We must recognize fundamental truths: namely, that a high surplus of labor drives down wages. The United States has tremendous fiscal debt, declining "real-incomes", and slow growth. Not to mention, it is in the process of losing its reserve currency status. It simply cannot accomodate more surplus labor. Moreover, "shared values" create stability and unity. The American conception was predicated upon enlightenment principles, indeed, the very conception of governance expressed in the federalist papers could be considered the apex of enlightenment thinking; that is, individualism, natural rights, universality, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of self expression, a non coercive and decentralized state, etc. Slower rates of immigration ensures some degree of cultural homogeneity and a shared value system.
Current U.S. population growth is almost wholly driven by immigration, and it is ecologically untenable. We need to reduce legal immigration to levels that will not contribute to population growth in the U.S., and illegal immigration must not be tolerated.
The mythology about immigration abounds even as it is killing the state and country.
In California, the promised land for many immigrants legal and illegal, there is not enough water for those here; not enough housing for those here; not enough transport access for those here. The hills are ablaze with forest fires because we added yet more dwellings there.
Cities are being forced to build to accommodate still more people
Every new person added to the mix reduces the quality of life for citizens.
Recognition of limits is the sign of a maturity; unfortunately only children are running the country.
I am going to keep challenging you brother. I agree that we need to know who enters the country, BUT I believe both political parties are using the immigration crisis as a political weapon. That is why we are not making any attempts to pass legislation on the immigration issue. Not to mention no administration has made it a priority to establish a working group to assess the failed states in Central and South America and possibly address the root causes for the migration.
Another concern I have is the motivation to secure the board is just a ploy to militarize our boarders at the enrichment of the military industrial complex. I don’t think its that absurd to imagine an ever expanding national border defense project sucking TRILLIONS of tax dollars as our infrastructure and schools crumble. Especially not that we have left Afghanistan and Iraq.
I find it curious though that approval for Ukrainian and Syrian refugees was expedited but not so much for Haitian refugees?
Immigration must first and foremost benefit the host country. Period. Full stop. It does not exist for the benefit of the immigrant or the immigrant's home nation. The mass importation of low-skilled, poorly-educated people who have no desire to assimilate into American culture is not a net benefit for the rest of us. And that has nothing to do with skin color. I know that's true because there is little pushback about well-educated Indians and other Asian coming here to work in professional roles.
The argument that some immigrants are needed to "do jobs that Americans won't" fails this simple logic test: how did those jobs get done beforehand? By citizens, that's who. Usually lower-skilled citizens and often students learning the basic of work. The massive influx of often undocumented immigrants has shut out those two native groups, not because they will not do the work, but because they will not do the work for the sub-minimum wages that one can pay to illegals. After all, who is the non-citizen going to complain to?
A nation without borders is not a nation; it's more a theme park and it bodes poorly for societal stability. When the default response is "racism," it is coming from non-serious people. Most of us are the children of immigrants and we come in a variety of hues. It is the type of weak argument that comes from people who cite the virtues of multi-culturalism and then accuse others of cultural appropriation. What? Appropriation is a feature of a multi-culti society, not a bug. It is the natural outgrowth of people from multiple heritages melding into one nation. If you're offended by two white women running a taco truck, then principle demands that you be offended by any non-white boarding an airplane, which would be ridiculous yet here we are.
If we do not control the border, then it will control us. There is no inherent right that gives everyone who wants it entry into the US. What is strikingly ironic is how the very people whose new talking point is "replacement theory" are the ones who advocate the wholesale importation of other peoples and gleefully talk of America becoming a majority-minority country. Excuse me, but that sounds very much like replacement. Glenn is absolutely right on this point - anyone whose lineage is traceable to the Atlantic slave trade is as American as the descendants of those who stepped off the Mayflower and as American as the progeny of the great immigration waves. But someone's whose introduction to these land is based on breaking a law is not a sympathetic character, no matter where his/her origins lie.
I often find the problem with this discussion is the assumption of racism I have to fight. In the mainstream I feel like there is too much reading between the lines.
White person says: Cultural differences
Dogwhistle meaning: Cultural inferiority because of their brown skin
White person says: Composition
Dogwhistle meaning: Too much brown skin in the mix
White person says: I am an American and this is my country
Dogwhistle meaning: This is white peoples country and we don’t want anymore brown skin
If I (a white male) want my objections to illegal immigration taken at face value, I have to first recite the preamble of white guilt. So when someone tells me a white media figure is “dog whistling” I am immediately suspect of the accusation.
I live in an area where Chinese investment has gone through the roof in recent years. There is a town that used to be mostly white, but is now 90% Chinese. The town has completely changed. All of the shops are geared toward Chinese tastes and the signs are largely in Mandarin (with smaller English subtitles). I do not feel any hostility toward Chinese people. As a matter of fact, I seem to make friends more easily among 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese Americans than most white Americans in my area. I can’t even say why that is. I would say the crime level has gone down (except for property crime due to the wealth of the population and their propensity to be gone for months at a time). I do not miss the whiteness of the town, but I do miss the Americanness. Is that racist? Americanness is not rigid, it is ever changing and largely influenced by other cultures. I love that. The Americanness I enjoy would not be the same without some Chinese influence and I would feel the same sense of loss without it. But if 20 million Chinese people wanted to move to California would I be wrong to worry about the pace of change? I took a trip to Nantucket once and began to feel a longing to return home because the place was too homogeneously white, with an east coast, old money, feel. I am used to quite a mix being from Southern California so I just didn’t feel at home. If 20 million, white, old money, Nantucketers were moving to my area I would worry about the pace of change also. And they are American citizens. Wanting to live in a place where you are comfortable is not always racist.
The best part of this exchange is when John McWhorter simply, succinctly asked, "What do you mean by 'composition'?" Inside that one word lies the entirety of the debate -- who gets to decide, what factors are used, what's the goal? I'm not seeing many answers here. Just a lot of clichés, outrage, misconceptions, etc. (The comments, sheesh.) I very much respect GL's attempt to lower the heat to shed more light on this debate. Not sure this exchange advanced his cause much. But I'll keep returning to his posts to see if that changes. Thanks.
Time is a valuable resource and it's squandered by poor administration of existing law. I once had a lebanese student on a visa set to expire upon graduation. He was accepted into med school and reported to immigration for an extension of his visa. He was told that when his application came to the top of the pile it would be processed, but when that would happen could not be guaranteed and until that happened he could be deported at any time.
As Will Rogers once said, it's a good thing we don't get all the government we're paying for.
Again a great podcast. Since i don 't follow the news in the US that close( live in the Netherlands/Europe); was there not a mass shooting perpetrated by a guy who strongly supported BLM rhetoric ? A suggestion, have Tucker in the show, love to see him questioned by Glenn and John
"was there not a mass shooting perpetrated by a guy who strongly supported BLM rhetoric"
No. What is the BLM "rhetoric"? According to the BLM website (https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/): "was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer." That About page presents their reason for being.
Controlled, selective and merit based (and appropriately limited) immigration policy by NO MEANS has to be based on race but it MUST be in place, we must decide an immigration policy that is good for our country and we have problems of our own, we can't take everyone else's in the world - or, in some, exceptional cases we can decide we can take on another country's problem or refugee crisis but, in general, the solution to every other country's problem can't be to relocate their population to the U.S.. It would obviouslly strain the availability of jobs and resources for U.S. citizens and legal residents and ruin our economy (which may be good for the national and global power elites - like, as Bernie told us in 2016, the Koch brothers, who are the driving force behind the open borders policy, even in the Trump Administration, with the Koch's lackeys in his Cabinet, whom Trump had to constantly fight against, like he had to against lackeys of Wall Street and the military industrial complex - but not for common Americans) and is the reason for immigration laws in the first place.
What we must do do, however, is not CAUSE migrant and refugee crisis with imperial foreign policy, like NAFTA, that Trump renegotiated at the same time he built the southern border wall (not unlike Hillary's giant fence or "border barrier" she promised to build in her 2008 campaign - but she would NOT likely have renegotiated NAFTA, essential to her "great replacement" of American workers), or the Honduran coup, that American corporations engineered and Secretary of State Hillary recognized the resultant government of.
A very simple solution to the problem would be to enforce immigration law (that has been willfully, intentionally unenforced, at the behest of big business, for many decades now, to effect the great replacement of American workers, divide the working classes, undermine the U.S labor movement and lower everybody's wages), a sincere promise Trump ran and was elected on. It's always academic and other elites, who are unimpacted by abrrogation of immigration law or benefit from it by getting lower wage help themselves than American citizen or legal resident workers would provide, who want open borders and never the U.S. citizen or legal worker (who votes for Trump and who wants immigration law enforced).
The "great replacement" of Carlson is not to do with race but with presumed political affiliation (although that seems to be holding up less as Democrats lose the Hispanic vote - although they also lose EVERYONE'S vote in this cycle and the border issue is largely driving the Hispanic flight from the Democratic Party as legal resident and particularly U.S. citizen Hispanics from Mexico and Central America are AGAINST illegal immigration and open borders) in expectation migrants from Mexico and Central America will vote Democrat. Seems plausible as the southern border is willfully left open and unguarded while Cuban refugees of the most recent wave to the U.S., who presumably would vote Republican and who ACTUALLY qualify for asylum, were illegally sent BACK to the despotism they escaped.
Biden did appear to some to be relying on the open southern border to alleviate the recent labor shortage and PREVENT, rather than encourage, a rise of wages.
I listened to this earlier in the week. John’s comments about right-wing shooters being stoked by racist sentiments espoused by Carlson et al., and the media’s glee over the Buffalo shooter fitting this profile, are upended by the shooting tonight in Texas.
Will the 18-year-old who shot up a bunch of nine and 10-year-olds who share his ethnicity be portrayed as a run-of-the-mill mentally ill young man, or someone who has been radicalized by hateful ideology? I think we know the answer to this.
What's with this "swarthy hordes" stuff? Did Carlson actually use that phrase? John says when you hear Carlson discuss the border, you can't help but think he's damning the "swarthy hordes"? Really? John earlier said 9 out of 10 Fox viewers hearing Carlson would become riled up against said "swarthy hordes"? However, my experience is that the vast majority of "build that wall!" people are fine with LEGAL immigration. If you doubt my word, you can get a good sampling of the public's view on the matter by watching C-Span's daily national call-in program. Also, Dr. Loury is right to suggest our "asylum" laws are being abused.
As far as vetting the people coming in, we might simply follow the practices around the word. I've looked into moving to other nations over the years. (No, never over an election outcome. In fact, the people making those kind of ultimatums -- the ones who never move -- are the kind I'd like to get away from.) What I discovered is that it is HARD as hell to get into other countries. If a country has a shortage of carpenters, say, you have a chance to get in if you are a skilled carpenter AND young. Otherwise, they don't want you. It's all about importing skilled, young workers who can fill shortages.
Look, our immigration laws have been on the books for decades. It's asinine to tar the people who want our laws enforced with taunts of "You're racist!" Citizens like having rules and laws. We don't want men competing in women's swimming meets. We don't want "new breed" DAs prioritizing violent criminals over public safety. And we don't want illegals flooding our borders. Enforce our laws -- or change them!
One other thing... We had a massive amnesty bill during the Reagan years. The promise was that the amnesty would be a one-time matter, and that the border would be locked down afterward. Reality: the amnesty led to even more illegal immigration.
IMHO you make some important points. What other countries have open borders and do not enforce any immigration standards? Was Barbara Jordan a racist for proposing immigration standards that sought to protect the livelihoods of Americans who were just starting their climb up the economic ladder? Why is it OK for Canada to have strict immigration requirements, which change as their economic needs change, but not the US? And someone please tell us where the "swarthy hordes" language comes from; I haven't heard anyone except smug liberals use it.
I would be interested in your views on “replacement theory.” I don’t see how breaking American law, probably at least three times, helps underserved inheritors of our values and traditions.
We must recognize fundamental truths: namely, that a high surplus of labor drives down wages. The United States has tremendous fiscal debt, declining "real-incomes", and slow growth. Not to mention, it is in the process of losing its reserve currency status. It simply cannot accomodate more surplus labor. Moreover, "shared values" create stability and unity. The American conception was predicated upon enlightenment principles, indeed, the very conception of governance expressed in the federalist papers could be considered the apex of enlightenment thinking; that is, individualism, natural rights, universality, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of self expression, a non coercive and decentralized state, etc. Slower rates of immigration ensures some degree of cultural homogeneity and a shared value system.
Current U.S. population growth is almost wholly driven by immigration, and it is ecologically untenable. We need to reduce legal immigration to levels that will not contribute to population growth in the U.S., and illegal immigration must not be tolerated.
We don't have open borders though.
The mythology about immigration abounds even as it is killing the state and country.
In California, the promised land for many immigrants legal and illegal, there is not enough water for those here; not enough housing for those here; not enough transport access for those here. The hills are ablaze with forest fires because we added yet more dwellings there.
Cities are being forced to build to accommodate still more people
Every new person added to the mix reduces the quality of life for citizens.
Recognition of limits is the sign of a maturity; unfortunately only children are running the country.
I am going to keep challenging you brother. I agree that we need to know who enters the country, BUT I believe both political parties are using the immigration crisis as a political weapon. That is why we are not making any attempts to pass legislation on the immigration issue. Not to mention no administration has made it a priority to establish a working group to assess the failed states in Central and South America and possibly address the root causes for the migration.
Another concern I have is the motivation to secure the board is just a ploy to militarize our boarders at the enrichment of the military industrial complex. I don’t think its that absurd to imagine an ever expanding national border defense project sucking TRILLIONS of tax dollars as our infrastructure and schools crumble. Especially not that we have left Afghanistan and Iraq.
I find it curious though that approval for Ukrainian and Syrian refugees was expedited but not so much for Haitian refugees?
Immigration must first and foremost benefit the host country. Period. Full stop. It does not exist for the benefit of the immigrant or the immigrant's home nation. The mass importation of low-skilled, poorly-educated people who have no desire to assimilate into American culture is not a net benefit for the rest of us. And that has nothing to do with skin color. I know that's true because there is little pushback about well-educated Indians and other Asian coming here to work in professional roles.
The argument that some immigrants are needed to "do jobs that Americans won't" fails this simple logic test: how did those jobs get done beforehand? By citizens, that's who. Usually lower-skilled citizens and often students learning the basic of work. The massive influx of often undocumented immigrants has shut out those two native groups, not because they will not do the work, but because they will not do the work for the sub-minimum wages that one can pay to illegals. After all, who is the non-citizen going to complain to?
A nation without borders is not a nation; it's more a theme park and it bodes poorly for societal stability. When the default response is "racism," it is coming from non-serious people. Most of us are the children of immigrants and we come in a variety of hues. It is the type of weak argument that comes from people who cite the virtues of multi-culturalism and then accuse others of cultural appropriation. What? Appropriation is a feature of a multi-culti society, not a bug. It is the natural outgrowth of people from multiple heritages melding into one nation. If you're offended by two white women running a taco truck, then principle demands that you be offended by any non-white boarding an airplane, which would be ridiculous yet here we are.
If we do not control the border, then it will control us. There is no inherent right that gives everyone who wants it entry into the US. What is strikingly ironic is how the very people whose new talking point is "replacement theory" are the ones who advocate the wholesale importation of other peoples and gleefully talk of America becoming a majority-minority country. Excuse me, but that sounds very much like replacement. Glenn is absolutely right on this point - anyone whose lineage is traceable to the Atlantic slave trade is as American as the descendants of those who stepped off the Mayflower and as American as the progeny of the great immigration waves. But someone's whose introduction to these land is based on breaking a law is not a sympathetic character, no matter where his/her origins lie.
Interesting - thanks
I often find the problem with this discussion is the assumption of racism I have to fight. In the mainstream I feel like there is too much reading between the lines.
White person says: Cultural differences
Dogwhistle meaning: Cultural inferiority because of their brown skin
White person says: Composition
Dogwhistle meaning: Too much brown skin in the mix
White person says: I am an American and this is my country
Dogwhistle meaning: This is white peoples country and we don’t want anymore brown skin
If I (a white male) want my objections to illegal immigration taken at face value, I have to first recite the preamble of white guilt. So when someone tells me a white media figure is “dog whistling” I am immediately suspect of the accusation.
I live in an area where Chinese investment has gone through the roof in recent years. There is a town that used to be mostly white, but is now 90% Chinese. The town has completely changed. All of the shops are geared toward Chinese tastes and the signs are largely in Mandarin (with smaller English subtitles). I do not feel any hostility toward Chinese people. As a matter of fact, I seem to make friends more easily among 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese Americans than most white Americans in my area. I can’t even say why that is. I would say the crime level has gone down (except for property crime due to the wealth of the population and their propensity to be gone for months at a time). I do not miss the whiteness of the town, but I do miss the Americanness. Is that racist? Americanness is not rigid, it is ever changing and largely influenced by other cultures. I love that. The Americanness I enjoy would not be the same without some Chinese influence and I would feel the same sense of loss without it. But if 20 million Chinese people wanted to move to California would I be wrong to worry about the pace of change? I took a trip to Nantucket once and began to feel a longing to return home because the place was too homogeneously white, with an east coast, old money, feel. I am used to quite a mix being from Southern California so I just didn’t feel at home. If 20 million, white, old money, Nantucketers were moving to my area I would worry about the pace of change also. And they are American citizens. Wanting to live in a place where you are comfortable is not always racist.
The best part of this exchange is when John McWhorter simply, succinctly asked, "What do you mean by 'composition'?" Inside that one word lies the entirety of the debate -- who gets to decide, what factors are used, what's the goal? I'm not seeing many answers here. Just a lot of clichés, outrage, misconceptions, etc. (The comments, sheesh.) I very much respect GL's attempt to lower the heat to shed more light on this debate. Not sure this exchange advanced his cause much. But I'll keep returning to his posts to see if that changes. Thanks.
"Who, whom?" (V.I. Lenin, 1921)
Time is a valuable resource and it's squandered by poor administration of existing law. I once had a lebanese student on a visa set to expire upon graduation. He was accepted into med school and reported to immigration for an extension of his visa. He was told that when his application came to the top of the pile it would be processed, but when that would happen could not be guaranteed and until that happened he could be deported at any time.
As Will Rogers once said, it's a good thing we don't get all the government we're paying for.
Issue is first civics lesson is from immigration advocate that teaches them to lie to government officials to claim asylum status.
Again a great podcast. Since i don 't follow the news in the US that close( live in the Netherlands/Europe); was there not a mass shooting perpetrated by a guy who strongly supported BLM rhetoric ? A suggestion, have Tucker in the show, love to see him questioned by Glenn and John
"was there not a mass shooting perpetrated by a guy who strongly supported BLM rhetoric"
No. What is the BLM "rhetoric"? According to the BLM website (https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/): "was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer." That About page presents their reason for being.
Controlled, selective and merit based (and appropriately limited) immigration policy by NO MEANS has to be based on race but it MUST be in place, we must decide an immigration policy that is good for our country and we have problems of our own, we can't take everyone else's in the world - or, in some, exceptional cases we can decide we can take on another country's problem or refugee crisis but, in general, the solution to every other country's problem can't be to relocate their population to the U.S.. It would obviouslly strain the availability of jobs and resources for U.S. citizens and legal residents and ruin our economy (which may be good for the national and global power elites - like, as Bernie told us in 2016, the Koch brothers, who are the driving force behind the open borders policy, even in the Trump Administration, with the Koch's lackeys in his Cabinet, whom Trump had to constantly fight against, like he had to against lackeys of Wall Street and the military industrial complex - but not for common Americans) and is the reason for immigration laws in the first place.
What we must do do, however, is not CAUSE migrant and refugee crisis with imperial foreign policy, like NAFTA, that Trump renegotiated at the same time he built the southern border wall (not unlike Hillary's giant fence or "border barrier" she promised to build in her 2008 campaign - but she would NOT likely have renegotiated NAFTA, essential to her "great replacement" of American workers), or the Honduran coup, that American corporations engineered and Secretary of State Hillary recognized the resultant government of.
A very simple solution to the problem would be to enforce immigration law (that has been willfully, intentionally unenforced, at the behest of big business, for many decades now, to effect the great replacement of American workers, divide the working classes, undermine the U.S labor movement and lower everybody's wages), a sincere promise Trump ran and was elected on. It's always academic and other elites, who are unimpacted by abrrogation of immigration law or benefit from it by getting lower wage help themselves than American citizen or legal resident workers would provide, who want open borders and never the U.S. citizen or legal worker (who votes for Trump and who wants immigration law enforced).
The "great replacement" of Carlson is not to do with race but with presumed political affiliation (although that seems to be holding up less as Democrats lose the Hispanic vote - although they also lose EVERYONE'S vote in this cycle and the border issue is largely driving the Hispanic flight from the Democratic Party as legal resident and particularly U.S. citizen Hispanics from Mexico and Central America are AGAINST illegal immigration and open borders) in expectation migrants from Mexico and Central America will vote Democrat. Seems plausible as the southern border is willfully left open and unguarded while Cuban refugees of the most recent wave to the U.S., who presumably would vote Republican and who ACTUALLY qualify for asylum, were illegally sent BACK to the despotism they escaped.
Biden did appear to some to be relying on the open southern border to alleviate the recent labor shortage and PREVENT, rather than encourage, a rise of wages.
I listened to this earlier in the week. John’s comments about right-wing shooters being stoked by racist sentiments espoused by Carlson et al., and the media’s glee over the Buffalo shooter fitting this profile, are upended by the shooting tonight in Texas.
Will the 18-year-old who shot up a bunch of nine and 10-year-olds who share his ethnicity be portrayed as a run-of-the-mill mentally ill young man, or someone who has been radicalized by hateful ideology? I think we know the answer to this.
What's with this "swarthy hordes" stuff? Did Carlson actually use that phrase? John says when you hear Carlson discuss the border, you can't help but think he's damning the "swarthy hordes"? Really? John earlier said 9 out of 10 Fox viewers hearing Carlson would become riled up against said "swarthy hordes"? However, my experience is that the vast majority of "build that wall!" people are fine with LEGAL immigration. If you doubt my word, you can get a good sampling of the public's view on the matter by watching C-Span's daily national call-in program. Also, Dr. Loury is right to suggest our "asylum" laws are being abused.
As far as vetting the people coming in, we might simply follow the practices around the word. I've looked into moving to other nations over the years. (No, never over an election outcome. In fact, the people making those kind of ultimatums -- the ones who never move -- are the kind I'd like to get away from.) What I discovered is that it is HARD as hell to get into other countries. If a country has a shortage of carpenters, say, you have a chance to get in if you are a skilled carpenter AND young. Otherwise, they don't want you. It's all about importing skilled, young workers who can fill shortages.
Look, our immigration laws have been on the books for decades. It's asinine to tar the people who want our laws enforced with taunts of "You're racist!" Citizens like having rules and laws. We don't want men competing in women's swimming meets. We don't want "new breed" DAs prioritizing violent criminals over public safety. And we don't want illegals flooding our borders. Enforce our laws -- or change them!
One other thing... We had a massive amnesty bill during the Reagan years. The promise was that the amnesty would be a one-time matter, and that the border would be locked down afterward. Reality: the amnesty led to even more illegal immigration.
IMHO you make some important points. What other countries have open borders and do not enforce any immigration standards? Was Barbara Jordan a racist for proposing immigration standards that sought to protect the livelihoods of Americans who were just starting their climb up the economic ladder? Why is it OK for Canada to have strict immigration requirements, which change as their economic needs change, but not the US? And someone please tell us where the "swarthy hordes" language comes from; I haven't heard anyone except smug liberals use it.
I would be interested in your views on “replacement theory.” I don’t see how breaking American law, probably at least three times, helps underserved inheritors of our values and traditions.