If you don’t see repression of lower classes as a symptom of societal distress, I’m not sure how this conversation can continue. It’s why Jews, elderly women, “counter-revolutionaries”, religious minorities, indigenous and countless others have been and are subjugated, persecuted, or exterminated with the consent of the population. Their fear and anxiety over any instability is tied to a specific group.
There must be a check against the destructive narratives of demagogues. Ever wonder why liberals fight against Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, defend indigenous rights and decry treatment of migrants? It’s because of people like you.
Spending $30-60B (NOT $5B ) for a wall to achieve a nominal decreas in illegal entry is a dubious solution at best. It does nothing to address the just-as-common problem of visa overstays, or what to do about the illegal immigrants already here. As you yourself have noted, it will NOT stop the more determined (and dangerous) i.e. drug smugglers and gang leaders, who appear to comprise a far greater proportion of illegal entries in your fevered mind than reality (or statistics - same difference) would suggest.
I think the better question is: why are YOU so convinced that a wall is the ONLY answer, when the actual number of illegal immigrants today is LESS than it was a decade ago? Why are you so desperate to get Trump his “win”?
The obvious inference from this argument, in this thread, is that Mexican illegals are pouring over the border to feast at the welfare trough, enabled by Democrats. Welfare statistics say you’re wrong. Anecdotally, the VAST majority of Mexican immigrants I have met in 60 years of living in California are the stereotypical “hard workers doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do”.
I agree, most Mexicans are hard workers doing jobs Americans won’t do, and they certainly aren’t the only ones on welfare and cheating the system. I don’t blame the Mexicans for wanting to come to America or cheating the system. We have plenty of American cheaters.
The problem is the bill for this ( as well as every other bill) is paid for by American tax payers who ARE willing to work for the standard of living they want, and are fed up having the fruits of their labor confiscated and given to people who won’t work. Seriously, why do we even have jobs that Americans “won’t” do? How did we reach a point in this country where able bodied people have the right to not work? Why SHOULD Americans go out and pick fruit, or do hard work of any kind when it is so much easier to stay home and collect welfare? That type of work needs to be done and Mexicans are happy to step in and do it, and so they pour across our borders by the tens of thousands to do so, and a lot of criminals bent on doing Americans harm come in with the tide.
This is no accident, it isn’t simply the by-product of compassion that our youth is brainwashed into regurgitating. It’s deliberate. The system does nothing to actually alleviate poverty. It does nothing to lift people out of hopeless, miserable lives.
The Democrat plan is designed to keep people impoverished, ignorant and hopeless so that they become, and remain dependent on their benevolent big brother to meet their needs and vote accordingly. Sadly, many Republicans love the system too.
Why is this true? The Bible says " the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…" I know this isn’t the religion forum so I’ll put this concept in secular terms: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Washington DC is a toilet in bad need of flushing. That’s why I support Donald Trump- he recognizes this and is willing to do it.
I believe you believe what you wrote. But it all falls apart in your last sentence. Time after time, we have watched the President appoint senior officials who are nakedly self-interested (Zinke, Price), hilariously unqualified (Devos, Carson, Nauert), or whose sole qualification appears to be loyalty to Donald Trump (Whitaker, Kushner). We have watched him use his position to enrich himself by steering business to his DC hotel - that much is painfully obvious, but more difficult to document because he refuses to release his tax returns as every President has for decades. All of this is preceded by decades of corruption and immorality in his business and personal life better suited to an Irwin Shaw novel than the highest office in the land.
I’m astonished at what brothers and sisters in Christ are willing to overlook for the sake of a few dollars on April 15 and judges who will likely vote against abortion. I get it, but I’m still astonished.
Did you hear Trump’s incoherent explanation of this today? He said something about more companies staying here in the US and paying more income tax and sales tax and payroll tax that would have been lost to Mexico.
I’d like to know how he does the math on that one.
) for a wall to achieve a nominal decreas in illegal entry is a dubious solution at best. It does nothing to address the just-as-common problem of visa overstays, or what to do about the illegal immigrants already here. As you yourself have noted, it will NOT stop the more determined (and dangerous) i.e. drug smugglers and gang leaders, who appear to comprise a far greater proportion of illegal entries in your fevered mind than reality (or statistics - same difference) would suggest.