Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "The TRUTH about Border Security and America's Broken Immigration System" video.
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@elizabeth_777 : I’ve seen Dr Reich’s lectures on YouTube. He sure isn’t right about everything. But he’s another man who encourages people to read and think for themselves. I must challenge your assertion that Jake would, “want to stop immigration,” though. He has said nothing of the sort in this or any previous video that I know of, and I haven’t missed any of them for at least three years now.
Jake is showing you what the arguments are on both sides and the agendas behind them. He is discussing the difference between what politicians and pundits, “say,” and how their rhetoric does not match their actions. And he’s adding his analysis about what motives they have to keep migration (illegal and otherwise) a live issue in the minds of voters.
The fact is that continuous migration is the very model that built America and made it so strong in the first place. The numbers are in and the facts checked. There is a direct correlation between population increase and economic success, so long as those demographic injections of people consist of the very types of people that migration necessarily encourages. It is not the elderly and sick, by and large, but the young, strong and active people who migrate to democracies, away from oppression. The very sorts of people a nation needs: those who say no to theocracy or dictatorship and are willing to take enormous risks for the sake of freedom. Those are the same types of people who don’t waste their votes, once enfranchised, and who generate economic activity by working hard, having children and generating taxable incomes. The younger a modern population is (in the developed world) the better its chances of growth, both demographically and financially.
And America has sustained its edge over larger populations by constantly renewing its younger population, “artificially,” so to speak, through migration.
It is true that unchecked and unsupervised migration would create more problems than it solves. But I don’t know of a single politician in America who has ever called for, “open borders;” a phrase much abused by bad faith claims of the far right, referencing a Hillary Clinton speech in 2015 and taking her words out of context.
Sorry for going on, but I would hate to see Jake’s meaning misinterpreted. If nothing else, Jake is encouraging a broad audience to consider their civic responsibilities and to learn more about how their domestic politics is bound up with world affairs. And that’s a very good thing.
Slava Ukraine, my friend. 🇺🇦✌️
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@ltloxa1159 : If they made it a serious criminal offence for farm owners and industry owners to employ illegal immigrants, with an automatic crippling fine and guaranteed jail time for the most senior managers (and ALWAYS for the owners) the, “problem,” as it stands would just about vanish over night.
The problem is that no such bill could ever be passed because politicians on both sides of the isle depend on donations from these wealthy business and farm owners, much less be ruthlessly and speedily enforced. You could say, the people who complain the loudest about, “illegal immigration,” are the ones with the biggest vested interest in keeping it a live issue; certainly among the wealthy.
So, the only real solution would be to ban lobby groups and all political donations over certain figure (say, $1,000?).
You know? Like Donald Trump promised on the 2016 campaign trail? Only to throw that promise out the window, almost immediately upon winning the election. I believe it was the gun lobby that showed us the most spectacular example of that, literally interrupting him in front of the cameras while he was proclaiming certain bans on guns to be effected by Executive Privilege, only to be taken off into a side room where massive donations were proffered and Trump announced a flip flop the next day.
It’s always been the money. Always will be. If they ever sign a bill into law that does limit donations, putting industries on the same influential footing as a common citizen, there will be hope for America’s democracy. Especially if the penalties for circumventing such laws were always swiftly and ruthlessly punished, with the harshest possible penalties. But that’s a dream, not a reality.
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