I was just listening to a discussion about the current views on immigration to the US. The guy on the left characterizes the right as Nationalist, and racist. The guy on the right asked, how much is enough? Well no answer came, just platitudes about US ideals, We are a nation of immigrants! Or limiting immigration is just Whiting America, it is racist! Yes yes, we are a nation of immigrants! Very astute. But the real questions is still there, How much is enough? The world first reached a population of one Billion in 1804. It took 123 years for the world population to double to Two Billion. In the mean time the US increased it's population by 4 or 5 times in that period. We still grow at a faster rate than most other countries because of immigration with little emigration. During my life time the US population has nearly tripped, by the end of this century, it will likely be close to triple again or equal the total population of the earth in 1804 and half the population of the entire earth in 1920. When will it become undesirable to continue take in all that want to come here? People speak of the Carbon footprint of the individual. While we permit the carbon footprint of our total population to expand and even encouraged by the left, while never mentioning this fact. When is it time to stop immigration and acknowledge enough, is enough? I would hope it happens before we find we can not feed them.
The right doesn't want to fix immigration either, they just appeal to a different set of emotions than the left, which leaves us paralyzed in a ever expanding hole of private detention centers.
The logic is in my post. Follow the money. Dems and Reps are both in private prison and detention center pockets which influence policy. Dems appeal to the bleeding hearts, repubs appeal to the "law and order" crowd. Immigrants make perfect detainees because you can detain them as long as you want, abuse their rights and when they complain you get to send them away. We are also militarizing our southern boarder which is lining military contractors pockets now. Nobody with any real power wants any of this to change.
That's not what he's asking. He asked how much immigration was enough? It's a simple question. Why does immigration have to be about racism and politics? Every single European country has strict immigration. Try to move to Norway, or Germany, or France. You can't just up and go there. You have to get permission, and they will deport your ass. We like to hold many European countries up as shining examples of healthcare and politics, but those same countries wouldn't let you or I immigrate there. Not without a job already in place and a legitimate reason to move to their country. So why is the US supposed to have open borders? It isn't about being white or brown. There are plenty of illegal immigrants from China and Russia. Hell, I personally know an illegal immigrant from Canada. At what point should the country say, enough is enough? Maybe we do have a ton of open space in this country, but the urban centers are at capacity. Portland has a housing crises. Our infrastructure cannot support the number of people who already live here, let alone the tens of thousands that move here every year. It's not about white, brown, Democrat or Republican. Not everyone who is concerned about immigration is a racist.
So far your the only one who has brought up racism here. However Trump did say more Norwegians and less shit hole countries, or something stupid like that. Immigration has never been an open door policy, it's a broken policy. I don't see anyone advocating for an open door policy either.
love this post. spot on. Europe this and Europe that, they have great healthcare - yeah, try to just hop on a plane and move there or stay longer than a couple months.
100% true about EVERY COUNTRY NOT ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. Difference is, 95% of them now have bans or strict token limits.
We have natural resources unlike most countries in the world...and we have land in abundance compared to most other countries...tillable land...it's why our ancestors came here....population increases are not just because of immigration.....people 200 years ago had 6 kids knowing some wouldn't survive without modern medicines....today we can keep sick people alive way past their natural expiration date and a lot of sub cultures don't practice responsible birth control...we've populated from within....not just from immigration numbers...and it's easy to overstay a visa in many countries around the globe...you don't get kicked out until they've found you in France either....some folks are pretty good at not being found. The entire globe has increased in population....see India and get back to me. India is filled with refugees also from Tibet, Nepal, Myanmar, etc.......I think singling out the US is a pretty small sample size of global over population. I know a Jamaican that has 35 children in Jamaica.....he's not an American...We'll keep people alive on a machine here that have no brain activity...refugees are not the big factor in population control...compare the life expectancy rate from 200 years ago to today's
You're right, we have tons of land..... and nobody wants to live there because there's no jobs. More and more people are moving to urban centers, and those cities are becoming extremely over crowded. Our ancestors moved here and they went into the frontier. They went where they could get land. Nobody is doing that anymore. Nobody wants to farm. Nobody wants to live on the frontier. They want to live in houses where they can get internet and TV and pizza delivered. If people were coming here to go settle remote areas, nobody would give a shit. But they're coming and living in the major cities. People use to have six kids.... the average number of kids per family in the US is 1.9. We're not pumping em out like we used to, and a lot of millennials don't even want kids.
I guess I read this post from you as being about appealing to the racist right. "The right doesn't want to fix immigration either, they just appeal to a different set of emotions than the left,"
There are many, many symptoms of the damage we've done to the Earth, but the Earth has only one problem as far as humans are concerned. There are roughly 7 Billion too many for the Earth to support. No credible scientist will disagree with that assessment. If we simply managed to hold at our current level, we will suck the Earth dry within a couple hundred years. The Population Explosion has always been a crime against the Earth committed almost exclusively by countries and cultures other than ours. And their countries are the filthiest, most polluted, most clear-cut shitholes on the planet. So much disdain for others from their societies has resulted in their pollution invading other countries around the globe. China pollutes the air of every country in the world and has deforested a larger piece of the planet than all other countries combined.. India pollutes the Indian Ocean and the groundwater of it's neighbors. They have more people than their property can support. So their neighbors suffer the consequences. They've been over-populated for centuries, but continue breeding at an alarming rate because they can emigrate to other countries, mostly ours. Picture 84 Chinese immigrants living in a railroad car next door to you, because that's Portland in 30 years. Here's the bottom line. Increases in Overpopulation are caused primarily by countries taking in immigrants from overpopulated countries. This lessens the strain on the countries guilty of overpopulating, therefore there is no incentive for them to stop overpopulating. If responsible countries like US, Canada and Russia closed off all immigration, overpopulation would cease within a few decades due to the guilty countries having to support the extra people they spawned. Allowing people to flee the shitholes they've created is akin to harboring murderers from the police. Like praising your dog for shitting on the carpet. By stopping immigration, we force these lazy leeches to stay home and correct the mistakes they've made, to become responsible inhabitants of the Earth. To tend their garden rather than rob ours. To make their country a credit rather than a debit. Every time you allow an immigrant to enter our country, you increase the world's population. You are the root of the problem.
I've asked you multiple times to stop insulting my family. It's offensive. To imply that my father is lazy and leech is fucking ridiculous.
I grew up in Iowa....not over populated by any stretch...lot of Vietnamese immigrated there after my war and it's still sparsely populated....the coasts are always overcrowded everywhere on the planet. So are the temperate climate zones....I flew over the States not long ago and it was cloudless the whole trip...we have a lot of empty land.....China does too but it's all desert..places like Chile have very little tillable soil....other places have no water...but my point is our population stateside has a huge amount of elderly people just hanging in there...we don't let grandpa die like they did 200 years ago
you are responding to my post....My wife is an immigrant..and an American citizen as well as asset to the community......this is very ugly, shallow posting Maris.....and you know it. I could respond in kind but I probably should not...sheesh....your post is an embarrassment
Sort of like saying we shouldn't let blacks eat at the lunch counter at Woolworth's because there aren't enough stools. barfo
