Comments on The Monroe Doctrine: Protesters, Right and Wrong

A.C., the current unemployment rate is under 5%, w...

2006-03-26T00:33:00.000-06:00

A.C., the current unemployment rate is under 5%, which most economists consider to be full employment. There are many employers in multiple sectors who would support my contention that workers would not be available to them if not for the influx of immigrants.

Tired, while I would favor a rather generous immigration policy, I would not go as far as you are suggesting.

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, open immigra...

2006-03-25T22:48:00.000-06:00

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, open immigration is the only way to secure the border.

Today, many american citizens ignore the undocumented status of aliens, becase they assume that those aliens are honest folk who simply want to make a living. If the US lets such folk in legally, with proper documentation, people would know that any other undocumented people are not kosher.

Imagine that no honest person would want to cross into the US illegally. As a consequence, citizens would readily report the few crooks who do. The only way to make the border safe is to allow for a large amounts of well-controlled, legal immigration. The only other way I can think of is to make Mexico the 51st state, and then patrol their -- much shorter -- southern border.

To my mind, the main change should be to grant amnesty to the 11 million Mexicans who are here, and then allow about 2 million to come over legally every year. The consequence of this will be to make the U.S. a safer place.

The U.S. labor market needs large numbers of immig...

2006-03-25T16:42:00.000-06:00

The U.S. labor market needs large numbers of immigrants to come into the country.

We do? Are you sure? It seems like we have quite a few people in this country? Do we have TOO many jobs that pay far TOO much? Nobody unemployed or underemployed?

Immigration shrinks the job market and drives down wages. Why would we want to do that?

U.S. policy and practice needs to accommodate that need. It currently does not.

Well, the need is false but U.S. practice and (defacto) policy accomadates this assumption far too much really.