Should USA Swimming recruit?

I don't think anyone is missing the point, John. I have gone through post-graduate education with many foreign students. These students often received the same scholarship, or better, than I had. I found them usually talented and hard working. I found that they improved the quality of the school, the research, and my education. I am glad they were there. I am glad federal money was spent on them. I would rather federal money be spent of good foreign students than feceral money be spent on mediocre domestic students. Our country is nothing but helped by good universities and good research. The research programs are a certain size. If there were enough domestic students to do the work (note, this is five or six years of near slave labor) then they would do the work. If there aren't enough domestic students, foreign students will be brought in. The big threat to long-term national security are the limitations placed by the government on student visas. This will hurt this country's research and economy. Except that a research program is far more important to the health of a university than a swimming team is, I think the analogy between aid for graduate students and aid for swimmers is very close. On the topic of this thread, Qatar can buy atheletes if it wants, it does not have to. The United States can buy athletes if it wants, but it does not have to. I do not think it is a good idea for the United States to be buying athletes, it has plenty of good ones as it is, and I would rather spend the money on better research. And the pros can march under whatever flag they want, corporate or national. I could care less. Perhaps the real difference between me and John and Paul is that I am totally disillusioned about international sports altogether. There is no idealistic value to it. It is just a competition between people who are really good at what they do, and usually the things that they do are pretty arbitrarily set up. Getting this confused encourages some countries to cheat, and other countries to go nearly bankrupt holding a sporting event. Not worth it.

I don't think anyone is missing the point, John. I have gone through post-graduate education with many foreign students. These students often received the same scholarship, or better, than I had. I found them usually talented and hard working. I found that they improved the quality of the school, the research, and my education. I am glad they were there. I am glad federal money was spent on them. I would rather federal money be spent of good foreign students than feceral money be spent on mediocre domestic students. Our country is nothing but helped by good universities and good research. The research programs are a certain size. If there were enough domestic students to do the work (note, this is five or six years of near slave labor) then they would do the work. If there aren't enough domestic students, foreign students will be brought in. The big threat to long-term national security are the limitations placed by the government on student visas. This will hurt this country's research and economy. Except that a research program is far more important to the health of a university than a swimming team is, I think the analogy between aid for graduate students and aid for swimmers is very close. On the topic of this thread, Qatar can buy atheletes if it wants, it does not have to. The United States can buy athletes if it wants, but it does not have to. I do not think it is a good idea for the United States to be buying athletes, it has plenty of good ones as it is, and I would rather spend the money on better research. And the pros can march under whatever flag they want, corporate or national. I could care less. Perhaps the real difference between me and John and Paul is that I am totally disillusioned about international sports altogether. There is no idealistic value to it. It is just a competition between people who are really good at what they do, and usually the things that they do are pretty arbitrarily set up. Getting this confused encourages some countries to cheat, and other countries to go nearly bankrupt holding a sporting event. Not worth it.