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Should we open the borders?

Should We open the borders?

  • Total voters
    60
  • Poll closed .
Peter Grimm said:
A lot. We could probably sustain over a billion people, easily, so I wouldn't worry about it from that perspective.
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Easily? China has about the same amount of landmass as the US, they have over a billion people. They also have far more people going hungry. They also have a law which restricts a family to having 1 child and no more leading to far more abortions and often selective abortions in which boys are prefered over girls. You really want that for the US?
 
Peter Grimm said:
We should abandon our silly and futile notion of trying to "seal the borders" and just "let the markets work," so to speak.
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The only thing that would make your notion work is if every single other country did the same. And that is not going to happen at any time in the forseeable future.

Peter Grimm said:
I think there should be two conditions that, if satisfied, should allow anyone and everyone to enter or exit the United States at will. First, do they have a job? If yes, then they are productive, and they should be allowed to stay. If not, is there someone willing to claim them as a dependent? Is there someone willing to feed, clothe, school them? If so, there is no reason to keep them out of the country. The second condition is that they don't have a criminal record.
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Sounds nice doesn't it? Unless you actually think about it. Then its unrealistic.

Peter Grimm said:
Why not seal the border? Well, for one, futility. No matter what we do, people find ways to enter the country. So really, we're kicking and screaming, we're pouring countless resources in to fight a "problem" that is probably never going to be resolved.
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99% of those that are against illegal immigration does not want to seal the border. They have no problems with legal immigration. They also know that you don't have to seal a border in order to prevent illegal immigration. No need for walls, just common sense laws and laws that are enforced.

Peter Grimm said:
Second, aside from pure xenophobia and/or racism, I haven't heard a good argument yet for why we should try to stem the tide of immigrants in to this vast country of ours. You have to admit, that's part of the equation. Nobody would complain if a bunch of blond hair, blue eyed, English speaking Canadians were crossing the border en masse. So I think we need to be mature and ask ourselves if xenophobia is really a good enough reason to literally build a fence between ourselves and our neighbors.
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Ahh, the race card. Typical pro-illegal response. Which is nonsense of course. The only anti-illegal alien folks out there that are xenophobic and racist are in the clear minority. The rest of us don't give a crap what race comes in legally or illegally and have absolutely no problem with people coming here LEGALLY no matter the race. We just want people coming here LEGALLY. Thats it.

Peter Grimm said:
No. Population migrations are a natural phenomenon. It's been going on forever. Massive governments and their laws and walls are artificial phenomenon. Nature will find a way.
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We have no problem with people migrating legally. We have a problem with those that migrate into our country illegally. Whether everything about the process is artificial or not doesn't mean crap. Tornado's are natural also, doesn't mean we want them.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Easily? China has about the same amount of landmass as the US, they have over a billion people. They also have far more people going hungry. They also have a law which restricts a family to having 1 child and no more leading to far more abortions and often selective abortions in which boys are prefered over girls. You really want that for the US?
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No, but the man asked how many people we could sustain. I answered correctly. If he meant to ask something else, he could have chosen his words more carefully.
 
Kal'Stang said:
The only thing that would make your notion work is if every single other country did the same. And that is not going to happen at any time in the forseeable future.



Sounds nice doesn't it? Unless you actually think about it. Then its unrealistic.



99% of those that are against illegal immigration does not want to seal the border. They have no problems with legal immigration. They also know that you don't have to seal a border in order to prevent illegal immigration. No need for walls, just common sense laws and laws that are enforced.



Ahh, the race card. Typical pro-illegal response. Which is nonsense of course. The only anti-illegal alien folks out there that are xenophobic and racist are in the clear minority. The rest of us don't give a crap what race comes in legally or illegally and have absolutely no problem with people coming here LEGALLY no matter the race. We just want people coming here LEGALLY. Thats it.



We have no problem with people migrating legally. We have a problem with those that migrate into our country illegally. Whether everything about the process is artificial or not doesn't mean crap. Tornado's are natural also, doesn't mean we want them.
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If you make immigration legal, then you don't have a problem with "illegals" anymore.
 
Peter Grimm said:
No, but the man asked how many people we could sustain. I answered correctly. If he meant to ask something else, he could have chosen his words more carefully.
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You are the one that said "easily". Implying that we would have no problem. Are you correcting yourself now?
 
No, we need to shut the borders harder and deport people here illegally.
 
Peter Grimm said:
If you make immigration legal, then you don't have a problem with "illegals" anymore.
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There will ALWAYS be illegals unless we have an open border. There will always be those that try to circumvent the law. I am against open borders not because of the immigrants. But because of economical concerns.
 
Kal'Stang said:
You are the one that said "easily". Implying that we would have no problem. Are you correcting yourself now?
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No, the total GDP of the USA is much higher than China or India, so we can roughly assume that the United States could sustain a billion people more comfortably than either China or India.

That, and had we more people, the GDP would likely grow along with the population.
 
Kal'Stang said:
There will ALWAYS be illegals unless we have an open border. There will always be those that try to circumvent the law. I am against open borders not because of the immigrants. But because of economical concerns.
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People are a resource. More people = more wealth.
 
Peter Grimm said:
People are a resource. More people = more wealth.
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Didn't you just contradict yourself?

Peter Grimm said:
No, the total GDP of the USA is much higher than China or India, so we can roughly assume that the United States could sustain a billion people more comfortably than either China or India.

That, and had we more people, the GDP would likely grow along with the population.
Click to expand...
 
Peter Grimm said:
I'm talking about relaxing immigration laws to make some who are now illegal, legal.
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What's the point? As you so nicely showed us we're doing twice China's GDP with half their population. Must be working for us.
 
Peter Grimm said:
We should abandon our silly and futile notion of trying to "seal the borders" and just "let the markets work," so to speak.

I think there should be two conditions that, if satisfied, should allow anyone and everyone to enter or exit the United States at will. First, do they have a job? If yes, then they are productive, and they should be allowed to stay. If not, is there someone willing to claim them as a dependent? Is there someone willing to feed, clothe, school them? If so, there is no reason to keep them out of the country. The second condition is that they don't have a criminal record.

Why not seal the border? Well, for one, futility. No matter what we do, people find ways to enter the country. So really, we're kicking and screaming, we're pouring countless resources in to fight a "problem" that is probably never going to be resolved.

Second, aside from pure xenophobia and/or racism, I haven't heard a good argument yet for why we should try to stem the tide of immigrants in to this vast country of ours. You have to admit, that's part of the equation. Nobody would complain if a bunch of blond hair, blue eyed, English speaking Canadians were crossing the border en masse. So I think we need to be mature and ask ourselves if xenophobia is really a good enough reason to literally build a fence between ourselves and our neighbors.

No. Population migrations are a natural phenomenon. It's been going on forever. Massive governments and their laws and walls are artificial phenomenon. Nature will find a way.
Click to expand...






For national security reasons I don't agree.

The USA must control its borders.

It is possible and we must do it.
 
Peter Grimm said:
No, the total GDP of the USA is much higher than China or India, so we can roughly assume that the United States could sustain a billion people more comfortably than either China or India.

That, and had we more people, the GDP would likely grow along with the population.
Click to expand...

Where do you think all those products come from? Could it perhaps be the land? Where are people going to live if you invite 1 billion people into our country? Thats right...the land.
 
Peter Grimm said:
People are a resource. More people = more wealth.
Click to expand...

There is a limit to everything. Even in the amount of people one country has and can sustain.

Plus you are assuming that each and everyone of those people will be productive and their kids will be productive. Hell, we're having troubles with our budget right now due to the huge amount of welfare and military that we are spending. What do you think its going to be like if the trend continues?
 
Kal'Stang said:
There is a limit to everything. Even in the amount of people one country has and can sustain.

Plus you are assuming that each and everyone of those people will be productive and their kids will be productive. Hell, we're having troubles with our budget right now due to the huge amount of welfare and military that we are spending. What do you think its going to be like if the trend continues?
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Read my OP. I set conditions on what I think ought to be the bar for entrance to the USA. Having a job or having someone claim you as a dependent were conditions that I feel must be met.

I'm not saying let in everybody and anybody.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Where do you think all those products come from? Could it perhaps be the land? Where are people going to live if you invite 1 billion people into our country? Thats right...the land.
Click to expand...

I never said we ought to invite a billion people to live here, but we could easily sustain that number.

US_Population_Map.png



You can choose to disbelieve if you want, but we have plenty of room. In the map above, you see that most people live on the east coast. Why? Not because the land in New England can sustain more people, but because that's where the first boats landed.

If you have a billion people, then maybe California starts to resemble New England's current density, Texas starts to resemble California's current density, Colorado starts to resemble Texas' current density....

You're talking about a little more than doubling the population, but we have from the Atlantic all the way to the Pacific to do it.
 
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