as a moral argument from the same group re: abortion. It is inconceivable that conservatives are "horrified" by the death of a human being that isn't conscious, while accepting the death of actual children essentially as collateral damage for unnecessary policies.
I don't agree that that specific death was caused by anything other than the perception of open borders. But setting that aside, abortion is a weird issue because it's a fundamental conflict of values. For me, seeing a thing that has a heart beat, looks exactly like a little baby, and moves around, I simply can't think of that as anything other than a baby. It's hard to imagine that people can think of it as anything else. But they just...do. And I don't think they're ever going to see it any other way. Also I think abortion is such an emotional issue because of Roe v. Wade, I mean whatever your position on abortion I think it was incredibly inappropriate for SCOTUS to legislate from the bench.
As far as my ancestors go, they weren't immigrants, they were settlers, who came long before the revolution. Or conquerors if you want to put it that way. Their presence here was absolutely not a benefit to the population that was here before, I assure you. I do have some more recent ancestors on my moms side, but quite frankly I wouldn't have let them in either. I'm sure they were nice people and I mean no disrespect to my ancestors but knowing their circumstances and their alien culture I don't see how they could possibly have been a benefit to the country at the time
It depends. Historically it's been avoided by immigrants not going for the same jobs and/or natives shifting to other (often higher paying) jobs. This was the same argument that was used to keep women out of the workforce by the way, but wages of both men and women increased as more women entered the workforce. There are several reasons for that we can discuss if you would like to and I'll admit there are plenty of variables. The main thing to consider with immigration or working women is that it boosts labor demand, not just labor supply. When women went to work, they made money to spend. It increased demand for childcare, domestic services, dining outside the home, etc. Immigrants don't just come here to work. They consume.
Elizabeth Warren wrote an excellent book about women entering the workforce called The Two Income Trap. And she argued, quite convincingly imo, that the entrance of women into the workforce was accompanied by a rise in marginal expenses and necessary goods like housing and education went up enough to immediately gobble up the entire benefit and some, leaving families worse off. Have wages really increased in terms of buying power? Boomers could buy a house after a few years in the workforce and pay for college with a summer job. I think the official inflation statistics are masked by the constant improvement of technology making lots of goods cheaper, sure TV's are much much cheaper than in 1980 but the staples to have a middle class life (house, car, and now college education) have skyrocketed and left people worse off.
I think economists make the issue a lot more complicated than it is, when supply goes down price goes up and it really is that simple. After the black death, wages and working conditions went way up for the surviving peasants because there were fewer of them left.
That is what happened in the late 1960s after the end of the bracero guest worker visa program. In other words, restricting immigration did not raise the wages of low-skilled native workers; the work was automated instead. Another thing that happened was that low-skilled workers shifted industries which arguably grew the economy in other areas.
Would that be such a bad thing? Those jobs are going to be automated eventually anyway, and what then for the class of people relying upon them?
It's disheartening that I'm the only person here to outright refute the idiotic idea that "immigrants don't assimilate." They do and their children definitely do.
Oh assimilation absolutely happens. But it happens both ways. You bring in millions of people from a different culture, eventually the two groups become indistinguishable but the original group also moves in the direction of the immigrant group, and emerges a changed culture. This is why the idea that immigration doesn't result in massive cultural change is just ridiculous, it has to. This can also be good or bad depending on the culture in question, but I don't think most people are ready to have that discussion. Mexicans are awesome, but do I want my culture to move in the direction of Afghan culture? Uhh, not really no.
