The ineptness of Trump to handle anything is present here as other persons would have understood that these right-wing talking heads need far more his approval than the other way around. — ssu

I'm not so sure about that. You should hear some of the Republican politicians grovel before Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Having right-wing media turn on you can likely damage your popularity among conservative voters.

Don´t you realize? We are back in the Modern Age; with walled cities that are now whole countries, and ideologically motivated demographic surges in some regions to be used to invade the still wealthy areas and erase social diversity and cultural heritage globally. A well defended border is actually the most humanitarian option, because it creates a differentiated inside where some civilization, plurality of ideas and kindness are still possible.

It does not matter who you vote; your next president´s declared mission will be to defend the country and enforce law and order at any cost. It is important that this process gathers a great national consensus and it is done to protect individual rights of the citizens inside. Inside the wall there must be a haven, an oasis for individual consciousness amid the global chaos, and not a prison camp. That is what´s really at stake in North America, Europe, Australia, Japan...

I'm not so sure about that. You should hear some of the Republican politicians grovel before Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Having right-wing media turn on you can likely damage your popularity among conservative voters. — Arkady

Funny you should mention that, because Mike Pence was a guest on today's Rush Limbaugh show. Pence said: " Thank you, Rush. It’s always an honor. I just left the Oval Office — told the president I was headed to be on your program — and we couldn’t be more grateful for your voice on the airwaves of America every day. Everything we’ve accomplished over the last two years — rebuilding our military, reviving our economy, setting a record for conservatives appointed to our courts, America’s growing at home, we’re standing tall on the world stage — you’ve played a key role in that. And, Rush, we don’t thank you enough. But thank you for all that you’ve meant to this movement and to the progress that we’ve made in this country."
(source)

:vomit:

Ugh. It's even worse than I thought.

Trump is a consequence of the right wing punditocracy. This is no exaggeration; listeners are his base, and Trump frequently takes advice from them.

Illegal or not, our community cannot handle the influx at the rate that we are looking at. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

What I mean is our resources to provide physical care, medical care, provide mental health care, education and to protect the influx of our Southern neighbors, in addition to the needs of our own citizens who are in their own dire straits has reached capacity.

We have citizens in need like the California community of Paradise, where 196 of their 200 high school athletes, were made homeless overnight. Where the teachers and senior citizens who have nothing and I do mean NOTHING and no time left in life to rebuild. Do they not deserve the financial help and attention that they paid into our society for their whole lives to keep them, the poor elderly off the streets? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Just FYI:

The proportion of immigrants living in the country without legal authorisation has fallen, following a sharp drop in net unauthorised immigration from about 500,000 per year in the early 2000s to roughly zero since 2009.

About 75% of unauthorised immigrants are thought to have lived in the US for more than 10 years.

Immigrants in the economy

Immigrants contribute directly to economic growth - boosting the population and increasing demand for goods and services.

Giving many unauthorised immigrants citizenship and allowing more immigration would raise annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth - the total value of goods and services produced - by 0.33 percentage points over the next decade, the US Congressional Budget Office has suggested. In contrast, removing unauthorised immigrants would lower growth by 0.27 percentage points a year.

This is significant when it comes to national economic growth. A 10-year $1.5 trillion infrastructure investment might boost GDP by 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points per year.

Immigrants also contribute to economic growth in a less direct way.

Although they account for only 18% of workers over the age of 25, immigrants account for 28% of high quality patents - a sign of underlying technological progress, linked to productivity and economic growth.

Output in the economy is higher and grows faster with more immigrants, as they increase the number of workers and productivity.

Immigrant workers accounted for 39% of the increase in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs - rising to 29% of all workers in this sector - in 2010.

Nevertheless, they are most likely to be employed in service occupations, such as chefs, housekeepers and nursing aides.

Immigrants also tend to have a positive impact on US finances - paying more in taxes than they receive in government services, when compared with native-born workers.

It is particularly striking that among low-skilled workers, immigrants are more likely to be employed and less likely to receive government benefits than those born in the US.

Since its founding, immigrants have been an integral part of the fabric weaving together the US economy and society writ large.

Understanding who they are and what role they have in the US can help shape the debate around those who make it their home in years to come. — BBC News

I'm not so sure about that. You should hear some of the Republican politicians grovel before Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Having right-wing media turn on you can likely damage your popularity among conservative voters. — Arkady

Yet the right-wing media didn't at first like Trump. Rupert Murdoch didn't like Trump and in the first moments of the elections you could see this with Fox hardballing the candidate at first. But then he had to back down and the rest we know.

Normal republicans surely grovel at Limbaugh just like both parties grovel in front of AIPAC. Yet the difference with Trump voters, his base, is that they actually aren't loyalists of the Republican party at all, but people who genuinely thought of Trump being an anti-establishment candidate and would likely turn on everything seen as being part of the old Washington establishment. Add there into the populism the racism and or xenophobia and you have the hard core Trump supporters. The thing is that these idiots haven't run the Republican party and likely won't take full control of the party. Yet having the ability to offset the Republican party leadership, the Bush family and Murdoch does show that there would be the ability to control the talking heads like Limbaugh too.

What I've tried to say that if Trump would posses actual leadership abilities, he could mold the GOP into his own party. The (lucky?) thing is that he is so inept in leadership that he cannot do it. The two years of his administration has shown this totally clear. The party is a disaster just like the White House.

"Peace in our time!" The swan song of Neville Chamberlain, who thought that appeasing evil would tame it or domesticate or make it stay away. Trump is a proto-hitler: he's maniac enough, but has none of the other necessary qualities. Which implies that someone, something, more substantially evil is running him, somehow. Love of money? Russian blackmail? It really does not matter. My point here is that the Democrats are the only ones who can oppose him. In my view they must oppose him totally, utterly, completely; not give an inch, and seize every inch they can. No compromise with evil. No appeasing gestures or compromises.

That's how it is with evil. But how hard it is for even adults to recognize it!

Immigrants contribute directly to economic growth - boosting the population and increasing demand for goods and services. — BBC News

Wouldn't that be true for Europe and particularly for the UK which is leaving the EU in order to avoid having so many immigrants?

There are some downsides to immigration from Mexico -- a low wage area (even more so with countries further south in Central America: A) immigrants who are better off working at low wages in the US but which are higher than in Mexico put downward pressure on wages for unskilled and semiskilled work (possibly for more skilled work, too). B) falling wages are not a boost to the economy, they are a drag which hurts working class people. C) I will grant that immigrants from Mexico -- mostly not legal - do make contributions to the society. They start small retail businesses and restaurants -- a classic step in upward mobility. They tend to revitalize dead commercial areas because rent and property is cheaper in such areas.

A lot of the money Mexicans and Central Americans earn here is actually not cycled into the economy here; it is sent home, where it is a vital source of income for families (and communities).

There is a difference between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants in their ready integration in society. Vietnamese, Hmong (Cambodians and Laotians), and Somalis have integrated at various rates, much faster than illegal Mexicans. They have, for instance, begun participating actively in public life--running for office, setting up community organizations, and so on. Of course, illegals aren't eligible to run for office and vote, nor should they be.

Boosting the population in the US and Europe is actually bad for the world's future -- the more people living like Americans, the worse global warming.

The thing about GDP is that while it has been growing for the last 40 or 50 years, wages and wealth have been declining for most of the population. So I don't buy the idea that granting citizenship to 10 million illegals and having another 10 or 20 million come legally would actually help the average American. I think it would make things worse.

— BBC News (The top provider of fake news in the U.K.) is a good source of irrational slogans to be exposed. We are all to blame, right and left, for the separation of economy from reality and its construction as a metaphysical discourse. Philosophers in particular should try harder to explain society why Economics as it is understood in the last centuries is not a real science, and belongs with Astrology, Homeopathy and Oscars nominations.

For example: you can not assume that all people coming to a country are a homogeneous group, where everybody contributes equally and in the same direction to society. Precisely the point of defending borders and expelling illegal immigrants, is to discriminate which people will have a positive impact and are worth taking in, from those that will be a burden or even a factor of instability and will increase crime, that we need to keep out at all costs. You can not put together a legal applicant from Spain who dreams of giving the U.S. another Nobel Prize like astrophysicist Ignacio Ugarte-Urra with, say, a man who comes illegally, doesn´t speak English and who has ten children and two wives and three goats in his country that he hopes to bring to the U.S when he´s legalized. Not discriminating and not selecting among the very different people who wants to come is unjust, unwise, and suicidal in the long term.
I

BBC News (The top provider of fake news in the U.K.) is a good source of irrational slogans to be exposed. — DiegoT

Translation: I disagree with what the BBC News reports. I don't know your background but it's becoming rather obvious you have a background that is significantly different than the typical BBC or Guardian reporter. What they report isn't fake news, it's a different view. If you want to be heard, you need to listen as well instead of dismissing what others say out of hand.

That said, you've finally written something worthwhile in the second paragraph about what sort of immigration a society should allow and what we should do to avoid influx of people who we don't want as immigrants and how to implement that.

Let's start with the obvious questions:
- fugitives from wars? In or out or depends?
- fugitives from natural disasters? In or out or depends?
- economic immigrants? In or out or depends?

Meanwhile, in the pursuit of economic growth and profit there certainly is an international system in place where production is outsourced at the expense of local low-schooled labour and generally also at the expense of the workers in those other countries in terms of health and safety regulation, work hours and the ability to collectively negotiate pay (and therefore shitty pay).

The West (e.g. Europe and the US) have a fair hand in various conflicts as well whether directly or through proxy wars. I think it is quite obvious such injustices and instability result in bigger immigration flows than would occur naturally.

Immigration policy cannot be disjoined from economic and foreign policy in my view as the alternative would be cracking down on immigration by turning society into a semi-police state.

The distrust a lot of people have towards their governments and the EU at the moment is because nobody is asking people other than the ruling elite (in NL that's white, male, educated, not openly religious, west-NL asking each other what they think and expect about immigration. And if regular people don't trust the government, they'll be susceptible to believing all sorts of falsities. An example in the Netherlands where a woman didn't want a refugee centre housing 600 people because they'd get a job within 4 months at the expense of her foster child who wants to work as well.

So here's a woman (in a wheelchair) who made one of the noblest sacrifices by raising a child that isn't hers yet she's refusing to help others (these were mostly Syrian war refugees) for what are actually rational grounds even if based on wrong facts (refugees don't just get jobs like that).

BBC News (The top provider of fake news in the U.K.) is a good source of irrational slogans to be exposed. — DiegoT

:roll:

It's consistently rated as number one in terms of accuracy and reliability out of UK news sources.

For example: you can not assume that all people coming to a country are a homogeneous group, where everybody contributes equally and in the same direction to society. Precisely the point of defending borders and expelling illegal immigrants, is to discriminate which people will have a positive impact and are worth taking in, from those that will be a burden or even a factor of instability and will increase crime, that we need to keep out at all costs. You can not put together a legal applicant from Spain who dreams of giving the U.S. another Nobel Prize like astrophysicist Ignacio Ugarte-Urra with, say, a man who comes illegally, doesn´t speak English and who has ten children and two wives and three goats in his country that he hopes to bring to the U.S when he´s legalized. Not discriminating and not selecting among the very different people who wants to come is unjust, unwise, and suicidal in the long term. — DiegoT

I'm curious, who do you think you're arguing against? Who do you think is treating all immigrants equally, irrespective of things like legal status?

Please do not care about "my background"; only care about my arguments that are sometimes more right than wrong, other times more wrong than right.

Please do not care about "my background"; only care about my arguments that are sometimes more right than wrong, other times more wrong than right. — DiegoT

I think backgrounds are important as to how to frame arguments and to make sure we're talking about the same thing. Some issues I will not automatically understand because I don't live the reality of being black, a minority, poor, uneducated etc. because of my background. So to me the Guardian and BBC News seem sensible because I share a lot of background with the typical reporter - but it's just a view among many. I read Breitbart as well, especially the comments. It never resonates with me but it gives me some idea of where people with whom it does resonate are coming from. The Democrats just want them to be idiots andracists and while most likely all stupid racists voted for Trump not every Trump-voter is a racist or stupid.

So in daily life I end up talking to a lot of people like me and that way I miss out on the type of thinking of that woman in a wheelchair from my previous post. I watched her on video yesterday with my colleagues and most everyone was laughing because they thought she was so stupid. So if most people with my background look down on people like her as if they don't know what they're talking about and that the "elite" should just educate her because we know better, we're missing out on her view. So we end up writing laws and regulations that benefit the elite as it only addresses elite problems as we're blind to problems other people have. The bureacracy is such that only the elite understands it because it wasn't written or designed for illiterates. So yeah, I think background matters a lot if we're supposed to have a real conversation.

Interesting, by the way, that you mention individual rights. That's a decidedly liberal idea and not typically left. I consider individual rights things that are granted and taken away in the liberal sense. In the "leftist" sense you take it because as people we have that power. And you take it from the government and from the monied elite and the big corporations.

because Podemos (radical left paid by Iran) — DiegoT

I was like "that has to be fake news" and googled it. What the hell? How did that (probably) happen?

(without embracing the Right) — DiegoT

Lol! You're kidding yourself if you believe that. Your right wing views stand out like a sore thumb. And you seem much more like the UKIP type than the Tory type. More radical, outspoken, knee-jerk views, than moderate, tactful, considered. I would say that that painting of invaders in one of your previous posts is right out of the Nigel Farage play book - he received a backlash against this one notorious, misleading, and scaremongering poster depicting a long line of immigrants - but I think that even he is a little more tactful than that.

From a flat out standing point of view...trump is not fit to run the White House, or America for that matter. There are much more effective ways he could of approached his situations, but whoever has the most currency (not value) wins elections. When he was building this wall, but was he thinking? “We are going on a bear hunt?” Where the people can’t go over it, can’t go under it, but have to go through it? But they can’t?
As Albert Einstein once said “I weep for the future”

Since we're using this thread to ramble on about any damn thing, I'd like you to address the fact that the UK has a zero population growth rate. France is negative, or used to be.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that a core nation culture puts the brakes on population growth by giving women education, jobs, birth control, etc.

Does thus automatically set the stage for a need for immigration?

Does thus automatically set the stage for a need for immigration? — frank

Certainly having a fertility rate below the replacement level leaves you with the clear choice of either heading off a demographic cliff when your highest-spending, highest-earning, and highest-taxed age groups begin to decline and your fastest growing group becomes financially-draining retired folks (e.g. as in South Korea http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/696800.html ) or allowing your population to be replenished by new arrivals, particularly those from areas with higher fertility rates. The smart money is on the latter option. Relatively liberal immigration policies make a lot of long-term economic sense.

I think that it's not so much that there aren't enough of us to fill these gaps in the job market, but more that there aren't enough of us who are willing to do so. That contributes towards a shortage on the domestic supply side which can be seen as an opportunity by both employers and foreign job seekers alike.

Certainly having a fertility rate below the replacement level leaves you with the clear choice of either heading off a demographic cliff when your highest-spending, highest-earning, and highest-taxed age groups begin to decline and your fastest growing group becomes financially-draining retired folks (e.g. as in South Korea — Baden

The US is headed in that direction. Medicare funds will start falling short sometime in the next decade, I think. It's mainly due to population growth issues.

Relatively liberal immigration policies make a lot of long-term economic sense. — Baden

I suppose if your long-term economic forecast is continued growth, then yes. The problem is that a bearish economy causes frustration. That frustration is looking for a scapegoat. I think it's a mistake to underestimate the potential volatility in it. Standing firm on a principle of pro-immigration (for whatever reason) at the cost of magnifying that frustration may cause more harm than good.

I think that it's not so much that there aren't enough of us to fill these gaps in the job market, but more that there aren't enough of us who are willing to do so. That contributes towards a shortage on the domestic supply side which can be seen as an opportunity by both employers and foreign job seekers alike. — S

Sure. I don't want to clean out toilets either. But I would if I had to.

I think that it's not so much that there aren't enough of us to fill these gaps in the job market, but more that there aren't enough of us who are willing to do so. — S

The unattractiveness of a given job can't be separated from the wage that will be paid. Supposedly, meat packers have to hire Mexicans to slaughter and pack cattle and hogs. "White people don't want to do that kind of work." One does not need to go back many years (about 40) when meatpacking was a good job that white people were quite happy to do. What changed? What changed was union busting, wage cutting, and conveyor belt speed up. That's when Mexicans started to do that kind of work.

Because of the prevailing low wage level of Mexico (or even more so, Central America) migrants can work at a low wage job here and still make more than they would in Mexico. It's a way of importing 3rd world wage levels into a first world country. (The other way is to move the factory to Vietnam or Bangladesh.)

So, Frank and Sap, what happens to the extra money that's left over? It is part of the flow into the wealth of the top 1%-5% of the world's population. What has happened in the US has happened elsewhere. Capital behaves pretty much the same all over.

Europe and North America are nowhere close to full employment. There are plenty of people capable of doing many kinds of work IF the reward is adequate. People don't like being viewed with contempt, and nothing says contempt like paying people a low wage for work that is dirty and unpleasant.

I don't want to clean out toilets either. But I would if I had to. — frank

You would want to clean toilets if the wage and benefit package was excellent, and if the job was structured as dignified safety and health work, which it in fact is. Can we afford to elevate toilet-cleaning and adult-diaper changing?

Of course we can afford it. The money could, would, and should come from that small group of avaricious bastards who presently have among themselves more wealth than the rest of the population put together.

The richest people, let's be generous and say the richest 1000 people, have more wealth among themselves than about 4 billion other people. (According to Oxfam -- which is of course not an unbiased economic reporting service, the richest 8 people have more wealth than a third to half of the world's population.)

Oxfam's figures might be exaggerated, or maybe they are understated. I don't know. But at least in the developed world, it is established fact that the richest 1% (several million avaricious bastards) have the lion's share of the wealth.

If you ask the lions what their share is, the answer is "all of it".

not just probably...The president of Podemos is a presenter in the Spanish version of Iran Tv, Hispan Tv. In theory it is illegal; but Spain is not strong enough anymore to enforce law on political parties, as we were twenty years ago when terrorist party HB, that told ETA what politicians were to be killed, was made illegal. Spain is in the most difficult situation since 1975. Not as bad as France, but the U.S. seems like a peaceful haven politically (in comparison).

I´m not sure about your background hypothesis. People arrive to the same idea or candidate from very different origins, sometimes with motives that are very personal or local, and the media representations of voters are very stereotypical and simple and only good for easy comedy. This said, what we all suffer are the infamous filter bubbles where different people end up thinking the same and recognizing the same (fictional) reality. A.I. and social media have multiplied this trend until make us all prisoners of our own minds. I do not have social media anymore; not even a messenger. Only emails and forums like this where you can still confront different views, and little by little I´m trying to make my own representation of the real world and cut the strings.

There are more immigrants begging for work, and will work hard because they are so greatful compared to local people who say “meh...it’s just work. They’ll always want me back”. Sooo...a large working community of different cultures and good workers or a small population of unmotivated, in greatful or unaware of how good they’ve got it. :cry:

(without embracing the Right) DiegoT
Lol! You're kidding yourself if you believe that. Your right wing views stand out like a sore thumb. And you seem much more like the UKIP type than the Tory type. More radical, outspoken, knee-jerk views, than moderate, tactful, considered.
It might seem the case for you, but it isn´t actually. It so happens that I have a very personal trait that saves me from what you fear might be happening to my political standpoint; let´s leave it at that. I do concede that I´m too outspoken and speak like a jerk sometimes.

You would want to clean toilets if the wage and benefit package was excellent, and if the job was structured as dignified safety and health work, which it in fact is. Can we afford to elevate toilet-cleaning and adult-diaper changing? — Bitter Crank

It just seems like it would get boring eventually. I have a theory that human civilization is a side-effect of attention deficit disorder.

it would get boring — frank

I was going to say that everything gets boring, but then I thought of sex (good or better), so that's an exception. Eating very good food when one is reasonably hungry also doesn't get boring. One shouldn't confuse "familiar" with "boring". Sex is familiar, even when exceptionally good. Beer is not boring. It's familiar and effective when used as directed. Sleeping well night after night is not boring.
On the other hand, sleeping poorly night after night is imminently boring.

Cleaning toilets? Chuck the church janitor's favorite expression is "same old shit in a new toilet bowl". Chuck badly needs a new job or early retirement. But cleaning toilets is probably no worse than 75% to 85% of all jobs. I've felt like "same old shit in new toilet bowls" about most all of the jobs I've had, and several of them were good non-toilet-bowl-jobs. 7 years is the max time I've been able to stand any of them.

Imagine being an infectious disease specialist. A doctor! What could be boring about that? Well, one diseased, pus-filled-running-sore-pariah after another for 40 years? Oh yes, very much same-old-shit-in-a-new-toilet-bowl job. One would probably feel like flushing the patients.

I do like leaving things clean and sparkly. But then there's the Sisyphus factor. Did you have some sort of epiphany in any of your jobs about that?

Much like sisyphus, only smaller boulders. One could actually roll them to the top without too much difficulty. The drawback is that one was not allowed to aim them at anyone in particular before you let them loose to roll back down.

When I was in college, we sometimes climbed up into the bluffs along the Mississippi. We found it amusing to roll large limestone rocks (which Gawd Almighty had provided for our amusement) down the steep hillsides. They would pick up a lot of speed and bounce quite high as they traveled down, sometime breaking into pieces which together kept on going. It was a great demonstration as to why a rolling stone gathers no moss. The problem (or the frisson) with this entertainment was that Highway 61 (the same one Bob Dylan sang about) was at the bottom of the hills.

Very exciting as the trajectory of rock and Chevrolet approached the same point. Fortunately they never quite met. But they could have.

We were almost the means by which some killing could have been done out on Highway 61. This was 1964 -- shortly before he wrote the song. Maybe he was in the Chevrolet and experienced a foretaste of his future lyric? Could be!