Musk, Ramaswamy, and the tension within MAGA

Ramaswamy s comments are more controversial, but I think he s basically right. The cultural differences between the native born and immigrants from Asia, as groups, are obvious to anyone with connections to both cultures (my connection to the Asian side is through family). It was nicely summarized by a white Yale student who said she judged the seriousness of a class the first day by the ratio of Asians to white males wearing baseball caps backwards.

This Wall Street Journal article by Phil Gramm and Robert Topel makes the point. Based on their experience running a scholarship fund, plus research by the Institute for Family Studies, they highlight cultural differences between immigrant and non-immigrant families in America differences that favor the former. And their conclusions aren t limited to Asian-American families.

Conservatives have long criticized our culture and our education system as unserious, among other defects. In fact, a standard conservative argument against mass immigration used to be that our culture and education system are too corrupted to enable the kind of assimilation associated with past successful waves of immigration.

In sum,, it s plausible, and I think at least partially correct, for Ramaswamy to tie the comparative lack of American talent in science, math, and engineering to the lack of seriousness in our culture and education system.

via ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com

Paul Mirengoff.

The debate on X quickly descended into the minutia of H1-B visa regulations and their abuse. It really does sound like the visa regs are now greatly abused. But in general, I think Vivek is right. Of course Asians are more motivated, and they seem to have the genetic advantage of being more intelligent, at least with respect to STEM subjects. Wouldn’t you be? If you could do higher math, I mean? The main thing is to make sure somehow that those we let in are committed to keeping the USA the USA, that is, to the Constitution, that terrible form of government that’s still better than anything else that’s been dreamt up by fallen Man. Trump says we should just staple a green card to any college diploma, betraying a touching naivete. That’s a bad idea given the state of our educational establishment. But his heart’s in the right place.