One billion Americans?

[Pitcairn17]

" Right now, the country has about 93 people per square mile."

Sounds pretty empty to me. Maybe with a larger tax base, and more workers paying into Social Security and Medicare…

Perhaps “pretty empty” as compared to, say, Hong Kong. I wonder what the number really would be if land unavailable or inappropriate for settlement were backed-out of the equation: most of Alaska; the Rockies; land ceded to Native American nations; National Park lands; the deserts of the Southwest; land used for farming - to actually grow food and raise meat to feed people; land occupied by roadways; Federal land set-aside for other purposes; protected wildlife and other sensitive and wetland areas, such as the Everglades; tree farms maintained and renewed by both the paper and construction industries. I’m sure there are more.

 

[Annie]

If it wasn’t widespread you wouldn’t have had “build the wall, build the wall…” as a campaign chant.

It is completely possible to be against illegal immigration and for legal immigration, and it is churlish to imply the opposite.

 

[Annie]

My problem with this article is that he does not address what the 6.7 billion new people would do for a living.

We would be tripling our population, but we have shut down so much of our manufacturing that even those currently here can not get high-paying/low education jobs.

Work is like a triangle, and we have ripped the middle out of ours.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Is the main reason to triple the population to stay on par with China and remain a super power?

More people are not needed for that or for any of the other benefits mentioned. The first characteristic of a super power is high levels of production and consumption. Other nations will ally with profitable trade partners. Automation severely reduces the need for people to increase production. The world need not worry at all about American consumption.

The second characteristic of a super power is a strong military. Again, the number of people enlisted is unrelated to strength.

The U.S. is less than 250 years old and is the third most populated country on the planet. We are already experiencing growing pains.

 

[BornInMarch]

Well, I hate to say it, but immigration in those days was almost exclusively a “white” phenomenon, though many nationalities that were not northwestern European in origin, were considered varying degrees of “not being white”.

This is actually incorrect. In the 19th century there was a large wave of immigration from China and Japan, and these immigrants benefitted the US by providing labor to build our infrastructure (including the trans-continental railroad). The first immigration restrictions in the US were explicitly racist, having the overt goal of “keeping America white”. First the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 to prevent Chinese immigration, then in 1924 the Immigration Exclusion Act banned all immigrants from Asia and severely limited immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. In fact part of the reason the Philippines were given their independence was so Filipinos could be legally prevented from migrating to the American mainland.

Mass immigration from South America, Africa, Asia

I don’t see that as a bad thing. American citizenship should not be contingent upon a person’s race, nor should American identity.

 

[Xarto]

Outside looking in, you do not seem to be able to handle the population you have.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I was going to head off on a few different tangents (and still might). But that iceberg cartoon is so apt. So accurate. Thanks for posting that.

There are several different such diagrams, all constructed along the lines of “those invisible cultural traits and tropes that serve to differentiate various peoples”. You can search online for “iceberg culture” and see for yourself.

I don’t think there are any jobs that whites are unwilling to do. I live a white majority city (90%). We have white landscapers, housekeepers, factory workers, etc.

I had in mind more jobs such as poultry processing, agriculture, hospitality, janitorial services, and so on.

I wonder what the number really would be if land unavailable or inappropriate for settlement were backed-out of the equation: most of Alaska; the Rockies; land ceded to Native American nations; National Park lands; the deserts of the Southwest; land used for farming - to actually grow food and raise meat to feed people; land occupied by roadways; Federal land set-aside for other purposes; protected wildlife and other sensitive and wetland areas, such as the Everglades; tree farms maintained and renewed by both the paper and construction industries. I’m sure there are more.

Even excluding all of these areas, there are still many, many places where nobody wants to live, and nobody wants to set up industry. With a concerted effort by government, industry, and regional development authorities, this might be remedied. But it might still be a “big ask” to approach a dying town, and to say “we have a way to revitalize your town, and bring it back to its former glory, but there’s just one catch — you have to agree that your town will end up being one-quarter Somali, one-quarter Laotian, and one-quarter Latin, leaving you in the minority, would you rather have that, or just let your town continue to die?”. (I just picked the ethnicities at random, trying to think of various groups who wouldn’t have huge issues with one another.)

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Well, I hate to say it, but immigration in those days was almost exclusively a “white” phenomenon, though many nationalities that were not northwestern European in origin, were considered varying degrees of “not being white”.

This is actually incorrect. In the 19th century there was a large wave of immigration from China and Japan, and these immigrants benefitted the US by providing labor to build our infrastructure (including the trans-continental railroad). The first immigration restrictions in the US were explicitly racist, having the overt goal of “keeping America white”. First the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 to prevent Chinese immigration, then in 1924 the Immigration Exclusion Act banned all immigrants from Asia and severely limited immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. In fact part of the reason the Philippines were given their independence was so Filipinos could be legally prevented from migrating to the American mainland.

You are right, and I may have unwittingly diminished the role of Asian immigrants in all of this. Still, though, weren’t they more localized, along the West Coast, rather than dispersing throughout the whole country?

Outside looking in, you do not seem to be able to handle the population you have.

Thanks for your concern, but I think we’ll be okay, after we can get past this pandemic (that is affecting the whole world, not just us). Until COVID reared its ugly head, we were growing like never before, and we will do it again.

 

[BornInMarch]

You are right, and I may have unwittingly diminished the role of Asian immigrants in all of this. Still, though, weren’t they more localized, along the West Coast, rather than dispersing throughout the whole country?

While they were initially localized on the west coast and Hawaiian Islands, these initial Asian Immigrants moved inland to seek work opportunities. There were gold rushes in middle states such as Colorado and Wyoming, and there was the trans-continental railroad which thousands of men worked on.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

You are right, and I may have unwittingly diminished the role of Asian immigrants in all of this. Still, though, weren’t they more localized, along the West Coast, rather than dispersing throughout the whole country?

While they were initially localized on the west coast and Hawaiian Islands, these initial Asian Immigrants moved inland to seek work opportunities. There were gold rushes in middle states such as Colorado and Wyoming, and there was the trans-continental railroad which thousands of men worked on.

True, and there is also a very interesting history of Chinese immigrants in, of all places, Mississippi. Radio equipment entrepreneur Martin F Jue and astronaut Mae Jemison are among their descendants.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Mae Jemison has a remarkable life, doctor, actress, dancer, entrepreneur, and first black woman in space.

 

[Xarto]

I was thinking more about how unequal your society is that led to the BLM riots. How this disease (not covid-19) overflowed and affected other countries.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I was thinking more about how unequal your society is that led to the BLM riots. How this disease (not covid-19) overflowed and affected other countries.

These riots and social unrest movements are being fueled by relatively small groups of people. We do not have huge armies of people spontaneously marching in the streets and shutting cities down. The vast, vast majority of Americans are content with what they have, the welfare of their own families and loved ones, and are just trying to get by, the best they can. Americans really don’t do “manifestations” such as you see in France and other countries.