Today, I took my almost 13 year old son on a voyage to New Jersey we will long remember.

We saw Ellis Island, the gateway through which more than 12 million immigrants poured into the U.S. between 1892 and 1924, 1,200,000 alone in one of those years, I believe 1908 or 1909. Ellis Island was not the only "gateway" but it was by far the largest. The "brain drain" that poured through Ellis Island and similar points were probably the major key to America's greatness and Europe's decline.

Before the 1890s the U.S. was but a blip on Europe's and thus (in their view) the civilized world's radar screen. The ceaseless warfare and religious persecution had the aim of controlling Europe, access to colonial resources and thus (in their view) the civilized world. Wars such as WW I and WW II were fought in that quixotic aim. Something not so funny happened on the way to the forum.

There were periods of major European emigration before, The Irish potato famine, political turmoil in Germany and famines in Scandinavia sent smaller waves to our fair shores during the late 1840's and early 1850's. What happened from 1892 on was one of the great migrations of human history. America's growing prosperity, and unprecedented political freedom and stability began to become known in Europe, with the greater spread of information. Some of that information demonstrably false, mind you, such as America's streets being paved with gold. Still, the people willing to foresake to familiarity of speking their language of birth, in many cases leave the houses and towns they were born in for a new, unfamiliar world, with a different language up and left. By and large, these were the people that a new country needed to build it; people with drive, in some cases imagination, in some cases intellect, but people willing to give rather than take, to work and work hard.

After going to Ellis Island, I took my son to dinner in the "Ironbound" section of Newark, and had the best Portugese food I've had this side of the Alentejo region of Portugal. These people are contributors to our country that give it spice and zest.

My paternal grandmother's first worlds were in either Magyar or Yiddish. Her son, my father, was a professional till his death who spoke perfect English, who built a thriving interior architecture practice from nothing. My mother's maternal grandfather was a Ukrainian refugee from the Czar's army, tired of the senseless and endless wars. I am now an acomplished attorney. Our President is the son of a Kenyan farmer. In more modern times, the better people of Asia, the Caribbean, and yes even the Muslim world come here rather than stay there.

Thus not only was this a great migration; it was a huge brain drain. It continues to this day.This is and always has been a country of immigrants.

What do you mean by "Europe's decline"? Europe's doing all right. You're forgetting that other countries have had masses of immigrants as well. Britain, for example, is just as immigrant-descended as the US is. In fact, these days, any European country is probably going to have a higher proportion of immigrants in it, because a resident of any EU country can migrate to any other EU country, whereas it's extremely difficult to migrate to the US even if you want to. It's hard to get an American work permit.

No offence dude, but I think that's a little bit nationally biased and naive. First of all, why was it a "brain drain"? Why would the intelligent move to America? I believe these people were doing fine in Europe. And is there a reason why the immigrants would have been exceptionally hard working? Also to me it seems you are exaggerating the religious percecution (either it wasn't so bad in 1890 or I've really missed something?) and wars.

As for why euros aren't superpowers anymore, I think it might just have something to do with two, devastating world wars. Superpowers come and go. America will also decline sooner or later. To me it seems America has already started declining.

More to the point, I don't see that international power is a reasonable measurement of "flourishing" or "decline" anyway. To my mind, a country is flourishing when it provides a good standard of living for its inhabitants, and it's in decline if it fails to do that. Wielding mighty global power has nothing to do with that, and is no more a measure of the success of a country than jockstrap size is a measure of the success of a man. I've lived in three countries in my life (so far), and the best ones to live in were the ones with the least overseas power. In the case of the US, it's hard to see that it's doing any better on this score than most European countries.

Britain, for example, is just as immigrant-descended as the US is. In fact, these days, any European country is probably going to have a higher proportion of immigrants in it, because a resident of any EU country can migrate to any other EU country, whereas it's extremely difficult to migrate to the US even if you want to. It's hard to get an American work permit.Surely you jest. The US's lack of a social benefit network, especially back then, meant that people that came here came to work. Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims. Their immigrants are a net negative; ours are a net positive.

No offence dude, but I think that's a little bit nationally biased and naive. First of all, why was it a "brain drain"? Why would the intelligent move to America? I believe these people were doing fine in Europe. And is there a reason why the immigrants would have been exceptionally hard working?
Because of hereditary restrictions on what they could do, and other causes. And the immigrants would have been exceptionally hard working because these people were willing to leave behind parents, friends and familiar settings, and to learn a new language, to better themselves.


Also to me it seems you are exaggerating the religious percecution (either it wasn't so bad in 1890 or I've really missed something?) and wars.THe persecutions were actually quite bad then. Russia had bloody "pogroms" where howling drunken mobs of peasants would attack the Jews and the law enforcement officials would stand by idly. Anti-Jewish restrictions and riots were quite common.

As for why euros aren't superpowers anymore, I think it might just have something to do with two, devastating world wars. Superpowers come and go. America will also decline sooner or later. To me it seems America has already started declining.It was the wars and the loss of quite huge numbers of their better people.

Surely you jest. The US's lack of a social benefit network, especially back then, meant that people that came here came to work. Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims. Their immigrants are a net negative; ours are a net positive.

What? Did you miss a history lesson or something? There sure wasn't a social benefit network here in Finland in 1890 and I daresay there wasn't one anywhere else either.

And the immigrants would have been exceptionally hard working because these people were willing to leave behind parents, friends and familiar settings, and to learn a new language, to better themselves.

Either that, or they simply couldn't get a job in their old country. Besides, how does leaving family and friends behind make someone hard working?

THe persecutions were actually quite bad then. Russia had bloody "pogroms" where howling drunken mobs of peasants would attack the Jews and the law enforcement officials would stand by idly. Anti-Jewish restrictions and riots were quite common.
And the Russians made up the majority of immigrants? Besides, there's always been antisemitism, even in the US (though I admit it has been worse here in Europe).

It was the wars and the loss of quite huge numbers of their better people.
"Better people"? First of all, there was overpopulation in Europe, so people moving into the US wasn't that big deal. And the idea that the people moving into the US were "better" people, I'm afraid that's something you just made up. The people moving in to the US were people who had nothing here. I'm sure it would be nice to think Americans are somehow better but I suggest you study history. At least the people who moved to America from Finland were people from the lower classes: "loiset" (eng: parasites) and "mäkitupalaiset" (rent-farmers or whatever they're called, these people didn't own their farms). These people had no future in Finland at the time. It was no real loss for us: there was no work or need for them. And I doubt they were exactly intellectuals or "better people" either. I believe the situation was somewhat similar in other European countries as well.

The only real "brain drain" on a large scale across the Atlantic, from Europe to America, happened in the run up to and during World War II.

Surely you jest. The US's lack of a social benefit network, especially back then, meant that people that came here came to work. Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims. Their immigrants are a net negative; ours are a net positive.


Polish workers are not really that bad, neither are Muslims, except the violent ones and terrorists.


Because of hereditary restrictions on what they could do, and other causes. And the immigrants would have been exceptionally hard working because these people were willing to leave behind parents, friends and familiar settings, and to learn a new language, to better themselves.


It is often misinterpreted that some part of low class people are hard working, and some are just "natural criminals". You can easily accuse minorities as the source of crime by pointing a graph of crime rate broken down in ethnicities. It proves nothing that certain ethnicity is hard working and certain is criminals.

THe persecutions were actually quite bad then. Russia had bloody "pogroms" where howling drunken mobs of peasants would attack the Jews and the law enforcement officials would stand by idly. Anti-Jewish restrictions and riots were quite common.

Jewish population in Eastern Europe mass emigrated to British Palestine.

It was the wars and the loss of quite huge numbers of their better people.

That's the real brain drain. Yours are labor drain.

Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims. Their immigrants are a net negative; ours are a net positive.

That is plain false. Where are you getting this info from, the Daily Mail? Believe me, most immigrants in the UK right now probably work much harder than the average native. If all the eastern Europeans, antipodeans, and south Asians were to leave, London would grind to a halt. Besides which, if anyone really did come to the UK simply to skive on benefits, they'd be mad, because benefits are so low it is extremely difficult to live on them.

I don't see what relevance the religion of the immigrants is, either.

:lol: You could as well argue that the people who went to America were mostly ultrareligious sickos, criminals and unemployed, uneducated farmers. America didn't make much difference in the european wars. :p
But thats of corse one-sided, too.

Thus not only was this a great migration; it was a huge brain drain. It continues to this day.This is and always has been a country of immigrants.
So is France, and has been for about as long as the US.

And the European export of poeple started well before the US became a magnet for imigrants. The US got the south Italians around 1900. Around 1850 millions of north Italians emigrated to the contries around the easten Mediterranean, Turkey, Egypt, Syria etc.

Neither process has a lick to do with the success of failure of either the countries people emigrated to or from. Aside from the bloody obvious one, that the north American continent was one huge real estate bonanza where Europe could export its surplus population. But the key word is "surplus".

[QUOTE=Gigaz;7774197 America didn't make much difference in the european wars. :p
But thats of corse one-sided, too.[/QUOTE]


Are you kidding me?
Can you please tell me how WWI would have been won without American shipping to Britain, and WWII... Well...

Are you kidding me?
Can you please tell me how WWI would have been won without American shipping to Britain, and WWII... Well...

France and Britain could have probably won World War I by themselves or they would have made peace without any winners or loosers.
And in World War II Germany was already defeated by the Sowjet Union. The western front was a minor battlefield.

France and Britain could have probably won World War I by themselves or they would have made peace without any winners or loosers.
At the risk of totally derailing the thread...no. If France and Britain made a status quo peace in the west, they would still be leaving the Germans in control of a huge chunk of Eastern Europe, hell they'd be unchallenged beyond the Vosges. And since it was American warm bodies that fueled the Hundred Days Counteroffensive, and American munitions provided to supplant shortfalls in Anglo-French production...
And in World War II Germany was already defeated by the Sowjet Union. The western front was a minor battlefield.
Whoo, let's get back into revisionism! And have this exact same argument! Again! If Stalin had the Eastern Front wrapped up so well, why was he constantly screaming for Western aid in opening up other fronts?

I don't think that the course of either world war has much to do with the subject of this thread.

And the European export of poeple started well before the US became a magnet for imigrants. The US got the south Italians around 1900. Around 1850 millions of north Italians emigrated to the contries around the easten Mediterranean, Turkey, Egypt, Syria etc.
That's quite interesting, actually. What was the reason for this immigration? I can see that Mediteranean trade must have growing quite dramatically back then, but I would have thought that the immigration would have been more East>West and South>North.

Surely you jest. The US's lack of a social benefit network, especially back then, meant that people that came here came to work. Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims. Their immigrants are a net negative; ours are a net positive.

Congratulations, that's probably the most ill-informed statement I've seen on the forum in quite some time. Might I suggest taking a look around the Office for National Statistics website to educate yourself in such matters?

Neither process has a lick to do with the success of failure of either the countries people emigrated to or from. Aside from the bloody obvious one, that the north American continent was one huge real estate bonanza where Europe could export its surplus population. But the key word is "surplus".

That part about surplus population is important since Schama in his history of Britain points out that at the time America was being used as a dumping ground for Britain's unwanted the population was only about 5 million, and that was considered too many. Our current population is closer to 60 million!

:lol: - actually I've heard opinions exactly opposite - that US is a country of low-life scum who was kicked out from Europe or hoped for great riches and easier life overseas: criminals, paupers and bounty hunters; searchers of El Dorado.

I'd say both accounts are equally true and false.

Whats the point of this thread btw? Woooo Amurica?

During the pre-WWI era, vast numbers of rural Europeans left the land that they could no longer live on, heading to pastures new and the big cities. Since European farmland was pretty full those who still wanted to farm went to America (tremendous brain drain there), and lots went to wherever cities with jobs were, 4 million Irish went to America whilst 2-3 million went to British cities, millions of Germans left for new shores but millions more crowded into the Ruhr region, millions of Italians left Italy for America...and Brazil, Argentina, France etc.

America was a nice place with lots of open land, resources, jobs, and pleasent climate, but still only about 60% of the great European outflux ended up there. There wasn't anything magically exceptional about the country or the people who went there, it just had lots of room and was fair and good to all comers. With the current US immigration system, and if rampant romanticism like that in the OP controls policy further, that may change for the worse.

I was just reading about this in Carl Degler's book.

Immigration was of course very important to the US it contributed to the development of its industries and it cities in the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's.

The thing is its highly mistaken to call it a brain drain. There were a couple great waves of immigration, the first one from northern Europe, England, Germany, Scandavia, and such and these guys tended to be farmers, Germans moved to the midwestern farming commounities for instance. Then later on the Irish came with the Potato famine, they were unskilled laborers they worked in the factories for poor wages, and squalid living conditions.

Later on the immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and Greece were all peasants and farmers. Most of them flooded into American cities living in ethnic neighborhoods until they could get themselves out of the slum.

These weren't for the most part skilled laborers, engineers, scientists, or men of education or intellectual pursuit. They were more than anything else what in Europe would be referred to as peasants, the poor, or possibly scum. They boosted American workforce taking the dirty and dangerous jobs in the factories, moved out west to become farmers, Europe wasn't losing a middle class or educated people.

Eventually of course they moved up to blue collar or white collar jobs, and and into higher socio-economic strata's over the course of generations. But they started out at the bottom, of that have no doubt.

:lol: - actually I've heard opinions exactly opposite - that US is a country of low-life scum who was kicked out from Europe or hoped for great riches and easier life overseas: criminals, paupers and bounty hunters; searchers of El Dorado.

I'd say both accounts are equally true and false.
Exactly. Jerry Seinfeld was right. Americans are the "wretched refuse" of Europe.

The idea that Irish peasants fleeing the starvation of the Potato blight led to Europe's decline is one of the funniest I've ever heard. Not that I have anything against the Irish, but they had nary an effect on Europe intellectually, and those that did weren't starving, uneducated farmers and labourers. The same applies elsewhere.

And there's nothing in the least bit racist or ignorant about that Muslim comment at all.

In my personal experience, Hindus fill that description more than Muslims, mainly due to the fact that mostly Brahmins and Kshatriyas believe they should be allowed far more privileges even in a society that doesn't uphold to their beliefs (The United States)

But enough of such experiences, I'll get back to the point of the thread.

It was mostly poor Europeans which emigrated to America, for a multitude of reasons. Criminal records, bad economic conditions (poverty), dreaming of a better life basically. In reality, some places were better and others were basically the same, see Lower New York. 'The New World is exactly the same as the Old World, only it had better advertising.'

In my personal experience, Hindus fill that description more than Muslims, mainly due to the fact that mostly Brahmins and Kshatriyas believe they should be allowed far more privileges even in a society that doesn't uphold to their beliefs (The United States)

When was the last time you saw an Indian on welfare hm? The answer is never. You know why? Because Indian immigrants are educated and hardworking. They have the highest average income in the US, and the highest SAT scores, the best university graduation rates, and highest paid professions.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Indian American men had "the highest year-round, full-time median earnings ($51,094)", while Indian American women had a medium income of $35,173.[

Indian Americans own 50% of all economy lodges and 35% of all hotels in the United States, which have a combined market value of almost $40 billion. (Source: Little India Magazine). In 2002, there were over 223,000 Asian Indian-owned firms in the U.S., employing more than 610,000 workers, and generating more than $88 billion in revenue.[17]

Indian Americans have the highest educational qualifications of all national origin groups in the United States. According to the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, there are close to 35,000 Indian American doctors [14]. According to the 2000 census, about 64% of Indian Americans have attained a Bachelor's degree or more.[5](compared to 28% nationally, and 44% average for all Asian American groups). Almost 40% of all Indians have a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, which is five times the national average. (Source: The Indian American Centre for Political Awareness.) These high levels of education have enabled Indian Americans to become a productive segment of the American population, with 72.3% participating in the U.S. work force, of which 57.7% are employed in managerial and professional specialties.[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_American#Current_social_issues

Exactly. Jerry Seinfeld was right. Americans are the "wretched refuse" of Europe.
Why don't you read (if you are able to) the context of the "wretched refuse" quotee, and by the way it was from Emma Lazarus, not Jerry Seinfeld:

Warning given since you're new to us. No personal attks pls. - KD

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

That is plain false. Where are you getting this info from, the Daily Mail? Believe me, most immigrants in the UK right now probably work much harder than the average native. If all the eastern Europeans, antipodeans, and south Asians were to leave, London would grind to a halt. Besides which, if anyone really did come to the UK simply to skive on benefits, they'd be mad, because benefits are so low it is extremely difficult to live on them.The benefits are better than in Pakistan. And were the Tube Bombers of July 11 such great citizens? Why are there so many Muslims in Britan that will not participate in national life?

:lol: You could as well argue that the people who went to America were mostly ultrareligious sickos, criminals and unemployed, uneducated farmers. America didn't make much difference in the european wars. :p
But thats of corse one-sided, too.
I could also argue that the earth is flat or that Arnold Schwartzenegger got pregnant in real life.

:lol: - actually I've heard opinions exactly opposite - that US is a country of low-life scum who was kicked out from Europe or hoped for great riches and easier life overseas: criminals, paupers and bounty hunters; searchers of El Dorado.

I'd say both accounts are equally true and false.
Huh?

The benefits are better than in Pakistan.

No doubt they are, but it doesn't follow from that that most Pakistani immigrants are here merely to skive off benefits. You should check the facts before you make such offensive and inflammatory statements.

And were the Tube Bombers of July 11 such great citizens?

No, but that's not really relevant, since three of the four were not immigrants but native Britons. The other one was from Jamaica. What is this supposed to prove?

Why are there so many Muslims in Britan that will not participate in national life?

What's "national life"? I'm not sure that I participate in it, and I'm neither a Muslim nor an immigrant. Nevertheless, I know enough not to judge entire religions or ethnic groups by the actions of a few extremists. A few years ago, it was Christians engaging in bomb campaigns in London. It doesn't mean that Christians don't "participate in national life", whatever that means.

If this is the best you can do to support the outrageous comments you've made in this thread then I'm not sure what else I can say. It sounds like you just believe by faith alone that your immigrants are superior to everyone else's. That's a pretty weird thing to believe, especially in the face of all the contrary evidence which absolutely everyone in this thread has presented, and which you have just ignored.

Huh?
I meant that the people who did cross Atlantic were on average not better or worse, not more hardworking or lazy, not more intelligent or stupid, than those who stayed behind.

Why don't you read (if you are able to) the context of the "wretched refuse" quotee, and by the way it was from Emma Lazarus, not Jerry Seinfeld:

Ah, reverting to personal attacks. Good way to win an argument.

The US wasn't the only country to experience mass immigrations. South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, received many European and African immigrants at the same time period, why arent they as great as America?

Ah, reverting to personal attacks. Good way to win an argument.Some of my best friends are functionally or truly illiterate.


The US wasn't the only country to experience mass immigrations. South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, received many European and African immigrants at the same time period, why arent they as great as America?More of them were forced.

Also, Argentina at one point approached US levels of prosperity until it went astray.

When was the last time you saw an Indian on welfare hm? The answer is never. You know why? Because Indian immigrants are educated and hardworking. They have the highest average income in the US, and the highest SAT scores, the best university graduation rates, and highest paid professions.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_American#Current_social_issues

That doesn't necessarily mean they don't seek welfare. I've seen Indians who live in the Upper East Side in penthouses who are asking for welfare benefits, ranging from parental healthcare to disability benefits (When they're walking perfectly) to unemployment benefits.

I'm definitely not saying Indians aren't hardworking or smart in anyway, but I'm appalled as to why Indians would be willing to exploit the welfare system. (Again, not saying it is limited to them, but I've seen many more of them than others)

Personal anecdote = verifiable fact. Right got it.

JBGUSA:

I'm going to assume that you didn't take the time to check out the ONS website, so let me enlighten you. Please take a look at the following link.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/MN33.pdf

I'm looking here right at page 17 where table A outlines how many thousand people emigrated to the UK in 2005 and 2006. It doesn't break immigration down by religion but by country, and whilst many of the 10 mentioned have muslim communities only Pakistan stands out as having a majority muslim population. No other country with a majority muslim population such as say Iraq, Egypt or Iran makes it on the top 10, which suggests that they provided relatively few migrants to the UK in recent years. Now I'm not saying that people coming from Germany, USA, New Zealand etc cannot be muslims since many of the other 9 countries have muslim communities whether they be big or small. Just as clear however is that the majority of migrants to the UK are unlikely to follow the muslim faith. Apart from anything else since hundreds of thousands of migrants come to the UK every year if the majority were muslims then there would be a lot more than 1.5 million muslims in the UK. Unless that is they're all leaving again which would run contrary to your claims about why they come here in the first place...

Moving down to the pie charts on page 21 you'll see on the left hand one that they break down migration by reason to come to the UK. Two categories stand out right away, definate job and looking for one. These made up 39% of all migrants to the UK in 2006. If we throw in students (who joking aside are doing something very productive) to the mix the figure rises to 66% of all migrants coming in that year came here to either work or study. Many of those on work and study visas are specifically banned from claiming benefits until they get a more permanent visa status. Their visa stamp will actually say "no recourse to public funds" and if they do bring over dependents during that period they usually won't be able to claim benefits for them either, they're expected to support them.

Now you may counter this with the suggestion that merely indicating a reason to come to the UK is not an indication of what they do when they arrive here. In a strict sense this is correct but let me assure you that in most cases if people came here on a working visa the rules are so strict that if they don't prove that they've worked their backsides off then chances are they won't have their visas renewed. Trust me on this one, I know people on the Highly Skilled Visa programme and I know very well what kind of hoops they have to jump through just to get the coveted "indefinate leave to remain".

I won't comment on the latter remarks since Plotinus did a very good response to those.

This is the history section, if you're going to make outrageous statements have the common sense to back it with some reputable sources. If you have some facts to back your claims about "Most of the recent immigrants to the UK are benefits-drawing Muslims" then feel free to post it. Otherwise I suggest you read the above and learn something from it.

Ah, reverting to personal attacks. Good way to win an argument.

The US wasn't the only country to experience mass immigrations. South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, received many European and African immigrants at the same time period, why arent they as great as America?
Yep, quoting a poem I already know sure shut me up. Why, my - well, everyone but the OP's - argument has been ruined.

Report posts if you've problems with them, instead of replying to them.

Now pls get back to the topic on hand.

That doesn't necessarily mean they don't seek welfare. I've seen Indians who live in the Upper East Side in penthouses who are asking for welfare benefits, ranging from parental healthcare to disability benefits (When they're walking perfectly) to unemployment benefits.

I'm definitely not saying Indians aren't hardworking or smart in anyway, but I'm appalled as to why Indians would be willing to exploit the welfare system. (Again, not saying it is limited to them, but I've seen many more of them than others)

If I could fake out welfare from the Eagle without being thrown to jail with fraud, I'd certainly do it. I act as what economists told, a "rational individual".

The thing is its highly mistaken to call it a brain drain. There were a couple great waves of immigration, the first one from northern Europe, England, Germany, Scandavia, and such and these guys tended to be farmers, Germans moved to the midwestern farming commounities for instance. Then later on the Irish came with the Potato famine, they were unskilled laborers they worked in the factories for poor wages, and squalid living conditions.

Later on the immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and Greece were all peasants and farmers. Most of them flooded into American cities living in ethnic neighborhoods until they could get themselves out of the slum.

These weren't for the most part skilled laborers, engineers, scientists, or men of education or intellectual pursuit. They were more than anything else what in Europe would be referred to as peasants, the poor, or possibly scum. They boosted American workforce taking the dirty and dangerous jobs in the factories, moved out west to become farmers, Europe wasn't losing a middle class or educated people.
Maybe "brain drain" isn't the right term. I still believe that the more energetic people, the ones with initiative, were the ones that came.

Nope.

Mostly it was the middle section of the peasantry from European countries which experienced major upheavals in the countryside resulting in the destruction of the peasantry as a social class (ie, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Ireland, parts of Spain, but not France, which is why there were very few French folks in the 1870-1920 mass migrations and no huge French migrant populations in the New World that are analogous to Germans/Scandinavians/Italians/Galicians).

The poorest couldn't afford it and ended up drifting towards the cities or becoming landless farm labourers, whilst the richer peasants mostly coped with the social and economic changes.

Maybe "brain drain" isn't the right term. I still believe that the more energetic people, the ones with initiative, were the ones that came.

a) Is 'energy' and 'initiative' genetically determined then? You seem to indicate this in your original post.
b) Using your apparent system of thought one could equally make the argument that is only the losers and crazies who couldn't hack it/become prosperous in Europe emigrated, as the ones with energy and initiative would solve the problems they had rather than running away ;). (well not the absolute losers, as they tended to die, but the rung above that)

Exactly. Jerry Seinfeld was right. Americans are the "wretched refuse" of Europe.

The idea that Irish peasants fleeing the starvation of the Potato blight led to Europe's decline is one of the funniest I've ever heard. Not that I have anything against the Irish, but they had nary an effect on Europe intellectually, and those that did weren't starving, uneducated farmers and labourers. The same applies elsewhere.

And there's nothing in the least bit racist or ignorant about that Muslim comment at all.

Without us, crude racial caricatures in magazines wouldnt be what they are now in the US

Maybe "brain drain" isn't the right term. I still believe that the more energetic people, the ones with initiative, were the ones that came.

Why.
There is no question mark there because there can't possibly be any rational defense of that statement.

What's "national life"? I'm not sure that I participate in it, and I'm neither a Muslim nor an immigrant. Nevertheless, I know enough not to judge entire religions or ethnic groups by the actions of a few extremists. A few years ago, it was Christians engaging in bomb campaigns in London. It doesn't mean that Christians don't "participate in national life", whatever that means.

An excellent point.

That's one of the most ridiculous things about the current obsession that some people seem to have with the "evils" of Asian and Muslim immigrants. Change "Asian" to "Irish" and "Muslim" to "Catholic" and you'll find so many of the same arguments that were thrown around for the couple of centuries before we found someone more foreign to hate. You'd think people would've grown up a bit by now.