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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 23, 2024

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Even though the Germans were assimilated into the US quite readily

We really need to do away with this retcon. German Americans were a distinct ethnic group for over a hundred years. Asian and Hispanic Americans have assimilated at a much faster rate. I've met third generation Mexican Americans who have no clue where in the hell their grandparents are from.

This seems ridiculous to me. I was in high school with 3rd gen Mexican immigrants. They dealt drugs to send to people in Mexico still. The only team sport they even considered participating in was soccer. And they didn't even do that because they would fail classes.

Presumably, the ones who were still a "distinct ethnic group" in 1900 were not the ones that came over in 1800, but the ones that came over in 1890.

I think this is an important point.

The reason we have problems today is the same reason we had problems in 1910. The rate of immigration is just too damn high. Many pro-immigration people don't realize that U.S. immigration was not always high. Immigration was reduced to very low levels from roughly 1925-1965. The foreign born population fell from 15% to 5% during this period and all those hyphenated Americans became unhyphenated ones. Today the official % of immigrants is 15%, but the real number is likely more like 20%, marking a never before seen high water mark. We need to consolidate for a few decades. And it's going to take a lot longer to assimilate Somalians than it did Germans. Sorry, that's just the reality. Culture distance matters.

Note we needn't eliminate all immigration. Merely making our process less retarded will solve most of the issues.