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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   35149 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Just to raise the obvious point, the UK's descent into decline pretty well matches our increase in immigration. Tony Blair's Labour and then the Conservatives made exactly the same argument as you and the effect has been catastrophic.

Now, you might be saying that you can just take the top percentile, but you don't know what will happen when all those millions and millions of foreigners you're welcoming decide they prefer the company of their countrymen and co-religionists to that of Americans, and vote accordingly. Do you think that a 40% muslim country is going to respect your liberal views?

I don't think the US would be in a position to have that many muslims, the world is a big place and most of the people in it aren't muslim.

I do dislike abrahamic religions that try to dominate politics so I see the rationale for being concerned about becoming eventually dominated by followers of one. However, that doesn't mean I want to close all immigration. Immigration policies can be tailored to who you do want to let in. It's not all or nothing.

And I think Europe has different problems regarding immigration than the US does, being right next to the middle east and in former colonial relationships with other muslim countries.

Immigration policies can be tailored to who you do want to let in. It's not all or nothing.

From my perspective, the mistake you're making is thinking that there is a continuous 'you' that makes decisions. Immigration is like steroids or heroin, it changes the decision-maker in ways that make their future decisions unforeseeable. It's also a ratchet, because once immigrants get citizenship and start having children you can't reverse the invitation.

In the UK we passed through about 70 years of post-war immigration policy, and the reasons given for doing it changed as they became obviously untenable:

  1. They're just here for a few years to make money and then they'll go home and live like kings
  2. Okay, they're staying, but there's only a few of them and anyway, they're all Commonwealth citizens, they look up to us, they're culturally British
  3. Okay, there's quite a lot of them now, and they all vote as a bloc for pro-immigration parties, but we need immigration for economic reasons and they're grateful to be here so it's basically fine
  4. Okay, they aren't integrated and are loudly hateful of Britain and British people, but maybe we deserve to be criticised! It's good for us! And besides, our economy will collapse without them.
  5. Huge numbers of low-wage immigrants are being brought in, at a significant net loss to the public purse. We have open ethnic warfare on the streets and ethnic political parties. The proportion of native British are dropping at an alarming rate. Services can't take the strain of the extra people, and neither can housing since they all want to live in the same areas. But talking about any of it would embolden the far-Right, and anyway we need low-wage immigration to care for the aging immigrants.
  6. ???

You can disregard all of this as scaremongering, or say that it will be different in America. It might! But it's like taking hard drugs - even if you think the risks are overblown, why would you mess with that stuff when you know how many people have wrecked their lives?

I can see the point in that changing the composition of a democracy will change change the composition of the decision making apparatus.

But there is one more difference I can say there is between the US and Europe. We are literally just definitionally immigrants. The country has always been a place that people immigrate to because it offers opportunities and advantages. I’d have to be convinced that there is some compelling reason that right now is the unique moment in time where it’s correct to stand up and yell stop.

And I don’t really see much unique about right now. People on this forum I suspect would be quick to jump out and say, but now they’re not Europeans that’s the problem! But that’s something that’s unique to now, we’ve had non-European immigration going on for many decades and they’ve integrated just fine. We have chinatowns and neighborhoods where you can get authentic tacos and not much that I see that’s genuinely bad to show for it.

Was there some severe problem that immigration caused in the past in the US? I don’t really think so and so I’m not one of the jump around and yell stop people.

most of the people in it aren't muslim.

They're working on fixing that.

Good luck! Again the US isn't Europe, our immigration problems tend to be pretty different. Most immigration here seems to be from Latam and India. If the question instead was like, what if your country was 40% latino? I mean... I don't really care. I'm from the southwest that's already the case, lol. One of my favorite parts of the US is walking around Miami and you have an Argentinian bakery next to a pupusa joint next to a Colombian restaurant and a Jamaican place, and when you walk into a store they greet you with a buenos dias.

These guys will likely have my back against this supposed muslim takeover anyway!

These guys will likely have my back against this supposed muslim takeover anyway!

what is more probable to happen is that the Latin kings will close off their neighborhoods (like they did during the summer of love) when the islamists begin to act up and you will be one of the first to appear in the local newspaper.

Lol, this guy thinks all hispanics are latin king gang members

Less of this, please.

I was matching the energy for what I saw as a pretty low effort response to me, but agreed I wont do that anymore

If it was the same energy I would have been slapped too. I gave an example of what is more probable to happen in the hipotethical of 40% muslim country using past behavior, you just snarkily took what I said and twisted it into the less charitable way possible.

As for your your snark, it's not necessary for every Hispanic to be a Latin Kings member, they just need some members in the neighborhood. That is how territory works with gangs.

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Man, I want to be on your side (or at least against the ones against you), but this is such a lazy dodge.

I think your interlocutor is trying to get you to envision a world where the fires of the Atheism Wars are needed once more.

What was the dodge?

I'm in favor of atheists coming out strongly against muslim attempts to influence government and free speech btw, I'm one of those guys!

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