Today’s installment of the Trump side show is the sturm-und-drang around his alleged description of Haiti and some African nations as “shitholes,” in regard to a proposal to offer special protections for immigrants from those countries. Trump allegedly opined he’d rather have people from places like Norway.
He’s got it exactly backwards.
Who’d you rather have as a new neighbor? Would you prefer someone from a country steeped in a high-taxation, welfare- and nanny-state mentality, who’d come here and complain about how America doesn’t offer all the “good things” his nation does? Or someone who is escaping a shithole, who sees that a path to a better life is in a place where there’s opportunity to work, to be entrepreneurial, to actually be able to reap the fruits of his labor?
The latter is the mentality of countless millions of immigrants who came to America in the first half of the 20th century, and it is what we should want. Yes, yes, I know the standard rebuttal about sponging off the welfare state, but if that’s your concern , then you should attack the welfare state, not immigrants from “shitholes.”
Yes, Trump shoved his ham hock into his mouth again. Even on the small chance that this quote is fabricated (the White House is denying the specific language), it’s just another example of our President’s impolitic ways (to put it generously). And, yes, the outcome is the standard leftist pearl-clutching vapors and the standard Trumpist what-abouts, fake-news denigrations, and other forms of spin. And, yes, once again, the mania over what he said overshadows the policy matter itself. And on this, the nativists and the liberal contrarians whose ideas are merely the negative image of the nativists’ both continue to get it wrong.
Want your social security when you retire? Guess what, the country needs more people of working age for that to come true. Want your economy to continue to grow? Guess what – the ascent of immigrants up the economic ladder is fundamental to that desire. This is a nation of immigrants, immigrants who came here seeking better lives than the ones available in their home lands. And, there has forever been a desire, a desire often most fervently expressed by the last people in, to shut the door. It was a mistake then, it’s a mistake now.
Certainly, some prudence is warranted. As I’ve written before, even I, an open-borders libertarian, believe that a nation is not a nation if it does not control who comes goes and goes. And, as I’ve quoted before,
I would let anybody in who will make the country better, and no one who will make it worse. — Charles Koch
That doesn’t mean restricting immigration to the rich, or the highly-skilled, or the well-educated. Even an unskilled worker, and by “worker” I mean someone who wants to work, contributes to the economy. Wealth is created even by manual laborers. Yes, by all means, lets pay attention to whom we admit, but lets not simply argue that immigrants from poor or crime-ridden countries are de facto criminals or leeches. That’s simply not true.
In the restaurant I ran for 20 years, I had the opportunity to employ countless immigrants (it was a function of the neighborhood’s demographic). This included many Central Americans, many Eastern Europeans, and more than a few Middle-Easterners. Many were educated, but many were not. Some of the hardest workers I encountered were people from poor countries, who had little in the way of learning, but who had a strong desire to improve their lives. And, in doing so, in working, they not only benefited themselves, but added value to our nation’s economy.
In this case, Trump’s error is not merely in his coarse language, but in his view on immigration itself.
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Regarding: “Trump allegedly opined he’d rather have people from places like Norway. He’s got it exactly backwards. Who’d you rather have as a new neighbor?”
That’s easy. Compare Bemidji to Detroit. We’re talking averages of course.
My ancestor came from a shithole called Norway; for so it was 160 years ago for most of its citizens. Others came from Scotland; which still is better suited for sheep. There are four times more Norwegians in the United States than there are in Norway. 160 years ago there was no welfare; those that came from any nation had no choice but to work.
“Would you prefer someone from a country steeped in a high-taxation, welfare- and nanny-state mentality, who’d come here and complain about how America doesn’t offer all the good things his nation does? Or someone who is escaping a shithole, who sees that a path to a better life is in a place where there’s opportunity to work, to be entrepreneurial, to actually be able to reap the fruits of his labor?”
Your examples are mixed. You believe that your first immigrant will bring with him cultural attitudes you despise (socialism), but you seem to believe that the African immigrant is NOT going to bring his own cultural norms.
It is more likely that all immigrants bring their cultural norms while escaping a situation perhaps caused by those norms.
In the famous Reader’s Digest honesty experiment, Norwegians returned 100 percent of the “lost wallets” and the least return rate was in Mexico. It doesn’t mean Norwegians are “good” and Mexicans are “bad”, these are cultural norms. Where those norms agree with your own expectations such immigrants will be judged by you to be “good”, otherwise “bad”.
So let us inspect your question — who would you rather have as a neighbor? Your choice is probably not my choice for dozens of possible reasons, but we might agree that choice ought to exist. A “zero sum game” neighbor is probably not a good thing; he believes there is NOT enough to go around and the only way he gets anything is to take yours. Is that more likely to be true in Lagos or Oslo?
First test (in 2001) results, 1100 lost wallets: Norway 100 percent returned, Mexico 21 percent returned.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323646604578402504166275198
A repeat of the test (2013 I think, 192 lost wallets) with some surprising results: https://www.rd.com/culture/most-honest-cities-lost-wallet-test/ Helsinki most honest (11 of 12 wallets returned), Lisbon Portugal least honest (1 of 12 wallets, and the finder that returned the wallet isn’t from Lisbon!)
No, I don’t think my examples are mixed. Consider someone fleeing a lousy situation vs someone who’s in a good situation who simply decides to move. The former isn’t going to want a redux of that which he is fleeing, while the other will fondly recall the best aspects of his former home and want them replicated in his new home.
There *is* a corollary element, one I’ve written about before, which has to do with multiculturalism. America has a particular set of cultural norms, a particular political history, a particular reverence for individual rights, and all of that has coordinated with what’s been called the “melting pot.” Yes, people will bring their cultural norms with them, but those norms have traditionally been blended into American society, under the overarching premises written into the Constitution, with great success. The Southern Europeans who came to the nation over the early part of the 20th century were not the affluent of their former countries, or from countries that were affluent, but they came here to embrace the American ethic, not repeat their old country’s. As importantly, they were *expected* to.
Not so today, and IMO that’s the REAL source of discord in society. We have some who expect the melting pot tradition to continue (I’m among those), but we have others who insist that those cultures that people are fleeing *from* are as valid as ours – often more so – and they insist that the new arrivals keep to those old cultural ways. THEY are the problem.
Thank you for your reply; for the most part I agree with your thinking but as I have traveled quite a bit during my Navy career and experienced different cultures I still think that people bring their cultural norms with them, often not consciously.
The extreme example of “good” socialism is Iceland where I was stationed for two years. They have socialism in pretty much two things: National healthcare and education, paid for by the state all the way through university. In essentially all other ways they are the most libertarian society I have ever experienced or encountered.
It works because of *monoculture*. It is also the most homogenous culture I have ever encountered; 1/4 million people on the entire island, most in Reykjavik. It really does not occur to most Icelanders to steal or lie and they have a strong work ethic. It isn’t a Nanny State; you can do pretty much anything you want and the concept of “trespass” almost does not exist.
It makes them a bit naive, a Garden of Eden waiting for a snake, and it came in 2008 or so and destroyed all three of their national banks.
“Bad” socialism is immigrants that do NOT have a work ethic and really expect others to pay their way. I encountered an immigrant with just such a mind, I think I wrote about it in my previous email. Not the slightest concern about the burden she was putting on others or deprivation of scarce resources from those who actually need help.
Where I live many Hispanics have immigrated, not perhaps lawfully. The ones that immigrate tend to be hard working and honest; the problem is their offspring. Likewise with Pacific Islanders. A culture of macho is moderated by age and necessity; their offspring pick up the macho culture but not the work ethic or necessity. These do not know the “shithole” their parents escaped from and wish not to return to, this wish moderates their cultural norms which otherwise would be rather territorial and aggressive.
Melting Pot
Cultural norms are fairly strong in regions; corresponding also with linguistic patterns (do you say “wash” or “warsh”?). Minnesota is famous for Scandinavians, Norwegians particularly. There’s a pocket of that around Poulsbo, Washington. Unfailingly polite BUT they have an extremely long memory for offense, they will remember for generations that this family is not talking to that one.
Icelanders were somewhat similar; polite, somewhat friendly but reserved. It takes a LOT to break through (trying to learn the language accomplished it for me).
Sagebrush rebellion describes the mountain west. A remarkably high degree of arrogance and aggressiveness, short on polite. Highly territorial. Red states. Not libertarian per se; where a libertarian recognizes YOUR right to choose as well as his own.
So not really melted together. the internet helps considerably to at least expose people to other ideas IF they get out of their bubbles.
Sincerely, Michael
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No, I don’t think my examples are mixed. Consider someone fleeing a lousy situation vs someone who’s in a good situation who simply decides to move. The former isn’t going to want a redux of that which he is fleeing, while the other will fondly recall the best aspects of his former home and want them replicated in his new home.
There *is* a corollary element, one I’ve written about before, which has to do with multiculturalism. America has a particular set of cultural norms, a particular political history, a particular reverence for individual rights, and all of that has coordinated with what’s been called the “melting pot.” Yes, people will bring their cultural norms with them, but those norms have traditionally been blended into American society, under the overarching premises written into the Constitution, with great success. The Southern Europeans who came to the nation over the early part of the 20th century were not the affluent of their former countries, or from countries that were affluent, but they came here to embrace the American ethic, not repeat their old country’s. As importantly, they were *expected* to.
Not so today, and IMO that’s the REAL source of discord in society. We have some who expect the melting pot tradition to continue (I’m among those), but we have others who insist that those cultures that people are fleeing *from* are as valid as ours – often more so – and they insist that the new arrivals keep to those old cultural ways. THEY are the problem.