Political Roundtable - Part VII

[TheSecretWeapon]

I spent WAY too much time reading about ISIS last night. In short, ISIS decidedly IS an Islamic group -- at least in the sense that they adhere to the Koran as they interpret the Koran. They're very strict, very literal, and very selective in which portions and doctrines they have chosen to emphasize.

Their goal is basically movie villain bad guy stuff: world domination. They want to establish a caliphate (well, they HAVE established a caliphate in the void the US created by invading and then withdrawing from Iraq). I say their end goal seems to be world domination because they do not recognize borders and they do not want to have diplomatic relationships with other nations. They want to expand.

Right now, ISIS is carrying out genocide within the territory it controls. The leaders of ISIS are Sunni, and they are executing **** Muslims because they view Shia as "innovation" and "innovation" within Islam repudiates the perfection of the Koran and of the Prophet's original message. (Despite their literally medieval thinking and practices, they somehow are willing to accept "innovations" like firearms, explosives, and electricity.)

Weirdly, Christians stuck in ISIS territory are NOT subject to automatic execution. They can avoid it by paying a special tax and acknowledging they have been "subdued."

Their scholars apparently spend a considerable amount of time coming up with ways to declare other Muslims apostates, which makes them infidels, which makes them punishable by death.

Oh yeah, they think they're taking actions that will usher in The Apocalypse and the end of the world. Basically, imagine if David Koresh had managed to seize a territory larger than the UK and $50+ billion in American weaponry and munitions (abandoned and/or not defended by Iraqi security forces).

What I read indicates that their literal reading of the Koran makes them somewhat more predictable. For example, they fought hard to take control of some farmland that holds very little strategic value. Why? The Koran includes a prophesy that the Army of Rome will be defeated by the caliphate army in that location, and that it will usher in the apocalypse.

The literal reading of the Koran also suggests ISIS can be defeated. Specifically, ISIS is a caliphate, and a caliphate REQUIRES that they hold territory. No territory means no caliphate, which would mean a big blow to the PR/recruitment pitches they've been making (basically: come live within the caliphate (as is REQUIRED by their interpretation of the Koran) and be on the team for the big win).

The menu options available to the rest of the world aren't very pleasant. (I use "rest of the world" intentionally because ISIS views virtually all Muslims as part of the enemy because virtually all Muslims reject ISIS.) The caliphate can be contained within its current territory, albeit with attacks like Paris, Beirut, the Russian passenger jet, etc. Eventually, the misery of an essentially medieval existence, combined with the constant threat of being declared an apostate (and executed) or sinner (and enslaved) might bring about a collapse of the caliphate.

Or, some combination of forces could invade, defeat ISIS military forces, and take away the territory they control. Of course, then those forces would have to hold the territory against guerrilla and terrorist attacks, AND prevent a similar group from seizing territory and declaring another caliphate.

Quite literally, ANYTHING the US or its allies can be fed into an ISIS recruiting narrative. Invade, drop bombs, etc., and they say: see, America wants to kill Muslims. Withdraw, and they say they're winning because America is weak.

As nate pointed out, there isn't the political will anywhere in the world for a full-scale invasion sufficient to destroy the caliphate. Withdrawal is similarly unrealistic, unless we're willing to close our borders to virtually all immigration, AND we could somehow magically stop illegal border crossings.

So, we're sorta left with "containment" as the least awful option at the moment. It would seem wise to do everything possible to improve intel and monitoring of ISIS and its operatives. And it would seem wise to continue air and special forces strikes that can weaken ISIS military capabilities.

Our leaders through the years have royally fncked up in the Middle East. Dealing with ISIS is going to be a MAJOR challenge for a long time.

[nate33]

Nate, I'm curious what is your lineage? Unless you're 100% SE English ancestry they were likely subject to these same questions from frightened "locals"/media no?

No. Pretty much all of Western Europe shared the same basic moral framework as the original English and Dutch settlers. There were surely concerns about Irish and Italian immigrants in the late 1800's and early 1900's but those concerns were more about the immigrants being poor dumb hicks who would coarsen civilization a bit and perhaps increase the poverty rate.

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

FWIW, my father's side were early immigrants from England who came over in the 1700's. My grandfather on my mother's side was a Finnish immigrant who came here in the 1930's and worked in the shipyards during WWII. My grandmother on my mother's side descended from Scottish immigrants.

[nate33]

^ Nice post, Nivek.

[Zonkerbl]

And this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States

[Zonkerbl]

Stumbled across this while trying to find an answer to Nate's question about why terrorists are middle class. Turns out they're not all middle class but they're not all poor either. The typical terrorist recruit, according to the research cited in this article, is a sociopath with other sociopath friends who are terrorists. It's word of mouth recruitment. And not particularly religious at all. I find the commentary about how Al Qaeda basically has no fundamental mission other than to kill people particularly hilarious.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803585.html

[DCZards]

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

That's BS. The Dems and their labor union allies have long been the strongest and most consistent supporters of the American middle class. Otherwise, why would most Dems be in favor of low-skill workers (many of them immigrants) joining unions and demanding a livable wage?

You really need to stop blaming immigrants for the economic woes of the American middle class. It's much deeper than that.

[nate33]

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

That's BS. The Dems and their labor union allies have long been the strongest and most consistent supporters of the American middle class. Otherwise, why would most Dems be in favor of low-skill workers (many of them immigrants) joining unions and demanding a livable wage?

You really need to stop blaming immigrants for the economic woes of the American middle class. It's much deeper than that.

You don't get a sustainable wage increase by protesting, demanding, threatening, and violence. That's extortion, which is organized crime, not economics. It may create a temporary artificial increase in wages, but it will ultimately lead to corruption and inefficiency.

You get a wage increase by making your services valuable on a free market. That can be done by improving your skills (education) or by reducing the competition for your skills (restricting immigration). Democrats don't like these options because they prefer the organized crime approach of unions because it results in more dependency (on unions) and thus more Democrat votes.

I'm not going to let you off the hook on this. Why do we need more low skill immigrant laborers in an economy with the highest true unemployment since the 70's (as measured by people out of the workforce)?

[pcbothwel]

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

That's BS. The Dems and their labor union allies have long been the strongest and most consistent supporters of the American middle class. Otherwise, why would most Dems be in favor of low-skill workers (many of them immigrants) joining unions and demanding a livable wage?

You really need to stop blaming immigrants for the economic woes of the American middle class. It's much deeper than that.

DC, what Nate is echoing is much of the same that Alexis de Tocqueville talked about:

“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

That last quote is very important. One vote is one vote no matter who cast the vote. Shortcomings of democracy is you only need 51% of the people. The Dems can stand with labor unions and immigrants and pull in mass numbers of people to be sheep and count as a number, but the Dems know that these people dont have any influence so they really just need the vote. A couple of good speeches about "Living wage" and guaranteed jobs and they got the vote with very little in the way of follow up to make sure it happens.

Whereas wealthier people are smaller in numbers, easier to villify, and are a little more politically aware. This makes them a poor choice to cater to as they are still just one vote, can't be bought off (or at least as cheaply), and usually follow most elections (Not just presidential) while looking at the macro picture of the state of the union.

[nate33]

Rand Paul is a candidate who has been pretty much open-borders on immigration and is very much against the sustained bombing of the Middle East. So he has established some credibility as not being a racist or xenophobe, and not being anti Muslim. Here's what he said Monday:

I say from the Middle East, we don’t need any more immigrants…students or refugees or otherwise. My message not only to the leadership, but to the country is if we want to defend ourselves, we have to defend ourselves and the first way to do it is to bar people from coming to your country who would attack you. The interesting thing about this is people are talking about world-wide war to stop this and you would think the first thing you would do is stop people from coming to our country.

Echos my sentiments exactly. For some, the notion of carpet bombing vast swaths of the Middle East in retaliation for Paris seems reasonable, but simply halting immigration, even if only temporarily, is somehow a heinous crime. I just don't understand it.

[Zonkerbl]

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

That's BS. The Dems and their labor union allies have long been the strongest and most consistent supporters of the American middle class. Otherwise, why would most Dems be in favor of low-skill workers (many of them immigrants) joining unions and demanding a livable wage?

You really need to stop blaming immigrants for the economic woes of the American middle class. It's much deeper than that.

You don't get a sustainable wage increase by protesting, demanding, threatening, and violence. That's extortion, which is organized crime, not economics. It may create a temporary artificial increase in wages, but it will ultimately lead to corruption and inefficiency.

You get a wage increase by making your services valuable on a free market. That can be done by improving your skills (education) or by reducing the competition for your skills (restricting immigration). Democrats don't like these options because they prefer the organized crime approach of unions because it results in more dependency (on unions) and thus more Democrat votes.

I'm not going to let you off the hook on this. Why do we need more low skill immigrant laborers in an economy with the highest true unemployment since the 70's (as measured by people out of the workforce)?

False premise. No point in answering a question whose assumptions are false. I've told you once, I'll tell you a thousand times, you can't assume all immigrants, or even a large share of them, are low skilled. It's just wrong. Just because these people are forced to take low-skill jobs does not mean they have no skill. Not speaking English /= no skill. These are highly motivated people, by and large, who took a big risk and made a big investment to come here. They make America great.

Refugees are different but you keep talking about immigration and you are just wrong wrong wrong about them. And yet you continue to let your prejudiced view of them cloud everything you say on this thread.

[pineappleheadindc]

^

Zonk, your last sentence was illuminating for me.

I think that maybe individuals on this thread are not using precise terminology and conflating immigrants with refugees? And doing so unintentionally.

Most immigrant-generation folks I know are either tech professionals or entrepreneurs. I get that I can't substitute personal anecdotes for data, but just sayin'.

But I've also worked with entities who support *refugees*, and there the population is doing significantly less well socioeconomically.

Perhaps a verbiage check is a good idea for all in future posts.

[nate33]

False premise. No point in answering a question whose assumptions are false. I've told you once, I'll tell you a thousand times, you can't assume all immigrants, or even a large share of them, are low skilled. It's just wrong. Just because these people are forced to take low-skill jobs does not mean they have no skill. Not speaking English /= no skill. These are highly motivated people, by and large, who took a big risk and made a big investment to come here. They make America great.

Refugees are different but you keep talking about immigration and you are just wrong wrong wrong about them. And yet you continue to let your prejudiced view of them cloud everything you say on this thread.

If I haven't been clear (though I think I have), I'm in favor of immigration of college educated workers. Bring them on. But I question your assertion that most immigrants are not low skill workers. From what I've researched, the educational levels of immigrants are bifurcated. Legal Immigrants are more likely than American born to have a college degree. They are also more likely than Americans to have less than a high school education. And a majority of illegal immigrants have not completed high school.

I'll take the college educated ones. Just not the sub-high-school educated ones.

[popper]

This article is an interesting tidbit on the immigration debate. Civil Rights icon and results of a bipartisan commission shed light on the issue.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/18/numbersusa-barbara-jordan-immigration-reduction-ad-run-throughout-campaign-season/

[dckingsfan]

How does this jive against the changing values (especially 2nd and 3rd generations) after those individuals arrive in the US? How does the view/laws of a country jive against the views of individuals. I think this becomes a pretty grey area. My point is that immigrants are much more likely to adopt our culture than we are to adopt their culture.

Of course President Arthur was able to do it with the Chinese - so it could be done.

Let's see how that has worked in Europe:
Europe Grapples with "Honor Killings"

Fadime Sahindal, a 26-year-old Turkish university student with a Swedish boyfriend, was murdered by her father in Sweden in 2002. He insisted she marry a man from Turkey.

In Britain last year, Abdalla Yones, a Kurdish Muslim who stabbed his 16-year-old daughter, Heshu, 11 times and slit her throat after she started a relationship with a Christian boyfriend, was jailed for life.

"Honor killings," as the phenomenon is known, usually involve women being murdered, usually by brothers and fathers, for having sex outside marriage, dating, refusing an arranged marriage, wanting to go to university or even having been raped. The practice is not uncommon in traditional, male-dominated Arab societies.

Honor killings on the rise in Netherlands

In the last few years, there have been more than 500 reports of honor killing in the Netherlands. In 2013, the number even rose. These incidents take the form of abuse, rape, kidnapping or murder, and are all in the effort to avenge someone.

This is according to the yearly report from the National Expertise Center Honor Related Violence (LEC EGG). The center gets requests for help from regional police units, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and from institutions where female victims are sheltered.

The victims of honor revenge are mostly Dutch people with a Turkish, Moroccan, Iraqi or Afghan background. In 20 cases in 2013, whereby the expertise center was involved, the revenge was fatal, with either murder, homicide or suicide.

Europe: "You Are Entering a Sharia Controlled Zone"

A Muslim group in Denmark has launched a campaign to turn parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into "Sharia Law Zones" that would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic law.

The Danish Islamist group Kaldet til Islam (Call to Islam) says the Tingbjerg suburb of Copenhagen will be the first part of Denmark to be subject to Sharia law, followed by the Nørrebro district of the capital and then other parts of the country, the center-right Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported on October 17.

Call to Islam says it will dispatch 24-hour Islamic 'morals police' to enforce Sharia law in those enclaves. The patrols will confront anyone caught drinking alcohol, gambling, going to discothèques or engaging in other activities the group views as running contrary to Islam.

Again, I ask, What's the rush? Europe has obviously been thrown into turmoil but Muslim immigrants. Maybe things will settle down and peaceful coexistence is possible. But maybe not. The problem is, if we are wrong and coexistence is not possible, it will be too late to change our minds. We have a controlled lab experiment going on in Europe right now. Let's see how it turns out before making any hasty decisions that will have lasting repercussions in our hemisphere.

You make a good point - I would argue that the US is different - our melting pot is different. This to me is first generation problems that we would have to deal with but long-term - I think it would work out - especially by the 3rd generation.

I also don't think that it would raise the murder rate in the US - given our rate today. It would be solid news pieces though.

There is a rush by the way... there are millions displaced by a war that we helped create.

[nate33]

How does this jive against the changing values (especially 2nd and 3rd generations) after those individuals arrive in the US? How does the view/laws of a country jive against the views of individuals. I think this becomes a pretty grey area. My point is that immigrants are much more likely to adopt our culture than we are to adopt their culture.

Of course President Arthur was able to do it with the Chinese - so it could be done.

Let's see how that has worked in Europe:
Europe Grapples with "Honor Killings"

Fadime Sahindal, a 26-year-old Turkish university student with a Swedish boyfriend, was murdered by her father in Sweden in 2002. He insisted she marry a man from Turkey.

In Britain last year, Abdalla Yones, a Kurdish Muslim who stabbed his 16-year-old daughter, Heshu, 11 times and slit her throat after she started a relationship with a Christian boyfriend, was jailed for life.

"Honor killings," as the phenomenon is known, usually involve women being murdered, usually by brothers and fathers, for having sex outside marriage, dating, refusing an arranged marriage, wanting to go to university or even having been raped. The practice is not uncommon in traditional, male-dominated Arab societies.

Honor killings on the rise in Netherlands

In the last few years, there have been more than 500 reports of honor killing in the Netherlands. In 2013, the number even rose. These incidents take the form of abuse, rape, kidnapping or murder, and are all in the effort to avenge someone.

This is according to the yearly report from the National Expertise Center Honor Related Violence (LEC EGG). The center gets requests for help from regional police units, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and from institutions where female victims are sheltered.

The victims of honor revenge are mostly Dutch people with a Turkish, Moroccan, Iraqi or Afghan background. In 20 cases in 2013, whereby the expertise center was involved, the revenge was fatal, with either murder, homicide or suicide.

Europe: "You Are Entering a Sharia Controlled Zone"

A Muslim group in Denmark has launched a campaign to turn parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into "Sharia Law Zones" that would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic law.

The Danish Islamist group Kaldet til Islam (Call to Islam) says the Tingbjerg suburb of Copenhagen will be the first part of Denmark to be subject to Sharia law, followed by the Nørrebro district of the capital and then other parts of the country, the center-right Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported on October 17.

Call to Islam says it will dispatch 24-hour Islamic 'morals police' to enforce Sharia law in those enclaves. The patrols will confront anyone caught drinking alcohol, gambling, going to discothèques or engaging in other activities the group views as running contrary to Islam.

Again, I ask, What's the rush? Europe has obviously been thrown into turmoil but Muslim immigrants. Maybe things will settle down and peaceful coexistence is possible. But maybe not. The problem is, if we are wrong and coexistence is not possible, it will be too late to change our minds. We have a controlled lab experiment going on in Europe right now. Let's see how it turns out before making any hasty decisions that will have lasting repercussions in our hemisphere.

You make a good point - I would argue that the US is different - our melting pot is different. This to me is first generation problems that we would have to deal with but long-term - I think it would work out - especially by the 3rd generation.

I also don't think that it would raise the murder rate in the US - given our rate today. It would be solid news pieces though.

There is a rush by the way... there are millions displaced by a war that we helped create.

Set up and fund a safe zone in Saudi Arabia. Put them there.

[dckingsfan]

Set up and fund a safe zone in Saudi Arabia. Put them there.

I don't think any one country can take all of the refugees... it needs to be spread out among many countries for obvious reasons.

And given some of the culpability we have for creating the situation - I think we should take our fair share. Even 100,000/300,000,000 wouldn't be difficult and wouldn't create a large burden. We would need to make sure they didn't settle in one place - but that would be doable.

I guess Obama has agreed to take 10,000 - so that is where it will start.

[fishercob]

Jason Whitlock's latest: Sports Liberals Need to Stop Hiding

I continue to find Whitlock's writing thought-provoking, even when I disagree with him. I like that he refuses to be labeled or put into any type of box, because those labels defy nuance and dumb-down important debates. I think there is stuff in this piece -- and in a great many of his pieces -- that will resonate with who participate here. At the same time, I think there's stuff that many will not agree with. Enjoy.

[bsilver]

Nate, I'm curious what is your lineage? Unless you're 100% SE English ancestry they were likely subject to these same questions from frightened "locals"/media no?

No. Pretty much all of Western Europe shared the same basic moral framework as the original English and Dutch settlers. There were surely concerns about Irish and Italian immigrants in the late 1800's and early 1900's but those concerns were more about the immigrants being poor dumb hicks who would coarsen civilization a bit and perhaps increase the poverty rate.

And I tend to disregard most comparisons between current immigration policy and the policies of the 1800's. The fact is, there was no welfare state in the 1800's, there was a frontier to settle, and there was an economy that was based mostly on having a strong back and a willingness to work. Today, any unsuccessful immigrant immediately becomes a tremendous burden to society because of the welfare system, and even the extremely ambitious and hard working unskilled immigrants don't really contribute much because they are competing for a finite number of unskilled jobs. Chances are they'll merely displace an existing worker and send him to the welfare roles.

This is not the 1900's. Hasn't anyone noticed that wages have stagnated almost exactly the same time of Kennedy's 1964 Immigration Act? This isn't rocket science, it's supply and demand. A constant increase in the supply of low skill labor will decrease the cost of such labor. If you want to boost the middle class (and I thought you Democrats were in favor of the middle class) stop importing poor, unskilled laborers! But Democrats aren't actually in favor of supporting the middle class because then they'll lose votes. They want people on welfare and/or working in government.

FWIW, my father's side were early immigrants from England who came over in the 1700's. My grandfather on my mother's side was a Finnish immigrant who came here in the 1930's and worked in the shipyards during WWII. My grandmother on my mother's side descended from Scottish immigrants.

"immigrants being poor dumb hicks who would coarsen civilization a bit and perhaps increase the poverty rate"
This is a nice euphemistic way of downplaying the ethnic, religious, and racial bigotry that permeated the US in the lead up to the Immigration Act of 1924. Several groups were targeted but the main concern was Jewish and Italian immigrants who were coming in the largest numbers. Jewish immigration was pretty much stopped, and as was pointed out in other posts, even permitting in relatively small numbers of Jewish children in 1939 was not allowed and was widely opposed by the public. Millions of lives were lost as one of the consequences of the 1924 Immigration Act. The bigotry in the US throughout this period should not be underplayed.

Even the policies of the 1965 Immigration Act which was supposed to address the discrimination against non-Northern Christian Europeans, were a product of intolerance. While letting in previously excluded groups, the other main focus of the Act was to preserve the current racial, racial, ethnic make up of the country. Ironically, it attempted to do this in a manner that ended up being a complete failure with the opposite results. The Act specified that preference would be given to those people with family already here. It was assumed this policy wouldn't change the population much. But what happened was that Europe had recovered from WW2, and immigration was minimal, but the Asian and Hispanic population came from parts of the world where people were desperate to leave. This started a chain migration of Hispanics and Asians.

Another total failure of US immigration policy was the elimination of the Bracero program in 1964, which had legally brought in Mexican labor. The program was ended but the need for cheap labor, especially farm labor, was still there. Ending the program was a direct cause of the huge undocumented (or whatever you want to call it) alien program we have today.

[dckingsfan]

Another total failure of US immigration policy was the elimination of the Bracero program in 1964, which had legally brought in Mexican labor. The program was ended but the need for cheap labor, especially farm labor, was still there. Ending the program was a direct cause of the huge undocumented (or whatever you want to call it) alien program we have today.

Those darn unintended consequences...

[nate33]

"immigrants being poor dumb hicks who would coarsen civilization a bit and perhaps increase the poverty rate"
This is a nice euphemistic way of downplaying the ethnic, religious, and racial bigotry that permeated the US in the lead up to the Immigration Act of 1924. Several groups were targeted but the main concern was Jewish and Italian immigrants who were coming in the largest numbers. Jewish immigration was pretty much stopped, and as was pointed out in other posts, even permitting in relatively small numbers of Jewish children in 1939 was not allowed and was widely opposed by the public. Millions of lives were lost as one of the consequences of the 1924 Immigration Act. The bigotry in the US throughout this period should not be underplayed.

Even the policies of the 1965 Immigration Act which was supposed to address the discrimination against non-Northern Christian Europeans, were a product of intolerance. While letting in previously excluded groups, the other main focus of the Act was to preserve the current racial, racial, ethnic make up of the country. Ironically, it attempted to do this in a manner that ended up being a complete failure with the opposite results. The Act specified that preference would be given to those people with family already here. It was assumed this policy wouldn't change the population much. But what happened was that Europe had recovered from WW2, and immigration was minimal, but the Asian and Hispanic population came from parts of the world where people were desperate to leave. This started a chain migration of Hispanics and Asians.

Another total failure of US immigration policy was the elimination of the Bracero program in 1964, which had legally brought in Mexican labor. The program was ended but the need for cheap labor, especially farm labor, was still there. Ending the program was a direct cause of the huge undocumented (or whatever you want to call it) alien program we have today.

The real issue is the fundamental conflict in incentives when you have a welfare state coupled with an open borders policy. Immigrants suddenly transform from being potential assets to likely liabilities. These charts are actually adjusted for education level