50 Years Ago Today, My Parents Brought Sasha and Me out of the USSR

What a long, lovely trip it's been!

Comments

[Bwaaah]

Immigrants. Grrrrrr.

LOL.

Glad they did, professor. Glad to have you.

[Supremacy Claus]

What a waste of intellect. Volokh could have greatly helped our country going into tech or into business, generating $billions in value. Instead, he became a stupid lawyer, an insufferable dumbass, destroying $billion in economic value every year he breathes. He indoctrinated thousands of great kids into a bunko, garbage, rent seeking operation 10 times more toxic than organized crime. Not cool. All social pathologies, including a very low economic growth, are the fault of this profession's rent seeking and money grubbing.

[Bwaaah]

He endorses excuses (a.k.a. "rights") for people like you to be heard. That helps remind people like me how tenuous is this civil society ... this detente.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

What exactly are you wasting your intellect on? Eugene and Sasha have done more to make this country better than you ever will with impractical rants like that.

[John 4]

Hot news: man-child decries entire profession from confines of mother’s basement.

[Libertatem]

This comment has made me dumber for having read it.

[Lifetime Learner]

Eugene started a highly successful tech career at age 13. I was lucky enough to know him during his VESoft/ Mpex days!

[bernard11]

Happy anniversary!!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, you were very lucky to be pulled out of the sea into the lifeboat.

Now stop trying to overload and sink it, please.

[Supremacy Claus]

That is Somin, to be fair.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — Ironically, because EV never mentions it, 80 years ago today the USSR was taking decisive action to make sure EV would have parents in the first place.

And do you conflate EV with Somin? What in EV's commentary looks to you like overloading a lifeboat?

[Mr. Bumble]

"...80 years ago today the USSR was taking decisive action to make sure EV would have parents in the first place."
By enslaving eastern Europe under soviet rule?

[Krayt]

By murdering 5 million Ukranians?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

And 86 years ago, the USSR was taking decisive action to split Poland with Hitler, and conquer the Baltics and other east European countries.

Your suckup and excuses for Stalin and other Marxists are pathetic.

[apedad]

Brett, please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure you've mentioned your wife is an immigrant (yes, who subsequently became naturalized).

So why was your wife's (and the current First Lady's) immigration OK but subsequent immigration not?

[Bwaaah]

I don't recall Brett having said immigration isn't OK. I think it is illegal immigration that he has opposed. (Oh...and Biden's decision to let everybody in the world legalize by self-declaring as an "asylee" with automatic "parole" and possible review 4+ years out.)

[apedad]

"Yes, you were very lucky to be pulled out of the sea into the lifeboat.

Now stop trying to overload and sink it, please."

Yeah . . . I don't see the word 'illegal' anywhere.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, if Somin got his way, "illegal immigration" wouldn't be a thing in law, and it's his position that the federal government lacks all constitutional power to regulate immigration, (And yet, contrary to the 10th amendment, this doesn't mean the states have it...) so "illegal" seems beside the point when discussing his views.

His problem is that he wants immigration to the US to be so easy that the mass influx of people would destroy everything that makes the US a nice place to live. And so indiscriminant that the culture that keeps the US a nice place to live would die along the way.

That's a problem whether or not the mass influx is "legal".

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I have no objection to properly regulated legal immigration.

We are in the fortunate position that a large proportion of the world population would like to be in the US if they could. Far more people than we could ever accommodate outside of some dystopian nightmare.

This means that we can be very selective, and only admit the people who maximally benefit our country. We should be cream skimming, not chugging whey.

And that's my position: That immigration policy should be directed to maximizing the welfare of American citizens, with the interests of potential immigrants being entirely incidental.

My wife was English literate, college educated, and had a spotless criminal record. I believe Trump's wife was similarly situated, albeit not so cute.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Nice!

[William of Brooklyn]

Angela's Ashes:

"Isn't this a great country altogether?"

"Tis."

[Frank Drackman]

Do you ever wonder what it would have been like “Back in the USSR”?

[Krayt]

You don't know how lucky you are!

I always wondered if that was a paean to yoots trapped there to make them feel a little better in a dictatorship, planting seeds of desire for freedom that some day may hatch, or some sop to communism by a limousine liberal who looked on it fondly, while relying on freedom of speech and economic freedom to become fabulously wealthy.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Happy anniversary. And it is to your credit that you recognize how lucky you have been, and have never forgotten that you were an immigrant fleeing oppression.

[darkknight9]

...brought us out...

And plenty of us are happier because of it. Happy Anniversary.

[Ruqt]

A brave decision and one to be celebrated. The history of East European immigration to the US has not been written. Millions of children arriving unaccompanied with name tags pinned on - Countries of Origin - Russia, Poland, Galicia, Austro Hungarian Empire, reflecting uncertain borders. Take a ramble through passenger lists from the 1880s to 1920s. Read through US Census lists from the 1920s on, apartments and private homes with lists of boarders, Country of Origin, occupation. Our children have no clue about how their immigrant ancestors worked and lived and married neighbors and moved on to a bettor life.
For those not acquainted the 1950s, there was a fear about Russia which had its impact upon many ethnic communities still half immersed in Slavic culture and languages. Per Chat:
"Overall, the 1950s were characterized by a complex interplay of fear, suspicion, and occasional acceptance of Russian immigrants, shaped largely by the broader context of the Cold War." And this continued for decades which adds some context to immigration decisions.

[creech]

Unlike some native born Americans, EV was "proud of his (adopted) country" from day one.

[Krayt]

This country is great because it is free, not because it is a democracy.

[Brett Bellmore]

I have never claimed otherwise. He loves this country so much he wants to share it with all the world. And just can't accept that he'd destroy it in so doing.

[thesafesurfer]

It's too bad that after fifty years Mr. Somin still does not grasp the essence of the United States of America.

[NvEric]

Now, to export the happiness is the challenge. Don't bask in self-delusional back-slapping that all is great in the USA.

Bellmore's lifeboat analogy is correct. Native Americans keep less and less of their purposeful foundational reason in selecting this hemisphere over the many thousands of years of occupation.

To seek life in a new river, all want to drink the now polluted waters. Yosemite was once freely accessible any day of the week and crowd-less.

Russia is vast and largely empty, its beauty likewise undiscovered, waiting.

[Ruqt]

How vast, how empty? A glance at Siberia, told by an American searching for wildlife, a fascinating read not without its Russian locals with due respect paid to Russian hospitality and taste for liquid pleasure.
"Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl"
Jonathan C. Slaght