Comment by big_youth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by big_youth | Hacker News Reader

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I think your alternatives for a factory worker are interesting as they are jobs whose wages I know are being driven down by (often illegal) immigrant labor. House cleaning is the most notorious and has almost always been done by fresh off the boat immigrants for peanuts, I pay my mexican maid in Austin $75 in cash for a day of labor. Elder care pays employees a bit more but usually less than $10 an hr. How many jokes are there that maids or elder care nurses are from foreign nations? Just the other day I saw a Seinfeld episode where the elderly care taker was african and didn't speak english. Of your suggestions the only with decent pay is nursing which requires a degree and my mom constantly complains about the thousands of oversee nurses they fly over every year to drive down her wages. Similar to how Tech the employers complain about the huge talent shortage but don't pay competitive salaries and rather import labor.

I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say that the Trump voters are justifiably angry at the WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM and suggesting the entire rust belt become house cleaners or personal aides is silly.

We wouldn't be hiring immigrants to do these jobs if the jobs were automated away. That's the point.

I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men, but I don't really agree with that. I'm sure it feels very bad when people lose status relative to out-group members, but I don't consider the anger that result from this to be "justifiable".

>>I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men

In my opinion, you're intentionally misconstruing the previous poster in an attempt to discount their concerns as racist or sexist.

The issue wasn't the race of the individuals, but the fact that a American was being displaced by someone who came outside of America.

In my opinion, we can debate about levels of immigration with understanding.

One of yummyfajitas's shticks is arguing that nationalism is essentially the same thing as racism.

Many people don't respond favorably to this argument because (if correct,) it defeats the "I'm not racist, I'm just nationalist" retort.

Why is "born to American parents" a more meaningful moral category than "born to white parents"?

I don't think the poster is racist. I think he holds a moral position which is equally indefensible.

Because Americans want to maintain their standard of living and can't do that if they are competing with a billion Africans who would be happy with half that standard.

White Americans wanted to maintain their status/standard of living too, and economic competition with negros made that difficult.

Can you make any moral arguments for nationalism that don't support racism equally well?

Why do there have to be moral arguments? We want a particular outcome and can make it happen. If people in other countries want the same outcome then they can make it happen there.

I agree with you in that sense - we have the strength to segregate, to impose nationalism or to pillage the world. Does this mean we should?

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