Saturday, August 22, 2009

1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Seventeen


17. Open the borders. Everywhere.

Why don't people want immigrants to come to their country? I've never understood that, especially when it comes to the United States, where if we stand for one thing, it should be that everyone deserves quality, affordable health care. And if we stand for two things in the U.S., it should be that everyone deserves quality affordable health care, and also that anyone who wants to come here should come here.

There are three kinds of immigrants, as I see it. There are your highly-educated, professional immigrants. There are your low-ly educated, laborer immigrants. And there are your undesirables. Opening the borders means that all three can come freely, and that's okay. We'll soon figure out who the ones that are in the third group are and end up deporting them or imprisoning them (and we can keep deported people from coming back.) And the ones in the first two groups? We want them, don't we?

We want professional, highly intelligent immigrants, for obvious reasons. And we need laborers and people who want to work because, let's face it, most of us don't want to work. Unemployment is the highest it's been in years, and I don't see anyone heading down south to be a migrant farmworker. Somebody's got to pick the fruit, clean the hallways, milk the cows, and more, and not many of us want to do that. Immigrants aren't taking our jobs away, they're doing jobs that we don't want to, or can't, do.

Plus, legalizing all immigration avoids the problem of paying illegal immigrants less than the legal wage. There won't be any illegal immigrants to be taken advantage of, anymore.

People will argue that immigrants will tax our social systems, impose burdens on them that we can't handle, but the United States, especially, is an insanely rich country, and allowing immigrants legally will help integrate them into society, meaning they'll pay taxes and support those social systems, adding support to the same systems that are becoming more burdened.

Any country, really, should be welcoming immigrants from anywhere. Let people come, put them to work, have them become a part of your society. Good countries will be the richer for it, and it'll help people from bad countries get out of those countries. Can you think of a better way to topple a regime than to simply have everyone from that country leave it?

Minimizing or barring illegal immigrants simply taxes the policing system and lets in people who don't mind breaking the law while making it harder for people who want to be here, and who we want to be here, to get here.


13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.


11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.

1 comment:

Lena Vanelslander said...

Rather fond of this post ... it shows the ability to think different. Good one!