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Immigration, Migration, and National Pride
We’re told that one thing Brexit and the current political climate in the United States have in common is the issue of the free movement of people across international borders: after all, the EU has codified it and the Obama Administration has proclaimed it by fiat. It can be a difficult situation in the best of times, but in a period of economic upheaval, it can be an even more precarious situation.
During the Great Depression, there were protests against outsiders as well, though the only borders those migrants were crossing were those internal to the United States. Blacks migrated from the South in search of work in the automotive and other manufacturing centers of the North, while some 37,000 working-age men caught up in the Dust Bowl (plus their families) sought the greener pastures of California. According to a 2007 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, “for every ten Dust Bowl migrants arriving in California, nearly seven male residents would have experienced some form of economic displacement.” That displacement meant that a little over 1 percent of the state’s male population left California to seek work elsewhere, while a similar number otherwise lost their full-time employment.
It’s hard enough to lose one’s economic viability to a fellow countryman; it’s harder when you feel your own government works against you in the interests of foreigners.
But is that really the case here? In the UK, it’s estimated that 3 million EU citizens live within its borders and two thirds of those occupy around 7 percent of the nation’s jobs. It’s hard to say how much resentment this has actually caused. In the latest numbers I could find (calendar year 2015), the UK had about 9 million “economically inactive” working-age citizens, 76 percent of whom were listed as “does not want a job.” There’s not much resentment to be had if you’re actually happy to be living on the dole.
I suspect it has more to do with the level of patriotism that has been drummed out of the population by the leftists in the academy. In the 2013 British Social Attitudes survey only 35 percent would admit to be being “very proud” of being British. In the same year the equivalent question was posed to Americans by Gallup with 85 percent of our population claiming great pride in being an American.
President Obama dismissed American Exceptionalism very early in his term. The Democrats desperately want to drive US numbers down to UK levels and to get Americans to embrace a globalist philosophy (which is very different from simply embracing a globalist, free trade philosophy.)
In a nutshell, this is the entirety of the whole Donald Trump campaign. The question that remains to be answered is, “Is that enough?”
Published in Foreign Policy, Immigration
I believe 1/6 Brits are NEETs, Non-educable, non-employable, non-trainable and that’s just a sad sad scene.
The campaign may simply boil down to one candidate loving ( or pretending to love as some believe) America and another hating ( or falsely claimed to hate as other’s believe) America.
Americans may have gotten over their need to vote for a minority( now a female) enough to see that a president who dislikes America makes a bad leader.
Rightly or wrongly, Clinton can shown to not have American interests at heart during her recent years.
BTW, I have an update on a dust bowl crop picking patient I posted on years ago but that’s another day.
I’ll gladly kiss both her cheeks BTW ( the ones with the flags EJ).
I wonder what our percentage would be on that. I don’t think we keeps stats of that sort. You would probably be stuck with something like receiving welfare benefits, but not everyone there would qualify as NEET.
Probably 1/10 NEET but a total guess. It’s going to get worse without major reform and hardship.
Depends. Let’s see the other side.
I don’t think they want the free movement of ‘people’. Regular people still have to go through all the lengthy paperwork. The elites only want the free movement of peasants who will become wards of the state and locked up votes.
Neets? Never heard the term, but we created them with our welfare and our schools. We can uncreate them. Eliminate minimum wages, Federal welfare, and replace public schools, public school administrations with whatever works wherever it works. It will take many years, but not as many as people fear. Hunger does that. Cruel? Then find a family that really has needs and help them personally. We could be importing labor for the labor scarce portions of our workfoce from people on welfare.
Uh, give her ten years, BDB. I think that one is under the legal limit. Gonna have to throw her back.
Well, I disagree about the age, but if there’s a doubt, that’s not my aim. Dang — another lousy joke ruined.
You are right; this comes down to the very idea of nationhood. Is this the end of the great world shaking movement which began in 1848?
i raised my daughter (now 21) to love our country and to recognize that it is the greatest one the world has seen to date.
But I guess I always added, “There may be better to come, and I hope so.”
This was just rhetorical, just to show willing; on my part. I don’t think there could be anything better, really.
But maybe she and her peers do. And maybe all that “We are the World” pontificating really took with them.
If so, it’s our own fault. We thought we could dole out a bit of what we had. Our kids want to throw open the granary.
And if that’s the world they want–“Oneworld”–
Well, I reckon they’ll get it.
At least for a generation or two.
The difference between the Left and Right here in the US is pretty simple: The Right is proud of America. The Left is ashamed of America.
Ruining jokes is my speciality.
Charles Murray’s book “Coming Apart: White America: The State of White America 1960 – 2010“, discusses a separation of Americans into two new classes: a new upper class (which he characterizes as occupying a fictional town “Belmont”) and a lower class (which he designates as fictional town “Fish Town”). To remove racial differences, Murray initially discusses just white America between 1960 and 2010. One of the distinguishing features in the new lower class is an increase in the number of white males in Fish Town who refuse to work, in spite of an availability of jobs. England may be experiencing their own version of Belmont and Fish Town, but changed, due to the existence of a strong class system in England.
It’s your joke, you enjoy it.
EJ Hill
“During the Great Depression, there were protests against outsiders as well, though the only borders those migrants were crossing were those internal to the United States. Blacks migrated from the South in search of work in the automotive and other manufacturing centers of the North, while some 37,000 working-age men caught up in the Dust Bowl (plus their families) sought the greener pastures of California.”
This is historically wrong. FDR and the Democratic Party, as well as the GOP, were patriots in the 1930s, not transnational plutocrats, open border lunatics and multicultural utopians. Across the country federal and local officials acting in “America First” concert rounded up and deported Mexican nationals from all over the US. The total was close to a million. Look it up.
Those are the kind of leaders we want back and the kind of America, too.
FIFY
Mohammed says you are wrong.
So in the interests of science, how old is the girl in the photo? Opinions, please. Admittedly, younger with my reading glasses on.
Of course, my opinion is 18 OR OLDER, but heck if I know. And if you’re not sure… don’t make risque jokes, etc.
It can be difficult to tell, since some people just look younger than they are, but I was guessing twelve to fifteen at most. She is a little cutie, and that’s for sure.