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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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ORIGINAL: eyesopened
Thnompson I was stating my opinion regarding the initial op and my reasons for my opinion.

Could you just state your opinion and reasons for your opinion without always being on the attack?

You most certianly are entitled to voice your opinion. I simply questioned the bassis of your opinion.

Is there any reason why you would suggest my grandfather and by extension my family are ignorant because he refused to speak Swedish?  You could ask him but he has gone on to another place.

If you and your family don't speak swedish then you clearly are ignorant of how to speak swedish.
Maybe you should look up ignorant in the dictionary...please do not confuse ignorant with stupid.

In the original op there was no discussion on employers of illegal aliens.  The discussion was regarding immigrants.  Where oh where oh where have I ever said employers of illegals should get off the hook?  Ever.  Show me one of my posts on the subject where I said it was okay.

Since your only input into the illegal immigration discussion deals with the symptom and not the cause.
You let employers off the hook by your lack of condemnation of them.

In fact I said "What I see now is the opposite.  No one wants to obey the laws."  How did you interpret "no one" into only mexicans?? 

Because you do not direct your displeasure at anyone except the mexicans.

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ORIGINAL: realcoolhand

Elsibella, first up I'd like to say that I appreciate how you're holding fast to the substance of the conversation, even in the face of some pretty vicious, personal rhetoric.

As for the inscription, it's almost ironic looking back. Not in the sense of "heh, sure," but in the sense that it was true on so many levels. It seems plain that the poem was meant to be as apirational then as it is today. The idea that United States is a city on a hill, and a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, is both a little bit presumptuous and, historically, one of the best features of the American personality. (Footnote 1: I use the term "American" in the narrow sense, understanding that in the Western hemisphere we are all Americans.)

That said, it's interesting to me that the poem is titled "The New Colossus," which I did not know, and drew parallels between the United States and Rome. Rome, historically, found security through expansion (until it didn't anymore, it's mercenary armies turned on their Roman masters, and the political structure disintegrated, leaving only an important cultural heritage). The Roman kingdom gave way to the Roman "republic" with the confederation of 7 tribes in the Tiber region in Central Italy, the Roman Empire when that confederation conquered the Etruscans in Tuscan, then Sicily, an overseas empire when Rome fought the Punic wars and conquered Iberia and North Africa to protect it's economic interests in shipping throughout the Mediterranean, then the Aegean with the conquest of Greece and Dalmatia.

At every stage of expansion, the "Romans" (the term was before long of political rather than ethnic significance) held their gains and grew their armies by granting citizenship to conquered peoples willing to assimilate into the Roman political and cultural structure. And every period of expansion was followed by yet another period of expansion to secure Rome's economic interests at the margins.

Likewise, the United States has historically traded citizenship for assistance in it's expansion. The statute was donated, dedicated, and inscribed during the period of "manifest destiny," and the immigrants who took up our nation on that offer were sent West to secure the early American dream of a bi-costal nation. To the rest of the world, they were "poor, tired, . . . huddled masses," but to us they were the avant garde of the "American century" (provided they moved West; when they stayed in the Eastern cities, we rioted).

Today, the expansion we're interested in is not geographical, but economic, political, and cultural, and we've restricted immigration largely to those immigrants we need to accomplish our ends. The H-1B program is used to fuel America's economic growth; student visas and tourist visas are used to ensure that foreign citizens are exposed to, or indoctrinated with depending on how you view it, American political and cultural values through cultural exposure and high-quality education.

At the margins of unskilled labor, where needs are more flexible and workers more fungible, we turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. The unintended consequence (which would probably be intended by cynics were they to slow down and think about it) (Footnote 2: I hate cynics in the contemporary sense. Realism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole; the only way to make a better world is to be a better man." Cynicism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole, so it's alright that I'm an asshole too.") is that American businesses can get cheap labor when they need it, and arrest that cheap labor and march it to the border when they don't. Thus the issue is not really one of nationality, or even legal status, and certainly not (if we're all going to be winners) one of race. It's an issue of class, and the tension between the economic interests of the capital class--which benefits from a flexible pool of cheap labor--and the labor class--which benefits from a fixed pool of scarce and, therefore, expensive labor.

My preference would be to eliminate personal subsidies on the public nickel (i.e., food stamps and welfare payments), strengthen public goods (such as community gardens and free education at ALL levels, which would allow flexibility to those of us in the labor force without incentivizing long periods of unemployment) and open the boarders to let the market do its work. Markets tend to diffuse racial, national, and ethnic tensions because, the better and more EXPLICITLY they funciton, the more we all see we need one another (capital needs labor and vice versa), and the more we each see that every other is an opportunity to cooperate for mutual benefit, rather than a threat to our own economic security.


Edited to add footnote 2.

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ORIGINAL: realcoolhand
(Footnote 2: I hate cynics in the contemporary sense. Realism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole; the only way to make a better world is to be a better man." Cynicism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole, so it's alright that I'm an asshole too.")

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ORIGINAL: MsAlisedeSade

I disagree. How do we need more people the "Work" part of the Workforce is disappearing? Part of the problem began with the outsourcing of jobs. Who ever though that a time would come when you need a law to force American companies to hire American Workers? But we do. We should not be taking better care of people who migrate here than our own people.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

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ORIGINAL: Louve00

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Even the smallest look at population trends over the next decades leads to the only conclusion that we will need to have mass immigration into this country to keep up the economy at present or hopefully advanced rates. The attached chart shows the growth in citizens older than 65 estimated out to 2030. The amount of citizens in this category will be almost double by 2030. There are two outcomes of that. One, a lessened workforce that will require an influx of workers so that even current employment rates can be met. Two, the consequent loss in population over the decade or so after 2030 as this population dies. We are not currently replacing ourselves in births. We need now and in the future an influx of immigrants to make sure that the United States stands strong for years to come.
http://www.census.gov/population/projections/PressTab3.xls

And thats another way to look at it. 

It is as large a question about National Security as anything else. We are an aging population. If we needed to meet a global challenge at this time that would require all able bodies for war and another similar group of able bodies to build that machinery. Could we do it? Today maybe, 20 years from now without an influx of able bodies? I am not so sure.

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(Footnote 2: I hate cynics in the contemporary sense. Realism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole; the only way to make a better world is to be a better man." Cynicism looks around and says "everyone's an asshole, so it's alright that I'm an asshole too.")

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My preference would be to eliminate personal subsidies on the public nickel (i.e., food stamps and welfare payments),

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

Has anybody who thinks this lad being tried is a disgrace yet suggested a way in which deporting the odd illegal here and there is going to be more effective than taking punitive action against the people who are employing them in the first place?

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I want far less immigration, here; and ZPG (or less) for the world and here. Doesn't make me a racist, or an unfeeling idiot. I am neither, and neither is Elisabella, as fas as I can tell.

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ORIGINAL: realcoolhand

Hey Thompsonx, got a better analysis?

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

I think Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as somebody who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Much as it pains me to diss one of the great men of English letters, I think rch's comment is more useful for this discussion.
(Ambrose Bierce probably had a better definition yet, but I can't recall his offhand.)

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

Thankew.
I thought Bierce might take a more positive line than Wilde.