Like some of his competitors in the race to develop electrical lighting? Many suffered fires that destroyed their workspaces.

The peak of immigration was 2.4 million, maybe the tens of millions of non existent people would certainly affect wages.

But maybe decades of anti unionisation efforts, manufacturing displacement and lack of updates to minimimum wage, healthcare provisions and general safety net have a higher impact on keeping wages low. Idk, the possibility of dying without access to a doctor if you dont work might keep people from asking for a higher salary if you think about it for even a fraction of a second.

Also there are 1 million concurrent international students while on average the USA receives around 1.5 million immigrants per year. which means that there are a 60/40 split. With many students returning to their countries but similarly many legal immigrants having temporal visas like H1B and conditional stays (marital, family visa, contract visa or refugee visas).

The percentage of immigrants is also been stable since the 1870s around 12-15%. There was a depression during WW2 with it going as low as 7% in the early 50s, which has little to do with immigration and more to do with millions of deaths globally. Also it rebounded to 13% quite quickly and has been there since the 60s with no meaningful relationship between wages and immigration numbers

> Your heavily restricted, highly educated, legal immigration

The two countries with the highest immigration to the USA behind Mexico (which is obvious due to proximity and opportunity), are India and China.

The best mathematician in america is an immigrant in Terrence Tao. The biggest tech companies are headed by immigrants or sons of immigrants (satya nadella, elon musk, jobs, Lisa Su).

Like you can argue that the GDP going up is responsibility of immigrants as much as you can argue that there is wage suppression due to immigration

So hyperpowerful tech billionaires escaping accountability is a pet peeve, but immigration isn't?

I wish I could say it was just a conspiracy theory that culture war issues is used as distraction from class war issues. But it's just so undeniable, it would be comical if it weren't tragic.

Sure there are. That's the point. Squabbling about implementation details keeps us busy from talking about the architectural design.

I will remind you that this thread was initially about an oligarch getting away with things. Somehow, we're already being drawn into immigration. This thread itself is an in-vivo example of the point I'm making.

Which part is incorrect? I invite you to actually address my claims instead of degrading the quality of debate.

Is it not correct that a handful people own most of the US and that most likely the same is true in whatever country a prospective immigrant comes from?

Is it not correct that chances are you and I and whichever immigrant are on the don't-own-most-of-the-economy part of the divide?

Is it not correct that conversation about immigration keeps us focused on being angry with people that generally also are just trying to get by and live a good life as opposed to, y'know, the thing this submission started out about? You can see it happening in this very thread!

I don't have a position on immigration, I find the whole debate tiring and besides the point.

Yes, words have different meanings depending on context.

I'm not sure it is true that "discrimination = bad" is a "liberal frame".

On the opposite, I feel that this idea is quite common amongst non-liberals who misinterpret liberals. A liberal would say "this is discrimination, this is bad", and the non-liberal would hear "this is discrimination, all discrimination is bad, this is bad". But similarly, one could say "this is sharing private information, this is bad". Does it mean that the conclusion is that sharing private information is always bad? Even when you share info with your family? Or when you open up to your partner? The mistake done by the liberals is that they assume the context is obvious. They assume that it is obvious for everyone that "that particular discrimination" is one of the bad ones.

(and, sure, I'm sure some liberal people also don't get the distinction and fall into the mistake of thinking that all discrimination is bad. My point is that it is not particularly a "liberal frame")

There is a good way to estimate if a discrimination is "the normal one" and "the bad one". A discrimination is bad if the real principal objective is to favour the in-group and disfavour the out-group.

People use that criteria themselves unconsciously. If I say "I'm not giving this to Steve because I know they don't like it", people will just think it's fine. If I say "I'm not giving this to Steve despite the fact he deserves it but I don't like him", people will notice it's unfair. I think liberal people just assume this is obvious, or even not realise it themselves.

This criteria works well. For example, in the examples you gave, none of these actions have been done because "we don't think the people we excluded from the advantage don't deserve it for not being our in-group".

But it is also true that when it comes to conservatism, there are elements where the discrimination is made to exclude the out-group not on fair principal reason, but for the principal reason that it is advantageous for the in-group and the out-group is arbitrarily considered "not worthy of it".

> What we’re talking about is the notion of what constitutes good or “being a good person”.

For most people it follows pretty basic principles that are based on notions of "goodness" which might include humility, fairness, generosity, courage...

Under those circumstances, almost all humans believe that treating everyone as equals is aligned with those principles and therefore makes you a good person. Having to square that with conflicting dehumanised views of others, means that the easiest way to do it is to simply pretend that you are treating everyone the same while subjecting those you discriminate with a harshness that isnt applied equally.

> In reality there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination itself,

You are using two different definitions of the word in a way that is sophist and not sophisticated.

Discrimination of humans is the mistreatment of others based on characteristics that are protected (those that are predetermined). Discrimination as the noticing differences and evaluating them based on taste is a second definition of the word, used in very different contexts.

That is not "liberal sensitivity" that is just polysemic words.

In the same way that standing in a room with a very powerful light bulb would not make your argument any brighter.

> We are talking about modifications to what constitutes bad vs good forms of discrimination.

No. We were talking about the psychological tools used by conservative people to deal with the cognitive dissonance of wanting to believe themselves as moral and accepting of inherently good precepts like the equal value of all human life while they want to not accept the consequences of the police state they set up to control people they believe inferior.

YOU tried to make it about the semantic similarity between two of the three meanings of the word discrimination. Which is the kind of parlour trick that only works if your audience is stupid.

Liberalism does neither uniquely hold the axiom that all humans are equal, nor does it shape the minds of people to hold it as a universal principle. It is a pretty universal tenant of almost all ethical systems, the only exceptions being system where some humans are not considered human (to avoid the everyone should be treated the same principle still being upheld), or systems that are openly discriminatory in which case they hardly call themselves moral.

Systems that say "we win because we are more powerful" do not do it based on ethics, and systems that have an underclass tend to dehumanise it (slaves not being citizens in rome). Everywhere else people are "equal", where the upper class are exempt from the worst consequences of legal frameworks (see sunset towns in jim crow america only affecting black people).

It's not about in-groups and out-groups - that is far to general.

Historically, conservatism would have been strongly related to power structures.

In more contemporary terms it is as well, but not ostensibly about class.

There are no popular conservative movements that are mostly concerned with 'noble birth' for gosh sakes, or titles.

This whole discussion is ridiculoous.

Nobody is saying that 'The children of Senators should have special titles and special legal status'.

> You need to consider what is actually the “citizenry” of a society. In your example it sounds like the nobles are the citizens and the peasants are non-citizens. Using the term “noble” and “peasant” confused the matter with inter class or socioeconomic concerns.

In-group and out-group dynamics go far, far beyond citizenry. It is clear that you wish to declare all you consider to be undesirables as non-citizens to justify your discrimination against them, but this is not actually a useful model for anything.

> What you’re describing seems to be unequal justice for the poor rather than an in group or out group dynamic but it’s not clear because you’re mixing ideas.

No, I am talking about the literal basis for modern liberalism's existence. Liberalism has gradually expanded to encourage equality between more types of people, but the origin was in anti-royal and anti-noble sentiment, in opposition to birthright privileges and an immutable social hierarchy. You appear to be woefully ignorant of history, which is understandable for a tiny little lizard, but you should perhaps not speak of things you know nothing of.

Come, now. Where did I discriminate against them? I am engaging in dialogue with the tiny little lizard as equally as I would with a human!