Re:Stripe bans Trump campaign
by rayiner on Monday January 11, 2021 @07:49AM
(#25728199)
The fact that the US long favored immigration under different circumstances doesn’t mean that it’s an impermissible view to oppose it right now. There was a strong period of immigration restriction starting in 1920 where the foreign born population dropped to 5% while the country became culturally much more homogenous due to mass media. The foreign born population started rising again due to the 1965 INA and is now triple what it was in 1970. Also, the country is much more interconnected today since everything was federalized starting in the 1930s. Mass immigration to the coasts—where people coming from different political cultures back home would eventually start voting here-didn’t affect folks in the rest of the country as much during the mass immigration at the turn of the 20th century.
Also, you’re again painting the issue with a liberal brush by talking about “white persons.” That’s a viewpoint rooted cultural relativism—it overlooks that immigrants don’t differ only by race, but culture, political tradition, etc. It’s also incorrect: for example under the 1921 immigration act there was no restriction at all on immigration from Latin America, while it was restricted from every European country to an annual 3% of the existing population of people from that country. (Of course there was a racist element to it as well with the 1924 Asian exclusion act. But that confirms that there are two separate issue.)
I’m not trying to convince you of this point, I’m explaining why we can’t have folks in NYC and SF deciding what political ideas can be expressed online. American liberals have increasingly fully embraced cultural relativism, while American conservatives (and most ordinary people around the world) still believe that “culture matters.” Conservatives assume that culture drives societal differences, and, especially combined with a natural pessimism, are terrified of changes in culture. They also tend to live in the vast swaths of the country that have a low foreign-born population and fairly homogenous cultures. Ironically, as an immigrant myself it’s easy for me to understand someone in Idaho who is afraid of the culture of his community changing. Bangladeshis would feel the same way. Asians, in general, are not cultural relativists.
Also, you’re again painting the issue with a liberal brush by talking about “white persons.” That’s a viewpoint rooted cultural relativism—it overlooks that immigrants don’t differ only by race, but culture, political tradition, etc. It’s also incorrect: for example under the 1921 immigration act there was no restriction at all on immigration from Latin America, while it was restricted from every European country to an annual 3% of the existing population of people from that country. (Of course there was a racist element to it as well with the 1924 Asian exclusion act. But that confirms that there are two separate issue.)
I’m not trying to convince you of this point, I’m explaining why we can’t have folks in NYC and SF deciding what political ideas can be expressed online. American liberals have increasingly fully embraced cultural relativism, while American conservatives (and most ordinary people around the world) still believe that “culture matters.” Conservatives assume that culture drives societal differences, and, especially combined with a natural pessimism, are terrified of changes in culture. They also tend to live in the vast swaths of the country that have a low foreign-born population and fairly homogenous cultures. Ironically, as an immigrant myself it’s easy for me to understand someone in Idaho who is afraid of the culture of his community changing. Bangladeshis would feel the same way. Asians, in general, are not cultural relativists.