Market politics

[neroden]

In Musk's cases you should consider he wasn't born OR raised in the US, so the generational / demographic labels we use here probably don't apply the same in South Africa,

This is certainly true -- he had some seriously weird cultural background. Though his mother was from Canada and he ended up there by 1989, he definitely fits no demographic category before that.

 

[neroden]

The generational divide lines are fairly artificial, but there is also some truth in it. As you point out, a lot of the things that shape a generation are external events.

For the early GenXers, we remember the Moon landings (one of my first memories of the world was Neil Armstong walking on the Moon), we also remember the end of the Vietnam War when most people felt it was a bad idea. I have memories of watching the war on TV at dinner as a small child (with Walter Cronkite). We also went through Watergate. I remember watching Nixon's resignation live. Then there was the oil crisis.

We Oregon Trail generation remember
(1) Gorbachev (that's our image of the USSR, and it's very positive)
(2) Iran-Contra Affair
(3) Challenger explosion
(4) Fall of the Berlin Wall

A bit different, certainly.

One dividing line I've seen people make is the point you make about the Oregon Trail Generation. It is a different dividing line than standard generational mapping. For those born before 1955, it's unlikely they never encountered a programmable device until they were adults. For those born from 1955 to about the mid-70s, most encountered some kind of programmable device before adulthood, but they were occasional things rather than staples of the environment. For those born after the mid-70s, they grew up surrounded by electronic devices and don't really know how to live without them.

Actually, two subtle points.
1 -- Everyone born up to about 1984 (Oregon Trail generation) knows how to do stuff without computers, because we learned in school, and computers were expensive. But we also grew up wtih computers everywhere. We can live in "both worlds". (Oregon Trail is the computer game...)
2 -- People born 1985 or later don't know how to do anything on paper. Computers were so ubiquitous when they were young that they don't know how to do it the manual way.
3 -- People born 1995 or later *grew up with cellphones*; people born circa 1985-1995 had computers standard, but not cellphones. This makes for some disturbing differences and has created social problems in the "constant cellphone" generation which didn't exist earlier; it's probably the next major cultural divide, actually, and it's in the middle of the "Millennials".

Growing up with almost constantly orange skies, I've felt it was time we started phasing out fossil fuels.

Mmm-hmm.

Both early and late GenX are suspicious of what they're told, but the take aways are different. The early Xers came of age during the early days of the 6th Party System in the US when the ideas of the 5th Party System (New Deal) that had been gospel for 50 years were dying. Our early world experiences were in the miasma at the end of the 5th Party when the old system was falling apart and the new hadn't really come along yet. Then Reagan came along with new ideas that seemed to work and the early Xers were sold.

Whereas Oregon Trail Generation was watching Reagan screw everything up, including forcing us all to learn English units after we'd been taught that we were switching to the (much simpler) metric system! But we grew up having absolutely no concept of pre-Gorbachev Russian Communism, since it was already gone. So, more open to communist and socialist ideas, much more hostile to right-wingery.

We're at the end of the 6th Party System now and the 7th will start as soon as a voice comes out of the wilderness to coalesce a new meme. The popularity of Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez tells me the new meme will be something along the lines of what they are talking about, but the right mouthpiece to make it all gel hasn't come forward yet.

The 6th party system was such an unmitigated disaster for the US.

The impact of Calvanist Christianity is a big thing in American politics. Calvanism largely died out in Europe, but many groups just moved to the US. The more "liberal" Christian faiths like modern Catholicism, Episcopalian/Church of England, etc. either actively encourage or at least don't discourage free thought. But Calvanism has always discouraged independent thought and asking too many questions. Southern culture in general has also reinforced that thinking.

Yep. The most toxic and pernicious ideas in US culture are all from the worst forms of Calvinism, including the "absolute depravity" and "prosperity gospel" heresies.

"Prosperity gospel" claims that the rich are godly and the poor are ungodly *ipso facto*, so give to the rich and take from the poor.

"Absolute depravity" claims that everyone's instincts are always evil and have to be rejected, so do what God (meaning, your preacher; meaning, the cult leader) tells you to do -- even if it makes no sense, contradicts what he said last week, and sounds really evil to you.

The claim that illegals are a net drag on our economy is as big a myth as trickle down economics being a good thing for all. We've been told the lie so often, most people accept it as the truth without thinking about it.

Yep.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

We Oregon Trail generation remember
(1) Gorbachev (that's our image of the USSR, and it's very positive)

Did somebody say birthmarks?

Actually, two subtle points.
1 -- Everyone born up to about 1984 (Oregon Trail generation) knows how to do stuff without computers, because we learned in school, and computers were expensive. But we also grew up wtih computers everywhere. We can live in "both worlds". (Oregon Trail is the computer game...)
2 -- People born 1985 or later don't know how to do anything on paper. Computers were so ubiquitous when they were young that they don't know how to do it the manual way.
3 -- People born 1995 or later *grew up with cellphones*; people born circa 1985-1995 had computers standard, but not cellphones. This makes for some disturbing differences and has created social problems in the "constant cellphone" generation which didn't exist earlier; it's probably the next major cultural divide, actually, and it's in the middle of the "Millennials".

There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors.

 

[wdolson]

We Oregon Trail generation remember
(1) Gorbachev (that's our image of the USSR, and it's very positive)
(2) Iran-Contra Affair
(3) Challenger explosion
(4) Fall of the Berlin Wall

A bit different, certainly.

That's a big difference. I believe Gorbechev was the first premier who was not around during the Revolution and had a different perspective.

There are some generational things that would affect Americans more than other countries, but other things that affected everyone. The fall of the USSR was one of those thing that the whole world experienced together, though that experience was different in different countries. Tech changes cross borders too, though poorer countries often experience tech changes differently from developed countries.

Actually, two subtle points.
1 -- Everyone born up to about 1984 (Oregon Trail generation) knows how to do stuff without computers, because we learned in school, and computers were expensive. But we also grew up wtih computers everywhere. We can live in "both worlds". (Oregon Trail is the computer game...)
2 -- People born 1985 or later don't know how to do anything on paper. Computers were so ubiquitous when they were young that they don't know how to do it the manual way.
3 -- People born 1995 or later *grew up with cellphones*; people born circa 1985-1995 had computers standard, but not cellphones. This makes for some disturbing differences and has created social problems in the "constant cellphone" generation which didn't exist earlier; it's probably the next major cultural divide, actually, and it's in the middle of the "Millennials".

I suspect that heavy cell phone use from an early age is going to create some major changes.

I also heard an interview with a guy who had written a book on generations. He pointed out that every generation strives to fix what their parent's generation got wrong. For Boomers, music and entertainment in general changed a lot because they thought their parent's choices in entertainment were poor. But the Millennial generation had no problem with the GenX and Boomer choices in entertainment to a large degree. For Boomers and many Xers listening to their parents' music collection would have been considered lame, but it's common with Millennials and later.

Millennials and the generation after think their parents' generation was too isolated and have put a lot of energy into new types of communities. Though there are downsides there too.

I wouldn't be surprised if the generation coming along now start to reject some of the hyper electronic world of the Millennials.

Whereas Oregon Trail Generation was watching Reagan screw everything up, including forcing us all to learn English units after we'd been taught that we were switching to the (much simpler) metric system! But we grew up having absolutely no concept of pre-Gorbachev Russian Communism, since it was already gone. So, more open to communist and socialist ideas, much more hostile to right-wingery.

The 70s was a decade of unraveling and the 60s had been a decade of protest and unrest. Reagan came along and said he was going make American Great Again and a lot of the unsteadiness of the previous decades did die down. Those who were unsettled by it felt a sigh of relief.

Reagan brought in a lot of bad things too. He laid the groundwork for the corruption of the Republican party we see today.

The 6th party system was such an unmitigated disaster for the US.

A lot of bad things has come of it.

Yep. The most toxic and pernicious ideas in US culture are all from the worst forms of Calvinism, including the "absolute depravity" and "prosperity gospel" heresies.

"Prosperity gospel" claims that the rich are godly and the poor are ungodly *ipso facto*, so give to the rich and take from the poor.

"Absolute depravity" claims that everyone's instincts are always evil and have to be rejected, so do what God (meaning, your preacher; meaning, the cult leader) tells you to do -- even if it makes no sense, contradicts what he said last week, and sounds really evil to you.

Agreed. And Calvin himself would probably disown those people.

Whenever I see those people acting I think of the line from the Bible "and from their actions ye shall know them."

 

[Dan Detweiler]

You might think that. In practice, this isn't the case. For reasons which are sort of funny.

Illegal immigrants tend to (a) pay taxes, in order to avoid getting in trouble (they often steal social security numbers *in order to pay taxes*) and (b) avoid taking public services, in order to avoid the notice of the government and avoid getting deported.

(Legal immigrants often do too, actually. It's documented that they have a higher rate of entrepeneurship and more of a "don't rely on the government, rely on my local community" attitude than native-born people.)

But I still think having illegal immigrants pay social security taxes in the names of citizens isn't a great situation, certainly. The thing is, it's just literally not a real issue any more. The big waves of illegal immigration (for economic reasons) across the border *were* a thing, 20 years ago, but they have *ended* -- the net migration is *from* the US *to* Mexico, and has been for over a decade. This actually worries me because it means the US is unattractive to Mexicans. I would rather have the problem that too many people want into the US than that people want out!

We now have refugees (from Honduras, not from Mexico) presenting themselves legally at the border in an attempt to escape gang wars.

There are a few problems: if illegal immigrants are too afraid to use public services, they can refuse to go to doctors when sick (leading to the spread of disease), or become easy targets for abusive employers (which is probably why the abusive-employer lobbyists have campaigned to make sure they can keep getting illegal immigrant employees, and the Republican Party has always fought to make sure employers don't have to really check immigration status).

Anyway, it's clear we have to have some sort of immigration policy just because if there are mass migrations due to climate change we might be overwhelmed beyond our ability to cope, but the current discussion is not based on reality.

So what you're saying is that in order to hide their illegal status they further partake of illegal activity to cover it up? My point is that I feel we need to adjust the manner in which people enter this country legally to make this practice unnecessary. That said, there will always be people that we do not want entering the country. Currently there is little we can do to prevent it. Open borders are just going to prolong the the actual remedy to the problem and further sway opinion that immigration is a bad thing. I think an open door policy is detrimental to the actual adoption of policies that will make legal immigration a smoother process, but again there will always be people that should not be allowed in for obvious reasons and there must be a way to identify these individuals and keep them out.

As to your stated problems, the simple answer is that if they weren't here to begin with they wouldn't pose a threat. Yes, we will have to deal with the people that are already here and that is a different concern that what I am stating. Your concerns seem to be with the symptoms. What I am saying is that we have to deal with the root cause and in my eyes that starts with better and more thorough border control.

Respectfully submitted.

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

The generational divide lines are fairly artificial, but there is also some truth in it. As you point out, a lot of the things that shape a generation are external events. There is also a divide between early and late Boomers. Hillary Clinton is an early Boomer and the Obamas are late. While their political philosophy are pretty much the same, the events that shaped them are different.

The Boomers and early GenX grew up under the "red scare". We still had duck and cover drills in school. Even at 7 I knew it was ridiculous to try. Early Boomers went through the Civil Rights movement, the high profile assassinations of the 60s, they faced either going to an unpopular war, or seeing their classmates or siblings go.

My parents were of the generation that fought WW II (they were/are old enough to be my grandparents and often were mistaken for them when I was a kid). When people of that generation get together, they always asked "what did you do during the war?" For the early Boomers it's about what they did during Vietnam.

Whether someone remembers the Civil Rights movement or not has a lot of impact on your world view. I was born after in a city on the west coast. The idea that people weren't equal was an alien notion until I was a young adult and saw it happen in Bakersfield.

I also have some Boomer attitudes in part because my sister is a middle Boomer and my parents were the generation that spawned the Boomers. I also grew up in an empty nester neighborhood, so all the neighbors were around my parent's age and the only kids were adults still living at home.

For the early GenXers, we remember the Moon landings (one of my first memories of the world was Neil Armstong walking on the Moon), we also remember the end of the Vietnam War when most people felt it was a bad idea. I have memories of watching the war on TV at dinner as a small child (with Walter Cronkite). We also went through Watergate. I remember watching Nixon's resignation live. Then there was the oil crisis.

All these things happened before the late GenXers were born. The early Xers were also suspicious of politicians after Watergate and Vietnam, but many were bamboozled by Reagan.

GenX was the first US generation since those born immediately after the Civil War who didn't face the prospect of getting drafted and sent off to war. That had an effect too. But it came earlier in Canada. I went to a convention in British Columbia when I was in my 20s and the bulk of the attendees were Boomers or those born during WW II. There were about 1/2 Americans and 1/2 Canadians. The American men (except me) were talking about what they did during Vietnam and a Canadian the same age commented that was a different experience Canadians of the same generation had. The Boomer Canadians had never faced the Vietnam question men of the US had to face.

One dividing line I've seen people make is the point you make about the Oregon Trail Generation. It is a different dividing line than standard generational mapping. For those born before 1955, it's unlikely they never encountered a programmable device until they were adults. For those born from 1955 to about the mid-70s, most encountered some kind of programmable device before adulthood, but they were occasional things rather than staples of the environment. For those born after the mid-70s, they grew up surrounded by electronic devices and don't really know how to live without them.

It's not universal, but I have noticed that those born before 1955 struggle a lot more with basic computer concepts (unless they were early programmers or something) and are much more likely to see computing devices as magic boxes they can learn to operate, but will never understand. Those born between 1955 and around 1975 are much more likely to get basic computing concepts and can figure out how a computing device works. There was that joke when I was a kid that if you want to program your VCR, find a kid. It was true in my household. I was the only one who could program the first couple of VCRs my parents had.

For those born after 1975, computing devices are just extensions of themselves. Doing things with computers are just natural and not thought out at all.

The early Xers had a quiet impact on the computing industry. There were quite a few of us who went into tech. It was one of the best paying professions in the 80s when I was in college. As a brag to others somebody in the School of Engineering had pencils made up at graduation one year saying "we have jobs!" Most engineering graduates had multiple job offers.

But few early Xers got rich in the tech biz. I was looking at people born in a few years on Wikipedia the other day and it was notable that Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and one of the principle founders of Sun Microsystems were all born in 1955. I couldn't find any notable tech people born around the mid-60s. There are quite a few late Xers who were in the middle of the dot com boom and after.



At the time I didn't, but by the 90s there were some sociological work coming out on how the Reagan revolution affected GenX. For the early Xers, there were a lot of scares in the 70s and nobody seemed to know what to do and Reagan came along as the cowboy to save us all on the white horse. I never bought it, but a lot of early Xers did.



California was the first state to start getting rid of leaded gas. As the first unleaded gas became available, there were a lot of older cars burning unleaded without catalytic converters. I do wonder what those fumes did for the health of those exposed. The smell always made me gag, so I would hold my breath around cars spewing smelly exhaust. I still do around cold ICE cars.

In Los Angeles my childhood was the era of bad air. They had to yank my tonsils when I was 7 because they were so swollen I couldn't breathe. The doctor told my mother I had a very high risk of developing asthma, but it was that or strangling in my sleep. I didn't develop asthma as a child because the allergies to smog moved to my sinuses and I spent the rest of my childhood with constant sinus problems. They are scarred from the constant allergies.

When I moved away from Los Angeles at 18, my allergies went away and I experienced being able to breathe through both nostrils at once for the first time in my life. Once the sinus allergies cleared up, I started developing some mild asthma which still affects me sometimes today.

I was reminded of what it was like as a kid a few months ago when I had an allergy attack on par with a childhood one (first time in 40 years). I think I breathed in some burning plastic. I'm not 100% sure what it was, but it smelled like burning plastic.

Growing up with almost constantly orange skies, I've felt it was time we started phasing out fossil fuels.



Both early and late GenX are suspicious of what they're told, but the take aways are different. The early Xers came of age during the early days of the 6th Party System in the US when the ideas of the 5th Party System (New Deal) that had been gospel for 50 years were dying. Our early world experiences were in the miasma at the end of the 5th Party when the old system was falling apart and the new hadn't really come along yet. Then Reagan came along with new ideas that seemed to work and the early Xers were sold.

We're at the end of the 6th Party System now and the 7th will start as soon as a voice comes out of the wilderness to coalesce a new meme. The popularity of Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez tells me the new meme will be something along the lines of what they are talking about, but the right mouthpiece to make it all gel hasn't come forward yet.



The impact of Calvanist Christianity is a big thing in American politics. Calvanism largely died out in Europe, but many groups just moved to the US. The more "liberal" Christian faiths like modern Catholicism, Episcopalian/Church of England, etc. either actively encourage or at least don't discourage free thought. But Calvanism has always discouraged independent thought and asking too many questions. Southern culture in general has also reinforced that thinking.

The right has learned a lot of lessons from 1984 and know media is a very powerful weapon for shaping thought. Keeping broadband out of rural communities allows them to shape thought in those areas through their mediums of Sinclair, Clear Channel, etc.

This country and many countries have split into two different worlds which consume very different media for the information that shapes their thoughts.



The myth that the right tells about how illegal immigrants are a burden on society is a massive untruth.
How undocumented immigrants pay taxes, explained

A lot of them have fake IDs to get jobs because the feds require employers to vet everyone for legal status and penalizes employers who knowingly employ illegals. A lot of employers who employ illegals do so with a wink and a nod, but want enough of a fig leaf they can claim they did something to vet the employee before hiring. So they have fake SSNs and other IDs they use to get work. Employers withhold from paychecks for Social Security, Medicare, federal income taxes, and local taxes. All those are sent into the government agencies. When the illegals reach retirement age, most will not claim those benefits.

If illegals are unemployed, very few are claiming unemployment or welfare benefits, they are just suffering in silence in the shadows, or leaving the country. These are people who want as little exposure as possible.

Because almost all illegals are poor, they spend most of their income. It was common for many seasonal workers to send money home or take it home when their work season ended (often farm labor), but they had to spend something while here in the US. As they spend money, they pay transnational taxes like sales tax, gas tax, and alcohol tax. All that goes into the coffers as tax paid.

They also pay taxes indirectly. Most have to rent someplace to live and the landlord pays property taxes on the property which goes into local coffers.

The tax footprint of an illegal is very similar to that of a native born American making about the same income, but the native born American is more likely to be claiming benefits like food stamps or Medicaid.

The claim that illegals are a net drag on our economy is as big a myth as trickle down economics being a good thing for all. We've been told the lie so often, most people accept it as the truth without thinking about it.




The three women who do Mueller She Wrote also do stand up comedy. The podcast is often interesting.

In response to the thought that illegal immigrants are not a burden just hasn't been my experience. Granted, I can only respond to my little corner of the world and my own personal experiences. I have been a public educator for the last 29 years and I have seen a dramatic increase in both population and services given to the children of illegals. Because they often come to us from very poor often transient environments they often require special needs services from ESOL instruction to remedial instruction to other 1 on 1 or small group instruction. They add to an already overcrowded environment and add to the strain on a system already stretched thin both financially and staffing wise. Don't get me wrong, these kids are often sweet children that deserve the best we can give them from a humanitarian standpoint but to say they are not a burden is to bury your head in the sand.

Just my personal observations, of course your mileage may vary.

Dan

 

[wdolson]

So what you're saying is that in order to hide their illegal status they further partake of illegal activity to cover it up? My point is that I feel we need to adjust the manner in which people enter this country legally to make this practice unnecessary. That said, there will always be people that we do not want entering the country. Currently there is little we can do to prevent it. Open borders are just going to prolong the the actual remedy to the problem and further sway opinion that immigration is a bad thing. I think an open door policy is detrimental to the actual adoption of policies that will make legal immigration a smoother process, but again there will always be people that should not be allowed in for obvious reasons and there must be a way to identify these individuals and keep them out.

As to your stated problems, the simple answer is that if they weren't here to begin with they wouldn't pose a threat. Yes, we will have to deal with the people that are already here and that is a different concern that what I am stating. Your concerns seem to be with the symptoms. What I am saying is that we have to deal with the root cause and in my eyes that starts with better and more thorough border control.

Respectfully submitted.

Dan

But who actually wants an open door policy? The only people I have heard who believe in this are figments of Republican imaginations.

Bill Maher has made the point that we are forgetting how to keep in mind there are degrees to things. Yes illegal entry into the United States is against the law. The first offense is no worse than a traffic infraction. Many have to create fake IDs to stay under the radar, but as you and just about any sane person points out, if there was a legal system they would use it and not have to commit any more crimes to stay here.

Immigration to the US used to be simple: if you got here you were in (truly open door). The first law that actually put any limits on immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The US made an agreement with Japan to prevent issuing passports to Japanese who wished to emigrate to the US, but they still issued them to Japanese who wished to move to the territory of Hawaii which is why 50% of Japanese-Americans lived in Hawaii at the start of WW II.

After McKinley's assassination a law was passed banning anarchists. 1917 was the first time Congress took up any serious immigration legislation which was pretty racist and pretty laughable by modern standards, but did set a number of criteria for entry based on something other than race (or anarchy) for the first time.

The first legislation that really organized immigration into an actual code we would recognize today was in 1952 and was set against the backdrop of anti-communism and fears Russian agents were infiltrating into the US.

What is notable is that the president vetoed both the 1917 and 1952 bills only to have them overridden by Congress.

I have heard nobody in any kind of government position advocate for the open door policy pre-1917 or pre-1952. I have heard very few outside of government advocate for it. Though I have heard a number of Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting that.

Democrats want immigration reform too, they just want a 21st century solution and not a 5th century solution.

The United States is facing a number of issues that touch on immigration.
1) There are jobs that you can't get unemployed native-born Americans to do in enough numbers. Somebody has to pick the crops and do a number of other things Americans don't want to do.
2) The birth rate is below the replacement rate.
3) There are some skilled jobs that go unfilled because Americans aren't getting the type of education required.
4) The US has created a refugee crisis in Central America because of the war on drugs, but is now unwilling to deal with the consequences.
5) 66% of illegals in the country now have been here more than 10 years. There are far fewer illegals coming in now than there once was, as @neroden pointed out net migration with Mexico is now the other way. Those who have been here for more than 10 years are often working and are contributing to the economy. Young adults who came here as children know nothing else. In some cases they don't speak their native language.

What crisis there are at the border are largely created by government policy, long term (the war on drugs) and short term (current administration).

The Republicans see the boogieman immigrant as a winner, so they keep stirring the pot. GW Bush tried to work on the problem in his second term and start a work visa program for seasonal workers that would have helped the illegal problem quite a bit, but Republicans in Congress refused to do anything about it. For Republicans in mostly white, rural districts, keeping the southern border a mess helps them stay in power. They can falsely blame the Democrats for the problem and win based on fears that the terrible immigrant is going to get their constituents in their sleep.

 

[lolachampcar]

2016 Dem primary showed Rachel's true colors. Let me just say she is a neoliberal and leave it at that.

Glad we got a label on it. I can sleep better now.

Pardon my ignorance, but I assume neoliberal is bad?????????

 

[lolachampcar]

Wow
Republicans in the Senate just allowed Trump to deliver on his number one campaign promise to Russia. They just allowed him to remove sanctions on Deripaska Companies. This guy is at the middle of Russian interference to get Trump elected and we just REMOVED existing sanctions?????????

Alice, I need some of that cake and quick. I simply can not believe what I am seeing.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

But who actually wants an open door policy? The only people I have heard who believe in this are figments of Republican imaginations.

Bill Maher has made the point that we are forgetting how to keep in mind there are degrees to things. Yes illegal entry into the United States is against the law. The first offense is no worse than a traffic infraction. Many have to create fake IDs to stay under the radar, but as you and just about any sane person points out, if there was a legal system they would use it and not have to commit any more crimes to stay here.

Immigration to the US used to be simple: if you got here you were in (truly open door). The first law that actually put any limits on immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The US made an agreement with Japan to prevent issuing passports to Japanese who wished to emigrate to the US, but they still issued them to Japanese who wished to move to the territory of Hawaii which is why 50% of Japanese-Americans lived in Hawaii at the start of WW II.

After McKinley's assassination a law was passed banning anarchists. 1917 was the first time Congress took up any serious immigration legislation which was pretty racist and pretty laughable by modern standards, but did set a number of criteria for entry based on something other than race (or anarchy) for the first time.

The first legislation that really organized immigration into an actual code we would recognize today was in 1952 and was set against the backdrop of anti-communism and fears Russian agents were infiltrating into the US.

What is notable is that the president vetoed both the 1917 and 1952 bills only to have them overridden by Congress.

I have heard nobody in any kind of government position advocate for the open door policy pre-1917 or pre-1952. I have heard very few outside of government advocate for it. Though I have heard a number of Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting that.

Democrats want immigration reform too, they just want a 21st century solution and not a 5th century solution.

The United States is facing a number of issues that touch on immigration.
1) There are jobs that you can't get unemployed native-born Americans to do in enough numbers. Somebody has to pick the crops and do a number of other things Americans don't want to do.
2) The birth rate is below the replacement rate.
3) There are some skilled jobs that go unfilled because Americans aren't getting the type of education required.
4) The US has created a refugee crisis in Central America because of the war on drugs, but is now unwilling to deal with the consequences.
5) 66% of illegals in the country now have been here more than 10 years. There are far fewer illegals coming in now than there once was, as @neroden pointed out net migration with Mexico is now the other way. Those who have been here for more than 10 years are often working and are contributing to the economy. Young adults who came here as children know nothing else. In some cases they don't speak their native language.

What crisis there are at the border are largely created by government policy, long term (the war on drugs) and short term (current administration).

The Republicans see the boogieman immigrant as a winner, so they keep stirring the pot. GW Bush tried to work on the problem in his second term and start a work visa program for seasonal workers that would have helped the illegal problem quite a bit, but Republicans in Congress refused to do anything about it. For Republicans in mostly white, rural districts, keeping the southern border a mess helps them stay in power. They can falsely blame the Democrats for the problem and win based on fears that the terrible immigrant is going to get their constituents in their sleep.

I respect your opinion. I would actually take your argument one step further. You mention that many Republicans make decisions for the sole purpose of maintaining their power. I agree. I would also add the Democrats do exactly the same thing. Our two party system has created an environment of them vs. us and our political, economic and international decisions are being made with this overreaching philosophy at the heart of things. Two party politics by career politicians is killing the country in my opinion. Congressional term limits? Debate reformation? An end to policies that encourage and maintain Democrat and Republican monopolies in local, state and national elections? I believe these are at the root of the vast majority of our political woes in the US. Too much finger pointing, name calling, and slander and not enough humility, accountability and sense of purpose.

But, those are certainly arguments for another time and another thread. Be well.

Dan

 

[lolachampcar]

No
Money is corrupting us and the result is we are hiring people who represent their own interests and not ours. Remove the money and competent people interested in giving back in the form of public service will return to the process. We can not remove the power seekers but we can remove the financial incentive.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

No
Money is corrupting us and the result is we are hiring people who represent their own interests and not ours. Remove the money and competent people interested in giving back in the form of public service will return to the process. We can not remove the power seekers but we can remove the financial incentive.

We CAN remove the power seekers if they know they only have "X" number of years in the office. Or, to be more accurate, we can limit their damage. Remember, the vast majority of these people were wealthy before entering office. In my opinion, this is about power and influence. They don't need more money.

Dan

 

[bhtooefr]

Actually, two subtle points.
1 -- Everyone born up to about 1984 (Oregon Trail generation) knows how to do stuff without computers, because we learned in school, and computers were expensive. But we also grew up wtih computers everywhere. We can live in "both worlds". (Oregon Trail is the computer game...)
2 -- People born 1985 or later don't know how to do anything on paper. Computers were so ubiquitous when they were young that they don't know how to do it the manual way.
3 -- People born 1995 or later *grew up with cellphones*; people born circa 1985-1995 had computers standard, but not cellphones. This makes for some disturbing differences and has created social problems in the "constant cellphone" generation which didn't exist earlier; it's probably the next major cultural divide, actually, and it's in the middle of the "Millennials".

Although, there are some interesting effects when you're in rural and/or poverty-stricken areas, with the digital divide, re: #2 - I was born in 1988, and computers were present but not pervasive in my rural area. As an example, I don't remember how to use, say, a card catalog, but I remember being taught (the library I usually went to was in a well-off suburban area near my dad's work, and had VT100 clones connected to their "digital card catalog" system).

Also, there's a reason why some ethnographers cut off millennials in the 1995-1996 timeframe, and call the #3 group "Digital Natives", because of precisely that, that there are differences. (I would also say that there's political experience differences - someone born in 1996 or earlier probably remembers 9/11 much more than someone born after, and an American born in 1996 or earlier, while definitely remembering school shootings, is far less likely to have gone to school with frequent active shooter drills being a normal part of school life, that's a rather recent thing.)

There's also an interesting effect that I see with smartphones, that actually is cross-generational - many people who never had a computer now have a smartphone and use it extensively, and many people who had a computer have effectively replaced it with a smartphone. Oddly, while the cultures are completely different, I almost feel like pervasive smartphones have led to Boomers and early Gen X being the most "extremely online" (even if that phrase is straight from Millennial/Digital Native online culture... and it's often negative, implying that someone is too "online"). Millennials don't have time for constant cell phone usage unless we're unemployed, and Digital Natives don't have time because of school.

I suspect that heavy cell phone use from an early age is going to create some major changes.

I also heard an interview with a guy who had written a book on generations. He pointed out that every generation strives to fix what their parent's generation got wrong. For Boomers, music and entertainment in general changed a lot because they thought their parent's choices in entertainment were poor. But the Millennial generation had no problem with the GenX and Boomer choices in entertainment to a large degree. For Boomers and many Xers listening to their parents' music collection would have been considered lame, but it's common with Millennials and later.

Millennials and the generation after think their parents' generation was too isolated and have put a lot of energy into new types of communities. Though there are downsides there too.

I wouldn't be surprised if the generation coming along now start to reject some of the hyper electronic world of the Millennials.

One overarching sentiment I'm seeing among a subset of millennial and digital native (and a few Oregon Trail generation) tech enthusiasts (and many of them actually implementing tech, not just buying gadgets, and usually radical left, politically) is a mindset of "computers were a mistake" - basically, a realization that everything that Gen X and Millennials built to date is a pile of unstable sugar built on top of unstable sugar, Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mindset has turned computing into an omnishambles, and surveillance capitalism - enabled by pervasive Internet and our society moving to it, and implemented by Silicon Valley technology - is now an existential threat to humanity. (This also, FWIW, explains some of the far left's opposition to Tesla - it's absolutely steeped in Silicon Valley culture, and Tesla absolutely has the apparatus to implement extreme amounts of surveillance on their customers if they want to.)

I've also noticed that at least a passing interest in retro technology exists among this group. For many of them, it's nostalgia for a time they never experienced or only barely experienced. But, it's also, I think, a rejection of the "move fast and break things" philosophy, that intentionally throws away knowledge in favor of the new shiny, resulting in fragile systems that never learn from the past - mistakes keep getting repeated, but successes are also forgotten - remembering the old stuff means you can remember where it went wrong, where it went right, and actually make things better.

 

[bhtooefr]

We CAN remove the power seekers if they know they only have "X" number of years in the office. Or, to be more accurate, we can limit their damage.

Dan

I'm not a fan of term limits - at least not making term limits stricter.

They do make it easier to get someone bad out of office, absolutely. However, they also force good politicians out of office. And, good politicians can build up experience in governing to get things done for their constituents, and as they can campaign on organic name recognition, they don't need as much campaign contributions to build that name recognition.

Governing is an actual skill that requires practice, and term limiting people out prevents that from happening - I think it'd make the current situation worse to institute term limits on positions that don't have them, or make existing ones stricter than they are.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I'm not a fan of term limits - at least not making term limits stricter.

They do make it easier to get someone bad out of office, absolutely. However, they also force good politicians out of office. And, good politicians can build up experience in governing to get things done for their constituents, and as they can campaign on organic name recognition, they don't need as much campaign contributions to build that name recognition.

Governing is an actual skill that requires practice, and term limiting people out prevents that from happening - I think it'd make the current situation worse to institute term limits on positions that don't have them, or make existing ones stricter than they are.

Totally respect your opinion.

I would argue that it would force people in office to focus on solutions rather than toeing party lines and what will keep them in office.

Dan

 

[lolachampcar]

The Left
People can not be trusted with guns so we need to take them away.

The Right
People can not be trusted with a free press (fake news) so we need to take it away.

Middle
I prefer we cultivate people that can be trusted with sharp objects.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

The Left
People can not be trusted with guns so we need to take them away.

The Right
People can not be trusted with a free press (fake news) so we need to take it away.

Middle
I prefer we cultivate people that can be trusted with sharp objects.

Sorry, but you completely lost me with that analogy.

Dan

 

[bhtooefr]

Also I'm seeing actual leftists who are minorities - while detesting the effect of pervasive firearms ownership in American society, and the fact that the mass shooting epidemic is literally just an American problem - starting to get them themselves, to defend themselves against fascists that want them dead.

 

[defc0n]

But who actually wants an open door policy? The only people I have heard who believe in this are figments of Republican imaginations.

Bill Maher has made the point that we are forgetting how to keep in mind there are degrees to things. Yes illegal entry into the United States is against the law. The first offense is no worse than a traffic infraction. Many have to create fake IDs to stay under the radar, but as you and just about any sane person points out, if there was a legal system they would use it and not have to commit any more crimes to stay here.

Immigration to the US used to be simple: if you got here you were in (truly open door). The first law that actually put any limits on immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The US made an agreement with Japan to prevent issuing passports to Japanese who wished to emigrate to the US, but they still issued them to Japanese who wished to move to the territory of Hawaii which is why 50% of Japanese-Americans lived in Hawaii at the start of WW II.

After McKinley's assassination a law was passed banning anarchists. 1917 was the first time Congress took up any serious immigration legislation which was pretty racist and pretty laughable by modern standards, but did set a number of criteria for entry based on something other than race (or anarchy) for the first time.

The first legislation that really organized immigration into an actual code we would recognize today was in 1952 and was set against the backdrop of anti-communism and fears Russian agents were infiltrating into the US.

What is notable is that the president vetoed both the 1917 and 1952 bills only to have them overridden by Congress.

I have heard nobody in any kind of government position advocate for the open door policy pre-1917 or pre-1952. I have heard very few outside of government advocate for it. Though I have heard a number of Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting that.

Democrats want immigration reform too, they just want a 21st century solution and not a 5th century solution.

The United States is facing a number of issues that touch on immigration.
1) There are jobs that you can't get unemployed native-born Americans to do in enough numbers. Somebody has to pick the crops and do a number of other things Americans don't want to do.
2) The birth rate is below the replacement rate.
3) There are some skilled jobs that go unfilled because Americans aren't getting the type of education required.
4) The US has created a refugee crisis in Central America because of the war on drugs, but is now unwilling to deal with the consequences.
5) 66% of illegals in the country now have been here more than 10 years. There are far fewer illegals coming in now than there once was, as @neroden pointed out net migration with Mexico is now the other way. Those who have been here for more than 10 years are often working and are contributing to the economy. Young adults who came here as children know nothing else. In some cases they don't speak their native language.

What crisis there are at the border are largely created by government policy, long term (the war on drugs) and short term (current administration).

The Republicans see the boogieman immigrant as a winner, so they keep stirring the pot. GW Bush tried to work on the problem in his second term and start a work visa program for seasonal workers that would have helped the illegal problem quite a bit, but Republicans in Congress refused to do anything about it. For Republicans in mostly white, rural districts, keeping the southern border a mess helps them stay in power. They can falsely blame the Democrats for the problem and win based on fears that the terrible immigrant is going to get their constituents in their sleep.

If Democrats actually want immigration reform then I’m baffled at what their actual plan or policy is! I call bullshit.

(Republicans aren’t any better)

 

[JRP3]

Democrats realize that immigration isn't the most pressing problem we face.