Happening to have passports for and lived in all 3 nations, here's my two cents:
1) I love the US for its natural beauty, Bill of Rights, and spirit of entrepreneurship -- the future still happens here.
2) Oz is a paradise with a still easily manageable debt-to-GDP ratio thanks to smart immigration until very recently, political apathy is a shield against what we used to call "wowsers" now transformed into the "woke," and there is still human decency with good egalitarianism -- I will be living in Oz when I'm 80+ years old.
3) As for the UK, I look forward to visiting soon to see what is real versus propaganda. When I lived there 2004-8 it was fine if you stayed out of the few ghettos, although the English in greater London seemed miserable with long commutes to cover the mortgage after high taxes. The UK is the previous world empire that has stumbled along since the 1970s so the USA needs to pay close attention to avoid repeating the UK's errors. My bet is that Tony Blair set the country up to fail a lot faster with his transfer of power to quangos and the Conservatives were culpable in their ignoring the wishes of the voters.
ps. Louise Perry had relatives already in Australia. There's an old tradition for Aussies to do a gap year in the UK or stay longer to work in the arts, etc. The Poms have been emigrating to Australia for decades now. The quality of life can't be beat if you don't mind long-haul flights to get anywhere else. But Oz needs America's military shield...
She is opposing mass influx, and condemning a particular migrant culture. That is very different from either taking an extreme zero migrant line or from a hysterical spaz-out about a relatively minor detail of immigration law.
Not sure Louise Perry is persuasive on Australia being a step up from the UK. She will still be a subject of the king. She will still be subject a random and arbitrary common law and will be able to be sued and dragged into court and forced to pay lawyer fees on the flimsiest of pretexts. And she will not gain any substantive rights or freedoms.
Australia does not have an explicit constitutional or statutory right to freedom of speech. Unlike the United States, which enshrines this right in its Bill of Rights, the Australian Constitution makes no specific reference to freedom of expression, and there is no federal Bill of Rights that individuals can enforce in court to protect general speech. Not that that can’t be changed in the United States with the appointment of a new justice or two: living constitutionalism offers the same random arbitrariness as the common law. She would have to move to a civil law jurisdiction to have any well defined and enforceable rights.
The High Court of Australia does recognize an implied freedom of political communication. This is not a personal right but a limitation on legislative power, meaning laws that unduly burden political discourse essential to a representative democracy may be invalid. This freedom is narrow, applying only to political matters, and does not protect other forms of expression such as artistic, commercial, or personal speech. Consequently, free speech in Australia is heavily regulated by various laws. This might have been what we would have wound up with if the founders who argued against a bill or rights on the grounds that the common law provided sufficient protection of rights and liberty had won the argument.
But this all would not be anything new to a subject of the crown from the UK. The notion of a tradition of liberty in the UK is vastly oversold. A British commoner in the 19th century did not have a general constitutional right to freedom of speech; instead, they operated under a system of graduated free speech where expressive freedoms were limited by class and heavily restricted by common law crimes such as seditious libel and blasphemy.
While the Bill of Rights 1689 guaranteed freedom of speech for Parliament, this privilege extended only to Members of Parliament and not to the general public. For commoners, the law traditionally permitted prior restraint but allowed for post-publication punishment for any speech deemed to criticize the government, religion, or officials, meaning there was no protection from arrest or prosecution for "bad sentiments" or seditious words.
For all the hatred of democracy one hears in libertarian and conservative circles, one is hard pressed to find a monarchy that offers a preferable alternative. Nor does turning to selling the notion of liberalism and republicanism as a non-democratic republic as some sort of aristocracy rather than a substantively democratic representative government. If anyone has found a few that is less greedy and self-serving than the many, I’d like to know about it.
China, Cuba, and North Korea are good examples of non-democratic republics because they neither conduct democratic elections nor protect minority rights. Other prominent examples include Iran, Algeria, Angola, Burma (Myanmar), Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe. But at least they don’t have to worry about the voters demanding too many handouts.
These countries, although clearly much, much worse than Australia, do share with Australia the feature of having no formal constitutional recognition of local autonomy and competencies. Local government in Australia operates with limited autonomy as the third tier of government, existing solely as a statutory creation of state and territory laws rather than having constitutional recognition. The Australian Constitution does not mention local government, and previous referendums in 1974 and 1988 to grant it constitutional status were unsuccessful.
Consequently, local councils are subordinate to state parliaments, which retain plenary legislative power to define, restrict, amalgamate, or dissolve them at will.
Contrast this to Finland, recently ranked the freest country in the world (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/these-are-worlds-most-least-free-countries ). Not surprisingly as a free country, it has a predictable system of written law. And, local self-government is constitutionally guaranteed, with municipalities holding broad autonomy over local affairs, including the right to levy taxes and manage budgets. The municipal council, elected by universal suffrage for four-year terms, serves as the supreme decision-making body, operating under a council-manager model where a professional municipal manager handles day-to-day administration.
Municipalities (309 as of 2023) manage core services such as basic education, primary healthcare, land-use planning, and local infrastructure. In some areas, for improved efficiency, munincipalities are combined into regions. For example, Wellbeing Services Counties (21 regions established in 2023) handle specialized health and social welfare services.
The municipal managers (known as Municipal CEOs or MCEOs) in Finland are hired and are subject to dismissal by the local municipal council. Under the Local Government Act of 2015, the council holds the authority to dismiss an MCEO if they no longer enjoy the confidence of the council.
Not surprisingly with democracy, comes freedom and a high quality of life. Finland consistently ranks among the top nations globally for quality of life, secured by its robust Nordic welfare state model which provides universal healthcare, free education, and strong social safety nets. According to recent data, the country holds the highest life satisfaction rating in the EU (7.8/10) and ranks 3rd worldwide in overall quality of life indices, driven by exceptional scores in safety, healthcare, and environmental quality.
Of course this high quality of life comes as a trade off. Per capita debt is EUR 43,653 (2024 data) or USD 27,111 (PPP adjusted). Finland’s total tax burden is significantly higher than that of the United States (not adjusted for higher deferred taxes due to debt issuance), with the Finnish government collecting approximately 42–44% of GDP in taxes compared to 24–26% in the US. And this is driven by Finland’s broader tax base, where high marginal rates apply to middle-income earners.
Although it is pointless to consider movement in this direction as a solution to the problems of the UK or the USA for the matter as we simply lack the necessary human capital to make it work, if one is going to emigrate, you might as well consider all your options.
My non-expert impression is that Australia is not necessarily much of an improvement over the UK. Australia seems to be much worse than the UK on the issue of transgender ideology, which presumably is relevant to Perry's main area of concern -- see the case of Sall Grover vs. 'Roxy Tickle.' Australia also seems to be bad on energy policy (lots of relevant posts on Wattsupwiththat). Australia is better at restricting illegal immigration, but legal immigration policy doesn't seem to select for 'the best' (eg. the Bondi beach massacre). And my recollection is that Australia's covid regime was one of the most draconian among supposedly liberal 'western' nations -- didn't they drag people off to quarantine camps for merely being exposed to covid?
"...the right gets literally hysterical over symbolic culture-war questions like birthright citizenship...."
That is a deeply unserious thought. Trump v. Barbara has invited anyone, anywhere in the world, with whatever values they hold, to claim American citizenship. Read the Thomas and Alito dissents, those two don't think it's merely symbolic. And I didn't note any hysteria in Thomas's 91 pages, nor in Alito's.
UK incarceration rate, ~160 per 100K, Australia incarceration rate 216 per 100K. Average UK sentence, 22 months, average Australian sentence, 63 months.
Tell me again the illiberal police state M. Perry. Oh that's right, "not for people that look like me or have my gender, just those males, mostly the darky ones".
No, I'm pointing out the objective fact that a nation that has more people in prison and a nation that gives long terms of imprisonment is by definition, more illiberal because there is nothing more illiberal than sitting in a jail cell. For example, here in Honolulu we just created thousand of new criminals seven months ago by making it a jailable crime for teens to pop a wheelie on their bicycles, I look forward to the entirely new jails and prisons we are going to build to enforce that, it's also a right people no longer have.
See to have a sentence, you nominally have to have a crime. And to have a crime you have to pass a law removing liberty. Likewise a liberal society would tend to be a more magnanimous one as they would tailor the sentences to the liberal goal of minimizing loss of liberty only to the extend necessary hence reduced sentences naturally as a secondary affect.
Crimes of speech are a subset of crimes but once in the system it doesn't care the specifics, you are a criminal. Any system that is tough on crime will incidentally also prosecute more speech crimes AND give those convicted of them, longer sentences because that's the way the system is geared.
I have no idea (numbers are hard to come by from Australia) the speech crime comparisons between the UK and Australia but what I'd bet them are similar on the books though enforcement, well statistically she would have a higher chance of imprisonment in Australia than the UK generally speaking hence yeah, "let me flee the pot into the frying pan"
Muslim immigrants are a special case. Their islamic core beliefs make them ideal citizens. As a religion of peace Islam actually requires Muslims to make the world a better place wherever they go.
I wonder how Arnold and others would come down on this one since it pits private property rights and religious freedom against NIMBYs.
***
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said the planned "EPIC City" in Texas "will never see the light of day."
In 2024, the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) announced plans to build a new Muslim community, dubbed EPIC City, on a 402-acre site spanning parts of Collin and Hunt counties. Abbott fiercely opposed the idea and directed state agencies to investigate and challenge it.
For most of history Islamic states were vastly safer than their Christian counterparts. In fact most Muslim nations even today are safer than their Christian counterparts. But sure, those damn heathens!!
And yes non tongue in cheek Islamic core beliefs do make them ideal citizens, you know that whole submission thing.
Oh the irony. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by safer but just the same, Islamic states suppress individual crime via means far more violent and repressive than what the defund-the-police crowd protests against.
You might want to look at Japan and the US if you are looking for nations among the most violent repressive governments when it comes to crime, not Islamic Albania. The police brutality rate of Christian NYC is vastly higher than the police brutality rate of Islamic Sarajevo. I mean sure you can say "but Saudi's execute openly adult males practicing western homosexuality", ok, in America we imprison people for decades for marrying two wives, which is more free?
I'm not sure what defund-the-police crowds have to do with anything here.
When I say "safer" here (above), I meant "less likely to be a victim of a violent crime against you personally by a stranger" which is what people on this blog seem to mean when they say "crime" from what I have gathered. And by that measure, you can compare pretty much any Islamic nation/city against their peer Western counterparts and Islamic nations will come out ahead. I mean if you look at murder rates per capita alone, the top twenty are all nominally Christian nations, Afghanistan doesn't even make the cut lol, doesn't even make the top 50.
I guess that’s why we need them and why conversely they never seem to need us. At least, not after our ancestors built those railroads and drilled the oil wells.
In fact, given that we need all
Immigrants generally and they don’t need us at all, assimilation almost seems like an evil, doesn’t it?
Take that fascinating, little explored subject, the Indian owned, once-American motel.
Why did we become unable to own motels?
Was it because the Indians could run them more cheaply?
Only, as we all know who take road trips, they aren’t cheaper anymore if they ever were.
Yeah, clearly, per Yglesias we needed them. What was perfectly normal American business to own, like a hardware store, became something Americans must never own again.
It would be interesting to hear Yglesias’s like to take on why this was true - like what was the underlying mechanism? Why is proprietorship of a motel so much worse than living on government handouts, say?
Possibly, we overbuilt motels before air travel? Not really an explanation, but maybe a contributing cause.
The obvious, to me, answer is that running a hotel does not require an occupational license, environmental permits, or any other government paperwork, other than a business license. If it's family run, they don't even have any employees.
And where true if so (“Texas cities and counties can require local hotel occupancy tax registration, local filings, certificate of occupancy, zoning confirmation, fire inspections, alarm/sprinkler review, and signage or building permits.”) that is something no American would ever want to take advantage of?
I mean, I get once the change was made why it became a closed system open only to tribe members, with their private access to credit …
I just I’m still missing why it needed to happen in the first place, what was missing that was supplied? Why what was once a perfectly good occupation - was thrown away by the incumbents, or more likely given away by the government in some mysterious fashion.
Failed assimilation isn't a Muslim thing. Albania is Muslim and outside the prayer calls replacing the church bells, you'd never know it. The nightclubs of Dubai , Amman, and Jakarta are great. .To be blunt (using the UK as an example), the problem is Pakistani culture and Pakis' not assimilating, not Islam. Just like Indian culture, not Sihkism. It's just become PC to blame religion (because we blame Christianity too) over cultures, religion effectively becoming a PC euphemism.
Americans, I.e. whitey obviously, are free to own all the motels and hardware stores they want, and do once you get out of certain areas of the US.
BTW don't forget the dirge of Vietnamese taking over nail saloons, blacks barber shops, Chinese the massage parlors, etc. What's a white man to do besides collect farm subsidies on the Mexicans stealing his neighbors jobs?
PS: Your Indian observation is actually kind of interesting, is that a thing? I've never actually seen an Indian owned anything in America TBH outside the occasionally restaurant or ethic grocery store. I know the series "American Gods" made your observation too. Would be interesting if anyone actually did look into that and the "why".
I had a friendly acquaintance who was Albanian Muslim. They fled during the war. Their home country was Kosovo. She was so my perfect mental image of a cosmopolitan, world-weary European woman down to the chain-smoking, that I finally did inquire of her about her religious practices. She said: we had none.
Once I had her little boy in the car with me, and as we passed by the park, he giggled, gestured to the park, and said something that meant nothing to my own little boy: “They (his parents) did it there!”
I should add that they assimilated beautifully. Or rather they made it possible for their children to do so. That whole community locally worked very hard. (I realize Albanians sometimes furnish gangster or villain characters to Hollywood now that the Cold War is over, but these must’ve been some different sort of Albanians.) They did not talk American politics, ever. I’m sure their minds were far away about that sort of thing. Which is as it should be.
Many of us have been to Hawaii. Someone who has never encountered an Indian motel owner … has never been to the Lower 48. And the Lower 48 is definitely the Classic Gang.
Well yeah, if you can be stoned to death for the adultery or homosexuality, then I imagine that the justice system would be far more effective than the western counterparts.
As opposed to its Western counterparts who instead castrate guys who wank to pictures of 18 year - 1 day olds and de facto sentence jaywalkers to get raped.
I did three days in jail for jaywalking, four times now. On one occasion someone tried to rape me. I've also seen jailhouse rapes in holding cells, cops consider it part the "time". Welcome to America. It's easily preventable but we consider it tacitly part the "community punishment".
The general populace, tourists, immigrants, etc which is what most people who seem to comment on here value, it's primarily a utilitarian blog hence right up Islams alley.
I mean sure Gaza stones openly homosexual men, the US castrates men who get caught public urinating behind a bush in some states or wanking to a picture of their 17 yo wife. Christian Nuns tend to be able to walk around the streets safely in Muslim Albania whereas they get openly assaulted on the streets of Israel. Belfast too in the recent past.
We can all cherry pick our pet outrages but on average, both crime and violence are lower in Islamic nations than Christian ones, at least ones that aren't engaged in a civil war.
I used to get coffee in Baghdad during the height of the war (2005) driving my Toyota haji truck around, never felt less safe than when I drive through the north side of Milwaukee, Chicago, or past any US cop car.
I have noticed (sorry, Substack!!) that people with surnames indicative of MENA or Pakistani origin, out of what I’ve noticed also is a predominantly foreign origin population generally, often figure in government prosecutions involving fraud.
I wonder if this too is fulfilling a need. For instance, of American doctors feel it is a lot of trouble to deal with Medicare and Medicaid in their practices, maybe we need the hope of fraud, of bilking the government - to attract people and make the system go.
In this light such things so not really crime, but “ the purpose of a system is what it does”.
Or could just be they are being selectively prosecuted because then you can "show you are fighting fraud" without actually bothering the community by arresting their family doctor or brother.
I mean I've honestly never been to a private practice in America that DIDN'T engage in insurance fraud (and I assume they do so with Medicare/Medicaid too), regardless of their ethnicity.
I mean you can spend the time looking up violence stats if you want. Want to bet without googling which is more violent, Islamic Muscat or Christian Milwaukee? Muslim Jakarta or Christian London? Muslim Sarajevo or Christian Paris? Muslim Albania or Christian Micronesia. Muslim Doha or Christian Houston?
When warning fellow left of center folks about the downsides of mass migration from illiberal religious cultures, I used to say "Wouldn't you be concerned if the US started taking in a bunch of white South Africans with positive memories of apartheid?"
Muslim immigrants are a special case. Their islamic core beliefs demand aggressive, militant non-assimilation. Islam actually requires jihad from all muslims, not just radicals, with the ultimate goal of conquest & takeover of whichever land they occupy.
I don't think so. I agree with the concerns AK pointed out. That doesn't mean all Muslims have those core beliefs mentioned by Sushi. Many emigrated because they were Muslim in name only. That's more true in the US than UK and less true today than the past but still true.
Long story short, Europe is poor (relative to the U.S.) because it chose to be poor.
***
For roughly two decades, Western Europe, home to the continent's largest economies, has stagnated. In 1995, its labor productivity—the value of goods and services produced per hour worked—was 95 percent of what it was in the United States, having risen from just 22 percent in 1945. By 2023, it was down to 80 percent. Ten years ago, 52 of the world's top 100 companies by market capitalization were American and 28 were European. Since then, the American total has grown to 58 while the European count has fallen to 18. The United States has produced five companies worth more than $2 trillion. At around $350 billion, Europe's largest company, the enterprise software provider SAP, is worth about as much as Home Depot.
Many Europeans assume their lower incomes are the price they pay for ensuring their poorer countrymen have better living standards. But the median American household has a disposable income that is 16 percent higher than the median German household, adjusted for purchasing power. Only the poorest 10 percent of Americans do worse than their French, German, or Italian counterparts in terms of disposable income, which factors in taxes and welfare.
What explains this gap between Europe and the U.S.? There are many factors, from rigid labor markets to energy restrictions to trade barriers to burdensome regulations on tech companies. The connecting thread is that Europe is poor because of specific policy choices. Europe is poor because it chose to be poor.
While I mostly trust comparisons of productivity, comparing the median or poorest 10% is fraught with difficulties due to differences such as but not limited to how healthcare is paid for.
Be that as it may, you made me think of an interesting difference. I'd bet the difference in median living standards between Scandinavia/Switzerland and some eastern/southern European countries is greater than between Massachusetts and Mississippi.
“It is discomforting to watch the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, individual rights, and free speech…” Yes it is, but let’s remind ourselves: our ancestors left Great Britain for good reason; we declared independence for good reason; Hayek warned us about Fabian socialism and the road to serfdom; Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 (not only about his experiences in Spain). When were things ever great in Great Britain?
Similarly, when were things ever great in America? It depends on who you ask.
In each place, some things get better, some get worse. Each place provides certain comparative advantages, but there are no permanences, guarantees, panaceas, or solutions. Everything changes. There is usually a time to move on. Every place has its expiration, so be ready to pick up and move on when it becomes too unsafe to stay. In the words of Robert Higgs, “Get out while you can” and crack open Crisis and Leviathan from time to time.
Scott, you write: "Yes it is, but let’s remind ourselves: our ancestors left Great Britain for good reason; we declared independence for good reason; Hayek warned us about Fabian socialism and the road to serfdom; Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 (not only about his experiences in Spain). When were things ever great in Great Britain?"
Our ancestors left Great Britain and declared independence for good reason. But that was almost 2 centuries before Hayek's warning. When was Great Britain great? For a few centuries, actually. The decline of freedom in Great Britain began early in the 20th century.
Fair enough — by 'great' you mean durably top of the ranking, and on that Britain qualifies, for those inside the circle. I'm resisting the word because rankings are individual: my ancestors ran the comparison and left. That's really my whole point — no permanences, only comparisons, and everyone should keep running theirs.
From Claude: Was Britain ever great on religious freedom? Short answer: no — for most of its history it was one of the last places you'd want to worship the "wrong" way, and it only got tolerable slowly, in grudging steps.
Start in the 1500s. When England broke from Rome under Henry VIII, it didn't become religiously free — it just swapped one official religion for another. There was now a state church, the Church of England, and everyone was legally required to show up on Sunday. Skip church and you paid fines. Stay Catholic and things got much worse: under Elizabeth I, being a Catholic priest in England was treason, and priests were hunted down and executed. But it wasn't only Catholics. Protestants who thought the official church hadn't reformed *enough* — Puritans, Quakers, Baptists — got jailed, whipped, and stripped of their property too. The pattern for 150 years was simple: whoever controlled the government punished everyone else. When the Puritans briefly won power in the Civil War of the 1640s, they turned around and suppressed the Anglicans. John Bunyan wrote *The Pilgrim's Progress*, one of the most famous books in English, from a jail cell — his crime was preaching without a government license.
The big turning point is the Toleration Act of 1689, and here's the thing your textbook might gloss over: it was incredibly stingy. It didn't create religious freedom; it just said certain Protestant dissenters could legally hold their own church services. Catholics? Still excluded. And even the "tolerated" groups were second-class citizens — laws called the Test and Corporation Acts said that if you weren't a member of the official church, you couldn't hold public office, become a military officer, or take a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. Think about that: you could worship freely, but the doors to power and education stayed locked. That system lasted until *1828* — for well over a century after "toleration."
The rest came in slow motion. Catholics got basic political rights in 1829. Jews couldn't sit in Parliament until 1858. Open atheists couldn't until the 1880s. Blasphemy — insulting Christianity — remained an actual crime, with real prosecutions, into the twentieth century, and wasn't formally abolished in England until 2008. Even today Britain has an established state church, its bishops get automatic seats in the House of Lords, and the monarch is legally barred from being Catholic.
So was it ever "great"? Here's the fair way to grade it. Compared to its neighbors — Spain with the Inquisition, France expelling its Protestants in 1685 — Britain after 1689 really was near the top of the class. You wouldn't be burned; your congregation could meet; you could build a business and a life. But compared to the idea America wrote into its Constitution — no established church at all, ever — Britain never caught up. What it offered wasn't freedom; it was *toleration*, which is different. Toleration means the people in charge have decided, for now, to put up with you. And here's the punchline: thousands of Puritans, Quakers, and Presbyterians in the 1600s and 1700s looked at that deal, decided it wasn't good enough, and got on ships. Every one of those ships was a person running the comparison for themselves — and Britain losing.
I been traveling routinely to the United Kingdom since the mid-1970s. A few years ago in Oxford my wife and I enjoyed a conversation with a young man — early 20s, articulate, well educated. I asked him what he and his peers thought about their future in the UK? His response: Everyone wanted to emigrate, as they saw no reason to believe that the economic and cultural situation in the UK would improve. He was correct. The situation hasn’t improved. The young man I spoke
with wanted to emigrate to the U.S., but his friends were thinking about Canada and Australia. When your young talent seeks to flee your country, it has serious problems.
When it comes to assimilation, it seems to me that the minimum bar is fluency in English. I don't think that is sufficient, but I don't think Yglesias would even support it, so I doubt the sincerity of his position.
I noticed a while ago that people on the center-left get Yglesias backwards - he's not a moderate trying to get leftists to moderate a bit, he's a leftist trying to give leftists a veneer of moderation to keep moderates on board with an increasingly extremist party.
I have no idea if you are right. I don't know Iglesias nearly well enough. But when I first read your comment it just seemed a funny thing to conflict over. I don't think it actually is but a quick read and thinking superficially it sure read that way.
I’m sure he would not. I found this explanation for the total abandonment of the idea - as clearly evidenced by printing ballots in Spanish - despite its seemingly being statutory, on an immigration lawyer’s website. (She’s Nigerian; most such lawyers seem to be foreign-born.):
“U.S. immigration law offers English requirement exceptions for those challenged by age, long-term residency, or health conditions. These exemptions allow citizenship without English proficiency, making it accessible to more individuals. This approach reflects America’s diversity and inclusiveness.”
As you can see, long-term residency is considered a challenge that is not able to be overcome. A certain paradox there for those like Yglesias , who presumably believe strongly in assimilation as the key to his desire to have one billion Americans, on the roads, competing for resources, living in favelas on former farm or rangeland.
Happening to have passports for and lived in all 3 nations, here's my two cents:
1) I love the US for its natural beauty, Bill of Rights, and spirit of entrepreneurship -- the future still happens here.
2) Oz is a paradise with a still easily manageable debt-to-GDP ratio thanks to smart immigration until very recently, political apathy is a shield against what we used to call "wowsers" now transformed into the "woke," and there is still human decency with good egalitarianism -- I will be living in Oz when I'm 80+ years old.
3) As for the UK, I look forward to visiting soon to see what is real versus propaganda. When I lived there 2004-8 it was fine if you stayed out of the few ghettos, although the English in greater London seemed miserable with long commutes to cover the mortgage after high taxes. The UK is the previous world empire that has stumbled along since the 1970s so the USA needs to pay close attention to avoid repeating the UK's errors. My bet is that Tony Blair set the country up to fail a lot faster with his transfer of power to quangos and the Conservatives were culpable in their ignoring the wishes of the voters.
ps. Louise Perry had relatives already in Australia. There's an old tradition for Aussies to do a gap year in the UK or stay longer to work in the arts, etc. The Poms have been emigrating to Australia for decades now. The quality of life can't be beat if you don't mind long-haul flights to get anywhere else. But Oz needs America's military shield...
I certainly agree with your final comment.
On UK immigration-ever read "The Wall" , by John Lanchester?
That may be the positive scenario for UK.I shudder to think about the negative.
Do they actually disagree on immigration?
She is opposing mass influx, and condemning a particular migrant culture. That is very different from either taking an extreme zero migrant line or from a hysterical spaz-out about a relatively minor detail of immigration law.
Not sure Louise Perry is persuasive on Australia being a step up from the UK. She will still be a subject of the king. She will still be subject a random and arbitrary common law and will be able to be sued and dragged into court and forced to pay lawyer fees on the flimsiest of pretexts. And she will not gain any substantive rights or freedoms.
Australia does not have an explicit constitutional or statutory right to freedom of speech. Unlike the United States, which enshrines this right in its Bill of Rights, the Australian Constitution makes no specific reference to freedom of expression, and there is no federal Bill of Rights that individuals can enforce in court to protect general speech. Not that that can’t be changed in the United States with the appointment of a new justice or two: living constitutionalism offers the same random arbitrariness as the common law. She would have to move to a civil law jurisdiction to have any well defined and enforceable rights.
The High Court of Australia does recognize an implied freedom of political communication. This is not a personal right but a limitation on legislative power, meaning laws that unduly burden political discourse essential to a representative democracy may be invalid. This freedom is narrow, applying only to political matters, and does not protect other forms of expression such as artistic, commercial, or personal speech. Consequently, free speech in Australia is heavily regulated by various laws. This might have been what we would have wound up with if the founders who argued against a bill or rights on the grounds that the common law provided sufficient protection of rights and liberty had won the argument.
But this all would not be anything new to a subject of the crown from the UK. The notion of a tradition of liberty in the UK is vastly oversold. A British commoner in the 19th century did not have a general constitutional right to freedom of speech; instead, they operated under a system of graduated free speech where expressive freedoms were limited by class and heavily restricted by common law crimes such as seditious libel and blasphemy.
While the Bill of Rights 1689 guaranteed freedom of speech for Parliament, this privilege extended only to Members of Parliament and not to the general public. For commoners, the law traditionally permitted prior restraint but allowed for post-publication punishment for any speech deemed to criticize the government, religion, or officials, meaning there was no protection from arrest or prosecution for "bad sentiments" or seditious words.
For all the hatred of democracy one hears in libertarian and conservative circles, one is hard pressed to find a monarchy that offers a preferable alternative. Nor does turning to selling the notion of liberalism and republicanism as a non-democratic republic as some sort of aristocracy rather than a substantively democratic representative government. If anyone has found a few that is less greedy and self-serving than the many, I’d like to know about it.
China, Cuba, and North Korea are good examples of non-democratic republics because they neither conduct democratic elections nor protect minority rights. Other prominent examples include Iran, Algeria, Angola, Burma (Myanmar), Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe. But at least they don’t have to worry about the voters demanding too many handouts.
These countries, although clearly much, much worse than Australia, do share with Australia the feature of having no formal constitutional recognition of local autonomy and competencies. Local government in Australia operates with limited autonomy as the third tier of government, existing solely as a statutory creation of state and territory laws rather than having constitutional recognition. The Australian Constitution does not mention local government, and previous referendums in 1974 and 1988 to grant it constitutional status were unsuccessful.
Consequently, local councils are subordinate to state parliaments, which retain plenary legislative power to define, restrict, amalgamate, or dissolve them at will.
Contrast this to Finland, recently ranked the freest country in the world (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/these-are-worlds-most-least-free-countries ). Not surprisingly as a free country, it has a predictable system of written law. And, local self-government is constitutionally guaranteed, with municipalities holding broad autonomy over local affairs, including the right to levy taxes and manage budgets. The municipal council, elected by universal suffrage for four-year terms, serves as the supreme decision-making body, operating under a council-manager model where a professional municipal manager handles day-to-day administration.
Municipalities (309 as of 2023) manage core services such as basic education, primary healthcare, land-use planning, and local infrastructure. In some areas, for improved efficiency, munincipalities are combined into regions. For example, Wellbeing Services Counties (21 regions established in 2023) handle specialized health and social welfare services.
The municipal managers (known as Municipal CEOs or MCEOs) in Finland are hired and are subject to dismissal by the local municipal council. Under the Local Government Act of 2015, the council holds the authority to dismiss an MCEO if they no longer enjoy the confidence of the council.
Not surprisingly with democracy, comes freedom and a high quality of life. Finland consistently ranks among the top nations globally for quality of life, secured by its robust Nordic welfare state model which provides universal healthcare, free education, and strong social safety nets. According to recent data, the country holds the highest life satisfaction rating in the EU (7.8/10) and ranks 3rd worldwide in overall quality of life indices, driven by exceptional scores in safety, healthcare, and environmental quality.
Of course this high quality of life comes as a trade off. Per capita debt is EUR 43,653 (2024 data) or USD 27,111 (PPP adjusted). Finland’s total tax burden is significantly higher than that of the United States (not adjusted for higher deferred taxes due to debt issuance), with the Finnish government collecting approximately 42–44% of GDP in taxes compared to 24–26% in the US. And this is driven by Finland’s broader tax base, where high marginal rates apply to middle-income earners.
Although it is pointless to consider movement in this direction as a solution to the problems of the UK or the USA for the matter as we simply lack the necessary human capital to make it work, if one is going to emigrate, you might as well consider all your options.
My non-expert impression is that Australia is not necessarily much of an improvement over the UK. Australia seems to be much worse than the UK on the issue of transgender ideology, which presumably is relevant to Perry's main area of concern -- see the case of Sall Grover vs. 'Roxy Tickle.' Australia also seems to be bad on energy policy (lots of relevant posts on Wattsupwiththat). Australia is better at restricting illegal immigration, but legal immigration policy doesn't seem to select for 'the best' (eg. the Bondi beach massacre). And my recollection is that Australia's covid regime was one of the most draconian among supposedly liberal 'western' nations -- didn't they drag people off to quarantine camps for merely being exposed to covid?
Unfortunately, our schools are teaching that America is an evil society that isn’t worth either assimilating into or defending.
Maybe some schools but certainly not others. Either way, I think that particular message is much stronger from other sources.
"...the right gets literally hysterical over symbolic culture-war questions like birthright citizenship...."
That is a deeply unserious thought. Trump v. Barbara has invited anyone, anywhere in the world, with whatever values they hold, to claim American citizenship. Read the Thomas and Alito dissents, those two don't think it's merely symbolic. And I didn't note any hysteria in Thomas's 91 pages, nor in Alito's.
UK incarceration rate, ~160 per 100K, Australia incarceration rate 216 per 100K. Average UK sentence, 22 months, average Australian sentence, 63 months.
Tell me again the illiberal police state M. Perry. Oh that's right, "not for people that look like me or have my gender, just those males, mostly the darky ones".
Like Swami, I need clarification.
Just asking, not arguing… but are you defining a tough stance on crime as illiberal? Or are these crimes of speech?
No, I'm pointing out the objective fact that a nation that has more people in prison and a nation that gives long terms of imprisonment is by definition, more illiberal because there is nothing more illiberal than sitting in a jail cell. For example, here in Honolulu we just created thousand of new criminals seven months ago by making it a jailable crime for teens to pop a wheelie on their bicycles, I look forward to the entirely new jails and prisons we are going to build to enforce that, it's also a right people no longer have.
See to have a sentence, you nominally have to have a crime. And to have a crime you have to pass a law removing liberty. Likewise a liberal society would tend to be a more magnanimous one as they would tailor the sentences to the liberal goal of minimizing loss of liberty only to the extend necessary hence reduced sentences naturally as a secondary affect.
Crimes of speech are a subset of crimes but once in the system it doesn't care the specifics, you are a criminal. Any system that is tough on crime will incidentally also prosecute more speech crimes AND give those convicted of them, longer sentences because that's the way the system is geared.
I have no idea (numbers are hard to come by from Australia) the speech crime comparisons between the UK and Australia but what I'd bet them are similar on the books though enforcement, well statistically she would have a higher chance of imprisonment in Australia than the UK generally speaking hence yeah, "let me flee the pot into the frying pan"
Thanks, that is the first time I have heard anyone use the term that way
Muslim immigrants are a special case. Their islamic core beliefs make them ideal citizens. As a religion of peace Islam actually requires Muslims to make the world a better place wherever they go.
I wonder how Arnold and others would come down on this one since it pits private property rights and religious freedom against NIMBYs.
***
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said the planned "EPIC City" in Texas "will never see the light of day."
In 2024, the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) announced plans to build a new Muslim community, dubbed EPIC City, on a 402-acre site spanning parts of Collin and Hunt counties. Abbott fiercely opposed the idea and directed state agencies to investigate and challenge it.
https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbott-epic-city-texas-reaction-11902579
As I understand it, they want to build a government-controlled city which is Muslim. How is that not an establishment of religion?
There are plenty of other religious communities that are structured in a similar and completely legal manner:
Ave Maria, Florida (Catholic)
Kiryas Joel and New Square, New York (Hasidic Jewish)
The LDS "Private Cities" & Suburban Hubs (Mormon)
New Harmony, Indiana (Christian)
Various Amish and Mennonite agricultural communities
As long as they don’t violate the fair housing act, then all is Gucci. Abbott and company have no legal basis to block the Muslin community.
No worries, the courts will save it.
For most of history Islamic states were vastly safer than their Christian counterparts. In fact most Muslim nations even today are safer than their Christian counterparts. But sure, those damn heathens!!
And yes non tongue in cheek Islamic core beliefs do make them ideal citizens, you know that whole submission thing.
Oh the irony. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by safer but just the same, Islamic states suppress individual crime via means far more violent and repressive than what the defund-the-police crowd protests against.
You might want to look at Japan and the US if you are looking for nations among the most violent repressive governments when it comes to crime, not Islamic Albania. The police brutality rate of Christian NYC is vastly higher than the police brutality rate of Islamic Sarajevo. I mean sure you can say "but Saudi's execute openly adult males practicing western homosexuality", ok, in America we imprison people for decades for marrying two wives, which is more free?
I'm not sure what defund-the-police crowds have to do with anything here.
When I say "safer" here (above), I meant "less likely to be a victim of a violent crime against you personally by a stranger" which is what people on this blog seem to mean when they say "crime" from what I have gathered. And by that measure, you can compare pretty much any Islamic nation/city against their peer Western counterparts and Islamic nations will come out ahead. I mean if you look at murder rates per capita alone, the top twenty are all nominally Christian nations, Afghanistan doesn't even make the cut lol, doesn't even make the top 50.
I guess that’s why we need them and why conversely they never seem to need us. At least, not after our ancestors built those railroads and drilled the oil wells.
In fact, given that we need all
Immigrants generally and they don’t need us at all, assimilation almost seems like an evil, doesn’t it?
Take that fascinating, little explored subject, the Indian owned, once-American motel.
Why did we become unable to own motels?
Was it because the Indians could run them more cheaply?
Only, as we all know who take road trips, they aren’t cheaper anymore if they ever were.
Yeah, clearly, per Yglesias we needed them. What was perfectly normal American business to own, like a hardware store, became something Americans must never own again.
It would be interesting to hear Yglesias’s like to take on why this was true - like what was the underlying mechanism? Why is proprietorship of a motel so much worse than living on government handouts, say?
Possibly, we overbuilt motels before air travel? Not really an explanation, but maybe a contributing cause.
I wonder what we’re overbuilding now.
The obvious, to me, answer is that running a hotel does not require an occupational license, environmental permits, or any other government paperwork, other than a business license. If it's family run, they don't even have any employees.
And where true if so (“Texas cities and counties can require local hotel occupancy tax registration, local filings, certificate of occupancy, zoning confirmation, fire inspections, alarm/sprinkler review, and signage or building permits.”) that is something no American would ever want to take advantage of?
I mean, I get once the change was made why it became a closed system open only to tribe members, with their private access to credit …
I just I’m still missing why it needed to happen in the first place, what was missing that was supplied? Why what was once a perfectly good occupation - was thrown away by the incumbents, or more likely given away by the government in some mysterious fashion.
I haven't listened to the whole thing, but it does address your question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cU4sxVqEFs
No, I meant the lack of paperwork and permits make it easier for immigrants who lack the necessary credentials for academia, tech startups, etc.
Failed assimilation isn't a Muslim thing. Albania is Muslim and outside the prayer calls replacing the church bells, you'd never know it. The nightclubs of Dubai , Amman, and Jakarta are great. .To be blunt (using the UK as an example), the problem is Pakistani culture and Pakis' not assimilating, not Islam. Just like Indian culture, not Sihkism. It's just become PC to blame religion (because we blame Christianity too) over cultures, religion effectively becoming a PC euphemism.
Americans, I.e. whitey obviously, are free to own all the motels and hardware stores they want, and do once you get out of certain areas of the US.
BTW don't forget the dirge of Vietnamese taking over nail saloons, blacks barber shops, Chinese the massage parlors, etc. What's a white man to do besides collect farm subsidies on the Mexicans stealing his neighbors jobs?
PS: Your Indian observation is actually kind of interesting, is that a thing? I've never actually seen an Indian owned anything in America TBH outside the occasionally restaurant or ethic grocery store. I know the series "American Gods" made your observation too. Would be interesting if anyone actually did look into that and the "why".
I had a friendly acquaintance who was Albanian Muslim. They fled during the war. Their home country was Kosovo. She was so my perfect mental image of a cosmopolitan, world-weary European woman down to the chain-smoking, that I finally did inquire of her about her religious practices. She said: we had none.
Once I had her little boy in the car with me, and as we passed by the park, he giggled, gestured to the park, and said something that meant nothing to my own little boy: “They (his parents) did it there!”
I should add that they assimilated beautifully. Or rather they made it possible for their children to do so. That whole community locally worked very hard. (I realize Albanians sometimes furnish gangster or villain characters to Hollywood now that the Cold War is over, but these must’ve been some different sort of Albanians.) They did not talk American politics, ever. I’m sure their minds were far away about that sort of thing. Which is as it should be.
"... is that a thing?"
Congrats, I can't remember if we're supposed to think you've been in America, or not.
I'm just not a Coastie. Plus last I checked, Hawaii is part of America, as much as Texas. Milwaukee too.
Many of us have been to Hawaii. Someone who has never encountered an Indian motel owner … has never been to the Lower 48. And the Lower 48 is definitely the Classic Gang.
Well yeah, if you can be stoned to death for the adultery or homosexuality, then I imagine that the justice system would be far more effective than the western counterparts.
As opposed to its Western counterparts who instead castrate guys who wank to pictures of 18 year - 1 day olds and de facto sentence jaywalkers to get raped.
Uh huh. Jaywalkers in prison, sure, right.
I did three days in jail for jaywalking, four times now. On one occasion someone tried to rape me. I've also seen jailhouse rapes in holding cells, cops consider it part the "time". Welcome to America. It's easily preventable but we consider it tacitly part the "community punishment".
“I did three days in jail for jaywalking, four times now.”
We all learn at different paces and anyone calling you a slow learner ought to be stoned to death.
There must be more to the story. I don’t believe that mere jaywalking alone ends up in jail.
Safer for whom?
The general populace, tourists, immigrants, etc which is what most people who seem to comment on here value, it's primarily a utilitarian blog hence right up Islams alley.
I mean sure Gaza stones openly homosexual men, the US castrates men who get caught public urinating behind a bush in some states or wanking to a picture of their 17 yo wife. Christian Nuns tend to be able to walk around the streets safely in Muslim Albania whereas they get openly assaulted on the streets of Israel. Belfast too in the recent past.
We can all cherry pick our pet outrages but on average, both crime and violence are lower in Islamic nations than Christian ones, at least ones that aren't engaged in a civil war.
I used to get coffee in Baghdad during the height of the war (2005) driving my Toyota haji truck around, never felt less safe than when I drive through the north side of Milwaukee, Chicago, or past any US cop car.
I have noticed (sorry, Substack!!) that people with surnames indicative of MENA or Pakistani origin, out of what I’ve noticed also is a predominantly foreign origin population generally, often figure in government prosecutions involving fraud.
I wonder if this too is fulfilling a need. For instance, of American doctors feel it is a lot of trouble to deal with Medicare and Medicaid in their practices, maybe we need the hope of fraud, of bilking the government - to attract people and make the system go.
In this light such things so not really crime, but “ the purpose of a system is what it does”.
Or could just be they are being selectively prosecuted because then you can "show you are fighting fraud" without actually bothering the community by arresting their family doctor or brother.
I mean I've honestly never been to a private practice in America that DIDN'T engage in insurance fraud (and I assume they do so with Medicare/Medicaid too), regardless of their ethnicity.
This is such an entirely convincing response I am terribly sorry that it is hidden from view. Substack is shooting itself in the foot.
Very reassuring, thanks.
I mean you can spend the time looking up violence stats if you want. Want to bet without googling which is more violent, Islamic Muscat or Christian Milwaukee? Muslim Jakarta or Christian London? Muslim Sarajevo or Christian Paris? Muslim Albania or Christian Micronesia. Muslim Doha or Christian Houston?
"Peter"
"I have doubts about whether some of the new winners of Congressional primaries want to be assimilated."
All those folks always imagine themselves as the planners, not the planned, so the concept of assimilation isn't in the program.
When warning fellow left of center folks about the downsides of mass migration from illiberal religious cultures, I used to say "Wouldn't you be concerned if the US started taking in a bunch of white South Africans with positive memories of apartheid?"
Muslim immigrants are a special case. Their islamic core beliefs demand aggressive, militant non-assimilation. Islam actually requires jihad from all muslims, not just radicals, with the ultimate goal of conquest & takeover of whichever land they occupy.
Looks like your comment earned you the coveted red card.
Yeah he used the verboten word Jihad I believe as everything else he said was also said above.
I don't think so. I agree with the concerns AK pointed out. That doesn't mean all Muslims have those core beliefs mentioned by Sushi. Many emigrated because they were Muslim in name only. That's more true in the US than UK and less true today than the past but still true.
Long story short, Europe is poor (relative to the U.S.) because it chose to be poor.
***
For roughly two decades, Western Europe, home to the continent's largest economies, has stagnated. In 1995, its labor productivity—the value of goods and services produced per hour worked—was 95 percent of what it was in the United States, having risen from just 22 percent in 1945. By 2023, it was down to 80 percent. Ten years ago, 52 of the world's top 100 companies by market capitalization were American and 28 were European. Since then, the American total has grown to 58 while the European count has fallen to 18. The United States has produced five companies worth more than $2 trillion. At around $350 billion, Europe's largest company, the enterprise software provider SAP, is worth about as much as Home Depot.
Many Europeans assume their lower incomes are the price they pay for ensuring their poorer countrymen have better living standards. But the median American household has a disposable income that is 16 percent higher than the median German household, adjusted for purchasing power. Only the poorest 10 percent of Americans do worse than their French, German, or Italian counterparts in terms of disposable income, which factors in taxes and welfare.
What explains this gap between Europe and the U.S.? There are many factors, from rigid labor markets to energy restrictions to trade barriers to burdensome regulations on tech companies. The connecting thread is that Europe is poor because of specific policy choices. Europe is poor because it chose to be poor.
https://reason.com/2025/08/25/why-europeans-have-less/
While I mostly trust comparisons of productivity, comparing the median or poorest 10% is fraught with difficulties due to differences such as but not limited to how healthcare is paid for.
Be that as it may, you made me think of an interesting difference. I'd bet the difference in median living standards between Scandinavia/Switzerland and some eastern/southern European countries is greater than between Massachusetts and Mississippi.
“It is discomforting to watch the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, individual rights, and free speech…” Yes it is, but let’s remind ourselves: our ancestors left Great Britain for good reason; we declared independence for good reason; Hayek warned us about Fabian socialism and the road to serfdom; Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 (not only about his experiences in Spain). When were things ever great in Great Britain?
Similarly, when were things ever great in America? It depends on who you ask.
In each place, some things get better, some get worse. Each place provides certain comparative advantages, but there are no permanences, guarantees, panaceas, or solutions. Everything changes. There is usually a time to move on. Every place has its expiration, so be ready to pick up and move on when it becomes too unsafe to stay. In the words of Robert Higgs, “Get out while you can” and crack open Crisis and Leviathan from time to time.
Scott, you write: "Yes it is, but let’s remind ourselves: our ancestors left Great Britain for good reason; we declared independence for good reason; Hayek warned us about Fabian socialism and the road to serfdom; Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 (not only about his experiences in Spain). When were things ever great in Great Britain?"
Our ancestors left Great Britain and declared independence for good reason. But that was almost 2 centuries before Hayek's warning. When was Great Britain great? For a few centuries, actually. The decline of freedom in Great Britain began early in the 20th century.
Fair enough — by 'great' you mean durably top of the ranking, and on that Britain qualifies, for those inside the circle. I'm resisting the word because rankings are individual: my ancestors ran the comparison and left. That's really my whole point — no permanences, only comparisons, and everyone should keep running theirs.
Are you speaking of religious freedom?
Lots of freedoms.
Lots of freedoms, but still not enough for those on the periphery — the ones who emigrated.
From Claude: Was Britain ever great on religious freedom? Short answer: no — for most of its history it was one of the last places you'd want to worship the "wrong" way, and it only got tolerable slowly, in grudging steps.
Start in the 1500s. When England broke from Rome under Henry VIII, it didn't become religiously free — it just swapped one official religion for another. There was now a state church, the Church of England, and everyone was legally required to show up on Sunday. Skip church and you paid fines. Stay Catholic and things got much worse: under Elizabeth I, being a Catholic priest in England was treason, and priests were hunted down and executed. But it wasn't only Catholics. Protestants who thought the official church hadn't reformed *enough* — Puritans, Quakers, Baptists — got jailed, whipped, and stripped of their property too. The pattern for 150 years was simple: whoever controlled the government punished everyone else. When the Puritans briefly won power in the Civil War of the 1640s, they turned around and suppressed the Anglicans. John Bunyan wrote *The Pilgrim's Progress*, one of the most famous books in English, from a jail cell — his crime was preaching without a government license.
The big turning point is the Toleration Act of 1689, and here's the thing your textbook might gloss over: it was incredibly stingy. It didn't create religious freedom; it just said certain Protestant dissenters could legally hold their own church services. Catholics? Still excluded. And even the "tolerated" groups were second-class citizens — laws called the Test and Corporation Acts said that if you weren't a member of the official church, you couldn't hold public office, become a military officer, or take a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. Think about that: you could worship freely, but the doors to power and education stayed locked. That system lasted until *1828* — for well over a century after "toleration."
The rest came in slow motion. Catholics got basic political rights in 1829. Jews couldn't sit in Parliament until 1858. Open atheists couldn't until the 1880s. Blasphemy — insulting Christianity — remained an actual crime, with real prosecutions, into the twentieth century, and wasn't formally abolished in England until 2008. Even today Britain has an established state church, its bishops get automatic seats in the House of Lords, and the monarch is legally barred from being Catholic.
So was it ever "great"? Here's the fair way to grade it. Compared to its neighbors — Spain with the Inquisition, France expelling its Protestants in 1685 — Britain after 1689 really was near the top of the class. You wouldn't be burned; your congregation could meet; you could build a business and a life. But compared to the idea America wrote into its Constitution — no established church at all, ever — Britain never caught up. What it offered wasn't freedom; it was *toleration*, which is different. Toleration means the people in charge have decided, for now, to put up with you. And here's the punchline: thousands of Puritans, Quakers, and Presbyterians in the 1600s and 1700s looked at that deal, decided it wasn't good enough, and got on ships. Every one of those ships was a person running the comparison for themselves — and Britain losing.
Greatness is relative.
And depends on the individual.
I been traveling routinely to the United Kingdom since the mid-1970s. A few years ago in Oxford my wife and I enjoyed a conversation with a young man — early 20s, articulate, well educated. I asked him what he and his peers thought about their future in the UK? His response: Everyone wanted to emigrate, as they saw no reason to believe that the economic and cultural situation in the UK would improve. He was correct. The situation hasn’t improved. The young man I spoke
with wanted to emigrate to the U.S., but his friends were thinking about Canada and Australia. When your young talent seeks to flee your country, it has serious problems.
An important moment in history of exit against a far worse State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_inner_German_border
When it comes to assimilation, it seems to me that the minimum bar is fluency in English. I don't think that is sufficient, but I don't think Yglesias would even support it, so I doubt the sincerity of his position.
I noticed a while ago that people on the center-left get Yglesias backwards - he's not a moderate trying to get leftists to moderate a bit, he's a leftist trying to give leftists a veneer of moderation to keep moderates on board with an increasingly extremist party.
Lol.
I have no idea if you are right. I don't know Iglesias nearly well enough. But when I first read your comment it just seemed a funny thing to conflict over. I don't think it actually is but a quick read and thinking superficially it sure read that way.
Non-fluency has been common for more than 100 years. I doubt it is a difference maker.
I’m sure he would not. I found this explanation for the total abandonment of the idea - as clearly evidenced by printing ballots in Spanish - despite its seemingly being statutory, on an immigration lawyer’s website. (She’s Nigerian; most such lawyers seem to be foreign-born.):
“U.S. immigration law offers English requirement exceptions for those challenged by age, long-term residency, or health conditions. These exemptions allow citizenship without English proficiency, making it accessible to more individuals. This approach reflects America’s diversity and inclusiveness.”
As you can see, long-term residency is considered a challenge that is not able to be overcome. A certain paradox there for those like Yglesias , who presumably believe strongly in assimilation as the key to his desire to have one billion Americans, on the roads, competing for resources, living in favelas on former farm or rangeland.