I don't see the value in large numbers of unskilled workers entering the US every year.

With a potentially large wave of automation coming, the US shouldn't straddled itself with lots of unemployable drivers, farm workers, etc.

I hope we can move to a much more sensible immigration system, similar to Canada's, for example.

Immigrants to the US have the same level of college completion as natives: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/03/key-findings...

Illegal immigrants usually do not (under the table, off the books unskilled labor), and are in the US in large numbers (millions).

Not a sleight, just facts.

Also, a fact is that illegal immigrants are willing to work for dirt-cheap which subsidizes our produce price. :)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-an-immigrat...

Meanwhile Chinese citizens "subsidize" the rest of our economy...

The only difference is we can't move all our food factories abroad, so the labor travels here.

We could build a high-speed Maglev rail line over the Bering Straights to Asia and another one to South America...

But yah, open the borders. That's the only immediate solution.

The 90's had our greatest economic growth, and the borders were basically wide open then.

The borders weren’t basically wide open then.

Do you genuinely believe people are going about thinking "I'm so glad for all this illegal immigration so that tomatoes are 20 cents cheaper"?

No, that's why it's a fact and not an opinion poll that was cited. If people were thinking that, maybe they wouldn't be talking about shooting illegal immigrants [0].

[0] http://www.newsweek.com/ann-coulter-shooting-immigrants-ille...

Cheap produce is awesome. :) But working people not being able to find jobs because they're competing with dirt-cheap no-benefit laborers is not. :(

In many states the employment market is so tight that jobs are going unfilled. This is especially true in blue-collar jobs that require interfacing with computers and advanced machinery. In many areas with higher unemployment rate, employers still complain they can't find anyone who can pass a drug test.

We do have a mismatch -- lots of employers simply aren't yet paying enough to get employees. And agricultural employers can't get any Americans, white or not white, to work for them, in part because the seasonality of the jobs and lack of health insurance makes the pay immaterial. If you work for 6 weeks you could lose eligibility for some benefits, and what are you going to do for the other 46 weeks in the year? Providing benefits not tied to employment would mitigate this problem. But it still wouldn't solve the problem of all the Americans not even looking for work because they're out on disability. These people, again, are not competing with immigrant labor, because by and large they really can't do any sort of physical labor.

There is really no competition for ag jobs. Americans really, really don't want to do them, for some rational economic reasons and some reasons of expectations/feelings about what they deserve.

Americans do actually want to do ag jobs, they just expect decent working conditions. Many employeers prefer illegal immigrants because they are more easily exploitable in regards to not only wages, but also safety.

> In many states the employment market is so tight that jobs are going unfilled.

That has been the case for a mere 12-18 months out of the last decade.

You know why liberals used to be against allowing vast inflows of unskilled labor? They fully understood the obvious consequences to the workers their party represented, as it pertained to wages & employment prospects. Make that labor more scarce and wages rise. It's the reason Bernie Sanders used to openly advocate against allowing large amounts of unskilled labor immigration.

No other developed nation uses the immigration approach that the US uses. Everyone else favors a merit based system and favors immigrants that can pay for their social benefits. This is why Canada is so annoyed with the US right now on immigrants crossing the border into Canada. [1] A few thousand illegal immigrants cross over each month and Canada is begging the US to make it stop. Out of the entire planet, only the US is held to a different standard, everyone else is allowed to restrict unskilled labor immigration. The US is uniquely backwards in its approach to heavily limiting skilled labor and simultaneously allowing unlimited amounts of unskilled labor.

Where's the international condemnation for Canada's approach to restricting hispanic immigration into their nation? Why are they not called racist for it? They're a mere 1.5% hispanic, specifically because they won't allow unskilled labor from Latin America into the country.

That's an extremely ugly, hypocritical double standard. If the US behaves exactly as Canada does, it's called racist, xenophobic, etc.

I'll note that the sole reason the Republicans are supporting / allowing the low skill immigration approach (and why they've blocked Trump's attempt to shift to a merit system), is that it benefits business margins: they want as much cheap labor as they can get to suppress wages. It's why the Koch brothers are such big proponents of it.

The vast, endless supply of unskilled labor that has flooded the US for decades is partially responsible for low wage growth among lower skilled workers in the US over that time. If there's always more low-skilled labor, wages will not rise for low-skilled laborers. It's basic supply and demand. As automation increasingly hammers low-skill laborers, that effect will get dramatically worse.

The other critical reason why the US is going to be forced to end its immigration policies: you can't support an increasingly generous welfare state matched against vast inflows of unskilled labor that can't pay for its own benefits programs. This is why other developed nations follow a pay-your-way merit system. If you can't support yourself, Canada generally isn't letting you in. A couple million low-skill immigrants coming into their nation would bankrupt their welfare system and collapse their healthcare system. The US welfare state is now more generous than Canada's, so how is the US expected to continue to afford it? You want universal healthcare? You can never have that unless you change the immigration system to restrict inflows of unskilled labor.

The US should flip its policies: continue to allow in some reasonable amount of low-skill labor, and allow in a lot more high-skill labor (which helps pay for the benefits cost of the low-skill labor). As the US moves gradually toward universal healthcare, and continues to increase the generosity of its welfare state, this will become a fiscal necessity, just as it is in all other developed nations and for the exact same reason.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-immigration-border...

Every time agriculture-heavy states crack down on illegal immigration, crops rot on the vine because nobody else wants those jobs, even in periods of high unemployment. Here's the story from Georgia, there are identical ones from the Southwest as well:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-06/crops-rot....

Your choice is not between illegal immigrants and working-class citizens getting that work, it's been illegal immigrants getting the work and nobody doing it.

Sometimes "nobody doing it" is the correct answer. It might not be economically viable for the USA to grow strawberries. We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

In the long-term, automation may help.

We can also pay a tiny bit more for our strawberries. At retail level, the cost of farm labor is is tiny portion of the total cost.

Crops don't rot on the vine if farmers know the labor situation in advance. Some will decide not to grow that crop. Others will find labor, paying more if required.

Whenever the supply of illegal aliens is reduced, wages rise. The "living wage" can not happen in the presence of illegal aliens. Once wages rise, Americans take the jobs. You can even see this today in the record-low unemployment rates.

> Sometimes "nobody doing it" is the correct answer. It might not be economically viable for the USA to grow strawberries. We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

I actually agree with this, but society has decided that "food security" is an important component of national security and that the country would like to maintain domestic food production even if it is uneconomical. And that's fine, if that's what the public wants, but once you do that you have to live with the consequences, like being forced to choose between illegal labor and rotting crops.

> In the long-term, automation may help.

Maybe, but a lot of the produce-picking that can be automated already has been. What's left is crops that, for whatever reason, are much harder to automate.

> At retail level, the cost of farm labor is is tiny portion of the total cost.

I'd like to see a source for this.

> Crops don't rot on the vine if farmers know the labor situation in advance

Please actually read my two links. The first is from 2012, and the second is about how the situation persisted through 2016. You're saying four years of Georgia's law wasn't enough advance notice?

It wasn't four years of a consistent labor situation without any expectation of change. It was four years of ups and downs with changing politics. It would be reasonable for a farmer to expect that there will be a massive amnesty, and then that doesn't happen. Some farmers simply have four years worth of emergency funds and a whole lot of stubbornness.

Also, I should have said "crops MOSTLY don't rot on the vine" because:

Even if the labor supply is stable, some crops will still be left to rot. The production of the land and the demands of the consumers are both subject to change. This affects the price. Given the current price, some farms may decide to not bother harvesting.

Farms aren't always 100% serious. Lots of them are almost a hobby, or for tax reasons. (if you can claim your home is a farm, you may pay lower property taxes, and there are even income tax advantages)

>We can import strawberries or find something else to eat.

> Whenever the supply of illegal aliens is reduced, wages rise. The "living wage" can not happen in the presence of illegal aliens. Once wages rise, Americans take the jobs. You can even see this today in the record-low unemployment rates.

So we import our strawberries and wages will rise? How can both of these things be true? And the alternative is we won't eat strawberries anymore?

What you're proposing is setting our country up to be a worse place on the individual level "hey, why can't I find strawberries in my grocery store?" and on the national level, because we'll be beholden to whoever we're importing from.

There's a reason why a country should grow its own food. It's critical for our national security that we not be dependent on outsiders for something so basic.

Whoever told you they're doing this to "Make America Great Again" was lying to you. Not being able to buy strawberries would make America worse.

Bullshit. If the pay is right, you will find plenty of people to pick produce. But in a world where people expect $15/hour for work that is leisurely in comparison (fast food), paying that much for hard labor ain’t gonna cut it.

> Bullshit.

I provided sources showing that this is, empirically, what happens, no matter what you would like to believe.

> If the pay is right, you will find plenty of people to pick produce.

Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it. That is the fundamental issue here.

> I provided sources showing that this is, empirically, what happens, no matter what you would like to believe.

I can’t read the second one, but I’ve seen the arguments in the first one a million times — a whole lot of whining about how it’s absolutely impossible to find workers. No, you can’t find them at the price you want. Show me the farmer offering $30/hour plus benefits. You can’t. Even in the first article they peg “skilled” labor at $15-20/hour with the unskilled earning less. Guess what, I can get that a McDonald’s so try harder Mr. Farmer.

> Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it.

So I take it you were against the recent ~doubling of fast food wages in some localities to $15/hour then? Nah, probably not, I’m guessing you used the same argument so many others did: “what’s your problem, it’ll add like three cents to the cost of your Big Mac.” Well, I’d argue that doubling or tripling farm labor costs would only add a dime to the price of a basket of strawberries. Who cares? Pay real wages for real work and stop making excuses for what amounts to modern day slave labor.

We are drifting away from my original claim here, into new claims where I actually mostly agree with you. The original claim was "Illegal immigration hurts low-skilled American workers", and I responded saying "No it doesn't, because those immigrants are taking jobs that wouldn't otherwise be filled, at least in the produce market that presently exists".

Whether people should be willing to may more for their produce, and whether the treatment of these workers is ethically defensible - those are separate questions. I would be totally fine with paying real wages for produce-picking and then subsequently tightening immigration, but there's the paying market we'd like to have and the one we've actually got.

> Obviously! But once you do that, the produce costs so much that no one wants to buy it. That is the fundamental issue here.

the market will correct itself.

why would anyone want to pick raspberry for $10 an hour when I can get paid more working at in & out. Basically we should support shitty working conditions and black market labor because people dont wanna pay more for their produce?

> the market will correct itself.

...and the market of voters will "correct" the elected politicians. Which is why no politician is foolish enough to do this, and they have a monopoly on making laws.

YES. Somebody gets it.

Seriously. Stories abound about millennials (or anybody) not willing to do manual labor, waiting for higher-end jobs.

And it makes sense. We pay for everyone to go to 12 years of public school, learning calculus, history, chemistry, literature, etc.., only to work picking strawberries for the rest of their lives?

Fuck that.

The American labor force isn't designed for these kinds of jobs. I can't imagine any smartphone addicted millennial to do manual labor. In fact, we'd be more honest about our economy if we actually banned these jobs for Americans, and only allowed unskilled immigrants to do them, and deal with it from there.

If you live in a place where said labor is plentiful (California, Florida, etc), this is a problem in so much as that job which went to someone who will work for less. For certain parts of the country, that is a viable occupation.

But that doesn't mean these jobs are in any way desirable.

In another instance, I see people who complain about Amazon's cashierless stores taking away jobs that people could do, but they don't seem to have an answer about how this situation could free those people up to do some other, potentially less menial job.

These working people who can't find jobs are addicted to opiates or refuse to educate themselves. Dirt cheap illegal laborers slave over jobs a white American would never, ever do.

They’re just terrible jobs people who aren’t desperate wouldn’t do.

If you don’t believe me, go clean a slaughterhouse one night, or pick strawberries in the hot sun for a day.

Edit: Automate these jobs.

Any system that creates winners also creates losers.

Not true.

Counterexample?

Systems of water sanitation, unless you want to count cholera and dysentery as losers.

Arguably those don't create winners, because the concept of "win" necessitates triumphing over others.

Yeah I don't know anybody personally who feels like a winner because they have clean drinking water. It's universal where I live. In places where it's not, you might feel like a winner when the neighboring village doesn't have it, and sucks to be them.

That is in large part a selection problem. Educated or skilled workers generally have an easier time immigrating legally so it is only natural for those here illegally to be less educated or skilled.

Not all immigrants are undocumented (what you call illegal).

The current US policy by this administration is causing even documented immigrants to reconsider or just give up and leave.

Unfortunately yes.

I'm what you would call a (potential) high-skilled immigrant (STEM Phd soon completed at top tier college). Clearly, the current policies don't make me want to stay. The path to permanent residency (i.e. proper immigration) is getting harder and harder.

No longer that two days ago we got an email about "public charges" (i.e. -legal- public help that would make Dhs/State consider us a burden to the US) and how we should be careful not to use those while in the US, otherwise we can get denied entry/visa. Yikes.

The official legal term: "illegal alien"

Hardly any are undocumented. Of course, for many the documents are forged. Maybe they have your social security number; hope you don't mind! BTW, identity theft is illegal.

Oh, also, in all states and countries an unregistered firearm is not illegal. It is undocumented. If I enter your home without permission, I'm an undocumented resident.

I don't know that I would claim either of these things off-the-cuff in response to a post citing the ACS.

It's easily verifiable, see [1] under "Educational Attainment of Adults".

13% of unauthorized immigrants have completed college, as compared to 31% of US-born and 30% of authorized immigrants.

[1] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-...

Thank you for the link.

Source?

I'm amazed at how skewed South / Central America is to all other regions!

They're the closest. For the other's it's a major investment to move so far.

Europe did the same in importing large numbers of Muslim laborers after WW2. The hope was that they'd either make their money and go back home, or culturally integrate. Many observers will say that neither happened and there's now a difficult social problem in many countries like France.

America integrated large immigrant waves in it's past, and I doubt anyone would say the Italians, or Irish, or other minorities were not integrated today. Time bridges cultures, and we're the better for it.

Italians, Irish, and most of the other immigrants from that time were Europeans who had a lot in common with Americans culturally.

I don't think you're thinking of the historical details to say that in such a blase manner. The path to integration went through periods much more violent and contentious than anything we see today.

I'm aware of how immigrants were treated back then and I'm not condoning it. That still doesn't change the fact that they came from cultures that IMO were quite compatible with the USAs considering their common origin and values. I think the current situation in Europe, and other instances of mass migration in history, demonstrate that not all cultures are compatible with each other

Like Cubans after the revolution, or Iranians after their revolution, or maybe the mass of Vietnamese after the war? What actual cultures are you saying are incompatible? America has worked with them all and despite hand-wringing over "compatibility". There is a much stronger case to be made human beings are humans in the end and that it just takes time.

So, only white people can assimilate then? The now many generations of people of Hispanic origin that are part of the American story would seem to indicate you are wrong. As is the case with the now multiple generations of Koreans and particularly Japanese, who remain part of the US story even after being put into concentration camps because of precisely the same sort of prejudice, that they were somehow inherently un-American due to their "cultural incompatibility", i.e. non-whiteness, unlike the millions of German-Americans in the US at the time.

The Muslims will (continue to) integrate as well. It takes a couple of generations.

That’s not true. When German immigrants were new, no one believed they would integrate since they refused to give up speaking German. Catholics like the Irish were viewed with suspicion because they revered a pope.

America’s secret superpower is the ability to assimilate pretty much any people within four generations give or take

> I think the current situation in Europe, and other instances of mass migration in history, demonstrate that not all cultures are compatible with each other.

Japanese Americans? Chinese Americans? Indian Americans?

Plus, the very concept of some sort of empirical “cultural incompatibility” seems highly questionable. I mean, it’s not like cultures change over time or anything like that.

"cultural compatibility"... Sounds like a concept created by someone who hasn't met people from very many cultures.

Which historical details? The fact that the US was extremely racist but the immigrants managed to integrate by focusing on work and adapting instead of spiting and complaining about the host country?

The Chinese immigrated to the US at a similar time as the Irish and Italians. The more than 3 million Chinese living in the US today seem plenty well integrated and I don’t think China and America are particular close in terms of culture.

The Chinese immigrants were not (and still are not) particularly religious, and certainly didn't have a religion that promoted extremism and placed them at odds with the existing inhabitants. Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.

The fundamental problem, as I see it, is religion.

> and certainly didn't have a religion that promoted extremism

Lets cut through the code words then and have a direct counterexample to what you're trying to say.

Nigerians are primarily Muslims. They are also highly educated and among the most entrepreneurial immigrants to the USA. And while there's a "Nigerian prince" joke every now and then, they really are doing relatively well in the USA. Like, "better than Asians" with regards to college education statistics.

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Data-show-Nigerians-the-m...

Nigerians are basically the perfect counterexample to the "Religion" (aka: Islam) problem that is so often brought up. High rates of college completion, high rates of business / entrepreneurs, high-rates of integration. Overall, clearly net-positive to the USA.

> Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.

What about Indians? Who are usually either Hindu or Muslim? Indians are also highly educated and start a large number of businesses.

I'm personally Catholic. I'd obviously prefer it if immigrants would come with the same Religion as me, but the statistics are in. Nigerians, Indians, and a whole host of other immigrants kind of do perfectly fine in America. There's no need for them to be Christian or otherwise "mainstream".

Indeed, bringing in immigrants on the basis of religion is severely anti-American IMO. America is certainly big enough to sustain Hindu, Muslims, and other religious groups. Especially if those people are coming in highly-skilled, highly educated, and overall are a benefit to our society.

Ok, then what is the problem then? It's not racism; Nigerians are a lot darker than Arabs. Maybe it's a cultural problem, combined with religion: you never hear of Nigerian Muslims committing terrorist acts in the West. Islam is a big, big religion, and Muslims from some cultures simply don't have any kind of bad reputation (I'm thinking Malaysia here), while others certainly do.

So maybe it is religion, just not the whole religion, but rather particular sects. All Christians are not like the Pentecostals or the Mormons, and similarly all Muslims are not the same.

Its certainly a problem that's specific to particular sects.

The sect of Osama Bin Laden was "Wahhabism", which is relatively rare outside of Saudi Arabia. And even then, the Saudi Princes who work with the USA are often pro-Wahabbism, so the USA can't even deride that sect (even if its the primary sect of Al-Qaeda). Because there's still "good guys" who follow that particular sect.

Note that the "Bin Laden" family was a very rich and entrepreneurial group of people. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family) Some of them were huge investors in the US before their "black sheep" messed up their family name forever.

The Middle East is complicated. Like, super super complicated. Honestly, the bin Ladens in general (aside from the infamous one) should be welcome to the USA. A bit unfortunate about their "black sheep" sibling.

-----------

Besides, if "Religion" was the problem, why did the USA DESTROY the only secular, maybe even atheist, group in the Middle East? (aka: Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists).

Reason: the world is complicated. And thinking about it in terms of Religion only is a mistake. ISIS for example is a combination of yes, Wahhabism, but ALSO has the support of former Ba'athists.

And the Ba'athists believe in Secularism and secular law. They seemed to have joined in the ISIS fun not because of religious reasons, but because they wished to take over Iraq and saw aligning themselves with the fundamentalist Wahhabists as the best path forward and creating a unified Arab State.

So yes, we are fighting secular (arguably an atheist) groups in the Middle East. The world is a very complicated place. Yes, we have enemies some places, but Muslims exist across the entire world. You can't paint the issues of one region as a blight on all Muslims.

Even then: I'd imagine that we should welcome the many Iraqis who have helped the USA and are now getting targetted by ISIS in their country. We have friends in the region and we are turning them away with our immigration policies. We've turned our back on our closest supporters of that region, and I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of them have died because of their pro-US support or actions.

TL;DR: Immigration policy is hard.

> Nigerians are primarily Muslims.

More like 50%/50%

> What about Indians? Who are usually either Hindu or Muslim?

Most are Hindu or Sikh

> Most are Hindu or Sikh

Oh right, Pakistan is where the Muslims come from. Apologies, its sometimes hard to remember everything about the world.

But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible. Muslims for example believe in Abraham and the existence of Jesus. Their story is... very different but Allah is clearly the God of Abraham / Yahweh.

So if anything, Muslims are "closer" to the mainstream religion of the USA than Hindu's or Sikhs

> But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible.

Many Hindus believe that the numerous deities are different forms or aspects of one ultimate deity. As such, they are much closer to monotheism than you think. It can be described as "inclusive monotheism", as opposed to the "exclusive monotheism" of the Abrahamic religions.

Sikhism is not polytheistic at all, it is very monotheistic.

Christianity itself has been accused of polytheism. Many Jews, Muslims, and non-Trinitarian Christians argue that there is no real difference between Trinity and tritheism. Many Protestants accuse the Catholic and Orthodox cult of Mary and the Saints of bordering on polytheism. Mormonism (admittedly on the fringe of Christianity) sees the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three separate "beings", although it redefines the word "God" to refer to those three beings collectively. Mormon theology also implies that God the Father has a wife (the Heavenly Mother), and of other gods ruling over other universes (or parts of the universe.)

In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer. Also, polytheistic religions just don't seem to have compatibility problems with other religions. The religions that get along the worst are the Abrahamic ones: Muslims and Jews hate each other, Christians hate Jews (more so in the past), Sunni and Shia Muslims hate each other, and Catholic and Protestant Christians have had many conflicts even in recent history (Ireland).

Of course, part of this could just be physical proximity: these warring groups tend to be neighbors or even in the same places, causing friction. But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others.

> In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer

This seems to be more true of mutually exclusive religions that are historically geographically close together for an extended period of time than ones which happen merely to be doctrinally similar, and to be more (but certainly not exclusively) true of political conflicts between religious communities rather than theological conflicts.

> But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others

Part of that is because the people who would have problems are still mistaking South Asians with Middle Easterners and also (whether or not they do that) assuming they are Muslim. Give it some time, they’ll get their own targeted hate. (Hinduism already gets some through the Christian anti-yoga movement.)

> driving trucks over people

This hurtful stereotype doesn't even work for the majority of the Bin Laden family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family), let alone the majority of Muslims.

I think that MAYBE a case can be made against the Wahhabi philosophy / sect (and similar sects). Maybe, but that's the furthest I'd go towards deriding a religious group in its entirety. Things are especially complicated because a large number of pro-Wahhabi Saudi princes are working very closely with the USA on this issue.

You're right. But it's a fact.

Do you know what works for a significant number of them? Antisemitism. Homophobia. Ingrained misogyny. Hate towards atheists.

> Antisemitism

I don't think that Muslimphobia is an appropriate response to Antisemitism.

Look: the Nazis were primarily Christian. We recognized the political movement of the Nazis as independent of their religion.

People today still don't realize that the Ba'athists of Iraq (who eventually joined with ISIS) were SECULAR. Hint: Religion is at best, a minor component to the violent middle-eastern philosophy. The Middle East is far more complicated than a group of religions.

There is a concept, and this concept goes BEYOND religious grounds (as it is taking hold in the Ba'athist reminants of Northern Iraq). Middle Easterners long for the re-establishment of their lost Empires from the middle ages. They dream of a reunified Arab State. (Or at least, that's the shared dream of the violent ISIS members in general)

And yes. Ba'athists believe it should be secular and pan-religious. They're also authoritarian and incredibly violent. But its important to keep these political groups in mind. But yes, even the secular groups dream of re-establishing their former empire. And yes, Wahhabists believe it should be a religious theocracy. But there's a lot of subgroups to this political movement.

Don't mistake the political situation with the religious undertones. Besides, a Muslim from Nigeria typically doesn't give a rats ass about this "pan-Arabic" stuff. So the religious stuff is purely a distraction.

I see your point, I don't see why it is relevant, I know about Ba'ath, etc.

I know that Jews have been suffering more attacks in Europe recently including one in Berlin that wasn't a jew but wore a kippah to "prove it was not dangerous" and got attacked. So ignoring the issue or just sidelining issue is not ideal.

Its certainly an issue. But antisemitism / Holocaust deniers are kind of a universal group. Not only are there certain Arab groups who are Holocaust deniers, but there are also Right-Wing KKK Members who were making their anti-Semitism quite clear just a few months ago.

https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline/public...

Antisemitism is on the rise. But blaming it squarely on Muslims is just plain wrong. The above Swastika was found at the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally.

I don't necessarily have answers. But I'm also not entirely sure why Muslims get all the blame here. There are plenty of Muslims who are literally thousands of miles away from these incidents (ie: Nigerian Muslims) who really shouldn't be lumped together with the rest of the crap going on.

> Nigerians are primarily Muslims.

Nigeria is split close to 50-50 between Muslims and Christians. The north is majority Muslim, the south is majority Christian.

You may not have read a lot about the contentious history of Catholicism in the US. Until the 1960s, many Protestant Americans still considered Catholic Americans "not really American" because of their alleged allegiance to an extra-governmental power, the Church (and in particular the Pope). As recently as the 1950s Protestant-Catholic intermarriage was truly frowned upon in many parts of the country and Catholics were prohibited from joining various civic institutions.

> didn't have a religion that promoted extremism and placed them at odds with the existing inhabitants.

You mean like European Christian colonizers and the indigenous peoples of North and South America?

And also Irish. Despite being white and christian the Irish faced considerable discrimination around the turn of the century.

As recently as 1998 I had a preacher tell my Irish Catholic friend that she still had a chance to accept Jesus and be saved. There is still a feeling that Catholics are not really Christian in some circles, and that was an important factor in justifying the discrimination you mention!

In fairness many Catholics don't accept Protestants as Christians either.

> In fairness many Catholics don't accept Protestants as Christians either.

If any Catholic actually thinks this, they must be deeply ignorant of Catholic theology. According to the Catholic Church, anyone baptised using water and with a Trinitarian formula is Christian. Most Protestant denominations baptise people in this way, so most baptised Protestants are Christians according to traditional Catholic theology.

(And this is not something new introduced with Vatican II either, it historically dates back to the Donatist schism in 4th century North Africa.)

That's interesting but I thought the Donatist decision only applied to people who wanted to be part of the Roman Catholic church but their baptising priest had at some point lapsed. Generally Protestants don't recognize the authority of the church at all (i.e. Sola scriptura).

The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize, in a doctrinal sense (obviously, it does in a secular material sense) the existence of any other Christian Churches [0]; it takes the “Catholic” in its name quite seriously.

From the doctrinal point of view, there are no non-Catholic Christians, just Catholics of various degrees of imperfection, is and everyone who intends to join Christianity, or to join someone else to it, intends joining to the Catholic Church as the two are identical and coextensive.

[0] it does recognize particular churches, but they are part of rather than separate from the universal Church; in addition to those in full communion with Rome, these include Christian communities who are out of Communion with Rome but who retain valid episcopal apostolic succession, including the various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, among others.

> Generally Protestants don't recognize the authority of the church at all (i.e. Sola scriptura).

Sola scriptura is a doctrine of a subset of protestantism; there are Protestants who don't adhere to it but instead to prima scriptura, or to doctrines that aren't clearly either. It is certainly not the case that Protestants as a whole reject ecclesiastical authority.

> it takes the “Catholic” in its name quite seriously.

I'm pretty sure you know about this, but for laymen who may not be familiar with the terminology.

The word "catholic" (little c) literally means "universal". And it is a strong doctrine of the "Catholic church" (big C) that the group of worshipers is singular and universal.

It's not clear to me whether Rome accepts Christians who completely reject its authority. The central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that it's open source: anybody with a Bible can decide for themselves how to implement it without asking for permission. Of course there's value in a community of believers but the requirement is just to gather "two or more".

I guess Protestants have a harder time deciding who's a Christian; probably acceptance of the Nicean Creed is a popular standard, though I prefer "anyone who seeks to imitate Christ".

> It's not clear to me whether Rome accepts Christians who completely reject its authority

Rome absolutely accepts them as Christians.

It views them as wrong, but it does that for plenty of Christians that don't completely reject it's authority, too.

> The central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that it's open source: anybody with a Bible can decide for themselves how to implement it without asking for permission.

It would seem to me that the central point of Lutheran Protestantism is that there is a right way to implement Christianity, that right way is clear in Scripture, and having intermediaries between the believer and the Scripture is a barrier to the believer finding the truth in Scripture.

Lutheranism also seems generally pretty strongly defined by a particular opinion on what the right answers are, or at least a wide range of them, though somewhat internally divided by the degree of certainty ascribed to those answers.

Thank you, just to be clear: there is no obstacle to a Protestant sponsoring a child's baptism in the Catholic Church as parent or godparent?

Also I think you are right that many Protestants believe their opinions are clearly implicated by scripture, but it should be obvious on reflection that Scripture is not self-interpreting.

> Thank you, just to be clear: there is no obstacle to a Protestant sponsoring a child's baptism in the Catholic Church as parent or godparent?

Strictly speaking, there is a distinction between "sponsor" and "witness". The sponsor must be a Catholic, the witnesses can be non-Catholic Christians. However, in my personal experience (having had one child baptised Catholic, and the other will be baptised soon), everyone just collectively treats the "sponsor" and "witnesses" as "godparents". The parish just tells people "one godparent must be a Catholic". The sponsor is just the first godparent listed on the baptism certificate.

As far as parents go, technically there is no requirement that either parent be Catholic, or even Christian. A Buddhist couple could ask for their child to be baptised as Catholic. Now, in practice, priests will be extremely hesitant about fulfilling such a request, but strictly speaking it is allowed.

My understanding is there needs to be a reasonable expectation the child would be raised to be Catholic. A typical heuristic is at least one Catholic parent. I guess "be Catholic" in this context means "will go through confirmation" or something to that effect.

Yes. A priest is not supposed to baptise without such a "reasonable expectation". (Although if he does it anyway, he has broken the rules, and could be disciplined for it, but the baptism is nonetheless valid.)

One Catholic parent is the usual heuristic but it isn't actually the rule so isn't absolutely binding. For example, if a non-Catholic is known to regularly attend Catholic services, but for whatever reason is hesitating in formally converting, a priest may very well agree to such a parent's request to baptise their child.

Donatists claimed that sacraments were only valid if the priest who performed them was a faithful Christian. So if the priest was a heretic or grave sinner, the sacraments he performed were invalid. The Catholic Church declared that to be a heresy – a heretic or a sinner can still perform valid sacraments, provided the heresy doesn't involve a radically different understanding of the nature of the sacrament.

So, from the viewpoint of traditional Catholic theology, Protestants are heretics, but their beliefs about baptism are close enough to the Catholic belief that their heresy doesn't invalidate their baptisms. (Different story for ordination and the eucharist, since Protestant theology on those topics is further away from Catholic theology.) Whereas, non-Trinitarian Christians, the Catholic Church views their beliefs to directly touch on what the sacrament of baptism is about, so their non-Trinitarianism invalidates their baptisms from the Catholic viewpoint.

> So, from the viewpoint of traditional Catholic theology, Protestants are heretics, but their beliefs about baptism are close enough to the Catholic belief that their heresy doesn't invalidate their baptisms. (Different story for ordination and the eucharist, since Protestant theology on those topics is further away from Catholic theology.)

This is largely an issue of apostolic succession; regardless of the theology of the communities about ordination and the eucharist (which do differ critically), the sacraments cannot be valid because they are valid, in Catholic doctrine, only when performed by a validly ordained bishop (ordination) or consecrated by a validly ordained priest (Eucharist); the absence of episcopal apostolic succession (or, in much of protestantism, even the episcopal office) means that there are no validly ordained bishops and priests around. Now that is intimately tied to the doctrine around ordination, but even if the doctrine around the substance of the sacrament of the eucharist were identical, the absence of a valid minister of the sacrament would be critical.

> Whereas, non-Trinitarian Christians, the Catholic Church views their beliefs to directly touch on what the sacrament of baptism is about, so their non-Trinitarianism invalidates their baptisms from the Catholic viewpoint.

Well, there's two issues there. Sure, it's debatable whether a non-Trinitarian would have the requisite intent to validly (if, necessarily, illicitly) perform a baptism in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but what is more certainly fatal of most baptism by non-Trinitarians would be the failure to baptise using a Trinitarian formula, which is required for the sacrament to be valid, whether or not it is licit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valid_but_illicit

Thanks. I agree with most of what you say.

> This is largely an issue of apostolic succession

There are two different cases here. Protestants differ in their ecclesiology; some retain belief in episcopal apostolic succession, others reject it. Of course, those Protestants who reject episcopal apostolic succession, there are (from the Catholic viewpoint) no valid bishops, and hence no valid priests, and hence no valid Eucharist. On the other hand, the Anglicans, and some (but not all) of the Lutheran churches, claim to have bishops with valid apostolic succession. In the case of the Anglicans, the Catholic Church has decided that their eucharistic theology is so different that their episcopal consecrations and ordinations are invalid as a result (Apostolicae curae, 1896). Presumably, the same judgement would apply to other Protestant denominations claiming episcopal apostolic succession also.

I see, but in addition to a valid baptism aren't there required beliefs as well? Such as the immaculate conception and Papal infallibility, which Protestants would deny?

According to Catholic teaching, any validly baptised person is a Christian, regardless of their beliefs. Baptism is an indelible mark on the soul, like a spiritual membership card that you cannot destroy. Once you join, you can never really leave. Even if you convert to Islam, or become an atheist, you remain (in some spiritual sense) a Christian as long as you live. This is very different from the Protestant understanding of what it means "to be a Christian", which is based on a person's belief and (more importantly) the inner attitude of their heart.

"Being white"'s an interesting phrase to use, because I don't think Irish (or Italians at a different point) were considered white at the time they were being discriminated against here. It shows how much whiteness is socially constructed.

They were considered white. (Italians and Greeks weren't though)

Hm, it's easy to find credible claims that they weren't, e.g. https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/when-iri...

The racists of the day were apparently quite progressive. They couldn't even see the color of the person's skin. It's almost like race is more of a social construct than a biological one.

Or more accurately, that racism is a social construct.

And the Chinese immigrants were met with the same fierce racism that meets Hispanics and Arabs and Africans today.

In France the Chinese are the preferred targets of gangs (run by whom?) http://www.france24.com/en/20160908-france-chinese-community...

Historically the Hispanic and African populations were in the US a good deal before the Chinese.

That's a fair point, I guess I'd make a distinction between similarity and compatibility

That's not what anti-immigration crusaders said at the time. It was a common belief that Italian and Irish immigrants (who were mostly Catholic) could never fit in to Protestant American society. Your statement is pure revisionism.

This movie, Gangs of New York, by Martin Scorsese about New York City during a period of Irish immigration might suggest otherwise. I recall attempting to watch it when it came out on DVD but it was too violent for a Friday night: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_of_New_York#Historical_a...

Not really true, especially for southern Sicilians Italians

They shared neither language nor religion (US was overwhelmingly protestant). At the time, they were considered a distinct race from your typical white American due to their Sicilian heritage. Their diet was also significantly different, to the point where some states actually sent out social workers teaching Italian families to cook "American" foods -- the fear being their pasta-heavy diets would prevent them from integrating. Politically, they were far more pro-labor and were viewed as agitators, socialists and anarchists -- far removed from the political mainstream during the roaring 20s. They were hated and feared enough that there was a mass lynching of 11 Italian-Americans in Louisiana.

Almost every single movie by Martin Scorsese would say otherwise.

Seriously, though, Catholics and Protestants? There was a reason it was a big deal that Kennedy was the first Catholic president.

Back then, Americans didn't see it that way. There was a widespread suspicion that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy.

> There was a widespread suspicion that Catholicism was incompatible with democracy.

And that was the secularized, polite face of the common religious belief that both the Papacy as an office and the particular occupants of that office were the literal referent of the biblical Antichrist, and that “Papists” were, therefore, followers of the Antichrist.

That was back when there was a broad social concensus in favor of integration. Both sides of the political spectrum have destroyed that (the right through nativism and the left through cultural relativism).

I agree. I should clarify my point is just that it's very hard to undo a decision to increase immigration after the fact; I do think there should be some amount of cross-cultural immigration.

>Many observers will say that neither happened

And do you agree with the observers? If so, do you have sources to back up the claim? I ask you not to accuse you of anything but because I watched a Kurzgesagt video a while back saying most of the immigrants have integrated well over the next few generations.

Based on my personal experiences with people of Turkish and Egyptian descent living in Europe, I believe that many are happy being integrated into their adopted nationality, and many are not. Again my point is not that immigration can't work, just that a hasty decision can be nearly impossible to reverse.

Exactly. Over the next few generations. Everyone was immediate integration, which doesn't happen in most places AFAIK. Even in America, first generation immigrants and refugees stand apart in some places. But their kids fit in well, and are fairly American, though they still possibly speak the heritage language and such. By grandkids though you couldn't tell them apart from normal 'integrated' Americans apart from the accent of their grandparents.

It just takes time to integrate, and I'd say those who argue that Europe isn't integrated are looking st more recent immigrants, or older generations, and not the ones who would most likely be integrated already.

> I hope we can move to a much more sensible immigration system, similar to Canada's, for example.

We have a decent immigration system in terms of getting the right kinds of advanced folks.

The problem is we are also unwilling to do what needs to be done to stem the tide of unskilled illegal labor that flows into the nation.

I would posit that the people coming here illegally to work are actually the most entrepreneurial, hard working, can-do people that we should welcome into our society. Judging based on what current socio-economic status they're at is short sighted. You'll see the same thing expressed in HN regarding employees at declining companies, the most desirable employees leave earlier...

Though I would add that doing it via a more realistic temporary work visa program would be preferable to encouraging an illegal crossing industry to flourish.

> I would posit that the people coming here illegally to work are actually the most entrepreneurial, hard working, can-do people

You're not at all wrong, I grew up with a lot of illegal friends. Good number of them have since gone on to become American citizens through hard work and determination and have built good lives for themselves.

Maternally, I'm a second generation American. My grandparents came to America post-WWII with nothing but an offer of employment, and ended up retired with the classic condo beach life. The classic story of rags to middle class American riches. There's a reason that's been the American tale, coming to a faraway land in search of prosperity takes drive. We filter for hard workers.

The problem is the black-market / underbelly aspects of this pool, and that very desperation and drive that drove them here has them put up with conditions we should be ashamed of be it in California, Iowa, or Appalachia. Businesses exploiting that cheap source of labor drive down the ability for those trying to live a basic American life.

The biggest counter argument I hear, regularly, is that the "tide" of illegal labor you speak of is NECESSARY.

Who will pick strawberries? Who will clean your hotel room? Etc.

It's the classic who will do "X" dirty job argument.

> Who will pick strawberries? Who will clean your hotel room? Etc.

There is a seasonal / migrant worker visa for this reason. For instance, near me, Kiawah Island's resorts are partly staffed with Jamaican guest workers because the seasonal nature of the job. In high school I worked as a bagger at a grocery store on another island that was incredibly seasonal, so we had Russian guest workers during the summers.

Some jobs probably just wouldn't get done without either A) a wage increase or B) guest workers, e.g. particularly brutal agricultural tasks. We can allow the necessary workforce in for these tasks if need be.

> It's the classic who will do "X" dirty job argument.

The poor.

Having grown up in an area with a large Hispanic influx, they did. I currently live in an area with little to no Hispanics, but we do have a lot of poor African-Americans. They do the jobs I grew up seeing Central and South Americans work.

The problem with the illegal influx from southern nations, is they can also crowd out native blue collar markets by working for less, and are willing to live an impoverished standard of living. We should not be forsaking our own countrymen so we can get cheap lawn care from a wage-slave underclass living in third-world conditions on American soil.

The seasonal worker visa is talked about for Brexit. The people who need the workers, the fruit farmers, say it's far too much effort and isn't workable.

The poor here just aren't willing to do that work at that price. The supermarkets aren't willing to pay more for the produce. Something has to give and in both countries I'm sure it's going to be the rules on visas.

>Who will pick strawberries?

Let's frame this a different way...

"Who will actually spend the money to develop a strawberry picking machine when there are piles of people that are willing to do it for below minimum wage and no health care?"

Having some group you use at near slave labor status can hold back technological innovation.

If we decide that we are no longer able to exploit desperate immigrants to pick our crops, than the price those crops are sold at will rise until such time as the next Eli Whitney, who is probably an HN reader, invents a machine to harvest them cheaper.

All you're doing by continuing the exploitation is keeping such automation from being developed, as you rob it of it's market.

It is so predictable that the whole "but what about the farmers" is touted as a reason to flaunt immigration laws. The farmers are not owed such a subsidy by the American people. They will adapt if they are forced to. They would be stupid to do so before they are forced to.

>the price those crops are sold at will rise until such time as the next Eli Whitney, who is probably an HN reader, invents a machine to harvest them cheaper.

Sure, and who cares about the people who can't afford food in the meantime while we wait for the new Eli Whitney? You are proposing fixing one problem by creating numerous more problems.

I would be interested in your estimates of how much you believe produce prices would actually rise if farm workers were paid non-exploitative wages. I would also remind you that many of these poor people would be the ones receiving that higher wage.

Prices would only go up marginally a few percentage points, but that can be enough to break certain budgets especially when fresh food like this is already more expensive than processed and unhealthy alternatives.

You also shouldn't treat poor people as a single group. Yes, some poor people will be receiving these higher wages but no all. There are still people lost in the transition just like there would be people lost in the transition waiting for innovation from Eli Whitney.

Pretty soon, it will be the robots. That could be bad from a humanitarian perspective, but they won't defecate on the lettuce fields.

> Who will pick strawberries? Who will clean your hotel room? Etc.

1859: But who will pick cotton? Perform household chores?

We will either develop a technological solution or gasp the wages and benefits for picking strawberries will rise to such a point that it makes sense to pick that up as a career choice.

Kicking people out because there might be a robot to take their job in the future seems like putting the cart in front of the horse.

The number of illegal immigrants in the US has been dropping for the past decade.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-21/the-myth-...

The biggest reason for that IMO is because Mexico has been doing relatively well over the past couple of decades. You don't attempt a very risky illegal crossing if you can get a job and support your family where you are.

The repeal of NAFTA will restart the immigration wave as the Mexican economy tanks.

Some parts of NAFTA might eventually be renegotiated but it won't be repealed any time soon. In the USA it was implemented as a federal law (not a treaty or executive agreement) and there is very little Congressional support for a repeal.

what needs to be done? when labor isn't in high enough demand the tide will stem itself.

Employing immigrants in unskilled labor is a good thing if we're on the cusp of an automation revolution. Immigrants are not citizens - these are employable people who invested in traveling to America because we pay more for their skills. They go home when the market becomes unfavorable.

California has never been "straddled" with unemployable farm workers over winter...

Also, children of immigrants have the highest attainment of all https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

What some people don't realize is that the person emptying your trash bin in the evenings might very well be college educated. Not that they stand a chance of using that education in the US without the appropriate level of English.

Yes. For instance, my father-in-law has a PhD but worked as a janitor for a while when he first came to the US, until he could teach himself enough English to land a better job.

> I don't see the value in large numbers of unskilled workers entering the US every year. With a potentially large wave of automation coming, the US shouldn't straddled itself with lots of unemployable drivers, farm workers, etc.

Your argument is that the jobs these people do might be automated away so they shouldn't come here. Is that correct?

I would counter that many of these jobs can't easily be automated and that these workers are much more adaptable than you give them credit for. You just aren't going to see robots picking strawberries or hanging sheetrock on a large scale anytime soon for economic and technical reasons. Delivery drivers and dishwashers have very low cpaex vs robots that could do the same. These immigrants also start small companies at higher rates than native born Americans.

I guess I just don't get the rationale for keeping out low skill workers. The pay for goods an services, provide labor, start businesses, and generally do quite well.

Having fewer children neatly solves the problem of unemployment

You are not in agriculture and manufacturing then. We want to bring back coal mine jobs but why don't those coal miners start picking strawberries then? Neither requires a higher education or barely any education at all.

The coal mining stuff is smoke and mirrors. Arby’s employs more people than the entire coal mining industry.

What's the definition of "value" here? For current US citizens? For the world's economy? For some kind of global happiness/prosperity measurement?

Each definition changes the answers significantly, I'd think.

Try getting reasonably priced manual or domestic work in NYC. Workers here are lazy, incompetent and entitled. Compared to large cities in Asia it is difficult to get good workers here.

YMMV

We don't need a higher birth rate. We don't need more people. We have automation to increase productivity.

yes, it's time we all ackowledge and internalize the fact that our priorities as a nation have changed away from economic prosperity for all.

we're full-on protectionists now. immigrants threaten what we got (a high-status nation dominated by wealthy white people), so they got to go, despite being the primary driver of our properity.

as a bonus, wealth disparity will only accelerate as the economic pie stops growing, because the existing capital holders have great advantage in capturing the remaining income streams, further driving down birth rates.

meanwhile, countries like china and india have tons of economic headroom because their populations are 4-5 times that of the US, but at lower economic levels. those countries will eventually eclipse the US if we stay on this path.

> And the people leading immigration suppression in the US know this.

Yeah, but most don't focus on it. Paul Ryan is parroting his father and is not particularly brave or interesting. He's just a guy looking for a new cause to champion, because then he can just be the first, rather than compete. It has little to do with the "issue", which is a non-issue.

> US is going to face the same low birth rate problems as other advanced economies

Weaseling in "advanced economies" (which means countries without vast natural resources to exploit or what?) is not compelling as part of a narrative, as much as it's a nonsequitor.

Why is it that birth rates have gone down though? Many factors, mostly economic, which should be addressed instead of importing millions of people who will soon be replaced by automation anyways.

People used to have many more kids regardless of whether they were facing good or bad times. I'd say the change is less economic and more due to culture - both men and women want less kids.

There is economics in the cultural change - as people get wealthier and government welfare becomes more reliable the forces behind maintaining and growing the family decreases. Wealthy people in the past still had many more kids than they do now though, so there's probably a bigger explanation.

I'd say it's because of two things: 1) the invention of reliable birth control (namely The Pill), and 2) the rise of women to equal citizenship status with men, instead of basically being slaves used for breeding.

Women are the ones who have to sacrifice the most for children, so now that they have a choice, they don't do it nearly as much: some have none, others only have 1 or 2 and they've had enough. For replacement rate, every woman needs to have 2.1 kids on average, and not nearly enough women want to have 3+ kids to make up for all the women having fewer (which also includes infertile women don't forget).

And also with men and women being much more equal, men are expected to invest much more effort in child-rearing now, instead of just banging their wives and then letting them deal with the consequences while they do other stuff with their time. Well they don't want to deal with 6 kids either, and many don't want to deal with any.

Kids used to be cheap farm labor who eventually became your retirement plan. Now that nobody has land, child labor is forbidden, and "free-range parenting" is all but negligence, parenthood is a nearly unaffordable hobby.

The idea that a population must expand in perpetuity is an idea that is obviously flawed to apply to any finite nation. Given the oncoming tide of automation, it seems doubly flawed.

It should be acceptable for any population to ebb and flow, as changes in internal and external forces occur. Deciding to import warm bodies because your economic ponzi appears to require it seems like short term thinking. It would be better if the ponzi itself was addressed and the population allowed to ebb for awhile.

People are easy to attract to your country when you really need them ... unless you've managed to make that country undesirable.

You forget the most basic fact. We understand how children are made now, or not made.

It may sound stupid but it was not obvious a hundred years ago. The wife is pregnant again, well, must be an act of god.

You have a remarkable conception of what life was like a hundred years ago.

Well, try talking to your grandparents or beyond. It was a different time.

Try to imagine. There is no google search to find out how to make children. The closest library is far away and it's not that common to go to school and learn to read. That leaves you with the opinions of the family, the neighbors and the priest, who don't know much either and offer contradictory explanations.

>Try to imagine. There is no google search to find out how to make children. The closest library is far away and it's not that common to go to school and learn to read. That leaves you with the opinions of the family, the neighbors and the priest, who may not know much either and offer different tales.

I have to assume you're trolling, but to be charitable, here[0] is the Wikipedia article on the history of birth control. It starts in 1800 BC with ancient Egyptian writings describing the use of acacia and honey as a spermicide.

People knew where babies came from way before the internet.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_birth_control

> People knew where babies came from way before the internet.

I think you missed the GP's primary point. Just because someone in the entire world had the requisite knowledge might mean nothing at all to another someone a mere few hours of travel away, let alone on the other side of the world.

That's why written language was such a huge invention[1]. Then the printing press. Then the telegraph, radio, and telephone. Finally, the Internet. I'm sure I missed a few, but you get the idea.

[1] A moment of silence for the Libary at Alexandria, please

Sex and procreation can be found throughout recorded human history, regardless of locale. In mythology (from Zeus boning anything that moved to "be fruitful and multiply" to the Immaculate Conception and numerous creation myths besides), religious teachings regarding sex being for procreation and not mere pleasure, laws governing property rights, inheritance and royal succession, in literature, in plays and songs, in fairy tales and old wives' tales, etc.

For example, here's an article on Samuel Pepys and a sexual manual from 1680 which quite clearly demonstrates that the nature of carnal knowledge was generally known at the time[0]. Along with death and mortal fear, sex and birth comprises one of the archetypal constants of the human experience. It's everywhere. It also happens to be knowledge that's necessary to continue the species, which humans have proven quite good at.

I guarantee that our parents knew how babby was formed, as did their parents, as did their parents, etc. Even our hominid ancestors before the formation of language understood it, because even animals understand it at an instinctive level.

[0]http://theappendix.net/posts/2013/06/this-misterie-of-fuckin...

I'm pretty sure neither I, nor the comment to which I was replying was referring to the knowledge (or ignorance) of the link between sex and pregnancy. At least in general.

The problem for something like contraception, which is the context here, is in understanding the details. Those details are sorely lacking in plays, songs, fairy tales, and old wives' tales.

> It also happens to be knowledge that's necessary to continue the species

No knowledge is actually necessary, as mere ignorant performance of the act is sufficient.

Right, just because some proto-scientist in a primitive ivory tower had observed two goats fucking, doesn't mean the common person had access to that kind of knowledge.

Based on the people I know, it's because they have student debt, they can't afford a house, they can't afford for one parent to quit their job and do full-time child care, and the price of day Care is prohibitive.

The only people who can afford kids are either extremely rich or extremely poor.

Depression, obesity, and kids are soooooo uncool. Just get, like, a dog or something. #blessed

It's pretty easy to read this thread and see how much dislike there is toward children.

>because those two-parent families tend to vote for the other party, and one-earner families have kids that vote for their party

This confuses cause and effect. Two-earner families tend to be two-earner families because you need two incomes in expensive cities (which vote D regardless of familial status). Single-earner families get much on much less in smaller cities and rural areas that tend to be more conservative.

    > With the recent reduction in immigration[...]

What's your source for that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I wasn't able to find any year-by-year statistics for US immigration.

Some good, fairly recent data from Pew [1] and in this [2] NY Times article. From what I gather from this, border crossings are going down, but illegal visa overstays are going up.

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-abou...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/u...

he should have had seven. three is still a decline from the generation before.

> one party wants to make it hard for two-parent working families to have more kids

Wait what? Are we talking child credits, abortion, progressive income taxes, mortgage tax credit?

Has there been a reduction in legal immigration? Just curious what the actual numbers are.

There has been a noticeable difference in the quality in top universities in the US. No really top student from anywhere really wants to navigate the nonsense that US immigration is.

The only people who are coming in are reasonably well off, but desperate to move.

Human farm needs to keep on churning.

I think it's difficult to argue that we need more people when we are already straining ecologically. Fewer people is better, especially when we can automate away jobs that are unfilled.

However, this does expose a gaping hole in capitalism, that it can only deliver improvements to the masses under conditions of growth. With falling birthrates and immigration, we will need to find a more sustainable political economy.

Nonetheless, immigration is falling for dystopic reasons, not good ones (i.e. other countries are more attractive in a positive sense). It's falling because of authoritarianism, xenophobia, and a program of ethnic cleansing targeted at the most vulnerable people that is being performed by ICE.

EDIT: The last paragraph is justified because there are 325M people in the US and 11M undocumented people. There may be a marginal effect on jobs, but the bulk of the economy is made up of everyone else. We're talking about 3% of the population.