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Old 01-19-2018, 08:25 PM   #190
detbuch
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,688
Quote:
Originally Posted by wdmso View Post
More time machine reasoning comparing today with something that happened over 100 years ago.. So lets go back to the roman days i am sure we could find an event that you could use as well
PeteF.'s article about early Norwegian immigrants supports Trump's idea of who to accept as immigrants and also supports supply side economics. Spence and you chirp in about it being 100 years ago. Well, if that makes the ideas in the article obsolete, why didn't you negate the whole thing instead of just what you don't like while asking why we did not suffer from the influx of all those earlier immigrants? If it was a century ago, according to your "time machine" meme, it would not be relevant information. It actually, on the contrary, is asking to examine what happened 100 years ago to come to some conclusion relevant to today.

I replied that our American poor were willing to work for lower wages. So it wasn't a question of filling jobs that Americans wouldn't do, but was an actual shortage of labor.

You also asked or said "Oh ok . . and the welfare argument" which was too enigmatically stated to understand. But that reminds me about another key element which affected the view on work back then. We didn't have the generous federal government support for the unemployed 100 years ago. There was no incentive offered by government to refuse low paying jobs. So there was no surplus of American born who could but wouldn't work. They were not only willing to work, they had to. And the immigrants had to pay their own way to get here, and pay their own way to stay here. That's why it didn't hurt us, was not a drag on the economy or government spending and debt, but actually helped us.

Today, that's entirely different. Due to our comfortable "safety net" and generous government assistance to immigrants, which in itself makes it attractive to come here and take advantage of, even if work is not found.

So yes, the "time machine" operates differently today. And that is one of the reasons why mass immigration today is harmful and why it wasn't 100 years ago.

BTW, this notion that what happened beyond the very recent past is not instructive for us today is ignorant. It is a cockamamy idea probably filtered down to a common point of view from the vague intellectual heights of postmodern philosophy. It is mostly that philosophy which has transformed our academic views about society and existence into a gaggle of relativistic deconstructions, such as tens of gender identities, all of which melds into a regressive cultural Marxism that devalues anything beyond the moment, and even that is questionable.

All the great literature, art, music of the past is still relevant and enjoyable. Beethoven's 9th is not only still performed around the world, but is revered, inspiring, and overall more popular and lasting than all of our modern popular music. Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, is still a gripping psychological study. Tsung Tsu's Art of War is still studied by military experts as well as is some of the formations of the Roman Legions. Shakespeare is still considered the greatest writer in the English language.

Human nature has not changed since it was first recorded. That's why I said in a previous post that we should motivate our physically capable unemployed to do lower wage work that immigrants are willing to do, by making it a swim or sink proposition--as was the case with earlier Americans and immigrants. Do the work that is available or find some charity or family resource, or accept far more basic and less comfortable government provided help than is offered today.

Last edited by detbuch; 01-19-2018 at 10:10 PM..
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