Having already made my point, I want to make one that I hope can be taken as more of a friendly word of advice instead of a broadside.
You know how Limbaugh and Savage say dumb arguments that a 12-year old can sometimes poke holes in? (I personally can’t listen to them for 5 minutes).
This is kind of the liberal version of that. It completely misses the point and accuses the other side of being un-American and being official Bad People In Their Souls, without addressing what they’re actually saying.
What you’re “actually saying” is contrary to the Constutution and to American ideals. Anyone who is born in the US is a citizen. Period. It makes no sense to want to punish babies or deny them what is rightfully theirs because of some bullshit, sanctimonious attitude about their parents.
How do you think you’re personally being harmed by this policy anyway?
Doing a quick distinguo here may facilitate this staying a fruitful discussion instead of a head-bashing exercise (certain parties excepted, of course).
Like Diogenes, I (and I think many other more liberal types) see an ideal worth preserving in the Emma Lazarus poem. And I don’t see those criticizing what jus soli birth citizenship for children of undocumented aliens is causing as necessarily trashing that ideal, just bringing up the issue that there is a problem which needs to be addressed by a concerted effort of men and women of good will.
I mentioned a few hypotheses towards solutions earlier in the thread. I’m not necessarily pushing them. And I personally would not want to see jus soli removed, even by amendment, because it’s been important in making America what it is today. But having gotten that far, I can see the point that we have an extremely substantial unassimilated population sector, and dealing with that needs to be addressed practically. (As Tom~ pointed out masterfully in another Pit thread, assimilation is in fact proceeding apace. So the solution, whatever it is, may not need to be too drastic.
Personally, I fail to see what the problem would be with revising the quotas so that people of Mexican citizenship who wish to work in the U.S. can do so, and provide that employers must pay them fairly and give them such benefits as are appropriate to the job in question, on an even par with other employees. That is, as I understand, the gist of what Pres. Bush is suggesting as the proper solution, and I find it strange to be arguing in behalf of his policies in the Pit, but there you are.
I asked earlier in this thread, what is the cutoff point. At what age would a “person without a country” be allowed to stay here, if he/she was born here of illegal parents. No one saw fit to answer. I also see no answer to, what would happen if this person were rejected by Mexico. Where would we send them? Should we send them anywhere? Lock them up? Shoot them? Just what would we do with these US born “illegals”?
I see in this whole thing as having racist undertone. Find a “minority”, blame them for all that is wrong with the country, and yell about quotas, controls, and action. Every generation had a “foreign menace” to blame for everything. The Irish, Italians, Chinese, whatever group you want. Right now it’s Mexicans.
The Constitution says, anyone born here is a citizen, by right of birth. Period.
I’m sorry, I should’ve clarified that I was using “We’re going to have to let that country know” as a figure of speech.
What I was actually trying to say with that was, “We’re going to have to ask each and every country to (possibly) change its policy in re: birth and citizenship.”
For God’s sake. “Shoot them”. Could your straw man BE any bigger? I already admitted this could be a problem. I’m not hiding that. I’m just explaining that it doesn’t make any sense to me to have an enormous reward for doing what we say we don’t want happening, and then act like people aren’t going to do that thing to get the reward. If you have a suggestion for the “stateless” people, I’m open to it. Of course, you’re probably going to say, “Make them citizens”, in which case you’re just butting heads directly again.
That is NOT AT ALL WHAT I HAVE SAID. I have made it clear that this is not a racist issue. I might have known that even on this board I would get accused of being a racist, because America has such a bad history with dealing with race that people have become very sensitized to it. I understand that. There is a great need, however, to actually address the actual point of what someone is saying and not take shelter in the knee-jerk reaction of “well, you’re a bigot, so I automatically win the argument.”
I’m not blaming everything on the Mexicans, for CRYING OUT LOUD. You can disagree, and I’m nearing the point where I’ll just have to say that we’ll just have to disagree and go on to other things, but please have the intellectual honesty and maturity to actually read what I’m saying not pull the adult equivalent of “You’re a poopyhead” so you can discredit me.
You haven’t really even read this thread, I guess.
There is no “reward.” The person receiving citizenship is not a person who did anything illegal. You want to deprive innocent babies of citizenship which is rightfully theirs under the Constitution because you don’t like their parents. That’s what doesn’t make sense.
Well, I think we’ve reached the point where we’ve hit the bottom of the disconnect that I’ve mentioned. You can’t argue taste, sexiness, humor, or true fundamental assumptions about the workings of life. They aren’t reached through logic, so logic doesn’t affect them.
I do think it’s a reward for the parents, and it’s common knowledge out here that people ARE using their citizen babies as protection against being deported, when we would send them back immediately otherwise.
I don’t think I have anything much else to say. I’m glad I managed to hold my tongue, address people’s points and get some people to listen. Thanks to the ones who listened and explained problems. No thanks for being called a racist.
Just to let you know, every time someone calls a conservative “racist” undeservedly, a Limbaugh gets his wings. Liberals think conservatives are hard-hearted jerks, and conservatives think liberals are mushy-minded emotional over-reactors. Throwing around “racist” only shows many conservatives they’re right. I illustrate:
[17:59] Some Guy: Fine line between racial profiling and damn fine police work
[18:03] Some Guy: I remember a few years ago the (Name) had a homegroup
[18:03] Some Guy: Afterwards was talking with him, he wanted me to say there was something wrong with him getting stopped by my going through
[18:03] Some Guy: btw he moved here from Chili in his teens
[18:03] Some Guy: THICK accent
[18:03] Cardinal: I remember him
[18:03] Cardinal: but very good grammar
[18:04] Some Guy: He started and kept screaming I’M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN
[18:04] Cardinal: I told him it made him sound sophisticated. If you obviously had to learn the language the hard way, and did a good job, you sound cosmopolitan
[18:05] Some Guy: I’M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, YOU’RE RACIST!!!
[18:05] Some Guy: “If saying that people with Chilean heritage look more like the average mexican poulation than people with Celtic heritage makes me a racist, then yes I’m a racist”
[18:06] Some Guy: I’M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN!!!
[18:07] Cardinal: A great quote I got from an SDMB signature line: You can’t argue with people who didn’t reach their conclusions by logic"
[18:07] Some Guy: Turned me off to the guy
I do think it’s a reward for the parents, and it’s common knowledge out here that people ARE using their citizen babies as protection against being deported, when we would send them back immediately otherwise.
[quote]
Common knowledge is not that reliable. How much of this actually goes on? Does anyone have any idea? Can you see why we might want to hesitate over changing the constitution over an issue that we don’t even know the scope of?
Then change that part. Deport them, and give them the option to either take their child with them or leave them in the custody of a citizen or in the custody of the state (I don’t think many would do that). But the child retains citizenship and the right to come back. Hell, change the rules (and this is a legislative rule) that you can’t use such a relationship as grounds for legal entry. I would be ok with these things. But not with creating a self-perpetuating hopelessly disenfranchised underclass. This is not about compassion. This is about my grandchildren not having to watch our army put down riots of not-quite-our-own people.
Deport them but leave the child as a citizen? Veeeery interesting. Splits the middle of the two positions. Accomplishes my real point, too, essentially. Could you ever get laws passed that allowed you do to it, though?
That’s not what I said: I said I’d be willing to discuss (though I don’t think it’s really needed) the idea that having citizen-children should not be grounds to block deporation and that when an illegal immigrant is deported, they could choose whether or not to take their citizen-children with them, in the same way parents often make choices about where their children will live. I think 99% would keep their kids with them; however, if they didn’t WANT to, and didn’t place the child with a trusted friend or family member, I would say that the state has an obligation to then support those kids, like any other abandoned child. But I don’t think it would be an appriciable number.
Those kids whose parents took them back to the birth country of their parents would retain thier citizenship, however, and be able to reenter. Their children would be citizens.
Gosh, I really have to stop coming back here. Some people will deliberately misunderstand. Of course that’s what I meant: leave the baby HERE, deport the parents. All conservatives are complete jerks who will do anything to get their way, and have no shred of human feeling. They probably shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.
Sometimes a liberal in his passion to do the nice/right/compassionate/moral thing gets into such a high dudgeon that he spews bile at those he percieves to be the perpetrators of the injustice. The trick is to rightly identify those people.
I meant leave the baby with its citizenship status (let him keep it), duh.
Um…no…the “I was just following orders” excuse refers to Nazis who commited war crimes. Poly is talking about people who are compelled to perform menial labor for low wages, and no, they don’t always have a choice (or don’t know they have a choice).