vido, fight the good fight. it is not with most of us. how old are you? I am curious.

You're welcome to ignore me, if it makes you fell better.

Well, when it comes to SS etc, I pay because it is another tax to pay, even if it covers nothing in my case. When it comes to retirement, I've always paid knowing perfectly that I would never see a dime of it because of the way it is set up (unsustainable pyramide scheme).

Okay, I am just a little curious about why these questions were voted down so quickly. We are obviously not communicating on the same page. I'm willing to admit that I am the one misunderstanding. That is why I have posed these honest questions. I think the answers would be illuminating, at least to me. Is this really so out of place, that it warrants down-votes?

[Edited for a missing word.]

I don't understand; can you rephrase this? Is that supposed to be an answer to one of my questions? In less than 12 minutes, my questions were down-voted twice. Sorry to be so troublesome.

Actually I don't get very irritated here in the Gulch. I've made some errors, and others have corrected my thinking, so I'm pretty tolerant. I consider it a place to learn, and I like seeing different viewpoints. If I disagree, and I think I have a good reason, I'll "speak up". (type up?)

Private Property - but you are not talking about private property, which you went out of your way to illustrate. Also you do not own my private property, so you cannot say who can be on it.

What does it mean to own something?

What is a property right?

Who owns the Grand Canyon? And our highways?

When a person's "right to travel freely" conflicts with my "right to private property," who wins?

Do all law-abiding individuals on earth (all 7+ billion of them) have a "right to travel freely" to enter the USA, whether or not we the people want them to?

I don't want anybody to be my slave.

I guess I was not as smart as you when I signed up for SS in order to get the card so I could get a job. You must have figured a way around that????

Meanwhile the younger people you are crying about are the ones voting for the socialists running our government! They do not yet know TANSTAAFL.

Well vido, you are railing at the wrong people. The government put the ponzi scheme known as social security in place. To make it even more fun for us they fund it by force, taking it from our income directly with no opt out possible.

Every American is being victimized by this, so if you insist on being nasty about it, call and complain to your congress critters.

Meanwhile welcome to my ignore list.

does this jerk irritate you as much as he irritates me?

Yes, there is an international border. That does not mean the govt or the people of the US "own" this territory except in an individual sense. therefore, properly enforcing laws would mean a free person travels freely. Under 4th and 5th amendment-the government has to prove beyond probable cause that someone is a criminal in order to stop them from travelling freeely. Note the Constitution is not limited to "citizens." This is a huge limitation on govt that citizens either ignore to their own peril or are ignorant or are nefarious.

Are you saying this is what ideological screening would look for?

The force doesn't come from the retirees. It comes from the same government that collected from them. By force.

I don't understand that, and so I think we are not on the same page.

How do you define the concept of ownership?

Property?

Maybe you mean there "should" be no national property rights. But it seems to me hard to deny that there in fact is. We have public lands, which are owned by no single individual (or every individual American citizen?). If Mexican citizens tried to come along and claim ownership, they would be prevented at the point of a gun. And rightly so, since it is the job of the Government to protect the property rights of its citizens against those who would take them away.

Perhaps you just don't like the term. I don't mind calling it something else, just say the word. My point is that the USA has a national geographical border which distinguishes it from Mexico. Likewise, American citizens claim and protect the land within that border as our own, even if not owned by any single individual. I just think there is a parallel that can be drawn. An individual is right to defend his property against those who would take it away; the Government is right to protect "its citizens'" property (or at least all property within its borders). This may mean preventing some people from trespassing; at the very least it means knowing who is visiting, and being able to offer the protection it is tasked with.

Right now, we are sucking at that. A wall might help. Maybe not, but my point remains, that the Government ought to be able to protect our borders. It is not doing that; it is not even able to control our borders if it wanted to, presently.

Well, too bad for you, The "investment" you made for 52 years was based on the promise the next generation would pay for your retirement. That won't happen. Suck it up and don't try to force younger people to be your slave.

My point was that 10 years was too long. Had their wait been six years, I wouldn't be upset, and most of them would not have been either. > 10 years is just too long, as many people upvoted you on. Perhaps they didn't get my point? I thought I was clear in suggesting that > 10 years was ridiculous.

Property rights are enforced in the US. Thrre is no such thing ad a National property right.

I figure that if I had been able to keep and invest what I was coerced into paying into SS all these years, I could have retired 5 years ago. Not that I would want to, but I could have been way closer to creating the lifestyle I desire.

Thank you for your information. Certainly very different from what I have been reading and hearing from European visitors. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I totally agree with db! The outrage that most of us feel about illegal immigration is that we are currently using tax money to support a lot of them and it is turning our country into a third world cast system. (Are you related to k?)

You have to find some way to phase it out - other people have spent more time on the details. I can tell you I am 55 and would happily trade no SS benefits to not have to pay in any longer. And if you got rid of the other welfare programs as well, with some other minor common sense reforms the economy would grow so fast as to more than make up for any supposed loss for having paid SS for over 30 years.

yes so sad

Understood

I am visiting with family (my wife of 40 years is French) and yes, there is concern here about the immigrants from the Arab countries because most Arabs do not want to adapt to their new home, but to make their new home to be like it is where they came from — but safer. From my limited perspective, much of the current problem is the great number of refugees from the US-induced mid-east wars and not as well publicized African wars such as in Mali (well explained in Ron Paul’s book) trying to escape war more than a religious issue. When you look at Greece as the “land of opportunity” you are living in hell.

As I understand it, the open borders are between the EU nations, not others. The mid-east people are being treated as refugees, under humanitarian principles, not as immigrants under open borders .The problem of citizens of the various EU countries mixing does not seem, at least as far as I have witnessed, to be a problem.

Doing the normal shopping you do to live day-to-day, I met merchants from many countries and I saw camaraderie among them and the “locals.” I liken it to somebody moving from Nevada to Arizona.