facts and reason wrote:
Anarchy or America? wrote:
What is your perspective on American history? It was really prosperous in 1800?
Consider this: Why isn't this a problem? Why don't people from poor areas (living in trailer parks, or bad parts of Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago etc.) just decide to move to wealthy areas, trespass, steal, make a nuisance?
Apples and oranges. You cannot compare different eras like that when there are different circumstances and different levels of technology.
Poor people don't just squat in rich people's mansions because we have laws and consequences. If you prefer anarchy, then that will allow millions and millions of people to cross open borders without any legal penalties. People don't act rationally all the time. Look at the fall of bitcoin or the tulip mania bubble. People won't be able to self-regulate if they have irrational exuberance about getting free stuff from American taxpayers.
Those same laws apply to immigrants and they seem to work quite well. If they didn't we would observe a much higher rate of crime. Some people dispute the statistics which suggest illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate, but they certainly don't commit crimes at a much higher rate.
The USA could have completely open borders and retain some government functions rather than disbanding completely and become an anarchy. But if there was anarchy (by definition, no government), surely immigrants would not come with the expectations of getting free stuff from taxpayers. In any case, I am suggesting a middle ground in which the government continues to perform some functions, but does not provide free stuff to immigrants.
I think criminality and the desire to get free stuff in general is not common. People will tend to resort to this only if they don't have opportunities. So people will break the law by entering the USA, but then would rather work and stay under the radar (away from police and immigration control) than steal (and have to live with that on their conscience and the extra likelihood of being caught and sent home). I'm not sure it varies much by society anywhere in the world, but I'm especially sceptical that it varies much between Americans and Mexicans, as they are both underpinned by Christian faith.