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Comment by wat10000 | Hacker News Reader

Your statement is far too broad to be correct in any case. Thousands of Chinese and other non-white people immigrated long before 1965. Ironically, some of the earliest Chinese people employed by the federal government were employed by Customs, decades before 1965.

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Yes, my broad statement about US immigration policy is incorrect because of a few exceptions. It's impossible to talk about trends and averages because there's always a counter-example somewhere that, by your logic, disproves the whole thing. This gas is not hot - look at these ten molecules, they're moving slow! I guess China is open and welcoming too, because they have thousands (1.4 million!) of foreigners living there?

(0.1% of China's total population, but why let statistics get in the way of anecdotal reasoning?)

Are you really incapable of thinking statistically, even this little bit, or are you just playing dumb because it lets you avoid engaging honestly with the question a little bit longer?

You’re the one who can’t fathom that a general answer to a very broad question must be a lie (not merely incomplete, not merely wrong, but a lie) because you think the answer to a broad, general question must include “although our immigration policy was racist as heck until the 1960s so this specific guy would have had a hard time before then” at the end. I’m not the one incapable of engaging honestly here.

Yes, saying it was part of US historical culture to accept people like this guy, when the culture explicitly rejected them, is a lie. Nothing you said so far disproved this.

But I was more polite, and merely said he "forgot to mention" that aspect. That's all it took to draw your objections. I'll leave you to your word games now.

Edit: Fine, you get one more reply.

> The question was “foreign nationals,” not “people like this guy.”

But the topic was this guy.

> And it’s a specific choice to consider race as part of “like this guy,” not a law of nature.

Yes, a specific choice that the US made, from its founding up until 1965. But you are more comfortable talking in vague abstractions divorced from real world implementations, talking about words without thinking what those words refer to, so I get why you're confused. It's just a way of thinking I find repellent, and refuse to humor. As I said, enjoy your word games.

The question was “foreign nationals,” not “people like this guy.” And it’s a specific choice to consider race as part of “like this guy,” not a law of nature.

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