Reform America - American Borders Forum

American Immigration Abroad: Left of Center View

Americans leave their homes and immigrate abroad for the same reasons others try to immigrate here. No matter what your current standard of living is it’s just human nature to want to better it. Whether it's higher wages and better social services in Europe or more value for the rapidly declining Dollar in the Far East or Latin locales the grass is greener. Heck most Americans traveling abroad already claim to be Canadians.

With the dollar continuing to fall and crime rates climbing as fast as interest rates the American standard of living is a lot lower than it used to be. It starts at the most basic levels, our public schools are under-funded and overcrowded and college has once again become unaffordable for the majority of American families with children whose only athletic prowess is in the virtual world. If you are lucky enough to get into a good school, and acquire the loans to pay for your education, and if you are lucky enough to land a decent job upon graduation, you should be debt free just in time to be laid off as your job is moved to India. Just ask anyone who's lived here for the Bush years, this country is going to hell in a hand basket.

To make matters worse we've created our own aristocracy. The wealth of the top one percent of Americans continues to grow as the ranks of the middle class continue to shrink. Paris Hilton’s bar bill for the evening is more than most of us will make in a month, and she's mellowed out! Think about it, we don't make anything any more. We have become a service industry. If you want to find factory work you have to move to where the factories are, overseas. And its not just the blue collar folks finding themselves working the Kuwait oil fields, its across the board. Programmers, engineers, facility managers, all find themselves having to go abroad to find decent employment.

If economic reasons weren't enough there are political motivations to throw it in and decide to try again somewhere new. Many American artists, musicians and authors move overseas in search of freedom not just of speech but of expression, just ask the Dixie Chicks. Government sanctions on what you can and can't say or portray as a matter of artistic expression, no wonder the Germans laugh at us when we claim to be the land of the free.

Finally, we have the American health care industry. Politicians don't think this is a big issue because they are the only ones who still have full medical benefits. Corporate America has won. They control everything and they want you to pay for access to it. As Michael Moore pointed out in his film "Sicko" the healthcare industry has corrupted our national healthcare system to the point that the heroes of 9/11 had to go to Cuba to get the medical attention they needed. It's not just medical care either. Dental care in America has ceased to exist for all but the most affluent, what we really need is for the Doctors Without Boarders to come home and treat the out-of-work folks here who can't afford preventive medical and dental care. But until they do, I guess we will have to continue to go to them.

The Swiss educate all of their children, free of charge, no restrictions, until the age of 25. Canada offers free health care to all of her citizens. The U.S. dollar is worth less than the Canadian dollar for the first time ever, and roughly 2/3 of a Euro. Ford, America's signature automobile manufacturer is slated to layoff roughly 30,000 this year. Given all that it’s no great surprise that people would look to other places to live. What’s their incentive to stay?

Kyle Pesonen - Staff Writer | E-mail Comments on this column.

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Next week's subject: The Border Fence

Send in your view from the Left to be our featured Left of Center View for the week.

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Last Week's View from the Left:
Port Security

Previous Weeks Views from the Left:
Setting Standards for Legal Immigration
Diplomacy And Immigration
Gangs; Importing Criminals
Cultural Migration
Tariffs and Fair Trade
Open Borders and the American Worker
ICE Raids Detain Thousands of Innocent People
Political Activism and Illegal Immigration
Integrating Other Cultures Into the American Dream
Employing Undocumented Workers
Bilingual Education
The Minutemen
Driver's Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants
Open Borders
Sanctuary Cities
Common Sense Laws
Rise & Fall
Outsourcing & Insourcing
English
Amnesty vs. Reality
Defining Immigration

American Immigration Abroad: Right of Center View

Are they traitors, cowards, turncoats or worse? Or maybe are they visionaries? Who are the people who choose to leave the bounty of America for other lands to call home? In this land of opportunity it seems puzzling that people would choose to leave. We have the greatest system of government ever devised. We have opportunity for everyone. At least that’s what it says in all the brochures.

The stark reality is that America is failing. We were built on the principles of hard work and determination being the keys to success but the current reality is very different. While we certainly have it better than the people trying to sneak into our country do, we don’t have the opportunities we once had. It’s not likely that we will ever again see the days of industrial empire being built from the sweat and ingenuity of a small family in the Midwest. We will not see again the days of rags to riches because those who currently have all the riches aren’t planning on letting anyone in on their game and they will buy out or crush anyone who tries to horn in on their piece of America. The pool of rich people gets smaller and smaller and the pool of poor people gets bigger and bigger. Hope of moving beyond your station in life is limited to those who have exceptional athletic talent or possess the ability to entertain the masses long enough for the rich people to continue doing what they’re doing unhindered by little things like ethics or morals.

So where does hope lie in the world? Europe, Asia and the Middle East are the places where opportunity is still out there for hard working and innovative people who don’t buy the idea that the only innovation comes from places like GE Headquarters. While America is stagnating Asia is taking our old designs and finding ways to make them better. While our economy flounders under the weight of gas prices and our foolish attachment to our behemoth SUV’s Europe is unifying and finding ways to be economically and ecologically conscious at the same time. Is it any wonder that the Euro is currently exchanging at around $1.40? They are not sitting down watching four to six hours of TV every day. They are out walking and thinking and reading books and doing things that Americans used to do to give us the competitive edge in the world economy. They are embracing the work ethic that we once held sacred while we look for the easy way out all the time.

They are also keeping balance between work and family. They refuse to sacrifice their family life for company profits. When conditions get too bad in the workplace they have the guts to call a national strike and shut everything down until they get fair treatment. We’re so afraid of getting fired that we’ve forgotten that the companies need us more than we need them. I’d love to see America’s corporate executives trying to run their companies with no workers for a week or two. No way, no how would they be successful without good hard working Americans doing all the grunt work. Despite that, we continue to cower in front of the corporations and dismiss the idea that the Europeans might have a better way of approaching things.

At the end of the day when you weigh the totality of the situation of lost opportunity in America, the increase of opportunity in places like Europe and the differences in attitudes between America and other nations it is not actually that hard to understand how people could find other nations attractive. They have their downsides like much higher taxes but they also have paid education and healthcare for all of their people. They have lower crime rates but even owning a gun is a crime in most other nations. Pick your poison.

Troy Wilson-Ripsom - Staff Writer | E-mail Comments on this column. | Visit Troy's blog at http://reform-america.blogspot.com | Visit Troy's MySpace page at www.myspace.com/reform_america

Got a conservative viewpoint? We want to know what you think.

Next week's subject: The Border Fence

Send in your view from the Right to be our featured Right of Center View for the week.

Click here to submit your article.

Last Week's View from the Right:
Port Security

Previous Weeks Views from the Right:
Setting Standards for Legal Immigration
Diplomacy and Immigration
Gangs; Importing Criminals
Cultural Migration
Tariffs, Safety and Fair Trade
Open Border Trucking Policies
Unions Defending Illegal Aliens
Political Activism and Illegal Immigration
Integrating Other Cultures Into the American Dream
Employing Undocumented Workers
Bilingual Education
The Minutemen
Driver's Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants
Open Borders
Sanctuary Cities
Let's Get It Right This Time
Once Again Congress Fails
American Jobs
English Also vs. English Only
Amnesty
Defining Immigration

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