[quote=spdrun]Borders are artificial and arbitrary. Why does someone have more right to live in a given place if they were born there, vs not being born there?

Plenty of native-born Americans contribute little to society, some are even criminals, but they luck happened to win the lucky sperm/ovum jackpot by being born on US soil. Thus they can be here by default.

Why should one feel closer to people who just accidentally happened to be born in an area controlled by the same government? It seems like a pretty daft way to pick whom you feel a commonality with or closeness to.

Maybe I’m just not wired to feel nationalism and patriotism.[/quote]spd, it is impossible for any one country to take care of everyone else in the world who wants to come to that country. The reason so many Americans are out of work is because their (prior) jobs were “outsourced” to countries with much cheaper labor.

Regardless of how you feel about native-born Americans currently collecting cash aid, I can tell you that the vast majority of these recipients don’t really want to (and deeply resent “big-brother” minding their personal business for them, in doing so). They want a JOB paying a living wage. Or the equivalent to TWO or more JOBS held by family members in one family residing together to pay enough for them to reside together. So many of those living-wage jobs in smaller cities and towns across America (and even large cities, such as Detroit) have been “outsourced” in recent decades to cheap labor in other countries.

This does NOTHING for Americans’ earning potential or their way of life.

I personally have a problem with Chinese factories who have made money hand over fist manufacturing “engineered” or “laminate hardwood floors” for YEARS for giant US retailer Lumber Liquidators using (toxic) formaldehyde in the process. That’s disgusting and never would have happened had the flooring been manufactured inside the borders of the US.