American racist immigration history: 2,000,000 hits
America not racist: 13,000,000 hits
America greatest country: 136,000,000 hits
Guess that settles that.
I suggest you simply read those portions of this thread that discussed annexation. While I’m no fan of the idea, surely you see a difference in a nation simply seeking to expand it’s dominion and impose it’s culture, and one that might consider the idea to 1) help a poor country that has a woefully inadequate economic infrastructure, and 2) to, at the same time, help the people of that country have better lives so that they no longer feel such a strong need to sneak into our country illegally (often risking their lives in the process) and stick us with all the costs discussed previously in this thread.
Settles what? That has to be the lamest and most moronic argument I’ve ever seen! Denial, although completely expected, gets you nowhere.
"Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed that the United States, because it was a “civilized nation,” had the right to stop “chronic wrongdoing” throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship,” he said. “Chronic wrongdoing, however, . . . may force the United States to exercise an international police power.” "
“This land is my land, your land is my land.
From Minnesota, to the Lacadona
From the redwood forest, to the Chiapas highlands
This land was made for me, not you.” *
You mean like we’ve done with Iraq ? When we napalm Meixco City and rape Mexican children, I’m sure the people of Mexico will appreciatiate how much “better” we’ve made everything.
Taking over Mexico for our own profit is not “helping” them.
America not racist: 13,000,000 hits
America is wonderful: 40,000,000 hits
America is moral: 37,000,000 hits
America perfect country: 44,000,000 hits
America is heaven: 20,000,000 hits
Are you kidding? This is a major stretch, even for you. You’re implying that—wait, there’s so much wrong with your statment I don’t know where to begin. Let’s make it simple:
The talk is of annexing Mexico (with their agreement, I might add).
We are not attempting to annex Iraq.
We are at war in Iraq: There is no war with Mexico.
And I don’t even know where you get the raping children bit.
The fact that you try to equate the two just shows that your hatred for the current adminstration is short-circuiting your thought processes. Breeeeeaaathe.
Can you show me how “taking over” Mexico (which FTR, I do not advocate), whether for our own profit or not, necessarily precludes the possibility of them being helped by the action?
Turning it into a conquered puppet state is close enough.
There would be if we tried to take them over. A guerilla war at the very least.
Part of the prisoner abuse scandal; there have been accusations that children were raped to intimidate and terrorize parents. I believe it; it’s the sort of thing we’d do.
Annex against will = take over. It won’t help because we don’t help; we exploit, torment and destroy. We could help, but we won’t.
You focused on one half-sentence and ignored the rest…
I see that you jump to many false conclusions on a whim. I wrote the paper for a college english class when I was about 19 or 20 back in 1982. The teacher wanted us to try to convince the class of something that was marginally outrageous to outrageous (“Swiftian” in nature). I actually remember 23 years ago that I wrote this thing, which is amazing in itself. But does it make me a racist?
NO.
What you failed to realize, CBEscapee, is that I used it as a launching point to touch on the REAL problems that Mexico and their leaders have and how their attitudes towards their internal problems affect other countries, but you seemed to have glossed over or became “temporarily blind” beyond the first half of my first sentence. The word “annexation” really did a number on you I suppose. You really need to see a doctor about that. And I also doubt that you have read any of the links that I have provided, in this thread or any other related threads. Naw, that’s too hard for you, but sniping from afar is just too easy to pass up, or playing “Hot Potato” with the term “racist”.
Has the immigration policy towards Mexico been guided by racism over the years? Probably. What about the Illegal Immigration Policy? No…because those laws are not being enforced. I’m pissed that our own country will not enforce laws that it has in its books, which is insulting to citizens who legally immigrate here or native…I have in-laws (immigrants) who have also expressed this. I think I will tell them that they are racist too…thanks for “opening” my eyes. :rolleyes:
Sniping is best done in the dark…and you are living proof of it. If I am a racist, then by my own actions as a relative, friend and an employer, I am human racist.
Seymour Hersh has claimed the US government has videotapes of it, along with the other torture pictures. Google Rape Children Abu Ghraib for more examples.
This thread is about an internal problem of the US. There are several around here that are trying lay the blame on poor government in Mexico. What about the inaction of the US government to correct their internal problem?
Have they done anything effective to reduce the amount of people crossing the border other than placing physical barriers( fences and increased border patrol) in their paths?
If it is such a large problem as some people around here would like everyone to believe then why don’t we see the US doing anything about it? Or is the American economy dependent upon exploitation of illegal workers?
Why doesn’t the US punish the Americans that hire the illegals? Wouldn’t that go a long ways toward deterrent? What about removing the huge farm subsidies that contribute a great deal toward problems in the Mexican (and many other countries) countryside ? It is pretty hard to compete with artificially low agribusiness prices supported by billions of dollars US taxpayer welfare.
I’ve largely dropped out of this discussion, because it seemed to me that it was starting to be largely founded on various people’s conceptions and misconceptions of problems and potential solutions, rather than being fact-based. Those debates go nowhere.
But let me jump in to say that, however scandalous Yeticus’s comments may seem, he has touched on a problem. It is not a one-nation problem; just as Canada may rightly criticize the U.S. for actions that impact negatively on them (timber import restrictions, anyone?), so the U.S. can rightly criticize Mexico for not dealing with their own problems.
However well or poorly Mexican immigrants, legal or otherwise, may be assimilated into American (US) culture, the fact that we have a rather large number of them is due to problems in the Mexican society and economy that preclude them from getting ahead by doing there what they are successfully doing here.
I don’t think you solve that by the absurdist notion of taking over Mexico or even some variant on “gunboat diplomacy,” but it’s definitely worth noting that the cause of the extensive immigration is not in U.S. policy but in Mexican.
I’m sorry, but your “addition” that our annexation of Mexico would be “with their agreement” seems to be in direct conflict with the actual words used by Aeschines
As to the initial objection that it would have been imperialist, I see no way for you to deny that based on the statement by Aeschines:
Now, if you want to argue that U.S. imperialism and culture should be forced on other people, argue away, but changing the clear meaning of actual remarks of the person who made the initial proposal puts your claim that some wonderful joint effort was proposed under a serious shadow. Yes, we are at war in Iraq, but that was based on the claim (from time to time) that we were going to bestow American democracy on them (whether they liked it or asked for it or not).
Well, I’ve read the article and I saw references to exploitation by large landholders (analogous to practices in the U.S.), harrassment and abuse by criminal gangs and, to a lesser extent, by local police forces (analogous to the U.S.), with reports that the fedral enforcement agency (in this case, the Mexican Army), appears to inflict far fewer abuses (analogous to the U.S.). On the other hand, I saw reports that the effort is made to return illegal immigrants into Mexico to their actual home towns and that Mexico has made an attempt to establish a zone of industry within the “supplier” countries to reduce their need to “export” their citizens. Neither of these is actually analogous to actions by the U.S. (which habitually dumps suspected illegal aliens in random locations in Mexico, (in at least one case actually including a U.S. citizen) and whose efforts to assist the Mexican economy basically amount to the passage of NAFTA.)
If the Mexican government is engaged in some wholesale racist practices, it does not seem to have made it into that article.
I don’t think so. I read Aeschines’s idea as being a non-military one, much like the annexation of Hawaii. In rereading his statement, I could be wrong, but I do not think it is clear from what he supplied. I’d like to ask him.
I took that as a cavalier addendum offered after his point was made in full. Not that the annexation he hypothecized was going to be achieved by means employed in 1840. I would not view an agreement between two neighboring countries, where one country wants and agrees to be annexed by the other, as imperialistic.
I’ve argued no such thing, and you know it. Or, at least, would have known it if you read carefully:
I even objected to the poster equating annexing with “taking over” by putting it in quotes. “Taking over” seemed to necessarily imply aggression, whereas the annexation Aeschines suggested did not. At least, as I said, that’s how I read it.
This is not correct. While we wanted/want them to become a democracy, we were under no illusions that it would be the American strain. I’m surprised that you would adopt the America Sucks posture in order to attempt to win a point.
I think the rest of your post was intended for someone else.
You really do need to dig up the Wolfowitz term paper that was the guiding scripture for the neo-cons. They actively operated on the belief I described, beginning years before the 2000 election, and GWB bought into it before he was elected. That was the whole point behind lying about terrorist associations, lying about WoMD, and generally lying about the sun rising.
The reading comprehension issue is not on my part. I noted that if you wanted to make a case for imperialism, you are free to do so, but that there was no claim for “mutual association” in the manner that you had (mis)read the post by Aeschines.
Shall we consider lands historically associated with annexation?
Savoy by France (with its suspicious 99% favorable “plebescite” despite being prohibited to vote for Switzerland)
Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria
Pacific Islands by European powers, culminating in:
Hawaii by the U.S.
Sudetenland by Germany
Austria by Germany
Golan Heights by Israel
And the cries of several prominent people in 1846 were that we annex Mexico at that time.
Now, there have been annexations that were either mutual or neutral, (Texas, for example), but in a post that promotes annexing Mexico and alludes favorably to the earlier war on that country, and which makes no mention of mutual association, only annexation, and in which the poster claims that our culture should be imposed on our entire continent, I really have no idea where you dragged up the idea that there was any suggestion that the annexation would include the willingness (or even the permisssion) of the subjected peoples.
In simplistic terms it is a matter of supply and demand. The US demands low wage workers, Mexico supplies them. Where does this put the onus solely on Mexico? If the US was serious about curtailing illegal immigration why don’t they sanction the people hiring them? Would they continue to cross the border if they couldn’t find work?
In the history of US immigration policy, the US industrialists have used low wage immigrant workers as leverage against paying higher wages to native workers. Is it a coincidence that trade unionism membership is inversely proportional to immigration rates?
Economic conditions in Mexico create a sizable amount of people willing to fill the need in the US for low wage workers but political conditions in the US create the opportunities. If the American people don’t want the illegal aliens in their country then they should pressure their own politicians to do something about it. But I doubt there is enough support for highly restrictive measures amongst the powers that be and whether the American public is willing to accept the consequences of a strict clamp down.
It case you skimmed over some of this page, in Post 114 Yeticus Rex cited the post by Aeschines (omitting the 1840 reference, I might add) and said that he had kicked around the same idea in a term paper years ago. The tenor of the rest of his post had nothing in it to lead me to believe that his annexation idea involved force. If you reread his post I think you will agree:
In Post 116, BrainGlutton brought back an early post by mswas, which further reinforced my assessment of the general tenor of the discussion to be one of non-aggression:
Moving along, in post 118 CBEscapee cited quotes by both Yeticus Rex and Aeschines (again, omitting the 1840 mention) and provided his drive-by comments with unsupported claims of racism.
In Post 123, Der Trihs offered his usually measured analysis:
You’ll note that he used the phrase “taking over”, where others had used annexation. I drew attention to that alteration in my Post 125:
I hope that helps you understand my thinking.
One thing I would draw your attenion to, and I only bring it up because I think it so unfair when a poster does it to me, is that your characterization of Post 78 by Aeschines was not accurate.
You said:
He said:
As you know, seeing something as desireable does not equate with a willingness to impose it.
I think I’ve identified the problem. Your impressive and vastly superior grasp of history (that of annexations in this case) that you reflexively call up from memory has rendered you incapable of conversing with mere mortals.
Seriously, as a point of discussion, this is interesting fodder. But I can assure you that the idea of annexation that formed in my head during the discussion was not as comprehensive as yours. For one, those of Savoy and Sudetenland never even entered my brain until now. Maybe, having lived in Hawaii, the connotations that I associate with the word are skewed to more easily encompass the non-militaristic flavor.
Can we move on now?
P.S. I still owe you a response to your Post #102. The numbers were helpful, and I found some that may shed light on a previous discussion we had regarding rates of assimilaton. I will try to get to it shortly. But thanks for the effort put into the post. Dealing with those numbers alone is a major pain.
