History

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

Laotzu del Zinn — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:50:57 GMT

The border harms everyone except drug dealers. That would be my topic; that way you're taking on many topics intertwined; internationalism, immigration, drug policy, etc

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

BrianAnderson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:44:35 GMT

You can talk about the benefits of illegal immigration and compare them to the welfare state. Of course your paper will need to come from a pure economic standpoint instead of dealing with national security, so it's important to make that clear, but make the claim that the deletion of the welfare state would increase each person's openness when it comes to illegal immigration. Here's one column I did to give you an example. I'm sure you'd be able to expand a lot using papers and other media.

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

freewheeler — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:41:38 GMT

Here is a speech by Jason Riley from the Wall Street Journal, who is no Austrian, but makes good observations nonetheless: http://www.reason.tv/video/show/wall-street-journals-jason-ril

The speech is based on his book, "Let Them In: The Case For Open Borders", and addresses the top mainstream arguments against immigration.

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

DD5 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:00:09 GMT

Erock:
The drug problem would be really interesting but the topic I write about needs to be specific to the border. The drug problem is a little to broad in scope for this paper,

Actually, the documentary deals specifically with the fence. It doesn't get more specific then that.

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

Erock — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:53:41 GMT

I was toying with the idea of researching how immigration came to be seen as a undesirable thing in the United States. Does anyone know of any research on this topic?

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

Erock — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:49:52 GMT

I would love to watch the documentary, however I do not receive HBO - I will try and find a bootleg version somewhere else.

The drug problem would be really interesting but the topic I write about needs to be specific to the border. The drug problem is a little to broad in scope for this paper, however I'm thinking a paper about how drug policies in mexico and the us have led to certain violations of liberties in the border region. Of course this would be quite hard as a lot of this literature would be in Spanish, which I do not speak.

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

Student — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:49:11 GMT

estimate economic impacts of whti? having to show id at border --> longer waits to cross the border --> delays in shipping --> higher costs to u.s. businsses --> higher costs to u.s. consumers? conceptually esay to do if you had the data, since you're basically just talking about an increase in marginal costs of production.

oh! or maybe...

more people crossing into the united states, means more money required to properly to police the border. higher gas prices --> fewer people crossing the border. do higher gas prices lead to improvements in border security (could pick from a number of metrics like number of illegals entering the us, but i have no idea how available this data is)?

though those are all security ideas...

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

bcyclwutztht — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:41:39 GMT

this one's pretty obvious, but intereting nonetheless....

Thesis: The actions of drug lords & drug gangs are an anathema to civil society. Drug lords and drug gangs, divorced from their income streams, would cease their activities. Were illicit drugs to be legalized, the income streams would dry up, and civilization thus forwarded.

data:

(1) you could estimate the income streams of the drug gangs

(2) you could estimate the cost of treating addiction

(3) you could estimate the before-and-after cost of law enforcement

(4) you could estimate the increase to government coffers that would be generated by subsequent drug industry regulation

tally up the before-and-after of all the costs, demonstrating the benefit to civil society of legalizing illicit drugs

Re: Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

DD5 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:32:47 GMT

have you seen this recent HBO documentary special on this topic? It may give you a few ideas:

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-fence/synopsis.html

I was plesantly surprised by the anti-government underlying message.

Need a topic for a college paper on the mexico/us border

Erock — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:25:16 GMT

Hi everyone,

I need a topic suggestion for a 15 page research paper that I need to write about the US/Mexico border. If you suggest something and know of any good sources to use with that topic please let me know.

Thanks.