You keep telling us that the problem you have with the illegal immigrants is that they are breaking the law. I offered an easy solution to that, if that is truly your problem with them.
My problem with murderers isn’t that the broke a law, it’s that they kill people.
My problem with thieves isn’t that they broke a law, it’s that they take property from others.
If your problem is with them breaking the law, then removing the law fixes that. If your problem with them is something else, then what is it?
And this is supposed to save us money ? We rip out an important source of labor and revenue, then build this expensive boondoggle to keep them out ? Frankly, if I wasn’t being asked to pay for it, I’d let you blow your money and laugh.
But they won’t. They’ll say, “Well Mr Senator/Judge/whatever you could prosecute us - and then I’m afraid we’d have to point out the legal status of your maid/gardener/driver”.
What you fail to acknowledge is that we don’t want to keep them out; we’re just indulging our bigotry by blaming our problems on them.
The labor and revenue will be quickly replaced. Either by native workers or by those we quickly reinstate because we need them. If you’re truly of the opinion that they are so valuable, don’t you think they will be brought back pronto? Also, they’ll be making fairer wages, thus contributing more to the coffers.
I share this fear, too. I am encouraged though by the verdicts on the Enron dirt (unrelated to immigration, but a model for how we should treat white-collar criminals) and the fact that the immigration issue is now on the table and not going away. The complicity of the dems and reps that has this to be kept under the rug is coming to an end. An article in the Washiington Post shows that constituents of both stripes want this issue fixed in a way that does not include a version of amnesty and prosecuting those who hire the illegals may be the most important part of any real change. Bush and his boys don’t get this. But I think the House, closer to the people, do. We’ll see.
I agree somewhat. Certain flavors of big business want them here. And the reps are all to happy to oblige their addiction. The dems want them here for more votes. And the reps in turn cater to them to not risk offending them and winding up with an even smaller piece of the hispanic voting pie.
And you KEEP saying it’s bigotry. Can you not wrap your head around—even the possibility—that it is not? I asked you before: how about the legal Mexican immigrant who agrees with me? How is he a bigot? I guess I can tell you now until the cows come up that I’m not a bigot, but I guess you wouldn’t believe me. Oh well…
I think so. In other threads we’ve had the costs of illegal aliens offered. I think California alone was $10 billion. And how do you calculate the cost of hospitals closing in a community. Or the poorer education your child gets because half his school is now made up of kids with English as not their primary language?
As I mentioned to Der Trihs, I wonder how much more those jobs they are doing will contribute to the coffers when the people doing them (natives or legal imigrants or seasonal workers) for fairer (higher) wages.
And this, like the military, is a place where the cost doesn’t matter. Two of a countries primary duties is to protect its inhabitants (military) and to control its borders. Of course, I’m sure YMV.
Well, the first thing I do is make sure that I am not dealing with bullshit claims. In the thread where the “86 hospitals” claim was put forth, it was noted that there was a circular argument in which a woman used numbers dug up by F.A.I.R. to estimate some number of hospital closings that was then used by F.A.I.R. as “proof” that such an event had transpired, but that no genuine data was actually presented.
In the same time period that the “86 hospitals” were purportedly closed because of illegal immigrants, the Cleveland metro area had seven hospitals fail, financially.
If the Cleveland numbers were applied to the Southwest, we would find
Population State ratio to Cleveland expected Hospital failures
33,871,648 CA 22.58109867 158
5,130,632 AZ 3.420421333 24
1,819,046 NM 1.212697333 8
20,851,820 TX 13.90121333 97
61,673,146 total 41.11543067 288
So, until the purported evidence that 86 hospitals actually failed due to illegal immigrants is provided (with supporting documentation), I am going to see this as simply scare tactics by F.A.I.R.
This is a new one! I don’t make a claim or use numbers because they were questioned and I don’t have the proof to satisfy your captious eye when looking at my side of the debate, and still you go out of your way to find fault. You pull a claim made by me and others in other threads that you whined about, which I leave that out of the argument altogether (talking, instead, about the cost of hospitals closing in a specific community), and STILL you bring it up to give you a platform to piss from.
Very fair of you. :rolleyes: And you have the balls to say you want to make sure you’re not dealing with bullshit?! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Least Original User Name Ever said “Would it be worth it?”
Then you replied:
Sorry, but here you are indeed repeating information that had very little support, the one about illegals being the reason for the hospital closings.
Your tactic of throwing a tantrum when information is not to your liking is getting tiresome. Besides you can not say items like that and expect to be ignored.
Repeating items like that just shows a willingness to mislead, like earlier calling the plan of the senate an amnesty, the propaganda of the right calls it so, but it remains incorrect to call it that.
And DMC’s last post was not unbelievable, you once again show an unwillingness to see that since illegals are not bad people they deserve a chance to legalize their status. they will have to pay for their transgression, but legalizing their status is the humane solution.
You know, before you reply to something, especially to isolated disputes between two parties neither of which is you, it might be nice if you understood what was being discussed. The point I made about hospitals had to do with the non-monetary cost to the community when they close, similar to the . The $10 billion number is unrelated, as it doesn’t take into account hospital closings. Th point I made about the cost of hospitals closing was rhetorical, as was the point about schools to which the sentence was linked. Here it is again:
As to the point with DMC, well I’ll let you go back and try to figure that one out on your own. With the tiniest effort, even you should be able to grasp the issue that sparked my response of “unbelievable”. But if you choose to not make the effort, why don’t you impress me with your mind-reading abilities and explain why you think I posted “Unbelievable”. Here’s a hint: it has nothing whatsoever to do with the commentary you offered.
I agree as well that there is no one solution to the problem, but I do insist that the will of the people of the US be respected by enforcing the laws that exist. A fence is but a start in that direction.
Calling it rethoric does not excise it was a bullshit point.
:rolleyes:
One would think that this late you would have comprehended that avoiding answering, even if you think is not related, only shows who is the one willing to debate.
You must find this whole debate thing more challenging than I thought.
If someone thinks a point that is made is bullshit, they are perfectly within their rights to challenge that point. Not one that may be related but was NOT made.
I am completely willing to answer any question. And a fair look at even this one thread clearly demonstrates that. The point you were amazingly unable to grasp is the DMC has a question pending to him. Once he answers that I am more than happy to answer any question he might have.
Did you really not comprehend that or are you, once again, just looking for a fight? Chill out. Pay attention. Read. Think before posting. If you’re going to butt-in to private sub-discussions, know what the fuck you’re talking about. Is that too much to ask?
While I agree a lot, there are some items I have to nitpick with Least Original User Name Ever
Half the story makes it sound that they underhandenly changed it, the whole truth is that the people, fed up with the PRI party of Mexico, supported the constitutionally approved way to change the rules:
Looking at their official site and remembering what they did at Berkeley (not much) I would agree most of the stuff said about Mecha is not true: http://www.azteca.net/aztec/mecha/faq.html
But that there are racist groups attempting to hijack the movement is true, the group called Aztlan for example. The good news is that they are indeed a minority, and Central Americans like me already offer a counter weight for any exclusive unlikely plans they have.
Calling it a start is indeed proving the point of Least Original User Name Ever, seeing the proceedings in congress I have to say the most likely outcome is that nothing will change since there will be no compromise. And the most likely fence made will be just this pathetic symbol:
Originally Posted by I Don’t Even Know Who Anymore
The nativism is all on the other side as well. MECHA and others think that since the Southwest used to be part of Mexico, that they therefore have a right to live where they and their ancestors never lived just because it had once been part of that country. For those who subscribe to that kind of argument, I hope that they will extend it to more than just Mexicans. In that case, Russians can emmigrate to the US since they have that right, since Alaska used to be Russian. Or we should just let Russians charter some boats and come across to Alaska and then to the US since the Russian settlements went down the US coast as well. Such folks will get great support from the neo-Nazis in Germany since they want to restore all of what was historically and until very recently East Prussia to Germany. After WWII millions of Germans who had been there for centuries were forced from their homes and lands, as East Prussia was divided between Poland and Russia. The MECHAs and the German neo-Nazis have a lot in common.
I’m not against this at all. Actually, I think I’ve argued for it in this thread and others as well. If the problem is that some Mexicans see the land in the Southwest as their ancestral land (but have no paper trail to back it up) and you can provide a useful solution to it, then you’re WELL on the way to a Nobel Peace prize. This Mexican/American solution could be taken to help the Native American/Federal government situation, and even the Israel/Palestine problem, for there are eerily similar claims for those situations.
Note how the “wall” for Native Americans is pushing them to reservations. What kind of problems has that caused?
There is a very real wall build by Israel. How well is that working for them? How many resources do they have to divert to that wall? If “good fences make good neighbors”, how come Israel and Palestine don’t dine at the same table?(metaphorically speaking, of course.)
Both of those “solutions” aren’t. These three problems aren’t perfectly aligned, but there are shades of those problems in each of these instances. How do you get peace between Israel and Palestine? You need to reform the system. How can we start getting some useful solution out of our mishandling of the Natives? Coming up with a new solution that includes changing how they’re treated.
How do we fix this border problem? Make immigration and free flow of people through borders very easy and overhaul the system. Augment welfare. Embrace a second language, don’t stifle it. As Eddie Izzard said “the Dutch speak 4 languages and smoke marijuana. Yeah? Well they’re cheating!” Times change, people change, and problems arise when the system doesn’t change with those times. This is the time (actually, it’s past the time).
I shall repeat, you or anyone else has the right to challenge any claim you consider bullshit. Which you haven’t done, except to claim it is bullshit. To refresh your memory, here is what you objected to. It is the highlighted part:
So, if you consider it bullshit, why? Come on, smart guy, you know so much. Or are you actually of the opinion that a hospital closing in a community has no cost associated with it? That there is no negative effect to its closing?
So MEChA is being demonized again? They were a student body organization at my university and I was a member of one of their subcommittees. I remember professors talking about a time when they were considered a radical and subversive group, but it didn’t seem believable. I guess we’ve turned full circle.
Does somebody have a link to a site that delves into the evil that is MEChA? I’d love to see that.
but what you are really saying is that we have no information that the event has ever occurred, therefore you are free to post it as a negative hypothetical, but no one else is permitted to challenge your use of this unsubstantiated hypothetical because you carefully avoided actually providing evidence?
Then, you get to get mad that the hypothetical (which you have chosen not to support with evidence) is being challenged with actual information?
That is a pretty clever method of argumentation, but I am unimpressed. Based on your premise, a person opposing your postion could post “How do you calculate the collapse of the Social Security System based on a lack of young workers entering the job market after you have eliminated all the people you are going to throw out of the country?” and you would be forbidden to respond since they did not provide any actual figures to be rebutted.