As a whole I think they’re just misguided. But I’m sure there are at least some racist/xenophobic people and sentiments that influenced their policies.
Are you suggesting we restrict migration even within our own borders? Clearly, I disagree. i think there should be free migration worldwide, including between the states.
I have at least a rudimentary understanding of American history. Which parts of history, in your opinion, should compel me to support laws against people moving?
Let’s say that everyone who wanted to go to say, Sweden, went there, and Sweden was no longer majority Swedish.
Do the Swedes deserve a homeland or not? I say they do, and that goes for French, Germans, Greeks, Italians, and Spanish as well. They aren’t just a country, like us, they are nations with a common people, a common heritage, a common language and often a common religion. They have every right to preserve the nature of their homelands. This would be noncontroversial if 40 million white people were clamoring to get into Thailand. If 40 million white people migrate to Thailand, it’s no longer the land of the Thais. It’s a white nation with a Thai minority.
This is where you and I disagree. I say if you move to Sweden, get a job in Sweden, and live there with the intention that it’s permanent, you’re freaking Swedish. So if everyone who wanted to live there moved to Sweden, it would still be majority Swedish because all those people would be Swedish.
Yeah, cultures change over time. That happens whether it’s immigrants or rebellious youth. But just because a new neighbor moves in and lives differently than you doesn’t mean you can’t still practice your own culture to your heart’s content.
And maybe the new neighbor moved there because he likes your culture and wants to learn more about it and participate further in it? Why would someone move to Sweden in the first place if they didn’t like Swedish culture at least a little bit?
I hate to put a label on it, but being afraid to live near people with a different culture than yours is the definition of xenophobia. It’s not something to be proud of, although I can understand where the sentiment comes from. It’s something we should overcome.
I reject the validity of ethnic homelands, but I’d also put a footnote on the above. When the culture is language, cuisine, music, religion and all that, absolutely.
But part of culture is government, and when government is up for a popular vote, being afraid to live near people whose conception of government involves theocracy, aristocrats, prohibiting unpopular speech, and all that horrible stuff, is a different matter, and not the same as xenophobia. Bigotry that your idea of government is best, perhaps, but not xenophobia.
Fair enough.
FWIW, from what I’ve heard Australia for the longest time had policies that blatantly favored white people over Asians.
No, I was talking about the fact that if the US had imposed immigration restrictions on Eastern and Southern Europeans starting in the 1870s and 1880s, African-Americans would have flooded North. Instead, the great migration didn’t start until WWI and exploded in the 1920s after the US imposed it’s quota system discriminating against non-Northern Europeans.
Prior to that, Blacks were essentially trapped in the Jim Crow South because businesses would not hire blacks while there were available white workers.
There’s a reason for Booker T. Washington’s famous speech and Toni Morrison’s famous essay “On the Backs of Blacks.”
Whites like to romanticize immigration to the US, but for African-Americans it has traditionally been bad.
Last night was definitely not one of my best, so I’ll apologize for my tone which was far snarkier and more confrontational than intended.
As for what parts of American history, I’d point to how immigration quotas of the 1920s enabled the great migration North without which African-Americans would be vastly worse off.
The US is the nation it is because of a few hundred years of slavery followed by a hundred years of Jim Crow. I think the US owes African-Americans a rather unique debt which needs to be taken into consideration when discussing bringing in large numbers of unskilled immigrants since they, far more than whites, will be negatively impacted by them.
So because racist northerners refused to hire black southerners, that’s the fault of the immigration system? I’d place the blame squarely on the racists, but that’s just me.
Don’t forget, it’s also stupid!
Except there are 70 million Thais, so they would still be the majority. (But I get your point. Could not pass up the nitpick though.)
That’s a lot of Thais. I thought there were about half that many. We need to import 10 million or so into the US.
Judging from the visa queue at the US Embassy every day, I wouldn’t be surprised if that many were trying to do just that.