No. That is not my argument. I point out that there is some limit to how many people can arrive and be absorbed into society with 'acceptable' costs, and what's 'acceptable' varies from 'none, ever' through 'what we have now' and up to 'more, please'. But having a real conversation about what acceptable immigration looks like is actually sane. Is anyone arguing that Canada needs to change their immigration policy? For reference, they accept 465,000 immigrants per year.PseudoStupidity wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:49 pmIs DDM's argument that because people are xenophobic we need to respect their xenophobia? That is a shitty argument, xenophobia is bad so we should reject it.
No. That is not my argument. A democracy has institutions to ensure that the popular will is respected (unless it directly impacts with the rights of a protected minority). There are a lot of debates about who should be a protected minority. Some people think that unborn babies should be prioritized by society and some people think that the health and choices of pregnant women should be prioritized. Obviously there's a position I take on these issues, but in many ways they reflect what are society's values and having the conversation is important and in many policy issues there is a range of positions that are defensible based on what your value-system is. In a pluralistic society that values differences, we also have to respect that we can weigh the same facts and come to differing conclusions without one side being 'right' and the other 'wrong' - but we also have to come to a consensus that allows society to function. Ultimately, if 'the government' enforces laws that are deeply opposed to the society's convictions, that government will be forced to change in accordance with Democratic principles. Regarding immigration - creating clear policies that align with our national character is worthwhile - and welcoming immigrants is part of that. But we also have NIMBY issues - if the individual cost and inconvenience to Americans is too high, well, hard-right anti-politicians will ride into office. It happened in Poland, it happened in Turkey, it happened in Hungary. The U.S. isn't so exceptional that it can't happen here, so finding a solution that is broadly popular and supported by our legal obligations and professed values is critical.PseudoStupidity wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:49 pmIs his argument that Americans want a thing and Democrats need to adopt whatever a majority of Americans want? That is also shitty, not only because supporting bad things is bad even if they're popular, but because he doesn't actually believe this (otherwise he would be furious at Democrats for their support of the deeply unpopular genocide, among other things).
Math fail. If we admit 1% of the U.S. population every year and the median life-expectancy of an immigrant is, say, 35 years, then after 1 year the population would be 16%; after 2 years it would be 17%; after 35 years it would be 50%. That is assuming you use a baseline number and/or it capped immigration at 1%. That is, unless you suggest that we admit 3 million people each year, but also deport 3 million people each year, in which case you have a lot of new people but nobody really gets a chance to get established or build a life, which doesn't seem great.PseudoStupidity wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:49 pmIs his argument that we lack the resources or that society would crumble if we admitted every single person who arrived in the US? It can't be that since he said 15% is the magic number and even if we take his maximum number of asylum seekers (3.2 million in 2023) that's less than 1% of the US population. That is, unless he considers people who moved to the US more than a decade ago to be fundamentally different from a natural born citizen in some way (this would be pretty fucking racist). I don't see how bringing in a number of immigrants equal to 1% of the US population every year would be a problem. People naturalize pretty quickly, so we'd never get to 15% of people in the US being unnaturalized (idk if that's the right term for it) immigrants.
Anyway, my mother moved to the United States (immigrated) when she was 10 years old in 1960. I do think that she's different than a natural-born citizen. She's an immigrant and she's a naturalized citizen, but she legally can't be elected President (just like Arnold Schwarzenegger). I don't see how recognizing that she has a different background and legal status under the Constitution than I do makes me a racist, but I'm happy to own it.
As for how quickly people 'acclimate', I think it depends on a number of factors like how old they are when they arrived, how integrated their life is in the new society, and a whole bunch of other factors. Let's just say that my grandparents seemed like 'immigrants' to people they met even after they had lived here 50 years but most people don't realize my mother wasn't born here.
I think you're mischaracterizing a lot of things. Many people think that there are too many people illegally crossing the border. I live in Knoxville; we've had population growth of about 1.5%-2% per year. It is a big problem for people. They're building more houses, but they're not doing anything to expand infrastructure to support the homes. Traffic has gotten unbearable for a lot of people; schools are stressed because they have expanded enrollment beyond the existing classroom space; the cost of buying a home or renting an apartment has gone up and up and up. Obviously the inconveniences aren't enough to keep people from moving here, but there are a lot of people who want to slow it down or at least build the infrastructure FIRST. But it doesn't work like that.PseudoStupidity wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 8:49 pmAnd just because I know what argument will be made, yes I know we'd need to convince the people of the US to support this. Convincing people you have the correct opinion is literally doing politics, and it's what the Democrats are emphatically not doing by saying immigrants are dangerous and will kill you with an AR-15.
Immigrants don't have to be dangerous to be a problem. Homeless people don't have to be dangerous to be a problem. Drug-users don't have to be dangerous to be a problem. It'd be great if people were endlessly selfless but they're not and they never will be. Most people will help someone out if it doesn't cause them problems, but even New Yorkers (who are pretty liberal and very used to immigrants) find that the current rate of entry is unsustainable.