NationStates

The Reformed American Republic wrote:

-Astoria- wrote:If we're in a different reality; in the real world, that is just laughable.

In the real world, I have seen partisan articles praising how immigrants were going to turn red areas blue. I am living in the real world here. Denial is the alternate reality.

Meanwhile, in reality, I'm still waiting for you to back your earlier statement up.

-Astoria- wrote:

The Reformed American Republic wrote:In the real world, I have seen partisan articles praising how immigrants were going to turn red areas blue. I am living in the real world here. Denial is the alternate reality.

Meanwhile, in reality, I'm still waiting for you to back your earlier statement up.

https://www.texasobserver.org/qa-with-j ... exas-blue/

The insoluble dilemma for Texas Democrats has long been how to use Texas’ demographic change to break their epically long losing streak.

It is not news that Latino population growth in Texas affords the moribund Texas Democratic Party at least an opportunity to find its way out of the wilderness. The question has long been, will the Democrats be able to seize it?

There was a better article written at FowardProgressives.com that would have better proved my point, but that site is now gone. Democrats push for more Latino immigration and then seize on that in an attempt to get votes. That is pretty obvious to anyone who follows politics. Have the decency to admit that at least some view this as a cheap way to get votes, which is what I meant by the "demographic warfare" comment.

The Reformed American Republic wrote:Have the decency to admit that at least some view this as a cheap way to get votes, which is what I meant by the "demographic warfare" comment.

...maybe if you want me to even take you seriously, maybe have some introspection, because that is rather ironic.

Anyway; the source you put says nothing about immigration; more about increasing turnout rates among the Latino population - is that a bad thing?

The way you've been going suggests something of a "DeMoCrAtS GeT IlLeGaLs To VoTe; ElEcTiOn FrAuD!!1!" spiel; but that's for another thread ('course, I might be incorrect on that one).

-Astoria- wrote:

The Reformed American Republic wrote:Have the decency to admit that at least some view this as a cheap way to get votes, which is what I meant by the "demographic warfare" comment.

...maybe if you want me to even take you seriously, maybe have some introspection, because that is rather ironic.

Anyway; the source you put says nothing about immigration; more about increasing turnout rates among the Latino population - is that a bad thing?

The way you've been going suggests something of a "DeMoCrAtS GeT IlLeGaLs To VoTe; ElEcTiOn FrAuD!!1!" spiel; but that's for another thread ('course, I might be incorrect on that one).

I never said that illegals are voting, nor am I a Trump supporter claiming he will lose due to electoral fraud. I don't even support Trump! I'm saying Democrats push for a pathway for citizenship because more Latino citizens means more votes for them. Its an observation of facts, but since you're a partisan hack, you are just strawmanning me at this point.

You obviously don't want to debate in good faith, so I'm just going to ignore your bad faith posting from now on.

Oh, by the way, I don't care if you take me seriously or not. Like I need your support!

The Reformed American Republic wrote:Its an observation of facts, but since you're a partisan hack, you are just strawmanning me at this point.

Someone's getting straw all over the floor.

You obviously don't want to debate in good faith, so I'm just going to ignore your bad faith posting from now on.

Given that this is the kind of "replies" I get, it's justified:

The Reformed American Republic wrote:In the real world, I have seen partisan articles praising how immigrants were going to turn red areas blue. I am living in the real world here. Denial is the alternate reality.

Oh, by the way, I don't care if you take me seriously or not. Like I need your support!

I'm flattered.

---

Unintentional threadjack over, return to the topic:

Borderlands of Rojava wrote:Immigration does many good things for our society. Both the Godfather and Scarface wouldn't have happened at all without two waves of immigration.

Punished UMN wrote:I'm not even anti-immigration, but the assumption that immigration is a good thing isn't going to do you any favors in trying to convince others that it's a good thing.

Exactly. While I'm not in favor of completely closed borders, it's not inherently good. As other people have said, what type of people you let in and the effect it has matters. More immigration =/= good thing.

The Reformed American Republic wrote:

Punished UMN wrote:I'm not even anti-immigration, but the assumption that immigration is a good thing isn't going to do you any favors in trying to convince others that it's a good thing.

Exactly. While I'm not in favor of completely closed borders, it's not inherently good. As other people have said, what type of people you let in and the effect it has matters. More immigration =/= good thing.

The film scarface was an example of the kind of persons you don't want to let in.

More immigrants is not an inherently good thing and you shouldn't be treating it as such. Present people with the good and bad and don't try to manipulate them into thinking something is only one way or the other. That list is extremely manipulative and focuses on trying to emotionally manipulate people instead of presenting the facts. In other words, it's garbage. The only time emotion has a place in the argument is focusing on how immigrating affected the immigrants' happiness and success, or hindered the natives'. Everything else is irrelevant.

I think anyone who thinks immigration is good and should never be moderated, should live for a while in a British town like Luton, Slough or Birmingham, where I used to live.
The experiment should involve residing in a 'deprived area', and competing for scarce, unskilled work with local English people and third-generation BAME British citizens including youths having just left school barely literate who come from families where unemployment is frequent and criminal activity a means of income, and illegal immigrants who will work for sums of cash less than the minimum wage
I'd be highly surprised if the experience hadn't altered their liberal opinion.

Except for native Americans, the U.S. is comprised largely of immigrants

Well this is interesting

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/05/89891584 ... poll-finds

Basically, a majority of people want a temporary halt on immigration to slow the spread of COVID.

Tell them Hispanics are half white? If people can't accept that accepting immigrants is the moral duty of the US since it's days as a colony than nothing short of Trump getting tricked into reading it out loud will convince them.

The OP makes the assumption that immigration is objectively good

It’s not, there is no objective truth here, it depends solely on opinion and viewpoint. You can easily point out countries with little immigration doing exceptionally well, likewise, you can point out countries where immigrants make up a significant portion of the population that are also doing exceptionally well (immigrants, not expats)

State of Turelisa wrote:I think anyone who thinks immigration is good and should never be moderated, should live for a while in a British town like Luton, Slough or Birmingham, where I used to live.
The experiment should involve residing in a 'deprived area', and competing for scarce, unskilled work with local English people and third-generation BAME British citizens including youths having just left school barely literate who come from families where unemployment is frequent and criminal activity a means of income, and illegal immigrants who will work for sums of cash less than the minimum wage
I'd be highly surprised if the experience hadn't altered their liberal opinion.

I live in Philadelphia. We've seen our share of hardship too. Since the 1950's the city has seen white flight and economic decline. We dropped from a population of 2 million in 1950 to 1.5 million in 2000. The last 20 years have been better for us as our population has started growing again and more jobs have been created, but we're still the poorest big city in the United States. Better leadership (though that's a low bar for our fair city) has helped us, as has our university system and the jobs and young people they attract. But another thing that has helped us has been international migration. Our city still sees net outflows of domestic residents, but that's counteracted by positive international migration. Without those new residents our city would have kept declining in population. That means more property abandonment and thus lower property tax revenues. It also means fewer residents to pay for all the infrastructure that we've built and municipal pension debts we owe (and thus higher taxes on those that stayed) as well as less business investment. Businesses don't want to invest in a place that's going to have fewer customers and more blight in a few years, which can become a self fulfilling prophecy that leads to more blight in a vicious cycle.

Maybe in Britain things are different. I don't live there, you guys can manage your affairs as you see fit. But this is my experience in my city. I love my city and I want it to grow and be successful.

The Reformed American Republic wrote:

-Astoria- wrote:Meanwhile, in reality, I'm still waiting for you to back your earlier statement up.

https://www.texasobserver.org/qa-with-j ... exas-blue/

The insoluble dilemma for Texas Democrats has long been how to use Texas’ demographic change to break their epically long losing streak.

It is not news that Latino population growth in Texas affords the moribund Texas Democratic Party at least an opportunity to find its way out of the wilderness. The question has long been, will the Democrats be able to seize it?

There was a better article written at FowardProgressives.com that would have better proved my point, but that site is now gone. Democrats push for more Latino immigration and then seize on that in an attempt to get votes. That is pretty obvious to anyone who follows politics. Have the decency to admit that at least some view this as a cheap way to get votes, which is what I meant by the "demographic warfare" comment.

Republicans used to be fine with Latino immigration, until they discovered that Latinos don't like their dreadful policies.

Latino citizens of the US are now a significant minority, there's nothing you can do about it. There is no constitutional way to strip citizenship just on the basis of race, ancestry or ethnicity. Being anti-Latino now will get Republicans nothing but miserable defeat. Republicans have to adopt a specifically anti-racist platform to counter the damage done to their brand by Donald Trump. If they don't, or if they become even more explicitly racist, they're done as a national party and will only hold a handful of state governments.

Jabberwocky wrote:Except for native Americans, the U.S. is comprised largely of immigrants

Yes. And was that good for the natives ?

The Alma Mater wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:Except for native Americans, the U.S. is comprised largely of immigrants

Yes. And was that good for the natives ?

I actually don’t think “immigrants” is the right word. George Washington wasn’t living in an Iroquois longhouse.

Kowani wrote:

The Alma Mater wrote:
Yes. And was that good for the natives ?

I actually don’t think “immigrants” is the right word. George Washington wasn’t living in an Iroquois longhouse.

Then only immigrants who fully assimilate are considered immigrants?

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:

The Reformed American Republic wrote:https://www.texasobserver.org/qa-with-j ... exas-blue/





There was a better article written at FowardProgressives.com that would have better proved my point, but that site is now gone. Democrats push for more Latino immigration and then seize on that in an attempt to get votes. That is pretty obvious to anyone who follows politics. Have the decency to admit that at least some view this as a cheap way to get votes, which is what I meant by the "demographic warfare" comment.

Republicans used to be fine with Latino immigration, until they discovered that Latinos don't like their dreadful policies.

Latino citizens of the US are now a significant minority, there's nothing you can do about it. There is no constitutional way to strip citizenship just on the basis of race, ancestry or ethnicity. Being anti-Latino now will get Republicans nothing but miserable defeat. Republicans have to adopt a specifically anti-racist platform to counter the damage done to their brand by Donald Trump. If they don't, or if they become even more explicitly racist, they're done as a national party and will only hold a handful of state governments.

This didn't happen in a vacuum tbh. A large number of voters clearly aren't very fond of Hispanics/Latinos.

The Alma Mater wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:Except for native Americans, the U.S. is comprised largely of immigrants

Yes. And was that good for the natives ?

Whenever I see this argument, I can't help but think people legit feel guilty for what happened to the natives, and their fear of immigration is the unconscious guilt of millions of indigenous people being wiped out.

Not saying you're doing that. But I think at least some of the people who say "look what happened to the natives" are basically indirectly admitting to how much America screwed the Native Americans over.

Borderlands of Rojava wrote:

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:
Republicans used to be fine with Latino immigration, until they discovered that Latinos don't like their dreadful policies.

Latino citizens of the US are now a significant minority, there's nothing you can do about it. There is no constitutional way to strip citizenship just on the basis of race, ancestry or ethnicity. Being anti-Latino now will get Republicans nothing but miserable defeat. Republicans have to adopt a specifically anti-racist platform to counter the damage done to their brand by Donald Trump. If they don't, or if they become even more explicitly racist, they're done as a national party and will only hold a handful of state governments.

This didn't happen in a vacuum tbh. A large number of voters clearly aren't very fond of Hispanics/Latinos.

The Republicans should boot racists out of their party. Chasing that racist vote will surely bring non-voters to become voters, now finally there's a major party talking to their main issue, and once they're out they won't go back. They'll find or found a minor party, vote for that, splitting the Republican vote ... and the Republicans will be fucked until they can win back their moderates who were driven away by racism in the party. It could be ten years or sixteen.

Trump's discovery of a new base, at least some of whom never voted before, is a significant factor in his own bad position now. This venture into finding the racist vote, has to end with Donald Trump. Maybe in 2024 it will be Jeb! after all!

Borderlands of Rojava wrote:

The Alma Mater wrote:
Yes. And was that good for the natives ?

Whenever I see this argument, I can't help but think people legit feel guilty for what happened to the natives, and their fear of immigration is the unconscious guilt of millions of indigenous people being wiped out.

Well, it does not have to be guilt - just a "we do not wish to end up like them". Usually heard when the newcomers are having 8 children vs the natives 1 or 2.

I lose braincells when people compare the genocide of native Americans during the period of colonialism to modern day immigration

And both pro and anti immigration people bring it up

I think it should be incentivised to move places that actually need people. The Rust Belt for instance could use an economic couterbalance for the decline in manfacturing (possibly reviving it).

Unstoppable Empire of Doom wrote:I think it should be incentivised to move places that actually need people. The Rust Belt for instance could use an economic couterbalance for the decline in manfacturing (possibly reviving it).

This is a fair point as well. Immigration could be more useful for Detroit but less useful for the already grossly overcrowded Silicon Valley area.
Where in the countries immigrants go matters. Some areas need or could easily accommodate more people, (several cities have lost much of their population since 1970) while others do not.

Again we have to look at the specifics, the specific location, the specific people, culture and needs of that location, and then the individual prospective immigrants to determine on a individual basis if they are suitable or not. It is much more complicated than “we need more/we need less”.