How long are we going to continue comparing people who take charge of their own destiny and assume risks to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their future generations (EXACTLY what all of us would do in the same situation, and don’t even try to pretend otherwise) to murderers?
Please. That’s not the point of the comparison and you know it.
However, if I decided to take charge of my own destiny(although how someone can be in charge of what is predetermined, necessary, and preordained is a bit beyond me) and assume the risk of dealing drugs in order to make a better life for my family, would that be excusable? How about smuggling guns? Defrauding insurance companies? Becoming a slumlord? Where do you draw the line with regard to breaking the law so that your family will be better off?
:rolleyes: No. Our current immigration law makes less sense than leaving up those 45MPH Speed Limit signs on the freeway, on the weekends when the construction workers they’re there to protect aren’t around. You know-- those speed limits everyone breaks, usually to the tune of much more than 15mph, which is criminal in most states. Ever done that? Would you object to me calling you “an illegal” or “a criminal”? What about waitpersons and pizza delivery drivers, who pretty much as an open secret under-report their tips on their taxes every year? Can I just call them illegals? Or criminals?
Of course I can’t. Of course you’d object to me calling you an illegal.
Why?
Because breaking the law is something you do, not something you are. There are huge cultural undertones to calling someone “an illegal”. It’s saying, you live against our laws. Our laws are how we codify the definition of ourselves as a culture. You are not like us. It’s xenophobic.
And some laws are just made to be broken. Trust me, if immigration were the problem the media tries to scare us into thinking it is, there would’ve been a impregnable fence along our border faster than you can say Berlin Wall. It’s not like building one is a financial or logistical challenge to the world’s sole superpower. There are good reasons that these people want to come here and are able to get here.
Seriously? :dubious:
Ok, comparing immigration to murder, drug smuggling, insurance fraud, weapons-dealing, and slumlording is perfectly cromulent?
Well, Contrapuntal, you know who you remind me of? Hitler. Oh please, the point is not that you’re a raving lunatic mass-murdering racist, just that you’re human, male (I presume), you have hair, two eyes, 10 fingers, etc. Just like Hitler!
And you know who your mother reminds me of? A whore! No, no, I’m not saying she prostitutes herself, that would be rude. Gosh, how dare you accuse me of such! I just mean to say that she is female, presumably wears makeup at times, logically must’ve had sex at some point, seeing as you’re here. Just like a whore!
Pardon me if I “misinterpreted” the comparisons :rolleyes:.
And yet, no one objects when speeders and tax cheats are arrested and prosecuted. No one claims that speeders and tax cheats are being singled out as law breakers. No one claims that the laws against speeding and tax fraud are bad laws and should be taken off the books.
OK. Forget my comparisons, just answer the question. At what point does breaking the law fail to be an excuse for acquiring money to give to my family. Seriously.
When the law makes sense.
That’s not an answer, unless you are suggesting that a person is only bound by laws that he comprehends. Are you?
I want a real life situation, like illegal immigration, for instance. That is justified, in your book. Is anything else?
And FTR - not that it’s ultra-relevant to my larger point - people complain excessively about the 2 laws I mentioned. That’s part of why I chose them as examples (the other part was the fact that breaking them is pretty much ubiquitous.)
Yeah, if people want to posssess and smoke pot as long as they’re not driving high or blowing the shit in my face I have absolutely no problem with it. Know anyone who has broken that one? Do you call them an “illegal”?
FWIW, I’m drawing the line somewhere between “traveling to another country and working your ass off at menial low wage jobs.” and “insurance fraud”.
Not lately. I did, however, smoke pot in my youth. I was arrested, jailed, tried, and convicted. And you know what? “Pot laws don’t make sense” was not a viable defense. Nor was “I was only grabbing destiny by the horns.”
But more importantly, what does smoking pot have to do with making a better life for your family? It’s that justification that I’m trying to understand. I thought I made that clear. In fact, I know I made that clear.
Did you mean “travelling illegally to another country”?
Is that as specific as you can get? This is a serious question. Illegal immigrant is justified, but insurance fraud isn’t? What if it’s just a small amount of money, and your family really needs it?
And your point is-? Because you got punished for a law that doesn’t make sense, you want others to be punished for a law that doesn’t make sense?
Sorry, I forgot your original question because I already answered it: When the law makes sense. I thought you were just asking for an example of another law that doesn’t make sense, that I’m ok with being broken.
If you want me to be more specific in response to your original question, well, I can’t. It’s a personal moral choice. I had a great uncle who held up a gas station back in the '50s for money to feed his family. Did a bid in San Quentin for it. Was he right? I dunno, probably not. No one called him an illegal, though.
You asked me where you draw the line, and I gave you a range. Where do YOU draw the line? Speeding? What if I’m trying to get my kid’s asthma inhaler to him before he dies?
Where you draw the line is arbitrary, but I can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of folks are going to draw the line somewhere beyond “complete adherence to the letter and intent of every single statute on the books, under all circumstances”, and somewhere before “armed robbery, because you want a new TV”. Once you allow that it’s “ok” to break a law (like speeding) to secure the health and welfare of your family, you are now just negotiating price. You don’t get to declare the other side ethically deficient because they’d allow something a bit farther along the continuum than you would.
Not at all. Just that one shouldn’t complain when he is arrested for breaking the law. And I’ll add an intensifier. One really shouldn’t complain when he enters another country with the express intent of breaking the law. When he knows it’s illegal and does it anyway. An alien has no standing whatsoever to break US laws on the grounds that they don’t make sense to him, or that his idea of his destiny is counter to his experience. Let him enter legally, become a citizen, and work within the system to change the law. That’s what I have to do. Why should he be held to a lower standard then me?
Did anyone call him a criminal? Would it really make any difference if people stopped saying “illegal immigrants” and started saying" “scofflaws who immigrated illegally”? I mean, they are scofflaws, aren’t they? Surely you can’t object to that?
I’d say go for it. But would your position be that you didn’t break a law, and therefore should not be punished, or would you pay the fine without complaint?
That’s a bit of a straw man. If as many as ten million people or more are here illegally, it hardly seems like pedantry or nitpicking to see it as a serious issue.
But you do get to call an entrenching tool an entrenching tool, and an illegal immigrant an illegal immigrant. It’s what they are.
Well, we disagree there. If they suddenly outlawed whistling tomorrow you better believe I’m gonna complain like a motherfuck when I’m arrested for whistling.
Heh. Never tried that, have you?
The difference is that he held someone at gunpoint (psychological damage) and stole money from someone (financial damage.) Those damn scofflaw illegal immigrants have the nerve to come over here, boost our economy, prop up our social security system which they pay into but never draw from, and do jobs no one else wants to do.
I’d pay, however
had to break the law in an effort to get life saving medication to their child, would you
a) see it as a serious issue, and crack down on these scofflaws, maybe increase the penalties or put more effort into enforcement
b) see it as a serious issue, and try to figure out a way to craft the law so that ten million people, or more, didn’t feel they had to to break the law for the sake of their families.
In Mexico? If Mexico outlawed whistling you would make a point of going to Mexico, whistling up a storm, and complain about it?
So you’re saying it’s a net gain, and that’s why the laws should be ignored? That’s where we disagree. That may or may not be an argument for the laws to be changed, but it’s not much of an argument for ignoring the laws altogether.
And it isn’t clear to me that they have propped up our social security system. I guess I’ll have to ask for some evidence for that.
Are they US citizens? If so, b). If not, a).
I honestly don’t see why it is our job to be the safety net for the world. Why should we craft our laws so that foreign nationals benefit? Is France paying my doctor bills? England? China? We either restrict immigration, or we open our borders to everyone. The latter seems a bit naive.
Try busting into Germany without a visa and start demanding to be treated as a full fledged citizen. And get amnesty for the illegal border passage while you’re at it. See how that works for you.
Come on, you’ve been reasonably honest up until this point. Don’t start making strawmen now. Mexicans aren’t coming here just because it’s illegal to come here, so there really is no equivalency.
It’s one of the reasons the law should be changed. Should pot smokers all quit until it’s legalized? Seriously, should they? I don’t smoke the stuff but if other people want to I don’t see any reason for them to get old and die while waiting for it to be legalized. It’s a dumb law.
According to the National Immigration Law Center:
2nd cite:
Because we say we’re better than everyone else, so we might as well act like it? Because TJ said we’re all created equal, with certain unalienable rights endowed by our creator? How 'bout just because we can?