Illegal alien arrivals now greater than American births?

[ken_sylvania]

The people that I respect the most see the humanity in all demographics, including those on Kensington. Folks like Shane C have made their lives there loving and working with them, and he is now raising his son there.

I don't like violence, but I am not afraid of black or brown or white people.

If you have truly mastered your emotions to the point that you do not feel any fear at all when a group of loud, burly, white country boys gets in your face and starts yelling at you for some perceived insult, then I guess good for you. I'm not at that point.

I find your phrasing here to be somewhat interesting. You say you don't like violence - does that mean you simply find it distasteful, or is that a reluctant way of saying that you would actually experience some fear if you lived in a neighborhood where shootings were common and you knew you had a 1 in 20 chance per year of being robbed?

I'm not advocating for or against any particular immigration policy, but I think that if the goal is to encourage Christian attitudes toward immigrants of other cultures, your blanket dismissal of people's real experiences and emotions isn't helpful. To me, you seem dismissive and uncaring about the people who are actually negatively impacted by the changes that occur in neighborhoods. When you use phrases like "demographic shift" to describe a complete change in the character of a neighborhood, it feels like you are using clinical phrasing to avoid reckoning with the discomfort and fear that some people experience when their life changes dramatically and in ways they cannot understand.

If we dismiss people's discomfort and/or shame them by saying "there's nothing to be afraid of" and "you are just afraid of them because of their skin color" they will simply withdraw from us and we lose any kind of opportunity to help them work through the question of "How can I minister to these people?"

[ken_sylvania]

I want to acknowledge that I forgot your prior request in the moment when I clarified the post’s origin for Thomas, and I apologize for that.

OK. I would have (and planned to) PM him myself to clear it up. I would have appreciated your trust for me to do that - I've done so with many other posters.

That being said, I also want to be very clear -- I don’t believe I’m revealing any private information. "Josh" was your public username that you used on this forum for over a decade as one of its most prolific posters. The first post on this thread is by you under your old username. In that sense, I'm not revealing your real name, I'm using the username you chose and posted under thousands of posts on this forum.

I chose to stop using my real name on this forum; I asked you to respect that the last time you decided to try to use my real name anyway; you said you'd stop doing so. I think it's pretty reasonable to ask people not to use real names in a public forum if they choose not to do so. I have reasons for not wanting that. If you're willing to listen, I'd be happy to share them with you. I do feel frustrated that I have to try to justify not wanting to be doxxed in a public forum with you.

I don't think its reasonable to expect that the rest of the forum has to pretend that your previous posts don't exist, especially since you continue to post the same type of arguments, patterns and framing. This isn't about personal information. It's about the continuity of your public participation on this public forum.

I have never expected such and I responded to Bootstrap with continuity, although I didn't really appreciate him dredging up posts from the past, including complaining at me about something I'd already said I shouldn't have said with a particular phrasing and apologized for. But that's what happened. I offered to continue to speak with him about it in a PM. There wasn't any further discussion.

I also think the confusion in thread demonstrates why it's fair to clarify this. Bootstrap referred to one of your posts under your old username. Thomas Muentzer thought it referred to someone who's no longer here. Except that's not true. You are still here. You are participating in this thread. I think clarifying this is appropriate.

Could you accept it's appropriate to allow me to clarify that, instead of you? I don't think it's your job to clarify to other poasters who I am, including my real name.

Of course you can change your username, but that doesn't obligate the rest of us here to pretend your past here doesn't exist and to erase your public participation here. It's also about honesty, clarity, consistency and the history of this forum.

It's also about respecting someone who asks not to be doxxed. Szdfan, I'll be frank - this is the second time you've done this, and it's after you committed not to do it anymore. Why do you want to do something that could bring harm to me and my family?

I would like some clarification from the moderators. What are we supposed to do with the fact that there are thousands of posts written by JohnH under the user and “Josh?” Are we expected to ignore these posts? Are we expected to pretend that these are not the same person?

John has made it clear that he doesn’t want his prior username referenced. I forgot that when I clarified Thomas's question and I apologize for that. However, I think there's a bigger issue that needs to be addressed .

This isn’t doxxing. This isn’t private information. It’s a public username that John used on this forum for over a decade for thousands of posts, including the very first post in this thread. It’s part of the public record of this forum.

So what are the expectations here? Are the rest of us supposed to pretend those posts don’t exist? Are we being asked to act like there’s no continuity between the arguments being made now and the arguments made under that username for years?

Because honestly, that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. This forum has always functioned on the idea that what we say publicly is part of an ongoing conversation. We regularly reference each other’s post history. We hold each other accountable to our own words. That’s how forums work.

And frankly, it feels manipulative to expect everyone else to play along with pretending that history doesn’t exist, especially when the arguments being made right now are the same arguments that were made under the previous username.

There's an irony here. The person making repeated arguments that identity is fixed, permanent, and tied to ancestry is also demanding that their own identity here be treated as fluid and disconnected from the past. That’s a pretty big ask.

So I’m putting this to the mods. What’s the expectation? Because if the rule is that changing your username means your entire public post history gets memory-holed and disconnected from you, then the rest of us deserve to know that.

Is JohnH telling the truth when he says that he asked you not to use his real name and that you agreed not to do so?

[HondurasKeiser]

The people that I respect the most see the humanity in all demographics, including those on Kensington. Folks like Shane C have made their lives there loving and working with them, and he is now raising his son there.

I don't like violence, but I am not afraid of black or brown or white people.

I think an honest reading of this post can lead to JohnH’s interpretation. Why mention Kensington and not being afraid of black and brown people then? We all see the humanity in all kinds of people; your statement suggests some of us don’t, which is spurious. Not all “demographic shifts” are equal. Although we’re called to treat all people with love and dignity we can do so without welcoming the destruction of neighborhoods and cultures especially when it involves vice, and death and soul-destroying substances. I think I recall you and others here decrying the “demographic shift” y’all called gentrification a few years ago when it was suddenly en vogue to do so. I didn’t read that as you hating the gentrifiers; but it does mean you don’t care for some shifts in demography.

[joshuabgood]

The people that I respect the most see the humanity in all demographics, including those on Kensington. Folks like Shane C have made their lives there loving and working with them, and he is now raising his son there.

I don't like violence, but I am not afraid of black or brown or white people.

If you have truly mastered your emotions to the point that you do not feel any fear at all when a group of loud, burly, white country boys gets in your face and starts yelling at you for some perceived insult, then I guess good for you. I'm not at that point.

I find your phrasing here to be somewhat interesting. You say you don't like violence - does that mean you simply find it distasteful, or is that a reluctant way of saying that you would actually experience some fear if you lived in a neighborhood where shootings were common and you knew you had a 1 in 20 chance per year of being robbed?

I'm not advocating for or against any particular immigration policy, but I think that if the goal is to encourage Christian attitudes toward immigrants of other cultures, your blanket dismissal of people's real experiences and emotions isn't helpful. To me, you seem dismissive and uncaring about the people who are actually negatively impacted by the changes that occur in neighborhoods. When you use phrases like "demographic shift" to describe a complete change in the character of a neighborhood, it feels like you are using clinical phrasing to avoid reckoning with the discomfort and fear that some people experience when their life changes dramatically and in ways they cannot understand.

If we dismiss people's discomfort and/or shame them by saying "there's nothing to be afraid of" and "you are just afraid of them because of their skin color" they will simply withdraw from us and we lose any kind of opportunity to help them work through the question of "How can I minister to these people?"

I have had the privilege of living, for a substantial period of time, in a different demographic. Over that period of time, I have come to realize that people are just people, irrespective of if they are children of "illegal immigrants" or children of citizens. That is my point. Some of my best friends during that period had been "illegal immigrants" for a long time. People that came to my house, that I worshiped with, that I made music with, were children of illegal immigrants.

My phrasing maybe isn't clear...but violence and substance abuse are not in fact demographic problems, they are human problems. Opioids and Meth are not more associated with illegal immigrants than they are good old Americans, in my experience. I grew up in rural Appalachia foothills. A few years back a shoot out in my neck of the woods killed several people. One of the local doctors murdered his wife. In East New York I was also proximate to violence. One of my students, Shaquille Jones, as shot dead on the street. My wife heard gunshots at the laundromat a week or two after we moved there. I could mention many other things as well...

My goal is to help people see the image of God in all. And to realize that people, of all demographics, are the best thing of God's creation. Demographics shift, they just do. I can understand grieving losses when family/friends move etc...however, I still hold that people don't need to be scared...as this thread heading seems to suggest as an issue...that being that immigrant births outnumber American births. I can guarantee you that many immigrants would feel such a lament is pejorative.

Honestly, I still don't understand how the word "shame" applies.

[joshuabgood]

The people that I respect the most see the humanity in all demographics, including those on Kensington. Folks like Shane C have made their lives there loving and working with them, and he is now raising his son there.

I don't like violence, but I am not afraid of black or brown or white people.

I think an honest reading of this post can lead to JohnH’s interpretation. Why mention Kensington and not being afraid of black and brown people then? We all see the humanity in all kinds of people; your statement suggests some of us don’t, which is spurious. Not all “demographic shifts” are equal. Although we’re called to treat all people with love and dignity we can do so without welcoming the destruction of neighborhoods and cultures especially when it involves vice, and death and soul-destroying substances. I think I recall you and others here decrying the “demographic shift” y’all called gentrification a few years ago when it was suddenly en vogue to do so. I didn’t read that as you hating the gentrifiers; but it does mean you don’t care for some shifts in demography.

If you read the thread...you will see that Kensington was brought into the conversation as a "scare tactic" not by me. The point is substance abuse and violence are not the same as demographic shift. See my response to Ken. And Kensington has very little to do with the birth of babies by socalled illegal immigrants. Surely a reasonable person could agree to that.

I don't recall making strong claims regarding gentrification...

[Bootstrap]

I would go out on a limb and make the claim that it’s a morally neutral term. It a sociological descriptor far more than it is a conspiracy theory. I don’t think it explains the situation in the United States very well but I do think it explains the context in certain European countries; particularly France and The UK. As an idea, The Great Replacement is the provenance of Renaud Camus, hardly a man of the Right. He makes no claim that there’s a worldwide cabal of elites orchestrating the demographic collapse of native Europeans. Simply, that it’s happening.

In Le Grand Remplacement (2011), Camus asserts that a “replacist elite” of domestic and international political and financial elites is deliberately promoting mass immigration to “replace” native Europeans. Renaud Camus is usually seen as a far-right writer and conspiracy theorist - I'm curious why you do not see him that way. He was writing about France, but versions of the theory have also been prominent in U.S. white-nationalist circles and mainstream political rhetoric.

I don't think "replacement" is a neutral term. The word "replacement" implies that we are being "replaced" by those other people. The conspiracy theory says that there's a group of elites who are intentionally plotting to replace us with those other people.

As far as I can tell, I'm still here. My children haven't been replaced either. We have neighbors from other parts of the world. I think the Bible encourages us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Since we're still here, that seems like a good thing to do.

[Szdfan]

OK. I would have (and planned to) PM him myself to clear it up. I would have appreciated your trust for me to do that - I've done so with many other posters.



I chose to stop using my real name on this forum; I asked you to respect that the last time you decided to try to use my real name anyway; you said you'd stop doing so. I think it's pretty reasonable to ask people not to use real names in a public forum if they choose not to do so. I have reasons for not wanting that. If you're willing to listen, I'd be happy to share them with you. I do feel frustrated that I have to try to justify not wanting to be doxxed in a public forum with you.



I have never expected such and I responded to Bootstrap with continuity, although I didn't really appreciate him dredging up posts from the past, including complaining at me about something I'd already said I shouldn't have said with a particular phrasing and apologized for. But that's what happened. I offered to continue to speak with him about it in a PM. There wasn't any further discussion.



Could you accept it's appropriate to allow me to clarify that, instead of you? I don't think it's your job to clarify to other poasters who I am, including my real name.



It's also about respecting someone who asks not to be doxxed. Szdfan, I'll be frank - this is the second time you've done this, and it's after you committed not to do it anymore. Why do you want to do something that could bring harm to me and my family?

I would like some clarification from the moderators. What are we supposed to do with the fact that there are thousands of posts written by JohnH under the user and “Josh?” Are we expected to ignore these posts? Are we expected to pretend that these are not the same person?

John has made it clear that he doesn’t want his prior username referenced. I forgot that when I clarified Thomas's question and I apologize for that. However, I think there's a bigger issue that needs to be addressed .

This isn’t doxxing. This isn’t private information. It’s a public username that John used on this forum for over a decade for thousands of posts, including the very first post in this thread. It’s part of the public record of this forum.

So what are the expectations here? Are the rest of us supposed to pretend those posts don’t exist? Are we being asked to act like there’s no continuity between the arguments being made now and the arguments made under that username for years?

Because honestly, that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. This forum has always functioned on the idea that what we say publicly is part of an ongoing conversation. We regularly reference each other’s post history. We hold each other accountable to our own words. That’s how forums work.

And frankly, it feels manipulative to expect everyone else to play along with pretending that history doesn’t exist, especially when the arguments being made right now are the same arguments that were made under the previous username.

There's an irony here. The person making repeated arguments that identity is fixed, permanent, and tied to ancestry is also demanding that their own identity here be treated as fluid and disconnected from the past. That’s a pretty big ask.

So I’m putting this to the mods. What’s the expectation? Because if the rule is that changing your username means your entire public post history gets memory-holed and disconnected from you, then the rest of us deserve to know that.

Is JohnH telling the truth when he says that he asked you not to use his real name and that you agreed not to do so?

Yeah. He did ask, and I agreed at the time. I forgot in the moment when I clarified the post for Thomas. I apologize for that.

But I also don’t think this is actually about private information. This is about whether a public username that someone used for years on this forum, with thousands of posts, somehow gets erased when they change it. I think that’s a fair question. Forums don’t work without history. We reference old posts all the time. We hold each other to our words. That’s how this place has always worked.

I slipped. I own that. But I also think the bigger question still matters, and I think it’s fair to ask the moderators how they want this handled.

[Bootstrap]

Demographic shifts, also, are nothing to be scared of. Things change.

That's right. Demographic shifts are nothing to be scared of. If your neighborhood becomes Kensington Ave with homeless fentanyl addicts camping on your doorstep and in your backyard, that's nothing to be scared of. If it becomes South Shore, Chicago with rampant robbery, assault and gun violence, that's nothing to be scared of. In fact, if the demographic shifts away from hard-working Hispanics and shifts toward gangs of skinheads - that's nothing to be scared of at all. Things change, you know.

As far as I can tell, none of those examples are about immigration.

There's a huge drug problem on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, but the people involved are overwhelmingly US-born. There's gang-violence on the South Shore of Chicago, but they are also overwhelmingly US-born. Skinhead gangs are overwhelmingly white US-born Americans.

In Chicago, immigration was linked to declines in neighborhood violence over time. In NYC in the 1990s–2000s, massive immigration coincided with dramatic drops in crime. If immigrant families were moving into places like South Shore or Kensington, you would be more likely to see more occupied housing, more small businesses, stronger neighborhood institutions, stronger churches, and lower crime rates. Should those things scare me?

I think this is one of the reasons that people who live among high immigrant populations are generally accepting of them. There are tons of immigrants where I live, and not much opposition to them.

[Bootstrap]

Why mention Kensington and not being afraid of black and brown people then? We all see the humanity in all kinds of people; your statement suggests some of us don’t, which is spurious. Not all “demographic shifts” are equal. Although we’re called to treat all people with love and dignity we can do so without welcoming the destruction of neighborhoods and cultures especially when it involves vice, and death and soul-destroying substances.

I hear what you’re saying about crime and social problems destroying neighborhoods—those are real concerns. But when you respond to someone saying they’re not afraid of Black or Brown people by talking about “demographic shifts” that bring vice and destruction, it sounds like you’re saying race is the cause of those problems.

I’m not sure what all the causes are—poverty, bad schools, lack of opportunity, and other hard things probably all play a part. But I don’t think it’s about people’s skin color. It’s easy to mix up cause and effect and start blaming race for situations that are much more complicated.

[Thomas_muntzer]

I hear what you’re saying about crime and social problems destroying neighborhoods—those are real concerns. But when you respond to someone saying they’re not afraid of Black or Brown people by talking about “demographic shifts” that bring vice and destruction, it sounds like you’re saying race is the cause of those problems.

I’m not sure what all the causes are—poverty, bad schools, lack of opportunity, and other hard things probably all play a part. But I don’t think it’s about people’s skin color. It’s easy to mix up cause and effect and start blaming race for situations that are much more complicated.

Single moterhood and parenthood is part of the problem. No fault divorce has been a disgrace for the country

around 75% of inmates were raised by only one of the parents wrecked homes. Both parents are necesary to raise a children properly

https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issu ... -and-crime

https://thefatherlessgeneration.wordpre ... tatistics/