>From: "Randy Smith" <randysmith101@hotmail.com>
Please humor me and my ignorance of the details involved, I will ask a lot
of questions in trying to understand the situation.
>Actually, the immigration of all those mexican peasants does indeed matter
>to us all, especially those of us who are planning to be frozen if old age
>aint cured pretty soon. The substantial MAJORITY of immigrants, mexicans or
>otherwise, are "peasants."
I would expect a majority, but is it SO marked? I'd expected a lot of
poor urban dwellers with low-skill job abilities would be a big component
of immigration. They are probably more aware of the potential benefits of
going to the US than a peasant, or so I would imagine in my ignorance,
and extrapolating from what I've seen in the emigration patterns of Argentina
and neighbouring countries.
> From my observations, peasants don't run much of
>a country. Mainly, they live in kleptocracies. I don't want the USA to be a
>kleptocracy. I doubt cryonics would be legal for the common man in the USA
>were uneducated peasants to abound in the USA.
Yes, they live in kleptocracies. But they suffer the abuses, instead of
benefitting from them. Given that, I can't imagine why would they feel
inclined to create a kleptocracy in the US. They may lack a lot of
sophisticated political ideas and practice, but they should be able to
recognize kleptocracy is a no win game for them. Were they benefitting
from it, wouldn't they just stay in their countries? Also, how would
the uneducated peasants keep you from enjoying cryonics? I thought those
of them that are illegals wouldn't be able to vote or such, and those
who can, well I just can't see them worrying much about the issue one
way or another...
>Another thing, no one really invited them, except those that make money from
>them, and that is really the minority in the USA. YOu say my own ancestors
>were immigrants, too? That is a non sequitir: I may own a house, and at some
>point in the past, I did not own that house. Does that make it OK for
>someone else to move in without my permission?
Fair enough, it should be your call to keep them out. All I have to say,
though, is that considering the way things are going in Mexico and Central
America, you better be prepared to build a really expensive and complex
border barrier system. I can imagine this might hurt your commerce, though.
It will probably require you to get quite violent about enforcing things,
and I would imagine that is going to have all kinds of consequences.
>If you are going to have immigrants, at least get educated ones. And then,
>in that case, you have serious concerns about them competing with current
>citizens for jobs.
Yes, I can imagine this is a tricky point. On one hand, importing talented
people will benefit your country, but I can imagine the locals wouldn't
feel too happy at first. Do the current immigration policies encourage or
discourage talented immigrants from going to the US?
>We own this country, we get to voice our own opinions
>freely, and we get to make the rules. The kinds of countries where common
>men do not get to make the rules and voice opinions....that is the kind of
>country from whence the peasants came. Let them stay in their beds, etc...
Again, this can easily become for said peasants a matter of cost-benefit:
getting into the US seems certainly lots cheaper, both on an individual and
group sense, than headbutting against the kleptocracy and risking all kind of
nasties (in the worst case) or a lot of wasted time and still being dirt
poor (in the usual case). Can you really blame them for doing so?
>Another thing, most of the mexican immigrants are indians, and they are the
>uneducated peasants who get the grunt work that would be going to US
>citizens otherwise. I am part indian, so therefore by the current calculus
>of racial political correctness, I get to criticise them.
Indians or mestizos? I would have thought mestizos were a bigger component.
Also, I wonder about the competition for jobs, can you elaborate? Wouldn't
US citizens be glad to leave the grunt work to the immigrants, and aim for
other jobs of a more pleasant nature? As for the political correctness issue,
it is a US feature that I'm still unable to understand at all, so you don't
need to worry about me thinking you can't criticise them on that account.
Carlos
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:14 MDT