Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mcphage 596 days ago
> If we decide we're full, that's ok.

We've got both a declining birth rate and an economy that demands growth. Our biggest competitor is 4x our size. We have vast open spaces, and a history of repeatedly, successfully incorporating waves of immigrants. We're not even remotely full.

1 comments

Its still a more fundamental question for me than whether were full.

Should we be able to decide who has a chance to live here at all? We have laws and you have to abide by them, but beyond that I'm not sure why I should get to be gate keeper at all. We'd have to get rid of welfare programs if we have no cap on immigrations, but honestly if someone wants to move here and try to make a better life for themselves I don't see what the problem is.

I'm sure most would say crime, but that's just not a compelling argument. We will never have a bulletproof immigration system, people will find ways to sneak through went we don't want to let them in. More importantly, crime isn't a foreign problem - we have domestic crime that has nothing to do with immigrants.

"I'm sure most would say crime, but that's just not a compelling argument. We will never have a bulletproof immigration system, people will find ways to sneak through went we don't want to let them in. More importantly, crime isn't a foreign problem - we have domestic crime that has nothing to do with immigrants."

So let me rephrase: "we have already some internal crime so there's no point trying to limit another source of crime" ?

> So let me rephrase: "we have already some internal crime so there's no point trying to limit another source of crime" ?

I've got some bad news for you, about babies.

As far as I'm concerned, it isn't my right to tell someone else that they can't live here. If someone wants to come to the US to try to make a better life for themselves, I wish them the best of luck and hope they succeed. I don't think its anyone's right to claim the right to decide who is worthy of getting a chance here.

When it comes to crime, its not that we already have crime so don't bother. We have to deal with crime either way, and the potential benefit of closing borders isn't worth stepping on what I consider a fundamental right. We also haven't answered how to know who will commit a crime if they come here, unless we have precogs hidden away in a pool somewhere.

Oh, I absolutely agree. I just think the idea of us being "full" is completely wrong.