June 14, 2013

The Singularity of Stupidity

From the Washington Post:
Jeb Bush: U.S. economy needs immigrants because they’re ‘more fertile’ 
By Aaron Blake,  
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) argued Wednesday that the United States should pass immigration reform because the U.S. economy needs the labor of young immigrants, and immigrants are “more fertile.” 
“Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” Bush said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority conference. 
“Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.”
Bush said immigrants are an advantage that the United States has over China, Europe and Japan, which don’t have the same immigrant tradition and are struggling to find young laborers. 
“If we don’t do it, we will be in decline, because the productivity of this country is dependent upon young people that are equipped to be able to work hard,” Bush said. 
Bush, whose wife is a Mexican-born immigrant, has long been an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. 
A Census report released Thursday showed that, for the first time, white deaths in the United States outnumbered white births. Population grew because of growth among Hispanics, African-Americans and immigrants.

56 comments:

  1. Must be great being a politician. No facts, no data, just blind assertions.

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  2. Maybe Americans could afford to be more fertile if there were fewer immigrants depressing wages and driving up housing prices.

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  3. You can always boost the white population by admitting more Chechens, Kosovar Albanians, Romanian gypsies, and so on.

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  4. Can any one think up a Snowden-like act of self sacrifice that could be performed to oppose the invasion of our country?

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  5. when assertions such as these are made, why does nobody, EVER, respond with this simple question:

    if mexicans are so great, why isn't mexico awesome? it's FILLED with mexicans.

    i mean, if this is simple math, where a few mexicans = good, and a lot more mexicans = better, then a country which is comprised completely of mexicans must = best. right?

    this is the short, brutal discussion i have with any of my pro-mexican friends who are still sticking it out on california (in between them complaining about everything else about california. the traffic, the impossibility of buying a house, high taxes on everything)

    if mexicans are such great workers, like bitter clinger californians always tell me, then mexico must KICK ASS, because it's NOTHING but mexicans down there. mexico must be one of the most industrious, productive nations ON EARTH.

    sometimes i think the older americans are brainwashed into this intellectual position, but now i'm thinking younger americans under 30, especially in california, actually don't know what life is like in states without mexicans, indeed, they can't imagine a life without mexicans everywhere, and are clueless about california before the immivasion. a lot of these younger americans actually DO think mexicans are required to keep things running.

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  6. http://www.businessinsider.com/world-war-z-tickets-cost-50-dollars-2013-6

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  7. Clearly the reason why Switzerland and Finland scrape along at the bottom of the world's barrel is their lack of millions of wog sprogs.

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  8. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-muslim-brotherhood-is-ruining-egypt-2013-5#

    Hey, Egypt has high fertility rate. Bring them all here.

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  9. Bush family coulda been less fertile.

    I mean the world coulda done without dubby and jebby.

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  10. I don't think Americans want anyone from a CIA family as their next president.

    When Jeb makes these assertions, people should ask him if he has data from wiretapped phone conversations to prove it. "Is that what the Utah Data Center is telling you?"

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  11. "Maybe Americans could afford to be more fertile if there were fewer immigrants depressing wages and driving up housing prices."

    For a real estate fatcat like Jeb, "driving up housing prices" is a feature, not a bug.

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  12. http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/06/14/white-house-attempts-to-remove-father-from-founding-fathers-76973

    "Founding Founders"

    This has to be a hoax.

    Onion material.

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  13. Putin once said that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.

    He may have been right. If the USSR, and more importantly, its aggressive military-industrial complex, were still around, the US establishment would have been forced to keep up and not destroy the country like it is doing now.

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  14. The stupidity hurts. There is more where that came from:

    "Unlike Rubio’s remarks, Bush’s weren’t’ punctuated by cries of “Amen” or rapturous applause, especially his comments about reevaluating the conservative definition of ‘family.’

    “Let me remind you, families don’t look all the time like they used to, and that’s okay,” Bush said. “We have to be supportive of a single mom or dad, or the grandmother taking care of young children, the non-traditional family as we are of any idealized families of our youth.”

    Bush, who said in March that he believes gay marriage should be a state issue, said that society shouldn’t focus on the makeup of families, but on the outcome for their children."

    Right -- because we all know that those kids being raised by single moms (or gay people) will turn out just fine?

    Steve is right -- this is the singularity.

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  15. "Road to the Majority" conference? God, irony is dead to these people.

    For some reason all the liberals in the comments seem to think Jeb's remarks were really, really racist against...immigrants.

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  16. “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” - no one is going to challenge him on that one either.

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  17. Only somewhat OT, George Zimmerman's father has published an e-book on racism:

    http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/06/14/2162501/george-zimmermans-father-says-the-true-racists-are-all-african-american/?mobile=nc

    Things are building up, I wouldn't surprised to see a major incident in the next few years.

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  18. i mean, if this is simple math, where a few mexicans = good, and a lot more mexicans = better, then a country which is comprised completely of mexicans must = best. right?

    This deserves its own post. It has to be one of the best statements I've ever read on immigration, ever.

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  19. Anonymous at 3:43,
    If you really want to get depressed read the comments section of that article.

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  20. Only somewhat OT, George Zimmerman's father has published an e-book on racism:

    Note that the comments are all anti-racist. But comments are made through facebook. It seems few people have the guts yet to call a spade a spade with their real name.

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  21. “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” - no one is going to challenge him on that one either.


    If you're counting number and not size then Bill Gates only created one measly business. If immigrant businesses have only a handful of employees then they can create more per capita then natives.

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  22. If Bush wants to marry and procreate with a mexican, thats his choice. Dont force your love of mexicans on the rest of us. I might be voting for Hillary if Bush heads the republican ticket. Thats how much I dont like this guy.

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  23. jody: i mean, if this is simple math, where a few mexicans = good, and a lot more mexicans = better, then a country which is comprised completely of mexicans must = best. right?

    Corollary: if a white majority = bad country, then a white minority = better country. And no whites at all = best country.

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  24. '... the collapse of the Soviet Union...'

    Richard Pipes says that the fall of the USSR coincided with Russians no longer being its majority population.

    By shaving off (but in many cases largely still controlling) the non-Russian Republics, Yeltsin (yes Yeltsin) may have saved Russia (at least until Russians stop being the majority within Russia)

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  25. Richard Pipes says that the fall of the USSR coincided with Russians no longer being its majority population.

    By shaving off (but in many cases largely still controlling) the non-Russian Republics, Yeltsin (yes Yeltsin) may have saved Russia (at least until Russians stop being the majority within Russia)


    The USSR was able to discriminate in favor of Russians, and the USSR would have been better positioned to do things like mass deportations of people.

    Pipes is unreliable on these matters because of his ethnic background and concerns. Guys like Pipes and David P. Goldman make these kinds of "inevitablist" arguments.

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  26. I know Steve likes letting such feats of oratory as Jeb's speak for themselves, but I feel like this sort of thing has to be dissected to appreciate its awfulness. Herewith, an attempt at the full Sailer treatment:

    ::Part 1::

    Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) argued Wednesday that the United States should pass immigration reform because the U.S. economy needs the labor of young immigrants, and immigrants are “more fertile.”

    But what happens when the young immigrants eventually become fiscal liabilities? Ah, you see, that's where high fertility and high immigration come in. It's not a Ponzi scheme if it never stops!

    “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” Bush said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority conference.

    False and insulting in general. And even less true if we consider the kind of immigrants Jeb is talking about. And in any case, entrepreneurship is important but it's not magical. Is running a taco truck really a greater economic contribution than doing R&D work on the payroll of General Electric?

    As for "Road to the Majority," I'm no Rovian political genius, but I'm pretty sure that road doesn't begin with making your base a minority.

    “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.”

    High immigrant fertility is a bug, not a feature, if (1) like me, you are skeptical about diversity in general and Third World diversity in particular; or (2) you don't want your country to become more crowded, congested, and polluted; or (3) you consider the high cost and low ROI of educating unskilled immigrants' children; or (4) you're a white person who for some strange reason opposes the dispossession and dissolution of his ethny.

    The Hispanic illigitimacy rate is substantially higher than the white rate, which would seem to preclude the claim of "more intact families."

    Immigrants don't "create an engine of prosperity" if you're a working-class competitor or a middle-class taxpayer. However, I suppose they do "create an engine of prosperity" if you're an employer who wants to drive down the wages of the former and externalize social costs to the latter.

    As for "They love families"...really, what is there to say? I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

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  27. ::Part 2::

    Bush said immigrants are an advantage that the United States has over China, Europe and Japan, which don’t have the same immigrant tradition and are struggling to find young laborers.

    I'm pretty sure Europe has embraced the immigrant tradition with gusto, which is why they could easily find enough young laborers to do the work of setting Stockholm's cars on fire. As for those immigrant-deprived Japanese, they are really suffering terribly over in their clean, educated, hi-tech, close-knit, deeply rooted society.

    And I bet the 1.3 billion Chinese sure are lonely without lots of immigrants for company.

    “If we don’t do it, we will be in decline, because the productivity of this country is dependent upon young people that are equipped to be able to work hard,” Bush said.

    More labor means more *absolute* production, yes. In fact, with enough labor and enough wise leaders like Jeb Bush you can build cool stuff like giant pyramids. But *productivity* is a function of technology, human capital, and institutional efficiency. Low-skilled mass immigration does nothing for the first of those and is actively deleterious two the other two.

    Bush, whose wife is a Mexican-born immigrant, has long been an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.

    In principle, there's no reason that this would color Bush's view of America's national interest. The fact that it does is ipso facto demonstrative of a conflict of interest.

    A Census report released Thursday showed that, for the first time, white deaths in the United States outnumbered white births. Population grew because of growth among Hispanics, African-Americans and immigrants.

    It seems to me that we may reach a point when the nation ceases to be coupled with the state in the minds of ordinary Americans, with all sorts of unpleasant and disruptive consequences for everyone. We will have the likes of Jeb Bush to thank for that vibrant future.

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  28. If you thought "W" was a doofus, you should listen to Jeb!

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  29. “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,”

    Taco food trucks are nice, but they we could do without them.

    Gloria

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  30. it's not stupid if you are rich or you serve the rich. mass immigration is the tool of the rich.

    it's stupid if you are a normal working class person.

    When are you going to realize that there are differing interests in america? That rich people have different interests than common people? That mass immigration helps the rich. And Bush was to serve the rich because they will give him money for that. How is that stupid?

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  31. OT:

    Merkel's advice to young Europeans - Move. The comments are very good.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10121014/Angela-Merkels-advice-for-Europes-unemployed-move.html

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  32. “Immigrants...have more intact families"

    This is a lie. Get lost, Jeb.

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  33. LOL. Apparently Jeb also unironically said that "demography is destiny":

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341813/Immigrants-fertile-Jeb-Bush-tells-religion-conservatives-immigrants-help-American-economy-pumping-babies-pay-government-debt.html

    "'Demography is destiny,' he said. 'Ten years from now we will all hopefully be 10 years older. That's my plan and I hope it is yours as well. If that's the case, then we are going to have fewer workers taking care of a larger number of people that the government has a social contract with.

    'We cannot do that with the fertility rates we have in our country,' he added. 'We are barely breaking even.'

    Bush, the brother to former president George W. Bush, is among several potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference in Washington."

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  34. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341813/Immigrants-fertile-Jeb-Bush-tells-religion-conservatives-immigrants-help-American-economy-pumping-babies-pay-government-debt.html

    "Also pushing conservatives to embrace immigrants at the event Friday was Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

    Rodriguez told the crowd, 'I know you are hearing a lot recently about whether or not these 11 million individuals become legal, that these are 11 million voters that automatically vote for a democrat or a liberal.

    'Don't drink the Koolaid!' he said. 'How do I know that? Because seven out of 10 individuals, that come to Christ, that have a religious conversion experience to Christianity in America today, our are of Hispanic descent.

    'We have to put some salsa sauce on the top of the conservative movement!'"

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  35. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341813/Immigrants-fertile-Jeb-Bush-tells-religion-conservatives-immigrants-help-American-economy-pumping-babies-pay-government-debt.html

    "Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour backed up Bush's argument at a separate meeting at the Bipartisan Policy Center alongside the former Florida governor.

    'GDP growth is simply productivity multiplied by the number of workers,' Barbour said. 'Now I wasn’t a math major, but I can figure out that if the number of workers stays the same as it has under this administration… it’s very hard to get the GDP to go up.'"

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  36. If you really want to get depressed read the comments section of that article.

    Its the smugness, basking in manifest moral superiority. Its sickening.

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  37. "Corollary: if a white majority = bad country, then a white minority = better country. And no whites at all = best country."

    well played sir.

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  38. As I have often said, if Mexicans are so desirable as immigrants then why isn't Mexico such a wonderful place?

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  39. I'll tell you something else that multiples, Jeb Bush:

    The stupidity of rich like you and your friend Haley about future immigration and your utter cluelessness about the road to hell that most of America is on.

    They get together and repeat this silliness, introducing more as they go along. As a group they are also willfully blind to an amazing number of things. For example, the idea that more people = good for the country. No, it's good for businesses that supply items that everybody buys and people who work in areas (government, healthcare) where more employee are added as the population expands.

    I wish somebody would ask these so called "small government" supporters why they want to limit government spending for our own people and expand it for newcomers.

    If we can take in all these new people and spend more on many of them (those who end up long term in nursing homes, say) than they will ever earn in America, much less pay in taxes, we can afford Obamacare, full college scholarships for our own people and limitless unemployment.

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  40. JEB is talking about immigrants - not 2nd-to-nth generation Mexican Americans and not Mexicans in Mexico. The magic happens when a Mexican migrates here, but the magic dissipates between the 1st and 2nd generations. The implication being that this economic model is essentially a Ponzi scheme, that will blow up without a constant influx of desperate, unskilled immigrants.

    JEB should start white-boarding what happens when American living standards reach parity with Mexico's. What then?

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  41. "If you're counting number and not size then Bill Gates only created one measly business. If immigrant businesses have only a handful of employees then they can create more per capita then natives." - Even that isn't true, immigrant business creators punch below their weight in a per capita measure. That was not even true during the tech and stock bubble. But Jeb didn't say per capita, he said that 250M+ Americans create vastly fewer jobs than 40M immigrants.

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  42. As GWB might say, demography is density.

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  43. It is fun to watch the neo-whig republicants commit suicide. La Raza Rubio thinks he is going to skate into the oval office but it won't be happening. Mexicans love big government and will not vote for republicants. Not that the republicants are for smaller government contrary to the lies they spew.

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  44. "Europe is struggling to find young laborers".

    Whatever else you might say about Jeb Bush, he certainly doesn't keep abreast with international news and economic developments.

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  45. The only people who remark upon 'fertility' in these terms are stock breeders - in particular the breeders of piglets for the meat industry.

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  46. " Rob said...
    As GWB might say, demography is density."

    Okay, I'm stealing that one.

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  47. "Can any one think up a Snowden-like act of self sacrifice that could be performed to oppose the invasion of our country?"

    If I had Zuckerberg's billions, I'd be funding a culture jamming fake left wing ad campaign, not unlike Zuckerberg's fake conservative political action committee and pro immigration ad campaign.

    I'd spread a rumor in poor villages south of the border that rich American gringo "WASPs" like the Bushes, the Koch brothers, and the Wall St. Journal editorial board enjoy dining on Mexican babies and just want to import Mexicans so that there are more tasty Mexican babies to eat.

    I'd never include a single Druish billionaire in my underground ad campaign -- just rich gentiles (which, regardless of religious/ethnic origin, would be called "WASPs").

    That would be so crazy that it just might work.

    I'd also start an ad campaign on urban, black radio stations, BET, MSNBC and popular black websites that would make the claim that the RepubliKKKlan party is only intent on flooding the country with Mexicans in order to take jobs away from blacks, and to overwhelm the black population.

    The ads would feature somebody with credibility in the community, like Michael Eric Dyson or Young Jeezy, saying that the Rubio/McCain-Grahm bill is "just another example of the RepubliKKKlan party tryna hold our brothaz and sistaz down."

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  48. "“Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” - no one is going to challenge him on that one either."

    legal immigrants from asia.

    and some illegal aliens do start small permitless taco business or illegal flower business on the side of the road, but nobody in california is interested in going after them because they're illegal. if an american does what an illegal did in california and start a business without necessary permits or violate laws, they'd be shut down.

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  49. "Can any one think up a Snowden-like act of self sacrifice that could be performed to oppose the invasion of our country?"

    No, because that requires universal disgust from the public. The public has been so brainwashed by now, that they will turn on you.

    And anyway, white folks have it good in America. Highest standard of living in the world, very safe geopolitical position, many gadgets, facebook, snapchat, dancing with the stars.

    Orwell was wrong. It wasn't the omnipotent government that killed the human mind, it was the tsunami of shit that came from the media and the entertainment industry.

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  50. Arabs and black Africans are generally more fertile than Jews so I guess Jeb Bush and the neocons will now be calling on Israel to import more of those.

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  51. "Europe is struggling to find young laborers".

    Whatever else you might say about Jeb Bush, he certainly doesn't keep abreast with international news and economic developments.


    He left out the last word. "Jobs".

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  52. "Working Class American said...

    When are you going to realize that there are differing interests in america? That rich people have different interests than common people? That mass immigration helps the rich. And Bush was to serve the rich because they will give him money for that."

    We all realize that, you stupid nitwit. Just because Jeb Bush is a plutocrat tool, doesn't mean he isn't also stupid.

    You show up here and lecture us, as if this is a Republican-party ladies-club, and we are all Sean Hannity fan-club members. Your views are not revelations to us, and most everyone here is a hell of a lot smarter than you. F**k off, dips**t.

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  53. "if mexicans are so great, why isn't mexico awesome? it's FILLED with mexicans."

    You could say the same thing about many white groups.

    If Russians are so great, why isn't Russia awesome?
    If non-Gypsy Romanians are so great, why isn't Romania awesome?

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  54. If Russians are so great, why isn't Russia awesome? If non-Gypsy Romanians are so great, why isn't Romania awesome?

    There are not as many Russian and non-Gypsy Romanian immigrants in the United States as there are Hispanic ones.

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  55. "If non-Gypsy Romanians are so great, why isn't Romania awesome?""

    I'm not Romanian, don't know much about them, though I've know a few PhD types who seemed about the same as any other European types, maybe better at the Soviet-style jokes about their own poverty and the futility of things.

    I think Romania had a pretty rough go of it during WWII, a lot of those 'Germans' around Stalingrad were Romanians. Romania seems to be, like Poland, difficult to defend and borders move around. Much of Romania was a province of the Ottoman Empire until 1878. After that they seem to have spent a fair amount of time being a battleground, which can be distracting. And maybe rule by foreign Turks just wasn't conducive to being awesome.

    Transylvania (a big part of Romania) was often part of European empires. It was a buffer state between the Ottomans and Europe. Interestingly enough, it appears to have been ruled simultaneously by both Ottomans and Habsburgs for a good while, that must have been an effort to keep the peace. No matter, Romanians seem to have been second class citizens in their own country. At one time settlement by a military frontier population of German Saxons was conducted.

    Perhaps you need to establish a certain degree of security in your own nation-state to enable awesomeness.


    Three interesting factoids in regard to Romania:

    1) For about a decade it was arguable that the best hackers (in the negative sense of the word; i.e., crackers) were Romanian. Romania may still be the capitol of the "black hats" and internet crooks. Kinda negative awesome.

    2) The worst defeat ever by a USAF fighter group during one mission (a loss of over 20 P-38s in one battle) was inflicted by the Romanian air force flying a fighter plane of Romanian design and manufacture, the IAR-80. The Romanians were one of the very few minor powers who designed and built their own world-class fighter plane in the WWII period. Much of this battle may have taken place in a valley at an altitude of only a few hundred feet, which played to the IAR's strength. (About 75 P-38s were attempting a surprise attack but got caught low in the valley.)

    3) The multi-stage rocket was first unequivocally described in a book by Conrad Haas, an arsenal master of Transylvania. Haas was one of the German Transylvania Saxons settled there for military purpose: "... the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the Kingdom of Hungary."

    General violence, conflict, chaos, and "troubles" probably greatly reduce the accomplishments of a population. The leaders of the US seem attached to policies likely to result in potential long-term conflict, which is troubling.

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  56. If Russians are so great, why isn't Russia awesome?

    The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union not impressive enough for you? Let us know when Mexico lands something on the moon, or sends its first man to space.

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