Difference between revisions of "Talk:Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965"

Revision as of 01:49, April 29, 2023

The original Act was a quota system for European nationalities. By 1965, borders had changed and many of these countries were behind the Iron Curtain. Since 1965, borders have again changed globally. Whether that results in ethnic discrimination is debatable. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 12:57, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

The 1924 Act was racist against both Eastern Europeans and Asians; it was motivated by the eugenics of the Progressive Movement, and its House sponsor, Albert Johnson, so enthused the Ku Klux Klan in his anti-immigration activism that its priority was the "renomination and re-election of Representative Albert Johnson of Washington, so he can continue to be Chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and fight for restricted immigration laws." —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 13:07, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

That's Howard Zinn's narrative, but it isn't the only one. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 15:25, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Incidentally, you just proved you don't know what a commiesymp is, revealing the level of your own communist brainwashing. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 15:28, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] Oh, the irony; you've just demonstrated what we call, "pot calling the kettle black." The historical reality is clear: immigration restriction historically was a tool of the political left, favored by working-class populists and opposed by business-oriented conservatives. Which region from the late 1800s to the 1920s opposed immigration? The West, comprised of rural progressives and socialists who advocated free silver, inflationary greenbacks, and labor unions. The Northeast, then a bastion of classical liberalism, favored immigrants (and as a result, racial tolerance) for cheaper labor in concordance with free-market capitalism, and supported the gold standard.

According to the Mises Institute:

So if you're actually defending the 1924 Johnson–Reed Act, you're defending a legacy of racist xenophobia installed by the Progressive Movement. I'd ask that you quit being deceptive, but that's too much to expect out of you. You'd rather use a guilt-by-association fallacy, saying, "oh look, commies claim to oppose racism, so you dare expose the racist history of xenophobic legislation, yoUr tHe rEaL cOmmIesYmP!1!!" —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 15:36, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

duh, who controlled Congress and what president signed the Act? Now you're really pushing commie talking points. Like the Patriot Act as a response to 9/11, the Immigration Act was a result of the Sacco-Venzetti case (interesting, there's a town in Ukraine named by the Bolsheviks after Sacco and Venzetti. Neither were Ukrainian or even Slavic). 15:43, April 27, 2023 (EDT)RobS^{Give Peace a chance}

Both the 1924 Immigration Act, and the Patriot Act, are examples of how (as Democrats say) "our democracy" works as a response to terrorism. Your argument is that basically, the American people (as opposed to its government) are racist spanning nearly 80 years. Cause in both instances, the Congress was responding to public demand and outrage after terrorist incidents. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 15:48, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] Oh please, opposing racism constitutes "commie talking points"? Now that's what a Communist would say. Also, "national security" was the propaganda scare used by progressives in the 1910s–20s to create a police state at the expense of civil liberties, just as it was in the 2000s by neocons when they enacted the Patriot Act. The Wilson Administration's repression against so-called socialists, anarchists, and Communists, were conducted by someone deemed young, militant, progressive, and fearless; the Sedition Act was opposed mostly by conservative Republicans. I recommend understanding some basic history.

"but the public demanded" Well, guess what, the U.S. was founded as a republic, not a democracy. The country was better back in the days of the Gilded Age when right-wing machines were in power before a mob of populist progressives took over demanding direct democracy and immigration restriction, turning the country into hellhole infested with race riots that the country saw in the late 1910s and early 20s. —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 15:50, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

As I've tried to tell you before, not all issues, whether current or historical, fit neatly into your little boxes of "left" and "right", "conservative" and "liberal" or even "progressive". In fact, failing to understand this simple fact is a leading cause of misinformation. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 15:56, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Understand basic history? ahh, duh, the Sedition Act was passed long before there was a Republican or even Democrat party. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 15:58, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

If you think "left" and "right" don't matter, take a look at Ecc. 10:2 and Matt. 25:31–46. Also, I'm referring to the Sedition Act of 1918, not the Alien and Sedition Acts. Are you even paying attention?

[EC] Oh and evidently, what you fail to understand is that the political movements which facilitated the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 were left-wing to their core—they were reformists who demanded public education, an end to child labor (imagine the horror of getting a job experience, just as leftists today can't stand the thought of young teenagers appreciating a work ethic), and "public health regulations" (aka eugenics), or what we today consider Faucism. But of course, because the modern day populists of the "right," just like the old-school progressives, demand immigration restriction, you, a fellow stooge, will bow along like a hack and blather along in apologetics of racism. —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 16:02, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Lenin declared worldwide revolution when the Bolsheviks took power Workers of the World Unite! Communists came to the US from Eastern Europe weith the intent to overthrow the government. The immigration law was Congress's response to the popular demand to do something about it.

Now, we can get into a discussion of the supposed "Jewish controlled" media that stirred up the American people with all these racist horror stories about Slavs, Jews, Polish Catholic and Eastern European immigration to pressure the Republican Congress to pass that racist piece of immigration if you like, but it might not fit with some of your preconceived notions. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 16:34, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

You're still missing the point; the 1924 Act was racially motivated, and I pointed out the evidence to you above. —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 17:46, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

(ec) Here's another basic principle you do not understand: you seem to think what a politician says is his position or what he actually believes (ignoring political realities). This is how get charges that Matt Gaetz voted for some abortion bill when an amendment was actually attached to some bill on another subject. RobS^{Give Peace a chance} 16:03, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Then what am I miscomprehending specifically? —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 16:04, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Not everything fits into your neat little boxes and "isms". I'll go so far as saying people who insist every idea, concept, and political figure who doesn't fit into one of your boxes or wear a label - those people are basically too lazy to actually study an issue - and that's where the suffix 'ism" comes from. it's for lazy people who thinking and analyzing is too much work. RobS^{Give Peace a chance}

Again, perhaps you can clarify and be more specific? —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Thursday, 17:46, April 27, 2023 (EDT)

Conservative criticism of the Hart-Celler Act is "racist" and "progressive"?

Saying that criticism of the Hart-Celler Act is "racist", "white nationalist", and "anti-Semitic dog whistling" is one of the most liberal things I have heard in a while. Not everyone who wishes to cut immigration to a very low level like those pre-1965 necessarily has a prejudiced view of immigrants. Also, restriction of immigration is not "progressive", no matter how bad neoconservatives want it to be. To prove this, I shall attach multiple counterexamples below:

• Calvin Coolidge, a devout civil rights advocate and opponent of the Ku Klux Klan and lynching, strongly supported the Johnson-Reed Act and signed it into law. He went as far as to say, "Restricted immigration is not an offensive but purely a defensive action. It is not adopted in criticism of others in the slightest degree, but solely for the purpose of protecting ourselves. We cast no aspersions on any race or creed, but we must remember that every object of our institutions of society and government will fail unless America be kept American."[1] Coolidge was by no means a nativist, for in the same year he signed the Johnson-Reed Act he thanked immigrants for their contributions to America, praised ethnic diversity, and called on Americans to assist immigrants. He happily rejected prejudice towards immigrants. [2] Warren G. Harding, his predecessor, also was an opponent of the Klan and conservative who opposed unrestricted immigration as well, as he signed the Emergency Quota Act into law in 1921. Both were part of the Old Right, which LT claims to support. Yet the Huffington Post attacks people like Coolidge as racist. [3] If so-called conservatives of the day opposed such legislation, then why did Coolidge and Harding-who were by no means racist-gladly support it?

• Woodrow Wilson, a prominent Democrat progressive and racist who can be credited for bringing back the KKK, vetoed the Asiatic Barred Zone Act while as president, which restricted immigration. Nobody contests the fact Wilson was a racist progressive, yet he vetoed this act which was against immigration. If racist progressives were nativist, how come Wilson vetoed this legislation instead of signing it into law?

• Henry Cabot Lodge, a prominent supporter of civil rights as evidenced by his support for the Lodge Bill, which he was behind, supported the Asiatic Barred Zone Act and the Johnson-Reed Act. Lodge was a conservative too. Again, if such legislation was progressive, why didn't Lodge oppose it?

• Even some mainstream conservatives attacked by the left like William F. Buckley Jr. opposed the Hart-Celler Act, as stated in the article. Is Buckley a progressive nativist now?

• Norris Cotton, a conservative GOP pro-civil rights Senator that LT loves, voted against the Hart-Celler Act. A very similar Senator loved by LT who also was conservative and pro-civil rights, Bourke B. Hickenlooper, just barely supported the bill after Everett Dirksen told him too.

• Henry Winter Davis and Thaddeus Stevens, both Radical Republicans who strongly wished to inflict harsh punishment on the South during Reconstruction for leaving the Union, were both at one point members of the Know Nothing Party during their careers. In fact, the Know Nothing Party was in many ways absorbed by the early Republican Party that opposed slavery and supported civil rights for all, and many other Radical Republicans were former Know Nothingers. While I would not join the Know Nothing Party if I were alive then as it was inflammatory in its rhetoric sometimes, much unlike Coolidge and other conservatives whose positions most immigration restrictionists try to model, this is still some good evidence that civil rights supporting Republicans were against increased immigration going back all the way to the party's roots, especially in the case of Winter Davis.

• Alexander Hamilton, the leading conservative Founding Father, was a supporter of restricting immigration, unlike his more liberal counterpart Thomas Jefferson, who opposed it.

As you can see, conservatives have long supported restricted immigration, many of whom were pro-civil rights. This completely debunks the narrative that immigration restriction was an example of "progressive nativism". Yes, their have been some racist nativists who have supported immigration restriction unfortunately, but they are a minority and many immigration restrictionists, including myself, gladly condemn them wholeheartedly. Also, it is important to note that the term "progressive" meant something much different back in the day, and really was just a big tent that encompassed just about anybody in the early 1900s who supported social and labor reform. You could make the argument that many progressive back in the day (like Theodore Roosevelt) would be pro-civil rights conservatives today, and TR himself supported restricting immigration. Progressivism as a movement didn't fully become what it is today until Woodrow Wilson got in power, who like I said earlier was a racist and supporter of increased immigration. So really, any attempt to tie anti-immigration efforts today to the progressive movement back then are meaningless, if not impossible. Simply put, you can oppose immigration as a conservative and not be some progressive white nationalist. -Mr. Nationalist (talk) 20:40, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

Those "examples" are insufficient counterarguments to the larger picture I've already highlighted above, that racially motivated immigration restrictions, such as the Johnson–Reed Act, spawned from the Progressive Movement. While some like Coolidge favored the 1924 Act for non-racist reasons, it does not deny the reality of the Act's racist roots nor that progressives heavily favored it (see the Mises quote). Also, if you studied your history properly, you'd know that Thaddeus Stevens's association with the Know Nothing Party was highly expedient, as he did not hold anti-immigration prejudices.

Yes, Lodge supported the Immigration Act of 1924—just because a conservative supported an immigration restriction bill does not deny its progressive origins. Per the preface of Rothbard's book about the Progressive Movement:

Pertaining to the vote on the Hart–Celler Act, Cotton was among the minority of Republicans which opposed it; the majority of conservative Republicans joined the majority support, and the primary opposition were segregationist Southerners, which alone ought to be self-explanatory. The lash against the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, both then and now, cannot distance itself from its intrinsic racial motivations. In short, your narrative of history is a pile of second-rate cherry-picked propaganda. —LT ^{(Matthew 26:52)} Saturday, 21:49, April 28, 2023 (EDT)