People emigrated from Europe to America because they were out of options. It was not a case of throwing away all of your possessions to go on an adventure. Rather, the vast majority emigrated because it was literally the only way to move up in a world where land ownership was the key to wealth, and your older brother already inherited the farm, or your family did not own any land in the first place. Or perhaps you couldn't even find an apprenticeship.
Keep in mind that all of Europe existed in an extremely rigid social hierarchy with practically zero mobility. Most people in Europe lived in abject poverty. America offered some social mobility, at least to those who came there by choice.
About half the variation in personality traits is biologically heritable: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-55834023. Even political ideology is moderately heritable: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521...
On top of that, there’s social transmission of values within families. Much of the country descends from 20th century immigrants, where the effect of the immigrant generation is still prominent. Much of the rest of the country descends from people who left their civilized east coast and settled the frontier.
> Rather, the vast majority emigrated because it was literally the only way to move up in a world where land ownership was the key to wealth
This isn’t any different in much of asia or africa today. Most people are content with their place in the world without abandoning all their kinship ties to “move up.”
The hyper-individualism of modern America is something that has developed fairly recently, even if it had earlier roots.
Income taxes as a concept weren't really adopted, globally, until the mid-1800s through the early 1900s. So I don't think skepticism of them is inherently an American individualist thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax#Timeline_of_intro...
And as I already wrote:
> The hyper-individualism of modern America is something that has developed fairly recently, even if it had earlier roots.
America circa 1950 or 1900 had much stronger social bonds in local communities, families, etc. The current hyper-individualism is more a consequence of the last third of the 20th century, not anything inherently American.
Of course, one might make the argument that this was some kind of inevitable outcome due to a seed in the American psyche, but I don't really buy that argument.
Being able to rely on these governmental benefits might have made families less reliant on the local community, churches and extended family, which in turn might have caused daily life to feel more alienating or atomized.
I bring this up because welfare and SSI can be viewed as a move towards collectivism and away from individualism, so arguing about how individualistic the US has been over time is kind of a sterile game because the answer is highly dependent on the exact definition of individualism.
Yes, this is an excellent point.
It's still true that the pay and conditions were awful, but it was clearly something people chose to do.
ICE deportations without due process: check -> supports Rayiner's point
Massive and ongoing violations of the US constitution: check -> supports Rayiner's point
Immigrants and their descendants voting against immigration: check -> supports Rayiner's point
Troops deployed to cities that were doing no worse than other cities but happened to be run by democrats: check -> supports Rayiner's point
Taking a sledgehammer to the federal government without any consideration for the consequences: check -> supports Rayiner's point
I wonder at what moment - if ever - you will look around and say 'Hey, you know what, I'm co-responsible for this mess and I own up to it'. I don't know if you have a daughter or not but if not we'll substitute some other female relative. Let's imagine for the moment that you do and you get the choice of leaving her in a room for a couple of days with Trump, Biden or Harris which would you pick? And if not Trump, why not, after all, what's there to fear, he's an upstanding citizens that any self respecting lawyer would vote for. There are plenty of MAGA's who are just too stupid to know better after a couple of decades on FOX and AM talk radio, so they get a pass, in spite of all the damage that they do.
But guys that clerked for the US court of appeals are held to a higher standard.
There is this proverb: a country gets the government that it deserves. Now, I have a crap government here at the moment, but at least I'm not responsible for voting it in and cheering it on while they do their crap and I still feel responsible just by being from here and the fact that they - unfortunately - represent me too.
I don’t know how this is relevant to what we were discussing, but yes, I have a daughter. And one of my principal fears was how much social pressure she would feel to relate to Harris, a shallow mediocrity who might have been greater if everyone didn’t have the lowest possible expectations for her on account of identity politics.
And so you voted for the greedy, utterly corrupt criminal instead. I really wonder how you could come to this utterly bizarre conclusion. Trump isn't an example for anybody, least of all your kids, and god forbid they'd look at a woman that made it to president and think that that might be something to aspire to. Incredible.
I raise my kids the way my dad raised me—and how white elites raise their own kids, in contrast to how they see brown kids: to always have an internal locus of control, never make excuses, and never demand society’s protection or accommodation.
Yes, obviously she didn't get there because of merit... unbelievable this exchange.
So your main point is that Harris, who was in the spot to become president for all of four years if something happened to Biden, was only there as a generic woman of color? This is in a way a worse insult than if it had been just jealousy. Do you honestly believe that the slob you voted for is there on merit? And never mind his sidekick? Harris has more merit than either of those two grifters combined.
For your sake I hope that one day you're going to snap out of the groove that you are in. But by the looks of it the more likely end game is that you will dig yourself in further and further until there really is no way back.
Just for a 10 minute exercise: imagine you are wrong about all this and that in a decade you look back at the end result. Then realize that there is such a thing as minimization of regret and that this radicalization path that you - as you admitted yourself - are on does not offer any outs other than ever more convoluted rationalizations which your original self from just a few years ago would have been horrified at. The reason I keep talking to you is because I hope that somewhere in there the guy that we knew before he went off into the woods is still there and is still able to use common sense instead of the sense that words on paper matter more than people. Probably I'm the idiot though and I should just give up on you.
Being a "woman of color" was Biden's stated reason for picking Harris. She has no merit as a political leader--someone who is able to inspire people to action. She had to drop out of the race in 2019 being she was polling terribly in her home state: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/kamala-harris-califo.... Listen to the post-mortems of 2024 being done by folks Mark Halpern. Biden's own team thought that Harris wasn't ready.
I saw her in person at an Asian American fundraising event in Iowa in 2019. It was just her and Andrew Yang. She gave a canned speech and ran to her tour bus and hid after the event. She was awful. Given Biden's age, the obviously correct play in 2020 was to nominate Elizabeth Warren, who is a gifted populist politician. I saw her in 2019 as well, and people were literally crying when they would meet her to take selfies. Harris, meanwhile, was hiding in her bus, because she's awkward and doesn't actually like crowds.
Everything was out there for anyone whose eyes were open to see. But the party is full of weirdos who are obsessed with skin color--like how you couldn't help but bring slavery and colonialism into this unrelated discussion--and they nominated her because it was part of "the arc of history." It brings me endless joy that this view forced them into a course of action that cost them so dearly, and so quickly.
> Do you honestly believe that the slob you voted for is there on merit?
In a Presidential system, "merit" is being able to win over and lead a coalition of voters. That's what made Bill Clinton and Barack Obama extraordinary politicians. Trump has merit in the same way. Trump took over one of the two major parties, overthrew its establishment, and made it so someone named "Bush" can't even win an election for dog catcher in Texas. Whatever else you think about him, he's an incredibly gifted politician, while Harris is a terrible one.
Yes, you fit right in. Think about what you just wrote.
> Whatever else you think about him, he's an incredibly gifted politician, while Harris is a terrible one.
He's a gifted agitator, he's not a gifted politician. A gifted politician knows how to govern, and build consensus, Trump is completely clueless (or hiding it remarkably well). His main shticks are division and destruction, not unification and creation.
So if you are looking to bring about hardship and chaos you did the right thing by voting for him.