Massive demonstration right outside my window!

[Patroklos]

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Oerdin
My 10,000 foot level quick gut feeling is that the Congressional Republicans are looking for an issue to moblize their conservative base in an election year where the polls are all going against them. Otherwise why bring this issue up now? The big business Republicans don't want the issue dealt with out of fear their cheap labor will dry up while the border area Republicans in Congress are afraid of losing latino votes due to this issue. It seems that the nationalist Republicans are trying to recreate a prop 187 style voter shift based upon this issue.

Anyone think this is close to reality?

Pretty much on target

It's the "pick on people who can't defend themselves" flavor of the week basically

[Ted Striker]

By the way the whole "illegal immigrant" thing always cracks me up since we were a nation founded by illegal immigrants.

And these immigrants just didn't do bad things like work at Jack in the Box, they murdered whole groups of people and took their land.

But hey no biggie.

[Seeker]

It's frustrating how the, IMO, real issue, which is improving and harmonizing wages and regulations around the world, gets lost in nationalistic crap.

The basic problem will not be solved by either building walls or creating a permanent slave labour force for the USA, but only by an incredible degree of mutual co-operation and sacrifice on the part of wealthy and poor countries to harmonize conditions.

[Jac de Molay]

Give 'em amnesty, forget about walls and Minutemen and all the other nonsense, and open up the border. There is plenty of room for everyone.

If the existing laws are being routinely flouted, what makes anyone believe that new "get tough" laws will be anymore successful? On balance, the contributions made by all immigrants, legal and illegal, far outweigh what is taken in return, especially when you wait one for two generations for them to assimilate.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
By the way the whole "illegal immigrant" thing always cracks me up since we were a nation founded by illegal immigrants.

And these immigrants just didn't do bad things like work at Jack in the Box, they murdered whole groups of people and took their land.

But hey no biggie.

I love this argument.

By your definition, the Anglo-Saxons were illegal immigrants into Britain, pushing the Celts off of their land. Prior to that, the Celts were illegal immigrants, pushing whoever came before them off of their land. Hell, name a group on the face of this earth that didn't get their land by conquering it and/or pushing someone else off of it first. Maybe some Polynesian islanders, possibly the Basques. Everyone else is an illegal immigrant, so why should we respect anyone's borders at all?

The original European settlers of North America weren't illegal immigrants, they were conquerors. Therefore, you can't use the North American conquest to justify unlimited illegal immigration into the U.S. without implying that the current immigration system is the equivalent of conquest. If they're not in some way equivalent, then why make the comparison?

If you want to analogize current illegal immigration to the conquest and colonization of North America, then you're ratcheting up the rhetoric much farther than most of the anti-illegal immigration people are going. If, as your logic holds, the Mexicans are simply doing today what the white settlers did centuries ago, then the current Americans are justified in taking the same defensive measures against the land grab that the Native Americans used against the settlers. If you're not saying that they are equivalent, then you are admitting that your statement that I quoted is essentially meaningless.

Regardless of how you choose to characterize the current situation, even if you chose to call it invasion, you cannot call it conquest. Therefore, the comparison between the actions of the European settlers and of the Mexican immigrants is meaningless. They're not equivalent, and one thing doesn't justify the other. The meaningless comparison doesn't give any justifiable reason why we shouldn't enforce our borders. It's just a poorly conceived emotional appeal.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Jac de Molay
Give 'em amnesty, forget about walls and Minutemen and all the other nonsense, and open up the border. There is plenty of room for everyone.

There may be plenty of room, but is there plenty of infrastructure? What happens when the construction bubble bursts, and we're stuck with tens of millions of out of work immigrants on the welfare system? Open borders would be insane. We'd have hundreds of millions of new, impoverished immigrants all coming at once, and that would completely overwhelm our government. The U.S. needs immigrants, but open borders would be an utter disaster.

[Wycoff]

dp

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Pretty much on target

It's the "pick on people who can't defend themselves" flavor of the week basically

Why are the illegal immigrants entitled to be here more than people from other parts of the world that are even worse than Mexico? Why should they be rewarded for breaking the rules when they're hurting those would-be immigrants who are following the legal process AND those would-be immigrants from other parts of the world not granted admitance because some illegal is filling their role? I don't understand why social leftists don't care about this.

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by Wycoff


There may be plenty of room, but is there plenty of infrastructure? What happens when the construction bubble bursts, and we're stuck with tens of millions of out of work immigrants on the welfare system? Open borders would be insane. We'd have hundreds of millions of new, impoverished immigrants all coming at once, and that would completely overwhelm our government. The U.S. needs immigrants, but open borders would be an utter disaster.

With the billions that have been spent, we could have easily built infrastructure, schools, etc. to legitimize and support them, and have millions of new taxpayers on the rolls to boot. Or do we continue throwing money, resources, and time down the sinkhole?

As for any doomsday scenarios, a lot of that same stuff was spouted around back around the turn of the century when another huge wave of immigrants came. The first one, maybe two generations, struggled then they assimilated, life went on, and the world didn't tilt on its axis.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Jac de Molay
With the billions that have been spent, we could have easily built infrastructure, schools, etc. to legitimize and support them, and have millions of new taxpayers on the rolls to boot. Or do we continue throwing money, resources, and time down the sinkhole?

As for any doomsday scenarios, a lot of that same stuff was spouted around back around the turn of the century when another huge wave of immigrants came. The first one, maybe two generations, struggled then they assimilated, life went on, and the world didn't tilt on its axis.

You can't seriously think that this country could accomodate 500 million - 1 billion immigrants, can you? That's what would happen if we declared open borders and let anyone in the world enter who wanted to enter. Governments from around the world would be shipping large segments of their populations directly to the states. The vast majority of these people would be dirt poor. They would not be tax payers, they would be in the welfare system. The short term shock would completely destroy the economy. It would take Trillions of dollars, trillions that would be a direct handout from the current citizens to the newcomers (who would outnumber current citizens at least 2 to 1, maybe more). This scenario is so unrealistic as to be farcical, and not really worth debating.

[Whoha]

the violence from all that multiculturalism would be pretty fun to watch from the outside though.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Whoha
the violence from all that multiculturalism would be pretty fun to watch from the outside though.

Yeah, it could get real interesting. I assume that most 3rd world countries (and possibly some advanced countries) would empty their prisons and mental asylums and send them to the states (why pay to take care of them when you can send them into the wide open U.S.A.?)

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Seeker
The basic problem will not be solved by either building walls or creating a permanent slave labour force for the USA, but only by an incredible degree of mutual co-operation and sacrifice on the part of wealthy and poor countries to harmonize conditions.

International labor and wage laws

[Dis]

I forget where I saw it, but I heard Mexico is facing a labor shortage. Can't imagine why.