I’m frankly sick of people who want to reduce immigration for racial/cultural reasons…

[BG-NY]

These arguments are faulty and racist:

(1) We shouldn’t allow demographics of the USA to change (anybody who supports social engineering of the US, to become more or less whatever demo, is racist)
(2) Increased immigration leads to less cultural cohesion
(3) Immigrants commit additional crimes (not relative to the public, but that anything >0 is unnecessary)
(4) Refugees are potential future terrorists

I don’t appreciate any of those arguments and think that when they’re made, it’s disgusting.

Arguments that I can accept:
• As long as we are not at maximum employment/everyone has a living wage, pause immigration
• Immigrants by-and-large work in fields likely to be automated (services/agriculture)
• As long as we have American poor and homeless, no potential aid should go to non-Americans
• Foreigners have a smaller carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

I think those of us who support immigration reduction need to be more proactive in calling out racist arguments.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think those of us who support immigration reduction need to be more proactive in calling out racist arguments.

It is not by accident that one of the first things that William F. Buckley Jr did was to condemn the John Birch Society, realizing quite correctly that such extremism would latch onto his nascent Conservative movement and smother it.

The thing is we are now at a similar place, even as we are discussing a more inwardly focused and nationalist form of conservatism then the fusionism ascribed to by Buckley, it faces the same potential threat. However, rather than take the same approach in pushing back against racism and condemning it, their has been sort of a passive acquiescence for the sake of not losing their support.

Of course that brings up the argument, is there a means by which to take the "core four" elements that most would agree embody the America First movement and separate them out and apart from various extremist, racist and otherwise unacceptable forces in American Society.

1. Immigration Restriction
2. Trade and related matters
3. Avoiding Foreign Wars
4. Draining the Swamp

The answer is yes, but it cannot be done in a populist model because populism (in a political sense) directly channels the sentiments of people into policy and immigration restriction will always cater to one of two precepts:
1. "They commit crime, they're rapists" - law and order suburban appeal
2. "They took our damn jobs" - the more economically populist model

Therefore any "politically populist" (not to be confused with economic populism or even opposition to the current establishment with the word populist in this context) approach to politics will almost invariably reflect the animosities and prejudices of the core constituencies that give that particular issue salience.

Here again, both Buckley and Reagan rejected George Wallace because Wallace was a direct manifestation of the "whims and impulses" of a prejudiced set of demographics with regards to racial policy, while the former two were devotees on principle who wanted the same voters to come along but leave their whims and prejudices at the door or at the very least elect leaders nationally who did so. For example both acknowledging the need to intervene against violations of civil rights by the federal gov't, but condemning the Federal premption of tax revenue, land policy and other areas of "state's rights".

At that moment you reach the need for a filter, that is to say you use representative democracy to in essence create a barrier to these animosities and prejudices that would come to define such policies as these, but instead define them on your basis and criticize the racism that would inherently be attracted to such a position.

The sad reality is the present movement lacks a philosophical basis that is well articulated, it is composed organically by various groups and people with extremist and/or racist ties and no one, not even the one best capable of doing this filtering out of racism, has shown any desire, impetus or understanding of the need to do so.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Those of us who hold these opinions you absurdly label as racist couldn't care less if you "accept" our arguments.

[If my soul was made of stone]

• Foreigners have a smaller carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

This is straight-up ecofascism. Shouldn't the lesson from this be for us to scale back on our excessively energy-intensive lifestyles and invest in renewables to reduce our emissions instead of blaming The Scary Global South and thus falling into the same racist tropes that you're ostensibly condemning above?

[Figueira]

• Foreigners have a larger carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

Wouldn't this be an argument in favor of immigration?

[BG-NY]

• Foreigners have a larger carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

Wouldn't this be an argument in favor of immigration?

Typo. Corrected.

[Big Abraham]

Large-scale importation of cheap foreign labor has always been good for big business and bad for native workers by driving down wages and increasing competition in the labor market. This has always been the traditional left-wing position, as opposed to nativist arguments from the right.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Those of us who hold these opinions you absurdly label as racist couldn't care less if you "accept" our arguments.

They're being labelled as such because they are fundamentally racist like it or not.

[Horus]

Snip

If only Barbara Jordan had lived longer. She could've put together a progressive nationalist coalition or at least laid the groundwork. Plus she was LGBT and a minority so it would be harder for the open borders neolibs to character assassinate her.

There is currently no one on either side of the aisle who is not either crazy open borders or a social conservative/bigot of some sort. Neither is acceptable. Trump was probably the closest we got and he was a madman who almost destroyed our republic so...

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

These arguments are faulty and racist:

(1) We shouldn’t allow demographics of the USA to change (anybody who supports social engineering of the US, to become more or less whatever demo, is racist)
(2) Increased immigration leads to less cultural cohesion
(3) Immigrants commit additional crimes (not relative to the public, but that anything >0 is unnecessary)
(4) Refugees are potential future terrorists

I don’t appreciate any of those arguments and think that when they’re made, it’s disgusting.

Arguments that I can accept:
• As long as we are not at maximum employment/everyone has a living wage, pause immigration
• Immigrants by-and-large work in fields likely to be automated (services/agriculture)
• As long as we have American poor and homeless, no potential aid should go to non-Americans
• Foreigners have a smaller carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

I think those of us who support immigration reduction need to be more proactive in calling out racist arguments.

You're missing a bit, I think.

• Employers (ab)use illegal labor to avoid U.S. labor laws and drive down wages of legal workers. 
• Particularly in the IT sector, large employers use legal labor under the H1-B program to avoid paying higher wages to skilled citizen labor, and to prevent their immigrant IT staff from leaving for better jobs. (H1-B workers are subject to deportation immediately upon being fired. Get caught looking for a better job? Get fired and replaced.)

[BG-NY]

The answer is yes, but it cannot be done in a populist model because populism (in a political sense) directly channels the sentiments of people into policy and immigration restriction will always cater to one of two precepts:
1. "They commit crime, they're rapists" - law and order suburban appeal
2. "They took our damn jobs" - the more economically populist model

Therefore any "politically populist" (not to be confused with economic populism or even opposition to the current establishment with the word populist in this context) approach to politics will almost invariably reflect the animosities and prejudices of the core constituencies that give that particular issue salience.

I think these two statements are materially different. Both are prejudicial, but I don’t personally take issue otherizing competition for labor supply. I also (and maybe I am an optimist) believe many more people fall into bucket B than bucket A when pushed. Maybe I am too much of an optimist, however.

Regarding your statement about filters, I guess we agree to disagree. This is something I appreciate in Biden. I think he is someone who, for better or for worse, resembles his voter base. Their best qualities and their worst ones.

[BG-NY]

These arguments are faulty and racist:

(1) We shouldn’t allow demographics of the USA to change (anybody who supports social engineering of the US, to become more or less whatever demo, is racist)
(2) Increased immigration leads to less cultural cohesion
(3) Immigrants commit additional crimes (not relative to the public, but that anything >0 is unnecessary)
(4) Refugees are potential future terrorists

I don’t appreciate any of those arguments and think that when they’re made, it’s disgusting.

Arguments that I can accept:
• As long as we are not at maximum employment/everyone has a living wage, pause immigration
• Immigrants by-and-large work in fields likely to be automated (services/agriculture)
• As long as we have American poor and homeless, no potential aid should go to non-Americans
• Foreigners have a smaller carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

I think those of us who support immigration reduction need to be more proactive in calling out racist arguments.

You're missing a bit, I think.

• Employers (ab)use illegal labor to avoid U.S. labor laws and drive down wages of legal workers. 
• Particularly in the IT sector, large employers use legal labor under the H1-B program to avoid paying higher wages to skilled citizen labor, and to prevent their immigrant IT staff from leaving for better jobs. (H1-B workers are subject to deportation immediately upon being fired. Get caught looking for a better job? Get fired and replaced.)

This is not untrue. I think the minimum pay for H-1B was increased a few years ago but it’s still below market levels by a fair margin.

[BG-NY]

Those of us who hold these opinions you absurdly label as racist couldn't care less if you "accept" our arguments.

That’s fine, and I still want your vote. Different reasons, but same goal.

I am a transactionalist. I don’t believe in morality in politics or elections.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Snip

If only Barbara Jordan had lived longer. She could've put together a progressive nationalist coalition or at least laid the groundwork. Plus she was LGBT and a minority so it would be harder for the open borders neolibs to character assassinate her.

There is currently no one on either side of the aisle who is not either crazy open borders or a social conservative/bigot of some sort. Neither is acceptable. Trump was probably the closest we got and he was a madman who almost destroyed our republic so...

I agree to a large extent on Barbara Jordan.

As for the missed opportunity that was Trump, certainly so an on so many different areas. Had Trump possessed a greater degree of depth, less ego centrism and more personal engagement with the issues, I can easily see him creating a securely majority coalition that would define politics for the coming decades.

[Saint Milei]

mass immigration of one race is always going to be a problem anywhere.


Rejecting immigration due to cultural reasons isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Why can't we get more people from Norway?

[Alben Barkley]

I am glad you see the folly in many common anti-immigration arguments, but am sad you cannot see the equally ridiculous nonsense that is the anti-immigration arguments you do accept and endorse. As I have said before, will say again, and will keep saying until it is not true (which it will be for a very long time most likely): AMERICANS DO NOT WANT TO DO THE JOBS IMMIGRANTS DO. It ultimately is really that simple. Despite f—king McDonald’s raising their entry wages to 15 bucks an hour, they are STILL struggling to field an adequate workforce in the current climate. There is no logical reason NOT to let IN needy immigrants who would be more than happy to take these jobs — and whose lives and families would be improved immensely as a result.

 Even the nationalistic argument, which is flawed in the first place for assuming that for some incoherent reason that an American life/job MUST be worth more than a non-American life/job, falls by the wayside when you have countless job openings and countless people ready, willing, and able to fill them, but few of them are American. Open the borders and let the free market give those people the leg up they deserve just as so many past generations of Americans benefited from. Unless you are an Anglo-American whose ancestors came from a wealthy background back in the pre-Revolutionary times, fact is YOUR ancestors were immigrants who had to work hard to put themselves and their descendants in a situation for you to prosper. Denying others today that opportunity is to spit on everything America has always stood for, and to shoot ourselves in the foot in any case as we would just be wasting potential productivity for no good reason whatsoever.

[pbrower2a]

These arguments are faulty and racist:

(1) We shouldn’t allow demographics of the USA to change (anybody who supports social engineering of the US, to become more or less whatever demo, is racist)
(2) Increased immigration leads to less cultural cohesion
(3) Immigrants commit additional crimes (not relative to the public, but that anything >0 is unnecessary)
(4) Refugees are potential future terrorists

I don’t appreciate any of those arguments and think that when they’re made, it’s disgusting.

Worse -- completely false.

1. Even a gutter racist could argue that white people aren't having enough white babies. Birth rates are low, and of course we have much race-mixing. I'm not going to discuss race-mixing except to say
that this itself racist.

2. Do we need to be more cliquish and clannish, let alone "Klannish"?  Immigrants often come to America with their own valid traditions. Maybe we could learn a few things.

3. Aside from criminal gangs that hijack existing communities, like MS-13 or the Russian Mafia; they should be imprisoned and deported, and I care not which is done first to the criminals. Criminal aliens are more vulnerable to INS than are immigrants.

4. The history of refugees is that they typically either return of their own accord or becme good citizens. Better six million Jews in America than up the chimneys or into shooting pits, wouldn't you say?
 
[qupte]
Arouments that I can accept:
• As long as we are not at maximum employment/everyone has a living wage, pause immigration
• Immigrants by-and-large work in fields likely to be automated (services/agriculture)


• As long as we have American poor and homeless, no potential aid should go to non-Americans
• Foreigners have a smaller carbon footprint in their home countries than they do in the first world

I think those of us who support immigration reduction need to be more proactive in calling out racist arguments.
[/quote]

We would do better with strong, militant unions capable of dealing with the narcissistic creeps who dominate bureaucratic organizations. That solves much of the "living wage" problem. Immigrants are more likely to start new businesses.

We need question whether we want to have jobs automated out of existence.

We have some sick priorities in housing, namely that we are building huge numbers of houses for people who can never afford them. We need low-cost housing, which will itself create jobs.American real estate is a racket that the Mafias envy.

Carbon footprint? It is smaller per person among well-off people in NYC than among poor people in New Mexico. Go figure.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I'm frankly sick of people who don't get that immigrants boost aggregate demand for goods and services to the extent they expand the labor market, negating the idea that they reduce American wages because a country with a higher population requires proportionately more workers to *do stuff.*

The only way immigration has a substantial affect on how the median person experiences the economy--except in the most immediate of short terms, which doesn't matter--is by favorably impacting the dependency ratio. Because of this, it's far more accurate to frame anti-immigrationists as wanting to destroy the welfare state than the inverse.

Re CO2: Countries with an equivalent standard of living to the United States (Germany, Japan, etc.) have per-capita carbon emissions ~40% lower than the USA. There's no reason we can't grow, lower carbon emissions, and maintain our standard of living at the same time. The reason that hasn't happened is because of administrative incompetence, not some immutable economic law regarding emissions. At German per-capita CO2 levels and an American population of 450 million, our emissions would be 15% below what they are today--and bear in mind that this is in a country that still uses plenty of fossil fuels they could easily go without.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Lol no one said we should hault immigration it's illegals that's coming thru Mexico to TX that aren't vaccinated and get on social programs like Section 8 just because the have Dreamers

They get on Entitlements and save their monies for family businesses while African American population are left out

Because one Latinx family might be illegal and another can be legal and they combine their income


Delta came to Dallas TX thru Mexico

If it was a non Covid Environment yes fine but Biden went too fast in allowing illegals in this country and won't visit the Border

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Why can't we get more people from Norway?

If "we" means America, it's because America is a sh**thole, and in 2021 you basically have to be living in an actual war zone or narco state for it to be an attractive option. The only people from Norway who would come here are bankers and fish tycoons who are wealthy, don't have to worry about all the financial pitfalls of American life but can enjoy Central Park living, and can afford to fly home whenever they need to go to the doctor's.

[Bismarck]

I don’t think the cohesive society argument is racist. It could just as easily be made to exclude white people of different cultures and often was in the past.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I don’t think the cohesive society argument is racist. It could just as easily be made to exclude white people of different cultures and often was in the past.

Perhaps so, but the fact that American whites aren't really divided along ethnic lines is strong evidence that it isn't particularly compelling rationale.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The real crime of anti-immigrant politics is its opposition to good food.

[Asta]

It would be wrong of me to say one should not be able to work or live because one is a woman, non-white or LGBT. Why is it, then, right of me to say one, barring communicable disease or serious criminal history, cannot live or work because of their birth country? I've yet to be convinced as to why immigration restriction isn't collectively a draconian measure let alone human right violation on would-be immigrants who would end up contributing to respective country's prosperity.

Vast majority of Americans are not aware that it is highly difficult to immigrate unless you present educational and financial credentials that 98% of people lack. Even though we yearly accept 1 million immigrants, which at first sight looks to be plentiful, it is merely due to sheer number of applicants. Only handful of those 1 million immigrants are average joes. If you don't have excellent educational, career and financial background to offer, you must apply through diversity lottery, of which millions apply and only extremely lucky 50k end up being accepted. Otherwise, you must have 1-5 million in investable assets to even qualify. This is the reason why "illegal" immigrants exist. If the US has made immigration process more open to the typical person, illegal immigrants would mostly cease to exist.

Even if immigrants hypothetically hurt American workers in driving down wages, we can charge them higher taxes to compensate. If linguistic assimilation is the concern, we can require literacy test. If political predilection of voting democratic, which in turn theoretically is dilutive to American liberty is the issue, or so as conservatives claim, then we can refuse them the right to vote for a certain length of time.

However, even the aforementioned measure is questionable since all the demands of litmus test due to concerns from cultural assimilation can be imposed on Americans, who aren't freedom-loving bunches either. Any decent person would have moral objection to expelling Americans only on the grounds that they share dissimilar cultural interest. So why should we morally require cultural assimilation only for immigrants? Because they would end up migrating to the US later than us? (I don't think so)

Immigrants provide positive effect for our economy and commit violent crimes at less rate than natives do. It's unfortunate that we are missing out on potential that immigrants can offer us due to fear and resentment of change. While I don't see immigration system evolving for the better, should more people continue to challenge the conventional wisdom that restriction is effectively serving its purported intent? Yes, it would be a start.