quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
What are the pros and cons of a future that has the USA amending it's borders to include Mexico?

Is this a serious question?

Do you think Canada could annex the U.S.? Or that Mexico could annex the U.S.? That would be a cause for war.

And why would we, assuming that one sovereign nation could just annex another?

Here in SoCal, we have a lot a Hispanic people who say, "Make California Mexico's again."

I ask my Hispanic friends from Mexico why? "Because CA was owned by Mexico and the US took it" "Ok, between the Spanish, Mexico and the US, who owned the land of CA the longest and shouldn't they have the most righteous claim to CA?"

"Yes, and it's Mexico."

"Wrong. Mexico owned CA for only 21 years and the Spanish owned the territory longer than everyone else by far. Shouldn't you say, "Make Mexico Spain's again?"

Silence.


Then I ask, "What is there in Mexico, that if brought to the US in full force, would improve the lives of Americans, and you can't say Mexican food?"

Silence.

I follow that up and ask, "What has Mexico contributed to the world in terms of science, literature, scholarly works, something beyond pop music and advancement of the lives of people beyond their border?

Silence.

I can't think of any good reasons to have the US take over Mexico and make it a US territory or project.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
One of the things I remember from long ago was the idea that Canada might become part of the US. Supposedly many Canadians supported the idea or at least thought it was inevitable for some reason. At the time I was ignorant, naïve, and thought, “Sure, why not?” Even if it might have been a good idea at one time though, I certainly don’t believe that now.

In this thread's hypothetical fantasy world where other countries can simply be absorbed into the US overnight, incorporating Canada would be significantly more straightforward and worthwhile than Mexico.

Unlike Mexico, Canada has a similar level of economic development and infrastructure, a much more similar culture, and a shared primary language (well, mostly). There'd also be some significant natural resource and national defense benefits.

But in the real world, even that's never going to happen, and most Canadians wouldn't want it anyway. Plus with Canada's European-style hard shift leftward over the past couple decades, it makes it even less desirable politically. (Imagine if we didn't just have a heavily liberal East and West Coast to contend with, but also a North Coast as well!)

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
...Turn a large swath of the southern border into a minefield and with the exception of one fully equipped entry point in each border state, seal our southern border.

This. For many years I have thought a 2 mile deep mine field would be an excellent deterrent to illegal/criminal border crossing. The secured entry points would be the best way to control commerce.

https://youtu.be/8J7-sKew4jQ?si=J7GHW5xah5ZP3HL2

^ Ron White: “Paying for the war”. So funny,
- Sell the remainder of Coco Beach to Israel
- Buy Mexico. Fix it up and flip it…

Not no but Hell No.

What about all those Mexican pharmacies where you can get mondo narcotics without prescriptions? That's a plus, right?

quote:

Do you think Canada could annex the U.S.? Or that Mexico could annex the U.S.? That would be a cause for war.

I was imagining an exchange like:

US: What do you think about becoming part of the United states?
Mex: Yeah sure, that sounds ok.

I was not implying an annexation as we see Russia imposing on it's neighbors. So, no act of war.

You can get an AK-47 for 150 bucks.

And grenades, lots of grenades.

I say we annex Baja California as payment for everything Mexico has cost us. It's isolated from the rest of the country and doesn't have the narco problems (except to Tijuana). Miles and miles of beachfront ready to be developed, huge economic boom to turn developers loose.

We could assign the 87k new hires for the IRS there….

Anything on this previous comment of Gustofer's?

quote:

There’s just no political will to do it.

Will that be the case in the upcoming sequel Trump administration? It seems to me that an improvement in conditions in Mexico would soften the blows at the border.

No! Then we inherit their problems. We have enough problems of own.

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
I say we annex Baja California as payment for everything Mexico has cost us. It's isolated from the rest of the country and doesn't have the narco problems (except to Tijuana). Miles and miles of beachfront ready to be developed, huge economic boom to turn developers loose.

Off roading paradise, deep sea fishing, resorts.

Boom 50 million new people on welfare day one.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
One of the things I remember from long ago was the idea that Canada might become part of the US. Supposedly many Canadians supported the idea or at least thought it was inevitable for some reason. At the time I was ignorant, naïve, and thought, “Sure, why not?” Even if it might have been a good idea at one time though, I certainly don’t believe that now.

In this thread's hypothetical fantasy world where other countries can simply be absorbed into the US overnight, incorporating Canada would be significantly more straightforward and worthwhile than Mexico.

Unlike Mexico, Canada has a similar level of economic development and infrastructure, a much more similar culture, and a shared primary language (well, mostly). There'd also be some significant natural resource and national defense benefits.

But in the real world, even that's never going to happen, and most Canadians wouldn't want it anyway. Plus with Canada's European-style hard shift leftward over the past couple decades, it makes it even less desirable politically. (Imagine if we didn't just have a heavily liberal East and West Coast to contend with, but also a North Coast as well!)

And they do have Tim Hortons.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Off roading paradise, deep sea fishing, resorts.

Tons of places to go shooting

and to be shot at.

Fentanyl right at the source! Put the drug mules out of work!

quote:

Originally posted by Butch 2340:
Boom 50 million new people on welfare day one.

You're off by about 76 million.

To put it in perspective, the average individual income in Mexico is ~$7,000 per year. That's less than half of the US individual poverty line.

If we scale up to household statistics, roughly 98% of Mexico's 35 million households have an annual income of less than ~$32,000, with ~85% of households making less than ~$14,000 (with most of those being well under that).

This means that pretty much all but the upper ~2% of Mexican households would qualify for welfare under the current income standards in the US.

If we do some quick and dirty math, 2% of 35 million Mexican households is 0.7 million, times the average Mexican household of 3.5 people, gets us a very rough 2.45 million people in the upper 2% of Mexican households. The we take the 128.5 million population of Mexico, subtract that upper 2% of ~2.45 million, and we're left with about 126 million people eligible for welfare.

Which would more than double the number of folks in the US eligible for welfare overnight.

The comedian Ron White had an idea on how to raise the funds to buy Mexico, fix it up, sell it, repo it, etc. BTW, I didn't say it was a good idea.