It is not lost on me that immigrants helped us to win WW2 and the Race into Space. But there was a boom in STEM-type education following WW2 as GIs went to college and on to advanced study. Also at the K-12 levels to prepare them to go to go to colleges and universities.
Americans in all sorts of fields and occupations created marvelous new products, wonderous medicines, and advances in the sciences.
The United States took in the Vietnamese Boat People after that war and Cubans of the Myriel Boat Lift. Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to illegals in the 80’s in exchange for promises to secure the border that was later broken. Scientists, pilots, and artists from Europe and Asia defected to the United States and were celebrated.
Americans as a rule are not racist nor against immigrants. We have gone through their periods of perceived laziness and stupidity. But, when we are aware of the dangers of it, we recover from it and bowl over the world mired in their own continuing troubles. We are in a bad stretch now, I’ll grant, but we can revover.
What bothers me about what Elon and Vivek have been saying of late is that they talk as if American mediocrity is endemic, can’t be overcome, and is a fatal flaw of an entire nation. Worse, they think that people with a particular skill set are readily interchangeable with any other or can plugged in to fill a vacancy anywhere on the globe. That all people, from their parents to their kids, can be inserted into another culture and bring the bad baggage of their old country and open it up here with no problems. The West shoulder-deep in finding out how wrong that notion is.
We’ve spent the last ten years in a DEI nightmare where qualified workers were hobbled in competing with those whose chief attribute were “intersectionality.” We pushed STEM on women and minorities that didn’t want or didn’t understand what would be required in excelling at it because our government encouraged corporations they did business with to set aside positions for them.
I’m heartily sick of the notion that United States citizens are inferior workers or bad people because a pair of oligarchs think so. I am not at all convinced that an Indian, Chinese, or whatever is in any way superior to our own. Or else why do they want to come here? The “Land of Great Satan?” The current failings we find in our country can be found the world over.
It is grand to have an advanced degree to provide for a family. But if such a one can’t even be a good neighbor or good teammate for all their education, they are not a net plus to the United States in my opinion.
My apologies for the typos and grammar errors.