| > uncontrolled immigration from poor countries bringing crime and causing social distrust This is not a thing that exists. First, immigration into the US, from poor countries or otherwise is not uncontrolled by any stretch of the imagination. Notably, immigration rates are far far from their historical heights. Second, bringing crime is a bold-face lie: immigrants commit crimes both petty and violent at lower rates than native born Americans. And, of course, crime rates are also at or near historical lows no matter what stat one looks at. Third, "social distrust" is pretty odd thing to try to pin on immigration: while there is some research that indicates that a non-assimilated minority undermines social trust, the US as a whole certainly doesn't have a migration rate of non-assimilated minorities at anywhere close to those rates, those migration rates have not increased, and the demographic "Bowling Alone" type studies indicate that the non-dynamic communities where immigrants aren't settling are the ones having issues. As for "people moving around like cattle", internal migration rates (people moving out of state/county) have fallen steadily over the last thirty years or so. And since when is the movement of people towards opportunity a bad thing? What if towns in which it's "impossible to create good economies" have simply outlived their usefulness as going concerns? Predictably, this comment rules out moving to opportunity or a social safety net or investment (collective action to solve problems such as "few companies [with] a lot of bargaining power" is spooky) and believes that a well-connected society can only happen when "good economies in towns" are first brought into being by magic as opposed to anything that can actually work. And, of course, the NYTimes isn't doing all that much to promote policies or politicians aiming to "destroy socities [sic]". Come on now. |