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You know... I've read your post a few times now, and I'm still not quite sure what the heck it means. Maybe it'll occur to me later. :-)

I think there is room for somewhat more sophisticated dialog on the subject, if that can be done without just getting into flame wars. To wit:

Yes, it is bad for us that there are people in the world willing to do jobs for far less pay than we are willing to work for, for the same work.

If it isn't really the same work, and we can win on productivity or quality, then we should still be able to compete. If we can't compete, then aren't we in the wrong business?

Quality of life is not about just income, but also cost of living. If we merely artificially jack up prices on *all* consumers to support higher wages... who are we fooling?

I detest illegal immigration, and it should be stopped. *Legal* immigrant labor however, is still a needed part of our economy. Like it or not... there are jobs that nobody here wants. If you disagree, then show me the masses of high school kids in this country, standing in line for jobs as hotel maids.

Again, we agree.

It is a complex problem that can seem very simple, especially if your plant just moved to Mexico, or you just got outsourced to India.

Illegal immigration *IS* swamping the trades and depressing wages. It's just a fact - and it is inevitable that it will become the number one political issue - but when?

Legal immigration of those who have specific talents and skills that will only add value to America should be encouraged.

We have neither of the above as government policy, in my opinion.

The trend away from education in things like engineering has been a long-term thing. Fewer technically trained folks is bad for the country, in my opinion. Where I went to school, they used to graduate on the order of 75% engineers/hard science vs. 25% liberal arts.

In 20 years it's flipped. You can't blame that on Mexicans flowing across the border or the Indian outsourcing trend-du-jour. I'd like to know why.

But back to government policy: I think that what we have today both federally and at the state level is just plain "bad government". One level of manifest proof is our tax code - it is trickery of the citizenry in it's finest form. One level of proof at the state level is lotteries - again trickery to extract money from the citizenry. Immigration policy, and the enforcement or lack of enforcement of that policy is just another example of "bad government".

Our founding fathers made it so that government was a "necessary evil". Government was never intended to be the friend of the citizen. That so many see government as "helpful" is the problem. They don't see the reality that government is only a friend of itself. Government only helps citizens as a way to foster its own growth.

I wish a way could be found to communicate it far-and-wide without being labeled a traitor, racist, far-right wacko, (or whatever else) and delegitimizing the message. I continue to search.

Illegal immigration ties back around to this singular fact: We simply have bad government at many levels.

Quality of life is not about just income, but also cost of living. If we merely artificially jack up prices on *all* consumers to support higher wages... who are we fooling?

Prices weren't so horrid a few decades ago when the US was cranking out most of the stuff on store shelves, rather than a tiny minority of it as nowadays. What happened?