What do you consider alt-right?

@SW-User So what are you for?

@quitwhendone You'll have to be more specific.

@SW-User What economics and cultural philosophies and ideologies do you espouse? What would the US look like if you could design America any way you wanted?

@quitwhendone My America would look a lot like it did 100 years ago, just without the racism. Less bullshit and more doing. I like the idea behind the WPA, and I want something like that to be done to upgrade our electric and internet infrastructure and put people to work. I want secure borders. I want stricter immigration laws. I want free healthcare and free or nearly free higher education. And I want an end to useless foreign wars.

@SW-User 1919...so the era of jim Crowe and segregated neighborhoods.

@GoldenWorm It's as if you didn't read my previous post at all.

@SW-User Cool. I agree with all but one of those. However, I don't think the America of 100 years ago would be the era to deliver any of that. Programs like the WPA wee started by Roosevelt in the 1930s, I believe.

1919 America was a time known for a lack of rights and dignity for blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and women. Women couldn't even vote yet. Blacks were denied the ability to vote even though they were supposed to be able to according to the US Constitution. Civil liberties were nothing like they are today. You didn't have a right to counsel if you got arrested. Your right not to self-incriminate yourself wasn't protected as it is now. Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans and even Asians were segregated and discriminated against. Women could get hired to do most of the jobs they routinely do now. Women couldn't even have any control of their marital property. That was all controlled by the man in a marriage by law. It was a pretty bad time for women's' rights and equality.

There was rampant organized crime and Prohibition was about to take effect.

There was absolutely no social safety net back then. No social programs at all. And corporations routinely ran roughshod over workers and their unions. Thank god, we've made progress.

I say let's move forward, not backward. Progress.

@SW-User And, yes, I know you said "without the racism" but it wasn't just racism. there was a lack of rights for many.

@quitwhendone Unions have caused me problems in the past with stuff, and I think that marriage in this day and age does nothing but fuck over men. Things were better 100 years ago, even if they weren't perfect. I'd rather live then than now.

@SW-User I bet if you were sent back in time to 1000 years ago. you'd try as hard as you could to run back to 2019 lol.

@quitwhendone 1000, yes. 100, no.

@SW-User We will never know. As far as unions go, unions are far different today than they were back then. The US didn't even have a minimum wage back then. There were few labor laws and few protections for workers. Workers routinely died doing there jobs. There was no OSHA. No Workers COmp. All of these things we take for granted in the workplace now were fought for by unions. If not for unions, we'd be in the dark ages in the workplace now.

And you know, you are at most 21 years old. You really have no idea what it was like in the 1990s, 1980s, or 1960s. You are really just guessing when you think you'd like 1919. But it's a cute, romantic, nostalgic idea.

@SW-User 100 years ago, things were kinda shitty tbh - it was the age of unrestrained capitalism and all of its consequences, and no social services at all. Old age was synonymous with poverty, and children worked in the mines.

But there were indeed strict immigration quotas, which were tightened up to keep the Jews out - and eventually helped exacerbate the holocaust.

@QuixoticSoul In 1919, the only people banned were Chinese. But others would come under strict quotas in the Immigration Act of 1924.
Latinos make the list. Go figure.