BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:
The problem is that no everyone wants to move here for positive reasons. Many people actually (gasp) want to do us serious harm, to benefit their home country, to "defend" their religion (not referring to people seeking to freely practice their religion, but those who see opposing religions as a threat worthy of violence), or have more personal harmful intent (whether drug dealing, extortion, or merely to make a lot of money by polluting/paying low wages, etc.).
No one is denying that all immigrants must be good.
PLAYER57832 wrote:Point is, pretending that we should just open our borders up to anyone without any adherence to responsibility won't work. That said, there is a HUGE difference between people who are just coming here to work and people coming for other reasons, including to live here permanently.
Who's pretending that everyone--regardless of criminal record or desire to work--should be allowed in place X?
The above quote. If moving is a right, then there should be no restrictions, though I will allow that we do restrict criminals within our own country, BUT the problem with immigration is that we lose those abilities and distinctions when we make the mere passage through a border to be an illegal act in itself.
BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:Both you and Phattscotty don't seem to want to disintinguish between people's motives.
False.
Sometimes you have, but most of your comments lately do not. You lump all immigrants into one lump... only qualifying it later, when challenged. You even (as noted below) try to claim that interstate movement is somehow identical to movement between countries!
BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:As a minimum, the huge influx of Mexicans and other Latinos has had a very serious impact on our society. Go all over CA and you will find people who feel their culture is being threatened or overrun by what is generalized as "Mexican" culture. In CA it is more poignant because it once was a Mexican territory. There are places where it is more common to hear Spanish than English. While that might seem OK on a culturally diverse front, it is problematic in terms of public policy and in being a unified nation.
What's so great about nationalist arguments? Unification can easily be maintained by xenophobic policies, but... why do that?
Again, you are mixing two concepts.
Politically, we need to ensure that the majority of people living here are vested in our political system. By that, I don't just mean that the majority cannot be criminals. That is a given. Its that if you have a large group without any stake, then you get even more of a "meism" society than today. JFK's "Ask not what your country can to for you, ask what you can do for your country" sounds almost like a joke today.. a joke or a tragedy. Granted, "Camelot" was a dream, a fiction that hid a lot of nastiness. Still... we saw a LOT of positive moves back then that have now been replaced by "I want MORE!". And, ironically, the ones steering that cry the most are those who benefit the absolute least. The Phattscotty's of this country cry a lot about personal freedom, utterly ignoring that they are merely puppets spouting the predominant paradigm that benefits mostly the very top few.
Immigration is not the only cause of that, but it is a big part. When teenagers going to a public high school in the US are chastised for wearing the US flag, it is significant. But more a problem is the number of times smaller incidents happen that don't reach the news. I hear about all this push to allow kids of illegal aliens to get college degrees, to obtain aid, and have to ask.. what about our kids? What about my kids and the kids of my neighbors, friends and relatives who have lived here all their lives, who's relatives have fought and died for this country.. why cannot THEY also get a college education, get loans without incurring so much debt things like buying a house, having a family would be dreams. College is supposed to open opportunities, not close them down!
Ethnically, it gets both more complex and more simple. The simple part is that if you have a people who cannot communicate, it is inherently a problem. Language is a very, very big part of that, more subtle cultural aspects matter, too.
The more complex part is that historically, we have an overriding paradigm. That paradigm is that we accept new people, who then become a part of our society, the overriding paradigm. Changes are relatively small and often subtle, or seem so at first. It is now rare to walk around California without hearing Spanish, to go to a market without seeing Mexican foods prominently displayed. I pick those superficial and relatively unimportant changes because while in and of themselves they are not negative, may even be positive, they represent a fundamental change in the population that is anything BUT minor and unimportant. I realize full well that the story of the "American Dream" and the immigrant who comes here, faces a hardscrabble road to benefit his/her children, is rather a myth. It always was partly myth, but today its more of an outright fiction or lie.
I have seen a change in CA, a significant change. That I see so much more evidence of Latino, but particularly Mexican culture, is not itself an issue, particularly given the strong roots between Mexico and CA. However, when that evidence is disdain for anything "Anglo" or "white" or even average American...then it very much IS a problem, in the US.
BigBallinStalin wrote:[I'm not that concerned about people hating on other subcultures.
You should be. You should wonder WHY that hatred exists.
As long as its just a few idiots.. Ye old ignorant KKK hater, then sure. Having them is just part of freedom, the ironic part of an overriding tolerance for difference. They serve to let us know "there we do NOT want to go!" However, when you see hundreds of average people across the west, when you see large segments of "middle America" toying with ideas that broach on racism or xeonophobia... it behooves you to ask "why?". Ignoring real issue and problems is the easiest way to see them fester into real and serious problems. In this case, I honestly think we are already at that point in many places, but even if that were not true, pretending that dissatisfaction is always just about idiots not seeing the whole picture is the surest way to become a fanatic yourself.
BigBallinStalin wrote:[
PLAYER57832 wrote:There ARE many who will benefit from having a divided society, but that is not average middle class America. Previous groups came here to become part of the US, to become part of the culture. This new wave often wants nothing of that. That IS something to be concerned about. "Concerned" does not mean excluding out of hand, but it does mean that there are a lot of issue to be thought out.
That's doubtful. It depends on the changes in relative prices brought about by the positive change in immigration, which affects various labor markets and thus product markets. Do you think the average middle class American has benefited on net from the minimal restrictions on interstate migration?
Interstate and international immigration are entirely different things. Only when we become one, unified, voting world will that comparison matter. Pretending otherwise is purely obtuse.
Regarding immigration, I think you need to step outside of your neat text book theories and catch phrases long enough to observe what is really and truly happening, what has happened.
It is no coincidence that the concentration upward to not just the top 1%, but even a portion of that 1%, has occurred exactly when we have gotten this huge influx of largely illegal immigrants. HOWEVER, its no where near as simple as saying "they are taking our jobs". Both you and Phattscotty have, rightfully, pointed out that immigrants historically take the jobs American citizens won't take. They work hard and make our system work. However, in recent years that has changed to illegal immigrants not just taking the low paying and unattractive jobs to taking truly skilled positions. Also, because they have traditional societal networks still, which most Americans no longer have, they are often able to pull together in ways that more long-standing Americans have not. My dad, an immigrant, got jobs in part because of the network of people from his country of birth. That network is only very marginally available to myself and my brothers. It is not really available at all to my children. Some groups still have those ties. The church of the Latter-Day Saints, for example, makes great bones to instruct members to help each other.