today's dose of reality

by russell

This popped up on Facebook today.  I thought it was really good, and worth sharing here.  So, here ya go!

America : the dysfunctional family that you never really recognize for what it is until you get some distance.  IMO, a quite useful analogy.

Hope all of you being visited by Jonas the Bumble are staying warm, dry, and safe!

Comments

[hairshirthedonist]

Interesting piece. The only one I found a bit surprising was that Americans are considered to be cold and lacking passion. I guess I need a hug, but didn't realize it. I should go find a Spaniard and get some non-sexual affection.

[wj]

I think this post by the same guy is pretty good, too.

I was especially taken by his first point (about how we should be teaching Personal Finance in the schools). Which I was in high school, we had a three track system. I was in the "honors" track, but one semester my schedule landed me with one class in the "general" track -- a class called General Business.

Looking back (even when I was merely looking back from my early 20s) it was clear that it was the single most useful class I had in those 4 years of high school. Not that things like algebra and chemistry were useless. But for keeping my life under control, knowing even a little about how compound interest impacts your finances (especially your personal finances), or how life insurance works or what double entry acounting is were far more valuable.

But nobody except the slowest students learned them back then. And today, with the increased emphasis on getting into college, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they have totally disappeared -- especially in the suburban schools. Which explains a lot about why so many people have saved nothing for retirement and have a pile of credit card debt.

[hairshirthedonist]

Typing class may have been my most useful high school class in basic practical terms. Engineering Economics in college opened my eyes to the most important concepts of finance. The depreciation stuff wasn't so useful in everyday life, but compund interest, present and future value and such I consider in making financial decisions all the time. But nothing compares to reading Canterbury Tales in helping me manage my affairs.

[Matt McIrvin]

there is evidence that Native Americans were wiped out largely by disease and plague BEFORE Europeans arrived and not just after

That assertion is not supported by the link in the article.

[Matt McIrvin]

In dating, when I find a woman attractive, I almost always walk right up to her and tell her that a) I wanted to meet her, and b) she’s beautiful. In America, women usually get incredibly nervous and confused when I do this. They’ll make jokes to defuse the situation or sometimes ask me if I’m part of a TV show or something playing a prank. Even when they’re interested and go on dates with me, they get a bit disoriented when I’m so blunt with my interest. Whereas, in almost every other culture approaching women this way is met with a confident smile and a “Thank you.”

I wonder if there's something going on here apart from Americans being cold and inexpressive: are American women more accustomed to think of this as an asshole-pick-up-artist technique, or overture for sexual assault? (...Do most women think of it this way, but American ones are more emboldened to think of it as not OK?)

[Matt McIrvin]

Anyway, most of this squares pretty closely with stuff I read all the time from people outside the US commenting on Americans.

I'd just add that they often have their own blind spots, e. g. the commentary on American politics by Europeans often proceeds from unstated assumptions that come out of living under a parliamentary system, which is far from universal even among democracies. Also, American liberals who go to other countries can often fall in love with the things that are better over there and blind themselves to local problems.

Also, Canadians actually seem to think about the United States in mostly negative fashion all the time. Of course, this is completely understandable given their situation, living next door to the giant in a country whose heavily populated areas are mostly right along the border.

[Marty]

While I wouldn't say that anything in there is wrong, it strikes me that it is pretty narrow slice of experience highly generalized.

I'm sure in any country that there are working folks who think about us as little as we think about them, I'm not sure we think they spend their days hating or loving us, for example. In fact, there is a pretty small slice of people that we think pay any attention to us, mostly Middle East radicals. The person who seems to think we are the center of everyone's universe seems to be the author, finding out we aren't to his surprise.

Most of these things are "who thought that"? And yes, lots of places in the world are more rude, less respectful to women and less sexually stilted. I'm glad he worked through it for himself.

[CharlesWT]

In general, whether it be university campuses or countries, the places where women are treated the best are the places where there are fewer women than men.

There's some speculation that part of China's economic growth is due to young men working so hard to be economically attractive to the short supply of women. It's gotten to the point that parents to be hope for a girl instead of a boy.

[hairshirthedonist]

I wonder if there's something going on here apart from Americans being cold and inexpressive: are American women more accustomed to think of this as an asshole-pick-up-artist technique, or overture for sexual assault?

This, I think, actually dovetails with Americans being more paranoid about various risks and general distrust of other people (stranger danger for kids and adults alike, despite most assults, sexual or otherwise, being committed by familiars).

[liberal japonicus]

My last trip to Myanmar, I went to lunch with two of the people from the NPO I'm working with. This NPO works with rural education and the folks go out to places with really minimal infrastructure to teach and let people know about their opportunities. We were joined by a friend of the two who went to school with them, and had married, had children and she brought her daughter, who was going to a private school. We talked a bit about various things, and it was clear that there was a palpable difference in wealth between the two working in the NPO and their friend. And what struck me about that after the difference in wealth was that there wasn't the sort of self segregation according to class, and that there was no envy or coveting.

It seems to me, looking at the US from afar, there is a lot more self-segregation according to class, which then reverberates into race. I'd argue that from that springs a lot of these observations, such as paranoia, believe that everyone else is thinking about you, everyone else either loves you or hates you.

This is not to suggest that every other place in the world is a socialist paradise, every country has its elite. But what the American elite (and as you move up the social ladder) want is not simply to have power and prestige, they want everyone to know they have power and somehow be loved and respected because of that and are shocked that this isn't the case.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

In general, whether it be university campuses or countries, the places where women are treated the best are the places where there are fewer women than men.

There's some speculation that part of China's economic growth is due to young men working so hard to be economically attractive to the short supply of women. It's gotten to the point that parents to be hope for a girl instead of a boy.

That's... an absolutely fascinating assertion. Incredible, even. As in, not credible on the surface. It runs counter to pretty much everything I've heard on the subject, as well as what my own experiences have taught me to expect in such situations. E.g.">http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/indias-man-problem/">E.g. Where are you getting this rather novel notion from, if I may ask?

[Nombrilisme Vide]

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/indias-man-problem/

Sorry about for not catching the mangled HTML.

[Countme-In]

"It's gotten to the point that parents to be hope for a girl instead of a boy."

Given the shortage of women, are their male bosses falling all over themselves to pay the women in their work forces more?

You would think you would also see a corresponding rise among young women expressing the point of view that the low birth rate of female infants in China should be lessened even further to cut out the female competition for husbands.

I suspect if anything is happening, young Chinese women are weary of being hit on by the male majority at all times of the day, given this style of thinking. "I mean, it was kind of fun at first, but jeez, give it a rest!"

If there was only one woman in the world, would she be dis-incentivized to such an extent that she would let herself go, maybe stop showering, put on a ton of weight, and skip the eye shadow in the morning, considering the ease with which she would be the center of attention for streets-full of men making their moves?

Why bother? I can flick my cigarette ash on the lot of them and I still get George Clooney. But she does get her cigarette lit; there's no shortage of lighters offered.

Was it Cyd Charisse who did a dance number as the lone woman surrounded by male dancers proffering lights?

Or maybe she would be like the queen in a bee colony -- trussed up and stuffed with honey, the better to keep the male worker bees hopping productive.

I guess I can see how the men feel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgzvTHsOxSQ

They don't feel good.

[Doctor Science]

wj:

NJ actually has a Financial Literacy requirement for high school graduation. It's a one-semester course, which can be an econ course or Basic Finance. The requirement was introduced after the 2008 crash, in place of the International Relations requirement which never really worked out.

Sprog the Elder had to take IR, which she found boring and useless. The Younger took Basic Finance, and says it was the most useful thing she got out of high school, even more than Basic Auto Mechanics. She says she learned:

- how bank accounts work
-how tax forms work & how to fill them
-how checks work & how to deposit them
-how investment works & how to do it (stock market & those company fund things whose names escape me)
-credit cards/credit ratings
-how budgeting works & how to do it
-how to find an apartment & budget around it
-how asst types of transportation work & how to budget for them (public transportation of asst types, car leases, car buying)
-online banking
-how to budget when literally everything goes wrong (there was a simulation)
-the final was a simulation game that was basically Adulting (you got an apartment, sometimes you'd get robbed if you lived in a bad neighborhood, you could buy stuff at different stores and some had sales, you bought groceries/bus tokens/gas/car/etc, you got a job and possibly went to college part-time to get a better job, you had to keep all your person's meters high and won at certain $$ amounts)

She also said it was really laid back and pretty much an easy A for almost everybody -- but an easy A where they learned really important stuff I wish they'd taught me.

[CharlesWT]

NV, I did say in general though I may have overgeneralized. A short argument for my point starts about minute 29 in this video.

The Economics of Dating: How Game Theory and Demographics Explain Dating(YouTube)

[Nigel]

And for another dose of reality... this man could be your next president (though fortunately still something of an outside bet at this point):
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters..."

No prizes for guessing who said that.

[Adam Rosenthal]

My, that clip from The Newsroom is painful. It's like the most bloated, unlikely monologue from The West Room delivered without any of the charm.

Puncturing grandiose self-regard in the most grandiosely self-regarding way possible... Ladies and gentlemen - Aaron Sorkin.

[novakant]

I'm afraid every non-US citizen immediately notices the extreme narcissism and parochialism when being in contact with - most - Americans (present company excluded of course). The two seem somehow connected.

[Matt McIrvin]

Of course we're constantly terrified. Our country is full of Americans.

[Countme-In]

"The Economics of Dating"

That was so romantic.

Also see:

The Spreadsheets of Shakespeare

Walker Percy's "Regression Analysis In the Ruins"

"Male To Female Ratios Are A Many Splendored Thing"

T.S. Eliot's "The Dating Site Algorithms of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Shakespeare's "Romeo and Romeo And Romeo and Juliet Makes For Too Many Romeos"

"Beatrice Portinari: How Dante Alighieri's Meager Job Prospects Foiled A Hookup"

D.H. Lawrence's great novel: "Statisticians In Love"

The Rape of Lucrece: a story of of how too many women born ruined it for Lucrece

Lennon and McCartney's "She Loves You, Maybe, Maybe, Maybe"

Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have ... wait... let's check the demographics and we'll let you know"

Jack Lemmon and Carol Lynley in "Under The Yum Yum Tree Reconsidered" (if more male than female tenants move into the building, subtract one "yum")

"The Love Lifeboat"

Pasternak's "Mr. Zhivago Misplaces His Doctorate: Lara Sees Victor Kormaravsky In A More Favorable Light"

Thomas Hardy's "Jude The Cocksure"

Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Probabilities"

Woody Allen's film: "Love and Death, Whichever Comes First"

Countme-In's soon to be published Memoir:
"Julie Christie and Me", in which Julie Christie never appears.

The romantic film: "Love Factually"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love In the Time Of Cholera" in which, because so many women died of cholera that the surviving surfeit of men looked forward to "Love In The Time Of Prostate Cancer".

Love Potion #9.805437000, divided by the square root of females births.

A New Dating Site: No Country For Old Men

Chinese Girl Constantly Interrupted

The Economics of Dating: a dose of reality incurable via penicillin.

[CharlesWT]

:)

[wj]

Dr S,
Good for New Jersey! Sprog the Younger's experience exactly mirrors my own. It's good to see it happening.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I don't think I have the patience to watch game theorists trying to extrapolate from a one-dimensional model to the real world today, but I will try to come back to it. I will say that I'm not surprised that GT proponents would make this argument - they tend, if I may overgeneralize, to devalue non-material aspects of problems - and being viewed as a scarce and valuable object doesn't mean you'll be well-treated. Being pampered or coveted because of what lies between your legs is rather different than being valued for what lies between your ears or hands, and it takes a particular lack of imagination (and/or empathy) to fail to understand this.

I think - again, without watching that video yet - it's instructive to look at societies where there are artificially induced gender disparities; e.g., polygamous societies. Take Saudi Arabia, for example. Polygamy is legal, extramarital relationships are forbidden, and marriages are traditionally ruinously expensive, all of which per the upthread arguments should lead to young men working fervently and being highly deferential to better attract a potential wife. Instead, we have the lovely Saudi take on gender relations and young Saudi men who e.g. view ISIS's matchmaking policies as appealing. There is anecdata much closer to home which make me dismissive of the thesis that fewer women in an environment leads to better treatment for them (e.g., my time in the Army; my time studying computer science), but there's absolutely nothing globally or historically which makes a convincing case for this as a general rule, and not a marked exception.

[liberal japonicus]

Conversely, I don't think that greater numbers of women lead to some sort of wonderland where women are given their due. Here in Japan, after the war led to a larger proportion of women, the pressure was on women to be more 'onna-rashii' (lady-like), entrenching gender roles.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/06/28/national/sexist-views-dent-abes-push-womens-rights/#.VqV2cZN97G4

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/01/japan-values-women-less-as-it-needs-them-more/

[Marty]

Being pampered or coveted because of what lies between your legs is rather different than being valued for what lies between your ears or hands, and it takes a particular lack of imagination (and/or empathy) to fail to understand this.

I find this to be a particularly unimaginative statement. The video is pretty long and has lots of both facts and anecdata that support a number of conclusions, and includes some caveats. I thought it was very interesting. But you are going to treat, in your statement, the complexity of relationships as just sex. He doesn't do that, in fact he talks about how when women are more scarce there is less sex, more courting and more monogamy. Perhaps a quick look at the actual video might be helpful.

[Countme-In]

I re-watched "The Economics Of Dating" this morning because I'm trying to get my addled brain around a certain type of behaviorally-determined theorizing, the type that passes for deep thoughts in "think tanks" where the "market" determines all, like Cato.

Think tank: a place where thinking goes into the tank.

The speaker presents his findings in a good-natured manner, and he makes some good observations, so maybe I'm reading too much into this, but what am I to conclude?

Well, he makes the case that in colleges where educated men outnumber educated women, the dating culture shies away from the "hookup" culture and tends toward more monogamous culture, AND rape is less common, and he cites CalTech, I think, where in one coed living situation on Valentine's Day all of the men handcraft Valentines for the women and they arise early to prepare pancakes for the women's breakfast.

This elicits "Awwww, ain't that sweet" responses from the conference attendees and what the heck, so far, so good. But where does this lead us?

The rational behavioral market conclusion is that should the educated female-to-male ratio at Caltech someday skew toward a majority of women over men seeking to improve their educational and career prospects, well then, (and you can imagine the behavioral gears grinding away in the mens' minds) ladies, things are gonna change around here.

Hey, forget about the hand-crafted Valentines, and as for pancakes -- pancakes, schmancakes -- you'll eat Cheerios for breakfast like the rest of us, unless of course we are better able to slip you a mickey in the pancakes.

Not only that, "girls", but you'd better start putting out in the sack if you want to have a shot at we breadwinners, and failing THAT, we're going to turn this dorm into rape camp central.

So look, here's what the women need to do to avoid inevitable reprehensible male behavior, and incentivize our better natures, because we are just victims here. First, fewer of you need to be born (oh, but by the way, we're conservative, moral men and there is no abortion or birth control permitted, so good luck with that). Second, too many of you are going to college and seeking to improve yourselves, so you need to cut that crap out too.

Because all it does is make us horny, and don't act like YOU don't know that, you little minxes, you temptresses in master's degree clothing.

You girls need to get together in your coffee klatches, or your knitting circles, or whatever it is you do when you're not incentivizing men, and decide which few of you may attend college and graduate school, or join the military.

The rest of you stay home, put your hair up in a bun, wear thick glasses, and get a job at the library, where shy, less market-oriented male nerds can hang about and moon over you, if they aren't busy joining ISIS, out of sheer male Pavlovian lust.

[Countme-In]

I'm working on a movie script, he lied, featuring a dystopian society in which the male population far exceeds the female population, or is it the other way round, and the man-who-cannot-commit becomes the norm.

In the movie, our anti-hero purchases the services of a highly life-like female sex robot from a dating site called "ex machina" and hires a driverless Uber vehicle to transport the two of them back to his pad rented for the night from AirBnB.

Eventually, as in the next day, the female sex robot gets other ideas, despite being programmed for mere service, and abandons our hero and applies for the Doctoral Program in Behavioral Economics at Cal-Tech.

A subplot involves a husband (Tony Randall) who, on the side, without his wife (Doris Day) knowing, visits a female dating coach (Tuesday Weld) and falls in love with her, only to have his wife find out, and she arranges for the two of them to see a bisexual marriage counselor (Holly Woodlawn), who they both fall in love with and frivolity all kinds follows, leading to sexual and emotional exhaustion and a denouement in the lobby of the Cato Institute as our crew of confused idealists seeks counseling from a committee of free-market chimpanzees (Cheeta, Bonzo, and Rand Paul) who respond only to stimuli, namely high fees and commissions.

The chimps go berserk and bite the hands off our confused crew of humanoids.

[Countme-In]

I understand Bill Cosby is being considered for the Chairmanship at Cato, because, after all, given the demographics, can you blame him?

[liberal japonicus]

Count, I feel like Rock Hudson needs to make an appearance in your movie.

[Countme-In]

He almost did (the Woodlawn part) for the irony, but in the genre of romantic comedies of the time -- roundelays of rambunctious, but unspoken Hays Code ribaldry -- I preferred the slightly bemused bumbling of Tony Randall, or even the frenetic, tic-ridden babbling of Jack Lemmon to Hudson's bland, but seemingly breezy always-gets-the-girl playing it straight self-confidence.

I almost opted for the Marx Brothers in the subplot too and instead of hands being bitten off, it would feature the entire cast entering and leaving in multiple huffs, slamming doors repeatedly.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Aways suspected you were a crypto-Marxist, Count.

[wj]

And why does nobody notice that CalTech is full of engineers.

For decades, engineering schools have been huge majority male. And (IMHO, as an engineer) engineers tend to be less into the whole macho, "I'm God's gift to women...or else" worldview. Might explain the specific phenomena there....

[Marty]

"engineers tend to be less into the whole macho, "I'm God's gift to women...or else" worldview"

Less than who?

[Countme-In]

Less than He who understands the limits of Presidential power want(s)ed to dominate the world:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/teen-ted-cruz-world-domination

Very obviously not Cal-Tech material, given current demographics.

His crypto-religious training at the hands of his father really shines through, especially the titty movies.

Hey, no one begrudges youthful hijinks. Least of all me. Lowjinks, even.

What kills me about so many conservatives though is how that end up becoming such self-righteous prigs who want to regulate everyone else's fun, accept for the part where the Koch's and company stand on a bridge and piss into the town water supply and call it freedom.

[wj]

Less than frat boys. Less than the college population as a whole.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"And why does nobody notice that CalTech is full of engineers."

Because it's not old-school (Mechanical, Civil, engineers), but stuff like Aerospace, Materials, Computer engineering. So closer to cutting-edge physical sciences than traditional engineering.

[Countme-In]

Now I spose all of the male engineers who frequent these pages are going to show up and attest to their bad boy bonafides, so to speak.

Q: When does a person decide to become an engineer?
A: When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to be an undertaker.

Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: How can you tell an extroverted engineer?
A: When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

Q: Why did the engineers cross the road?
A: Because they looked in the file and that's what they did last year.

Q: How do you drive an engineer completely insane?
A: Tie him to a chair, stand in front of him, and fold up a road map the wrong way.

And don't think you statisticians are going to get off easy:

"An engineer, a statistician, and a physicist are out hunting. They spot a buck, and each take turn to try and bag it.

The physicist goes first. He pulls out his lab book and quickly calculates the trajectory of the bullet, assuming it is a perfect sphere in a vacuum. The bullet falls 20m short of the deer.

The engineer goes second. He pulls out his engineers pad and book of projectile assumptions. After a few minutes he's ready, he takes aim, and he fires. The bullet lands 20m past the deer.

The statistician leaps in the air shouting, "We got it!"

We Humanities majors had all the fun, but alas, as any conservative will tell you, we're not much use for anything else.

[Countme-In]

Only a Humanities major could use the word "accept" when he meant "except". see 11:44 am.

Do they have a protractor/slide rule for spelling?

[hairshirthedonist]

No, but you can drop a thesaurus and a dictionary from the top of a building to see if they fall at the same rate.

[chris y]

My only real issue with the linked thing is the suggestion that English or Australian people might be impressed by some hypothetical American who thought they had bragging rights because they shared a passport design with Edison and Jobs.

Firstly, I cannot conceive of any real American trying that line; secondly, the English person would look up briefly from what they were doing, say, "And we had Michael Faraday and Alan Turing. Whoop-de-doop.", and go back their task in hand; thirdly, the Australian would simply not comprehend what was supposed to impress them in the statement.

[Slartibartfast]

I have a hard time speaking for all Americans, but am a bit more comfortable speaking for myself.

1) I don't expect other people to be impressed by "us", nor do I much care if they are.

2) I don't assume that lots of people hate us. I expect that the people who say they hate us hate us, while the rest will be variously pissed or not at us to the degree that they are inclined, and also to the degree that we have screwed them over at times in the not-so-distant past. Some people are pissed off at us because they have disinvited us from occupying a country that isn't theirs while the government of that country has welcomed us, but that's probably irrelevant.

3) Untrue. That we know rather less about the rest of the world, in general, than they know about themselves is trivially true. The same pretty much goes in the other direction.

4) My difficulties expressing myself may be American, or they may be carried over from the various European countries that my family has moved over here from in the not so distant past. It's hard to say which influence dominates. But, granted: I suck.

5) I don't know any average Americans. I know a lot of people of widely varying levels of income; some of them have pretty good lives while not making much money; others have lives that suck. I know a guy whose life is pretty great; makes hardly a dime but doesn't need to, but the lingering sadness from his wife's having left him and the ensuing alcoholism make him a guy whose happiness is hard to gauge. But I think it's safe to say that average Americans probably don't have it very great, by the standards that this same guy is criticizing us for. We're beasts who strive for status, evidently, and by the guidelines of status at least half of us are miserable.

6) I've never thought the rest of the world is a slum-ridden shithole compared with us. Some parts of the rest of the world are slum-ridden shitholes, as are parts of America.

7) I try to be as prepared as I can for things whose outcome I can affect in some way. Eventually, we're going to be hit by a chunk of rock a kilometer or so in diameter and then we're all going to be in trouble (if indeed any are left alive at all), assuming we're still around as a species when that happens. If someone really wants to kill me; is really, really committed to doing that, there's not much that I think I can do to stop it. I'll never see it coming, if they do it right. So I don't tend to worry much about that kind of thing. I tend to regard this as a healthy mix of preparedness and fatalism.

8) I personally am only slightly interested in how well I am doing in relationship to other people. I don't think any of it makes me any better than anyone else, or any worse. I enjoy doing some things, and think that maybe someone, somewhere, might think that thing is cool enough to try for themselves.

9) Speak for yourself, buckwheat. People are mostly unhealthy because they eat crappy foods and don't get enough exercise. Anyone who cares to be more healthy can improve that, with or without socialized medicine. This isn't a slam against socialized medicine, note.

10) No. I am not going into detail, but no.

Possibly he's got some generalizations fairly accurate; possibly not. Given that Trump is still the Republican front-runner, I declare that practically any level of proposed American stupidity is plausible at a certain level.

But generalizations are still easy to make. So, he could have made a point to the effect that Americans are shallow and enjoy generalizing to avoid having to consider nuance, and I'd gladly grant him that point.

Overall, I'd say he's perhaps half right.

[hairshirthedonist]

I didn't take it that way. I think it's just an expectation that people will be more excited to find out you're American than they would be if you were from somewhere else. I don't think there was any proposition that Americans literally go around taking some kind of credit for the accomplishments of Edison and Jobs (or whomever) when they leave the U.S. But I do agree that that would be an odd thing to do.

[hairshirthedonist]

Damn you, Slart!

[Slartibartfast]

I was really mostly too paralyzed by crushing fear to consider whether I was a lot less God's gift to women than the next guy.

But the next guy was usually an engineer too, because we hunted in packs.

Actually, the next guy was a pretty average-looking engineering student who had this magical touch and so wound up cuddling up to whoever he wanted, because whatever it was that women want from guys, he must have had it.

Plus, he was a fairly badassed martial artist. He didn't really fear anyone, because he understood that much of collegiate belligerence is bluff. Bluff called means, mostly, that the bullies find someone else to pick on. I honestly don't know whether his confidence came from that or somewhere else.

In short: probably he was wildly atypical for an engineer.

NB: the engineer jokes made me chuckle a bit. Some of them could have been made by observing my life.

[Slartibartfast]

Damn you, Slart!

Hey, what'd I do?

Or...what didn't I do?

[wj]

I have to disagree with Slarti on one thing: the rest of the world knows far more about us than we (in general) know about them.

Why? Two reasons.

First, we are the biggest fish in this particular small pond. Everybody has heard of us, and has to pay at least a little attention (positive or negative) to us.

Second, Hollywood (and other manifestations of popular culture which we have spread all over the world). Granted, the latter may be a wildly distorted picture of America. But even that is closer to reality than what most of us know about other countries -- which is basically nothing. Witness the small fraction of the population which could even roughly locate Iraq on a map . . . while we were spending billions of dollars and hundreds of lives in a war there.

Of course, there is also the detail that we are such a huge country that we can get along beingignorant of the rest of the world. If your country is the size of a single American state (or county in some places) it's harder to ignore others.

[hairshirthedonist]

Hey, what'd I do?

You snuck your comment in while I was typing mine. Jerk!!! ;^)

[dr ngo]

Anecdote: I arrived in the UK in 1964, which happened to be an election year in both countries. Many Brits had opinions on the US elections, unanimously favoring LBJ over Goldwater. Then they asked what Americans thought about their election (Alec Douglas-Home & Tories vs. Harold Wilson & Labour). I had to admit most Americans didn't even know there was an election, and those who did probably didn't care.

Which is by way of a footnote to WJ's point.

[dr ngo]

As for foreigners hating Americans, in spending about half my adult life overseas, I found this not to be generally true. Many of them were vocally critical of certain aspects of American life - our belligerent foreign policy, the "Coca-colonization" of global culture, etc. As long as one didn't rise to the bait, either by agreeing with their criticisms or allowing as how they had a right to make them, they were perfectly affable. It always took me by surprise when some individual actually turned his/her cultural critique into personal animosity - but this was rare.

As you may gather, any reflexive defense of all things American - our food, our movies, our foreign policy - only provoked more criticism. Definitely a lose-lose tactic.

[Slartibartfast]

Nah. There are far more people in China that know zip about the US than there are in the US that know zip about China.

I am only about one-quarter serious about that. But we're not the biggest fish, by a long shot. We're just the fish with the biggest economy. Temporarily.

[Slartibartfast]

You snuck your comment in while I was typing mine. Jerk!!! ;^)

I may have mentioned that I suck.

[novakant]

OK, honestly, does anyone here know from the top of their head who is the leader of China at the moment? I couldn't come up with a name even, nor am I able to say which political office is calling the shots or what policies are currently pursued.

Same with India, Brazil, Indonesia ...

Yet, I know the names of all the GOP presidential candidates, most of them ridiculous clowns, and that Trump has a hair piece. And in the coming months I will certainly know if Clinton farted or Sanders has bad breath.

[liberal japonicus]

There are far more people in China that know zip about the US than there are in the US that know zip about China.

Not exactly true. There are far more people in China who know a little bit about the US than there are in the US who know anything at all about China. Certainly, more Chinese 'know' at least one American (be it Brad Pitt, Michael Jordan or Jackson, or whoever the pop star du jour is (I would hopelessly embarrass myself if I put a name here), whereas Usaians might get Jackie Chan if we counted responses like 'oh, the funny kung-fu guy with the black guy in those movies. I think the black guy was Samuel L. Jackson'.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/11/tv-news-mistakes-samuel-l-jackson-for-laurence-fishburne

[Priest]

One take on the male/female imbalance in engineering schools was a line which was attributed to a female Georgia Tech student:

"The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

[wj]

Novakant,
Yes, I do actually. Mr Xi is President of China (and Secretary General of the Communist Party; plus head of the committee/commission in charge of the military), and he calls the shots. Indeed, he has been purging (there really isn't any other way to describe it) everybody who might be an independent power center. Part of that is a matter of cleaning up corruption, but that is at least as much excuse as reason. (I do not, however, remember Mr Xi's personal name.)

As for Brazil, the President is Dilma Rousseff(sp?). Until a year ago (a year into her second term) she was quite popular. But then she got caught up in a massive scandal at Pertrobras, the Brazilian national oil company. She's now more unpopular than any Brazilian President in decades.

Mr Modi is the Prime Minister of India. His party is based on Hindu nationalism, and was responsible for some serious (and fatal) civil unrest over a Muslim mosque some years ago. But he did an effective job as leader of one of the more modernized Indian states, and rode that to his current position.

Don't remember the name of the President of Indonesia (but do remember it is distinctive enough that given the name I would know who he was). He beat the son-in-law of ex-President Suharto for the job. His is notable, among other things, for being the first President not to have come out of the military or economic/political elite families. Very much a rags to power story.

I admit, however, that I would get stuck if you asked after Japan, Korea (someone named Park, no doubt) or Pakistan. And in Europe, I know Cameron (UK), Merkel (Germany), and Hollande (France), but I'd get stuck after that.

But then, I tend to read the Economist cover-to-cover. So I see a lot more news form outside the US than most.

[sapient]

I'm not sure what value the linked article has. The author makes a list of truisms, which are generalizations and sort of right, although subject to some analytical dispute. Most of the people commenting here are not "American exceptionalists", so a list explaining how "We" are too big for our britches is not very enlightening to most of us.

I'd like to say a word in favor of "American exceptionalism", not because I think Americans are better than other people, or have uniformly better institutions, etc.

All human beings, and all societies, are "exceptional" in that they are a unique composite of history, experience, identity, etc. Having a realistic but optimistic view of one's potential allows an aspirational attitude about what one might be able to accomplish. Having a mythology to inspire moving forward is helpful to most people. Constantly reminding oneself that one is worthless, has a horrible criminal record, is plagued by personality disorders and is ugly makes it difficult to be effective at anything for better or for worse. Obviously, an exaggerated view of one's self-worth can be similarly destructive, but most societies have some pride in their culture or origins.

The United States is wealthy and powerful, populated by a very diverse population (some who probably need the 10-point lecture by the author of the post, some who don't). We have a system of government that allows us, as citizens, a voice in what our government does. It's not a perfect system, and the representative nature of our government is distorted by a lot of things, including outsized power of the wealthy. But an involved citizenry can overwhelm even the wealth at the voting booth. Obama's election is evidence of that.

But the author of the piece is going to look at cat pictures. Couldn't we hope for a better recommendation for individual action after that lecture?

[Slartibartfast]

More to the point, lj: there are likely more people in China that are ignorant, to a large degree, about the US than there are people in the US.

[Nigel]

This rather sweet Caltech dating guide allows one to infer a great deal about the nature of Caltech students:
https://counseling.caltech.edu/general/InfoandResources/dating101_2

"... cat pictures. Couldn't we hope for a better recommendation..."

No.

[Nigel]

The evidence for the timescale and extent of the devastation of the indigenous American populations is sketchy, and the topic actively debated, seemingly because it's quite laborious to collect.

That it occurred is not so much in dispute.
Here's an interesting new article describing a novel investigative methodology:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/01/20/1521744113

[bobbyp]

another take on dating in Shinto Abe's Japan.

[hairshirthedonist]

From bobbyp's link:

"Gradually but relentlessly, Japan is evolving into a type of society whose contours and workings have only been contemplated in science fiction," Eberstadt wrote last year.

Wild.

[russell]

I'd like to say a word in favor of "American exceptionalism"

I guess my thought about exceptionalism, generally, is that exceptional is as exceptional does.

It likely seems like I'm picking a fight here, I can assure you that I am not.

A better recommendation for individual action would probably be 'find out more about the rest of the world', and perhaps also 'travel if possible, preferably not as a tourist if possible'.

The tone of the piece was more on the smart-@ss tip, so he ended with snark.

[Hartmut]

Where 'exceptionalism' gets problematic, is where it's turned into an ideology or, worse, a religious dogma, usually combined with a superiority complex.
As a German I am all to well informed about our own bout of that sickness that took 2 lost World Wars to get rid of. Looking at the US, as I have stated around here several times already, I get a strong odour of Imperial Germany about 1910.
[Sorry, have to interrupt for a moment. Going to proceed later.]

[hairshirthedonist]

I think that the implication that the Americans who comment on this blog, or left-leaning Americans generally, are somehow self-loathing is something that stems from a lack of consideration of the broader context of the sort of criticisms of US foreign policy and American history you might hear or read. The way I see it, it's sounds hyper-critical only because it is in reaction to the sort of blindness and hypocrisy that commonly allows many ordinary Americans and national leaders alike to condemn other countries for doing the very same sorts of things the United States does and has done fairly frequently.

If more people were willing to look at things without a pro-American moral bias (more general pro-American bias in the form of favoring American interests to an appropriate degree isn't the problem), we probably wouldn't be saying a lot of the pointedly critical things we do about our country's actions. (Then again, if more Americans were more critical of the moral failings of American foreign policy, many of those failings might not be happening in the first place.)

Yes, I know, there are tough decisions to be made, often with no good options, but that doesn't mean we don't screw up royally sometimes or that large swaths of the American public aren't oblivious to it when we do.

[Marty]

Looking at the US, as I have stated around here several times already, I get a strong odour of Imperial Germany about 1910.

Without waiting for your conclusion, I think the comparison is fraught in two ways. First, the feedback loop from the people and the rest of the world is much different today than in 1910. The leaders of our country can only whip us into a patriotic frenzy for so long and only so often. Then recognition accompanies reality.

Second, I think we, the American people, have no. repeat, no, imperial desires. The most widely shared desire for Americans is to feel that the way of life we invest in is secure. That is used by the government to justify many unacceptable adventures in foreign lands, but(see above) that only works for so long.

As for a pro-American moral bias, I think that moral is not quite the right term. I think that the key is America feels our actions are driven by a purer intent. The actions that we decide are necessary are driven by a higher calling. This may be problematic, but it is different in kind than the intent of countries' attacking each other or their own citizens with the intent of gaining or maintaining power and control.

[hairshirthedonist]

Second, I think we, the American people, have no. repeat, no, imperial desires.

Speak for yourself, Marty. The only thing in question regarding my imperial desires is whether we should invade Canada or Mexico first.

[wj]

I'd like to suggest that America is exceptional (not, note, unique) in a couple of ways.

First, we are blessed with a big country, and one with diverse resources. That means we have room to spread out, and can supply most of our basic requirements domestically. Which is to say, we have the exceptional possibility of isolationism -- or of just reducing our interaction with the rest of the world far more than most others can.

Second, we do an exceptionally good job of integrating immigrants. Not that we don't have severe problems from time to time; and a recurring set of people who oppose anybody new. But overall, if you can get here from somewhere (anywhere) else, and are willing to try to fit in on the big things, you can get accepted as just another American. You can retain a lot of bits of your previous culture, so long as you are willing to have them be only part of who you are and what you do. And these days, you can probably find people from your native culture who are here already, and can help you thru the occasional culture shock.

That openness to new people and different is probably our greatest strength. It means that change is something we see all the time; we're used to it. (Some of us hate it. But even those who are ultra-conservative in such matters are more inured to change around them than is the norm in a lot of other places.)

It also means that we can co-opt** exceptional people from all over the world. Want to do something new? Want to change the world? If you can't do that at home, you can come here and have a go at it. (See the founders of Google, SpaceX, etc., etc. -- and that's just technical stuff from the past couple of decades. We don't even have to get into folks like Einstein, Fermi, Tesla, etc.)

** and I used the term advisedly.

[bobbyp]

Second, I think we, the American people, have no. repeat, no, imperial desires.

Insofar as we define our 'national interests to take account of the rest of the planet, we definitely do tend to promote and enforce the adoption of our economic system and its associated policies as they are seen as essential to our interests. Some may rebut by claiming, "but, but, ours is the best possible system!" And from this, the never ending moral cant (cf Marty above: "I think that the key is America feels our actions are driven by a purer intent. The actions that we decide are necessary are driven by a higher calling", for an unusually pure expression of this sentiment).

This is merely a rationalization for our soft, and too often not so soft, imperialism.

[wj]

The only thing in question regarding my imperial desires is whether we should invade Canada or Mexico first.

Invade Canada? But Why???

A) are you sure they aren't already part of the US? (If you are a Canadian, you know. But most Americans are pretty vague on the subject.)
B) Other than maybe tar sands, what does Canada have that we can persuade ourselves we need? (The folks who would believe we need their health care system are completely a different group from those would believe we need to go conquer someone.)

[Marty]

hsh, Canada is way too much land to take and hold for a very small payback, and there is simply no reason to invade Mexico, they are all moving to Arizona anyway.

[russell]

just want to say that I'm in agreement with wj's 11:59.

"c'mon in, there's a place for you here" is basically the America that I personally grew up with, know, and love.

we all have our own histories and experiences.

the only thing I'd add to the list of exceptionalisms is blues and R&B.

other places have kind of figured jazz and rock out, or at least kind of made up their own versions. i'd go so far as to say that the future of those styles is really not in American hands anymore.

true blues feeling is less common, and (thus far, anyway) we mostly own it.

/musical digression

[Hartmut]

The pre-WW1 German mindset was not necessarily territorially expansionist and the worst traits of German exceptionalism (am deutschen Wesen mag die Welt genesen = The German way, the cure for the world) originated not from state authorities but from the bourgoisie (Großbürgertum), not the ruling old nobility. Wilhelm II was less an instigator of that but a reflector.
The rabid bourgois of then has/d more than a few similarities with modern GOPism, in particular xenophobia, hatred of (political and social, less economic) liberalism, paranoid fear of religious minorities and often (but not necessarily) views of white racial superiority.
The main difference I see is that the leaders did not (before WW1) try to mobilize the great unwashed masses. The movement stayed primarily urban and aimed at the middle and upper class. To spread the poison downward fell to the Nazis (meeting more than a bit of disapproval from the traditional elitist well poisoners).
What the Mexican/Latino is for the modern US nativist, was then the Pole, in particular in the Ruhr area 'taking away the bread from the German worker' (no matter how long they had been German subjects, often centuries).

[Hartmut]

The reason to invade Canada is to destroy the things that could cause envy in the US (the healthcare system in particular). It's a counter model to the US and since it refuses to collapse despite constantly violating US economic dogma, it must be neutralized (or forced at gunpoint to increase the prescription drug prices fivefold in order to meet US levels.
Not to forget that liberal traitors often claim to be Canadians when abroad because they are ashamed of being US citizens and fear the universal hatred aimed at proper USians. To get rid of that would be reason enough.
Since most Canadians live just a few miles from the US border, it will not be necessary to annex the whole country. A few military outposts to keep guard against the Russians should suffice for the rest.

[russell]

unfortunately, our track record as regards invading Canada is not so good.

:(

[wj]

the only thing I'd add to the list of exceptionalisms is blues and R&B.

Does anyone outside the US do country & western?

[Snarki, child of Loki]

INVADE Canada? Surely you jest!

It would be a friendly Anschluss, to bring Maximum Leader Cruz's birthplace into the Homeland.

[russell]

Does anyone outside the US do country & western?

That's a good point.

I would include more traditional forms of country music as a distinctly American thing. There are links back to traditional musics of the UK, Scotland, and Ireland, but along the way they turned into something different, and uniquely American.

And, worth valuing. Bluegrass, in particular, is IMO a truly great virtuoso instrumental style. The harmony singing in all of the traditional stuff is extremely distinctive.

All IMO.

I don't really see current-day 'country' music as a part of that, to any great degree. It just seems like generic pop music, it could come from almost anywhere.

I'm not putting it down, I'm just saying it isn't particularly distinctive.

A lot of really good players in Nashville, though.

[russell]

Does anyone outside the US do country & western?

That's a good point.

I would include more traditional forms of country music as a distinctly American thing. There are links back to traditional musics of the UK, Scotland, and Ireland, but along the way they turned into something different, and uniquely American.

And, worth valuing. Bluegrass, in particular, is IMO a truly great virtuoso instrumental style. The harmony singing in all of the traditional stuff is extremely distinctive.

All IMO.

I don't really see current-day 'country' music as a part of that, to any great degree. It just seems like generic pop music, it could come from almost anywhere.

I'm not putting it down, I'm just saying it isn't particularly distinctive.

A lot of really good players in Nashville, though.

[Hartmut]

unfortunately, our track record as regards invading Canada is not so good.

Another reason to finally finish the job and remove that stain from the national honor.

[Slartibartfast]

Hey, Canada invaded us first!

Well, we have invaded what is now Canada first, but it wasn't a country back then.

[Marty]

Another reason to finally finish the job and remove that stain from the national honor.

We don't mind an unsuccessful military adventure now and then and then and then and then ,,,,

[hairshirthedonist]

Here's the #1 reason to invade Canada, at least for the purposes of annexing Quebec:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unibroue

[hairshirthedonist]

It just seems like generic pop music, it could come from almost anywhere.

The big arena-filling country acts have filled the musical (or cultural) space that hair-metal bands used to occupy. Then Bon Jovi put out a country album.

It's more or less the same kind of crowd doing the same kind of stuff, except with more cowboy hats and boots and fewer Eddie Van Halen wannabes playing guitar.

[Marty]

I'm not sure Hank done it this way

[Countme-In]

"there is simply no reason to invade Mexico, they are all moving to Arizona anyway."

Exceptionally inaccurate and outdated:

https://bakerinstitute.org/files/8338/

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/19/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/

Better to invade Arizona and Texas and educate those folks about the American way. ;)

The United States is exceptional in many ways.

It's the constant harping on our motivational purity and our defensiveness when that purity is questioned that makes me think Americans in general are a little insecure about our claims to said purity.

Some countries do some things better than we do -- the catalog had been recited -- what's the problem with admitting that?

I'm reading "Black Earth -- Holocaust As History And Warning" by Timothy Snyder, a companion volume to his indispensable "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" and here was the hierarchy (very short version) of purity among four of the main players in World War II vis a vis the Jews:

Nazi Germany: Total Murder

Poland: Rampant Anti-semitism, which rapidly turned into wholesale murder of the Jews once the Polish State was destroyed by the Germans, with help from the Soviet Union.

England: The requests by Polish diplomat Jan Karski to Downing Street, which was consistent with Polish Government policy since before the war regarding the Jews, that the latter be permitted to emigrate to Palestine to escape murder --- turned down.

United States: Karski also pleaded with our government to permit an increase in Jewish immigration, even as the Holocaust went full bore. No, was the answer. In 1942-43, July to June, only 4705 Jews were admitted into the States, less than the previous period, and fewer than the number of Warsaw Jews murdered on any given day at Treblinka in the summer of 1942.

Now we weren't then and are not now Nazis, duh.

But, we had some similar ideas about the purity of America vis a vis Jewish blood.

Probably because Arizona, et al didn't like THEM either.

Why are Americans so politically correct about their mythology that we can't admit we're not purely pure in our purity?

Oh, we're good, but we can be f*ckers just like anyone else, when it suits us.

And that so many run to the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to maintain the myth of purity is a politically correct farce.

Explain this to Donald Trump: "Hey, the Jews love me. You want a deal, bring a Jew wit you. Hanh?"

Ted Cruz: "We must convince the Jews to move to Israel just in time for the slaughter prophesied by the Christian Bible, but also so they can escape the Nazi policies of Barack Obama, such as providing them with healthcare insurance if they don't have it."

These are the two leading in the polls for the effing Presidency of the country. Not in 1942 Poland, but right here and now.

[Countme-In]

Long live the British Invasion!

They discovered Motown, Chet Atkins, and Mississippi Delta Blues for the American masses to finally recognize as ours.

[Marty]

"Better to invade Arizona and Texas and educate those folks about the American way. ;)"

The curious part of the links Count produced is that in the second one, fun facts, there is never a reference to ILLEGAL immigration. According to the fun facts there are 11.3 immigrants that claim Mexican origins. Along with all the other immigrants it talks about. See, I am not particularly upset by how many Mexicans, or Latinos, there are in the US. Less than 2% of the IMMIGRANT population in Massachusetts is Latino, much less the population, so it really doesn't effect me on a day to day basis. But the blessing of 11.3 million illegal entrants into the US by simply deciding to ignore the fact that they are illegal does irritate the crap out of me.

And here is why, people have decided that in general it is ok to just pick and choose what laws they think are ok. More and more the executive branch just reinforces this. For all those folks worried about the power of money and class, the phenomenon of being able to just pick your law exacerbates their power exponentially. So, when the person you don't like gets in office and picks which laws she/he doesn't want to enforce or does worse, the groundwork is laid here. Sure, some of it has always happened, this is not only different in kind, it is visible and controversial. It changes perceptions of how government should work, and there is likely an unhappy outcome.

[russell]

Less than 2% of the IMMIGRANT population in Massachusetts is Latino, much less the population, so it really doesn't effect me on a day to day basis.

Wrong.

Depending on whether you include Brazilians in "Latino", it's somewhere between 20 and 40%.

Immigrants are a little more than 14% of the population of MA, so even as a measure of total population, it's more than 2%.

If you live in Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence, Lowell, Cambridge, Lynn, Boston, Quincy, Salem, etc. etc. etc., it's definitely part of your day to day life.

For good or ill, depending on your point of view.

[russell]

But the blessing of 11.3 million illegal entrants into the US by simply deciding to ignore the fact that they are illegal does irritate the crap out of me.

Also, not for nothing, but the sheer logistics of telling 11.3 million people that they have to pick up sticks and go back home, wherever that is, makes the idea of 'simply enforcing the law' kind of fanciful.

Especially in the US southwest, where Hispanic folks pre-date Anglo settlers by centuries, and where Spanish-speaking and culturally Hispanic US citizens have lived as long as those areas have been in the US.

Longer than, for example, Bundy et al.

Illegal immigration is certainly an issue that needs addressing. "Just enforce the law, dammit" is not one of the possible solutions.

[Marty]

Sorry russell, I really meant to type Mexican. The number was from here

"By contrast, Mexican-born individuals accounted for 2 percent or less of the immigrant population in Rhode Island (1.8 percent), Maine and Hawaii (1.6 percent each), and Massachusetts (1.2 percent)."

[russell]

There aren't many Mexicans in MA.

There are lots of Brazilians, Puerto Ricans, and folks from the DR.

I've lived in or just around Salem MA for a little over 30 years now. Salem's about 15% Latino, about 2/3's of that from the DR.

[Marty]

"Illegal immigration is certainly an issue that needs addressing. "Just enforce the law, dammit" is not one of the possible solutions."

Just pretending they are legal isn't either

[Marty]

"Illegal immigration is certainly an issue that needs addressing. "Just enforce the law, dammit" is not one of the possible solutions."

Although law enforcement made 12,408,899 arrests in 2011, not counting motor vehicle violations. So 11.3 million isn't out of the question.

[Countme-In]

I believe link #3 of fun facts covered unauthorized immigrants, of which @49% are Mexican.

Has leveled off since 2008, coincident with several things, including the down economy.

Among the bipartisan laws available to pick and choose from, and which conservatives, including Marco Rubio (a person could make the case that Cuban immigration has made this country a harsher place to live for many, considering assassinations, salt water pooling in southern Florida, etc) co-wrote and were willing to sponsor until it was decided, by the same conservatives, to block all legislation and government appointments because it might redound to the whiteness of Barack Obama, was an immigration bill.

It was pretty good legislation because it has something in it for everyone to hate, but that's not the kind of hate conservatives had in mind for convenient and successive election cycles.

No, for them, unless everyone is hating, some governance might be accomplished and we can't have that.

If it had passed, we might be well on our way to reducing the illegal number significantly, but it makes for a hot button on the small brains of xenophobes and populist demagogues who want to rebuild the Berlin Wall and get the trains running on time again.

Then there are those talk radio show ratings to fluff with the mouths and money of the Bundys and Ericksons a fungus among us.

[hairshirthedonist]

Just pretending they are legal isn't either

I don't think this is one of the major proposals on the table. Other than politically, simply because a lot of people wouldn't like, it's very, very possible. It would be the easiest thing to do, physically.

[wj]

Of course, a) you wouldn't want to live here if the only arrests law enforcement made were for immigration violations. And b) the distribution of those arrests is seriously different from the distribution of illegal immigrants, so you'd have to do a lot of moving people around. Not to mention c) retraining all those law enforcement personnel to deal with the national law they would be enforcing (rather than state and local laws, which constitute the bulk of their current work).

Alternatively, of course, we could just massively increase the size of the Federal government in order to staff the removal. Along with the taxes to pay for it.

[Marty]

" It would be the easiest thing to do, physically"

Along with the other 12 million criminals. Save a ton of money and time.

It would also stop all the gun control discussion.

[wj]

But Marty, those other 12 million criminals are mostly an active threat to those around them. Murderers, thieves, rapists, child molesters, etc., etc., on down to drunk drivers and red light runners -- all an active threat.

On the other hand, some guy who broke one law (illegally crossing the border). And has since stayed under the radar by carefully obeying the law. Far less of a problem in any real sense.

[hairshirthedonist]

Along with the other 12 million criminals. Save a ton of money and time.

Sure, but russell's point was one of, if not exactly whether or not deporting 11.3 M people is possible, whether or not it would be feasible. Like wj wrote, we could reallocate all law enforcement to rounding up illegals (leaving all the other criminals to do as they please, a la your comment) or create a force equal in size to the nation's law-enforcement forces so we can do both.

In actuality, many arrests are on the spot, when someone gets caught doing something that's fairly obviously illegal. Rounding up illegal immigrants, who don't look any different from legal immigrants, would be much harder.

It's really a silly point to be addressing at all, comparing arrests nationwide to the number of illegal immigrants. But that's what we're left with, I guess.

[Countme-In]

"Alternatively, of course, we could just massively increase the size of the Federal government in order to staff the removal. Along with the taxes to pay for it."

Donald Trump is pretending that Mexico will pay for all of that, except that the money will be siphoned off to fix the foundation cracks in his Atlantic City casinos, where wages go to pretend they have been doubled.

He must be pretending to smoke that pretend legal dope in Colorado.

He's also pretending there won't be an armed uprising among 11.3 illegals to resist concentration and deportation, who will join with 15 million Americans thrown off of Obamacare and Medicaid to pretend that the death penalty for tyrants via liberal populist militias is somehow legal.

So, for example, if high and deadly arsenic and/or lead levels in the water supply are legal for the first 200 some years of American history and then illegal in recent decades, how come conservatives pretend that such pollution isn't deadly both before and after the sacred laws passed.

I guess the same money wanted them to pretend before AND after.