American Politics Discussion Thread

[darrelljs]

Most of history white Europe had the shithole countries.

Only if you use a very narrow definition of "white Europe".



Darrell

[Mjmd]

Well any amount of brown is usually too much for the MEGA crowd.

Why is China not a more major share almost throughout? For most of history there was a large correlation between power and population. That isn't even going into the relative wealth and technology differences. Like was even Charlemagne at his height even close? But yet right where he is is equal to (/looks greater than) the most China ever has and aside from him I wouldn't rate any of the Franks particularly powerful. They also seem to be lumping all of Alexanders generals nations together although I can't read most of the smaller print. Among other interesting things.

[darrelljs]

It was created for an atlas nearly 100 years ago, and the x-axis remains a mystery...but it has always fascinated me .

Darrell

[Mjmd]

It was created for an atlas nearly 100 years ago, 

Darrell

This explains a lot.

[greenline]

Most of history white Europe had the shithole countries. Central and south I would boil it down to the STRUGGLE to get to / maintain a democracy (which comes down to historical background). This has vastly affected their institutions which are a big contributing factor. The whole area is a walking historical example of the damage autocracies can cause (and power struggles to be at the top of them) and the struggle to get to and maintain democracies without devolving back to autocracies. My understanding of caudillo was just another name / type of strongman. Doesn't really matter if its left or right leaning, autocracies are mostly miss with an occasional hit.

Latin America has been practicing democracy for close to the length America has. The periods where the countries have functioning republicanism don't suggest that democracy would free them from squalor, corruption, and dysfunction. Democracies love mass immigration and mass urbanization, which are very quick recipes for squalor, corruption, and dysfunction. Countries like Brazil and Mexico saw their shantytowns grow quite a bit under democratic governments. 

If you look at what all the South American countries have in common, it's more than just the unstable democracies. You have economies based on hacienda labor, an elite that was cobbled from the dregs of the Spanish empire, and then a bunch of overeducated leftist revolutionaries. And the cherry on top, mass immigration. If you had a time machine and could magically bring back the old Aztec nobility, they would do a far better job of governing than anyone else has in the region for the past two centuries. Alas...

[Mjmd]

No where close to the same length of time. The major ones I'm aware of have all had long periods of autocracies or near to it. Multiple civil wars and unrest periods. And again getting a somewhat functional democracy isn't instant corruption ends. Its a long process and the strength of the democracy matters. And it can easily backslide. Its TOUGH. Again, the whole region is just a historical lesson with how tough it can be, but also the lesson of how destructive the pursuit of power can be.

But I mean yes the historical legacy of the resource extraction focus of the Spanish empire is a LONG shadow. There have been many that have noted the British mostly ignoring the US colonies and letting us build institutions of self rule for so long was a contributing factor to our success.

Where would the United States be without mass immigration? You do realize that throughout US history we have built our nation on the backs of immigrants. AND EVERY TIME we shit on those immigrating. Political parties increase hate towards them. Your ancestors were undoubtly prejudiced against and fear mongered against.

[greenline]

Democracy itself does not reduce corruption. Democracy and corruption can easily go hand in hand. When these corrupt Latin American countries stop being ruled by strongmen and have elections, the amount of corruption in the system hardly changes. The USA has had very corrupt urban centers for 200 years, with some of this trickling steadily into the federal government.

There are things that can reduce corruption: virtue ethics (religion), decentralization and deurbanization, and in the short term, purges. No one advocating for "democracy" is typically interested in these other factors except for the purges. So in the long term you get corruption that sticks around.

Where would the United States be without mass immigration?

Well off. The native Americans after the revolution were enough to settle the frontier. It would have been slower without immigrants. Places like NYC and Chicago would have seen slower development of industrialization when needing to rely solely on migrants from the heartland. We would have different companies instead of NVidia and Google. On the other hand, there would be no mafia, no AIPAC, no obnoxious Irish socialist lobbies, no China lobby, maybe even no Civil War (refugees from the 1848 revolutions in Europe played a significant part in agitating the Republicans at the time). So many good things would come from turning the immigration valve off.

[darrelljs]

Democracy itself does not reduce corruption.

You never played civ 2, obviously.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

IT CAN. However, look at the global corruption indexes vs the global democracy indexes. There is a HIGH correlation between better stronger democracies and less corruption. Now obviously there are plenty examples including recently of democracies choosing very corrupt leadership. It is still possible. It takes work.

"Native Americans" / facepalm. Lets ignore that for some odd reason.... I know what you mean. Ya this is a delusional take that ignores actual history; let alone population growth. How many great Americans started as immigrants or were the children of immigrants. How many discoveries and companies created by those people. You have been fear mongered towards the negatives, but there are tons of positives. I wouldn't be here and I doubt you would be. The civil war was pretty much a given from our founding. It was mainly an issue of when not if. However, without immigrants the outcome could have been a split nation instead, which while you may think that is fine for whatever odd reason, its undoubtedly weaker. The population and industrial advantages of the north that led to its victory were a direct consequence of immigration. After the revolution the north received more immigrants than the south. Which side was stronger?

[greenline]

Not really the correlation you want to suggest if you're arguing in favor of immigration, hmm.

What these charts suggest is that there are a certain set of ANSAC/EU social democracies that have little corruption and lots of democracy. That would be good for them, except that they all have declining populations, are taking in lots of unproductive and violent immigrants, and are struggling with the economy. So I doubt this chart will look quite the same in 20 or 40 years.

"Native Americans" / facepalm. Lets ignore that for some odd reason.... I know what you mean. Ya this is a delusional take that ignores actual history; let alone population growth. How many great Americans started as immigrants or were the children of immigrants. How many discoveries and companies created by those people.

Not that many, certainly nowhere close to a number like 50%. Immigrants do create new companies now, just because they expect to get away with avoiding regulations, but most of those businesses still fail (because of regulations). Anyway, America would have done just fine without immigrants.