Obama is re-elected

Dr. Veith, I’m convinced that one of the reasons God permits things like this is to remind us that this world is not our final home, but that we need to be a little more heavenly minded, that we need to be trusting in God more than politicians. God might be trying to pry the church from the world because we may be clinging a little too tightly to it.

When we as a society have failed to be engaged people of faith and have forgotten how to tithe, we no longer have the resources to care for one another as the church. Jesus teaching in Acts for how to live as his people has been lost on us.

Instead, we have made medicine and doctors our god. We have checked our minds at the door as we grocery shop. We eat sugar and trans fats and drink soda. No one tells us to stop eating out, so we clog our arteries. We vaccinate our children with increasingly brutal cocktails of live viruses. Exercise is hard to come by, so we can’t sleep and we get depressed. Pass the antidepressants!

We make the school day 8-9 hours long and the price of living such that two parents have to work on order to survive. So neither Parent has much energy left over to educate the children.

30% o the Internet is dedicated to pornographic content. Soft porn bates the minds of men, women and children on mainstream television. The steady diet of body-exploiting content makes us disrespectful and violent.

We choose as a society to eat out too much and buy McMansions we cannot afford to keep up. So we want to exploit cheap labor and since American-born workers don’t feel like picking crops or packing meat, we exploit immigrants with doing the dirty work.

And now we cannot take care of ourselves. We refuse to take care of each other. And the government steps in to do what the church and the family have completely failed to do.

Sarah,
While I agree that there are some bad things you’ve listed there, I worry that 1.) You’re confusing good health with holy living (whch Paul refutes in Colossians 2:20-23). While gluttony and excess should rightly be labeled sins, that does not make sugar and trans-fat inherently evil.

2.) At best, you’re addressing symptoms. The CAUSE is fallen man, sinful and wicked, dead in trespasses and sins, and in dire need of the gospel. As for those Christians who voted for Obama-whose public policy stance is clearly contrary to the Word of God in abortion and homosexuality-I fail to see how they left their faith at the door of the voting place. It’s a little like St. Paul campaigning for Nero, or a Christian living in the Soviet Union championing Marx whose ideology was dead set against Christianity and religion in general. Not much of a conscience in those people…

I was wondering who was the winner of the prediction contest from your early post?

Goodbye America it was nice knowing you. Hello Carl Marx, I thought we’d buried you a long time ago.

I find it odd that so many seem to think that Romney represented an excellent, conservative president.

We go version 1A, not 1B. What would the difference have been? Little to nothing. Two big government statists.

Stone the Crows, sorry, but Marxism isn’t really coming soon given the gridlock that is partisanship.

To the MANY borderline conspiracy theorists on here who were going into great detail about how all the pre-election polls were skewed to favor the Democrats: http://xkcd.com/1131/.

Sarah,
Do you think that “eating out” means food that is bad for your health, and “eating at home” means healthy food? “Aint necessarily so” in either case.
[I understand there is a lot of stuff on the Internet that I never see. It's not required to watch it, ditto the TV.]

Americans worked in packing plants when they were paying American wages. The problem is many areas is not the work but the expectation that it will be done for next-to-nothing, so the owners/stockholders can have more than their share of the fruits of labor. (IOW, we try to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.)

Doctors are a necessity in many people’s lives, but they are no more “gods” than my auto mechanic is my “god” because I need him to keep my truck in running order.

So our government will basically be what it has been for another four years. (Dr. Veith)

Except that preventing the reelection of Barack Obama will no longer be the motivation for everything House Republicans do and don’t do. Which will change the dynamics of governance considerably. Especially as the GOP disassembles and reassembles itself over the next four years.

The Republicans have become the Democrats of the 80s: far more interested in party loyalty and orthodoxy than in actually, you know, winning. They got away with it twice with Bush (which is still astonishing; that could be attributed to the Clinton hangover and the Democrats losing their minds for a year & running Kerry), and they have tried the same losing formula both last & this election (McCain and Romney would have had far better showings if they hadn’t had to kiss the rings of so many little Republican popes, and walk & talk accordingly instead of as themselves). And then there were those last night who argued that the real problem was that they didn’t go hard right enough this year, and that they must do that next time around, which, if followed, will only continue the string of terrible losses in perfectly winnable elections for the Republicans (and likely end the party, which at this point wouldn’t be such an awful thing). Such talk gives me reason to wonder if the owners of FOX, & all the right-wing radio folks, actually vote straight Democrat and are laughing all the way to the bank as they push the Republicans further and further away from the sensible practice of seeking & finding viable, quality candidates, then running effective campaigns, then winning, with a final, clearly-stated aim at proper governance rather than rewarding the faithful.

The incumbent was far from invulnerable; the horrible campaign run by Romney (up until the debates started; it must be acknowledged that things got much better after that) combined with the crazed group of his competitors back in the primaries that scared the pants off of most of the electorate, still almost won. If the Republicans would have actually tried to win, the likely damage to the nation in the next four years wouldn’t be on people’s minds right now. But most people don’t learn from their mistakes; they just figure it was someone else’s fault, and go and try it again.

Beaurocracy is hardly a deterrent to ideology.

@ Webmonk

The polls were skewed to Dems. Turnout was not expected as high. No conspiracy there. It’s called speculation not paranoia.

Webmonk – dead on. XKCD nails it, once again….. and innumeracy loses, once again.

Dare we hope that the Republicans will take this opportunity to change direction, and become the party of the common man instead of the party of tax cuts for the rich?

Trey, Webmonk raised a valid point. Which results last night can you point to to show the MSM polls, say, 6 weeks ago were incorrectly skewed toward the Democrats?

For me the question is: What happened to Rasmussen? Some on this blog made out the Rasmussen poll to be the truest, most accurate poll EVER…. So, does anyone have an explanation for what actually happened?And will the same claim continue to be made for Rasmussen polls in the future?

The fear-mongers in California won too. The most taxed state in the nation is now giving the government $6 million more to squander under the pretense that the states schools would implode if Prop 30 didn’t pass. Oh, I mean, it’s only those filthy rich who make over $250,000 a year. Nevermind the quarter cent sales tax on everyone. This bill was touted as the “Tax the rich” bill by the governor himself.

Happy days are here again.

Sorry, #16 should have read $16 BILLION. With a B.

The polls were skewed to Dems. Turnout was not expected as high. (@ 12)

… more Democrats than Republicans voted, 38-32 percent. In 2008, Democrats also outnumbered Republicans by 39-32 percent. (FOX News)

I may have to admit that I was wrong about a lt of my observations. Now I have to decide which ones.

“Goodbye America it was nice knowing you. Hello Carl Marx, I thought we’d buried you a long time ago.”

Uh, hello, this is not the world according to Marx. Marx was the advocate of the productive worker, not capital. Capital will continue to do very well under Obama while the rest will not. Look at the miserable unemployment of the lower classes and the high taxes on the middle classes. Meanwhile, Obama offers only token tax hikes that capital will easily evade by custom designed loopholes, waivers and other selective enforcement benefits.

This election confirms that the moochers, and those who pander to them, are now a majority. Now where’s my free phone?!

Excellent post, Random Lutheran. Having a “final, clearly stated aim of proper governance.” I read an article this a.m. by MR supporter , conservative film maker, who said the same thing, he never articulated a plan of governance, just what he would do on the “1st day.” But, as Todd Akin said when he lost, “God does not make mistakes.” I liked him for that.

“Obamacare” would have proceeded as planned anyway. Anyone who really thinks Romney would have changed it in any substantive way has drunk WAY too much Cool-Aid.

Just to do some shameless baiting – take a look at the market behavior this morning! It’s plummeting! What better condemnation of the Obama victory than to have all those investors start predicting a lousy future economy now that Obama will be President for four more years!

I noted somewhat earlier (like three months ago or so) that the Republican leadership made a horrible choice in going with Romney. Should they have gone farther right as RL @ 10 notes some are calling for? I suppose that depends on what you mean by farther right. If shrinking government expenditures across the board, including defense spending, seeking to remove regulatory burdens, keeping low tax rates, curtailing foreign entanglements, reining in the Federal Reserve, and leaving the states alone is far right, then, yes, absolutely we need to go far right. But, Romney didn’t espouse any of that, and ran a fairly lackadaisical, staid, center-left Clintonesque campaign without the Clinton charisma. Right now, I see Democrats winning far into the future, as long as the Republicans seem intent on offering up the same sort of losing drivel they have given us for the last 8 years; this was an election that they should have won going away yet, through sheer arrogant incompetence, lost. Unless and until the RNC faces a complete sweeping out of the people running the show, they will continue to lose.

One other vote that went down last night, of great interest to Canadians, is a vote in Michigan about a second bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Currently, there is just one bridge, and one tunnel. And all semi’s have to use the bridge. The bridge is owned by one man, the billionaire, Manuel Moroun. This is the busiest border crossing between our countries, and a MAJOR trade route. There has been significant lobbying for a second bridge for years, but mr Malhoun lobbied against it, very hard. Since 2008, the argument was that Michigan would not be able to afford it. So, the Canadian Federal Government offered to pay for ALL of it. Improved trade access, better cross-border flow etc. – and it would not cost the American taxpayer a cent.

No-brainer, you’d think. But, Calhoun’s lobbying intervened, so that now, eventually, it went to a vote – a vote about a vote, actually. The question was if the approval for a new bridge should be subject to a state-wide referendum. Calhoun spent over $30 million in agitating for a YES answer, so that he could delay matters more, and continue fleecing everybody ($80 million income yearly from tolls, gas etc). Well, the result was 61-39 NO – thus Calhoun’s efforts were defeated, in we are one step closer to a new bridge. The new bridge would cut out 15 Traffic lights in Windsor, thus improving cross-border traffic and thus trade.

Oh, here’s a link: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/07/michigan-vote-means-new-canadian-financed-detroit-windsor-bridge-one-step-closer/

To those who feared that we would have a Mormon president, I guess your prayers were answered.

I wonder if it shows in the fact that, apparantly, only 32% of Republicans voted? Christian/(T)Evangelical Republicans especially–what percentage voted there?

Well, so far, the people who voted for Obama have been characterized here as medicine worshipers, Christians without conscience, Marxists, fear-mongers, and moochers. Honestly guys, do you think one big reason Romney lost might be … too many of you folks on the right, with whom he aligned himself, just sound weird to a majority of us?

So, how are property prices in Saskatoon KK? Might be looking to relo.

I think Tom it was that Romney never made a credible argument about how he would actually be any different than Obama. And any argument that he would be any different than Obama would easily be seen to be a big lie. So, there you have it.

Oh, and, congratulations, Dr. Veith, on your correct prediction.

(Er, I mean, my condolences?)

Anyway, in the words of Wayne and Garth, “We’re not worthy!”

And when we go over the fiscal cliff, try and keep your hands up in the air during the plunge. It’s more fun that way!

I wonder if it shows in the fact that, apparantly, only 32% of Republicans voted? Christian/(T)Evangelical Republicans especially–what percentage voted there?

Is that right? I thought that 32% of those who voted were Republican. Where did you see that?

SK @ 30, I don’t disagree with your reasoning. Romney’s big differentiator was repealing Obamacare on day one. And everyone believed he would try. But according to the exit polls, only 18% considered healthcare the top issue.

I just don’t think you can discount the way the Republican brand hurt Romney. It’s become representative of strangeness for many people. The comments from Republicans about legitimate rape, God-intended pregnancies from rape, and some girls raping easy, were awfully hard for sensible people to wrap their heads around.

SK @ 30, I don’t disagree with your reasoning. Romney’s big differentiator was repealing Obamacare on day one. And everyone believed he would try. But according to the exit polls, only 18% considered healthcare the top issue.

I just don’t think you can discount the way the Republican brand hurt Romney. It’s become representative of strangeness for many people. The comments from Republicans about legitimate rape, God-intended pregnancies from rape, and some girls raping easy, were awfully hard for sensible people to wrap their heads around.

@Tom,

But people that I disagree with aren’t just wrong. They are evil. Never forget that.

Oh and Don, VA and NC didn’t go the same way! But we were both wrong since I thought VA would go red and NC would go blue.

By the way, did any of you notice that Gov. Brown in Calif. just signed legislation (a couple months ago, actually) that would decouple California’s 55 electoral votes from the will of the California citizens and give them instead to whichever candidate gets the most votes nationally?

I find that bizarre, and can’t imagine it wall last past the first time a Republican gets the national popular vote, and Calif.’s Dems get all upset that their 55 electoral votes don’t go toward the Dem. candidate that they voted for by 2 to 1. And especially if those 55 votes make the difference in who wins the national election.

Here’s a link to an article about it.

Kirk @ 36, that’s unfortunately true on both sides.

SK@24, spot on with your comment, couldn’t have said it better myself.

@sg #20.
Great comment. When it comes to politics I often distinguish between those who have training and education in economics, finance, and business, and those who don’t. Those who understand how money works in our country would agree with your comment. The one thing that both parties agree on is that capital is both the engine and the endgame of economy.

Tom,

I’m with SKPeterson here. Romney didn’t sound like anything, weird or otherwise. That’s the problem.

The “Republican brand” as you’ve articulated it is a construct of the media to entertain the plebs. Attempts to cast Romney as a “radical right-wing extremist”–which boggled my mind–were spurious from the beginning, and if you bought it, American voters are even stupider than I thought (because I have to assume that you’re smarter than the average voter).

Of course, Obama didn’t sound like anything either. Which is why I proudly and emphatically voted for neither of them.

I’ll be honest, though: I was kinda hoping that I would be forced to look at someone else’s face for the next four years. Obama’s monotonous, condescending drone has grown tiresome.

Smart enough to know a backhanded compliment when I hear one.

Tom,

Well, you can string together a grammatically correct sentence and you can articulate coherent reasons for your candidate selection (overheard Monday, a woman trying to convince her friend that she ought to vote, even though she was ignorant regarding the candidates and issues: “Just pick an issue you care about. You want free birth control, right? So just vote for Obama.” Ugh.)

The problem is that the reason you gave a couple of comments ago is self-evidently ridiculous. Are you suggesting that Romney and the Republican Party–an empty suit rivaled only by the pocket of air that was Obama 2008, the classic tabula rasa candidate, the pro-choice, pro-gay candidate, the candidate who proposed exactly zero clear policies in response to Obama’s–was a right-wing extremist that doesn’t believe in rape? I mean, really? I guess the Obama propaganda worked better than I thought.

Well, I was completely wrong about the poll skews. It did turn out to be a D+6 electorate. Romney won independents and still lost.

There is one thing that did stand out to me.

POPULAR VOTE, per AP: Obama 50% (58,779,121 votes) . . . Romney 48% (56,518,209)

In 2008, Obama got 53% (69,498,215 votes) and McCain got 46% (59,948,240)

That means that 14,149,125 less people voted in the 2012 Presidential election than in 2008, a drop of ~11% in voter participation. In my opinion, that is a sign of hopelessness (or apathy, which could be a different name for the same thing).

If Romney had just received the same number of popular votes as McCain – he would have won the popular vote by more than 1 million votes. (It would have been 50.4% to 49.5%, discounting the 3rd party factor). He may still, however, had lost the electoral college – but it shows obviously that he didn’t even inspire the support that McCain did.

What the polls picked up and that I didn’t wasn’t that the enthusiasm for Obama was still there. It wasn’t (he got over 10 million fewer votes). But the supposed Republican enthusiasm advantage wasn’t enthusiasm. It was just a slightly less obvious case of apathy. Well you don’t know what you don’t know until you know.

Anyway, Dr. Veith was pretty accurate in his prediction. Congratulations, I guess.

Steve,

In what universe was turnout D+6? Obama won by less than 2% (it seems at the moment).

Webmonk and Others: The polls were skewed, which is called, in a purely descriptive sense, intentional bias. This isn’t a claim of conspiracy, just a fact. Early polls showing a huge Obama margin were based on 2008 exit polls. Closer to the election, they were recalibrated–and ultimately correct. Even Rasmussen was right (within the margin of error).

I had made some predictions back around the Repub convention that even Romney would be able to win given the horrible economy. Not since FDR ran way back when has an incumbent presidential candidate won with such nasty economic numbers.

Romney managed to do it, though.

Congratulations?

Cincinnatus @ 47
According to exit polls – which is the only measure we have. (And yes, I know that exit polls are far from perfect) The ratio of independents was higher in 2012 than in 2008. I am only speaking of the ratio of Democrats to Republicans. If the polls skewed anything in hindsight regarding party ID, it was in understating independents.

The polls weren’t great (and yes, Rasmussen performed well, as expected – that is still the best polling outfit going IMO) and there were some faulty assumptions at work particularly early in the process.

But from the raw totals, lack of voter enthusiasm in general (and in particular for Romney) was the most telling thing to me.

Cin, it’s amazing how short peoples’ memory is.

Even just a day or two before the election, people on here were still declaring the polls to be skewed in favor of the Democrats, with explanations running the gamut from unavoidable technical failures by the pollsters to deliberate oversight. There were numerous predictions of a Republican victory, or at least a Republican majority of nationwide votes with only an electoral win for Obama.

But, SHOCKER! The polls were accurate!

Gasp! The pollsters aren’t incompetent idiots using techniques that even the armchair amateurs on here can see as ridiculous. What? How can that be?!

Gasp! There weren’t systematic skewing of poll results toward Democratic majorities! Whoah! Who’da thunk it!

Always look on the bright side.
A few maddies have been given the boot including Akin and Mourdock. A lesbian has been elected to Congress. The Koch brothers were unable to buy the presidency, Rove throws a tantrum on Fox and marriage equality gets up.
And the Kenyan born Muslim stays in the White House — this belief as much as anything brands the Republican Party, Cincinnatus.

WebMonk,

Maybe so. I thought even DonS had conceded that polls were properly calibrated as of a couple of weeks ago–and they were.

But no one seriously denies that most polls were inappropriately skewed a couple of months ago. You know, back when Rasmussen was the “outlier” predicting a close popular vote? Yeah, back then. While I can’t speak for others, I’m not and never was crying conspiracy. Early polling was just based on improper/optimistic assumptions. Most intelligent folks weren’t questioning the most recent polls, though.

Oh, and good point @ 48. A lot of political scientists are going to be wondering how Romney managed to lose in this economy. Is he just an outlier, like FDR in ’36? Or is Romney an exception that proves the rule? That is, we traditionally assume that campaign effects are irrelevant–so much noise–and that structural features, especially the state of the economy, determine outcomes. But we also concede that campaign effects matter at the margins. This popular vote was within the margin of error, and Romney’s lousy campaign mattered at the margins–perhaps shifting the vote from 51R/49D to 49D/51R. Thus, Romney doesn’t disprove the structural explanation, but rather proves the narrow conditions in which campaign effects actually do matter.

Yes, memories are short. Incredibly, insanely short. Less than 72 hours short. About DonS especially.
Take a look through here: http://www.geneveith.com/2012/11/05/your-predictions

Josiah @ 6: polls are heavily biased toward Dems.

Larry @11: (just including this one because it’s so pricelessly and stupidly ridiculous!) “I’ve never been wrong about a presidential election.”

Trey @12: polls are being skewed toward Dems.

Rich Shipe @15: polls are being skewed toward Dems.

MarkB @31: MSM polls are “trying to cover for Obama”

Steve Billingsley @33: bad polling in general, so Romney win.

DonS @45: takes the cake for going into great and technical detail about how all the polls are heavily weighted to over-count Dems. A truly masterful example of generating massive quantities of BS.

Josh Radke @61: polls are over-sampling Dems.

I posted this in yesterday’s thread, but will re-post here, and then add a few additional thoughts in another comment:

Well, it turned out that, while the state polls generally were too Democratic, the national polls generally were too Republican. The truth was in the middle, and that wasn’t good enough for Romney to prevail. The exit polls were D+6, only a point less tilted to Democrats than in 2008. State polls were generally showing D +7 to D+11, and national polls were showing D +2 to D+5. Even though Romney won independents, it’s hard in this modern era to overcome a 6 point partisan advantage in favor of your opponent.

The national vote was close (so far), about 2 points in favor of Obama. Similarly, though Obama’s electoral win was significant (at least 97 EV’s, with FL outstanding and Obama slightly ahead). The only EV changes between 2008 and 2012 was that NC, IN and NE-2 flipped from Obama to Romney, so that, with re-apportionment changes, the Republican gained from 173 to 206 EV’s. OH was razor-thin, as expected, with Obama pulling out a 2% win. FL obviously was essentially tied. VA was the big surprise to me, in that I expected Romney to win that state by 1-2% and he lost it by 3. The race was close, but, as usually happens in elections, the swing states fell mostly all in one direction. And, the reason that they are swing states is that their margins were mostly in line with the national election margin. This is why I scoffed at the idea of a split EV/PV election result, especially where the Republican would win PV but lose EV. That is just extremely unlikely.

I’m with Cincinnatus in agreeing that the big surprise of the night was CO. I thought Romney would win that state narrowly, and the early voting looked to be in his favor. It still has a Republican edge in voter registration, but apparently the potheads turned out in force to vote in their referendum. I was mildly surprised that NH wasn’t close, but I think that state simply has gone the way of the rest of New England, into the land of deep blue.

Why was the electorate D +6? Apparently, the exit polls gave a lot of credit to Obama’s response to Sandy. I find that hard to fathom, though it is clear that Chris Christie will never be nominated for a national Republican office, rightly or wrongly. Youth turnout was apparently very high, at 20%, which was a surprise to almost everyone. Why they insist on voting to load themselves up with even more debt is difficult to understand, but apparently that is the case. Single women voted at a + 38 margin for Obama. The Sandra Fluke syndrome. Also, a sad thing for America. The verdict isn’t out yet, but it appears that white evangelicals didn’t turn out in huge numbers. I guess there are a lot of Grace’s out there after all, who would rather see a leftist secularist statist than a Mormon in high office. Who knew?

Libertarianism took a huge hit in this election. The idea of civil liberties and individual rights does not resonate with our minority communities, who seem intent on voting overwhelmingly for big government statism. I predict that the Republican party, in an effort to remain relevant, will rush headlong to pander to this new demographic reality, to the great detriment of our Constitution.

SKP @ 24:

If shrinking government expenditures across the board, including defense spending, seeking to remove regulatory burdens, keeping low tax rates, curtailing foreign entanglements, reining in the Federal Reserve, and leaving the states alone is far right, then, yes, absolutely we need to go far right.

Obama won. He embodies NONE of those things. The voters didn’t reject Romney because he was too moderate, but rather because they feared he wasn’t as moderate as he claimed to be. I think libertarianism took a huge hit last night.

Whoops, I missed Rev Peters @20 stating that polls are hiding anti-Obama support.

There were MANY more wrong calls of Romney winning, but let’s skip over those. Let’s call out some good predictions in that thread!

Jason @21 and Darren A Jones @36 NAIL IT! Nice job guys!

Jimmy Veith @22 – wrong EV (but close) and he nailed the overall counts.

tODD @47 – called the win AND the time by which we would know the win! Off on the number of EV’s, though. Nailed the prediction that all the people talking BS about the skewed polls would be shown wrong.

KK @56 picked the winner, but that’s about it.

Kirk @ 37: Generally speaking, national elections are about figuring out the popular vote, and then drawing the lines as to which states are going to go which way using historical data as to how each state does in relation to the national vote. That’s why I knew NC, which always votes more Republican than VA, would be more likely to go to Romney than VA.

What changed in this election, relative to the national vote (with data incomplete), is that VA appears to now be slightly more D than the national total, rather than slightly less D, as has historically been the case. That may be an anomaly, because of VA’s large black vote and the re-election of a black president, so we shall see. OH and the national vote continue to be very closely in tune. NV is definitely trending D, as we knew. CO appears to be as well. It appears that we may have reached a tipping point, demographically, which will make it increasingly difficult for Republicans to attain enough electoral votes to win the presidency without moving significantly to the left. We do not appear, anymore, to be a center-right country.

Of interest- http://chroniclesmagazine.org/2012/11/06/why-romney-lost-ohio

Cincinnatus @ 52 and Webmonk @ 53: Webmonk, I never said that the polls were “biased”. My theory, based on my analysis of data and political momentum that seemed to be at work, was that the state polls were constructing electorates that were overly Democratic. And they, indeed were. The electorate seems to have been about D + 6, and the Marist, Q, and SurveyUSA polls were between D + 7 and D + 11 in the swing state polls. Unfortunately, the national polls leaned a little bit to the Republican side, constructing electorates between D + 2 and D + 4. It was hard to conceive that Obama would turn out an electorate as favorable to him as he got in 2008, but he almost did it.

You can call it BS if you want to, but I tried to comment based on logic and data, not conspiracy theory. This was a “margin of error” election. Look at the national vote and most of the swing states — their vote totals are within the margin of error.

Tom @28: So you don’t like the term “moocher”? What do you call it then when half the populace is picking the pockets of the other half?

WebMonk,

I’ll have you know that I predicted this electoral college outcome. My map is on a previous thread for all to see. I “only” missed three swing states (that I was iffy on anyway). I did call a narrow popular vote victory for Romney–which I probably shouldn’t have done, given the rarity of that circumstance–but I’m not feeling too bad about that miss given that the outcome was within the margin of error.

Absolutely none of my assumptions about this election or about American politics in general were thwarted last night. Am I the only one for whom this is the case?

Webmonk your stupidity avoids. I simply said that wad my prediction. In fact up until now ive not been wrong a fact my friends and family can verify. Now its simple I was wrong. Now I cannot say in 2016 ive never been been wrong but in fact wrong once. If I’m wrong again in 16 I can then say ive been wrong twice. Then if in 20 I’m wrong a third time I can say three times. Is that too complicated for you or are ignorant ad hominems the limit of your intellect. Its no more stupid than someone whose won.all races up until now saying that then loosing the next. What is truly ignorant is your intellectual chessmut of reaching for ad hominems when your mind has reached its limits. Especially since ive never supported MR. B

I was wrong fine, I really don’t let politics eat me alive, there really are much better things to do.

Cin 61, Did you see my post @56? Kudos to those who got it right!

You didn’t make that list, but you came close. I guess we could give you a 3rd runner up ribbon.

fjsteve @ 16: Also, it looks like the Democrats may have gained 2/3 of each of the state senate and assembly, meaning that legislative tax increases will now be routine. The unions have won the ultimate victory, and the right to loot our pockets at will.

Mike @ 38: The legislation Brown signed, enacting the goals of the “popular vote movement” to emasculate the Electoral College without the necessity of a Constitutional Amendment, is contingent on the passage of similar legislation by enough states to comprise more than 270 EV’s. In other words, it will not take effect, ever, since there will never be that many states adopting this approach.

Oh, remember when we predicted that Republicans would emerge from the woodwork opposing the electoral college?

Yeah, that’s happening. In my Facebook newsfeed, anyway.

To risk redundancy – does anyone else care to comment regarding the turnout? I thought the turnout would be down from 2008 (Gallup also predicted this) – but the degree to which it went down really did surprise me.

If Romney would have merely replicated the McCain 2008 turnout (or the Bush 2004 turnout) – he would have won. Obama lost 15% of his support from 2008, which would normally be fatal for an incumbent. All other recent two-term Presidents (Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon – at least he was elected twice) significantly increased their totals in their re-elections. The biggest story to me here is that the Republican Party just didn’t turn out the vote they needed.

Oh, and Webmonk – I was wrong – that was the first thing I wrote back in @46. Keep gloating, however, if that makes you feel better.

Steve @ 67: I saw your comment @ 49, but forgot to comment on it. We need to wait until all of the votes have been counted before we will know for sure, but the estimates I’ve read is that the final results will be similar to 2008 — about 140 million votes. There are still a lot of votes not yet counted.

BTW, you can also add Eisenhower to the list of two-term Presidents and increased totals. FDR also increased from his first-term to 2nd term (and then went down in the next 2 elections, although he was never seriously in danger of losing) Wilson and McKinley slightly improved their totals (TR won a landslide in 1904 but he wasn’t elected in 1900 – McKinley was). In fact, you have to go all the way to Andrew Jackson to find a two-term President who got a smaller share of the vote in their re-election (and then it went from 55% to 54% – not exactly a big slide).

So Obama is a historic President in all kinds of ways.

DonS @ 68
I don’t think there are 10 million votes to be counted.

But you are right, Steve @ 69, when you say that Obama is the first president, in the modern era, to be re-elected but also lose support from the first time. Which is one reason why so many of us on the conservative side were hopeful that he would not win.

tODD@71:

Wrong. I’m still very confident claiming that “the economy,” broadly construed, is–and has been throughout the modern period–the most important and determinative factor in Presidential election outcomes.

As I noted above, Romney only proves the rule that campaign effects only matter at the margins: despite his dismal campaign, he managed a very narrow defeat in the popular vote. The economy isn’t going anywhere, and I guarantee you that it will be the determinative issue in 2016 (barring some sort of exogenous catastrophe like an alien invasion).

Steve @ 70: I think we will find there are a heck of a lot more than 10 million votes to be counted. There are probably about 2 million remaining in CA alone. All absentee ballots and all provisional ballots received on election day have not yet been counted, nationwide, for example. That is because they have to be reviewed and verified (signature check, etc.). Some states also will count absentee ballots as long as they are postmarked by election day. Same with military ballots. Right now, we are at about 118 million presidential votes counted — we will easily finish at or near 140 million.

tODD @ 71: I believe you are wrong about your first point. It was largely about the economy, but the voters bought Obama’s point that he needed more time, and affirmed that they like the security of big government programs. It’s OK to sack the “rich” to pay for them (even though the math confirms that won’t work). It is true, apparently, that the “war on women” held sway with a percentage of the 38% margin of single women who voted for Obama. Sadly.

As to your second point, you are correct. However, with four more years of Obama judicial appointees flooding the federal courts, I suspect that issue will end in the same way as the abortion issue — by judicial decree so that it applies uniformly to all 50 states. Liberals have never worried too much about the democratic process if they can get their way judicially.

tODD@76:

I think you misunderstand political reality in general. Here’s the going theory in political science is that electoral outcomes are primarily determined by structural factors, primarily the economy. Campaign effects–debate performances, VP selections, gaffes, speeches, advertising, etc.–only matter at the margins. By definition, this theory indicates that campaign effects will matter in a very close election. That is, they could give someone a bump of 2 or 3 points in the popular vote. Ta-da: even with an utterly dismal campaign, Romney very nearly won the popular vote. But since he had a dismal campaign tainted by otherwise unrelated gaffes by Todd Akin (gaffes that seemed to sway voters like Tom Hering), he did lose the popular vote.

You might say it’s an unfalsifiable theory, but it’s not really (for one thing, it was falsified in 1936). If Romney had lost the popular vote by the same large margin that McCain did, for example, I would be seriously reevaluating my assumptions–and the state of political science in general.

But the theory seems to hold.

Also, we ought to note that the state of the economy was actually ambiguous this year: everyone agreed that it was bad (so the polls indicate), but some folks felt it was bad but improving, other that it was bad and getting worse. I don’t think such ambiguity is all that typical.

Some random examples:
1980: Terrible economy, and getting worse. Republican win.
1992: Getting worse, clearly. Democrat win.
1996: Gangbusters growth. Democrat win.
2010: Economy bad and apparently getting worse. Republican win.

Obviously, I haven’t demonstrated the evidence that causes political scientists to claim that the relationship is causal and not merely correlative. But it exists; book recommendations available if interested.

tODD @ 75: I think you misunderstand what Cincinnatus and I were saying about the polling. We were not saying that they were ““adjusting” or “skewing” their sample sets so that party ID in 2012 matched that of 2008.” I was saying (I won’t speak for Cincinnatus) that they were weighting their samples demographically so that the electorate looked like the electorate of 2008, i.e. 72% white, 18% youth, 14% African-American, etc. This resulted, because of the tendency of minorities to vote nearly monolithically Democratic, in a D + 7-11 sample, which seemed too high. It seemed as if there was enough disenchantment with Obama the President that some of those minority and youth voters wouldn’t turn out in the same percentages as they did during the highwater year of 2008, and that whites would turn out in greater numbers because of tea party influences, the 2010 midterm elections, last chance to repeal Obamacare, historic high Republican House seats, etc. However, while that was somewhat true, and independents did swing sharply Republican, there were still enough votes to re-elect Obama.

So, to clarify, we were talking about the demographic weighting targets, not the party id. Party id is a function of hard demographic weighting. Apparently, despite low response rates, fewer landline phones, and other factors weighing heavily against traditional polling, they still, in the aggregate, did a pretty good job, in that averaging the overly Democratic state polls with the overly Republican national polls resulted in a pretty good picture of election day.

Cincinnatus @ 78, 79: +1. Well explained.

DonS @57

“It appears that we may have reached a tipping point, demographically, which will make it increasingly difficult for Republicans to attain enough electoral votes to win the presidency without moving significantly to the left. We do not appear, anymore, to be a center-right country.”

It certainly appears that way to me too. And I do not like it. But, it is what it is.

And yes I will admit that my perceptions about this election were wrong. Obama is the stronger candidate and pulled the most votes and the biggest number of electoral college votes too. God help us all.

As for polls, yes, what DonS said @80. And as I noted–and as the boring pollster blogs I was reading claimed–most respectable polls corrected these faulty assumptions as the elections drew nearer. Which is why they ultimately turned out to be more or less accurate.

I wasn’t claiming that pollsters were arbitrarily handing an extra 6 points to Democrats in their polls out of thin air–though some less respectable polls actually did that! Only that the assumptions employed for constructing samples was inappropriately premised on 2008 exit polling data–inappropriate because turnout was wildly atypical in 2008.

But I can’t imagine anything more boring to discuss than polling samples–I can’t believe I’ve spilled so many pixels on the subject so far–so let’s stop.

DonS,

The pollsters did follow the correct methodology. You can only predict based on available data. Thus current data, couple with past behaviour is the correct method.

You have no idea of the massive arguments I have gotten into with individuals wanting me to predict/estimate based on theoretical outcomes for which there are no data.

“But it could be so high, and your model doesn’t say so.”

Sure, but I can only go on the data and knowledge I have, not on what I don’t have.

“But it could be higher”

Sure. But my model cannot tell you about things I do not have any indications for.

“Statistics is wrong”

No!! The outputs depends on the inputs.

“You’re wrong”

Throws hands in the air…. Stupid engineers!

Exit polling: (Fox)

blame for the economy:
Obama 38%
Bush 53%

Married women: Romney by 7%
Married men: Romney 60% – 38%
white Catholics Romney 59% – 40%
white “born again” Christians Romney 78%
white voters Romney by 20%

What does this tells us about our present electorate and who is in charge?

Also 25% of the voters were influenced by Obama and the hurricane.
They somehow believed that he did a good job.

KK@84:

Exactly. Which is why pollsters arguably should have been using turnout data from 2010, not 2008. Especially since no observer would have denied that 2008′s data was, again, wildly atypical.

Klasie @ 84: I agree as well. Look, you can’t just use past data. Pollsters in 2008 who used demographic data from 2004 would have been wildly pro-Republican. Polling is art, in that you have to take the hard data (census, previous elections, etc.) and then model who will actually turn out to vote. Some of the state pollsters (Marist, Quinnippiac) were wrong in modeling a turnout favoring D by 9-11%, while others (Rasmussen, Mason-Dixon, Gallup swing state polls, mainly) wrongly modeled a turnout favoring D by about 3-4% in the aggregate. So they were showing a tied race, while Marist and Q were showing a 5 point Obama advantage. The truth was just about exactly in the middle. They were all modeling turnout based on their best guesses, supplemented by hard demographic data. On the average, they were almost exactly right. Given the fact that it was a margin-of-error election, all of the pollsters did a reasonably good job. For the time being at least, the aggregation approach taken by RCP and Nate Silver seems to be valid in predicting results, at least for large turnout presidential elections where a lot of money is invested in public polling.

First time posting here, please be kind. How come the Presidental race in November still has so many candidates? Wouldn’t the election be clearer if it was reduced to two? So many times third, fourth, etc. pull votes that would have otherwise gone to one or the other. I would be fine with 3 or even 4. Our local news results had 24 candidates for the presidential race!

As an encouragement to those Republicans who are feeling blue (no pun intended) today, it at least looks likely that the GOP will take the Senate in 2014. The party holding the presidency almost invariably loses Congressional seats during the midterm election, and I would suspect there will be a lot of Obama fatigue by 2014, given the tough sledding ahead economically. According to this article: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_93/Senate_2014_Field_Looks_to_Favor_GOP-212263-1.html

Democrats are defending the 20 seats they won in 2008, while Republicans are only defending 13. Republicans should have a better turnout advantage during a midterm election, as they did in 2010, and most of the competitive seats are Democratic ones, as you can see from this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014. Other than Susan Collins’ Maine seat, all Republican seats are in red states, and unless Collins retires, she will retain her seat.

Teaching2 – those are VERY niche candidates. Each state has different rules about who can be on the presidential ballot in that state. In some states those candidates are not able to qualify, and in others they are.

Groups like the Green, Constitution, and Libertarian parties are frequently significant enough to get their candidate qualified on a state’s presidential ballot.

The list of 24 candidates is a list of all the candidates who were able to get on the ballot in even one state.

It’s a good thing that other groups are able to get their candidates onto the ballot. Yes, that means that people are able to vote for candidates other than the Rep or Dem ones. That is a VERY good thing.

Sometimes those minor candidates garner enough votes that they might affect the outcome. Usually not, though. Libertarian, for example, pulls from both Rep and Dem voters. Green pulls primarily from Dems. Constitution pulls primarily from Reps.

They usually balance out so that it doesn’t make a serious impact on the final result.

I would be THRILLED if we had a three or four-party system. Something like the Tea Party splitting off from the Reps and taking the “conservative” side of things, leaving the Dems to be the “liberal” party with the Reps being the centrist party.

tODD:

Snark all you want, but here’s a good Annual Review of the state of recent literature on the topic.

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.183?journalCode=polisci

I can probably send you a pdf if you’re actually interested enough to read it from my university’s library system.

Ray @ 21

This election confirms that the moochers, and those who pander to them, are now a majority. Now where’s my free phone?!

Missed the memo? You are not part of the majority. It is you lot to pay for phones that are given to others.

I think the economy was a structural factor in the election, it just got turned to “0″ from “1″, due to the marginal factor of a lousy campaign run by Romney which singularly failed to make the case that Mitt could offer up a coherent policy prescription to the economic ails of the nation that was substantially different from Obama. As a result, the economy was taken off the table as a structural determinant, and other marginal factors prevailed. I would argue that in those marginals, the power of incumbency prevailed in Obama’s favor.

Again, as I said after the conventions and Romney’s ascendancy, his nomination was a wasted opportunity for the Republican Party, and that, yes, I could have run a better campaign for President with a rubber band, a toothpick, a couple sardine tins, and some really, really big magnets. How? I don’t know exactly, but kids love big magnets. See? See how coherent a strategy that is? Romney never even came that close.

tODD,

I have plenty of contravening evidence that corroborates my reading of the polling issue, but I’m frankly not in the mood. I don’t see the stakes of this debate. I’m not one of the conspiracy theorists, and I’m quite aware that the polls were roughly accurate in the final weeks of the campaign. So what else is there to discuss? Some polls (Rasmussen included!) did rely on 2008 data. Cool story. I’m absenting myself from this particular debate. Even if you could show that I’m totally wrong, then…what? I hang around professional pollsters all day. I’m aware of how imperfect their supposedly “scientific” methodologies are, so I haven’t much good to say about polls in general.

tODD @ 91: My conclusion that the economy was number one on voters’ minds comes from both pre and post-election polling, where voters said the economy was their number one issue. Beyond that, I decline your invitation to write a term paper on the 2012 election. You can have whatever theory you want to on the results. Keep in mind two things. One: incumbent presidents usually get re-elected. So, Obama had that factor working for him. Two: The second terms of re-elected presidents are almost inevitably nondescript. Witness Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush.

tODD@98:

1) The idea that Bush earned a “mandate” (beyond the one granted in an ordinary victory?) is and always was silly. I think you’ll agree with me here. Whatever the case, Obama earned a very narrow victory in the popular vote.

2) Definitions of the “economy” vary according to the author. But, in most cases, the variable is being defined as it exists, substantially unthematized, within the perceptions of “ordinary” voters. Ordinary voters have vague ideas about most things. According to the average voter, “the economy” is doing “well” or doing “badly.” Typically, political scientists will take a basket of common economic indicators to reconstruct these vague impressions according to what voters prioritize: the unemployment rate, the rate of economic growth, the CPI, inflation, and, sometimes, the performance of stock indices or wage growth/stagnation. If these measures are declining/static, the incumbent party is in trouble.

3) Your final question–relating to hypothesis #2–needs clarification. What do you mean when you ask what the largest factor in determining the election is? Do you mean what issue/problem/event/incident gives those extra one or two percentage points that put Obama over the edge? I think many political scientists will ultimately conclude that some variation on “campaign effects” did it. But if you mean–as I mean–what voters regard as the “most important issue” and which suffuses their consciousness as they evaluate the candidates, it’s the structural variables–in this case, some variation on “the economy” (probably via the proxy of unemployment this year).

Again, campaign effects, most observers hypothesize, only matters at the margins. Margins are typically meaningless: if McCain had run a stellar campaign, for example, he still would have lost. But in a very close election–like this one–margins can (and did) matter: the structurally predetermined outcome can, in fact, be overturned narrowly by the marginal campaign effects.

Now, only a foolish political scientist would try to put hard numbers on the structural features. It would be foolish in the extreme, in other words, to claim that “the economy” determines exactly 57% of the outcome or whatever. Like it or not–and despite the best efforts of some of its more deluded practitioners–political science is a soft science.

In any case, I stand by both hypotheses.

Again I ask, who among us won the prediction contest?

tODD @ 95: Yes, that’s what Blumenthal says. And it’s right, as far as he goes. But, at least some pollsters do use factors other than the census data to weight their demographics to what they believe the electorate, not the general population, will look like. Or at least some of them do. Otherwise, different pollsters wouldn’t consistently display the “house effects” that Blumenthal and Silver both also acknowledge, and that Silver accounts for when aggregating the polling data he processes.

Think about it. If every pollster was taking a random sample and then simply weighting it to reflect census demographic data, then on average every pollster would have the same demographic sample of adults. In other words, if you took all of the Marist polls and all of the Gallup polls for an election season, on average, their adult samples would look the same. So should their registered voter samples, since every pollster uses the same registered voter screen (“Are you registered to vote?”). Only the likely voter samples would look different, because each pollster uses a different likely voter screen, some of which are very loose (SurveyUSA) and some of which are tight (Gallup).

But, different pollsters, on average, have very different adult and registered voter samples. And those samples tend to be consistent through all of their respective polls. This is because they don’t all weight their samples using the exact same demographic data. To be honest with you, I think Marist and SurveyUSA typically skew too Democratic because they do simply weight their data to census demographics, and then use very loose likely voter screens, while Gallup, certainly in this election, modified the Census data to model an electorate that was too Republican.

I’m with Cincinnatus. Enough about polling right now.

a few platitudes spring to mind:
two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.
a govt big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away too.
chinese curse: may all your dreams come true.

also, this xkcd cartoon:
http://xkcd.com/180/

@ Jimmy

Of the maps we made last night, I was the closest (though I didn’t do a great job of picking states), followed by Cin, and then Don and Kerner tied.

Kirk @ 104: Since I picked the wrong guy, I respectfully bow out of any prize money that might be coming my way for my third place finish

DonS (@99), then it seems that incumbency trumped the economy in this election. I certainly didn’t hear you talking much about how “incumbent presidents usually get re-elected” just a day ago, you know.

Cincinnatus (@100), as to your second point, fine, but then there’s no apparent take-away. Voters prioritize some inchoate “economy” when they vote, but we can’t know anything from that going into an election, for the precise reason that “the economy” is undefined, it would seeem. Because most of the data you mentioned there would have seemed to result in Romney winning last night. Clearly, “the economy” is something other than the data you mentioned.

But I still feel like you’re not getting my point:

But in a very close election–like this one–margins can (and did) matter: the structurally predetermined outcome can, in fact, be overturned narrowly by the marginal campaign effects.

My question remains: why was this a close election? Sure, given the close nature of the race, normally marginal variables had larger impacts than normal. But nothing in my understanding of what “the economy” is should have allowed the race to be “very close”. So how did we get to that point, given the economy?

A little bit more, regarding predictions for the next four years:

1) Obama will become enveloped by scandal next year. Every second term president has been since Nixon and Benghazi and Fast and Furious, for starters, have not been resolved. Interminable House investigations are in our future.

2) Republicans take the Senate in 2014. See my comment @ 89. This will, of course, result in total gridlock after that time until 2016.

3) A second recession will begin next year, due to the fiscal cliff and Obamacare. There are incredible tax increases on tap beginning in January, and no clear path now for resolving the budget issues which will make maintenance of those higher taxes almost mandatory. Because Obamacare requires companies to provide health insurance or pay a tax, beginning in 2014, for all employees working 30 hours a week or more, the trend toward underemployment (29 or less hours a week) will continue to accelerate, worsening recessionary pressures.

4) Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. There will never again be a white man holding the office of U.S. president, due to increasingly racialist politics.

tODD @ 106: The poor state of the economy was what made the election close. That’s the point. Incumbent presidents who do a reasonably competent job usually get re-elected. It takes an extraordinary circumstance for an incumbent to get knocked off. The economy got Carter in 1980, and it got George Bush 41 in 1992. For a long while, it seemed like our very poor economy since 2009 would also get Obama. Ultimately, it appears, the electorate decided that Obama adequately made his case, because he “understands them” better and deserves more time to fix the economy which, in his view, Bush messed up.

I’m sure there will be a lot more information as to what the electorate was thinking when the exit polls are analyzed to death in future months and years, but that’s the take right now.

tODD,

I know this is going to sound like a copout, but it truly isn’t, I swear!

First, the economy isn’t undefined (except, perhaps, in voters’ minds). Empirical political scientists have reconstructed a fairly comprehensive picture of the general economy based on the measurable, quantifiable statistics I listed. If those statistics are trending in a “bad” direction, incumbent parties almost always lose.

Second, this theory doesn’t purport to provide an explanation for why an election might be (or is) a blowout or a nail-biter. It just doesn’t. There are other theories for that, and those theories do involve things like campaign spending, candidate recognition, incumbency, likeability, partisan identification, demographics, etc.

But, overall, the economy remains a good predictor for the ultimate question: which party wins, and which party loses? Not by how much.

Look, worst case, Romney (like FDR in ’36) serves as a falsifying case, and every valid scientific theory must be falsifiable: he shows that, yes, structural factors (NOT LIMITED TO THE ECONOMY; at some point along the way, we reduced all structural factors to the economy) are the main determinant, but in x, y, and z conditions, they won’t prevail. In the best case–the case that I think holds here–Romney serves as the exception that proves the rule by demonstrating that, yes, the structural factors are primary, but campaign effects can narrowly shape the outcome at the margins. If you want to know why the margins mattered, look elsewhere.

And I gotta go for now, so I don’t have time to elaborate on where elsewhere one should look other than the brief list I offered above.

And, yeah, as DonS notes, incumbency is actually a competing STRUCTURAL variable here: incumbent Presidents win more often than they lose for a variety of well-documented reasons.

In the case of Congress (as a whole, not in the case of particular candidates), the economy is almost always the exclusive variable dictating majority outcomes (in 2010: economy sucks, Republicans win). But the Presidency has the added tweak of incumbency that does add a more or less measurable advantage to the incumbent’s chances.

So there is that as well. I promise this isn’t a post-hoc rationalization. I said the same thing before the election.

tODD @ 109: Some of the pollsters (Marist, Quinippiac, SurveyUSA, PPP) were too Democratic, predicting margins in the swing states of 5-8 %. Others (Rasmussen, Gallup) were too Republican, predicting tied margins in the swing states. Battleground, ABC, and CNN got the national race about right, but CNN’s state polls were too Democratic, by and large, and the other two didn’t poll at the state level.

It’s not just Republican-oriented pollsters who modify census data to match a modeled demographic turnout. Most pollsters do that, because, quite frankly, the electorate never looks like the census, and respondents always overstate their registration and likelihood of voting status. That’s the “secret sauce”, which you have acknowledged in the past (you’ve used those very words), but for the purposes of this discussion are somehow conveniently denying.

I only said I don’t want to talk about it anymore because it doesn’t matter anymore. The bottom line is this was a very close election, and polling isn’t precise when measuring such elections. It came down to turnout, and the Democrats did a better job of turning out their voters. They have become very good at that during presidential elections, though not so much during midterms. The Republicans had better be focused on two things going foward. One, organize their voters, at least in the swing states, so that they can turn them out more effectively. Two, somehow try to get minority voters to engage in ideas, rather than just the labels of political parties.

OK. You people can’t take a hint. On 11-5-12, I made the following comment:

“My brother is good at predictions. I am a little better.
Obama: 332
Romney: 206”
Actual results after they award Florida to Obama, it will be::
Obama: 332
Romney: 206
My big brother stated: “The winner will receive our accolades and admiration.” I am still waiting!

Kirk @104. I made my prediction on the 5th, before voting even started.

in light of global stockmarkets diving today after the news of obama was digested, it would (drawing a bow and linking one with the other, choosing to ignore other news which might have caused this) appear that those with money in the game of running businesses don’t have confidence that obama will be good for business (employment, wealth….). whether due to the man, the way he manages political gridlock, or the makeup of the houses of parliament in the USA.

For the sake of all our jobs in an interconnected world we can only hope that the american economy (and that of the rest of the western world) strengthens.

tODD @ 113: Bush increased his share of the vote from 2000 to 2004, so the 2004 election wasn’t “close” in those terms. Bush just had high negatives, inherently. The election was fairly close in the popular vote between him and Kerry (about 2 1/2 %), but only Ohio and Colorado were fairly close among the swing state, and they were not all that close. That election, as I recall it, was largely about the war, since the economy was rebounding by then.

No one is pretending anything didn’t happen. I showed up today, and openly and fully discussed what I think happened, and, yes, where I erred in thinking that Romney would win. But understand that the data most certainly did reveal systemic polling error, on both sides of the spectrum. The only reason the averages came out to be fairly close to the final results is because you had an approximately equal group of pollsters on each side of reality, at approximately the same distance. Sometimes when you average bad data together, you serendipitously obtain a good result, apparently.

However, the larger polling point is that most pollsters were within their respective margins of error, which were typically anywhere from 2-4 %, depending upon sample sizes. The reason why I so adamantly argued against the conventional wisdom that Obama had this thing in that bag is for that reason — polling is a very inexact science, and the poll is not the election. When people misuse polls to pre-ordain an election, I will always point out the fallability of polls and the need to push on to the finish. I hate that the media creates a narrative about an election based on polling when it is obviously within the margin of error because it affects voter, donor, and candidate behavior. It’s making news, not reporting news.

Good job, Jimmy!

DonS (@118):

Bush increased his share of the vote from 2000 to 2004, so the 2004 election wasn’t “close” in those terms.

Please. 2004 was close. It was just politically expedient to play up the increase in the popular vote … from a deficit to a thin advantage.

But understand that the data most certainly did reveal systemic polling error, on both sides of the spectrum. The only reason the averages came out to be fairly close to the final results is because you had an approximately equal group of pollsters on each side of reality, at approximately the same distance.

What’s curious here is that you seem to think that the data in question is party affiliation statistics. And not, you know, which candidate was favored. You didn’t need to average together anything to get good data, you know. ABC News and Pew, no matter what their party ID internals worked out to, predicted Obama would win the national vote by 3 points. It was actually 2.3, well within their MoEs.

But your apparent insistence that the data was only correct if it got the party ID internals correct merely makes the same mistake all over again, which is to assume that making party ID part of poll normalization is a good idea. Again, Rasmussen tried that, and had one of the worst predictions of major pollsters this year.

This is why I think we need to talk about this issue. Anyhow, you’re ignoring the bigger questions I’ve asked you.

From comment #109:

But, at least some pollsters do use factors other than the census data to weight their demographics to what they believe the electorate, not the general population, will look like.

Yeah, and how did they do last night, compared to other pollsters? In short: was trying to guess who would turn out in 2012, as opposed to normalizing according to known data, a winning strategy or not?

From comment #116:

It’s not just Republican-oriented pollsters who modify census data to match a modeled demographic turnout. Most pollsters do that, because, quite frankly, the electorate never looks like the census

Who, Don? What other pollsters do that?

tODD @ 120: No. Sure, the election in 2004 was relatively close, relative, say to Clinton’s re-election in 1996. But in 2004, the PV was closer than the votes in the swing states, so in that respect it wasn’t that close. The point I was making earlier was that Bush overcame the accusation that he was “selected”, not “elected” in 2000. His presidency was affirmed by the voters in 2004, no matter the closeness of the vote. In contrast, Obama is the first president in the modern era to lose support in his second try, from what was a modern era big win to what is a much closer election, at least in terms of the popular vote margins at the national level and in most of the swing states.

I am not talking about party affiliation statistics. I am talking about demographics. And I never said ABC News and Pew were wrong. When I argued polls, I was arguing the polls that were showing a larger win for Obama, particularly in the swing states, that created the illusion that Obama had the election in the bag. Most certainly, he did not. Your last questions are not the bigger ones. They’re redundant and pointless. I cannot tell you what the “secret sauce” is or is not for each pollster. I can only tell you that when a pollster consistently overestimates the turnout of one particular party, their polls should not be used to create a narrative about the election. That is the point.

Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. There will never again be a white man holding the office of U.S. president, due to increasingly racialist politics.

Marco Rubio is white. So is Vincente Fox, the former Mexican President. Lots of hispanics are either all white or mostly white, and further, they consider themselves white.

Anyway, WaPo shows how Romney did better than McCain with different groups. Fun graph:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/?hpid=z3#United-States

White non-hispanic, sg. That’s what I meant.

If a Democrat can win re-election with 23 million people looking for work and his domestic achievements being unpopular partisan bills, then Republicans won’t be electing a President again for a generation.

Democrats now have a generational lock on the Presidency and Senate. They’ll soon have a lock on the House after more Hispanics and young people register to vote.

The current generation of minorities won’t vote Republican during their lifetimes. Blacks have a tribal allegiance to the Democrat Party and Hispanics are becoming as monolithic. Given that reality I think conservatives need to start to using non-political tactics to survive in the coming Democrat era.

The way to restrain government won’t be through politics because the growing Obama coalition of non-religious and non-white voters will vote Democrat for a generation under all circumstances.

The way to restrain government will be to tactically disobey it when possible and to stymie it by moving more economic activity underground. In extreme circumstances when Democrats go too far then violent resistance will be necessary.

Elections will soon be as irrelevant in America as they are in California. The same coalition that made California a one-party state is going to make America a nation where politicians govern without concern for public opinion. I’m not sure Republicans realized that this election meant that for the most part the Republican elements of America don’t matter anymore.

Our ability to matter now rests in our ability to use non-political means to restrain our enemies who will increasingly have unchallenged control of the government.

SAL@124:

Nah, I’m already predicting a solid Republican victory in 2016 (unless they manage once again to select a totally dimwitted empty suit candidate). Voters will be sick of the Obama economy, which will still be stagnating in four years, and the Republicans have a deep bench of young and potentially appealing candidates.

Plus, did you forget that Republicans still have Congress? Obama won’t accomplish anything unless Republicans want him to do so. Heck, maybe we’ll see something like Clinton’s second term–which was enormously successful from the perspective of a fiscal conservative.

We’re pretty much done (as a free country). Too many brainwashed little socialists and non-thinkers (emoters) are being pumped out of the public schools.

They have so demonized Republicans that even a terrible President with a lousy 4 year record and a BIG ‘lying’ and ‘non-action’ scandal could not sway the true believers. Their side can do no wrong.

Check this out:

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/07/detroiters-elect-ex-con-brian-banks-as-state-rep/?hpt=us_bn9

It does not surprise me one bit.

#125 I expect Republicans to lose the House in 2014 as more non-religious and non-white people enter the electorate. I’ll be extremely shocked if a Republican can get elected President again with the current electorate.

The economy won’t help Republicans.

I just can’t see the growing ranks of blacks, hispanics and the non-religious moving away monolithic loyalty to their party. When the economy is bad they’ll want big government more than a good economy.

The current generation of minorities won’t vote Republican during their lifetimes. Blacks have a tribal allegiance to the Democrat Party and Hispanics are becoming as monolithic.

So why does the Democratic party appeal to them? Because it promises them special favors. It isn’t tribalism. It is self interest.

Remind me again why we need more immigrants when we don’t have jobs for people who are here.

Here in New Mexico, it helps to have a Hispanic name, especially if it is Lujan. Case in point: Michelle Lujan Grisham, who probably wouldn’t have gotten elected without that “Lujan” as a middle name. Or Stephanie Garcia Richard, who was simply Stephanie Richard last time around and lost, but won this time. I have no idea where the “Garcia” comes from. I don’t think it’s her maiden name.

Remember, immigrants will have a larger carbon foot print here than where they come from.

Can you hardly wait till the USA hits 1 billion people!
100 million whites and 900 million non whites.

Won’t it just be paradise? Just like South Africa!

Our republic would be healthier without a partisan media but much healthier if we knew how to think critically and had a little common sense.

sg@128:

Right. Until the 1970s, blacks were a reliable Republican bloc. They changed. Partisan coalitions change. All the time.

Everyone needs to quit it with the apocalyptic rhetoric. That means you, SAL and Steve Martin. And stop putting your faith in the Republican party.

@sg: south africa is a third world country that only ever had a patina of being anything but (and even then only if you didn’t go outside the white dominated areas).
if america loses its shine, it will be due to people expecting to get more than they put in, and not all working together as a society.

if australia loses its way (and i think it is on its way there too) – it’ll similarly be from being dependant on the government to do everything from us. not being considered adult enough to wear the consequences of life.

One thing we can be sure of is that there will be some major changes in the Republican party the next 10 years. The Republican elites understand that they basically have 2 options: (1) court more Hispanic and non-white voters or (2) cease to exist. Given the rising percentage of non-white voters, the necessity of this is all but a mathematical certainty. Nationally, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote, a towering twenty-point margin over Obama. Ronald Reagan won in a landslide, but only carried 55% of the white vote. SG, in the very near future, expect Republican leaders to give you and others like you a taste of the back of their hand. It’s either that or fade from existence.

“@sg: south africa is a third world country that only ever had a patina of being anything but (and even then only if you didn’t go outside the white dominated areas).”

Uh, I am pretty sure that there was a tiny native population when Europeans arrived. Their prosperity attracted massive immigration. Isn’t that what happens? You build it and they come.

“SG, in the very near future, expect Republican leaders to give you and others like you a taste of the back of their hand. It’s either that or fade from existence.”

Ah yes. Americans voted for Reagan, who granted amnesty and now we get the back of their hand. Yeah, that’s the thing about allowing leaders to elect a new people. Anyway, we have been punished by redistributionist schemes for a while now.

Just to recap. Invite foreigners in. Get outvoted by foreigners. Get back of hand from leaders because they have to use your money pay off foreigners so they and their rich friends can stay elites. Got it.

Gee isn’t that the reason folks left Europe? They tired of the oppression of elites?

Call me sick for thinking this way, but I find it somewhat interesting to listen to all the various Republican pundits fiercely debating one another trying to explain how Romney lost this election, given the state of the economy. The shock on the face of certain predictors like Peggy Noonan (who looked like she’d just seen a ghost), and the disbelief of people like Karl Rove, who just couldn’t accept the numbers coming out of Ohio, was quite the scene. For sure, alot of us were surprised. But in trying to find silver linings amongst those of us who are conservative politically (whether we be Republicans, Libertarians, or independents somewhere between the two), I think it’ll be healthy for the Republicans, that is, if they start by looking in the mirror and don’t point fingers at straw men. Again, it is quite interesting to listen to Republicans also debate over strategy for the next go around, and of what the party should be, become, or return back to, etc. I may be wrong, but personally I still think if the Republicans were to stop with the affair with pragmatics, return to being ruled by their principles, and run with a messenger who has both the substance and the style/communication skills, then they’d have a better chance. But I could be wrong.

Other pundits suggest the Republicans need to move even more to center than they did by going with Romney. (Ironically, most of these pundits suggesting this are already moderate Republicans themselves or are Democrats). Yet since there was a lower voter turnout for Romney than there was for McCain, couldn’t that point to the possibility that the Republican base was not energized/thrilled by the nominee choice being left of their position? And given the terrible treatment of Ron Paul and his devotees by the media and by the Republican cabal at their convention (Ron Paul had the majority of 30 and under voters amongst all the Republican candidates), could that not have had an effect on the voter turnout in terms of disenchantment/apathy with the Republicans? I mean, Ron Paul refused to endorse Romney because he said he couldn’t find much of a difference between Romney and Obama. Might some of the Republican base felt the same way and just not voted? Might Virginia have been much closer had Ron Paul and his devotees been treated just a little better? I don’t know, but I do wonder. If anything, I fear some fingers will be pointed at them for the loss, such as in Virginia.

Admittedly, given the challenge which the Democrats pose, having bought up so many new voters by their freebies/entitlement candy, it’s hard to say what will work for the Republicans the next go around, whether moving more left to center to appeal to independents or more right of center on issues to energize the base. Personally, I’d think if I were a Republican, perhaps the hispanic NeoCon Marco Rubio might be their best play, if his youth doesn’t pose a negative to voters. Yet it may be too late no matter who they go with. I suspect there are just too many votes bought and paid for by the Dems for the Republicans to ever overcome the margin. We’ll see.

@138

Why do we pretend like we don’t know what is going on?

Republicans are those who think, “what is mine is mine.”

Democrats are those who think, “what is yours is mine.”

It’s really pretty simple. The socialism thing only works in high trust homogenous countries where the people are high social functioning and fairly bright. So yeah, Sweden. It doesn’t work in Detroit. Duh.

As Cinn pointed out, blacks were Republicans when the Republicans were the party of non-discrimination and the Democrats were the party that sided with discrimination against blacks. Now Republicans are still the party of non-discrimination and the Democrats are the party of discrimination against whites. So, of course people are going to vote their own interests.

#133 Cinn: “Right. Until the 1970s, blacks were a reliable Republican bloc. They changed. Partisan coalitions change. All the time. ”

That’s simply not true. No Republican has won a majority of African Americans since 1928. After 1972 no Republican has even won 20% of African Americans.

It’s pretty clear African Americans will be a Democrat group until something catastrophic happens on the scale of a civil war.

As far as putting “faith in the Republican party”, this has nothing to do with Republicans. It has to do with the fact that we are developing an electorate that has tribal loyalty to one party just like South Africa. Democrats are becoming the American equivalent of the African National Congress that can’t ever lose.

“more right of center on issues to energize the base”

Many conservatives are in complete denial about changing demographics. Or at least they refuse to talk about it. The conversation that should be dominating this thread is “what can we do to court more Hispanic, Black, and women voters?”. Obama earned over 90% of the black vote. And 78% percent of white evangelical Christians went for Romney, up from 74 percent for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Incredibly, there will be some who suggest that Romney’s should go after more born-again evangelicals — that Romney have won had he been MORE conservative, MORE anti-abortion. They’re completely delusional.

It occurs to me to wonder just how many zealous Christians, who otherwise would likely support the conservative candidate, would not vote for Mr. Romney because he is a Mormon. Such talk could be heard in my LC-MS church.

I know many people who were so disgusted and discouraged that they did not vote. Others, like myself voted third party or wrote in someone.
The Republicans/Romney lost on two accounts:
1 Romney was basically a 90′s Clinton style Democrat paraded about as a ‘real’ conservative.
2. The treatment of Ron Paul at the Republican convention cost Romney and the Republicans my vote and the votes of many of my friends.
At this point I think we are getting what we deserve. I have ceased spending much thought or effort on politics and am concentrating on becoming more self sufficient and paying off what little debt I have. The math does not lie. We are in for some hard times.

tODD @144: We had these polling discussions endlessly a couple of months ago. I cited plenty of evidence at that time, but you have kept on circling back to the same points again and again. There’s nothing more I can do or say on the issue. Since this is so frustrating to you, I suggest that should I ever discuss polling again on this blog, you simply ignore those comments. That way you will not be frustrated.

SAL and Steve Martin.

You two sound just like my mother sounded in 1964. She was wrong too.

sg: The level of your xenophobia doesn’t surprise me anymore.

DonS, I’m a little surprised at you though. I suppose (having had these positions held by black people already) that we’ll never see a non-black mayor of New York City, or Los Angeles, or Chicago, or a non-black governor of Virginia, either. Maybe we’ll never see white governors of Louisiana or South Carolina as well..

THe key to the demographic problems with Republicans is to find a way to sell their core principals to some of the Democrat coalition components without becoming socialists themselves. It’s possible, but the reason it never happens isthat white/Republican thought paterns always get in the way. Ever since I was a little kid in the late 1950′s, the entire plan of almost all white families was to move away from urban problems. As in Gee, if we just run away fast enough and far enough, the bad dark people won’t disrupt our perfect lives.

But problems don’t get solved by running from them. They only grow and get worse and eventually they catch up to you.

If we aren’t going to out reproduce these other demographics, then the only way to get a majority is by recruiting outsiders to join us, and we cannot do that as long as we have such little confidence in our own ideals that we believe that most people can’t see how well they work.
Look, as an example, in 2006, a number of Republicans had an idea that would have worked much better than what we ended up doing. How can we get more hispanics to vote Republican? Solution: offer legalization (call it amnesty, a pathway to citizenship, whatever) to illegal aliens, ON THE CONDITION THAT THEY BEHAVE LIKE REPUBLICANS. That is, successful applicants for legal status would have to stay off welfare, stay out of jail, pay their taxes, learn English, etc. And I might add that going to school, gettinjg driver’s licenses buying homes, supporting their children, doing productive work, are all things that encouraging them to do (if not requiring it) would have been a good idea too. They would have had to maintain this patern of Republican behavior for a number of years before they could apply for citizenship. The point being that these people would have had a lot more respect for the free market if they were required to succeed in it. And then, having behaved and largely succeeded as Republicans, a lot of them would have voted like Republicans too, once they became citizens. George W. Bush had 40% of Hispanics voting for him, and that per centage was growing.

But he was shouted down by people who thought it would be good politics to do the opposite. Start passing laws that make it illegal for these people to work, get driver’s licenses, go to school, even rent homes. So, now a much higher percentage of hispanics are voting democrat and looking for handouts like democrats. BY actively trying to supress a demographic, the Republicans only convinced that demographic that 1) The Republican party hates them, and 2)that the big government democrat welfare state is the only way that they can ever get ahead.

If 40% of hispanics in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and maybe even New Mexico (I really don’t know about Ohio) voted Republican, this last election would have turned out very differently.

And this is only one example. Some how, the Republicans have managed to lose both the Jewish vote AND the Muslim vote. That takes such a breathtaking lack of political savvy it defies analysis.

Point to be made here,btw: The Republicans still control the house, so Obama will still have to feign bipartisanship if he wants things to get done.

@142

Michael B. I agree that folks don’t want to talk about demographics. Stil,l if whites voted together as a tribe for one party, that party would control everything. But whites are more independent in their thinking, so there is a range of thought, etc, that you don’t see among the other groups. A majority of whites voted for civil rights. Non whites vote against them. As soon as whites are a minority, there will no longer be any discussion of minority rights, because all that will be left is just a bunch of groups at each other’s throats.

“I have ceased spending much thought or effort on politics and am concentrating on becoming more self sufficient and paying off what little debt I have.”

Actually now is a great time to borrow. Rates are low. Values are depressed and the currency is being devalued daily. Ironically, now a vehicle won’t depreciate in value faster than the dollars you use to make your payments. Now is a great time to trade cash for assets.

“sg: The level of your xenophobia doesn’t surprise me anymore.”

Yeah, only stupid people like me are afraid of a group with an abysmal track record of violence and dysfunction. FWIW, I don’t fear Asians, and that is just as rational as fearing those who have wretched performance. I don’t fear foreigners for no reason, rather because of what they have done and are doing. If their performance were similar to Asians, their would be no problem.

“Incredibly, there will be some who suggest that Romney’s should go after more born-again evangelicals — that Romney have won had he been MORE conservative, MORE anti-abortion. They’re completely delusional.”

Not delusional, principled. Voting other people’s stuff to come to you is not some higher ethical principle. If abortion were illegal, it wouldn’t result in a baby boom among conservatives, more likely their enemies. But killing kids is not the way to go even if it costs you.

If we aren’t going to out reproduce these other demographics, then the only way to get a majority is by recruiting outsiders to join us, and we cannot do that as long as we have such little confidence in our own ideals that we believe that most people can’t see how well they work.

Dude, we have confidence in our ideals and spend no little energy and resources promoting them. They aren’t buying it. Get it? This BS that if we just do more we can change them into folks just like us is delusional. Sure, some fraction of them are similar to us. But in the general case, they are different.

The problem that the Republicans had with the abortion issue is that they coupled their anti-abortion stance with a callousness toward women the approached disdain. Abortion was never talked about as a moral tragedy, rape was never talked about as the penultimate violation of the dignity of another human being. Republicans came off as punitive and uncaring, while they never explained adequately how abortion is a tragic consequence of the human propensity to choose evil because it’s so often the most convenient choice, the easiest solution to a problem. And Republicans basically just confirmed that that attitude is correct.

sg:

“Sure, some fraction of them are similar to us. But in the general case, they are different.”

How big that fraction actually is can be tested empirically. Simply require “them” to behave “similar to us” as a condition of legal status for an extended period of time. Those that prove they can do so get to be citizens. Those that can’t have to go back. I’m not suggesting that we “do more” to”change them”. They have to do it themselves.

SKPeterson,

And by “Republicans,” you of course mean only Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin. Those were the only two, so far as I know, prominently caught in foolish insensitivity. Romney and Ryan, for example, specifically disowned those statements and left open the possibility of abortion in certain extreme cases.

Meanwhile, I don’t understand folks who argue that Republicans need to “court” blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities. What does that even mean? Are we talking about rhetoric? That is, should Republicans start talking more to minorities? Already been done for a decade at least. The RNC spends an untold amount “reaching out” to minority voters, trumpeting minority candidates, and even appointing a minority RNC chairman (Michael Steele a few years ago). There’s nothing left to do in this department. The notion that Republicans rhetorically ignore minorities is simply wrong.

Or do you mean that Republicans should change their policies and principles to match those of minority groups? In other words, you’re suggesting that Republicans stop being Republicans, then.

Look, Republicans don’t support Affirmative Action. Black voters don’t like that. But that doesn’t mean that Republicans should stop opposing what they (and many Americans) perceive to be an unfair program. Republicans should take a hard line on illegal immigration–if for no other reason than to offer an alternative to the Democrats–but Hispanics don’t like that. Is that an acceptable reason for pandering to Hispanic votes, then? Basically selling the farm to attract a few minority votes? That’s what they’re already doing.

I don’t like either the rhetorical or the (un)principled option. Calls for Republicans to “court minorities” are both superfluous and problematic.

SKP @155:

That is a function of (well, it’s most basically a function of the fallen nature of mankind, but secondarily its a function of) Republican pro-life types always talking to each other and never to anyone else. In that environment people start hearing only the concerns they hold dear and stop considering the concerns of others to the point that they don’t even realize how they sound to other people.

Once again, isolating themselves instead of trying to recruit from the outside.

Cinncinatus:

As long as you are here, permit me to acknowledge that you were right about something and I was wrong.

Four years ago I was arguing loudly that Romney was, in your words, an unprincipled half-wit, and not to be trusted. This year I was so revolted by the idea of a second Obama term that I wanted everybody to vote for Romney. But stepping back and reconsidering, after the election debacle, I begin to see that I really WANTED to believe that Romney would have been a better president. That he somehow had evolved into someone who would at least consistantly pander to my principles.

And he might have done some things that would have served my goals. Or, he might just as easily have allowed this country to get comfortable will a more gradual decline into a permanent statist society. We’ll never know now, of course.

Romney would be a better president because statist or not he actually knows how to manage large enterprises, understands complex economic and financial systems and knows how to tackle these problems. He has a track record of having done it. He also knows how to work with opposition for appropriate compromise that help everyone win. Romney does not harbor a bunch of animosity to many other groups and doesn’t have mountains of emotional baggage clouding his thinking. He is much higher social functioning. He spoke very clearly on how he would compromise. Basically he has actual skills in areas of and beyond persuasion. Obama can persuade ignorant voters and ignorant jurors, and that is about it. Romney can identify the right solutions to complex problems, explain their benefits to others and execute the operation. Obama can’t do any of those things. He is not a man of ideas. He is just personable and can make people feel that he cares. The problem is that his kind of caring is essentially worthless because it doesn’t translate into a functional ideas. Obama really has no ideas. He isn’t analytical type when it comes to complex systems. He is a sort of people pleaser and yes man. I don’t hate the guy, but like I said before I wouldn’t vote for him even if he were my best friend because he is incompetent. Bengazi anyone?

On the emotional baggage thing. Obama probably genuinely sympathizes with single people and unemployed people. On average they are less desirable than married and employed people because, well, someone wants a married person or an employed person. Singles and unemployeds feel rejected because on average, they were. Naturally, those folks are looking for someone to accept them. Obama knows very well how that feels and they likely sense that. He sees the married and competent as lucky. He thinks they should help the rejected. That works until you get to an unworkable imbalance like we have with tons of single moms etc. Unfortunately, Obama’s solution is just kill the kids. Yikes.

Ever since I was a little kid in the late 1950′s, the entire plan of almost all white families was to move away from urban problems. As in Gee, if we just run away fast enough and far enough, the bad dark people won’t disrupt our perfect lives.

Vomit.

They left because they didn’t want their daughters raped and their sons killed. Look at Detroit and Chicago.

Anyway, would you honestly suggest that I should stay with my husband if he beat me and the kids? Would you say I was just running away from the problems and if the kids and I would just stay, he would change? Well, would you?

Obviously people are going to flee violence and crime for the sake of their closet neighbor, their families.

Anyway secular preaching and utopian social engineering have made things worse. If you want to argue that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can turn things around, then I am willing to listen.

Cinn:

To the extent that I am one of those arguing for some kind of Republican “outreach” to minorities, let me try to explain.

I have the advantage of having lived through the 1960′s and seeing the the civil rights movement develop. At that time, the movement was divided. One faction (An ideal now identified with Martin Luther King) was for total integration into the larger American society. The “we don’t want to be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character” types. The other faction was all about black separatism; maintaining s separate racial and political block that could wield power and seek redress of grievances. This second faction has won out

But one of the reasons it won out is because Republicans handled the issue badly. As I said earlier, conservative white people in that day had absolutely no interest in interacting with black people. At least in the North where I grew up. Unlike southern racism (which seemed motivated by the desire to exploit black people) northern racists just wished that black people would go away. And if the black people would not go away, well then the white people would simply move farther and farther away from the blacks. Most white people had zero confidence that any black person would ever be able to be “similar to us”, and saw no point in interacting with any of them long enough to find out if they could be.

While I do not believe that it was as simple as that, I believe that the attitude of conservative white people of that day was at least partly a self fulfilling prophesy. The left offered black people a false dream of a welfare state that would “help” them, but the right offered black people nothing at all and was perceived by blacks as being hostile to them (and not without justification)..

Now, what I mean by “outreach” goes by a lot of names in the real world, but “rhetoric” does not capture it, and I certainly do not mean compromise (at least not much and not on fundamental principles).

I mean concepts of marketing, or evangelism, or the best word is really recruitment. As the military, or the HR department of a company, or an athletic program actively seeks out possible candidates to join their ranks. The “outreach” goes something like this:

“I want you!” You can learn our ways. Join us and we will train you in ways that will contribute to your own personal advancement and will benefit our organization and will make you a better person and (in the case of military recruiters) will make the society around us better and safer.”

Of course, this only works if the recruiting organization is sincere to some degree. (and none of them are completely sincere. The military, the company and the sports program are always thinking of their own well being first.) But the best ones do at least to some extent keep their promise to train the recruit to acquire skills that benefit the recruit as well as the recruiting organization, and actually do care to some extent about the well being of the recruit.

The alternative is the sg approach, which is to review the statistics in the recruiting pool as it presently stands and conclude that, statistically, this group is not capable of meeting our standards, and that attempting to cherry pick those few candidates with potential to succeed is way more trouble than it is worth.

In my opinion, conservatives missed the opportunity to recruit at least some black people in the 1960′s. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, as the movement of that age was to the left in a number of different ways. But I don’t remember very many conservatives trying very hard either. And what was the result? Almost total conversion of American black people to left wing politics, and the inevitable result of wide spread economic and moral collapse in the black community that occurs when any community embraces left wing politics.

What I was trying to say @148 is George Bush and some other republicans were trying to recruit hispanics in 2006. “Show us you can live according to American ways (work, stay off welfare, pay taxes, don’t commit crimes, etc.) and you (or your relatives who are illegal) can become legal residents and eventually citizens, and also enjoy the financial and personal benefits that result from doing these things. And of course, remember it was us Republicans who gave you this opportunity”. It was to some extent working.

But the xenophobe wing of the conservative movement yanked the rug out from under the process and hispanics have interpreted that as the opposite of a recruitment message “We DON’T want you! Go away! You don’t and will never belong with us!”

Since then the Democrats have been saying to hispanics, “Hey! Join us! We want you, and we will provide a government that will give you free goodies.” We see the result in this last election.

It has been almost 50 years since the 1960′s, and the entrenchment of black people as a society in the political left may be irreversable for another 50 years. I hope it won’t take that long, but it will definitely take a lot of outreach to convince black people that we care about them at all. But it has been only six years since 2006, and maybe we can still turn the situation with hispanics around in the near future.

Those were very good observations, kerner!

The left offered black people a false dream of a welfare state that would “help” them, but the right offered black people nothing at all and was perceived by blacks as being hostile to them (and not without justification)..

Um, what? Giving them jobs, welfare and free public education was hostility? And what they brought in return, violence and crime, was what? gratitude? Why do you think working class whites could have done?

Face it, the “right” offers everyone the same thing, the opportunity to do it themselves. You keep arguing that working class whites could somehow have magically convinced them to be different. Exactly how? How would integration have changed anything? Jews who moved to the US weren’t allowed to integrate fully. My friend’s original deed clearly stated the property could not be sold to a Jew. Yet Jews aren’t known for their terrible dysfunction, far from it. Nor were Japanese, etc. Plenty of groups were segregated and, yet succeed anyway by just building their own stuff.

Anyway, southern racism was just plain fear. Poor whites in the south were generally far too poor to just move away, so they had legal segregation instead of de facto segregation that you have in the north. Also, are blacks obliged to befriend and include whites? I thought we had freedom of association? If they don’t want to live with us or go camping like we do or whatever SWPL stuff, why should we care?

But the xenophobe wing of the conservative movement yanked the rug out from under the process and hispanics have interpreted that as the opposite of a recruitment message “We DON’T want you! Go away! You don’t and will never belong with us!”

What a bald faced lie. Totally unhinged from reality.

Immigrants don’t have a right to come here. And we have every right to keep them out. That is what sovereignty is. Do you think everyone in the world has a right to come here and live off the American taxpayer?

“it will definitely take a lot of outreach to convince black people that we care about them at all. But it has been only six years since 2006, and maybe we can still turn the situation with hispanics around in the near future.”

Exactly who “reached out” to the southern whites and what did they offer them? Think hard. Tell us all the goodies they got.

#145
Todd, you sound exactly like a jingoistic Republican in 2004 who told Democrats to leave America because they didn’t support the war in Iraq. That’s pretty hypocritical.

Also Todd you didn’t put the best construction on what I’ve wrote. Largely you just made things up.

I’ve got to assume your pretension to not be routing for Democrats is feigned. You’ve reacted with vitriol and spite because I’ve expressed that America is headed in a bad direction that cannot be solved in the next few decades.

Why would that sentiment generate such hate from you unless you approved of where we’re headed?

Love of country doesn’t require love of government. The government is just a segment of the country not the epitome of it. While America may suffer from awful government for many years, no government has the power to extinguish all that is good in a nation.

SAL,

Come off it. You’ve done a bit more than suggest that the country “is headed in a bad direction.” If that were the case, I, along with a polled supermajority of Americans, would agree with you.

No, you’ve basically asserted that Tuesday’s election marked the beginning of the end of America, and you’ve done it with apocalyptic rhetoric rivaled only by the Revelation of St. John.

Look, I know you aren’t happy about Tuesday’s revolt. But take my word for it: things wouldn’t be much better had Romney won; meanwhile, Obama is hardly as bad as you seem to think. He’s a milquetoast moderate, not the Marxist antichrist. Things will look different in 2016.

Tuesday’s RESULT*

Freudian slip…? If only.

sg @164 et seq>

” southern racism was just plain fear”.

Well, yours certainly is. Have you noticed that in all your comments the only options you see for white people are victimhood and running away.

Concepts like fighting back, overcoming, and victory, much less recruiting new members of our society from a position of confidence and strength never even enter your universe.

All your comments amount to a lot of cowardly sniveling about how we’ll all be raped or killed if we allow a dark person to come near us. The idea that we might win a fight, face them down, or make friends from positions of mutual respect? Or that any of them might like or respect any of us? Unthinkable!

If our civilization falls, it will be because of attitudes like yours. No civilization based on fear and the kind of self contempt that pre-supposes victimhood as the inevitable outcome of any conflict can survive very long.

kerner@170:

…I think sg’s position–with which I sympathize–does imply “fighting back,” politically speaking. In fact, that’s precisely sg’s problem: our feckless corporatist elites aren’t interesting in fighting back but rather welcome the flood of humanity, which leaves ordinary (and often white!) Americans in a compromised position.

#168 I am upset because I will probably lose my job next year due to sequestration. I have two small children and a blind wife.

I’m worried and afraid that I’ll be able to care for them next year. That IS the end of my world. The emotion is about that not about our transition to a one-party state.

SAL, if you care to share, what is your specialty, and in which industry/sector?

Cinn @ 171

I don’t know whether you perceive me as feckless, but I am not a corporatist, nor elite, by any objective standard. But I do perceive the mere presence of more people per se as a threat.

Economically, people move according to the laws of supply and demand pretty much like everything else.

But that isn’t the threat sg talks about the most. What she mostly fears is rape and murder etc., eg. her bit @164 about how poor white people could not afford to move away from black people so they enacted Jim Crow laws to protect themselves.

Now, if particular persons are actually threatening, I do not see politics as an appropriate way of fighting back. Criminal laws protect people against violence and where that fails sometimes individuals have to protect themselves.

How does the mere presence of more people in the United States “compromise” frequently white Americans?

Oops. The second sentence above should read that I do NOT perceive the mere presence of more people per se as a threat.

#173 My areas of work are missile defense, space, cyberspace and high altitude platforms.

Now seems to be a very bad time for those employed in the defense industry. I work at a national lab, and sequestration would be pretty bad for us too. Seriously hoping that Congress can get it’s crap together and get about its business soon.

Kerner @ 148: I’m not sure why you are surprised. I am just stating my opinion that the Democrats have tasted success running a minority candidate, and the Republicans will come to a similar conclusion that the way to carve into their deficit with Latinos is to run a Latino. I don’t see another white male candidate getting the nomination in the foreseeable future for either party. In 2016, for the Republicans, it will be Rubio or perhaps Ted Cruz. Rubio is ideal because he brings Florida. Bobby Jindal will be in the mix, but he isn’t Latino and he’s not from a swing state, so my money’s on a Latino.

As for the whole demographics issue, we need to hold our horses a little. Early picking through the tea leaves of the election results and exit polls are showing indications that, despite the conventional wisdom that Republicans would turn out, they may not have turned out even to the extent of 2008, while Democrats turned out at 2008 levels (and not higher, as was predicted by pollsters, based on demographic changes since 2008). Specifically, as many as 10 million white voters may not have shown up. I hinted at this in a comment way up top, when I said there may have been a lot of Grace’s out there, who just were not going to vote for a Mormon.

So, while changing demographics will certainly be an electoral issue for Republicans at some point, if they can’t do a better job convincing Latinos to vote for their policies, this may not have been the reason for Romney’s loss.

It’s popular right now to jump on Republicans for their failures with minority voters, single women, etc. And clearly, in some cases (Todd Akin), that is deserved. But, remember, Republicans swim against a huge current given Democratic dominance of the schools, universities, and media complex. A stupid remark, misstep, or minor scandal by a Republican gets amplified over days and weeks, and becomes a meme of the campaign (47%, “legitimate rape”, even Mourdock’s benign comment that a child conceived in rape is still alive by the will of God). The Mourdock faux scandal swirled even while the real Benghazi scandal was ignored by the press. Young people come out of their schooling years brainwashed by the “coolness” of liberalism — it takes years of productivity for them to come to understand the real issues of economics underlying Republican policy, which is why many people tend to become Republican as they marry and age. Democrats and the media also willfully poison the Republican image among minorities, while Democrats themselves, without regard to the long term good of the country and the rule of law, pander endlessly to gain their votes. They don’t really do anything (Republican presidents typically have many more minorities in responsible cabinet positions, for example), but they talk a good game, the media confirms it, and the voters believe it.

Now, that’s a reality Republicans have to live with. The alternative media helps to get some conservative messaging out, and forces mainstream media to cover some things it would rather ignore, but it’s not an equalizer. So there certainly does need to be a discussion about long-term demographic issues, and how Republicans can reach out particularly to Latinos and Asians, who don’t come from countries which value individual rights, and teach them why America is special, and why they should want to further American individualism as against the big liberty-robbing state.

I said this @ 178:

So, while changing demographics will certainly be an electoral issue for Republicans at some point, if they can’t do a better job convincing Latinos to vote for their policies, this may not have been the reason for Romney’s loss.

I should have added that it will be interesting to see if that low turnout was just for the presidential election, or if it extended downticket. It’s interesting that the Republicans more or less held their historic lead in the House (they will probably lose on the order of 5 or 6 seats), which might point to the withholding of votes for president, but on the other hand, Republican Senate candidates didn’t fare as well as expected.

Should be interesting.

Kerner, I feel that you think fear of real danger is irrational. Sorry, but that just is not the case. I give you Detroit and Chicago. There are dangerous neighborhoods and they aren’t the Jewish or Asian neighborhoods. We have crime stats and we know who are committing the crimes. You wouldn’t have your children live in a dangerous neighborhood. So, why should other groups choose to live there if they can get out?

When governments try to integrate people in other ways, they just end up making more neighborhoods dangerous, because neighbors don’t change criminals into nice folks. Like I said, you wouldn’t make your family live there. Idealistic dreamers turn evil when they want to force people to put their kids in danger in these social experiments. If you think you can change them, you can give it a try. Lots of nice Teach for America people have tried. They failed.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american-murder-mystery/306872/

American Murder Mystery
Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades.

Memphis has always been associated with some amount of violence. But why has Elvis’s hometown turned into America’s new South Bronx? Barnes thinks he knows one big part of the answer, as does the city’s chief of police. A handful of local criminologists and social scientists think they can explain it, too. But it’s a dismal answer, one that city leaders have made clear they don’t want to hear. It’s an answer that offers up racial stereotypes to fearful whites in a city trying to move beyond racial tensions. Ultimately, it reaches beyond crime and implicates one of the most ambitious antipoverty programs of recent decades….

Betts had been evaluating the impact of one of the city government’s most ambitious initiatives: the demolition of the city’s public-housing projects, as part of a nationwide experiment to free the poor from the destructive effects of concentrated poverty. Memphis demolished its first project in 1997. The city gave former residents federal “Section8” rent-subsidy vouchers and encouraged them to move out to new neighborhoods. Two more waves of demolition followed over the next nine years, dispersing tens of thousands of poor people into the wider metro community.

Mike, SAL – the question is, are your skills transferable? If you think that sequestration is coming, can you take preemptive steps?

#181
“Mike, SAL – the question is, are your skills transferable? If you think that sequestration is coming, can you take preemptive steps?”

I’m stuck in an underwater mortgage in a metro area that has few jobs for my skillset that aren’t in defense or NASA. If I lose my job and can’t find another it’ll lead to a foreclosure and the wife and kids will have to stay with the folks while I travel the country looking for some other way to make a living.

SAL:

You have my genuine sympathies, as someone looking at dubious employment prospects.

But, politically, what is your point? That defense cuts are unacceptable?

I’m not making a political point. Large defense cuts have occurred and more are coming. Sequestration drastically accelerates and deepens that leaving us with an ineffective military.

I don’t think cutting more than a trillion dollars out of defense is wise after we’ve just ground down our military with two wars. We’re already dealing with the first parts of the $500 billion dollars in cuts approved a couple years ago. We can probably maintain some acceptable level of defense if we’re not cut too much more than that.

Politically if I made a point it would be this. In the aftermath of two wars you ought to wait and see how well the military can handle the last round of cuts before making more cuts. At some point we’ll have to update our old (10-40 year old) equipment just to maintain some fraction of our current defense.

sg:

As usual we are talking at cross purposes. You are quoting statistics while I am talking about people, individuals.

My wife and I and all three of our married children (I have 2 single kids as well whose situations are different) live in the city of Milwaukee. Not the suburbs, the city. My own neighborhood is only slightly more than 50% white, if that. But my neighborhood is home to a lot of city employees, and not a ghetto by any means. Many of the homes are larger than mine.

My married children all live in a city neighborhood 3-4 miles from downtown. They all have children and they all attend the same church, which is ethnically diverse, and has a school, which is attended by my two oldest grandsons. My oldest daughter (who has 3 children) recently purchased a foreclosed home which needed some repairs but which had a lot more space, and was in a neighborhood closer to their church but also closer to some of the more dicey neighborhoods in Milwaukee. But the new neighborhood also has a very active neighborhood association and her new neighbors bought my daughter’s family tickets to the Halloween block party and sort of a welcome gift. They are probably glad to see someone fixing up the foreclosed home on the corner. Nobody has made us do any of this, and we are not conducting some kind of experiment. We are somply living our lives without irrational fear.

I don’t feel the least bit unsafe in any of these places. Are there dangerous non-white people in Milwaukee? Sure. Are all the non-white people in Milwaukee some kind of mortal threat? That’s absurd. The great majority of the non-white people I see and interact with daily are no kind of threat at all.

The reason you seem to be so fearful is that you seem to equate all non-white people (blacks and hispanics at least) with project/section 8 housing dwellers. This is simply a fallacy. Project/section 8 housing dwellers, have a much higher rate of social dysfunction than the population at large. And even if there are higher percentages of non-whites in the projects and on Section 8, it is ridiculous to make assumptions about the entire non-white demographic as though they were all the same. Yet you regularly do that.

kerner,

In your haste to accuse sg of xenophobia and bigotry, you seem to be missing (some of her) point(s).

Fact: When whites fled city centers for the suburbs between the ’50s and ’90s, they did so for several reasons. Maybe sheer racism was one of them, but more importantly, minority populations who were migrating into the city around the same time brought with them a host of social pathologies and dangers. Mr. and Mrs. Jones didn’t movie out of Milwaukee just because they didn’t want Johnny hanging around brown people, but because the particular brown people involved actually made the neighborhood tangibly dangerous.

Fact #2: Yes, yes. Everyone knows that not all “brown people” are dangerous, and that the ones who are dangerous are not so simply because they are brown. But you can’t deny that several non-white communities are afflicted by numerous social pathologies and criminal cultures. Neighborhoods that contain many individuals from such non-white communities are, statistically, more dangerous than majority-white neighborhoods. This is simply true.

And, linking this discussion with immigration, if we were welcoming in lots of middle-class, educated folks who just want to contribute to the American way of life, then I’d be the first throwing out the welcome mat. But that’s not what’s happening, especially on our Southern border (and especially after LBJ’s immigration “reforms”): those who are coming across–mostly illegally–are poor, and though most of them are hard-working, peaceful folk, there is a non-negligible criminal element involved. This is not coincidental.

Analogy: Italian immigrants also brought with them a criminal culture. Eventually we integrated Italians successfully–only in the last two decades, actually. But Italians didn’t pour into our country in numbers so vast as those coming from Latin America–you know the Latin Americans who, instead of the Mafia, are bringing MS-13 and other gangs who murder for fun unlike the genteel Sicilians.

These are real concerns rooted in fact, not merely xenophobia.

My wife and I and all three of our married children (I have 2 single kids as well whose situations are different) live in the city of Milwaukee. Not the suburbs, the city. My own neighborhood is only slightly more than 50% white, if that. But my neighborhood is home to a lot of city employees, and not a ghetto by any means. Many of the homes are larger than mine.

Yeah, that is like my neighborhood except my neighborhood is 20% white. 40% if you count the hispanics as white. So, I know that brown ≠ bad. Middle class folks are middle class folks no matter what color they are. I have these individuals and families over to my own house. I get it. However, I don’t buy that you are just talking about individuals when you say people should have stayed in dangerous neighborhoods.

“Section 8, it is ridiculous to make assumptions about the entire non-white demographic as though they were all the same. Yet you regularly do that.”

Nah, I qualified my statements. Go back and look. You know that working class is not middle class. You know Sec.8 can’t possibly refer to middle class. The stats show how groups vote. Generalities definitely do not include every individual of a group. You know that, too. So the assumptions are on your end.

The reason my last comment is relevant to politics, is that even though most of these non-white people aren’t the mortally dangerous threats that you think they are, most of them do vote democrat. And the question was: how do we change that?

And my answer is that we who vote Republican need to demonstrate to these people (at least the majority) that we don’t hate them or fear them, that we can actually respect them, that we want them to be part of our larger society, and most importantly that it is our principles in practice that will benefit them the most, as well as America as a whole (so they should vote Republican accordingly).

What I am saying is that we will never convince non-whites of the benefit of our principles if we allow the Democrats to convince them that we hate them and that we only mean them harm. The best way to convince some one that we mean them no harm is to not harm them, or actually help them learn how to use OUR principles to succeed. One good way to show someone that we don’t hate or fear them is to voluntarily stop avoiding them and interact with them when we don’t have to.

Right now the Republican majjority position re immigrants is a threat (go back, non-negotiable) to the families and friends of many hispanic voters. So, the voters feel threatened themselves and will not vote Republican. The laws against employment for those same friends and families is likewise perceived as animocity. Everyone is free to associate with whomever they choose. But when so few Republicans choose to associate with blacks or hispanics socially they are easily convinced that we don’t like them. Jack Kemp was a true economic conservative. He was also a professional football player. He once observed, ““I have showered with more African Americans than most Republicans have met.” And his purpose in saying that was to make the same point I am making now. We cannot expect non-whites to, in large numbers, decide to vote for conservative candidates by themselves. Not while they are being pumped full of propaganda by the left, as we on the right avoid them like the plague. They will never respect our political opinions if we do not show some respect for them as people. Maybe they won’t anyway. But they definitely won’t unless we do.

And I think that the demographics of this country require us to try this approach, because non-whites are increasing faster than we are.

And my answer is that we who vote Republican need to demonstrate to these people (at least the majority) that we don’t hate them or fear them, that we can actually respect them, that we want them to be part of our larger society, and most importantly that it is our principles in practice that will benefit them the most, as well as America as a whole (so they should vote Republican accordingly).

How do you prove you are innocent of some charge when the people are willing to believe you are guilty without any evidence?
Anyway, the reasons to vote Republican are self evident. If you don’t agree with Republicans you aren’t going to vote for them. I guess Republicans could hire people to schmooze. The thing is the type of people who make their living getting the damned job done, just aren’t much the type. They want to analyze and git ‘er done. That is Romney’s style. Obama makes people feel, well whatever it is they need to feel and that works for some people, generally more men than women.

Right now the Republican majjority position re immigrants is a threat (go back, non-negotiable) to the families and friends of many hispanic voters. So, the voters feel threatened themselves and will not vote Republican. The laws against employment for those same friends and families is likewise perceived as animocity.

I hear you. They don’t vote Republican because they don’t believe in rule of law, don’t respect us or our laws and feel their families are entitled to come here and break our laws. You know, it sure would be a lot easier to make the case that they hate us than it is to try to make the case that we hate them. So, the fact that they don’t vote Republican (based on your example here) is a symptom of the problem, and they are the problem. Look, there will never be an end to the demands of those who feel entitled to your stuff. Ask anyone who has an ungrateful screw up kid. They will tell you how begging and helping does not work. You have this idea that they love rule of law and equality under the law, etc. It is all in your imagination. They like prosperity. That is it. They didn’t build awesome countries based on order, transparency, principles etc because they don’t believe in those things. When they get the chance they will vote for policies that will make the USA more like their countries. It is who they are. It brings me no joy to say it but there it is. I just prefer to face it because I prefer truth to pretty lies.

What I am saying is that we will never convince non-whites of the benefit of our principles if we allow the Democrats to convince them that we hate them and that we only mean them harm.

Do you think they are profoundly stupid?

The best way to convince some one that we mean them no harm is to not harm them, or actually help them learn how to use OUR principles to succeed.

If they are successful, they already know them. Or maybe I don’t understand which principles you are referring to.

One good way to show someone that we don’t hate or fear them is to voluntarily stop avoiding them and interact with them when we don’t have to.

If anything, they avoid us. We invite people to stuff and are way friendlier to them, than they are to us. So, no, I don’t think what your are saying is for real. People naturally seek their own and distrust people who are different, so that may be why some just knee jerk don’t like us. Maybe it is jealousy. Maybe religion. Also, critical thinkers aren’t going to turn into high context people. It just isn’t who we are. We are objective not subjective in our orientation.

Anyway, the democratic party can’t hold it together forever, because Asians are going to tire of footing the bill for gov’t benefits for the non-Asian minorities.

And I think that the demographics of this country require us to try this approach, because non-whites are increasing faster than we are.

Gee, why is that?

Cinn @186:

“But Italians didn’t pour into our country in numbers so vast as those coming from Latin America–you know the Latin Americans who, instead of the Mafia, are bringing MS-13 and other gangs who murder for fun unlike the genteel Sicilians. ”

You are correct if you use the raw numbers, but if you consider immigrants as a percent of the total population, you are incorrect. In 1910 the number of foreign born residents of the US was 13,515,886, compared to a general population of 92,228,496, or 14.65% foreign born in 1910.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_immigration_statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_United_States_Census

In 2010 the foreign born population was 39.3M compared to a total population of 308.75M, or 12.92% foreign born in 2010.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/01/09/u-s-foreign-born-population-how-much-change-from-2009-to-2010/?src=prc-headline.

I agree with your analogy re hispanics/italians, although Italians were not the only group with a non-negligible problem with organized crime. The Irish and the Jews had similar problems, and for similar reasons. In their home countries there was a history of revolution or civil war or oppression of some kind, and often foreign occupation and widespread poverty. Among all these groups secret revolutionary or just plain criminal organizations (and codes of silence) arose as quasi governments where actual government was ineffectual or perceived as oppressive. It should come as no surprise that Mexican or central American immigrants have the same problems. But it doesn’t prove that theirs is a worse problem than that of their predecessors. Maybe you are right about the Italians being more genteel, but I haven’t sufficient time to research that, and all three groups’ criminal organizations had reputations for serious violence in their day. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish-American_organized_crime

But I still don’t see much reason to treat a whole ethnic group with hostility. Rather, weeding out the criminals should be our policy. Also notice that the Italians, Irish and even the Jews (not to mention Poles and other Eastern Europeans) frequently arrived utterly poor and uneducated. The law never required that they have post-graduate degrees before they could enter as immigrants. If it had, a lot of us wouldn’t be here, including me.

sg:

“Anyway, the reasons to vote Republican are self evident. If you don’t agree with Republicans you aren’t going to vote for them.”

If the truth were self evident and nobody needed convincing to get it, industries such as politics, advertising, military recruitment, and sales would not exist. But they do exist. Deals don’t just close themselves. And people don’t have to be “profoundly stupid” to be sold a bill of goods, nor do the highly intelligent always make the right choices without a lot of salesmanship.

A major part of getting anyone to believe what you say is getting him to trust you. Without that, a lot of people won’t believe you if you tell them the sun rose in the east this morning. That’s not a lie, pretty or otherwise. It’s just a fact.

“You have this idea that they love rule of law and equality under the law, etc. It is all in your imagination. They like prosperity. That is it. They didn’t build awesome countries based on order, transparency, principles etc because they don’t believe in those things. When they get the chance they will vote for policies that will make the USA more like their countries. It is who they are. It brings me no joy to say it but there it is. I just prefer to face it because I prefer truth to pretty lies.”

I never said that and I don’t believe it either. On the other hand, my ancestors from Ireland, Bohemia, and various German principalities didn’t understand any of that either, and they too had utterly failed to build awesome countries in those places. Why do you think people emigrate anyway. Most often it’s because their countries are sh!tholes compared to wherever they are going. Civil war, political or religious persecution, or just grinding poverty are the major reasons people leave, and you’re right when you say they head for prosperity in their destination country without the first clue as to the cultural or legal basis on which that country’s prosperity is based.

Did my ancestors from Ireland build an “awesome country” when faced with famine and the policies of British rule? Did my ancestors from Bohemia try to build an “awesome country” out of the Austro Hungarian Empire when they were broke, as if the Hapsburgs cared whether they ate or not? Did my ancestors from Prussia try to talk the King out of merging their Awesome Lutheran Church with the Reform Church by force of law? Hell no! They had no power to “build awesome countries”, but that didn’t mean they didn’t want to live in one. They packed their stuff, and scraped up whatever cash they could, and some of them might have even changed their names, and they headed for prosperous America. America was the only place they could build an awesome anything. And some of them did. Others had, or even caused, problems.

Often it took my ancestors a couple generations to understand the principles on which American prosperity is based. But I don’t think any of them just figured out Hayek’s free market economics or the political theories of the founding fathers because it was all “self evident”. They had to be taught that stuff by someone they respected or read it for themselves. And that doesn’t make them profoundly stupid. It just makes them normal.

But normal people can learn the principles on which their new country’s prosperity is based a whole lot faster if they are around other people who
1) they trust and respect, and
2) know those principles

And if those same people only have access to someone who wants to sell them a bill of goods, most of them will buy the bill of goods or at best not know what to do.

one more thing sg:

“When they get the chance they will vote for policies that will make the USA more like their countries.”

Why would they do that? If you leave one place because it’s a shithole and you didn’t like it, why would you intentionally vote to turn your new home into an identical sh!thole that you will once again not like? The only reason for doing that would be ignorance of what it was that made their original country so screwed up. Which is exactly why they need to learn what makes America different as soon as possible, and we should be making every opportunity to help that happen.

kerner@193:

Why would they do that?

I don’t know, but historically they do. Habit, I guess? Why do you think German and Nordic immigrants (and their descendants) in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota still vote for farmer-labor style statist parties? Why are Mexican immigrants highly likely to vote for redistributive economic programs (tainted with a twinge of lite Marxism)? Why are the descendants of Scots-Irish immigrants, who reside in Appalachia and have spread Westward, likely to vote, even still, for generally libertarian candidates and policies?

And so on. Political attitudes are somewhat heritable (not genetically, of course), and immigrants don’t suddenly become fiscal conservatives when they cross the border.

continued:

You seem to have an inflated view of why most immigrants in the twentieth century have come here in the first place. In the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, immigrants were looking for political freedom and religious liberty.

Modern immigrants are more base in their intentions: they just want a job, and most lack the political sophistication to understand that America’s classically liberal politics are associated with her liberal economics.

@192 What a depressing comment.

Gird your loins, we are off to convert the fools to our cause!

It looks like your opinion of them is much lower than mine. Also, the whole, ‘vote like I vote cuz I am your friend’ is just repulsive. Trust me, I am your friend. gag. Don’t think, feel!! Join our club and we will exploit the people in the other club. We’ll get our friends in and we will get what we want. us vs. them. Okay, I probably need to wake up from this nasty stream of consciousness.

This reminds me of why I loved our original Constitution, the franchise was limited to male property owners aged 21 and older. By the time men achieved the age and held a stake in society, then they had something to lose if they screwed up.

my ancestors from Ireland, Bohemia, and various German principalities didn’t understand any of that either, and they too had utterly failed to build awesome countries in those places.

Okay, that is just gross defamation. Those countries have been at the top for hundreds of years. They are still at the top. And when they came to the USA, they built the same level of civilization here. They invented stuff and built stuff. They were great. In fact, just look in the mirror; that is what they were like. Why do you put them down? Look at what they built for you. This country wasn’t built by magic. Your ancestors built this including the institutions. When I looked up my ancestors, I found that my poor immigrant Norwegian gggreat grandpa founded two country schools. You should go back and find out about all your ancestors did and have more respect and gratitude for what they did under far more difficult circumstances than today’s immigrants face.

“When they get the chance they will vote for policies that will make the USA more like their countries.”

Why would they do that? If you leave one place because it’s a shithole and you didn’t like it, why would you intentionally vote to turn your new home into an identical sh!thole that you will once again not like?

Because it is who they are. Let’s at least be charitable and reasonable enough to grant that they only messed up their own countries because they couldn’t do better. They aren’t exactly critical thinkers. They don’t know why the stuff that appeals to their feelings leads to making a mess of stuff, but the fact is it does. We have the proof, their countries. Sure some of them get it, but the rest are emotional or have low future time orientation and don’t think beyond X.

sg @197:

Now who is attracted to the pretty lies? Ireland in the 1800s? At the top? Are you crazy? Famine, civil war, disease, poverty, economic exploitation, political repression, death, and of course mass emigration to America…and Canada, Australia and New Zealand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland_(1801%E2%80%931923)

The history of Bohemia between the Napolianic wars and WWI was mostly a bitter and sometimes violent struggle for autonomy by the slavic Bohemian majority (locally) against the Hapsburg government in Vienna and the ethnic German local minority.

While Prussia was a reletively good place to live after the Napoleanic wars, it became the scene of religious persecution when King Wilhelm Frederich III tried to merge the Prussian Lutheran and Reformed churches, going so far as to inject government intervention into church governance and to imprison Lutheran Pastors who insisted upon teaching unadulterated Lutheran doctrine. Some of them, and their congregations, left Germany over this and came to America where they founded the Missouri Synod. These were leaving their homes at least in part to find religious freedom.

But my point is that most people emigrate from their home countries and go somewhere else because they failed to solve their problems in their home countries. Your Norwegian great grandpa probably left Norway because the crop failures there caused a famine:

“Norwegian immigration through the years was predominantly motivated by economic concerns. Compounded by crop failures, Norwegian agricultural resources were unable to keep up with population growth, and the Homestead Act promised fertile, flat land. As a result, settlement trended westward with each passing year…

…Between 1825 and 1925, more than 800,000 Norwegians immigrated to North America—about one-third of Norway’s population with the majority immigrating to the USA, and lesser numbers immigrating to the Dominion of Canada. With the exception of Ireland, no single country contributed a larger percentage of its population to the United States than Norway.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_American

When a country has such problems that 1/3 of its population has to leave rather than starve, it isn’t “awesome”. But that doesn’t mean that the people who come from there are bad. And just because they come here for economic prosperity, as your ancestor did, that doesn’t mean they can’t learn anything useful about American principles.

But that is my point, which you steadfastly ignore. The fact that immigrants could not solve the problems in their original countries is no indicator of how well they will solve problems here. Most often, their failure to solve their problems at home is the result of overwhelming social, political, or natural obsticles at home. And the reason they come here is, as you say, for the prosperity, pure and simple. Interesting that the illegals’ motivation and your great grandfather’s motivation are identical: prosperity, pure and simple, that both failed to achieve in Norway/Mexico. But that did not make your great grandpa a bad guy who wants to take our stuff and it doesn’t mean that for today’s immigrants either.

This is why your often repeated argument that today’s immigrants should “go back and solve the problems in their own countries” is nonsense. There is no such thing an a waive of immigrants that was able to solve their problems at home. If they could have done that, there would have been no reason to leave home in the first place.

It is hard to take you seriously when you intentionally set up impossible conditions for hispanic immigrants (fix your home country first) that no large immigrant group has ever met or ever will meet. I can only conclude that you do that because you just don’t like them.

When you say something like “Let’s at least be charitable and reasonable enough to grant that they only messed up their own countries because they couldn’t do better.”, it is no different than saying that your great grand pa messed up agriculture in Norway because he couldn’t do any better. It’s nonsense.

“It looks like your opinion of them is much lower than mine. Also, the whole, ‘vote like I vote cuz I am your friend’ is just repulsive. Trust me, I am your friend. gag. Don’t think, feel!! Join our club and we will exploit the people in the other club. We’ll get our friends in and we will get what we want. us vs. them. Okay, I probably need to wake up from this nasty stream of consciousness.”

See, once again, repulsive and nasty it may be, but true every word of it, but you want to believe the pretty lie.

And it isn’t really all that nasty. Trust doesn’t have to be based un pure emotion. Much better that it should be based on evidence, which we should not hesitate to provide. We certainly shouldn’t get up on our high horses andd complain that it is so self evident that we are trustworthy that we have some right to be offended that they don’t immediately see how good and right we are about everything.

Besides, some of our principles are counter-intuitive to most people. For example, if you tell most people, even Americans, that they way to make people prosperous is to not give them stuff (but rather make them earn it), a lot of people don’t believe that on the first try. It takes a couple steps of logic for people to see that when you encourage (because they get to keep what they produce) the greatest number of people possible to be as productive as possible, the society as a whole is so much more prosperous that every individual is better off. Marx had two thirds of the world believing that forceably taking the earnings from the most productive and redistributing it evenly would produce prosperity for all. He couldn’t have been more wrong, but that didn’t mean that billions of intelligent people didn’t believe him. And it wasn’t just “who they are”. They were just wrong. All kinds of people believe things that are just wrong all the time.

And what do you mean, “join our club and we will exploit the other club”?

For us it is: Understand that productive work in a competitive economy not only makes you richer, it enriches society as a whole because when lots of people do that goods are more available at more affordable prices and everyone is better off. So not only should you work and compete, you should vote in such a way as to not disrupt that system. What’s exploitive about that?

Cinn:

“immigrants don’t suddenly become fiscal conservatives when they cross the border.”

You are right of course, which is why they should not be eligible to be citizens and vote right away. Personally, I think the present period of 3-5 years as a permanent resident before eligibility is too short. It takes longer than that to learn good habits for a lot of people. But at least we have the right idea for legal immigrants. They are not allowed to get public assistance, they can’t commit serious crimes, they have to at least start out healthy. They can’t have a history of terrorism or political violence. There are a lot of other disqualifiers and maybe there should be more. But the best way to make people fiscal conservatives is to make them productive taxpayers. It might not work every time, but it will work a lot better than putting them on the dole.

“Modern immigrants are more base in their intentions: they just want a job, and most lack the political sophistication to understand that America’s classically liberal politics are associated with her liberal economics.”

Right again. But that really includes most immigrants after about 1840, with some exceptions. But I really wonder whether fleeing overt religious political or religious persecution that occurs when political power is concentrated in the hands of tyrants is so very different from fleeing the exploitation that occurs when most people are confined to poverty they can’t get out of because the economy of their country is controlled by government or government supported monopolies. I don’t think it is quite fair to call the desire to better support your family, or even yourself, base.

The recent immigrants I know well from working in LCMS Hispanic ministry for several years before returning to teaching are WAY more financially conservative than the US born people among my family and friends.

My immigrant friends pay cash. They share living space with extended family. They turn off lights and thy use minimal amounts of gasoline. They save up money to buy big items without credit. They borrow interest free from family for emergencies and pay back within weeks. They pay taxes yet will never see a social security check in old age because they have no number by which to apply to collect. To me, their way of life represents hard honest work and fiscal conservatism. I have known no greater generosity than the kindness of friends who fed me and my children in their homes for dinner when my white Lutheran husband forgot and abandoned his vows to his homeschooling stay-at-home wife.

Perhaps it is the years of poverty from earning $5 per day in their home countries and often less than minimum wage here in the US that creates this hard-working and thrifty attitude. Our government would benefit from such people having positions of power.

Inmigrant’s children and grandchildren do lose the drive. They can feel a sense of entitlement and bitterness if Theor parents have endured harsh and constant racism and discrimination. Living in power structures that make moving ahead in life impossible is demeaning. Being judged and feared for skin color and appearance is torture.

When German and Scandanavian immigrants came to the US, their wait times for citizenship and voting rights were much shorter than immigrants wait now.

13 million fellow human beings are living in the shadows, undocumented, paying taxes, living in fear, afraid to go to the doctor even for emergencies, and often facing constant stress of extreme poverty. My conscience will not rest as long as this injustice exists. Jesus cared deeply for the poor and the oppressed. We must, too.

As to immigrants’ fiscal habits – yes, in person they do tend to be very conservative, saving pennies, working harder and longer, etc., because it appears to be, and often is a fact that economic success = acceptance.

And sg, you want to impart the impression that recent, non-first world immigrants are a crime problem. If there are any groups that could be targeted as sources of crime in Canada it would be gangs, drug smugglers, and the mafia. Gangs are often native, and many chiefs are fighting against their spread. Drug smuggling, if you listen to reports, are often middle class, WASP folk, or traditional ‘white’ gangs like the Hell’s Angels (big bust last week). And the mafia are Italian – both the classical Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and the more dangerous ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The current Charbonneau inquiry is unearthing the enormous extent of Mafia penetration into Quebec’s government, both provincial and Municipal, especially Montreal. Then there is also Chinese mafia and “Asian gangs”.

You see, crime is everywhere. Certain types have grown prevalent in certain communities, and one could argue that the mafia is just a more sophisticated gang. But to say, as you are obviously saying, that certain groups are more prone to violence/crime by virtue of their genetics, that is just plain dumb. One has to look at class, socio-economics and a whole range of things.

It is sad that I have to fight against anti-immigration bigotry on a supposed Christian blog. I’ve been involved in other such arguments, but those have been in secular settings, where the arguments are the same, but the language use just a bit worse. The persistent racial undertones in both settings cannot be missed.

A sensible immigration debate would be about economic realities, and the ability of the immigrants to integrate. However, the latter part is generally moot on this continent, because our two nations are nations of immigrants, melting-pots and mosaics. To deny that reality is to retreat into, yes, the right word is an “apartheid”-like mindset. And yes, I have earned the right to use that word, given my background.

KK:

Save the self-rigthteousness. Canada’s criminal demographics and immigration policies are very distinct from America’s.

For one thing, Canada is very intentional in who it lets in, and it doesn’t have a porous Southern border across which undocumented immigrants are quite literally pouring over in a human flood (those that flood has tapered off a bit during the recession).

Thanks for that, Sarah. The mention of Jesus’ name was almost thrilling after reading the bloviating, condescending, bigoted, didactic many posts on this subject of people not like us (white). Forgive us, Lord.

Cincinnatus – while illegal immigration ought to be stopped (I never said anything to the contrary), the clear undertones of sg’s comments are that only WASPS and other northern Europeans, and maybe rich Asians, should be allowed into the US, because “those other people have a tendency to be nasty criminals that are also lazy, and will never integrate”. That is pure prejudice. I merely attempted to illustrate that crime is a problem everywhere, and has much more to do with other factors than race/ethnicity. Of course our dynamics are different. But lessons can still be learnt, can’t they??

KK:

That’s a highly uncharitable reading of sg’s reading. SG is suggesting that lower-class immigrants (including, presumably, those who are white) tend to be problematic. Right now, America admits, both legally and illegally, a flood of lower-class (economically speaking) immigrants from poor countries with no transferable skills and no political experience, and many have criminal connections to boot. I can assure you that the most violent gangs in America are neither native nor white. Promise.

If we are going to open the gates, we should try to limit ourselves–as does Canada–to skilled workers and middle-class individuals.

Now, it just so happens that most middle class countries with skilled workers to spare are majority-white countries at the moment. So, yes, most acceptable immigrants would likely be white. But that’s only incidental. And sg not only knows it, but has explicitly stated it.

Addendum: Lower-class immigrants tend to be destabilizing to the broader national community. This fact was demonstrated by the influx of Irish and Southern European immigrants at the turn of the last century.

And it’s not pure prejudice to suggest that these immigrant cultures will have a difficult time integrating. This actually happened. The only reason Irish and Italian immigrants were ultimately integrated successfully was as a result of World War II (the obviously color-blind draft) and the nearly-forced suburbanization that occurred thereafter. If one or both hadn’t occurred, Irish and Italians would likely remain nearly as ghettoized as African-Americans still are.

Cincinnatus – my reading is justified through a long tradition of racist commentary by sg on this blog. She thinks that white people, Jews and Asians are genetically superior to “brown” and black people.

Kerner will back me up on this.

KK,

She’s indicated stuff like that in the past–like, months or years ago–but not that I’ve seen in this thread. Her argument in this thread–and yes, I am presuming to speak for her–is a classist and cultural argument. Those from lower classes and radically different cultures don’t usually make the best immigrants. Fact.

But no. You and kerner and Hanni have to make this about bigotry and racism. Yes, it’s racist and bigoted to be suspect of our immigration policies. Fine, let’s open the floodgates to more unskilled workers from Africa and Latin America. Even though they are more statistically much more likely to end up unemployed and/or in jail.

As to middle class immigrants – the fastest growing sector of the Canadian immigrant community are Filipino’s – and they come inas skilled workers – here in SK, a large portion are nurses, and I have met not a few engineers.

Earlier this year, when I was attending a workshop for engineers and geoscientists obtaining their professional designation (like articles for a lawyer, these professions are more stringently regulated in Canada than in the US). There were about 160 people, of which the majority were immigrants. Of the immigrants there were sizeable numbers of Chinese, Indians/Pakistani’s, Filipino’s, Egyptians and then some others (British, South African, Nigerian). These are middle-class, educated immigrants. Also, they’ve had to get their degrees ands experience verified – and those demands are stringent (having gone through them myself). We are NOT talking about “third-rate” people here.

KK@211:

THAT’S THE POINT

And it’s the same one that sg is making. Canada boasts a sensible immigration policy that admits a sensible number of skilled workers who have already done the legwork to integrate into an industrialized, modern, Western democracy and who will contribute meaningfully to that culture. Presumably, they also speak the lingua franca.

They are not unskilled. They are not likely to become perpetual welfare cases. They are not illiterate in English. They are not members of gangs or drug traffickers. They are not transients.

Now compare with America.

Where the hell did I say “open the floodgates????” I have always, in this thread and others, agitated for orderly, legal immigration. Illegals make life difficult for those who bothered to follow the proper process. The argument here is to ethnically restrict immigration. That is racist. You make minimum requirements (language, education, job offers, criminal record, economic sector requirements), set a number of immigrants the country can take, and then accept those that meet the requirements, IRRESPECTIVE of ethnicity/race.

And when it comes to economic requirements, may I remind you of Colbert’s famous experiment, back in 2009? He promised airfare and a guaranteed job in fruit/vegetable picking to anybody who would accept. 3 people, in ALL of the US, accepted. Then there was the case in Georgia when the State implemented one of the more stringent illegal immigrant searchers – which, of course, end up in harassing anybody who even looks Hispanic. Tomato farmers sat with a crisis, because they could find people to pick crops…

You see, there is an economic necessity for such low-skill immigration. The issue is that the current immigration laws in the States are written such as to require illegal workers. There are few legal ways to obtain unskilled labour, and the current residents of the US are unwilling to perform these jobs.

Thus, immigration reform is needed, then you could manage these labour markets and immigration, keep the unwanted elements out etc etc.

C at 212- see my post at 213. Instead of agitating for immigration reforme, sg keeps harping on ethnicity, and IT MAKES ME SICK!! I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH RACIST CRAP! THE FACT THAT SO FEW “CONSERVATIVES” SPEAK UP AGAINST IT (like Kerner does, time and time again, to his credit) IS EXACTLY ONE OF THE REASONS THE GOP LOST THE DAMN ELECTION.

I mean, how thick are the skulls over there?

KK:

There are so many fallacies and misdirections in your most recent comment!

1) No one in this thread has opposed immigration altogether. Not even sg. Everyone is in favor of sensible immigration policies–”sensible” meaning that we let some people in according to some legal metric. America does not have a sensible policy, by the way. And no, not even sg opposed a sensible policy.

2) I can’t speak to whether “ethnically restricting immigration is racist.” If it is, then so what? Every country on the planet employs “racist” immigration restrictions. Every one. No country has open borders, and no country admits everyone regardless of national origin. Not even Canada.

America’s policies, true, have been liberalized. But only in 1968. Before that, our quotas were more restrictive. After that, the floodgates were opened. LBJ’s immigration reforms did not constitute a sensible policy.

3) The trope that there is a need for imported unskilled labor because Americans don’t want the jobs is patently false. No country–Germany being a notable example–that has intentionally imported unskilled labor from poor nations has failed to regret the choice later.

Unskilled immigrant labor in the United States is driven by corporations who are flying under the radar, paying under the table, and trying desperately to avoid legally mandated labor costs. Sure, Americans aren’t willing to pick tomatoes for $3 an hour. Or are they? We don’t know, because Mexican transients will do it, and corporations prefer to hire them because they’ll do it and keep quiet about it: what illegal alien is going to file a labor complaint? And risk immediate deportation? Conversely, what American citizen wouldn’t appeal for reasonable wages? Nope: better to hire the cheap, exploitable labor.

If corporations paid at least minimum wage, observed legal safety regulations, etc., etc., there would be no problem finding tomato pickers. But this is truly a case when private corporations are grievously at fault, exploiting both Americans and (illegal) immigrants. There is absolutely no shortage of workers in America, and there is absolutely no need to import more. Unless you’re a lobbyist for Monsanto or Cargill.

Hey KK,

Yet more fallacies:

1) GOP didn’t lose the election on account of perceived “racism.” Where are you even getting that idea from your perch up in Canada? Is that the CBC narrative or something? GOP lost because they provided a lousy candidate who did provide a credible platform for addressing the economy.

2) Is it racist to claim–truthfully–that a vast population of unskilled, Spanish-speaking, Latino immigrants (legal or otherwise) is a net negative for the national community? That it was a bad idea in the first place, and we should try to do what we can to minimize such a condition?

And if it is racist–well, isn’t that just too bad? Reality is reality. Imagine if Quebec retained its self-imposed cultural alienation, but were composed primarily of unskilled workers, welfare cases, and gang members. Then you have some idea of the problem we have in America, perhaps.

And let’s just test out your vaunted opposition to racism, KK:

Would you voluntarily move you and your family to a poor, majority-black neighborhood in a major American city? If you would, frankly, you’re an idiot with no concern for the safety of your family. Does that make you a racist?

If you’d prefer, I’ll put it this way: I will never, ever move my family to a majority-black neighborhood in a major American city. Statistics don’t lie. Sure, blacks don’t create dangerous neighborhoods because they’re black. But that doesn’t change the fact that they create dangerous neighborhoods, as it were.

I won’t move my family to a dangerous neighborhood, period. Nothing to do with race. There are questionable white-dominated neighborhoods in Saskatoon, too. But it is about danger, not race. And anyway, what do “Blacks” have to do with immigration ethnicity, anyway? I thought they were involuntary immigrants….

So, would you move your family to Redneck-ville, Appalachia? White, dangerous, backward?

Cincinnatus – perceived racism is one of the main reasons for the alienation of the Latino, black and other racial minorities’ votes. The fact that the GOP lost is PARTLY attributed to their exceptional poor performance among minorities.

It ain’t rocket science, ya know.

BTW – I’m not saying all Republicans are racists. Just that their handling of minority issues makes it really easy to treat them as such.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/the-gop-must-choose-rush-limbaugh-or-minority-voters/265002/

I refer especially to the comments on his comments on race issues… They are symptomatic, even if he is an over-the-top bozo.

KK,

I grew up in Redneckville, Appalachia, actually. It wasn’t dangerous, and I would move back–if there were jobs available. Check out the murder rate of Appalachia: statistically much lower than that for the rest of the country, much less any city. Also? 96% white.

Look, I don’t know how it is in Canada, but high-crime neighborhoods in America unfortunately but undeniably correlate with both race and the percentage of foreign-born residents. Again, said but true. Yes, there are dangerous white communities and neighborhoods, absolutely. But moving away from crime in America is synonymous with moving away from “brown people.”

Nice try.

Cincinnatus, so, what is the next step? What is your solution for the “Non-white problem”?? Also, what is the cause of the “non-white problem”. C’mon, be honest now. Cards on the table.

KK:

“Cards on the table”? Is this supposed to be a trap?

First, you have to specify which part or element of the “race problem”–which apparently now also involves the immigration problem–you mean. To address the problem of illegal immigration, I have some ideas. To address the ongoing problem of black ghettoization, I don’t. These are massive socio-cultural-economico-political pathologies for which there is no silver bullet.

Or did you just want me to come out say I’m a racist?

C – socio-cultural-economic-political pathologies. Exactly. I have never known you to be racist, sure. But to take deeply complicated problems, and then put a nice simple ethnic label on them, and from then argue against certain ethnic groups is wrong. That is what sg is doing. The world is complicated. We need to ask ourselves why a problem exists, and how do we approach it. Or will time solve it? Or are we doing anything to exacerbate it? (Like my comments at 213 – which you referred to in 215, – Kerner once addressed this, and it is more complicated than you portray, but leave that for another time).

Simple memes that play on race ARE NOT HELPING!

C @ 216 – another counter to your point @1 comes from Condi Rice herself – http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/09/gop-clearly-losing-important-segments-of-the-electorate-condoleezza-rice-says/

We need to ask ourselves why a problem exists, and how do we approach it. Or will time solve it? Or are we doing anything to exacerbate it?

The danger is that in researching the problem, it may be discovered that there is a significant genetic component. It may even be the dominant component. Then what? We have created a climate where that answer is not acceptable. I mean would you accept that answer? So, anyone with the guts to come near it is either vilified or has to always say that more research is needed because the answer is socially unacceptable. You know, in a fallen world, why should we be surprised if we do find that there exist conditions which make human interactions between groups inherently, and endemically problematic? Why do we think that we would find that humans are perfect instead of damaged by the fall?

Cin:
“America’s policies, true, have been liberalized. But only in 1968. Before that, our quotas were more restrictive. After that, the floodgates were opened. LBJ’s immigration reforms did not constitute a sensible policy.”

Actually, that is not strictly true. The quotas for Asians and other places were expanded. But prior to 1968, there was no limit, none at all, on immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Our southern border was totally “open” in the sense that any Latin American could enter legally a a matter of course. This remained true for Canada until after 9/11.

Prior to the INA of 1968 there was no restrictions on aliens working in the US either. The restrictions on work in the INA were the brain child of Teddy Kennedy; a big wet kiss from big government to big labor. There is nothing sensible about them.

Its not true that Germany is the only country that imports unskilled labor. Rich countries tend to do that and Saudi Arabia is one that I can think of off the top of my head.

Look, the problem with American unskilled labor is not that they want too much money. It is that American unskilled laborers produce too little work for the money they demand. Stop and tink for a minute about why an american unskilled laborer would be unskilled. Did he have no opportunity to go to school? Are there no GED programs anywhere? Are there no technical schools in every community from Nome to Miami?

Work skills are so ridiculously easy to get in America that anybody who is even the least bit interested and motivated can get them. Hell, you can even get a GED and technical certificates in Wisconsin state Prisons. The reason most unskilled American laborers are, in fact, so unskilled is because they spent the first 20+ years of their lives getting high or in trouble or both when they should have been going to school and acquiring said work skills. When they do get jobs doing unskilled work, a statistically not insignificant number of them are unproductive.

By contrast, immigrant unskilled laborers are frequently unskilled because they are from countries where there is little opportunity for them to get education or skills. The difference is that they have a good work ethic because they see their unskilled jobs as a means of advancement.

A motivated and hard working unskilled labor force IS an asset to a country that has unskilled jobs to be done. Therefore, immigrant unskilled workers DO have value.

KK, I don’t know if the public’s or your perception of CNBC is that they are racists, but here is their take on the farm labor situation:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49110815

Phony Farm Labor Shortage: We Need to Talk About It
Published: Thursday, 20 Sep 2012 | 6:22 PM ET Text Size
By: John Carney
Senior Editor, CNBC.com

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A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out that despite all the talk of a farm labor shortage last summer, American farms had an amazingly profitable year.

Net cash income rose from the record high in 2010 of $99.4 billion to a new record high of $134.7 billion. That’s an eye-popping 35.5 percent profit growth! (Read more: More Data on The Phony Farm Labor Crisis)

I pointed out that in some of the states that had been repeatedly said to be facing a labor shortage—California and Washington, for example—profit growth was even higher. Washington farms saw profits grow by 58 percent, for goodness’ sakes.

Yet somehow the myth of a farm labor shortage persists.

I received countless emails arguing that in one way or another, I had missed the orchard for the trees. Folks insist that despite record profitability, there remains a labor shortage.

And, of course, there are now dire predictions that the farm labor shortage of 2011 (which never happened) will be even worse in 2012. My colleague Jane Wells recently reported that the Western Growers Association claims its members are reporting a 20 percent drop in laborers this year. (Read more: California Farm Labor Shortage ‘Worst It’s Ever Been’)

Let’s begin by conceding the idea that the members of the WGA are facing a sharp drop in laborers. Does this imply there is a “labor shortage”?

It certainly implies a labor reduction, but in order for it to count as a “shortage” shouldn’t that mean that work isn’t getting done or is becoming too expensive? Alternatively, shouldn’t it mean that it is creating food shortages of some sort or damaging the financial health of farmers?

To put it differently, if fruit is rotting on the vine, how do we explain these outsize farm profits? Are the farmers merely complaining that they could have been even more profitable if they had more laborers?

Let’s say that’s the case. Suppose California farmers, who saw a 45 percent profit rise last year, would have been even more profitable if they had more laborers available to them. It’s impossible to see why this should be a public policy concern.

One way to test if there is a labor shortage on farms would be to look at the labor cost. If farms were truly struggling to find enough workers, their labor costs would be skyrocketing. But that isn’t what’s happening.

The costs of workers hired directly by the farms didn’t grow at all between 2010 and 2011, according to the latest data from the Department of Agriculture. It contracted 3.8 percent, from $23.5 billion to $22.6 billion. Next year it is forecast by the Department of Agriculture to shrink by another 2.1 percent. In light of the rising revenues and profits of farms, this is not a labor market experiencing a worker shortage.

What’s more, the total cost of hired labor on farms nationwide is still below pre-crisis levels, while farm profits are well above pre-crisis levels. This implies that far from farms seeing a labor shortage, there’s something of a farm labor glut going on.

In California last year, despite all the talk of a farm labor shortage, hired labor costs dropped from $6.2 billion to $5.4 billion—a 12 percent fall. This isn’t what happens in a labor shortage.

There has been some wage inflation in a far smaller segment of the farm labor market: the contract labor market. This is the market for workers employed by third-party operators who supply labor to farmers, mostly for seasonal work such as harvesting.

Farms nationwide saw contract labor costs rise from 3.9 billion in 2010 to 4.5 billion in 2011, a rise of 15 percent. That might put some farmers off a bit, having to pay the guy supplying workers 15 percent more. But revenues were rising even faster, which is why profits grew so explosively.

In California, contract labor costs grew 19 percent. While that seems astounding, it growth pales in comparison with the growth of profits at California farms. There may be fewer laborers than farmers would like, but this isn’t a crisis by any means. The farm owners are doing quite well for themselves and shouldn’t be shocked that the migrant laborers are also demanding to share in the bounty.

It’s just basic economics. The overall cost of labor on farms is falling. The cost of seasonal labor is rising but at a rate far less than revenues. That implies that supply of labor is outstripping demand. Which is to say, farmers may be screaming about labor shortages but their checkbooks are telling a very different story.

- by CNBC.com senior editor John Carney

Something tells me the USA farmers aren’t exactly paying a full day’s wage to those who come and only work the last hour of the day.

Just to be clear. We have imported 50 million people since 1990.

We have high unemployment. We need to enforce our immigration laws. Who do you think suffers most from depressed wages at the bottom of the wage scale? Our own poorer citizens.

sg – The fact that you had to precede your otherwise interesting quote about farm labour with such a question speaks volumes. Because I object to the fact you do exactly what I mentioned earlier to Cincinnatus:

But to take deeply complicated problems, and then put a nice simple ethnic label on them, and from then argue against certain ethnic groups is wrong. (/blockquote>

..doesn’t mean that everything that puts a different spin on the problem is automatically racist. I look at facts – let me quote Cincinnatus :

These are massive socio-cultural-economico-political pathologies for which there is no silver bullet.

You however jump from

it may be discovered that there is a significant genetic component

to “keep all non-whites and non-Asians out!!!” That sentiment violates 2 very important principles.

One is to love your neighbour.

The other is that it violates a core principle of Classical liberalism, in that it judges a man / woman not for who they are, but a negative attribute assigned to them based on “guilt-by-association” arguments. We are to be judged as individuals. Sometimes, people think that because my background is South African, that I automatically hate people of colour. That is the argument, the prejudice I fight against. Sure, some SA’cans are. Even some SA immigrants I’ve met. But does that mean that allowing SA immigrants would increase racism??? Every case should be judged on its own merits. The fact that you have excellent black police officers, university professors, etc etc should count against your blanket assessments. Individuals should be allowed to immigrate / refused entry, based on impartial, objective criteria. Individuals do bad things/good things. Where pathologies develop, to quote Cincinnatus, the reasons behind them are most often complicated, and simplistic assertions should be avoided. Because that is wrong. And almost always, it is sinful.

Why is that so hard to understand?

Sorry – closed quote.

Just to be clear. We have imported 50 million people since 1990.

We have high unemployment.

Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2009.gif

Then look at this:

http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/charts/final.fb.shtml

Any correlation? Any basis for your (unspoken) assertion that those nasty immigrants are stealing your jobs?

I would just like to say that from what I’ve read, the poor economy is slowing down immigration, legal and illegal.

Also, I’m with kerner and KK, there has to be room here for the GOP to ask themselves how they can teach and spread their philosophy to the Latino community. I mean, Romney won a quarter of the Latino votes. GWB won 40%, so obviously something happened there. Why were Latino votes a little more likely to vote for GWB?

sg @ 230:

So, let’s review. Farm profits are up. Wages of contract farm laborers (the work traditionallydone by immigrants-harvesting)are 19% up. And the retail cost of produce is up:

http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/fresh-produce-retail/Retail-produce-prices-post-biggest-jump-in-nearly-three-years-128040008.html

So, explain to me again how driving up labor costs even further, which will in turn cost every American more money for food, is in our best interest. Why do you want all Americans to have to pay more for their food? Who does that hurt more than the weakest among us?

KK:

Aside from the fact that you’re not really addressing my other critiques of your position, the problem is this: Yes, the problems to which you refer are deeply complex and implicate innumerable variables. But race and ethnicity are, unfortunately, two of them. I don’t know if this is the case in Canada or not, but it is here. Violent crime, for example, is to a large extent a black problem in America. Now, I obviously think that the real issue is culture not genetics or racial determinism or something like that, but the culture in question is, nonetheless, urban black culture. It is not helpful to ignore this fact. Urban blacks in the United States comprise a distinct subculture unto themselves, and that subculture is afflicted with some pretty dramatic problems.

The same applies to communities of lower-class Latino immigrants.

kerner et al.:

Right, so Republicans should start preaching their true message to minority communities.

But that’s not going to work. Political scientists have well documented the fact that black voters (as distinct from the abnormally large percentage of black non-voters) vote almost exclusively to protect their welfare benefits (I have some fun/infuriating anecdotal evidence to illustrate this data if you’re interested); lower-class Hispanic voters choose almost exclusively to preserve welfare benefits and to push amnesty programs. These are the issues that matter to these groups–and these groups are not arbitrarily defined (i.e., blacks and Hispanics will identify as such, and they will prioritize these issues as a group).*

In short, these particular minority groups are already predisposed against the Republican position. So if Republicans are going to “reach out” to these groups, they are, by definition, going to have to shift their platform and basically cease to be Republicans: like Democrats, they’ll have to buy votes with welfare programs. Like Democrats, they’ll have to push the DREAM Act and other exceptionally liberal immigration policies.

Why would we want that? Either that, or the minority communities themselves are going to change, but such communities rarely (if ever!) change simply because a party told them to do so. That change must come from within.

*Conversely, many Asian communities vote Republican. Why? Because a high proportion of them are middle class, and because they specifically immigrated to participate in a middle class market economy. They already prioritize the same principles that (allegedly) undergird the Republican party.

> So, let’s review. Farm profits are up. Wages of contract farm
> laborers (the work traditionally done by immigrants-harvesting)
> are 19% up. And the retail cost of produce is up…

Keep in mind that the printing of money is also up.

C – here’s the deal: You are quite correct in pointing out cultural problems, and in your second post @ 237, you sort of point the way towards a major factor – Class issues.

But here is the thing: There is a huge difference in saying that a certain community is plagued by certain problems due to complicated factors, and that a certain community is plagued by certain problems because of who they are (race / genetics).

In attacking racism, people seem to mysteriously assume that I’m denying that certain communities are beset with certain problems. I’m not stupid. What I am attacking is the second option.

KK:

Right, I think we mostly agree. But here’s the thing. In America at least, you are more than likely to end up poor and “violent” (for lack of a better term) if you are black because you are black. I don’t mean genetically, but culturally. Black culture is black culture. It’s not merely a subset of lower-class socioeconomic culture. There is a racial element here.

How do I know? Because the lower-class trailer trash I grew up with didn’t all end up in jail, selling drugs, joining gangs, etc. They were just as poor and disenfranchised as the average urban African-American. But the outcomes were different, and not simply because the criminal justice system is “racist.” There are cultural problems here that correlate with race.

It’s difficult to talk about this without sounding racist, of course–without sounding like I’m ascribing criminality to skin color or genetics. I’m not; promise. But African-Americans have constructed for themselves a culture that is, in many respects, criminal.

The racial element isn’t always relevant. Personally, I think there is an American bourgeois/middle-class culture in America that, while majority-white, includes folks of all colors–Indian, Chinese, Hispanic, and, yes, black. This culture probably can’t be defined as race-specific (though some would).

But urban black culture is urban black culture. It’s not merely lower-class culture, it’s not merely urban culture.

Again, I don’t know how it works in Canada.

Any correlation? Any basis for your (unspoken) assertion that those nasty immigrants are stealing your jobs?

I think you are putting the worst construction on my statements.

First, immigrants aren’t stealing my job. I am in that group of very educated people that have very low unemployment.

The people losing their jobs are our poor. Have you seen how bad it is for the lower classes? They are suffering. I am fine.

As for loving our neighbors, let’s remember that our fellow citizens are also our neighbors. Why do you prioritize foreigners over our fellow citizens? What is the point of being a citizen if you get no priority over a foreigner?

But here is the thing: There is a huge difference in saying that a certain community is plagued by certain problems due to complicated factors, and that a certain community is plagued by certain problems because of who they are (race / genetics).

What is the problem with saying it looks like it is genetic? Why is that wrong?

Can you just explain your position?

Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2009.gif

Okay, I can see how that is confusing you.

You need to look at the labor participation rate, not the unemployment rate because they measure different things.

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2012/09/male-labor-participation-rate-in-the-us-hits-the-lowest-level-on-record.html

Wages of contract farm laborers (the work traditionallydone by immigrants-harvesting)are 19% up.

Inflation is up, too. Remember that when you use percentages, you have to consider your base. If the wage was $3/hr and now it is $3.75/hr that is about 19%, but still not a decent wage and not something we should be proud of.

sg @ 241 said:

First, immigrants aren’t stealing my job. I am in that group of very educated people that have very low unemployment. The people losing their jobs are our poor. Have you seen how bad it is for the lower classes? They are suffering. I am fine.

That’s true. But, even worse, it’s the youth. We co-lead a young adults group (singles between ages 19 and 35, most in their early to mid 20′s), and it’s heartbreaking to see what this economy has done to their job prospects. That’s not an immigration issue, it’s an economic issue, but there is a whole generation coming of age now who will be economically and professionally stunted and delayed for a long time because of this disastrous unemployment and underemployment situation.

Cin @237:

“But that’s not going to work. Political scientists have well documented the fact that black voters (as distinct from the abnormally large percentage of black non-voters) vote almost exclusively to protect their welfare benefits (I have some fun/infuriating anecdotal evidence to illustrate this data if you’re interested); lower-class Hispanic voters choose almost exclusively to preserve welfare benefits and to push amnesty programs. These are the issues that matter to these groups–and these groups are not arbitrarily defined (i.e., blacks and Hispanics will identify as such, and they will prioritize these issues as a group).* (emphasis supplied)

You are making a big mistake when you treat American blacks and immigrant Hispanics as though they have identical arritudes. It is not accurate. The left want it to be true and is trying to make it true. And most importantly, the left want YOU to believe that it is true, because if conservatives write Hispanics off as hopeless, the left will have the fastest growing demographic in its coalition for generations. You are playing into their hands.

But if I could focus on the italicized part of your comment above, this is my proposed solution:

Offer Hispanics amnesty on the condition that they give up welfare benefits. I am very confident that they want amnesty a whole lot more than welfare. This proposal has the advantage of being the law already. Every person granted permanent resident alien status (a green card) already has to stay off welfare for five years. Such people need a sponsor who promises to support the immigrant and has to pay the government back if the immigrant takes any welfare. This situation remains until the alien becomes a citizen, which he cannot until he has been a permanant resident for five years.

Since illegals would be getting amnesty, meaning that they are being forgiven for breaking our laws, the price for them should be that they should not be eligible for citizenship for 10 years, during all of which time they should be required to have a sponsor and stay off of welfare.

This process would have many benefits. First, it would develop a culture of work, rather than welfare, among the immigrants. Both they, and their children get used to working for a living. But it would also require anyone who sponsors them to stay off of welfare too, because sponsors have to prove that they have enough income or assets to support the aliens at 125% of the poverty level, and they can’t be on welfare either. Since most of the people who sponsor Hispanic illegals are likely to be their Hispanic friends and relatives, this enourages a culture of work among the Hispanics who are already citizens.

Of course, recipients of amnesty would have to meet other conditions as well. One big disqualifier for immigrants is criminal behavior. There is a very long list of serious crimes that render an alien inadmissible or deporable. So no amnesty for gangsters.

If these people want to become citizens, they, like everyone else, have to pass the naturalization test. Which isn’t rocket science, but it still requires the applicant to read the English language.

I believe that if Republicans offered this to Hispanics they would jump at it. And they would appreciate it for generations. And Republicans could even do other win-win things like try to come up with ways to encourage Hispanics to develop businesses and get a good education…and vote Republican.

If you can think of a good reason why this idea wouldn’t work, at least for a whole lot of people, I would sure like to know what it is.

I don’t believe that the American free market economic system has nothing to offer immigrants. It offers them prosperity through work and the self respect that goes with it. Plenty of other economically “lower class” immigrant groups have learned to appreciate it (Irish, Italians, Poles). And they’ll learn it faster if we don’t treat them like the enemy.

Hispanics might become democrats anyway. On the other hand, even then, if they work and own their homes and pay taxes, they could end up as “Reagan Democrats”, you know, the kind who cross over when the left gets too crazy. I think this is a very realistic goal, and the Republicans should have tried it 6 years ago. I hope it’s not too late.

No amnesty. No citizenship. Deport them.

sg:

“No amnesty. No citizenship. Deport them”

Brilliant!!! Except it will never happen.

The Republicans promised to do that, and lost the Presidential election…again. And we will continue to lose, and not deport them, as long the Democrats can hold together their existing coalition. The only way for the Republicans to win a presidential election is to convince some of their voters to change sides. It’s time to do that.

Why? I mean basically you are saying that Republicans should offer bad policies because that is what the people want. Getting elected is not an end in itself.

No, they were good policies. What I’m saying is that even if your plan was a good policy, which it is not, the fact that it is impossible makes your idea a fantasy. I good policy is only something that could actually happen. If we can’t just get rid of them, and we can’t, we have to try to turn them around.

“If we can’t just get rid of them, and we can’t, we have to try to turn them around.”

We can’t “turn them around” but they will turn this country around.

We aren’t God.

People make good decisions and get good results. They keep at it and keep getting those good results. After a while they lose sight of the fact that the good decisions were good based on actual criteria, not just because they were the ones making them. It is like a kind of vanity where you start to believe that any decision you make will be good because you are making it and because your previous decisions were good. Like the definition of a good decision is a decision made by me. Like we are going to change people who adapted to different conditions over thousands of years, but the force our will is so dang awesome, it is just going to happen. No, it isn’t. It is just like school performance. Mexican immigrants in the USA score far better on the PISA test than Mexicans in Mexico, because good teaching matters. However, they don’t score as high as white and Asian students.

Look, I am not against immigration at some rational level, where we have sane criteria, but amnesty gives preference to cheaters and criminals over far better candidates who want to obey our laws and assimilate and participate. It is morally wrong to give preference to the cheaters over the law abiding, and that is what you are advocating. I also think that we won’t be rewarded for such a stupidity and laziness. Our population has increased about 25% since 1990 due entirely to stupid lack of rule of law which included the 911 attackers. Dumb diligence could have prevented that wretched consequence. Think of all the money we could have saved.

We need a rational policy that prefers good candidates from good countries, as in low crime places. They should get points for different stuff like coming from a low crime area and other objective criteria. Our supine posture of just accepting our lot is nauseating.

sg @250-251:

Your whole argument here is like your argument that we would be better off if ony male property owners could vote. An interesting theory that we could argue about all day, but it’s purely academic, because we are never going to do that.

Also, your underlying asumptions are wrong, for example:

“We need a rational policy that prefers good candidates from good countries, as in low crime places. They should get points for different stuff like coming from a low crime area and other objective criteria. Our supine posture of just accepting our lot is nauseating.”

Regardless of what we may try to do, immigration patterns are not mainly governed by centrally planned “rational policies”. They follow the laws of supply and demand like everything else. People living in a pleasant environment, who are in high demand in that environment, don’t leave it. They stay put. People emigrate to the USA in large numbers only when:

1) Conditions in their home country are bad. This was true of every source country, including Ireland, Norway, Eastern Europe, Italy, various parts of Asia, even England, as well as Latin America. And,

2) There is a demand for them in the USA.

From 1990 to 2008 there was a booming economy in the USA. And there was a high demand for productive unskilled laborers. You whine a lot about evil capitalist profitting from immigrants, but we all proffitted. Whenever we went to the grocery store, stayed at a hotel, had landscaping or simple construction doene on our homes, etc., every American consumer, including YOU, saved a bundle. Even if we didn’t knowingly hire immigrants directly, their competition in the market brought prices down for everyone. I know, I know, you will argue that we also lost the savings in health care and education and other social costs, and I will argue that we recouped a lot of those is the taxes that immigrants and their employers pay, in addition to the added value to our property from all the services we got. But, scream “SOVEREIGNTY!” all you want, you can’t control the laws of supply and demand by centrally planned “rational policies”, any more than sovereignty can control the laws of physics.

So, now you say that we can’t turn Hispanics around. I think you are just nauseated at the prospect of having to try. And you are wrong anyway, but I’ll have to return to that later when I have more time.

@ sg

“No amnesty. No citizenship. Deport them.” Well then, Obama IS the president you want. In 2010, President Obama broke the record of deportation with over 392,000 illegals deported. In 2011, he broke his own record with over 396,000 illegals deported. Deportations have increased 89% under Persident Obama since 2008. I personally don’t know why the right wing media hasn’t thanked him on his strong stance on illegals. Then the horrible executive order to grant a 2 year work pass to children of illegals, is more dangerous to hispanics than you or they might realize. First, all executive orders are reversible. They are guaranteed nothing. Second, it DOESN’T count toward applying for citizenship leaving them right where they were 2 years ago. Thirdly, the government is gathering their personal information including location and family size (and with this presidents track record on giving them the boot……they’d be foolish to trust him). That perspective is what I have been told by a law officer who works specifically in tracking finger prints and DNA. It’s an information hunt. Lastly, there ARE no jobs. If they thought they were going to find legit work that pays a good wage, good luck finding something other than making beds a hotels.

In my opinion, Hispanics (and even us) are horribly undereducated and grossly misinformed. The media, right AND left, have been creating this misunderstanding. The left wing media sounds off how benevolent Obama and liberals are to minorities of all groups. They constantly brag of acceptance and how right-thinking people are all a bunch a bitter racists. It doesn’t help when the right wing media is always up in arms about immigration legal or illegal. And it doesn’t matter if the right’s argument is correct. Their anger and mouthing off only confirms what the left has been saying all along.

The problem, i think, is Hispanics (and even black people) don’t know we have their best interests in mind. They don’t know that Obama is their enemy. Do you think the left wing media is going to boast his impressive deportation figures and the traps he’s laid for them? No, they NEED to keep them uneducated about our system and misinformed. Because the left needs those votes. Imagine if we could tear down that veil that distorts reality, that shows that the worst enemy a minority has is a liberal.

I’m guessing you mind is already made up, but I beg you consider these points.

fonseca, If your point is that folks want to take unfair advantage of immigrants, for personal gain, yeah, I know. Look, at kerner’s comment immediately preceding yours.

I think that the Democrats advocate things like the health care act because they believe if you pay a living wage to people such that they could afford to buy their own health insurance, that they just would not do it and we would have to pay for their care anyway.

Your whole argument here is like your argument that we would be better off if ony male property owners could vote. An interesting theory that we could argue about all day, but it’s purely academic, because we are never going to do that.

The argument from vanity. We would rather flatter ourselves than win. Then we will continue to lose.

My point is that many of Hispanics do not know these things about Obama. The majority of Americans, hispanic or otherwise, also do not understand how the American legal system works. We obviously can’t rely on the media or education system. We have to readopt the old conservative principle of “if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself” in communicating with other demographics. And quickly.

Market forces aren’t exploitation for personal gain. They are a trade off, with each side getting a benefit from the other. We get lots of goods and services (some luxuries, but some, like food, essential) for affordable prices, they get a much better life than they could have gotten in their old countries. The only things that make this trade even the least bit exploitive is that so many immigrants had to do their part “under the table”, and that they might get sent back after all the work they put in. Like most transactions that are illegal (often for no good reason) their illegal nature adds to their cost for someone. One of the main benefits of immigrating to the USA is the opportunity to earn a place here permanantly. Yet another reason why illegals should have the opportunity to earn their green cards and ultimately their citizenship.

Notice I didn’t say that they should all receive a permanent place. I said they should have the opportunity to earn one. A lot of illegals will be disqualified already for criminal behavior. More, who get a chance to earn their place, could fail along the way. Both those that can earn a place here should get the chance to try.

You consistantly say that Hispanics can’t possibly earn a place here, because “that’s just who they are”. Well then, giving them a chance to earn a place here should be no problem for you, because they will all fail and have to go back anyway, right?

kerner@257:

So let me get this straight. Corporations illegally hiring illegal aliens and illegally paying them (much) less than the legally-mandated minimum wage isn’t exploitation, it’s just market forces. And said corporations using their influence in Washington to obstruct reasonable immigration enforcement and reform–just more market forces, right?

Why inject moral categories into this discussion, after all?

Cin:

So, leaving aside the question of whether there should even be minimum wage laws, I assume you have some kind of support for your implication that all, or even most, illegals are being paid less than minimum wage.

Despite the recent 19% increase for farm workers harvesting crops that sg cited, their wages are probably pretty law, but are they really below minimum wage for that catagory? I’m asking because I don’t know, they might be, and if you can prove it, I’ll be happy to concede it.

But that isn’t all illegals do. The meat and poultry industries are rife with illegals, and they get what everyone else gets, and it isn’t below minimum wage. The same is true for hotel workers and restaurant workers and construction workers and a lot of other unskilled workers in which wages may be a dollar or two lower than they would be without the immigrants, but still above minimum wage. Some of the illegals working in landscaping or home improvement are working for themselves. I’m sure they aren’t getting below minimum wage when they split up the cash. Those kinds of operations probably aren’t paying taxes either, which is all the more reason for getting them out from under the table.

I have for a long time said that it should not be illegal to do productive work in this country, and I stand by that. It is the most conservative/libertarian thing in the world to believe that businesses should be free to hire the most productive person they can find for the job they need done, and the government should stay out of that decision. Except for the most broad issues, I stand by that. The restrictions on immigrant labor are a bunch of protectionist/statist bunks.

I mean, bunk…singular.

kerner:

I was going to ask some friends in the poultry business about what the wages for illegals are like, but I don’t have time today (though anecdotal “evidence” from folks in Rockingham and Accomac counties in Virginia tells me that illegals are a) paid poorly and b) housed in inhumane conditions–think former chicken houses reconditioned into mass bunks for transients). I’m not going to concede the point, however. Look, there is a reason that the Obama Labor Department has recently “insisted” that illegal immigrants have to be paid at least minimum wage if they’re hired. Substantial evidence exists that illegal immigrants are not, in fact, getting paid legal wages (e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html). Many of them are also working for “under the table” cash, not paying requisite taxes, etc. And it stands to reason: why hire transient, illiterate illegals at all unless they’re substantially cheaper?

But hey, let’s pretend all illegal immigrants are being paid legal wages (snerk). They’re still illegal, and corporations are, at the very best, playing really dumb if they’re pretending that they don’t know their employees are illegal aliens.

And as a protectionist of sorts–but not a statist–I resent/resemble your parting potshot. Sorry, companies should not be allowed to hire illegal immigrants, who cause a host of social problems beyond the “mere” wage depression that results from their presence. If businesses want to hire Mexicans, they should go to Mexico. Are you honestly suggesting that, if I want to work in, say, Switzerland, I should just be able to show up, get a job, and benefit from their social services without paying their taxes, learning their language, or otherwise contributing to their civil society? Because that’s exactly what illegal Hispanic immigrants do here.

Here are some wage stats.:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Poultry_Processing/Hourly_Rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages

So, the illegals working for perdue and tyson, etc. are getting more than minimum wage, plus benefits, for unskilled work. If there were no immigrants, labor costs would probably be higher and production would probably be lower… and chicken would cost more. That’s what happens when the government tries to interfere with market forces. The consumers, including the poor, or elderly on fixed income, consumers, take it in the shorts. I see no reason to do that to American consumers.

kerner:

It may, in fact, be the case that poultry workers are paid minimum wage+, but you do know that these statistics are reported, right? I mean, what company/factory/business owner is going to hand over a payroll record that includes wages that are below the legal limit?

That’s why I linked to the NYT piece; the study they cite polls workers, not business owners or statistics.

Cin @ 263:

Sorry. Our posts must have crossed and I had not read your previous comment nor its link.

Some of the NYT’s issues are explained here:

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/below-minimum-wage

I intentionally chose an article from 2006, because it confirms that in a good economy many “entry level” or otherwise low wage workers are making more than minimum wage, because market forces require employers to pay more to get good people. which is why a robust pro-growth economy helps everybody. Ironic that the Obama administration, having screwed up the economy by over-regulating it, is now proposing to solved its self imposed problems by even tougher regulations.

But to answer your questions, I do not believe that it is a good thing for businesses to resort to breaking the minimum wage and overtime laws. however, I do not concede that this only happens to illegals. As your article points out, this happens to citizen workeers too.

And as my article points out, the reason that a lot of workers are paid “below minimum wage”, is because some of those kinds of jobs are exempt. Home child care workers, for example (think all those Hispanic nannies). But also think all those teen aged sitters I used to hire when my wife and I went out. Being exempt from minimum wage laws and child labor laws, I ignored both and hired 7th graders to work for whatever they would take. I deducted nothing, and they probably didn’t pay any taxes. I guess I’m just a corporatist robber-barron.

And speaking of that, what makes you think that evil big corporations are the only ones dependent on low-cost low-skilled labor? What about small businesses struggling to stay profitable and competitive? What about all the family restaurants who have Hispanics in the kitchen and bus staff? What about the owner of the 35 room motel who needs to keep his rooms clean and secure to keep enough customers coming back to make out every year? Do they all have to go out of business in the name of cultural purity an “a living wage” (whatever that means)? Who does that help, really?

The silliest and most heartless thing you said was:

“If businesses want to hire Mexicans, they should go to Mexico.”

So let’s go back to the poultry plant. These are made up numbers, but lets say hypothetically that a poultry plant has 300 production workers, half of whom are illegals. Sure, the company could move the plant to mexico…and put 150 American production workers out of jobs in the process. This is not even to mention all the other American workers. chech out these figures from my link:

Maintenance Technician
$15.72

Maintenance Mechanic
$15.09

Diesel Mechanic
$14.95

Accounting Clerk
$12.25

Accounts Payable Clerk
$10.24

Production Worker
$8.30

Quality Assurance (QA) / Quality Control (QC) Inspector
$10.37

Sure, it is probably feasable to move the poultry plant to Mexico. And I’m sure that the American technicians, mechanics, and clerks, who were probably supporting middle class families will thank you profusely when their jobs move to Mexico as well, along with the supervisors, the truck drivers, the company nurses, shipping and receiving guys and everybody else whose jobs are not even on the graph.

And when the plant is closed and some of those former employees can’t pay their mortgages and property values fall even further due to the foreclosures, and when every business in the whole town suffers because all those out of work people are spending less money, and when tax revenue dries up because property values and personal income and sales have dropped, then I’m sure that whole community will beat a path to your door and say, “Gee, thanks, Cincinnatus. You sure saved us a lot of social costs by getting rid of those durned illegals.”

So, closing with another of your questions; no, I don’t like it when illegals working under the table don’t pay their taxes. (actually, they do pay sales tax and gas, alcohol, tobacco and plenty of other taxes, but let that go) But if legalizing them would remove most of the incentive for under the table work, and they as newly legalized workers, DID pay their taxes, would that satisfy you?

But that isn’t all illegals do. The meat and poultry industries are rife with illegals, and they get what everyone else gets, and it isn’t below minimum wage. The same is true for hotel workers and restaurant workers and construction workers and a lot of other unskilled workers in which wages may be a dollar or two lower than they would be without the immigrants, but still above minimum wage.

You obviously do not actually know any of these people. Once you get to know them, they will tell you straight out the under the table wages they get. They often work extra hours for less than their regular rate. So, they use their regular fake id to work for the minimum wage for like 30 hrs a week, plus another 30 hrs for the dollar equivalent of their take home pay after fica. Plus lots of other shenanigans. And no, it is not a free market when there is one set of rules for law abiding citizens and another set of rules for special people.