I pit NJ's soon to be Illegal Immigrant Help.

I guarantee you that if I inadvertently type one instead of the other—which I’m sure I’ve done and will do—and it is pointed out, I know enough to see where I was wrong and say “Oops”. You, on the other hand, choose to champion your mistakes and stand on them as a podium as to give greater voice to your stupidity.

Great plan. Stick with it.

I, for one, would be delighted to take a job picking cucumbers in California or cleaning toilets in Pennsylvania or manning a 7-11 in St. Louis if only those jobs were not being outsourced to Indians and Pakistanis. Are you insane?

Perhaps you are.

Nope, I’m talking about restaurants that buy guacamole and similar products that have been made in another country, as opposed to using local labor to prepare the food in the restaurant. For that matter, consumers can buy food that’s processed in another country, using cheaper labor.

I don’t THINK that they’ve outsourced dishwashing services yet.

I’m totally against illegal immigrants getting in-state tuition. Where I’m at, I’ve been denied in-state tuition each time I’ve applied for it, and all my appeals were rejected. Three years paying out-of-state tuition, two of which I should have only been paying in-state tuition…yet illegal immigrants get in-state tuition here without opposition.

Why should I, an American citizen, be denied in-state status for the two years I was eligible, but someone who broke the goddamn law to be here in the first place only pays less than half as much as me, and without hassle??

It’s a bunch of bullshit.

That’s hardly a situation of illegal immigrants taking outsourced jobs away from REAL Americans. I am, in fact, mildly confused as to how workers in another country performing outsourced jobs are illegal immigrants.

I should have said “local low skilled workers”. I wasn’t saying that this was a case of illegal immigrants taking jobs from anyone. Likely the workers are legal residents in whatever country they’re working in. I’m saying that this is a case of outsourced low skill level jobs performed in another country, and it’s becoming more common. I think making guacamole (and damned if I’m not hungry for some right now) is the sort of job that someone without great job skills would be able to do in the US. As I said, we’re OUTSOURCING these types of jobs already. We don’t need more people, legal or not, competing for these types of jobs in the US. We already have more than enough people looking for this work. And restaurant work is traditionally one of the first places an II will apply for. It’s also the sort of job that, say, a teenager just getting into the job market could do.

Not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer or engineer or tiler. Some people will never, ever be able to learn better skill sets, and others just don’t want to. I am saying that we already have quite enough people here to more than fulfill these types of jobs, we don’t need to import them. Granted, Big Business would love to have a never-ending supply of cheap labor, each worker willing to work for less, but I think that this depresses wages and living standards too much.

And even if I had been wrong, everyone knew exactly what I meant, didn’t they? If magellan had a leg to stand on in this thread he wouldn’t be attacking my word use.

Whatever, dickhole. See above. :rolleyes: And you did it at least twice that I noticed in this thread, but I still wasn’t going to mention it until you brought up the subject.

What questions? Where? Ask. I’m refusing to be swayed because your arguments suck and I know way more about this than you.

You know a lot; it’s just that much of what you know is wrong.

Let’s go with these from me:

Already answered. Yes.

Don’t know.

Why are you supposing it would? They’re benefitting us now. Why do you take it as a foregone conclusion that this would change? Assuming it did, that would be the point at which they would stop coming and/or start leaving.

I don’t know and don’t pretend like you do, either.

Oh, those were serious questions? Get the fuck outta here with that shit.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, come on. Regardless of a person’s stance on the immigration issue, anyone would have to grant that if the whole world wanted to come here that at some point it would degrade our quality of life. I doubt this country could absorb the 6 billion people in the world without it drastically affecting us. I’d say even a billion would create a sea change. So, I’m asking you—someone who advocates and open border policy—after what number who enter might you think it wise to change your open border policy?

But I don’t have to know. I’m all for shutting the borders completely and letting OUR need dictate how many you let in. So, my baseline is zero. YOU are the one who advocates letting any Tomas, Da, and Hussein in. If you’ve thought this out at all, you must have come to some conclusion. Or haven’t you thought through the consequences of what you advocate?

Well, these two were very serious:

Do you leave your front door open? If it’s okay for all the wonderful people in the world to just walk into out country willy-nilly, why wouldn’t you have the policy you advocate in your own home. Seriously. If not, why not/

What are your views on ownership, particularly of land? Some people think people shouldn’t be able to own land. What’s your stance on that? If you think owning land is okay, do you believe you have a right to keep people off of it? Can you say who can come on it and who can’t?

These are serious questions that may help me, and others, understand where exactly you’re coming from. Maybe you’ve thought this through in a way that eluded me; maybe that would cause me, or others, to shift our thinking.

You’re assuming everyone in the world wants to come here. That’s awful arrogant.

No, they’re not. You’re trying to attack my character.

I do not think everyone in the world wants to come here. I’m certain that’s not the case. But I think an awful lot do, like pretty much all the poor of the Third World. But you’ve not answered the question—what do YOU think. I’m giving you the opportunity to explain your position more.

What? No, they’re questions that would help me understand your position better. You have a strong opinion about this (as do I) and you claim to know a great deal about the issue and have thought about it quite a bit. I’m not attacking your character with these questions, I’m seeking information about your position. The only way you might construe that as “attacking your character” would be, it seems to me, that your answers might reveal things about your character that you’d rather not have revealed.

So, you told me to ask, and I asked. Now I’m asking you to answer. I’ll wait.

I didn’t attack it, I mentioned it. Rather politely if I recall correctly. I actually appreciate it when I use a word incorrectly. But you seem to think your usage is correct, having cited a dictionary definition. OUt of curiosity I checked Dictionary.com (they use multiple sources), and the two sources that include your definition also include these Usage Notes:

(bolding mine)

No, this has nothing to do with the merits of any position. As someone interested in language, I offer it just as a point of interest. Feel free to flout convention concerning proper usage.

Or flaunt his ignorance.

We’ll see how he responds to the new information. But my guess is that he won’t be back. The questions seem to really throw him into a tizzy. I am curious as to how he’d answer them though.

No, they’re not benefiting us now. They are benefiting themselves, and certain segments of the US, but not all of the US. I, personally, do not like depressed wages for local legal laborers. While this benefits certain businesses, it does NOT benefit the local citizens, who might need those entry and basic jobs themselves. The teens who need to get into the workforce, the seniors who need a bit of extra income, the people trying to get off government subsidies, all need those lowpaying jobs. And they certainly don’t need the wages lowered.

Every day, I read various news items about how some company or job fair announced that they’re hiring, and had some thousand people apply for every slot that was open. We DON’T have a shortage of workers in this country. Really, we don’t. And people are taking jobs now that they are very much overqualified for, just to get some money coming in. We’re in a recession/depression (which you call it depends on whether your neighbor is out of a job, or YOU are), if you haven’t noticed.

The illegal immigrants are NOT coming to the US to benefit us. They DO NOT have our best interests at heart. They are coming here solely because it’s in their own best interests. For a couple of months now, the Dallas Morning News has been running occasional articles about Mexican citizens who are either currently living illegally in the US or who occasionally come up here (again, illegally) to work. The News has found that many of them are rethinking the risks and benefits, and grumbling because they can’t make as much money for the risk. As I said, they are coming here for their OWN benefit, not ours. I can understand that. But I tend, as most people do, to want to have my own needs taken care of before I take care of others.

I’ve read occasional news items from other sources, too, pretty much saying the same thing.

(changed / to ? for clarity) I think this is a valid question. I was born in 1957, and I lived through the hippie/commune phase. It sounds wonderful to say that we’re all going to share everything, and help each other get through life. However, we cannot be completely open and sharing with everyone. For one thing, there’s simply not enough of everything to go around. See my lifeboat example above. If we do try to portion out every resource fairly to everyone, NOBODY gets enough to survive. The question is, how do we allocate resources? I want to make sure that I get enough, and my family gets enough, and then I want to make sure that my neighborhood, community, city, state, country get enough. For another thing, when you throw open the pantries and cupboards and cash drawers, telling everyone to take what you need and leave the rest, some people will do exactly that. And good on them, they are fine people. However, if you leave the cookie jar open, and there’s enough cookies for everyone to have two, you will find that some people take one, some two, and some three…and a few people, not many, but enough to ruin the system, will take every single cookie available, no matter if they can eat them all or not, and no matter if they even LIKE cookies. They will take all the cookies because they can.

Communism is a very fine idea, and a splendid method of living. But it WILL NOT work on humans. Or at least, it won’t work on the general population of humans. Possibly it will work on a selected community of humans.

Do you think it is necessary to check out everyone entering the country? Should we refuse entry to criminals, or people bearing infectious diseases?

Seriously, who gives a flying fuck? Flaunt, the way I used it, is widely entrenched in common use, and in the dictionary. You’re saying I’m wrong because some grammar dorks recommend against it. Ok. Whatever you say, big guy. Hope it puts a smile on your face. It’s off-topic.

I’m not really sure. “Criminal” is pretty broad brush, and I don’t know how practical enforcing the infectious disease thing would be. Obviously a known child-rapist or a guy with hemorrhaging ebola sores should be turned away. I don’t know, off hand, how I feel the more ambiguous cases should be handled.

I should have specified that I was referring to any/worst case criminals, or any/worst case infectious diseases, but you seem to have got my meaning.

If you agree that we should stop child-rapists and people with hemorrhaging ebola sores entering the country, how can we do this without preventing uninspected entry?