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I agree with everything you’ve said here, but I still feel like you’re not answering OP’s question in the spirit it was intended: could we have all those nice things without ~everyone spending needlessly excessive hours in the office?
In theory, I think the answer is yes. But as the great Yogi Berra once (apocryphally) said, in theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice—in practice, there is.
Hmm, let me give it another go: I think parts of the United States do have those things. From what I can tell, those places typically have older and wealthier populations that have lived there for a long time and that have a sort of set culture. Larger American cities aren't so much that way (in fact they are often celebrated at not being that way!) Even where I am (American Southwest) the restaurants don't have security guards [that I've noticed] and you can get great service (although it's a little hit or miss) even in the poorer/more rural places.
Japan is an aging culture, I don't think it's surprising that it's more considerate even all things being equal (which they aren't, Japan was already a culture known for having a code of polite behavior and America has always been known as being a straightforward place, except for the South.) I think (although I could be wrong) that cultural churn is destructive to polite mores. You can see how America, and particularly American cities, are full of cultural churn:
I think a large part of politeness is having to live with the consequences of your actions. Even in a large city, one without a lot of "churn" and upwards mobility means that neighbors know each other and live next to each other for years or decades. But America is wealthy, and people are always moving in, moving out, and mostly moving up and away, and so there's not as much incentive to be civil or polite or not to litter. (Although maybe stuff like that is literally just a question of whether or not you catch and punish the X% of the population that litters, I dunno.)
There's the saying that everyone in America is a temporary embarrassed millionaire, and I think that attitude makes more millionaires, and fewer polite waiters and careful ramen chefs. In other words, it's hard for a constantly moving culture to settle around a distinct set of mores. (But I've never been to Japan, so I'm on thin ice making comparisons.)
I'll assume "simply eliminating blacks" is purely hypothetical and not an expression of desire, but combined with "the malign influence of their degenerate culture" it's pretty clear you just want to sneer at a race you dislike. You are free to argue against the Civil Rights Act, but do so without waging the culture war.
You’re right, this was unbecoming of me. Next time I’ll think twice before drunkposting on a Saturday night
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Setting aside the ethical problems of "simply eliminating blacks" I have a few thoughts on this:
Firstly, I don't live in a town with a lot of people of that persuasion and I still had to pick trash off of my lawn this morning, presumably because someone somewhere (probably not a black person!) littered and it blew its way over to me. On the flip side, if you go to certain places, particularly in the Deep American South, you'll find a lot of black people who, as far as I can tell, care a lot about civility and dignity. (You can also find plenty of things to complain about if you're so inclined).
Secondly, about 15 years ago, I went to Rome (the one in Italy) and was not super impressed by the sorts of QOL OP was discussing - there was a lot of smoking and, IIRC, a fair amount of graffiti, although it's been a while. (It also just seemed civilizationally dead but that's another story). Now, something else I noticed in Rome is that Italians are not black (unless you're going with the original Ben Franklin idea of black wherein anyone who isn't a German, Briton or Swede is at least a bit swarthy).
In short: no, I don't think black people are the malignant heart of all problems with civic society.
Italians are not black (but can I enter an Alford plea on "swarthy"?), but Franklin found that they, along with also the Germans (except Saxons) and Swedes were also swarthy. As well as the Russians and French. Perhaps a problem with his "double spectacles"?
If you read the literature of the time, it is striking how even people from the next county over could be considered "dark," "swarthy" and "foreign." Hence the whole discourse about Heathcliff in the latest version of Wuthering Heights (Brontë describes him as "dark" IIRC, the implication being that he's probably a Gypsy, but somehow the new woke interpretation is that he was a Person of Color and Mr. Earnshaw found a little black boy on the streets of London).
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Aha, I must have misremembered the Swedes. But yes his diagnostics are comical by the standards of today's discourse, although I think it makes some sense (basically white people are Anglo-Saxons and close kin). I really wish we had his final verdict on the Irish (who are, as I understand it, the literal palest people in the world).
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