I don't fit into any of the categories you mentioned, Healthyskeptic. I'm an anarchist, specifically an anarcho-syndicalist. Nation-states are artificial and contrived. They really only date from 1648. There's no reason for them. They just divide people, like religion and so much else. We should do away with borders and all the rest. John Lennon was right.

Immigration is one of the single greatest ways (The Economist magazine, in a recent feature story, claimed it's #1) to reduce poverty in the world. Labor was once mobile, and capital wasn't. This was the time when Europe exported a great many of its poor people to the Western Hemisphere, plus Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and elsewhere. Other places took advantage of this to a lesser extent. These days, capital is heavily mobile (outsourcing!) and labor is not (anti-immigration laws.)

For the millionth time: They come here because we go there. Most of the poverty (not all) in the world is the direct result of the ongoing imperialist trade, economic, and military policies of rich countries, policies by which you and I do not benefit. This makes life unlivable, and forces people into the immigrant stream. They don't have a choice. If we're not willing to stop looting the world, then we owe the victims citizenship, among other things. The former is the easier option, by the way.

Europe's problems with immigration are largely due to the immigrants in question. I don't think all the Latin Americans in Spain and Portugal are the ones causing the problems, do you? Hopefully, as a generation of Muslim immigrants are exposed to modernity and education and the like, they'll secularize and assimilate too. Therein lies the challenge.

If any of the "major" presidential candidates proposed anything like that, their opposition would immediately begin Red-baiting, scaring people with fears of a tax increase, scaring people with mentions of high European unemployment [you and I know that's because they don't put so many people in prison, but never mind] and low economic growth, et cetera. It works every time. It might be a little more likely after some of the generation(s) that were covered in Cold War propaganda die, but not necessarily.

Oh, and to whomever asked about those ads on the site: They're automated. They show up based on the words found on particular sites.

It surprised me, inasmuch as the more education a woman has, the fewer children she has. I was also under the impression that people, and particularly women, stay at the workplace of their own volition longer than they technically have to. They do this because they prefer the workplace to their chaotic, noisy, tense, unhappy homes. That may have changed in the past ten years, or maybe it just doesn't apply as much to these fields.

JBrown: Plumbers can't be outsourced, but they can be imported, just like IT workers. There's a stereotype in Germany of the "Polish Plumber" who undercuts all the locals.

As others have pointed out, the situation is of our own making, and it doesn't even benefit us. American imperialism hurts most Americans, so why do we put up with it? Mexico's kleptocracy is supported by the United States. Every year, artificially cheap American agriculture products (cheapened with subsidies from your tax dollars, Electro Robot) crush Mexico's economy and force people into the migrant stream.

Their poverty is our fault, and it doesn't even benefit us. Don't blame the victims. The UK changed its policies towards Ireland, and the flow of migrants ceased as Ireland joined the world's wealthiest countries. It's so easy.

I was in New York last week. I met with several people I know who left my car-centric hometown. They're all happy with not driving. The same is true for a friend who works for Google in San Francisco. "Cars are evil," she says.

Also, TexasP, are you trying to deny US imperialism? Or did you just disagree with Brighstar's diction?

Somebody mentioned all the Clinton and Obama stickers on SUVs. I get so tired of people thinking Democrats are even remotely on the Left.

Let's fight the real enemy.

I hate this kind of thing as much as anybody here, but I hate the backlash even more. I'm talking about people like the religious fundamentalists who walk around wearing the bedsheets, convinced everyone else is a whore.

There's also an analogy to keep in mind: People like to complain about the tacky, trashy way girls dress. That's true enough, but remember that those clothes are for trash anyway. The cool chicks dress better.

I'm so tired of this red herring: "You always cry 'multi-culturalism' when Muslims do it..."

It isn't true, holaamigo. The Broadsheet writers/editors/whatever post articles about various sexist Islamic deeds here all the time, and then some of us always make sure to chime in appropriately. Yes, indeed, you must have missed it.

These things are creepy. People are so weird about sex. It's not that big of a deal! Sexual frustration can cause serious problems. Look what it's done to the Middle East (and to me!)