Birthday!

[Minimalist]

Various hate groups are sending photos like the one above claiming that this garbage is left by illegals crossing the border. They change into their "good" clothes so they can fit in and leave the rest.


If so, we had best hire some Mexicans to clean it up because these yahoos aren't going to get their hands dirty.

[Digit]

we had best hire some Mexicans to clean it up

Exactly so Min, 'cos as in other countries illegals are often the only ones 'willing' to undertake such tasks, ie at a cheap rate!
Over here the last government now admits that they encouraged immigration to keep wages down, this being the same government that introduced legally enforcable minimum wages that made such illegal employment attractive to employers in the first place!
Currently illegal immigration into the US is stated at between 3 and 4 percent, some will be of net value to the US, some a net drain, according to the State Dept 27 per cent of all prison places are occupied by non-citizens.
On average I suspect that the result is advantageous to the US, though not necessarily to blue collar indegenous people, similarly over here.
The main winners are the central American states, the US dollars sent home are effectively propping up Nicaragua.
Opening the borders would destroy the economic advantage that the current immigrants enjoy, forcing down even their present earnings and ruining Nicaragua's economy.
Here billions are sent over seas every year by legal/illegal immigrants, and with our present economic problems I can see that being stopped, as it has in the past.
This sort of thing distorts the economies of such countries as Bangladesh.
More than 50 percent of all qualified medical staff from Malawi work in the UK!
Your country Min planted the Stars and Stripes on the Moon, aided by engineers from all over the world, to such an extent that India made it illegal for newly qualified people to emigrate for at least two years after qualifying.
These sort of imbalances are ridiculous!
Imagine what would happen if your country were to suffer a depression similar to the 1920s, many of the countries that seem to look upon you as the Satan would sink without trace!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

"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!"

The above is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty.



I'm not saying that most of these clowns would prefer this poem by Thomas B. Aldrich...but it sure seems that way.

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates
And through them presses a wild motley throng
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav
Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws
In street and alley what strange tongues are loud
Accents of menace alien to our air
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!
O Liberty, white Goddess! Is it well
To leave the gates unguarded?

[Digit]

A noble idea Min, and as a third generation immigrant I find it humbling, but what happens when the pot is full?
Because of the previous open door policy we have about a two percent legal immigrant population, hardly excessive, in numbers. But as in other countries they are over represented in jails, un-employment, medical and educational needs.
The illegal numbers have risen sharply in recent times as entry was easy and work freely available.
Many from the sub continent reached here with their passage paid by their extended families/clans etc and must repay the money. Fine whilst they can find work, but as their numbers rose so they became their own competitors in the black economy, thus depressing earnings further.
We now have illegals working for their keep, thus they cannot repay their debts, dare not return home and now are reduced to begging and thievery. The worst aspect of this is that their worst exploiters are often their own people!
As they have no base in this country they can undercut indegenous people and we now have the largest percentage on welfare ever.
As the present cuts continue their situation can only worsen
Such was the ease of entry and employment many disposed of everything in their home country to get here, assured of an easy life. If deported their situation in their own country is now worse than before!
Long term the open door policy run by the previous administration is going to cause a great deal of hardship and problems, but like all politicals the long term can look after its self.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Over here, Christians are over-represented in the jail population but no one gets excited by that.

I do think we're in somewhat of a different situation than the UK. We have a long tradition of allowing immigrants in to do the crap jobs we don't want - and shitting on them for doing so. But group by group they all assimilate...and then they join the chorus denouncing the new wave of immigrants.

The fact is that we need the temporary labor the illegals provide. I read a story two years ago where a farmer in California could not harvest his fruit crop because he could not get the workers. This year...he may as well sell to developers and have them put up another Wal-Mart to sell cheap, Chinese shit...assuming anyone can afford to buy it. It isn't a question of whether or not American will d the job. They are not in the right places. We have high, chronic, unemployment in the inner cities but no one is going to recruit farm workers in NY and transport them to North Carolina for the harvest season. Ain't going to happen.

[uniface]

Benjamin Franklin inveighed mightily against allowing Germans into Pennsylvania . . .

Still, there are limits in nature, and it is well to respect them.

[Johnny]

I wonder what would happen if they managed to evict every Mexican? Do they think their lives would dramatically improve or would they start looking for another group that was the cause of all their problems? Blacks and Jews come to mind....in that order.

Check out a movie called 'A Day Without a Mexican'. Really great looking indie film done by a california filmmaker that imagines just that. A day in california when all the mexicans have disappeared.

Aren't all borders made up and artifical, and does that fact give people the right to ignore them Johnny?

I think we're just almost to the point that national borders are irrelevant. We've advanced communications to the point that I can run every appliance in your home from my cellphone atop Pike's Peak. We can fight an air war half a world away with unmanned drones controlled from an air conditioned office in Colorado Springs. As we see state governments in the US begin to fail miserably in their delivery of social programs and general financial management, I wonder if we aren't approaching a point where our nation, much like a large corporate enterprise, has reached a size and level of advancement where the benefits of scale begin to make more centralized management the logical approach.

It might seem strange for a Southerner to suggest the abolishment of states' rights a mere 145 years after we fought a civil war to keep them, but that's how I'm starting to feel about it. Besides, how can we participate in an inter-stellar democracy when we can't even unify a tiny little planet harboring a few billion carbon based life forms?

[Minimalist]

Check out a movie called 'A Day Without a Mexican'.

LOL! Great idea. There wouldn't be a leaf blower running anywhere.

[Digit]

I think we're just almost to the point that national borders are irrelevant.

Absolutely not John! This is the cause of the current problems with the 'Latin' states of Europe. Their borders have gone and with them their control of their own destinies.
Remove the Mexican border, as I pointed out the flood northwards would have devastating effects on mexico and Columbia etc.
The US would not know where its tax raising limits were nor where its responsibilities started nor finished. The legal people would not know the limits of their writ. Mexico would face the same problems.
The logical result would be a lawless land bordering both countries.
Let me point out, without pointing fingers, the history of the 'Lone Star State'.
Mexican territory for years, mass immigration of non Mexican citizens who then demand a say in the area's governance.
We all know the outcome.
Exactly the same history in the South African 'Boer' states.
Borders also give identity to people.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

All well and good, Dig but we get a lot of Canadians down here (the weather is better) and no one is up in arms about them.

There is a very strong racial tinge to this dispute.

[Digit]

All my points have been on the fiscal effects of large scale migrations Min.
Let me ask you this. 50,000,000 candy striped immigrants entered the US illegally and worked on any dirty job for next to nothing, explain to me what you think the results would be for the US and the immigrant's home country.
If you wish to discuss why most poor countries seem to be non-white I don't have an answer, if that was not the case, and the poor countries were white, would you then wave the race flag?
My comments are valid, colour has no bearing. The mass migration of white Poles into the UK has had the results I posted, their colour/race is irrelevant.
For many years the UK has has enrolled Gurkha men into our armed forces, the most respected units in the British army and with a record second to none.
Until recently their pension was but a fraction of that paid to UK born troops.
Morally acceptable?
Not to me nor most us and a change was forced onto the government very recently.
The effects on the people in rural areas of Nepal has been generally negative due to inflation, even if only local, with retired troops now extremely wealthy by comparison to their neighbours.
Is pointing that out in some manner racist?
The results in Nepal would be exactly the same if thousands of UK whites retired there, in fact this has/is happening with UK retirees retiring to central European countries, is that racist?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

My comments are valid, colour has no bearing.

But it does HERE, Dig. Politicians yakking on camera is one thing. Most of them aren't stupid enough to say something really outlandish...instead they hide behind code words. You don't get to hear the chit chat in the streets or stores. That is much less politically-correct.

[Digit]

But I'm not there Min.
The people of central America who cross, legally or otherwise into the US, or from the sub continent into the UK do so in the hope of a better life.
The same reason that Europeans colonised North America and the antipodes, the same reason that my grandparents came here. I fail to see how stating such facts can in any manner be seen as racist.

Roy.

[Johnny]

I think we're just almost to the point that national borders are irrelevant.

Absolutely not John! This is the cause of the current problems with the 'Latin' states of Europe. Their borders have gone and with them their control of their own destinies.

Problematic or not, the formation of the EU is a step in the direction of what I describe. Think how far we've advanced towards this eventuality in your lifetime, Roy. When you were born, it took most people weeks to cross the Atlantic. Now I can finish my workday in Denver and see you for tea tomorrow afternoon. When you were a child, electricity had yet to become commonplace in my home state of Arkansas. Now a child in Arkansas can be taught particle physics by an expert in Japan with digital textbooks, video chats and internet classrooms.

My point is that everything and everywhere is infinitely more connected and accessible than it was just a couple decades ago. Communications have always been a major factor in the formation of empire and as they improve, the nature of governance and community will continue to shift across the globe just as they have in Europe. I think, and our initial forays into the concept suggest, that the direction of that shift will ultimately be towards global unification. There will just be decade after decade of strife, failed attempts and global turmoil to survive first.

We'll come out better in the end. Promise!

[Digit]

I agree with that John. But until everybody on this planet has a similar standard of living borders will have to exist simply so that governments can function.
I would not doubt that somewhere on the Canadian/US border there is a house that straddles the international boundary, if that causes as much fun as where it has occurred here on the English/Welsh border I don't envy the tax man's job!
Imagine trying to work out if you can conscript some one whose house straddles a border.
Here in Wales you pay nothing for Doctor's prescriptions, in England you do pay, that simple fact has caused immense disputes within built up areas straddling the line.

Roy.