Amy wax is on very solid ground. Those who attack her and her views are racists, plain annd simple. Basically anti American bigots who should not be allowed to enter the country. They wish us nothing but harm and they hate us. There is going to be total war on such idiocic policy. War to the death against the enemies of the republic.
"I confess I find Asian support for these policies mystifying, as I fail to see how they are in Asians’ interest." <- I see this sentiment stated quite frequently. The statement assumes that the person uttering it fully understands what the particular group or individual believes are its interests. It puts interests above all else and principles become irrelevant. That is, of course, a rather dangerous way of looking at the world.
When you place interests above principle then the methods used to achieve those interests become trivial. It places all the focus on the end goal while ignoring the methods to reach those goals. Which, of course, can lead to all kinds of ethically and morally dangerous policies.
Additionally placing interests over principles leads you to inventing reasons why people believe and behave they way they do. For example:
"We can speculate (and, yes, generalize) about Asians’ desire to please the elite, single-minded focus on self-advancement, conformity and obsequiousness, lack of deep post-Enlightenment conviction, timidity toward centralized authority (however unreasoned), indifference to liberty, lack of thoughtful and audacious individualism, and excessive tolerance for bossy, mindless social engineering, etc."
If, instead of looking at interests, you look at the principles people hold dear you do not have to guess or invent reasons why people think of behave in certain ways because they will *tell you*.
I suspect that the principle that Asians support that so confuses Amy is one of fairness. This is another area where a lot of discussion and understanding needs to take place before you can fully understand what drives people. The reasons is that while pretty much everyone agrees that fairness is a desirable goal, the definition of fair actually means differs greatly. For example, a rather simple question: You have 3 poker buddies ordering a pizza for their weekly poker game. The pizza costs $12 and has 12 slices. Poker player Bob is rich, John is middle class and Tom is poor. Due to this, Bob pays $6, John $4 and Tom $2. When the pizza shows up, how do you divide it?
Does Bob take 6 slices, John 4 and Tom 2? That is fair as it is what each contributed when buying the pizza. Or do you divide it so each play gets 4 slices? That could also be considered fair.
When discussing these issues every one talks about fairness but most of the time liberals define fairness differently than conservatives. Liberals tend toward dividing equally while conservatives tend towards dividing by contribution. We see this definitional confusion all the time. The discussions of welfare, taxes, medical care, etc all hinge on fairness but everyone's definition differs. This causes the conversations around these issues to degrade into moral shouting matches where each side, working from their own definition of fair, accuses the other of being evil/hateful/unpatriotic/whatever because they are talking past each other.
I happen to agree that the Democratic Party is a pernicious influence today. And the reason I believe the Democratic Party is going off course is that they are working from a definition of fairness that isn't workable in the real world. The way to counter that is to actually understand why they believe what they do and argue about that viewpoint. In other words, we need to discuss principles instead of interests.
I personally think she's mistaken in her reasoning, which amounts to making a non-extreme political orientation a criteria for immigration. But: I donated to her legal defense fund. Nothing about this controversy is reason to stop her from teaching.
Central to Amy's thesis is whether Asian immigrants (and in other contexts she's claimed non-white immigrants) disproportionally vote for Democrats. I pulled the 2020 Cooperative Election Study data (https://cces.gov.harvard.edu) and looked countries that had more than 30 dual-citizen respondents. (This isn't a perfect proxy for "country of origin" and some countries are not listed, but it's the best option for the available data). Here are the results by ratio of Republicans to Democrats:
Cuba: 1.22
Philipines: 1
Columbia: 0.6
Canada: 0.56
Venezuela: 0.5
Ireland: 0.48
UK: 0.46
India: 0.44
Mexico: 0.35
France: 0.35
Nigeria: 0.27
Germany: 0.24
Dominican Republic: 0.23
Jamacia: 0.05
It shows a few things:
-Asian/Non-Asian or White/Non-white are not good predictors of party support. One of the only two immigrant groups that aren't disproportionally Democrats is Asian, while the 5th and 3rd least Republican immigrants are from "white" countries.
-The clearest trend is that Black immigrants are more likely to be Democrats.
-Immigrants in general are predisposed to the Democratic party.
It shouldn't be terribly surprising that West European immigrants support Democrats, just look at the social policies and tax rates. White *people* in the US vote Republican, but white *immigrants* do not appear to do so. This kicks the question back to immigration in general, or at least whether you should allow non-Cuban/Filipinos in, not Asians or non-whites.
This is the clear pitfall of group identitarianism, it mushes together disparate factors (Asian vs Filipino vs Indian, immigrant vs. non-immigrant white) to create a narrative, but falls apart after even the most basic fact checking (you can check my work within ~20 minutes).
Being from the same group that the prof supposedly targeted, I wholeheartedly agree with her comments. If you ever hang around the Indian circles, you'll find yourself in the midst of passive aggressive, blatantly narcisstic people, who ironically are more ethnocentric , fierce defenders of language barriers, while lecturing the world about their cultural heritage and bashing western culture. And these are the same folks who were welcomed with open arms by this great country and provided all the amenities. Indians are the worst in terms of showing compassion to fellow citizens in their own country. All they care about is marrying within their caste, keep their money within their castes while doing nothing philanthrophic or uplifiting to their own citizens. Prof is not too far off in her assessment.!
I just discovered this dialogue and have to admit that I am taken aback by Ms Wax’s quite apparent anti-Asian beliefs, no matter how artfully articulated. I’ll have to listen to the interview to get more detail, but her response to Mr. Lee is woeful, nativist and straight out of 19th century racist jingoism. I wonder how she feels about Latinos, if she is against Asian immigration, for which even Republicans of the more radical sort still seem to support. I hesitate to even consider immigrants for “shithole” countries, as what could they possibly contribute to the American fabric? Really, she’s not a person I’d want to have a drink with just based on this interview and exchange with Mr Lee.
As horrible as the status quo where you have a class of vapid People of Color who we are required to kneel before and kiss their ring while they spout their nonsense, combined with midwit PMC Wokester enforcers spouting empty slogans and calling people rashist as they fantasize about the anti-racist eschaton, the only thing worse could be a coup composed of these Daughters of the American Revolution types and fat boomers in tricorn hats trying to recreate their Anglo-Protestant City-On-the-Hill with all the intolerance and puritanism of a typical Anabaptist sect. My only hope would be to emigrate to Mexico before the white nationalist clown brigade closed the borders and decided to bring back polygamy to restore the white race.
ICMYI, her real gripe is with South Asian WOMEN who are really visible in some progressive movements. Not just any Asian, but brown (didn't Jews used to be 'brown' a generation ago?) women. Hmm, something fishy going on 🤔. Calling Dr. Freud.
Democrats do not love open borders. Almost all of our immigration restriction were leftist bribes to shore up their labor union base. If the Latino vote has moved...towards the center, and I think the insane regressive nature of COVID restrictions, lockdowns and mandates cemented that, watch the left build an insanely expensive wall and try to buy border votes that way. Feeling cynical? You bet.
What nth-gen Asian immigrants vote for probably has zero correlation with their Asian background, but more to do with their education, social economic status, and etc.
I want to immigrate to the US, and I’m Chinese, so I do have a conflict of interest.
If you are disappointed about a particular demographic’s voting pattern, why not try doing outreach harder?
Most 1st-gen immigrants love the country, deeply, and probably vote R more than D.
Why would you blame the current system’s failure to address the poor segment of the existing population on immigrants? It feels like impulsive scape-goating.
I am shocked to learn that Professor Wax seems to know so little of our immigration history. The core or legacy population in the u.s. is Western Europeans. Jews from Eastern Europe like Wax is not part of the core “legacy”. Does Professor Wax really want to go back to her Eastern European root so as to restore the u.s. to its core legacy population?
George Lee expresses concern about "America's basic value" and yet he repudiates America's basic value, the principle of individual rights, the right of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as he declares that "America has the absolute and unconditional right to keep anyone out, with or without stated reason" and states that "immigration is not an entitlement."
Mr. Lee is correct in stating that immigration is not an entitlement, because immigration is a right. But by repudiating the right of immigration, as he does, he is repudiating the fundamental value of America as it was founded.
"Those talking about keeping our sovereignty, enforcing our borders, seem to mean that our government should use initiated force to obstruct or block the movement of people who seek to work here, do business here, and live in peace here.
"The appeal to “sovereignty” as a justification for initiating force against peaceful individuals is illogical, and unjust. It reflects a wholly un-American attitude: the collectivist view that “we” or our government own the country, and get to decide who may come here and who may not. And the “us vs. them” approach represents the lowest form of collectivism: tribalism."
"What is National Sovereignty?" (2018) by Harry Binswanger:
This part-time teacher of 2 elective classes invokes Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, and you still thought it was worth giving her a platform? What a joke. How many times do you need to be taught something before it sticks, Glenn?
There is this kneejerk reaction amongst some Asian Americans in this substack to not be offended almost as a signal of objectivity or strength. To that I ask what then should be offensive? Amy Wax states that an entire group of people should be excluded from American society on the basis of their overall voting trends because said voting trends indicate that this group does not cherish American values. Make no mistake she means Asians who are American citizens because we are talking about voting here. In doing so she spits on the legacy of war heroes, builders, activists, scientists, businessmen, and ordinary upstanding citizens that have made their mark on this country. Her entire argument is centered on the invocation of a legacy of which she believes she is a part...and she says Asians are not. If that's not offensive to you then maybe she is right in her criticisms.
Amy Wax Redux
Amy wax is on very solid ground. Those who attack her and her views are racists, plain annd simple. Basically anti American bigots who should not be allowed to enter the country. They wish us nothing but harm and they hate us. There is going to be total war on such idiocic policy. War to the death against the enemies of the republic.
"I confess I find Asian support for these policies mystifying, as I fail to see how they are in Asians’ interest." <- I see this sentiment stated quite frequently. The statement assumes that the person uttering it fully understands what the particular group or individual believes are its interests. It puts interests above all else and principles become irrelevant. That is, of course, a rather dangerous way of looking at the world.
When you place interests above principle then the methods used to achieve those interests become trivial. It places all the focus on the end goal while ignoring the methods to reach those goals. Which, of course, can lead to all kinds of ethically and morally dangerous policies.
Additionally placing interests over principles leads you to inventing reasons why people believe and behave they way they do. For example:
"We can speculate (and, yes, generalize) about Asians’ desire to please the elite, single-minded focus on self-advancement, conformity and obsequiousness, lack of deep post-Enlightenment conviction, timidity toward centralized authority (however unreasoned), indifference to liberty, lack of thoughtful and audacious individualism, and excessive tolerance for bossy, mindless social engineering, etc."
If, instead of looking at interests, you look at the principles people hold dear you do not have to guess or invent reasons why people think of behave in certain ways because they will *tell you*.
I suspect that the principle that Asians support that so confuses Amy is one of fairness. This is another area where a lot of discussion and understanding needs to take place before you can fully understand what drives people. The reasons is that while pretty much everyone agrees that fairness is a desirable goal, the definition of fair actually means differs greatly. For example, a rather simple question: You have 3 poker buddies ordering a pizza for their weekly poker game. The pizza costs $12 and has 12 slices. Poker player Bob is rich, John is middle class and Tom is poor. Due to this, Bob pays $6, John $4 and Tom $2. When the pizza shows up, how do you divide it?
Does Bob take 6 slices, John 4 and Tom 2? That is fair as it is what each contributed when buying the pizza. Or do you divide it so each play gets 4 slices? That could also be considered fair.
When discussing these issues every one talks about fairness but most of the time liberals define fairness differently than conservatives. Liberals tend toward dividing equally while conservatives tend towards dividing by contribution. We see this definitional confusion all the time. The discussions of welfare, taxes, medical care, etc all hinge on fairness but everyone's definition differs. This causes the conversations around these issues to degrade into moral shouting matches where each side, working from their own definition of fair, accuses the other of being evil/hateful/unpatriotic/whatever because they are talking past each other.
I happen to agree that the Democratic Party is a pernicious influence today. And the reason I believe the Democratic Party is going off course is that they are working from a definition of fairness that isn't workable in the real world. The way to counter that is to actually understand why they believe what they do and argue about that viewpoint. In other words, we need to discuss principles instead of interests.
I personally think she's mistaken in her reasoning, which amounts to making a non-extreme political orientation a criteria for immigration. But: I donated to her legal defense fund. Nothing about this controversy is reason to stop her from teaching.
Central to Amy's thesis is whether Asian immigrants (and in other contexts she's claimed non-white immigrants) disproportionally vote for Democrats. I pulled the 2020 Cooperative Election Study data (https://cces.gov.harvard.edu) and looked countries that had more than 30 dual-citizen respondents. (This isn't a perfect proxy for "country of origin" and some countries are not listed, but it's the best option for the available data). Here are the results by ratio of Republicans to Democrats:
Cuba: 1.22
Philipines: 1
Columbia: 0.6
Canada: 0.56
Venezuela: 0.5
Ireland: 0.48
UK: 0.46
India: 0.44
Mexico: 0.35
France: 0.35
Nigeria: 0.27
Germany: 0.24
Dominican Republic: 0.23
Jamacia: 0.05
It shows a few things:
-Asian/Non-Asian or White/Non-white are not good predictors of party support. One of the only two immigrant groups that aren't disproportionally Democrats is Asian, while the 5th and 3rd least Republican immigrants are from "white" countries.
-The clearest trend is that Black immigrants are more likely to be Democrats.
-Immigrants in general are predisposed to the Democratic party.
It shouldn't be terribly surprising that West European immigrants support Democrats, just look at the social policies and tax rates. White *people* in the US vote Republican, but white *immigrants* do not appear to do so. This kicks the question back to immigration in general, or at least whether you should allow non-Cuban/Filipinos in, not Asians or non-whites.
This is the clear pitfall of group identitarianism, it mushes together disparate factors (Asian vs Filipino vs Indian, immigrant vs. non-immigrant white) to create a narrative, but falls apart after even the most basic fact checking (you can check my work within ~20 minutes).
Critical and vital debate here - love to read and learn in this space
I wrote an article I am proud of and would love your wise and considered interpretations good human 😊
https://tumbleweedwords.substack.com/p/is-the-celebration-of-overweight?s=w
Amy is just another white supremacist disguised as intellectual using the cover of free speech to cause social chaos between the non whites.
Being from the same group that the prof supposedly targeted, I wholeheartedly agree with her comments. If you ever hang around the Indian circles, you'll find yourself in the midst of passive aggressive, blatantly narcisstic people, who ironically are more ethnocentric , fierce defenders of language barriers, while lecturing the world about their cultural heritage and bashing western culture. And these are the same folks who were welcomed with open arms by this great country and provided all the amenities. Indians are the worst in terms of showing compassion to fellow citizens in their own country. All they care about is marrying within their caste, keep their money within their castes while doing nothing philanthrophic or uplifiting to their own citizens. Prof is not too far off in her assessment.!
I just discovered this dialogue and have to admit that I am taken aback by Ms Wax’s quite apparent anti-Asian beliefs, no matter how artfully articulated. I’ll have to listen to the interview to get more detail, but her response to Mr. Lee is woeful, nativist and straight out of 19th century racist jingoism. I wonder how she feels about Latinos, if she is against Asian immigration, for which even Republicans of the more radical sort still seem to support. I hesitate to even consider immigrants for “shithole” countries, as what could they possibly contribute to the American fabric? Really, she’s not a person I’d want to have a drink with just based on this interview and exchange with Mr Lee.
As horrible as the status quo where you have a class of vapid People of Color who we are required to kneel before and kiss their ring while they spout their nonsense, combined with midwit PMC Wokester enforcers spouting empty slogans and calling people rashist as they fantasize about the anti-racist eschaton, the only thing worse could be a coup composed of these Daughters of the American Revolution types and fat boomers in tricorn hats trying to recreate their Anglo-Protestant City-On-the-Hill with all the intolerance and puritanism of a typical Anabaptist sect. My only hope would be to emigrate to Mexico before the white nationalist clown brigade closed the borders and decided to bring back polygamy to restore the white race.
ICMYI, her real gripe is with South Asian WOMEN who are really visible in some progressive movements. Not just any Asian, but brown (didn't Jews used to be 'brown' a generation ago?) women. Hmm, something fishy going on 🤔. Calling Dr. Freud.
Democrats do not love open borders. Almost all of our immigration restriction were leftist bribes to shore up their labor union base. If the Latino vote has moved...towards the center, and I think the insane regressive nature of COVID restrictions, lockdowns and mandates cemented that, watch the left build an insanely expensive wall and try to buy border votes that way. Feeling cynical? You bet.
Her argument is too simplistic, to put it simply.
What nth-gen Asian immigrants vote for probably has zero correlation with their Asian background, but more to do with their education, social economic status, and etc.
I want to immigrate to the US, and I’m Chinese, so I do have a conflict of interest.
If you are disappointed about a particular demographic’s voting pattern, why not try doing outreach harder?
Most 1st-gen immigrants love the country, deeply, and probably vote R more than D.
Why would you blame the current system’s failure to address the poor segment of the existing population on immigrants? It feels like impulsive scape-goating.
- M. Chen
I am shocked to learn that Professor Wax seems to know so little of our immigration history. The core or legacy population in the u.s. is Western Europeans. Jews from Eastern Europe like Wax is not part of the core “legacy”. Does Professor Wax really want to go back to her Eastern European root so as to restore the u.s. to its core legacy population?
George Lee expresses concern about "America's basic value" and yet he repudiates America's basic value, the principle of individual rights, the right of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as he declares that "America has the absolute and unconditional right to keep anyone out, with or without stated reason" and states that "immigration is not an entitlement."
Mr. Lee is correct in stating that immigration is not an entitlement, because immigration is a right. But by repudiating the right of immigration, as he does, he is repudiating the fundamental value of America as it was founded.
"Those talking about keeping our sovereignty, enforcing our borders, seem to mean that our government should use initiated force to obstruct or block the movement of people who seek to work here, do business here, and live in peace here.
"The appeal to “sovereignty” as a justification for initiating force against peaceful individuals is illogical, and unjust. It reflects a wholly un-American attitude: the collectivist view that “we” or our government own the country, and get to decide who may come here and who may not. And the “us vs. them” approach represents the lowest form of collectivism: tribalism."
"What is National Sovereignty?" (2018) by Harry Binswanger:
https://www.hbletter.com/what-is-national-sovereignty/
This part-time teacher of 2 elective classes invokes Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, and you still thought it was worth giving her a platform? What a joke. How many times do you need to be taught something before it sticks, Glenn?
There is this kneejerk reaction amongst some Asian Americans in this substack to not be offended almost as a signal of objectivity or strength. To that I ask what then should be offensive? Amy Wax states that an entire group of people should be excluded from American society on the basis of their overall voting trends because said voting trends indicate that this group does not cherish American values. Make no mistake she means Asians who are American citizens because we are talking about voting here. In doing so she spits on the legacy of war heroes, builders, activists, scientists, businessmen, and ordinary upstanding citizens that have made their mark on this country. Her entire argument is centered on the invocation of a legacy of which she believes she is a part...and she says Asians are not. If that's not offensive to you then maybe she is right in her criticisms.