[jacquesm]

A good portion emigrated because it was either that or the gallows. Another portion - possibly those that you referred to with the 'by choice' bit was imported as so much cattle to be used and abused. Slavery powered a lot of engines in those days and even if those European ancestors washed their hands of it in Europe at the time their descendants had no problem at all setting it up in what would become the USA as well as they folks 'back home' profiting immensely from it. Here in NL they are still to a large extent in denial about it. And that spirit is also still alive and well in the USA.

[boulos]

I think the commenters above were mostly talking about late 19th century immigration by Irish, Italian, etc. workers in the post-Civil War era.

It's still true that the pay and conditions were awful, but it was clearly something people chose to do.

[rayiner]

The group that descends from enslaved people brought here involuntarily also has by far the highest levels of group identity and support for redistributive policies. So that supports my point.

[jacquesm]

Hey man, everything supports your point so I don't think I'm surprised by that.

ICE deportations without due process: check -> supports Rayiner's point

Massive and ongoing violations of the US constitution: check -> supports Rayiner's point

Immigrants and their descendants voting against immigration: check -> supports Rayiner's point

Troops deployed to cities that were doing no worse than other cities but happened to be run by democrats: check -> supports Rayiner's point

Taking a sledgehammer to the federal government without any consideration for the consequences: check -> supports Rayiner's point

I wonder at what moment - if ever - you will look around and say 'Hey, you know what, I'm co-responsible for this mess and I own up to it'. I don't know if you have a daughter or not but if not we'll substitute some other female relative. Let's imagine for the moment that you do and you get the choice of leaving her in a room for a couple of days with Trump, Biden or Harris which would you pick? And if not Trump, why not, after all, what's there to fear, he's an upstanding citizens that any self respecting lawyer would vote for. There are plenty of MAGA's who are just too stupid to know better after a couple of decades on FOX and AM talk radio, so they get a pass, in spite of all the damage that they do.

But guys that clerked for the US court of appeals are held to a higher standard.

There is this proverb: a country gets the government that it deserves. Now, I have a crap government here at the moment, but at least I'm not responsible for voting it in and cheering it on while they do their crap and I still feel responsible just by being from here and the fact that they - unfortunately - represent me too.

[rayiner]

> you get the choice of leaving her in a room for a couple of days with Trump, Biden or Harris which would you pick?

I don’t know how this is relevant to what we were discussing, but yes, I have a daughter. And one of my principal fears was how much social pressure she would feel to relate to Harris, a shallow mediocrity who might have been greater if everyone didn’t have the lowest possible expectations for her on account of identity politics.

[Der_Einzige]

If you have a daughter and you voted for trump, you deserve this version of trump to “be around” YOUR daughter.

https://youtu.be/OhDuL7LrLEc?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/Q0_axTST2aY?feature=shared

[jacquesm]

You dodged the question.

And so you voted for the greedy, utterly corrupt criminal instead. I really wonder how you could come to this utterly bizarre conclusion. Trump isn't an example for anybody, least of all your kids, and god forbid they'd look at a woman that made it to president and think that that might be something to aspire to. Incredible.

[rayiner]

EDIT: I wrote a bunch of stuff, but realized Glenn Loury said it a thousand times better: https://x.com/nashvilletea/status/1961683711511969904?s=46. Watch to the very end: “You will not be equal at the end of that argument, even if you get what you ask for.” I almost felt bad for Harris after the election. It became obvious how few people actually respected her as a leader. They installed her as a generic “woman of color” because it made them feel good and like they were achieving a milestone in the “arc of history.” It’s pitiable, not admirable.

I raise my kids the way my dad raised me—and how white elites raise their own kids, in contrast to how they see brown kids: to always have an internal locus of control, never make excuses, and never demand society’s protection or accommodation.

[jacquesm]

> It became obvious how few people actually respected her as a leader. They installed her as a generic “woman of color” because it made them feel good and like they were achieving a milestone in the “arc of history.”

Yes, obviously she didn't get there because of merit... unbelievable this exchange.

So your main point is that Harris, who was in the spot to become president for all of four years if something happened to Biden, was only there as a generic woman of color? This is in a way a worse insult than if it had been just jealousy. Do you honestly believe that the slob you voted for is there on merit? And never mind his sidekick? Harris has more merit than either of those two grifters combined.

For your sake I hope that one day you're going to snap out of the groove that you are in. But by the looks of it the more likely end game is that you will dig yourself in further and further until there really is no way back.

Just for a 10 minute exercise: imagine you are wrong about all this and that in a decade you look back at the end result. Then realize that there is such a thing as minimization of regret and that this radicalization path that you - as you admitted yourself - are on does not offer any outs other than ever more convoluted rationalizations which your original self from just a few years ago would have been horrified at. The reason I keep talking to you is because I hope that somewhere in there the guy that we knew before he went off into the woods is still there and is still able to use common sense instead of the sense that words on paper matter more than people. Probably I'm the idiot though and I should just give up on you.