No, we are not. That's just stupid.
Yes, we are.
We cannot even take care of our own people properly.
We don't need the burden of still more, when we're so badly overstretched...
Not even close. We could have a total population of just one million people, and the corruption, incompetence, and base personal ambition of many of those in a position to exercise it would still exist and still **** things up. We are nowhere near "full-up," and ceasing to be America just because some short-sighted dopes are desperate for simple 'solutions,' is no way to solve the problems that face America.
Not even close?
When half the political blogosphere is choked with the back-and-forth of the argument that we are becoming a Welfare State and that such a state of affairs is unsustainable for much longer?
Disagree.
It would, indeed, be disingenuous to blame immigrants for most of our own internal problems.
But we do not need to create additional problems nor to scale-up the ones we have by adding to the load on the system.
And whoever and whatever made you think that by putting a freeze on immigration for a decade or two that we 'cease to be America'?
That's just silly.
We are, indeed, a nation
descended from immigrants and we have a lovely history and tradition of welcoming them.
But that does not mean that we must
continue accepting newcomers in the volumes nor at the pace to which we have become accustomed.
The world is fast becoming a planet choked with overcrowding and poverty on a scale and on an order of magnitude far exceeding anything that our parents or grand parents or great-grandparents and beyond ever knew or imagined and we cannot continue to be the Receiving Dock for the Overflow forever, never mind new cultural and religious clashes that now pose dangers for us which were never anticipated in times past.
We completed our push to the Pacific in the latter decades of the 19th Century and there are no more plains and prairies to settle nor transcontinental railroads to build by hand nor canals to be dug by hand nor new cities to build by hand nor cotton to pick by hand nor new farmland to clear by hand nor any of that activity which triggered the need for large-scale immigration in the first place.
A company's HR Department will not hire new workers during periods when they are already operating at full capacity and have no further need of new help, just because the company has a tradition of welcoming new employees.
So, too, a country does not encourage nor facilitate new immigration on a large scale, beyond a very modest and closely-vetted relative handful, during periods when there is no pressing need to do so.
We no longer have any pressing need to do so.
Times change. Intelligent people (and nations) adapt to changing times.
And it can no longer be intelligently argued that we require further immigration on the same scale and at the same pace as we did in former times.
Being the Receiving Dock for the Overflow is not in our best interests over the long-haul and it is not so much a matter of arguing about
whether to close the door for a while as it is a matter of arguing about
when to close the door.
You seem to be one who will continue to argue that there is no need to close the door under any circumstances, if I'm reading you (extrapolating from your posts) correctly.
I am one who not only sees the logic and common sense behind a willingness to close the door for a while, but who perceives that we are already there - that it is already time to do so for a decade or two, in order to let us catch our collective breath.
I suspect that we can argue this one until we're blue in the face and not find a middle ground, but I could be wrong. It certainly seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
But it's a healthy thing to get the entire range of options on the table and to examine them.
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