[rayiner]

I’m not trying to persuade you about the premises, but only that—as a result of those premises—the slippery slope you fear is longer than you assume. For people who draw fundamental inside/outside distinctions, things that are intolerable for outsiders to say are tolerable for insiders to say.

I view America as a hot cup of coffee, and the outside world as lukewarm day old coffee. I’m not worried about how hot or cold individual molecules inside America are—the average will work out. My concern is about dumping lukewarm coffee from the outside into the cup.

[scarecrowbob]

I know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position. I understand your point because it is and has been broadcast to me everywhere I have lived in the US.

As a person looking for a cool drink of water, or who might be okay with drinking an iced coffee as the world burns, I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose. And that's something that has happened here, often, historically, in other places, with many people.

So you can tell me that my concern isn't warranted; I get that all the time. It starts with "you're being hyperbolic" and ends with "well, we are glad they are gone because they weren't 'real people' anyhow."

The reality is that I'm not being hyperbolic in my concern.

[rayiner]

> know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position.

Culture is not race. Children should be required to write that 100 times on a chalkboard. The third world is the way it is because of the culture of the people who built those societies. Nobody would be more thrilled than me if the only difference between Iowans and Bangladeshis was that we don’t need to spend money on sunscreen. (Except a little for my feet, which burn easily.) But that’s a fantasy world. It’s a fantasy that persists because most Americans have little personal contact with immigrants and can’t see how Bangladeshi mothers raise their children differently than Iowan mothers. Immigrants, meanwhile, actually have limited insight into the inner mechanics of Americans—they can see the results, the institutions, the rule of law, the order. But can’t see the inputs that lead to that. And obviously they have a vested interest in believing flattering falsehoods about what makes societies the way they are.

> I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose.

You can drink as you choose. What I’m trying to avoid, because we’re all in this cup together, is drowning in the lukewarm coffee that my parents worked so hard to escape. We’re both trying to prevent the world from burning, we just disagree about where the fire is coming from.