OT: My response to Doces300 (yes, it's more political shit)

I support liberal immigration rights for cute young white girls who become strippers and provide extras. Particularly if they are redheads.

The problem with open borders is that for example, China could decide to send in 300 million voters and turn all of our assets over to China. I realize that you're calling for permanent residency rather than citizenship, but if half the population became Chinese non-citizen immigrants, do you think it would be realistic to prevent them from becoming voters?

I have no desire to continue this discussion with you Burlington, you are a feel good idealist, while I am a facts and figures realist. We have no common ground from which to have a discussion on this topic. I wish you well, and think we should restrict further interaction to topics of strippers where we seem to have common ground for the enjoyment of such discussions. Have a nice day. : )

Simple fact: Immigrants, the legal kind and the dirty rat criminal kind, collect public benefits at a rate of 2-1 over the native born. The are an economic drain and the idea my tax dollars support them is sickening. As far as anyone wanting to live here should? Go fuck yourself and see above. As far as getting dances from illegals? If they are here and worth it I do, but I would rather they be booted out and sent back to the cruddy land they came from.

We need immigrants. Our population is aging and we will soon look like Japan or some of the European countries, with stagnant economies and no good answers about how to fund elder medical and other care. We need the economic activity that they generate and we need them paying into Social Security. Native born Americans, like folks in many other highly developed countries, just don't breed enough.

Oh, and anyone who thinks that they take more out of the economy than they put in clearly hasn't had an economics class or didn't learn what was being taught. They have to live somewhere (thereby contributing to property taxes and overall housing demand), buy goods and services (paying sales taxes and keeping others employed through demand for goods and services) and have to work to live (paying SS taxes at the very least).

Tl;dr except what JS69 said.

@rickdugan, yes legal immigration is a good thing. I have a good friend who is immigrating from Britain, he came over her to go to school on a soccer scholarship and is marrying a good friends daughter. He will make a good contributing citizen. Legal immigration is great not an open borders.

@ppwh, that has to be one of the stranger hypothetical situations I've ever heard. What you're talking about sounds like a form of espionage. In other words, these people would be secret agents of the Chinese government living in America. Espionage would still be illegal. And besides, China could also attempt to recruit Americans to become agents of China right now. They probably wouldn't be very successful at pulling off this scheme. It sounds difficult. And if it's on a large scale, we would find out, of course. If it's not on a large scale then it wouldn't be effective.

Besides, in America we have legal protections. Under our system you can't just vote someone else's property away from him or her.

Would I give them the right to vote? No, only citizens can vote. And besides, voting isn't supposed to be the center of our lives. Politics isn't supposed to be the center of our lives. There are more important things to Americans than politics. This isn't the Soviet Union.

@Doces300, it seems a little immature to call someone stupid and then, after that person responds (politely and reasonably, I believe), to simply say that you don't want to talk anymore. It's your right of course, but it seems silly.

Anyway, I'm sure your friend from the UK is a good guy, but he shouldn't need to play soccer and marry an American just to have the right to come here. How does that make him a productive citizen?

I chose this topic because it does seem to be related to the stripper business. I don't know what it's like in West Virginia, but where I live there are lots and lots of foreign-born dancers and I'm sure plenty of them are illegal. They're not my type, but I don't begrudge them the right to come here to try to make it.

You say I'm an idealist and you're a realist. Ok, maybe. But I would think a realistic person would acknowledge that immigrants are going to come here no matter what we do. And since they aren't hurting anyone simply by their being here, then why should we stop them?

The ideal that I'm trying to uphold is the American Way. Jefferson specifically cites immigration in the Declaration of independence. He doesn't mention anything about strippers but he does seem to want more immigrants to come. These people are "Americans by choice," as Ronald Reagan put it.

Also, you say you dislike illegal immigrants because they're criminals, so do you also dislike all the strippers who do extras and all of their customers who pay for sex with them? They're criminals, too, aren't they? And that's the majority of people who write reviews here.

We simply can't afford to support everyone that wants to come here.

@skibum609, I don't believe that's true about immigrants getting so much more welfare than citizens (unless you redefine welfare). I don't believe people would walk across a desert and risk their lives just to get welfare. These are risk-takers and they are the most entrepreneurial people on earth. If all they want is welfare, then why don't they just stay home and collect welfare from their own country? Or go to Europe where the benefits are more generous? I don't buy it.

But let's say you're right. If so, the solution is to have less welfare, not fewer immigrants. Are you okay with Americans receiving public benefits paid for with your tax dollars? Well I'm not!

@flagooner, we can't afford to support everyone who is born here either. So should we stop people from being born? No. We should stop paying so much welfare and entitlements.

^ agreed, but why exasperate it voluntarily?

I'm tuning out on this one. You can't possibly believe the shit you spew. This whole thread just has to be troll clickbait.

Doces, so you'd be open to expanding legal immigration? Because as it stands now it's not enough and hasn't been since we shut down most family based immigration in 1996. We need immigrants who breed and we need lots of them.

@flagooner said: "You can't possibly believe the shit you spew. This whole thread just has to be troll clickbait."

No, I'm not specifically looking for trolls, I was hoping that I could make people realize their own hypocrisy. It doesn't seem to have worked with skibum609, for example. Or with you. Didn't you say you're married to a Cuban immigrant? Well it just so happens that one of the only groups of immigrants who DO receive lots of welfare benefits are Cubans. At least they did up until Obama finally put an end to it before his term ended. They used to have a special status. Trust me, your wife got a lot more welfare than the average immigrant does. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame her at all, I blame the stupid system. Most Amercans have gotten some kind of money from the government at some point in their lives, myself included.

Anyway, Papi_Chulo told Doces300 and I not to hijack a thread with our political disagreement and to start a separate thread. He was right, so that's what I did.

We are approaching peak population as birth rates decline in the developed world. Depending on the study, we’ll peak between 10 Billion in 2050 or 11 Billion in 2100. But, there are wide variances by region and country. Japan and western countries have already peaked. It is only immigration that keeps the population of Europe and the US growing. Japan doesn’t allow ( much ) immigration, so their population is aging and dying off.

Given this, I approve of significant legal immigration in the US, but we need to adopt a points system like Australia has. Let’s bring in engineers and wealthy entrepreneurs. Let’s stop allowing millions of unskilled laborers to enter.

Besides, in America we have legal protections. Under our system you can't just vote someone else's property away from him or her.

Sure you can. It's called taxes, social programs and the everything-industrial complex. The legal protections are really only have the power the culture gives them. Mass immigration without cultural integration doesn't exactly help keep those protections.

Regarding the economy, it can go either way. E.g., "They have to live somewhere, etc" doesn't necessarily help. Seattle and Vancouver, for instance, have ridiculously expensive housing markets now. A friend sent me an interesting video the other week on the topic:

youtube.com

@rickdugan, I am not sure where the worry about breeding comes from. The actual number of children in the US is at an all time high. The percentage of children in the population is at an all time low, due to the effect of an aging population due to increases in lifespan. I don't believe that jackrabbit breeding will be the answer. But as to you question of being open to more legal immigration, I do not oppose that. @burlinton, my friend from Britian finished his education and is a "working" professional in this country, that is why he is seen as productive and an asset.

Japan doesn’t allow ( much ) immigration, so their population is aging and dying off.

I don't think it has as much to do with their population aging and dying off as the relations between the sexes. E.g., the herbivore movement, and guys buying used panties out of vending machines so they don't have interact in person with an actual woman.

I think it's fair to count China as industrialized, and they don't seem to need immigration to keep their population levels going.

@mark94 said "Let’s stop allowing millions of unskilled laborers to enter."

Why? I like getting cheap oranges and low-cost lawn care.

The one-child policy in China, which no longer exists, took a toll. After ending it, the birth rate failed to grow to replacement level.

“China faces a turning point over the next 15 years, particularly between 2021 and 2030. The aging of the population will accelerate, increasing pressure on social security and public services. At the same time, the working-age population will shrink, damaging economic growth and reducing the tax income required to support the elderly.

A quarter of China's population will be over 60 in 2030, compared with about 16 percent in 2015. “

@ppwh said "Sure you can. It's called taxes, social programs and the everything-industrial complex... .Mass immigration without cultural integration doesn't exactly help keep those protections."

But all of that shit is un-American. And so are restrictions on immigration. We have begun to get away from our country's roots. I don't think the solution is to do even more things that would take us even further away from the meaning of America, like restricting who can come here. And besides, what you're suggesting would still be espionage. Would they change the laws to redefine espionage, too? Doesn't this seem a little far-fetched to you? (Then again, the video that your friend sent has a paranoid conspiratorial tone to it, so what can I say?)

And who said there wouldn't be any cultural integration? Immigrants have always integrated in the past, even when there was much more legal immigration. What makes you think that would change now?

@Doces300 said "But as to you question of being open to more legal immigration, I do not oppose that. @burlinton, my friend from Britian finished his education and is a "working" professional in this country, that is why he is seen as productive and an asset."

If you're open to more legal immigration then you're basically in agreement with what I'm saying. And as for your friend working, well, most immigrants work.

But personally, I would not allow your friend to get American citizenship. Legal residence should be easy, but citizenship should be very hard. Just going to college and playing soccer and marrying someone should not equal automatic citizenship. I'm sure he's a good guy, but it doesn't strike me as fair.

" I don't believe that jackrabbit breeding will be the answer."

Well, we have to do something. Right now we have 2.9 workers supporting each retiree. By 2030, that ratio is supposed to drop all the way to 2:1. It is simply unsustainable.

So we've got four choices: (1) breed more; (2) allow more young immigrants in (who will also breed more); (3) seriously cut benefits; of (4) turn our future generation into indentured tax slaves for the old and dying.

If you curmudgeonly types want to keep your benefits intact and don't want to fuck over your grandchildren, then you're going to have to get over those irrational cultural fears and let more people in to help support you, nevermind wipe your asses in nursing homes and to fill a variety of other jobs that will need replacement working as you continue to retire en masse. The newbies all assimilate eventually, just like the Germans, Italians, Irish, and other waves of immigrants did in past generations.

But all of that shit is un-American. And so are restrictions on immigration.

The immigrants we who have been showing up recently are on average more likely to vote for what you call the un-American shit, with the possible exception of targeted immigration.

And besides, what you're suggesting would still be espionage. Would they change the laws to redefine espionage, too? Doesn't this seem a little far-fetched to you?

It doesn't seem far-fetched to me looking at California's trajectory over the past 25 years - 40% of people don't speak English at home, statism is rampant, a secession movement is gaining steam, etc. Are you going to show up there and tell recent immigrants that they are guilty of espionage because of their voting patterns?

How do you expect people to eventually culturally integrate if enough show up in short enough of a time for a state to secede?

@rickdugan, I agree with all of that. There's too many people in the wagon and not enough people pulling it. Immigrants are the best solution to this problem.

In past waves of immigration, there was an expectation for assimilation. The Germans, Italians. and Irish learned English and eagerly adopted American values and culture. Now, we have multiculturalism. We expect immigrants to maintain their cultures and values. Look at LA to see how well that works.

@ppwh said "The immigrants we who have been showing up recently are on average more likely to vote for what you call the un-American shit... Are you going to show up there and tell recent immigrants that they are guilty of espionage because of their voting patterns?"

You're right, that's why I wouldn't let them vote. I would just let them come and work. Like I said, residence should be easy, citizenship should be hard. Their children would be able to vote.

I understand what you're talking about with California, but lots of other states have big immigrant populations, too, and yet they don't have California's problems. Think of Texas and Florida, for example. So I think the problem stems more from the Americans who already lived in Cali to begin with. They had to be the ones who got this quasi-socialist ball rolling. It doesn't make sense to just blame the immigrants.

And no, I wouldn't tell people they are guilty of espionage just for voting. I'm talking about your elaborate conspiracy where China would "send" 300 million people here to vote away our property. That sounds pretty nuts and I'm sure our authorities would know about it quickly. It would be an act of war reminiscent of the Zimmerman Telegram.

@mark94, American values have nothing to do with the English language or with our culture. It's supposed to be about freedom, capitalism, individualism. The immigrants are told that this is the land of the free, but then they get here and they have to deal with Red tape and arbitrary hurdles instead, so it's no wonder that they begin to reject America. Incidentally, it also sends them into the arms of the Democratic Party.

pp, as much as I actually wish that CA could secede so that we could get their electoral votes out of the Presidential race and their Communist-posing-as-Democrat politicians out of Congress, it will never happen. Read your constitution sometime to see just how impossible that really is. In any event, it's not the immigrants driving that bus anyway, but rather whack job earthy crunchy liberal types. Honestly, if CA broke off and started to float away, I wouldn't shed a tear.

BHF: Wow, you misunderstood what I was saying. Those are exactly the values I meant.

@mark94, what I'm saying is that you can speak only Chinese or Spanish and eat nothing but rice and wear a fucking sombrero, and yet still believe in freedom and capitalism. We shouldn't make ourselves look like hypocrites by talking about freedom while nonetheless restricting their freedom to come here. Believe me, that will make them turn against capitalism, too, because they will associate it with America.

I'm talking about your elaborate conspiracy where China would "send" 300 million people here to vote away our property.

That's not an elaborate conspiracy. It was an example of what your proposed policy would appear to allow for. I'm not sure if you have heard of Uranium One, but things along these lines have been happening.

Read your constitution sometime to see just how impossible that really is.

The Constitution is a piece of paper and not immutable. People valuing its principles is what gives it power. There are already efforts to call a Constitutional Convention, "revise" the Bill of Rights, etc.

You missed one, RickyBoy: Invest in automation and robots and have them do all the work and look after us when we are old.

@ppwh, every proposed policy has extreme hypothetical scenarios that are theoretically possible but still wildly implausible. If you let every unrealistic hypothetical frighten you, you'll be parallyzed into inaction. I suppose alcohol should be illegal because people might be drunk all day long. And cars should be illegal because we might all get into an accident at once. As a matter of fact, who would take care of us in a hospital if every person in America got drunk and had a car accident all on the same day. Is it possible? Sure. But it sounds silly, right? Doesn't it sound ridiculous?

As for Uranium One, I'm familiar with it, and I don't see how it applies. I'm perfectly comfortable with selling uranium to Russia. Russia is a weak shell of its former self, and I don't think it poses nearly the threat to us that the Soviet Union did.

And California has been talking about secession for years. California wants to secede from America and different counties want to secede from California. I doubt it will ever happen, and regardless, it isn't driven by immigrants. It's equivalent to Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin saying that they want to move to Canada after Bush was elected. Somehow, sadly, they are still here.

@BHF, After hearing so many things talked down as something that would never happen or was far-fetched, I started to notice trends.

@ppwh, I guess there's nothing I can do to convince you. There are just certain risks that come with living in a free society. I'm not afraid of immigrants, or unlimited political contributions, or big business, or guns, or drugs. All of these things come with some risks and tradeoffs. But I think they are ultimately worth the risks.

Burlington: The government figures come from the Obama administration and immigrants of all types are twice as likely to collect public benefits than native born. The idea that unskilled workers are an economic benefit is beyond silly. They are here because welfare encourages people to not work, since it pays too close to low wage jobs. Every immigrant will get old and the rapidly diminishing taxpayer pool will support them on various programs. As far as comparing paying for extras with illegal criminals, what an inane comparison. Illegal's criminal conduct and illegally coming here means we support them for years and years and years at many thousands of dollars per year from the taxpayer. Two people in a consensual, illegal sex act cost the taxpayer nothing..exactly the value of the comparison. Progressives are twisting themselves into knots and it is funny. The only thing funnier is the Constitutional convention that is going to amend the bill of rights. This country cannot even pass a single fucking law , but despite that we'll agree to amend the Constitution lol. Idiotic. The day the idea of the "melting pot" ended, was the last day America had a chance. Diversity kills successful lands and all these little silly communities is why America's future is zero.

I guess there's nothing I can do to convince you.

You could if you presented a compelling argument. I have lived in another country where I did seek to culturally integrate. I learned the local language and had to comply with the immigration requirements, which actually made complete sense to me. In other words, my perspective is probably going to be a lot different, having willing gone through the steps that I think would make sense for the US to implement.

@skibum609, would you mind posting the figures that you have that show that immigrants take more welfare than the native born? Immigrants do tend to be poorer than native born Americans, but real welfare is not available to immigrants for a period of many years. And it's never available to illegal immigrants. Unless you count things like public schools and treatment at a hospital. Hospitals are required to accept all patients, regardless of the ability to pay. If they don't, they risk not being allowed to accept Medicare. But that's not a direct taxpayer subsidy, strictly speaking. As for public schools (and school lunches)... well, you've got me there. Yes, public schools can be considered a welfare benefit that immigrants do receive regardless of how long they've been here. But it's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of the entire country. But if they want welfare and public schools, then why don't they just stay home? After all, every country has welfare programs and public schools nowadays. It's not logical.

Yes, immigrants will eventually get old, too. But first they will have more than the average number of children who will each help to float our entitlement programs. You can't have it both ways. If immigrants don't assimilate, then that means they will have lots of kids. Part of assimilation means having fewer children.

I happen to think it's a fair comparison, comparing paying for sex with crossing the border. They're both crimes. What if the stripper gets pregnant from FS. The taxpayer will be supporting her baby for 18 years, and then we may even have to send it to college. Or what if one of you catches a disease? You may become a drain on our public health system. Does that mean the stripper should stop doing extras? No. It means the welfare state is a stupid idea. Many of our actions could theoretically lead to our becoming a drain on the system. Smoking, eating unhealthy foods, drinking, playing football, etc. The welfare state could ultimately be used as an excuse to curtail lots of behavior. And we allow people to make this argument. Instead of arguing against immigrants (or smoking, etc.) we should just argue against welfare. Doesn't anyone notice what these entitlement and welfare programs have done to us? We're talking about people coming to America, getting old, having children, etc., as though each person is just another economic unit on the government's balance sheet. Does this person or that person increase the deficit or decrease it? This is what it's come to. This is what having social welfare and entitlement programs have done to America.

And lastly, I am definitely not a progressive of any kind.

@ppwh, I don't know why you would ever want to culturally integrate in a foreign country: in my opinion, being an American is the greatest thing in the world that you can be. I would never want to be anything else.

And just because other countries require you to go through various bureaucratic hurdles that doesn't mean that we should do the same. We are supposed to be different than the rest of the world. That's what American Exceptionalism means. I bet the other country you lived in doesn't mention immigration in its founding documents. But America does mention immigration in it's founding documents. Immigration is central to who we are.

I don't know why you would ever want to culturally integrate in a foreign country

Dude, the chicks were fucking hot. Like, nearly all of them.

^^^ LOL ;)

This country was founded by immigrants each group that came here made this country greater. There is plenty of room and there is no reason to be against immigration, but I will stress that it shouybe orderly and throu legal means, and yes we should give refuge to persecuted people. That is what America is about those were our founding principles and this jingoistic behavior that seems to be prevalent lately is not New it is just bigotry in another form.

The vast majority of people oppose illegal immigration and support legal immigration. Activists try to confuse this difference so they can accuse the majority who oppose illegal immigration of being racist opponents of all immigration. In my opinion, we should increase the number of legal immigrants and prioritize those who can quickly assimilate and support themselves from day one. And, oh yeah, build the damn wall.

@twentyfive, I agree, it does seem like bigotry, or at least an unreasonable fear of people who are different. What I find most disturbing is that no one seems to be able to see the hypocrisy of a guy getting dances with a stripper who is an illegal immigrant, while simultaneously saying that we should deport them all. I just want to ask them, when the time comes to ship them all back home, will the girl who gets your dick hard be spared?

@mark94, yes, of course, most people support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration. So do I. But the whole point is that they only come here illegally in the first place because, for many of them, it's just impossible to come here legally. No one would ever come illegally if there were a simple and fair process to come legally. I would think this would be obvious. That's the point of the flowchart that I posted above.

And, come on, you know as well as I do that the wall won't accomplish anything. Besides, even if it could solve the problem, does the only country in world history that was ever founded on the concept of liberty really want to militarize its own border?

So, you oppose illegal immigration and you think anyone who wants to come here has that right ? Isn’t that viewpoint, to put it kindly, inconsistent ?

As citizens, it is our right, through our government, to decide who can enter OUR country. Personally, there are lots of categories of people I don’t want here. People who prefer Sharia Law, for example. It is not the right of foreigners to determine who enters our country. If it is, then we no longer have a country.

For a government to cater to the needs of non-citizens at the detriment of citizens is unjustifiable.

@mark94,

Firstly, if we allowed entry to everyone who wants to come in, then obviously there would be no such thing as illegal immigration because all immigration would be legal by definition. But having said that, if you would read what I wrote, you would see that I'm not actually advocating anything like this. What I said is that people should be forced to submit to a background check, their social media accounts should be scrutinized, they should have to pass a basic health screening, they should be forced to submit to vaccinations, etc. And then if they can pass those basic requirements, they would be granted conditional permanent residence. Not citizenship. Just residence. That means that they can live and work here, unmolested, for as long as they wish, but they can't vote and they can't have welfare (except for school for their children). And if they're convicted of a crime against person or property they would be deported. If we got rid of quotas and visas and green cards, this would become a relatively easy, cheap, straightforward process. I actually envision charities arrayed along the border and in major coastal cities performing background checks and health screenings for new arrivals. People could be processed in a matter of weeks instead of years. I seriously doubt that a Jihadi terrorist would be allowed to enter the country under the procedure that I'm describing. But since very few people would ever be denied entry, they would be extremely easy to catch by border patrol if they did try to sneak in after being turned away.

Personally, I wouldn't care if they were permanently denied citizenship and never given the right to vote. Voting isn't what's important. But you're right, laws are determined by representatives who are elected by lawful citizens. Not residents. Citizens. And citizens frequently demand laws that you and I would both disagree with, including welfare, progressive taxation, laws against drugs and prostitution, etc. Laws can be bad. They can be wrong. And arbitrary restrictions on immigration is an example of that.