>There's a lot of immigrants in my state but they're not upsetting me.
You might not think that, but have you ever complained about housing prices? That food at the grocery store costs more than it did a few years ago? The price of consumer goods in general?
Well, you're not buying those things. You're bidding on them. And the more people there are, here, the higher those prices will be bid upwards.
High housing prices is a complex mix of underbuilding due to zoning laws, companies buying up housing stock to rent, and (a few years ago) very low interest rates. One thing that is _not_ a factor is immigrants, because they are at the bottom of the social pile and usually can't get mortgages to buy houses.
It very much is how all goods work, unfortunately. Food (except grain) doesn't travel or store well. If 100 million people left North America tomorrow, North America wouldn't start shipping the food for 100 million people to them whereever they went. Pretending otherwise might help you maintain faith in whatever religion you have that demands it be true, I suppose, but it's economically illiterate to claim otherwise.
>High housing prices is a complex mix of underbuilding
Or it's a simple answer of over-immigrating.
>because they are at the bottom of the social pile and usually can't get mortgages to buy houses.
Are they sleeping in ditches? No. They live somewhere. Because they live in those places, those places aren't available for non-immigrants to live in. It's really simple. They rent apartments, do they not? When demand outstrips supply, prices rise. When demand for apartments rise, even the price of houses goes up, because these things can substitute for one another to some degree.
> That food at the grocery store costs more than it did a few years ago?
> the more people there are, here, the higher those prices will be bid upwards
Who do you think is picking most of that food? And if the wages for those jobs went up to an American living wage, what do you think would happen to the price of food even with a bit lower demand?
I know it's all too easy and comforting to throw out knee-jerk comments cheerleading for government power, but at least try applying some basic analysis to what you write.
Your mistake is in believing that even if I answered this question with the answer you consider correct, that this would change my position.
>And if the wages for those jobs went up to an American living wage, what do you think would happen to the price of food even with a bit lower demand?
"I like to exploit immigrants and underpay them, because my out-of-season fruit will be too high for my smoothy frappucinos!" Silly things leftists say, haha.
>I know it's all too easy and comforting to throw out knee-jerk comments cheerleading for government power,
I'm not especially a big fan of government power. But I live in a country being held hostage by lunatic ideologues who think non-citizens should have the absolute right to live here, but only because they hope to stack the vote against their political opponents. So there's not really that many options left. Things will have to get far worse before they can get any better.
I'm not asking you to change your position, but rather to be honest about the effects of it.
> "I like to exploit immigrants and underpay them, because my out-of-season fruit will be too high for my smoothy frappucinos!"
I did not say anything of the sort, rather I acknowledged the current reality. One can also say "I want farm workers to be system legible, primarily Americans, and paid a living wage, even though it will make grocery prices go up". That's a consistent position. We can have honest discussions about those things. I don't think anybody actually likes the status quo.
> Silly things leftists say, haha
I know fascists have defined everything short of gushing praise for Dear Leader as the rAdIcAl lEfT, but I'm actually a libertarian.
> I live in a country being held hostage by lunatic ideologues who think non-citizens should have the absolute right to live here
Please explain how it's being "held hostage" when the party in power is enacting the exact opposite.
> So there's not really that many options left. Things will have to get far worse before they can get any better.
Sorry no, there are plenty of other options to institute the immigration policy you want here - which wouldn't require adding to the surveillance pantopticon, further empowering a domestic military, or trampling the Constitution and our natural rights.
So what we've actually got is a second issue of how those things are being carried out, supposedly in the name of doing something about immigration. But given how wholly anti-liberty and anti-American those actions are, and how there are already policy floaters on relaxing the hardline stance for "critical" industries reliant on cheap illegal labor, it begs the question of whether the immigration topic is even the main thrust here - or whether it's simply a pretext for autocratic authoritarian power for power's sake.
> I'm not especially a big fan of government power
Sorry, but yes you are. You're shunning the entire idea of limited constitutional government and inalienable constitutional/natural rights, seemingly because you like these particular results of crass authoritarianism. That's statism 101.
You might not think that, but have you ever complained about housing prices? That food at the grocery store costs more than it did a few years ago? The price of consumer goods in general?
Well, you're not buying those things. You're bidding on them. And the more people there are, here, the higher those prices will be bid upwards.