I don’t consider myself liberal at all and I’m for open borders. It surprises me that Republicans (of the pre-Trump variety, at least) are so hostile to the idea. It’s basically the same thing as “free trade” and “the free market” but applied to people in addition to stuff. Hire who you want. Rent to whoever you want. Sell property to whoever you want. Seems like merely the basic rights of employers and property owners, to me. Not sure why that’s such a radical idea, when it was the way of the world for thousands of years. Until the height of racism in the Western world caused people to fear “the wrong kind” of immigrants moving in next door and working alongside them.
As a supporter of the “we voted for Trump because you called us racists!” party, are you certain you want to hurl that particular pebble?
Identity politics is another one of those “I support something stupid and it’s the other side’s fault”. With the added annoyance that when Hillary tried the ‘black people have to vote for me because I am a white woman’ it didn’t work. They stayed home.
Regards,
Shodan
Right, by moving their polling stations miles away and purging them from voter rolls.
That’s not what I consider to be an inspired love of democracy.
When I think of “open borders” I think of the borders in the EU (say, between Belgium and France), or the borders between states in the US. So no stopping, no controls, etc., when crossing them.
With an EU-like trade agreement, I think establishing such borders between, say, the US and Canada would probably be a wonderful thing for both countries. I’m skeptical about such with Mexico (but open to any arguments). Is anyone advocating for such a border between the US and Mexico? And if so, do you advocate this along with some sort of trade agreement like the EU, or some other agreement, or is that not required?
My preferred immigration system would be to legalize all the peaceful immigrants already here (regardless of how they got here), go after the very few violent among them and deport them, establish an EU-like system between the US and Canada, and maintain the US-Mexico border with generally welcoming policies towards migrant workers and refugees but not an “open” border as described in the top paragraph.
Democrats want open borders on the installment plan. In the 80s there was a deal where the republicans allowed amnesty for illegal aliens in exchange for more border security. The amnesty happened and the border security never did. Millions of people around the world saw that and came to the US illegally. The Democrats have been trying to repeat that deal ever since.
The Democrat party is for sanctuary cities, local police not cooperating with ICE, driver licenses for illegal aliens, and reduced college tuition for illegal alien students. The plan is to allow illegal aliens to live here unmolested and then periodic amnesties so they can become voters. Asahi’s plan is the actual plan but most are not honest enough to admit it.
Don’t forget the Rolls Royces the Dems are going to hand out.
One the one hand, you say identity politics is stupid. On the other hand, you make false claims about what black people did in the election, which seems to suggest you understand GOP identity politics perfectly.
That is like saying that “white genocide” is a thing, but that is also a silly conspiracy theory.
The reality is that a lot of those immigrants would be of a conservative sort, but the acts of the Republicans in power constantly remind them that if a former immigrant, that became a citizen and their descendants vote for the current Republicans, it would be like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
I’m all for open borders in principle for human rights reasons. A government does not have any authority to tell a human being where he may or may not travel or live. Why do we allow the government to tell us on which side of an imaginary and arbitrary line we may or may not stand at any given time?
THAT SAID, you cannot have open borders and a welfare state at the same time. If the US were to open up its borders without a complete overhaul of its social policies, then the US government would be quickly driven to financial collapse, and you would have rioting in the streets protesting all of the “foreign leeches”.
No, he’s breaking the stronghold by doing more than making promises. And people are waking up. He’s doing very well with minorities.
Excellent post. At every turn, Dems refuse to secure the border. They claim that they want a secure border, but never take action d=to do so. The way they package this so they can keep the lie alive is that they will go for securing the border ONLY IF we reform other aspects of immigration at the same time. Of course this makes no sense. IF one believes our border should be secured, doing it first makes perfect sense. But they don’t want a secure border: they want to lie, obfuscate and delay.
Thinking that the party who has prominent members who go as far as publicly stating they want open borders and want to abolish ICE is absurd believes in a secure border is laughable.
They’re negotiating, as is usual in politics. And the same could be said for the Republican party. Perhaps even further – they’ve controlled the legislature and WH for a year and a half and have done virtually nothing for border security. And they did virtually nothing for border security when they held the House and Senate under Obama.
They have been trying, especially since 9/11. And the Dems have stopped the security from happening at every turn. Most recently, they turned dow a generous deal on DACA because, heaven forbid, the deal required securing the border.
The Republican position is that it’s not identity politics when white men do it.
I’m sure this belief makes GOP strategists very happy, but it doesn’t comport with the facts as I understand them. The GOP holds the House and the Senate – they could call a vote for any bill they like. And AFAIU they haven’t called for a vote for a border security bill that has passed. Blaming this on the minority party is nuts.
Yeah, that seems strange to me.
Dems held the majority and they didn’t do anything about border security! It’s their fault!
Dems are in the minority and they didn’t do anything about border security! It’s their fault!
It’s never the Pubs fault?
There are plenty of republicans who are at fault on immigration. Truth is, that for decades there has been an unholy alliance between the two parties. Each had constituents they wanted to keep happening. 9/11 almost put an end to it, but the swampy stance ran to deep. But it would be a mistake to have the discussion revolve around purity, meaning, one party can be much more in favor of securing the border while having individuals in the party that are weak on the issue. It would be laughable to try to create a narrative that the Dems are as eager to support the border as the Reps. Just look at the ;last deal on DACA the Dems turned down. And that was with Trump giving them more DACA slots than anyone asked for! No, it’s clear at every turn that the Dems do not want to secure the border.
Indeed, also: as shown here and in other threads, the current Republican leadership just harps on complete lies to tell their rank and file that the opposition is making bills to undermine border security.
It’s my understanding that a simple majority vote is required to pass bills in the House. Can you point me to some “tough border security” bills that have passed in the House recently?