The leaking southern border.

"Still, I am uncomfortable with the venom, it doesn't relate to the history of the land."

So am I. Yet, I am not the least uncomfortable with the idea that we have a right to control our borders, and who resides in the country.

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I guess I agree with you on that. (Being borderless in my mind, I'll go with it as an idea and retain the right to back up as I feel....)

In fact I haven't piped up here before because of my ambivalent but fairly large feelings.

Am still mostly listening.

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roger, "We have a right" and what we actually enforce are two different issues. That's the reason why this issue is problematic on the face of it. In those isolated cases that I mentioned, as I said, I'd probably do the same thing. Right or wrong, I'm not sure.

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I mostly listen too, osso. Wouldn't it be nice to have a few absolute certainties in our lives?

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I have them, roger, she says, tapping. I always understand the edges.

I didn't mean that quite the way I said it. I try to understand the edges.

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JustWonders wrote:

And where did everyone else, save Thomas and fbaezer, blame those poor folks for trying????????

Huh? I didn't blame those poor folks for trying. In fact I explicitly argued for freer immigration.

au1929 wrote:

Nimh wrote
Quote:

I dont quite see the parallel. What does a Green Card-less immigrant "steal" of yours, the moment he crosses the border?

He is committing a criminal act. [...] Note. I am addressing undocumented aliens. Not legal immigrants.

I see. In this case, it seems the obvious solution is to legalize immigration for everyone, the way it was before 1920. (With a few racist restrictions against Chinese immigrants which we wouldn't have to re-introduce.) It solves the crime problem, and since you have nothing against legal immigrants, everything is fine. Right?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

But it literally removes billions of dollars a year from our economy, which isn't a good thing at all.

You are repeating an old, long-debunked economic fallacy here. In brief, when Mexicans in the US send dollars to Mexico, people there use them to buy goods from the USA. The process may involve some intermediates. The original Mexican recipient of the dollar may use it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to buy something in the US. But eventually, every dollar that goes around, comes around. (And if it doesn't, no harm done either. The Federal Reserve Bank can always print another one.) For a more detailed treatment, I will point you to David Hume's essay Of the Balance of Trade (1752), where the idea behind your fallacy was first debunked.

Finally for now, I noted that nobody in this thread has defended the "National Security" argument related to Al Quaeda anymore. Does this mean we agree it is a red herring?

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I thought he/she said you were among those who didn't blame folks for trying...

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I see, ossobuco. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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Well, I am a wild mix of not believing in property,

and believing in property, given that there is property.

and given that there is property, I see the sw border as history fraught re whatever line obtains.
but ne'er mind, let's say I go with the border.
(My qualms about how it was lined up and who was left on either side - families - affects my pov.)

Still, I have other issues, ne'er mind who lives north of whatever border, re the land use.

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Thomas wrote

Quote:

I see. In this case, it seems the obvious solution is to legalize immigration for everyone, the way it was before 1920. (With a few racist restrictions against Chinese immigrants which we wouldn't have to re-introduce.) It solves the crime problem, and since you have nothing against legal immigrants, everything is fine. Right?

And while we are at it why not decriminalize murder and robbery. That would solve the over crowded jail problem. No. we should not have uncontrolled immigration. When someone Knocks at your door, do you see who it is or just let who ever wants to come in?

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Quote:

You are repeating an old, long-debunked economic fallacy here. In brief, when Mexicans in the US send dollars to Mexico, people there use them to buy goods from the USA. The process may involve some intermediates. The original Mexican recipient of the dollar may use it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to pay a Mexican, who uses it to buy something in the US. But eventually, every dollar that goes around, comes around. (And if it doesn't, no harm done either. The Federal Reserve Bank can always print another one.) For a more detailed treatment, I will point you to David Hume's essay Of the Balance of Trade (1752), where the idea behind your fallacy was first debunked.

Thanks for pointing my error out, Thomas, but I have to ask, that given that we carry such immense trade imbalances, does this theory still hold true? Is it an 'over-time' type of deal?

Cycloptichorn

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Cyclop, Our trade imbalance cannot be blamed on the Mexicans. Most Americans are at fault for buying imported goods. Ever notice, most of the products we buy today says "Made in China?"

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Lol, I'm not blaming it on anyone! Except our neo-facist leaders who won't apply some goddamn tarriffs.

Just wondering what the overall effects are over time of all that capital getting sent out of the country on an extended vacation.

For example, many workers send there money here in Texas back home to Mexico et al. Okay, so that money is going on a trip, no big deal, it will come back eventually, right? Well, how long will it take? How many millions of dollars a year are we talking about? What if that money were being put back into the LOCAL economy, without a 15-year vacation?

I don't want to limit people's rights or abilities (they're gonna do it anyways) but it's worth discussing, the effects, I think.

Cycloptichorn

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Our government also failed to control the consumption of oil; we are going to pay the price big time. We're only on borrowed time now.

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Perhaps their intent was to weaken America intentionally?

I've thought about this a lot. The only way that our oil and trade strategies can be said to be successfull is if you are trying to define the corporation as the primary vehicle of success.

So the strategy might be to weaken America while enriching businesses at the same time; a prelude to extraterrirtoritality, if you ask me.

Cycloptichorn

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au1929 wrote:

And while we are at it why not decriminalize murder and robbery. That would solve the over crowded jail problem.

I agree with the spirit of your suggestion, but to solve the crowded jail problem, I would actually prefer decriminalizing drugs. But let me stick to immigration for now.

The difference between murder and robbery on the one hand, and immigration on the other hand, is this: We have ample evidence that societies get very ugly to live in when murder and robbery go unpunished. But the empirical evidence so far gives us little reason to believe that societies get any uglier when immigration goes unpunished. In fact, immigration was almost completely open in the United States before 1920, and it didn't keep your country from being a wildly attractive society. In fact, many would argue that free immigration enhanced America's attractiveness at that time.

au1929 wrote:

No. we should not have uncontrolled immigration. When someone Knocks at your door, do you see who it is or just let who ever wants to come in?

As it happens, the pre-1920 immigration policies I would like to see reinstated (minus the ban on the Chinese) did screen out people who were insane, criminal, or suffering from contagious diseases. Beyond that, I don't see Germany's doors as mine to keep shut, or America's doors as yours. If immigrants want to live in a host country, they have to find landlords who consent to rent homes to them, employers who consent to hire them, grocers who consent to sell them food, and so forth. They already do "see who it is" they're dealing with anyway, and the government doesn't add any value by "seeing who it is again". At least not beyond the public health and public safety concerns I mentioned.

If you want nothing to do with immigrants, that is your personal choice. Nobody forces any form of social intercourse with them on you, not even under perfectly open immigration. If, on the other hand, other Americans don't share your peferences and do want to have this kind of intercourse, I don't think it is your place to prohibit it to them.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Thanks for pointing my error out, Thomas, but I have to ask, that given that we carry such immense trade imbalances, does this theory still hold true? Is it an 'over-time' type of deal?

Yes, it does still hold true. It is an accounting identity that exports minus imports equals saving minus investment equals production minus consumption. America's trade deficit is the accounting flip side of the US government boosting spending while cutting taxes, American consumers buying lots of stuff on credit, and foreign investors believing that America is a good country to invest in. None of this changes the Mexican's willingness to send dollars home. And when they do, the impact on American production and consumption is the same with or without trade deficits, so those deficits are not relevant to this particular problem.

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Ah I missed a few posts. Lots of stuff worth responding to...

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Just wondering what the overall effects are over time of all that capital getting sent out of the country on an extended vacation.

The effect of capital leaving the United States is to reduce the trade deficit you're worried about. This trade deficit exists because capital is entering your country in record quantities right now, and because the US is spending this capital inflow on imports from the rest of the world.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

For example, many workers send there money here in Texas back home to Mexico et al. Okay, so that money is going on a trip, no big deal, it will come back eventually, right? Well, how long will it take? How many millions of dollars a year are we talking about? What if that money were being put back into the LOCAL economy, without a 15-year vacation?

Let me walk you through the two extreme cases. Say a Mexican in Texas sends a dollar home to Mexico. Extreme case #1 is that the recipient back home in Mexico spends the dollar immediately on something American. In this case, the dollar finds its way home immediately, and the problem you're worried about never arises. The Mexican in Texas might as well have spent that dollar in America himself.

Extreme case #2 is that the dollar stays outside the US forever. In this case, within a matter of a month or two, America's Bureau of Engraving and Printing notices that there's a dollar bill amiss in the money supply, so it prints a new one. The problem you worry about is fixed at the cost of printing one more $1 bill, which is practically nothing.

Reality is somewhere between those extreme cases, and its social cost is somewhere between the cost of the extreme cases. But the cost of
both extreme cases are practically zero, so the cost in reality is practically zero as well.

(On a tangent, there used to be an extreme case #2b, the one Hume discusses in the essay I pointed you to: The dollar stays outside the US forever. But the currency is on a gold standard, so the Bureau of Engraving and printing cannot just print another dollar bill. In this case, the money supply decreases; the supply of goods and services doesn't; so the purchasing power of a dollar rises. In this case, the adjustment process takes a year or so and causes a very minor short-term loss. But not nearly enough to merit legislative action against it.)

cicerone imposter wrote:

Our government also failed to control the consumption of oil; we are going to pay the price big time. We're only on borrowed time now.

Actually, I'm glad you guys are consuming so much imported oil. It's the only thing that gives the Islamist fundamentalists in Iran and Saudi Arabia a stake in the Great Satan's wellbeing.

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Another good example about societies going ugly or good is Australia where the original residents were "criminals." They've progressed tremendously from their beginnings.

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Thomas

Quote:

If you want nothing to do with immigrants, that is your personal choice. Nobody forces any form of social intercourse with them on you, not even under perfectly open immigration. If, on the other hand, other Americans don't share your peferences and do want to have this kind of intercourse, I don't think it is your place to prohibit it to them.

This thread is about undocumented aliens not about legal immigrants. This nation has the right to control it's borders, and to know who resides within it's borders.
Regarding prohibition, the government not I have placed that prohibition upon them by virtue of our immigration laws.
As for wanting nothing to do with immigrants, that is quite a stretch on your part. Never said or even indicated that. Again this thread concerns undocumented aliens and nothing else.

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au1929 wrote:

This thread is about undocumented aliens not about legal immigrants. This nation has the right to control it's borders, and to know who resides within it's borders.

Fair enough. I'm not arguing your nation doesn't have this right. I am arguing with the alleged harmful consequences of excercising this right lazily.

au1929 wrote:

Regarding prohibition, the government not I have placed that prohibition upon them by virtue of our immigration laws.

Yes. Of course, it is still a bad idea.

au1929 wrote:

As for wanting nothing to do with immigrants, that is quite a stretch on your part. Never said or even indicated that. Again this thread concerns undocumented aliens and nothing else.

Note that I said "if". My point wasn't to imply anything about your motivations, it was to argue that once immigration officials have screened out public health and public safety hazards, there is nothing left for them to protect you from.

As to the thread being about undocumented aliens and nothing else, I am simply observing that many, maybe most aliens in Europe and America were undocumented prior to World War I. For most countries, you didn't even need a passport to travel there. I am also observing that our nations did just fine under these arrangements. Documenting aliens may be a good idea, but its importance is grossly overblown, especially when artificially combined with the Al Quaeda threat.

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The leaking southern border.

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