Immigration

Fact: Immigrants come to the U.S. for a better life. They accept jobs that no yuppie American teen would ever touch. They are paid crap and must often work several jobs just to survive. Fact: Immigrants keep prices down on consumer goods. Fact: There are far too many people in the world and consumerism is out of control. This is a global problem, and we must all work together to solve it.

The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club has a great population discussion list, which I've been a part of for about 11 years. Here is my response to a recent discussion on immigration:

Esteemed Colleagues,

Humans have always been migratory animals. We are on the move not only for better game, but because we are inherently greedy.

In a normal situation, inflows to the U.S. should equal outflows.

But something is wrong on our planet, and there is a mad rush to enter the United States. A long-time member of our population group once told me, "I was in the Navy and traveled the world. Wherever I went people always said they wanted to come here."

The quick solution is to create a Fortress America -- keep the poor, desperate people out so that we can enjoy our comfortable lives. But artificial barriers are always temporary and soon fail (i.e. Berlin Wall).

Fred shared a wonderful population video yesterday where the speaker, Hans Rosling, says that if we eliminate poverty, population growth will naturally decrease. Of course, in the meantime, the inhabitants are caught in a hopeless loop -- their exploding population makes it impossible to crawl out of poverty.

Karen replied that it is not necessary to eliminate poverty to lower birthrates, and gives Bangladesh as an example. She says we should focus on lowering birthrates, which will result in less poverty.

When I traveled to Ecuador, I saw that just handing out contraceptives was ineffective because of trust issues (some city slicker comes to my village and invades a very personal part of my life, no sir). Rather, in Ecuador, we saw that the best solution was to provide BOTH -- the program we studied taught villagers how to improve their lives with better agriculture and small industries -- and family planning and environmental protection were hemmed into the overall message. This comprehensive approach built TRUST and strong relationships with the aid workers, so that when it came time to discuss family planning the residents didn't become defensive. This was BEAUTIFUL!!!

So, how can we get this program to the rest of Latin America, Africa, India, and in other high growth spots? I have a simple solution -- the world spends trillions of dollars on armaments. Let's all agree to downsize our military forces and use the surplus for comprehensive poverty eradication.

And why we are eradicating, let's get religion off the planet. While religion gave us an evolutionary advantage in the early days, it has now outlived its usefulness, and now lingers on as a destructive and parasitic organism that has become the bane of humanity. Enough people have died in the name of some god. But worse yet, religion is obsessed with sexual behavior, and the religious, pro-natal mores pushed on societies create yet another downward loop -- the high birthrates cause local social and environmental deterioration, which makes people more religious as they cry out to their god for help.

I can tell you that the four greatest environmentalists in the world are the Four Horsemen of Atheism - Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. These men have brought the absurdity of religion into the mainstream and they have created a great dialogue -- this is a great step in saving our planet.

In the meantime, back to the millions of people slipping through our porous borders.

First, the federal government is totally inept, as witnessed by Katrina, the mortgage disaster, and the BP oil spill, etc. Our impotent government can't even stop illegal immigration, and you want them to do something about LEGAL immigration? That has me laughing.

Second, there is a huge economic demand for basic labor. Here in Georgia, immigrants are used in the poultry, agriculture, and carpet industries, and we all benefit from this cheap labor. Where I live, the high school graduates get jobs working in malls. Our country has grown soft and I can't imagine any teenager around here working in a meat processing plant or picking onions in a field -- they wouldn't last a day. So, if we are going to kick out the immigrants we need a solution for our bottom-rung labor needs. One solution is to require college students to work summers at a farm or plant, something like the Israeli model.

Third, the foreign-born lobby has already become too powerful. Taking a strong stand on limiting immigration is instant death for any politician.

My own personal opinion is that it's ALWAYS a step backwards to build walls. Walls are all about division, which encourage inequities and hatred. Every person on this planet is my brother and sister, and it is morally wrong to create artificial islands of prosperity in a sea of squalor. I do not acknowledge the term "illegal immigrants" because I do not believe in borders. North America should follow the European Union model -- it will be a hard and rocky hill to climb, but it is essential for long-term sustainability and peace.

Don't be naive and think that your government is going to close the borders -- it will never happen. Instead, let's all think of some creative, out-of-the-box solutions to the very real problem of massive population growth.

Respectfully,

Goose