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Yeh, for the most part people are identifying their own fixes to the same problems. Shit on the ground for working class Americans right now is tough, myself saying this from the trenches of that same world.
Largely I think immigration reform is a big red herring. First, because it is a recurrent problem for us (fun-fact: Prohibition started out with an anti-immigrant aspect, since the immigrants at that time were the Irish and Germans) Second, the right's plan is mostly an impractical populism. We'd have to go full on Iron curtain to pull it off, and I cannot imagine that being worth it. We've never had a homogeneous society; this immigration issue is one of our oldest, predating the Civil War. We won't get rid of it without losing ourselves in the process. Saying we'll force the immigrants to integrate is like saying we'll force the drug dealers to stop dealing. To do either you'll need a full fledged police-state to pull it off. The United States as it operates now, within the delicate borders of public opinion and constitutional law (in theory), is somewhat limited in how they can prosecute a war on Hispanics. Do we... go door to door checking papers like the Gestapo? Road blocks in East LA? Police profiling? We can build a wall, and then what? That'll up the premium for Coyotes to do their work, all the while we spend shit loads of cash on a massive back-drop for folk singers to use in politically conscious music videos.
There is no such thing as a simple fix. Immigration is with the US, like or not, so long as we remain a legalistic society. All we can do is work within reason to stem the flow, and focus our attention to integration not so much by force (heh, put a gun to a kids head and force him to watch Oprah or whatever), but by doing our best to increase the resources available to bring people who want out of the ghettos out of the ghettos. The weird half-system we have now, where we paint abuellas with the same brush we do drug-peddlers, is only increasing the tension and pushing out the divide. You either suspend the constitution or you work with people, but trying to run a self-hating police state is impractical.
I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying fucking Nazi Germany. You say you want to "stem the flow" of immigrants. That's all I'm saying. I never said anything about stopping it completely. And as for integration, I'm just talking about mandatory language/culture classes, and maybe restrictions on how much non-American/non-English media is allowed to be produced by one body of people. There wouldn't need to be any roadblocks, door-to-door knocking, or any other Left-wing paranoid fever-dreams, because the government already has a record of information on everyone who legally immigrates to the country. No need to search, they're right there.
This just sounds like the same old left-wing propaganda machine, screaming "police state" and "racist", every time someone suggests even the mildest vetting process for immigration/naturalized-citizenship applications.
But I don't really have to say it is impractical, because being empty populism, nobody will go very far with it. This specific round of know-nothingism has been around for at least as long as I have, though it could very well be longer (I guess when the Unions stopped blaming the Japanese for taking our jobs? I don't know, I always remember the Mexican immigration problem being bandied about. I can remember as a kid my grandma saying how she really wants to go to the border and help shoot Mexicans. Going back the the entire "The left is worried about a pogrom" thing, well, that concern didn't pop up out of thin air.) Republicans have been in a position to deal with it in the past and they haven't, and I suspect it's the same reason Dems won't do anything about it, and why Trumps answer is so shallow. It isn't something they can answer because the laws are already in place (hence it being illegal immigration), but the problem isn't some easy fix.
Yes, both parties have been in a position to crack down on it, and haven't, because their wealthy campaign contributors demand the cheap exploitable labour. Saying that something is illegal, and therefor we're already doing as much as we can, is just inaccurate. Smoking pot and jaywalking are both illegal in Canada, but neither are enforced. No one goes to jail for either. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants, who sneak into the country over and over again, and even are caught stealing and trespassing, are just caught and released like fish. If you actually build a blockade solid enough that Mexicans can't get across it so easily, and then establish a REAL punishment for illegal entry, you'll start to see this problem go away.
It's not a difficult thing to fix.
Also, for the record, I think illegal immigration is important for the culinary health of the nation. Best Mexican joints are the ones where only one employee kinda speaks english, and serves as the liaison for the rest of the employees.
Hahaha. Oh gawd, I seriously hope your joking. "The culinary health of the nation". Are you actually employed by Hillary Clinton?
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Ooooh. I thought you were arguing that Russia and Turkey were anglicized, as in the countries had slipped into Englishness.
Nah, this is about immigrants. The anglicisation of the world is a very interesting conversation, but maybe for another day.
I think this is more of a numbers game. Not enough Russians and Turks coming into the country to coalesce into noticeable groups. There are places in the US where Russians hang out amongst themselves, in those little European enclaves that pop up in more vaguely defined areas that I think most people probably can locate if they live in a major enough city. I know a New Yorker with a very Italian mom who's mother complained their old neighborhood was overrun with Russians, for instance. But this is small. I suspect if Mexicans stayed more along the border, like you were only seeing Mexicans piling up in Texas and California, it wouldn't be as noticeable. Case in point, the Germans and Irish did the same thing back in the 19th century. They immigrated in large enough numbers to freak the neighbors out and you ended up with the "Know-Nothing" movement.
Case in point. Step one is reducing the numbers.
Mexicans, however, are a massive migratory group. They had been there before, and a lot of those places in the southwest have been Mexican-cultured since we took them from Mexico (at least those clinging to the border), which makes it easier for those Hispanic immigrants to jump the border without jumping the culture.
Which is why we need the wall.
Side note:
-Mexico recently announced plans for their own border wall, with Guatemala, to keep those filthy illegal south-american immigrants out. Hmmmm, starting to sound like maybe a wall is a good idea.
I have been to a Russian market by the way, or at least Eastern Bloc Market, because a big chunk of the stuff was in Cyrillic with English stickers stuck over the nutritional info. If they are in Missouri they are surely elsewhere. I found a Kinder Surprise there, which is interesting because they are one of those things famously illegal in the US for some reason, so I bough a bunch of them to give out to people.
As for Turks... you know, I don't think I've met a Turk. Or if I did, they didn't identify openly. Though from what I have seen of Turks online, meeting one that didn't identify openly would seem unlikely.
I've known a couple Turks. They were wonderful, western people, looking to make their mark on the Canadian business-world. Likewise, the Russians I've known were just normal Canadian rednecks, who occasionally spoke to each other in Russian.
And alright, that's interesting that there's an Eastern Bloc Market in Missouri, of all places (one day I'd love to go there, and see what I can find), but nonetheless the eastern bloc isn't contributing to a crime/drug epidemic, an explosion of completely non-English material, the formation of eastern bloc ghettos, and isn't openly aggressive to American citizens passing through. Did the people at the shops, for example, speak intelligible English, and were they welcoming enough that you were able to complete your purchases without trouble? If you had a conversation with one, did they seem knowledgeable of American pop-culture? Was the place tolerably sanitary? Did they have functioning bathrooms? Did anyone try to sell you hard drugs, or accost you for money?
Member
Marik,
Grizzlybeard
