I respect human beings more than I respect borders.
I believe it was Larry Niven who said: “Never throw shit at an armed man. Never stand NEXT to someone throwing shit at an armed man.” Sorry, can’t summon up much “give-a-shit” for the kid.
No. I’d grab my rifle and start sniping the bastards.
Actually, I believe you meant “Su madr…” Let’s be polite, and all… 
:dubious: Then you didn’t do it right.
Keep trying.
It most assuredly is. Throwing a rock at someone is attempting to kill them. The rock will smash your head in regardless of who throws it.
This confrontation reminded me of another “Kids Throwing Rocks vs. The State Shooting Guns” episode, but on a much larger scale. I think the principle is the same.
Some students in a crowd of protesters at Kent State University in Ohio were throwing rocks at the National Guardsmen who had been summoned to break up their protest. The Guardsmen began firing into the crowd. They killed four students and wounded nine. Some were just on their way to class.
It took ten years, but the students were vindicated and as part of the settlement, As part of the settlement, a “Statement of Regret” was signed by the Governor, the Commanding Officers, and the Guardsmen involved in the case.
From that statement, I think that these words apply to this situation:
I don’t think that anyone concerned is going to live a happy life with the memory of a dead fifteen year old child. And no matter how corrupt the kid was, that is still what he was. Your brain isn’t even fully developed until you are fifteen or sixteen.
Yes.
He wasn’t executed, you moron. He was shot in self-defense as he tried to murder a U.S. officer. And if you can’t see that, there is no hope for you.
Isn’t stoning a method of execution in some parts of the world?
Not only that, but as I cited upthread, the Aztec Emperor, was killed by a thrown rock. Too friggin’ funny.
I have no particular problems with this, especially as cited upthread the Mexican police and military (in addition to the illegal immigrants and smugglers) violate the border all the damn time.
Yes. In a world where a single person can cause vastly disproportionate damage, and in which we are a common target as a nation of terrorist attacks of that nature, every border incursion is essentially a potential invasion/attack.
I don’t like it. I would love a world where it wasn’t the case.
As I said above, there’s no racism in me. Amnesty for people working here, I can accept as a one-time thing. Raising the number of unskilled legal immigrants to match the demand for workers, into the 6 or 7 figure range yearly, I can accept as a general good policy. Allowing unsanctioned and illegal border crossings? I can’t accept this as a matter of good policy.
The one-time amnesty is a palatable idea. Or, should I say, was a palatable idea, as Reagan instituted one in the '80s. What we’re dealing with now is a consequence of that. We created the belief that all you have to do is get here and eventually you too can enjoy amnesty. True, they were supposed to secure the border and didn’t do it. Big surprise. The problem is that most Reps and Dems are in an unholy alliance on illegal immigration. Some Dems feel that borders are harsh and all people who would like to improve their lot in life here should be welcome. That and they see every illegal as a potential vote. The Reps love being able to supply the Tyson Chickens of the nation and every other business with cheap, below market labor. Works out well for their campaign coffers. So, the “one-time-amnesty” ship has sailed. Another one, or some amnesty-light version of it, will simply compound the problem in the future.
I’m all for increasing the number of legal immigrants, but to a point that it serves us well. One other thing that should be on the table is a guest-worker program, like Canada has. Workers can come in for seasonal work, for 8-months at a time, I think, and are free to travel back to their home country as often as they desire.
“Illegal immigrant” loses all meaning when the government won’t vigorously enforce the immigration laws and we’re periodically forced to just throw up our hands and declare an amnesty, and the people that try to do something about the problem in the interim get tagged as racists and fascists.
We seem to be increasingly willing to ignore our own laws out of pragmatism or convenience.
Yes, I stole that idea from Niven. Other people might have used it, but I read it in one of Niven’s collections (N-Space or Scatterbrain, don’t remember which). And either Niven or Pournelle said “Think of it as evolution in action” in Oath of Fealty.
The kid might have been a straight A student, I don’t know if he was or not, but he was in a group of people who were breaking the law, and who were attacking armed law enforcement officers, and that is STUPID. Darwin Award stupid. It really doesn’t matter if his intentions were good, he acted in a way that was pretty much guaranteed to get him hurt or killed sooner or later. For him, sooner arrived before later.
I certainly do. The fact that Mexican police and military have been crossing the border more than justifies it.
Yes.
Listen skipper, the bottom line is this; the kid was a known asshole in an area where known assholes usually gather. He did something stupid while he was there and was shot and killed. Sad day when a 15 year old is that known asshole, but it happens.
Let’s talk for a second about the 2633 people killed in Ciudad Juarez in 2009, shall we?
You can talk about how one American cop shot a kid in the head, and it’s a right fucking tragedy, but in a single STATE in your country, they are piling up the bodies like fucking cord wood, and what are YOU doing about THAT?
You can also say “hey, all the guns are coming from the US” and to that, and to your Ambassador, I say bullshit. Fully automatic weapons are VERY heavily regulated here in the USofA. So explain to me how these really bad guys are getting them? More than just who’s being arrested for what, but how about some actual statistics from the actual sources of actual weapons sent to the US for tracing.
The 90% number is crap because it doesn’t focus on ALL guns, just the ones sent back for tracing.
Now of course, legitimate sources of automatic weapons DO come from the US, and straight to the Mexican Gov’t, but when you’ve got some 150,000 deserters from the military, all of whom have automatic weapons and assume as few as 1/2 took them home, that’s 7,500 ACTUAL assault rifles on the loose.
I said all that to say this:
America is no longer just protecting its’ borders from so-titled ‘illegals’ who come here to seek a better life. Rather, we must now do what we can to hold back the whirlwind of violence that threatens our people and our way of life as well as our security.
I cannot be moved to care about Mexico’s ills. It’s a sad and despicable tragedy that people of such ability, warmth, knowledge and spirit cannot un-fuck their country, and although America didn’t fuck it up in the first place, I agree that we will and should do everything we can to help. In fact we should be doing one HELL of a lot more than we’re doing for Israel, but the fact remains, what’s going on in your house, is spreading to our front lawn and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer.
Can we also talk about the 2394 homicides in California last year?
Where do you think all those drugs are going? :dubious:
Given that the border has been routinely violated by Mexican soldiers for years, I’d say it already is, just on one side only.