RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Immigration

OK, on this side of the planet we have a little problem.

We don't have enough people.

With zero population growth, and restrictions on immigration, cafes are screaming for waiters, mines are screaming for mine workers, shops are screaing for sales staff. Hell, I've been looking for two lawyers to help me, and I can't find one, and can't find a cleaning lady for love or money.

So why the immigration restrictions? Two reasons:

1. Australians - white Australians anyway - are inherently xenophobic. This isn't as bad as it used ot be with the White Australia policy in the 1950-60s, where Australia was on par with South Africa, but there is still this undercurrent of racism (despite multiculturalism being an official state policy since 1972) which manifested itself last year in the Cronulla riots, and 5 years ago in the Federal election when the conservative government used video footage and blatantly lied to the electorate to the effect that Afghan boat people were throwing their children overboard in an effort to get into Australia.

2. unions. I've never been a friend to unions, particularly industry-broad unions, and unions are one of the main reasons unskilled or low-skilled immigrants are not allowed into the country. Its a form of protectionism for Australian low skilled jobs, which I regard with suspicion at the best of times, and at a time of record unemployment and a shortage of people I regard as ludicrous.

With Islamic fundy terrorism perceived as a global threat, Australia has recently introduce a values test. You baically have to pass the test to become a citizen or get a permanent residency visa. The questions are not only based on Australian history, but concepts such as rule of law, democracy, religious tolerance, and freedom of speech.

The amusing thing is that it is generally accepted most Australians whowere born here could not pass it.

Many Australians think that to become a resident here you should be able to speak fluent English. As someone who lived in China for 4 years, I never mastered the local Chinese language but certainly contriuted to the local economy through taxes and spending. Same goes for when I lived in Japan. So I've never actually understood the need for language.

You can immigrate here if you have $250,000 cash (beyond most people), have a sponsor, are a political refugee, have certain skills (my wife's parents immigrated from Sweden becase Australia had a need for IT people in the early 90s) or fill some arcane system of country allocation.

I acknowledge that throwing open the doors can be a massive strain on a government's infrastructure, and Sydney in particular suffers from this because for a very long time the vast majority of immigrants went there.

For a solution I turn to Canada, whihc allws immigration from all quarters, but seems to have a rule by which you first have t do a set 3 year stint in a country town. That encourages people to settle in under-resourced rural areas.

For Australia there should be unlimited immigration, so long as you can get here, and do a stint in the mines. This sounds horrible, but salaries in mines are extraordinarily high bcause the mines here are so huge, remote and profitable.

The US seems to be a little bit more mature than us in this debate because Americans have a massive population to the south who are happy to come north and babysit, wash clothes, work farms (and I have red that the US economy is reliant upon illegal immigrant workers. We have an ocean barrier so the debate isn't as advanced.

Thoughts?

My thought is that, with all due respect, we already have enough flame war threads about this.

so? each thread is unique. Let nature take its own course. by interferring in the natural evolution of this thread you are no better than the men that caused (past tense) the extinction of the humpack whale thread.

Besides, my thread is from a unique perspective.

Stop being an American for a moment, read the scenario I set out, and pretend for a moment you're an Australian. What do you think?

I believe you mean being dragged down by illegal immigrant workers.

And if you don't, then you read useless propaganda.

The interesting thing about this is that union workers here in California are supporting a double standard.

I was kept out of the more mainstream jobs by unions for about 3 years when I really needed the money. When I was refused I had to stand in line with illegal immigrants to get more menial labor. What I found so funny when I had to collaborate with both groups is that the unions were telling me that they were all for illegal immigration since they didn't have enough people to fill in the jobs that Americans didn't want to do (which doesn't account for all the Caucasian people I stood in line with). But at the same time, they sent me away to work as a shipper because I wasn't allowed a workman's license as a minor.

When I had to speak with the illegals, they were trash-talking the unions since they had very quietly driven the illegals away from vacant jobs that were more mainstream. So the unions were perfectly fine with the illegals taking jobs within the economy as long as they didn't have to deal with them. What they refused to acknowledge however was the fact that illegals having the ability to take mainstream jobs flew in the face of the idea that the state still required illegal menial labor.

Speaking more specifically: I was trying to get a job at Ralphs so I could get a steady salary and help support the house-hold. When they told me to piss off and I had to work in shipping I found out that the only reason the unions were able to extract the outrageous and unreasonable benefits from the stores was because they became dependent on the cheap labor that transported the food to the stores and kept the union people working. All the while this is going on, the union despises the idea of paying the illegal immigrants comparative sums to the union workers. Case in point: The only reason people are given the illusion that this labor is needed (at least from the grocery union views) is because unions extort exorbitant sums from the grocers in the first place (i.e. they're trying to have their cake and it too). If they weren't so greedy, people wouldn't suffer the misconception that grocery stores actually needed the cheaper labor to survive as a business and contribute to the economy.

Please to note: That's just Ralphs. There' many many many many more cases of this with other businesses.

So, just to understand you, your point is that unions artificially inflate salaries?

Isn't that what unions do, though?

well that and skim off the top of everybody's pensions.

Really? How? Union fees?

partly a joke. but the history of labor unions in the US has no shortage of instances of corruption, primarily during the middle of the twentieth century. most unions are run properly and honestly. but it doesn't take many incidents to alter how they're perceived. the most famous union leader of the twentieth century was jimmy hoffa himself, and robert kennedy spent much of his time as attorney general trying to bring down hoffa's union-entrenched machine. chicago was historically the epicenter of union corruption (well, corruption in general), and most of the newsworthy instances of labor unions skimming profits were primarily connected to organized crime. there will always be corruption here and there, but for the most part unions in America have been pretty successful at improving the workplace.

to clarify - in some trades, unions handle pensions and some if not all benefits, which will be reflected in members' union dues. most cases of corruption and fraud have basically been higher-ups in the unions (typically but not exclusively unions in blue-collar industries) skimming money a little at a time out of the pension funds in the process of moving it around. the few high-profile cases of this have made the news because the skimmed money was laundered through entities linked to organized crime.

Yes. But it's not supposed to be at the cost of economic stability.

They raise salaries. But they also raise inflation at the same time (see also: them encouraging illegal immigration). So it won't make much difference anyway.

Unions are useless and they only serve to accentuate problems like illegal immigration.

Went a bit OT. Sorry.

Yeppity yep yep.

Can't you say that about anything anywhere? Corruption is probably as old as humanity itself, and can be found in any institution.

Reagrdless of the state of the unions, There is a good reason for unions to exist, such as protecting the rights of workers. It's the corruption in the unions that deserves to be condemned, not the unions themselves.

...Yeah...

Which brings me to my next point: Alts. Do people put much effort into them anymore?

Ah, the alt-imate RKMB copout: "you're an alt so you're automatically wrong."

Just because you can't handle alt-ernative points of view, that doesn't mean I don't have a real point to make.

Pariah doesn't give a shit about anyone.

Why is it so hard to accept that he'd be totally against working people having any bit of power.

As much as I'd like to believe my puns are good enough to make you break out in laughing hysterics, I'm willing to bet that (you're gonna say) you're laughing at the "alts can make points too!" sentiment in my post, right?

Don't worry, I won't take it personally. For altime's sake.

Yeah, alt-ruism doesn't come easily to him, does it?

So the white man is always racist, eh?



Unions are corrupt refuges for the lazy. Plus it's a communist concept anyways. If you want more money, start your own business.





But values and loyalty tests as well as knowledge of the history of the country you want to emigrate to, should be required to show your patriotism and commitment to that country. That most of your countrymen couldn't pass it doesn't mean squat. They gotta prove themselves. Citizens of that country don't.



Why do you hate China?



Can you get a Russian bride in Australia? How 'bout a Thai ladyboy?



Sydney is no longer part of Australia. It's been annexed by the islamofascists.



But they're stealing good jobs from real Canadians.




But they're stealing good jobs from real Australians.



But they're stealing good jobs from real Americans.

(just playing DEVILS advocate).

He needs a hug. I think you should be the one to do it.

I agree that immigration shouldn't be so difficult, especially in America where we're supposed to be a beacon of hope for people in other lands. I think America would have less of an illegal immigration problem if we assisted people more with coming here. The current system is designed to bleed immigrants dry financially. I do disagree with you on the aspect of learning the local language. It only makes life easier for both the immigrants and everyone else including emergency workers (i.e. paramedics, firefighters, police) in helping them have a better life.

Never really bothered me, though, except when I was in a hosital in Mongkok (the most densely popualted place on the planet, and without another Westerner in sight) when my appendix burst and the night staff couldn't communicate with me.

In Cantonese, I could say:

Hello (li'ho, similar to Mandarin's ni hao)
Good morning (jo-sahn)
Excuse me (m'goi)
Goodbye (in Mandarin its zaijian but I've forgotten the Canto for it. I think its jo-zai.)
This one here is no problem (liko lei mo montai)

and that was about it. I was put off learning it by an English guy who had been in HK for about 10 years, dated Canto girls, and was determined to integrate. He said he could never master the grammar (he got his head around the 13 tones) and basically had to rote learn and recite extended phrases. Hell of a way to learn a language. He said some of it was not even capable of being written (English actually has a similar problem - a supplicant shrug is when you shrug your shoulders, flatten your mouth and turn your hands upright - try explaining what that means to an Asian who grew up not speaking European languages) which made it worse to learn.

I have also spent about half of my life making serious efforts at learning Japanese. Despite having lived there, I could barely carry out a conversation, and sound like an in-bred provincial git because of my accent (famously in Kyoto I repeatedly asked people in tourist shops if they sold "jizu" beads, a type of lucky beaded bracelet, and repeatedly got given a map - "Chizu"). Learning languages is damn hard.

Now, on the other side of the coin, having taught English to Japanese, I can tell you a lot of it makes no sense, grammatically. We've got two alphabets (uppercase and lowercase) and have spent centuries mangling the French and German languages into Celtic. "I" before "e" except after "c" is the least of it. Some of it makes no sense at all. I mean, why can sentences be in the active tense or the passive tense? ("I spoken to you previously /You have been spoken to previously.") Why have tag questions? ("Its hot, isn't it?") And why have future past progressive tense, or whatever its called? ("I was supposed to have gone to Sweden in summer." Sensible languages, like Indonesian, have three tense structures - past, present, future.)

Yet I contributed to both HK and Japan by paying my taxes, giving to local charities, contributing to the economy, and socially I made lots of local friends (some of whom are now clients). My limited or non-existent language ability had next to no impact upon my community contribution.

So if you're new to a country and trying to support your family, and are surrounded by people from your linguistic community, its damn easy to make excuses not to bother learning the local language because its very very difficult.

I don't have much to say on this topic. I think America should crack down on it's borders but it does seem kind of silly how so many Americans and almost all her politicians constantly talk about how great America is and yet make it so difficult to immigrate here. It's like 3rd graders "We're better then you and you'll never be one of us nah nah nah".

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.


...has got to be one of the most inspiring things ever.

And yet the Google ad I'm looking at just above this Quick Reply panel celebrates how a happy, pretty blonde girl called "Cadrian Rogers Won the American Green Card - Join the Lottery Program and you can win a Green Card - approved by US Congress".

Talk about perverting a noble concept.

You're making it sound like we have something to prove to the rest of the world.

This whole idea that we're some sort of God-send to the wretched and meek in other countries unnecessarily obligates us to maintain some sort of image of selflessness when we already have a full country suffering inflation.

The worst kind of reactions are produced by immigrants who are disillusioned when they come here after expecting a veritable Candy Land. When they realize that they have to work tirelessly to get anywhere in this country, they become angry and bitter towards the state and start committing crimes or forming gangs to steal the happiness they thought would be given to them on a fucking silver plate.

People need to stop over-hyping America. Instead, other sovereign nations should give their citizens more incentive to stay where they are by actually fixing their own problems.

xen·o·phobe (zn-fb, zn-)
n.
A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

Ah. Whomod's in Denial. How nice.

Ah. Pariah's bigotry and hatred on display for all to see. How nice.

It's how this country has promoted itself for years. Read the opening in Dave's post just before yours. If we're going to tell everyone that, we need to live up to it.

Besides, I know many immigrants who've come here and work harder than a lot of the people that were born here. From Asian and Indian shop owners, to Mexican construction workers, and Vietnamese shrimpers on the Gulf Coast, Mississippi alone has tons of immigrants who didn't become disillusioned with the hard work that it takes to succeed. They became disillusioned with the INS constantly making them wait for citizenship after doing everything that they were required to do and still having to pay thousands of dollars for the paperwork just to stay in this country waiting for the INS to get off its ass complete the process. A process that's supposed to only take five years has some waiting ten or more just to become the citizen that they've already proven they deserve to be.

And wasn't that one of the main reasons for the Muslim riots in France? The Muslim immigrants settled an area together, never bothered to learn or have their children learn French, and created a community that couldn't work outside of itself and, therefore, couldn't improve itself with higher paying jobs and, instead, fell into low wages and high unemployment that fostered resentment to the federal government to the point that a single act caused them to go apeshit and destroy property and attack police.