Defending the Truth

I suppose, but I don't see them as being radically different from the reps.

Yeah, I know. Pollution from industrialized countries creates problems from disease to extinction for the whole world, and we get to buy cheap stuff made by the slave labor in other countries. Globalization at it's best.

"The reason we've seen a flood of undocumented immigrants recently is because the North American Free Trade Agreement, passed in 1993, has drained the Mexican economy, destroyed small Mexican businesses, dispossessed farmers from their land, uprooted workers, and depressed wages for the benefit of U.S.-based corporations."
This is what I was referring to, as in do you agree with this statement? Disagree? Agree in part?

No, I do not agree.

Undocumented (the non-racist word for "illegal") Mexicans have been pouring into the United States for FAR LONGER than when Clinton signed NAFTA into law.

The recent rise in undocumented workers is a result of the United States economy getting BETTER and the Mexican economy getting WORSE.


Do you really think that thousands of Mexicans would come up North, where I live, if they could get $10 per hour, plus benefits, in Mexico? Do you really think thousands of Mexicans would suffer blizzards and sub-zero temperatures in the winter if they could make $30,000 per year in Mexico?

This isn't NAFTA, buddy. This is sheer economics. That's all.

But NAFTA is preventing them from earning more money at home. The way to solve our immigration problem is to help those to our south earn a livable wage at home. That or building a "great wall".

Yeah but that's exactly what they're saying! NAFTA is the economics in this case. You are saying that they are immigrating to the U.S. because the economy is better therefore they can make more money and have a better quality of life. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. You point to the fact that this is heightened because Mexico's economy is getting worse. Well is NAFTA the reason for that? That's what the Green Party is saying. Do you agree with that? Obviously when economies get significantly worse or significantly better they are not random occurences, events or trends can be pointed to that directly affect those economies. Is that what NAFTA did here?

No.

NAFTA is a SMALL piece of the BIG PUZZLE.

NAFTA - or a pact very similar - was and is inevitable. We are now in a global economy. We CANNOT live as isolationists, neither militarily nor economically nor in matters of immigration.

Immigrants have ALWAYS come to the United States for better jobs and more opportunities. They were doing it for 250 years BEFORE NAFTA was signed into law.

So what...?

So it's a non-issue. Why is the President making prime-time speeches on national news about it? War not going well?

What in sam hill are you talking about?


I mean, it's obvious that you've lost this argument, but what are you even talking about?

What is obvious is that you look at every discussion here as having a winner and a loser. That is not what it is about for me.

My point is, if it's not a problem, or as I said before, a "non-issue." Why is it so big right now? Why is it apparently the most important political issue?

I think the answer is it is clearly not. Other people have said the same thing, but I will say it now. It's a large distraction issue because the war is not going well and Bush's approval ratings suck. He is trying to make up for his failures in foreign policy by putting a domestic issue at the forefront and trying to win that.