Seen on Y!IM

[cjsmith]

Random snippets from CJ's mind this morning.

On emigration:
me: I've lived overseas, and I don't mean someplace that speaks English and watches American movies. It's not easy.

On the aging population, Social Security, and immigration:
my conversation partner: So yeah, I can imagine going from "trying to keep people out" to "trying to bring those ppl in"
me: As soon as we start realizing work is valuable.
my conversation partner: Damn, CJ, I had soda in my mouth.

On dating:
me: I would have trouble dating someone who automatically looked down upon [label], if [label] can be applied to me.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey wait, I'm enjoying this! No need to stop on my account. :)

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

Well... all I'm gonna say is that it looks like Jeff is coming for an anarcho- or perhaps minimalist-libertarian perspective. If we actually lived in a totally unregulated economy and environment then such arguments would carry more weight. But the fact is we don't and won't anytime soon, so they are too abstract to convince me.

Also, saying someone is "crazy" if they don't accept your ideological premises doesn't strengthen the argument. Kinda the same problem some "blue-state/red-state" partisans have with each other, they won't even acknowledge their opponents' sanity much less their arguments.

As a purely pragmatic matter, if we dropped all the border controls and let every one of the hundreds of millions of people in the world who want to move here do so, I would be trying really hard to meet the immigration requirements in New Zealand or Australia or Canada - not for political reasons, but for breathing room and a culture I could live somewhat comfortably in, because that culture wouldn't exist here any more.