Immigration and infrastructure.

There was a debate today, it was pretty boring from all I could read, I was off doing things in real life this time so I didn't get to watch.

But I don't wanna talk about the Republicans tonight, they are all poop, I want to talk about immigration!

Currently there are a couple of well known immigration crisis's America cares about, the first obviously is coming from our southern border, not just Mexicans, but mostly that demographic, while Mexico isn't quite a Mad Max style wasteland with the cities ruled by ruthlessly individualistic and flamboyant drug lords like the news would have us believe, things are still bad enough for a lot of people that they have attempted to find a home an safety elsewhere, namely the USA. Although net immigration is effectively zero at the moment, there is still a lot of movement at the border and some eleven million or so "illegals" currently in the US, mostly from Mexico and other southern countries, but a fair amount of Europeans, Asian, an pretty much any other nationality too. Although we as a country are really only concerned with those who have brown skin.

The other crisis is the refugees fleeing Serbia and surrounding lands, this is primarily an issue for the Eurozone but that is mostly because we here in the US are hard to get to and have a very easy time refusing to let refugees fly or boat in, preferring instead for them to be left in some form of legal limbo, having no country while their extensive background checks are processed because we fear that somehow one of those people fleeing their country with nothing has hatched the master plan of sneaking in to the USA after a two year or more background check with very little more than the clothes on their back and knowing nobody, then forming a terror cell and attacking their new home, because that makes more sense than flying in with a fake passport I guess.

Both problems aren't, and those who think so are idiots, racist, or both. There was one a time when we welcomed immigrants, if not with open arms, at least with vague tolerance, there was very little concern about them being terrorists, criminals, or drug smugglers because we knew that America was a place people wanted to come to, and that it needed them as well.

Those who are fleeing their homes are not just dirt poor peasantry, groveling in the mud, they are farmers, doctors, and engineers, they are the people who make up a country, they have both the skills and motivation to add to any society they join, we should be happy to bring them here and put them to work.

And there is a lot of work that could happen, one upon a time many immigrants found work on the railroad, as we built the vast infrastructure that allowed a country the size of America to function. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't do almost the same thing now, that railroad is in desperate need of modernizing and more lines could be built, our highway system, once built to ensure that troops could be moved easily across the country if necessary, requires expansion and repair as well, this is a huge job that would require years and millions of workers, all paying taxes, learning skills, and tying themselves to their new home.

When money moves, it multiplies, and a massive public works project would increase the standard of living for millions across the country.

It isn't too expensive to do, for one, it could likely end up paying for itself in tax revenue and general economic growth, for another the American government is not a business and should not be run like one, so what if we have to spend money to improve the lives of the people in the country, that is the point of the government and if it isn't willing to do that then what does it stand for?

It may be a pipe dream, I don't know if the country can build big things anymore, but isn't it worth finding out? There is so much controversy over the idea of a thousand mile long wall to keep people out, but a gigantic project that encourages people to stay in is somehow even more unlikely? I would like to believe otherwise.