How much farther do we let Mexico slide toward being a defacto narco state before we step in?

I seem to recall it being a point in the documentary Grass, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to figure out for sure, one way or the other, if you’re interested.

Yeah, but America probably won’t invade a country where people look like them and talk like them…

Nice dodge. But Neo, you aint.

You of course failed to differentiate between Mexicans and illegal immigrants when you claimed that many Americans see Mexicans in general as menial laborers rather than that they see functionally illterate, illegal immigrants who are unqualified for anything more than menial labor… as menial laborers.
You also failed to differentiate between Americans as a group and Americans who use drugs when you claimed that America, as a nation, “has an insatiable appetite for mind altering substances.”

Like I said, your pose of anti-prejudice doesn’t hold much water when you’re reduced to talking about groups as if they’re fungible. You can talk about how “America has an insatiable appetite for mind altering substances” and what not, but I think we both know how you’d react to claims about how “Mexico has an insatiable appetite for exploiting human suffering and ruining their own nation in the pursuit of suffering-based dollars.”

If you find yourself using pejoratives like “[pejorative] is a characteristic of [America/Americans]”, just stop and think of what your reaction would be to someone else says “[pejorative] is a characteristic of [Mexico/Mexicans]”.

I have faith that you can grok it sooner or later.

Are you saying there AREN’T many Americans who see Mexicans as menial laborers? Because I am quite certain that many Americans think exactly that.

Were someone to say “America has an insatiable appetite for mind altering substances” it seems, well, pretty obvious that in this context “America” does not mean “every single American,” but rather means the country’s general market demand for such things.

Actually you seem to be the one with the problem “differentiating”. But I have no faith you’ll ever “grok” it sooner or later. Whatever the hell grok means.

Yes, I’m quite certain that the vast majority of Americans who meet someone of Hispanic heritage working as a doctor, lawyer, banker, etc… don’t assume that they work cleaning houses on weekends. But many Americans correctly figure that there are a hell of a lot of illegal immigrants who are Mexican, and a great many of them aren’t suited for anything beyond menial labor.

Nobody said that the word “all” or the phrase “every single” was used. The point is that it’s silly to treat diverse groups as fungible, especially if it’s in order to denigrate that group. How many Americans do you think have an insatiable hunger for mind altering drugs? We can agree that it’s a minority of Americans, right? Would it be okay to say, then, that “blacks have an unstoppable drive towards criminality?” or “Gays lust after underage boys.” or “Mexico is dedicated to profiting off human misery when they’re not trying to get the hell out of their nation and illegally sneak into another for a better life.”

If those aren’t okay, then why is “America has an insatiable appetite for mind altering substances.” okay?

In the same breath, CB opines that America is a land of junkies while bemoaning his supposition that many Americans see Mexico as a land of menial laborers. That’s the whole point, if your argument relies on one type of pejorative generalization and complains about another alleged pejorative generalization, it rings a bit hollow when some smacks it with a hammer to test how solid it is.

Most Americans as far as I can tell regard Mexicans in general as ignorant subhumans who are, yes, unworthy of anything more than menial labor. And who should be grateful we deign to give them that menial labor, yet are at the same time evil for doing what we pay them to do. And most only make lip service to any difference between legal and illegal; they just label any vaguely “Mexican looking” person they see as an “illegal”. There’s a lot more racism and greed going on here than there is any concern over the law. They are brown people in a nation that still generally despises brown people, foreigners in a nation that regards foreigners as less than human, and an exploited class that we want to blame for their exploitation.

Apparently I am not the only perosn that cannot differentate between them either.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1598981/hillary_clinton_says_its_the_drugs.html?cat=75

I didn’t claim it is a land of junkies. That is absolutely incorrect. I said “we’d have all of your junkies”. Are there junkies in the USA? Would it not be a safe assumption that if they could walk across the border and obtain heroin legally that there would be a huge increase of junkies living near the border?

I said it before, you are out to attack me personally because iof a previous interaction we had.

Nice try but your true motives are quite obvious.

I see you agree with the “many Americans” I mentioned in my previuos post.

And I wasn’t talking of “someone with hispanic heritage” I was talking specifically of Mexicans. And who are you to decide what someone is suitable for? You can tell from looking? Because you really don’t have any idea what someone’s background is from how they look. Would you say the same thing about inner city blacks?

I happen to have a good friend from Mexico that is a very successful OB/Gyn in Chicago along with his Mexican wife, a dentist. They bought into the American Dream or so they thought. Ask them how many professional Americans view them.

I can still quote your stuff.

Well, jeez, Hillary Clinton using silly rhetoric makes it good when you use the same rhetoric to paint America as a land of junkies while you complain about how Americans are allegedly prejudiced against Mexicans.

Nah, you don’t. You see that I specifically delineated between Mexicans and illegal immigrants from Mexico. You are ignoring that distinction because amidst talking about how bad America is as a nation, you’re complaining about people being prejudiced against Mexico as a nation.
Irony, grok it.

Gee, someone who doesn’t hold legal citizenship, cannot legally work, is poor enough that leaving to get menial jobs is a step up and who may or may not be fluent in the language that’s spoken as the language of commerce in a nation… I guess we have no way of figuring out what sort of employment they’re suitable for. :rolleyes:

See, again, complaining about prejudice (especially when you have to go through silly steps like inventing a situation where we can’t figure out illegal immigrants background is that they’re here illegally and can’t legally work but that must be because of their skin color) just doesn’t work while you’re talking about America as a nation of junkies.

Interesting, I point out the substance of your argument, you make personal attacks about me and then claim that by talking about your argument I’m personally attacking you. Kay.

Let me see, when the US Secretary of State says the same thing I say it is just her “silly rhetoric”? You need to look up the word hypocrisy.

http://contexts.org/crawler/2009/06/01/commentary-on-americas-insatiable-appetite-for-illegal-drugs/?cxt-blogs-nav-dropdown

Damn! Forty-six percent 12 or older!! I suppose you consider that just a small case of the munchies.

Yet again, it rings hollow to go on about how “[Nation A as a group] is [pejorative], and they’re really bad because they say/think [pejorative] about [Nation B as a group]!”

Again, as I pointed out, the difference is how the two of you were using the phrase. There’s a difference between using silly, bombastic rhetoric to chastise the nation you’re a part of and using that same rhetoric to chastise another nation as bad people while bemoaning that nation’s alleged habit of chastising your nation as bad people.
Or are you missed: “Hillary Clinton using silly rhetoric [does not make] it good when you use the same rhetoric to paint America as a land of junkies while you complain about how Americans are allegedly prejudiced against Mexicans.”

You will grok this sooner or later. Yet again, look at the rhetoric you’re using and apply it to your own nation. Yet again: in the United States, roughly 8% (most likely underestimated) of the population can be described (at an extreme reach) of having an ‘insatiable need’ for drugs as they’re likely to have used drugs at least once in the past month. The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is hard to pin down and estimates have varied between seven or eight million and as many as 20, with all information showing that the clear majority of those illegal immigrants are Mexicans. In 2009 for example, roughly 7 million of all illegal immigrants (most likely underestimated) were estimated to be Mexicans. As of 2009, Mexico’s population was about 111 million. So roughly 6% of Mexicans are criminals in the United States. Add in the corrupt cops and drug cartels in Mexico, and that’s another few folks as well.

Would you or would you not take exception to someone saying “Mexico has an insatiable appetite for profiting off human misery and criminality that they show by either selling drugs or illegally entering another country to get mostly shit-jobs that they still view as a leg up in life?”
Would that be totally cool with you?

Is that 2% really all that significant?
Or is your argument really just “America is [pejorative]! Plus they’re really bad because they believe Mexico is [different pejorative]!”.

Grok in fullness.
Waiting is.

I’ll also point out your bait and switch cite: “have indulged in” is different from “having an insatiable desire for.” Someone who has done something only once in their entire life “has indulged in” doing it. A nation in which close to 50% of the people have at one time or another tried drugs or who might take a hit off a joint every year or two is not necessarily a nation that is possessed of an “insatiable desire” for drugs.

Actually if you were honestly interested in debate, you would have read the article linked in my post that refers to a story in the SF Chronicle. The article’s headline reads, now pay attention…

“U.S. appetite for illegal drugs is insatiable”

Now why don’t you quit with the hypocrisy?

CBEscapee, FinnAgain, both of you need to turn down the heat.

I just pointed out that “[someone] using silly rhetoric [does not make] it good when you use the same rhetoric to paint America as a land of junkies while you complain about how Americans are allegedly prejudiced against Mexicans.”
Seeing that another article used the same bombastic nonsense doesn’t change the point, nor does actually focusing on the facts (I’ll reiterate them in just a moment).

Talking about how “America is [pejorative]! Plus they’re bad because they think Mexico is [pejorative]!” isn’t validated just because “And some Americans say similar bombastic things about America, too!”

Speaking of those facts, you should address them now:

Why don’t you enlighten me as to how the undocumented workers are criminals? What criminal offense did they commit?

I don’t need to address your hypocrisies and falsehoods.

And again[sup]2[/sup]

And no, criminals are not suddenly merely “undocumented”.
If I break into your house I am not an “undocumented guest”.
If you violate immigration law you are not suddenly merely “undocumented”. But this illustrates the problem I’m trying to bring to your attention. You’re fine with “America is [pejorative]” but “Mexico is [pejorative]” is just beyond the pale, to the point where you’ll say that millions of Mexican criminals are just undocumented guests. :rolleyes:

It’s telling that you can’t actually rebut the facts and instead you’re calling them lies.
Nor, by the way, is it ‘hypocrisy’ to state that the context behind someone’s use of a phrase matters. It’s not any more convincing in this case than it is where people argue that if Chris Rock can call black people niggers if they’re doing something stupid, than by gum they should be allowed to too!

Tell me again what makes an undocumented worker a criminal? You have made the claim but refuse to back it up. Why the dodge? Are you afraid of something?

And why you continue to whine about my using a phrase about the amount of drug demand in the USA is ridiculous. The United States has the largest amount of illegal drug abuse in the world. If an American points that out it isn’t a pejorative. But for some reason when a Mexican states the same thing it is a pejorative. That is hypocrisy, pure and simple.

Oh and please quit attributing things to me that I have not said. I did not use the term “undocumented guest”. That is just another of many fabrications you have used from the beginning.

And your comparison of someone breaking into your home and someone being in your country without permission is such silly rhetoric.