[MyShawdowySelf]

> I'm more American in attitude than most Americans I know.

I am not sure what's this "American attitude" you mention here nor which scale you are using to say that you are somewhat higher on that scale vs "most" American.

Been here for about 8 years, live in a bunch of places in the world. For me the most striking thing about the US as always been the sheer diversity of thoughts and perspectives. That and also the fact that somehow most American think they have the magical ability to know what is american and what is not.

> I consider myself a nationalist.

And a lot of american are not.

> First and foremost, I strongly believe that elected representatives should represent the best interests of their citizens and ONLY their citizens.

To a degree and with some limitation. Should we allow american companies to do morally/ecologically dubious things overseas just because we get some tax revenue ?

> The best interest of potential future citizens is not something they should even give a thought to.

So... the interest of children of american's shouldn't matter ?

> That's the question that should be asked when admitting an immigrant: "Is this person a net benefit to the citizens of this country I was elected to represent?"

The issue is of course in defining what is a "net" benefit. For some, the cultural exchange, the moral obligation to asylum seekers or relative to people already here does count like a net benefit.

It is also important to note that this view of immigration as something that should be provably beneficial is pretty recent. The wave of european (italian, irish etc...) did migrate in mass to the US without any obvious/forseeable benefit... But all in all it turned out well.

> First, it absolutely must cost more to bring in an immigrant to do a job than to hire an American. Under no situation should it be allowed to depress wages. If a citizen costs X, it should cost like 1.5x or some value like that to import the talent you need if you genuinely can't find the talent you need domestically.

Agree.

> Second, the visa should belong the the person being brought to the US. A company can sponsor them and maybe get exclusive access for some short period of time like the first year or so, but after that, the person should not have their visa tied to the employer that sponsored them. If they get a good perf review after their first year on the job, they absolutely should get an extension to stay another N years like 3 to 5, but at this point they are totally free to work for any other company with zero risk of losing their visa status if they choose not to continue working for the employer that sponsored them. If that employer wants to keep them, they'll have to pay the premium to keep them and treat them well. No immigrant should ever feel like an indentured servant.

Agree

> Third, scrutiny should be applied to all companies involved in using the H1-B program as a visa mill and to co-ethnic nepotism.

You absolutely need to make sure that companies aren't "selling" the visas. For example, someone in country X should not be able to pay or perform a favor for a company in the US to get a visa. A genuine need needs to be demonstrated and we need to make sure there is no quid pro quo.

Co-ethnic nepotism is another big one. Executives and managers should not be able to sponsor H1-Bs from their country of origin or from their religious group. If the CEO of a company is from country X and manager of the team is from country Y, then the H1-B visa cannot be filled by someone from either country X or Y. There are 195 countries in the world. Removing the United States, country X and country Y, still leaves 192 other countries from which to find talent.

The h1-b should be merit based. However people tend to know other people from the same general background, so it might be hard to distinguish between nepotism and that. I do agree with the general sentiment, any system will be abused by bad actors, we need checks to make sure those don't happen.

> Lastly, we need to focus on assimilation. I have citizenship from three countries myself and I choose to live in the US because I value US culture (or at least what it was 10 to 15 years ago).

> If I wanted to live and work in the other countries in which I could legally work, I'd move to those countries. I don't want that. I want to live and work in the US because I value US culture. If you disproportionately bring in immigrants from particular countries, you turn the US into those other countries for better and for worse. This happens both at the national level and at the local level. I don't want it at either.

> In fact, when you disproportionately bring in people from country X into a specific locality, you make it harder for those folks to assimilate. This allows the formation of ethnic/cultural enclaves. This should not happen. You should have a mix of folks from multiple countries in a place so they actually co-mingle and assimilate to become Americans. Not hyphenated Americans, but bonafide Americans that adopt America as the home and the country in which they pride themselves.

> Completely disregarding assimilation is going to kill the Golden Goose that Elon Musk values. He can build SpaceX here in American but not in country X or country Y. However, if we culturally turn the US into country X or country Y or just kill the current culture we have now with an indiscriminate immigration policy, then he won't be able to keep building SpaceX in the US in the way he has in the past. He may be able to fix the regulatory hurdles to getting to Mars with DOGE, but he won't be able to fix the culture of the country if we don't prevent the negative aspects of the change in culture. America today is already a much lower trust culture than when I moved here 29 years ago and the continued loss of trust threatens being able to get anything done together as Americans. Coethnic nepotism within a firm, for example, absolutely hurts the ability for that firm to fulfill on its mission as different enclaves within the firm fight with one another for a bigger piece of the pie instead of working together to grow the size of the pie.

Well you did warn us that you were a nationalist. So we can't be too surprise. I strongly suspect that alot people disagree what most of whhat you are saying here. But more importantly we do not need to solve/agree on those cultural problem to address the issue with H1-B

> Basically, I want to Make American a High Trust Culture Again. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It's culture and it requires assimilation and a common identity.

America was never a "high trust culture".

> Our motto is e pluribus unum, not e pluribus pluribus.

It's interesting that you seem to read the exact opposite of what "e pluribus unum". It's a celebration of differences... The belief that unity doesn't require uniformity or common identity. That hyphenated Americans can live together without having to drop the hyphen. In fact, that's another thing that very "american" and different from European. The concept that out of the many can emerge the one and that both can coexist...

I strongly suspect that you are mixing culture and values...

[malandrew]

I'm not surprised by your interpretation of a lot of my comment. Coastal/Urban America hasn't had anything resembling a common culture for a lot longer than 8 years now. I'd say that it's been a wholly different place pre- and post- 9/11.

Your view of America is limited by your experience of it in the past 8 years. I assure you, it was very very different even just 20 years ago. America pre-social media was a very very different place. We now have at least one (Gen Z), if not two full generations (younger Millenials) of Americans that have grown up with all of their experiences mediated in some form or another in a relatively international post social media landscape.

> And a lot of american are not.

Believe it or not, this is a pretty recent phenomena. It's only been since the late 90s as best. Hyphenated Americans is about 36 years old. It started with African-American" in about 1989 and didn't spread to others until at least another decade. Go check Google's ngram viewer for "African-American" and see for yourself.

Even much of the divisive language we have now is like 15 years old: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08944393211031452

A lot of this language coincided with Occupy Wall Street because the powers that be had a vested interest in diverting attention away from a discussion of class in America.

I'm a nationalist because I remember back when America largely had a singular identity and it was highly socially unusual to split up into all these sub identities. It still isn't the case for much of small town America and what coastal elites consider flyover country.

> But all in all it turned out well.

Only because of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act that allowed a single cohesive identity to form over like 40 years. The history of America is actually pretty messy.

> America was never a "high trust culture".

Absolutely not true. It was much much higher trust when I first moved here in 1986 (which is 39 years ago, not 29 years ago. I did my math wrong in my comment and just now realized it).

> It's interesting that you seem to read the exact opposite of what "e pluribus unum". It's a celebration of differences...

This is not at all what it was three decades ago and further back until the origin of the country's founding. It was a celebration of finding commonality despite differences. What you're describing is a complete retcon of what it historically has meant since it was first used on the great seal in 1776.

Go watch American classic movies and TV shows from the founding of Hollywood until about 1990. Much of it was highly representative of American culture I experienced in the earlier years when I first moved here. Much much much higher trust than today.

[trealira]

>> America was never a "high trust culture".

> Absolutely not true. It was much much higher trust when I first moved here in 1986

I don't believe it, especially given that you're saying this is due to immigration. What do you mean specifically when you say this? Do you mean there was less violent crime? Because that isn't true. Do you mean that there's more ethnic conflict now? That also isn't really true.

America has been characterized largely by the racial conflicts it's had since the 19th century, with there being ethnic violence between whites, Chinese, Irish, blacks, Italians, and others. Though not to the same extent as the 19th century, riots were still happening, e.g. the 1992 LA riots.

[malandrew]

For the most part, my observations is that we now just put up with rampant property crime and very little of it gets reported. This isn't surprising because getting cops to respond to property crime reports when you call 911 now takes so long that it isn't even worth it.

I've personally experienced more property crime and other issues in the past 5 to 10 years than my entire family experienced in the 29 to 34 years prior.

About a month and a half a go, I had some kids damage my car in the supermarket parking lot. Called 911. Waiting on hold for like 20 minutes because it wasn't an emergency. Cops didn't show for an hour. Called back, changed the address of the incident to my home. Cops ended up showing up 13 hours after the incident between 1 and 2 am. Growing up, I don't recall ever waiting more than 30 minutes for anything when 911 was called. I wouldn't have even called 911 for this issue if I had a choice. Supermarket wouldn't provide surveillance footage without a police report filed.

The statistics simply aren't telling the whole story. People have largely given up on reporting things because they've become so commonplace and folks don't expect anything to be done. Crime clearance rates for all crimes are down all over the country as we lose faith that anything will be done.

I wish I had the study I read one time handy, but it was comparing crime stats between the US and Japan over time and it basically showed that you can get to a point where crime has gotten so bad that it's no longer reported because folks no longer expect any resolution from reporting crime. This closely matches my personal experience with property crime that has impacted me and others I know.

Even the arsonist who tried to set my home on fire two years ago while on a meth bender is getting out in 5 years from now. The charges were two separate cases. One was 5 counts of arson 1 and the other was 1 count of arson 1 and violating a restraining order IIRC. Pled everything down to 6 counts of arson 2. 7 years total, with two years already served. In the end, one entire house burned down. One was severely damage and the other had minor damage because the fires were put out promptly.

We wouldn't bother to lock our doors growing up. Today, I probably record someone checking to see if my car is unlocked (crime of opportunity) about once every one to two months.

[eszed]

I really appreciate the tenor of the discussion you've had with your primary interlocutor(s) above. It's been substantive and civil, and I wish every sociopolitical disagreement online could be approached in the same manner. Because of the respect I've gained for you throughout this thread I'm going to do what I seldom do online, and express something about my political point of view.

I agree with your diagnosis of the problems with American society, particularly the 'high trust' vs 'low trust' line of thought. I'd add the nuance that in the past trust was not (largely) extended across racial lines, but there was progress made, up until it began falling apart altogether.

Coming from a left-liberal point of view, I think the root cause has been economic, rather than cultural, because (developing along the same timeline as your tenure in the United States) we've arrived at an extractive rather generative form of capitalism. I think that explains the H1b abuses we both deplore, the social balkanization, and also the very similar cultural, economic, and governance breakdowns simultaneously appearing in other countries across the "western/liberal" world.

I'm not saying that to spark further argument, just as prelude to: I hope you're right. If the way to re-forming a high-trust society and curing what we agree ails us is as simple as the American right posits then I will happily eat crow over the next four or eight or whatever years. That is, of course, the opposite of what I expect to happen with (as I see them) the extractive capitalists fully in charge, but I am prepared to be proved wrong.

I will ask you, as I've recently been asking all of my right-wing friends, to judge what happens in the near future against the expectations that you have now. If things go badly, and those solutions fail, will you be willing to try "my side's" ideas - think TR +FDR reduce corporate power, : wealth transfers and massive infrastructure investments - next? I believe that's what created the mid-twentieth century cultural foundations which we'd both like to reconstruct.

[malandrew]

Thanks for the kind words.

> I'd add the nuance that in the past trust was not (largely) extended across racial lines, but there was progress made, up until it began falling apart altogether.

Yeah, I'm not going to deny this at all, but I must say that in the 1990s and 2000s at least among the older Millennials and younger GenX, there was a very real sense of judging people mostly by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. What has happened in the last 15 years in race and gender relationships is a massive step backwards. Even I can't help having prejudiced thoughts today as a response to these changes that me 20 years ago would have been repulsed by. I say this as a third culture kid, who is mixed race whose "plurality" leans European, but who who identifies with Europe, Latin American and a tiny smidge of Indigenous South America.

It's actually been sad to see some of the comments here where folks have expressed that "America doesn't have a culture". I know it's largely attenuated from when I was younger, but it's still palpable to me. It's sad to see that it's now so weak that many express that they don't even think it exists.

> Coming from a left-liberal point of view, I think the root cause has been economic, rather than cultural, because (developing along the same timeline as your tenure in the United States) we've arrived at an extractive rather generative form of capitalism.

Couldn't agree more. I was left leaning most of my life. I remember back when Zappa testified in Congress about overzealous right leaning conservative school marms. Today, it largely feels the same but the longhouse school marms are left leaning. I'm always conflicted about self describing myself as conservative these days because while policy-wise that's where I'm out, it's mostly out of the complete failures of the left-leaning policies of those in control of every major American institution. In 20-30 years, I would not surprise if I end up back expressing support for the equivalent of left leaning policies in 2050 or so in the event the right successfully takes back these institutions. Ultimately, I just want to be left alone and want to see everyone else left alone as well.

I'm also in complete agreement that its the blind pursuit of economic policy that serves those in power that's been most contributory to the destruction of American culture. If I read correctly a full 1 in 5 working adults in America are immigrants. That's wildly high and it's insane to me than anyone can argue that hasn't depressed wages, increased pressure on housing costs (which increases the cost of living across the board).

That said, this all falls under the research of George Borjas, who has done an amazing job documenting the impact of immigration workers on the American workers. But it isn't the whole story. He has a colleague at Harvard, whose work is equally important in this discussion and that is the work of Robert Putnam, who has done the largest and most comprehensive studies documenting the decline of civic engagement in America. His work is summarized in his book "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community", but his larger body of work merits attention.

The disintegration of homogenous communities and replacement with heterogenous communities has creation circumstances where groups are fighting with one another.

One of the seminal lessons I've learn in my life personally is that politics rises when things balkanize. Instead of a single culture rowing together in the same direction to grow the size of the pie, they instead fight against one another to grow the size of their piece of the pie. I've seen this happen in America broadly in the time I've lived here, but I've also seen it up close and personally while working at one of Silicon Valley's best known unicorns.

I feel like I joined the company relatively late at around employee ~2000 and engineer ~200, but by the time I left about 10 years later, I was among the 25 most tenured employees at the company and had seen probably 10000 engineers pass through the company and who knows how many total employees. My guess is 50k or more.

The last 4 years or so were painful. The company went from one where everyone had shared economic incentives (stock options) and a shared mission, to one with fiefdoms everywhere and everyone just trying to further their career and the career of their manager or skip level. By the time I left, my guess is that I could count those folks that I worked with that still truly believed in the mission of the company on two hands. Which is nothing in a company of 25k+ active employees.

I sincerely believe we can get back to a unified culture, but it's going to require something drastic like the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 to stop the bleeding and then one to two generations to pass to allow for those here to figure out how to form one new common American identity. That's not to say we shouldn't allow anyone in, but it should only be allowing those in that truly benefit all Americans and not just the American oligarchy.

> That is, of course, the opposite of what I expect to happen with (as I see them) the extractive capitalists fully in charge, but I am prepared to be proved wrong.

I too am skeptical, but I'd put the emphasis more specifically on globalists and the deep state. Between all that's happened with Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Thomas Massive, Jeffrey Epstein, P Diddy, Twitter Files, revelations from Mike Benz, Hunter Biden laptop, etc. etc. etc., I have very little confidence that corruption from those in economic and political control will actually be held to account.

> I will ask you, as I've recently been asking all of my right-wing friends, to judge what happens in the near future against the expectations that you have now. If things go badly, and those solutions fail, will you be willing to try "my side's" ideas - think TR +FDR reduce corporate power, : wealth transfers and massive infrastructure investments - next?

Yes and no. I'm absolutely willing to condemn what you're describing as "my side's ideas", but I have no confidence in the ideas you're talking about as well. I've seen them fail both in this country and the country I'm from.

The ideas I want to see tried out are neither Republican or Democrat ideas. I want to take a wrecking ball to power structures in America. Everything deep state related needs to go.

The analogy I use as a sailor (which should also be familiar to anyone who has kitesurfed), is the idea of "depowering" the sails. Right now, we have instutitions with way too much power and all that power is a massive magnet for the most corruptible people. Orwell said "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", but their is more to it than that. Absolute power also absolutely attracts the absolutely corrupted. I'd love to see far more decentralization and power back at the state and local level. I'd love to see every major institution under the Executive branch either dismantled or spread across medium-sized cities all across the country.

Back before we had the Department of Education, we relied on 50 department of educations in each of 50 states trying things out. Some had good ideas, but some had bad ideas, but those with bad ideas had the option of copyingt those experiencing success with their policies.

I've seen this exact same situation at the big company I left. For the first 5-6 years anyone with an idea had to first implement that idea, prove it out and then scale it up. Eventually, everything became command and controls and now every idea could no longer be experimented with and scaled up. Instead they had to be implemented by or get the blessing of the annointed ones with power and if considered acceptable could only be implemented company-wide or not at all. With that approach, I saw so many "ideas" that were ram-rodded through as multi-year efforts, many of which failed, but failed only after their original "sponsor" was promoted and had moved on, leaving a wake of destruction for others to clean up.

The closest equivalent to this is what's happened with Milei in Argentina. I'm still skeptical of him as an individual, but what he's achieved has been nothing short of remarkable.

If I could have one wish for America, it would be that the bulk of my taxes went to my local jurisdiction first, then state and only pennies were left over for federal only for those things that can only be handled at the federal level like national defense (but only acted upon with the blessing of 50 states).

One of the biggest failures I think with our Constitution are that representation wasn't designed to scale. When the first Congress was established the US had 3.9 million people. Today, it's 346 million. In 1789, with the first Congress, we had 26 senators and approximately 65 representatives by the end. The ratio in 1789 was 43k people to each member of Congress. Today it is 643k.

This is a failure to scale because each citizen has a far smaller voice and it's much cheaper for those in power to corrupt 538 members of Congress today. Had we scaled proportionately (43k to 1), Congress would have just over 8000 members. IMHO, that would be far healthier because it would be far more expensive for special interests to buy their way into getting a majority of votes of 8000+ members of Congress.

Anyways, that's enough for now. I could go on forever on this. Again, I appreciate your comment.

[malandrew]

TBF, I'm not against wealth transfers and infrastructure investments. I just think they should be handled as close to the local level as possible.

Wealth transfers for example worked better when Churches and other local community institutions were involved. They'd collect directly from their parishioners and provide support directly to those that need help. This is a system that is highly accountable to the people providing help and keeps those receiving help accountable for "helping themselves" and not just mooching.

Same with infrastructures. With infrastructure, there are times, that some big may have value, but very rarely does it require the scale of the state or the federal government. The biggest of infrastructure projects are rarely larger than an economic region (e.g. SF Bay Area. Seattle Metro area. etc.).

The interstate highway system is like the only infrastructure project that benefits from Federal involvement.

Right now, doing through the Federal government provides far too little accountability for results and spending money wisely.