posted
Of course I pick and choose laws I like. I tend to base how I've picked and chosen on things like outcomes and moral beliefs. For instance, if you actually look at Europe's immigration situation, you'd see it is even worse than ours in many places, largely due to populations of immigrants being preserved as second class members of society due to inability to achieve citizenship.
And you've picked and chosen parts of the Constitution you don't like -- assuming you like any of it, that is. You don't like the part that makes those born here citizens. Do you even read what you wrote a second earlier when you write?
I've already told you, I don't feel like going through two pages and countering all of them; that would be a waste of my time. How about you pick one argument you've already posted about immigration and quote it. I don't want you to say that whatever I tackle was just a minor argument. Pick something you think is a really good argument.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Lets take a look at our immigration situation then. I believe history will view sanctuary cities as one of the most racist policies in this nations history. It is justified with arguments about them doing jobs Americans are unwilling to do. We ignore our own laws so that we can import peasants to do work that is beneath us. We've replaced African slaves with South American Natives. Worst of all, our society actively ignores the laws of our nation to facilitate this. What if our government chose to ignore other laws, like desegrigation or voting rights for blacks and women? Talk about greed, govt greed. Fake social security numbers, numbers that do not have matching names or numbers being used simultaneously in numerous locations are picked up by the IRS. They ignore this because the revenue is coming in. Fail to pay your taxes and they'll come after you with penalties but they wont tell you your number is being used by ten illegal immigrants or go after the ones using it. Dems blocked E-verify, why? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,199861,00.htmlPosts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
I said pick one argument, and it should really be something you've said earlier (unless you're admitting those arguments were worthless?)
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Our short term outrage is used to manipulate us into agreeing with things. The mob is being manipulated. The 90% tax proposal on bonus money for example, it doesn't only apply to AIG, it applies to recipients of bailout money. The tentacles and strings are permeating society. Conveniently, the $250k limit is there, recieved bailout money and get a bonus you'll pay 90%. They discuss the sum of bonus money but many people received regular bonuses but we have a new tax that will never go away. We all recieved bailout money in one form or another, the state, the corporations or small businesses. "Don't let a good crisis go to waste"...Pelosi, Geitner.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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Back track here.... -Bailout passes -Obama admin tells Dodd to insert ammendment allowing bonuses -Dodd denies it -24 hours later Dodd admits it (his name on it) and drops the dime on "the administrations request" -Outrage from public -Outrage from Obama -Calls to get the money back from AIG -Now proposing taxes and limits on ALL executives (not just AIG)
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/economy/a/fannie_mae.htm Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Read and we'll discuss how this government creation failed and took the rest with it. Ironic it was created during the great depression but hey zero down, and no more red lining. Remember it went down first and held 40% of American mortgages.
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"the raids must end"... "kicking in doors and taking mothers and fathers is unamerican" "you are patriotic"
Our politicians are pandering to the illegal immigrants because of the potential energy of their vote. Their children will be voters, their decendents will be the largest voting block soon. The party that enforces current law will be known as the anti-immigrant party and lose future elections.
Immigration policy should be restrictive. New members of our society should be free of disease, have clean criminal backgrounds and contribute economically to our society. When my son had his two year checkup, the doctor asked if he had been in nursing homes or exposed to illegal immigrants. Questions to screen for exposure to TB, etc. He didn't like my answer, "We shop at Wal-Mart". Doctors are aware of the health risks involved with unscreaned immigration. Diseases we had licked that are prevalent in South America are resurging here. Meningitis, Drug Resistant TB, even Chagis Disease. A disease spread by insects not found in most of America. Ignore the law, ignore the health consequences, ignore the expense for incarceration, welfare, education and medical care. How has it become unamerican and racist to support the enforcement of current law?
quote:What do we do about the self serving, dishonest, heirs/heiresses?
Nothing. They're not a problem, really. The problem is the mob-swaying McCarthyistic Democratic party tricking all of us into thinking they are.
You know, I don't think I've ever heard anyone who uses 'mob' as a description for the people who was ever worth trusting on political issues.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: I love my mother an used her as an example of someone who would go against everything she believes in just to vote for a woman.
Do you love her enough to try and understand why she would do this, as opposed to insisting she's a dim-witted easily-manipulated sheep?
Unless you're assuming that there are no dim-witted easily-manipulated sheep, why would his love for his mother make her less likely to be one?
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posted
Politicians pander to everyone because of the potential energy of their vote. Even if support for laxer immigration is because of that, it isn't unusual or necessarily bad.
Current law keeps changing. Did you know that not long ago it was only a civil offense to be an illegal immigrant in many circumstances? Opponents (edit: not all, but many, including you ) to illegal immigration are not just some law-abiding do-gooders, they actively work to change the laws to make things worse.
I'm fine with immigrants being free of any diseases worth screening for, ditto for clean of major crimes. I'd much more prefer it if we greatly expanded our legal immigration processes so we could easily screen for those things, instead of being so restrictive in them that many immigrants feel the need to sneak across the border, making enforcement of standards very hard. Of course, illegal immigrants are lesslikely to commit crime, even before controlling for economic circumstance, so the crime aspect at least isn't too worrying. A good short-term way to deal with disease would be to train organizations already successful in working with poor and immigrant populations to perform free, anonymous screenings. It would only cost a few million dollars, and save many lives. That's not much of a cost to pay since immigration, including illegal immigration, improves the economy. And a lot of that economic improvement is funneled back in taxes, if you read the second link, there: illegal immigrants pay a lot more in taxes than they use in services.
And again, you aren't just for the enforcement of current law, you're for considerably more than that -- all the way up to amending the Constitution (remember the part of it you don't like?) So someone calling you racist isn't necessarily calling the parts of your position just involving current law racist.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: I do not believe in affirmative action....this makes me a racist right?
For what it's worth, while I don't know you well enough to know whether you're a racist or not, I was 100% sure you were a white guy well before I got a couple sentences below this one where you made it explicit.
Racist? Maybe not. Incredibly protective of your position at the top of the heap? Absolutely.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Unless you're assuming that there are no dim-witted easily-manipulated sheep, why would his love for his mother make her less likely to be one?
In and of itself, it wouldn't of course. That same love should make him try and understand, though, as opposed to scorning and holding in contempt.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Nothing. They're not a problem, really. The problem is the mob-swaying McCarthyistic Democratic party tricking all of us into thinking they are.
If by not a problem you mean that in the same way as an appendix is no longer a problem if it's already burst.
I think we're all in this mess together. But anyway you slice it the obscenely rich have more tools at their disposal to help solve the problem. Taking money they don't deserve is not one of these tools.
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posted
As far as progressive income tax, I like to look at that in terms of how much the tax actually costs a person. Let's say you are poor. If I take 10% of your income, you don't eat. If you are middle class (and by that I mean under 100k a year), then that 10% is your kid's college and retirement. If you are wealthy, then that 10% is vacations and if you are obscenely wealthy, you may not even notice it. So, a flat tax doesn't strike me as fair, because why should a poor person be going hungry to pay their taxes while a rich person isn't even noticing the taxes. The poorer you are, the more money means to you. I am not saying to take so much that the rich are having trouble feeding themselves, but it is hard for me to feel too much pity for the 4% income tax raise.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote: Michigan, Oregon, California and DC have the highest unemployment rates in the nation...what do they have in common? The lowest unemployment rates go to Wyoming and North Dakota....what do they have in common?
Well, the former group is heavily populated and racially diverse. The latter is sparsely populated and not racially diverse.
On the other hand, California's economy is the equal of more than all the others combined, and the population of North Dakota could fit into just one of a dozen cities in the former group- you might as well take a plum example of a city in California with low unemployment, and compare it to the rest of the places you mentioned to see "what's different."
I can only assure you that the presence of brown people with funny accents is not the chief contributor to statewide unemployment anywhere. It is, on the other hand, a nice bugbear for xenophobes like yourself to kick around.
Forgive me if you are an immigrant, (certainly doesn't sound like you are) but being one myself, as well as an American, I have learned a few things. Chiefly, "doing things the legal way," even in socially and technologically advanced countries, is almost unheard of- and there's a reason. The legal process for entering most countries is so intentionally underdeveloped, so starved of efficient administration and even comprehensible public information, that it is an unmanageable proposition. Even in places like the Czech Republic, where a visa could ostensibly be obtained in three months from any Czech consulate in the US, it is so unheard of (and administratively cumbersome, requiring the translation of myriad documents and certificates and justifications for entry) that most employers simply ask their employees to enter the country as tourists, and apply while living here, which is in most cases flirting with illegality, if not outright illegal. Still, it is absolutely expected.
Don't fool yourself about "the legal way." You're not in the position of someone who is willing and able to do a job someone wants to hire you for, even if you don't speak the local language- and so find yourself flirting with danger simply by virtue of wishing to contribute to society.
I'd just love to see a flesh and blood example of a lazy good-for-nothing Mexican immigrant who came to the US to get their fat kids the precious and sought after breakfast and lunch at public school, and spend all their free time getting their bunions checked at the local ER, while they wait for their welfare check, and sneak their pregnant wives into the country to give birth to citizens of the US. This person is, I imagine, perennially dirty, drunk, napping on cacti, and after 20 years in the country, never learns a word of English.
No, wait, these people work 14 hour days and send all their money to their families, while contributing to the local economy by way of their underpaid labor, rip off check-cashing services, and sales tax. The GALL!
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
If you are going to suggest that people on welfare shouldn't be allowed to vote, what about the people work who own and work for a companies that receives government contracts, what about all the people directly employed by the government (including the entire military), or anyone who attends or has attended or worked for a University that gets government grants, or all the CEOs who are benefiting from government bailouts.
There is virtually no one in this country that could be considered a neutral party when it comes to government spending. If you are worried about people voting their own pocketbook, welfare recipients aren't even on the radar. Look at the data and you'll see that corporate leaders and the wealthy are far more likely to vote for the party that favors their economic bottom line with "corporate welfare" (i.e. the Republicans) than are the poor and underprivileged.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote: I do not believe in affirmative action....this makes me a racist right?
For what it's worth, while I don't know you well enough to know whether you're a racist or not, I was 100% sure you were a white guy well before I got a couple sentences below this one where you made it explicit.
Racist? Maybe not. Incredibly protective of your position at the top of the heap? Absolutely.
Inasmuch as affirmative action was meant to do something pretty different from what it is publicly perceived to do, not liking affirmative action doesn't make you racist.
Now, not liking the *intent* of affirmative action (which, for those keeping score was to make itself obsolete by raising the standard in the pool of qualified black candidates for various things, in order to achieve equal representation *and* similar levels of achievement, *without* artificially enhancing the opportunities of individuals based on race), probably would make you a bit of a racist, or at least a jackass.
Now, that all aside, I just think your probably a racist because of all the ignorant and myopic things you've said here, which I would be surprised to find weren't supported by a good dose of a) ignorance, and b) racism.
You're not the first, and you won't be the last. It's one of those things that no one ever thinks they are. But in truth, everybody is capable of being a little bit racist. You maybe more than most.
Edit: your, "I don't see a black man, I just see a man" line snagged on something for me. I have a black uncle, a middle aged man who's been in the family only about 12 years or so, but who's been at every christmas and thanksgiving since he married my aunt. I adore him, and respect him. I also see him as black. In fact, I think of it as more than a little insulting that one would be compelled to assure my uncle that he was "just a man," and not "a black man." He is a black man- he wouldn't be my uncle if he wasn't, he would be someone else. If you aren't secure in that notion, I wonder how many black people you've actually met in your life.
I know, I know, you'll say you've known lots. I wonder what they thought of you.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I suppose you'll argue we should bring in disease riddled, criminal, uneducated leaches.
Absolutely not. I take an unwavering "no invertebrates" stance.
That strikes me as rather difficult to enforce. Especially on any border with waterways.
Practicality be damned, think how many problems we would have avoided if we'd never let those killer African bees across the border.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Unless you're assuming that there are no dim-witted easily-manipulated sheep, why would his love for his mother make her less likely to be one?
In and of itself, it wouldn't of course. That same love should make him try and understand, though, as opposed to scorning and holding in contempt.
Do you think that the two really are incompatible, that if you really understand where they're coming from, it is impossible to hold it in scorn and contempt?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Do you think that the two really are incompatible, that if you really understand where they're coming from, it is impossible to hold it in scorn and contempt?
On this particular issue, on the idea that someone who votes for a candidate because they are a woman and so is the candidate? I hesitate to use the word 'impossible' in matters of human thoughts and opinions, but I'd say that yes, in this case it is impossible, or rather that it should be impossible.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Doesn't that means that you believe there are no reasons worthy of scorn and contempt that would cause somebody to vote primarily on the basis of the candidate's gender?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Practicality be damned, think how many problems we would have avoided if we'd never let those killer African bees across the border.
posted
No. I'm talking specifically about this case, about malanthrop and his mother and the situation as he has described it.
Furthermore, voting for someone primarily on the basis of gender isn't even an accurate description of the situation. It's not just the candidate's gender under discussion, it's also the voter's gender.
I'm not a fan of demographic voting, but it's something to take into account. If someone is a member of an underrepresented, economically (among other things) discriminated against group and they choose to vote for someone of that group, in the hopes that that will help uplift their entire group? I'm not prepared to shrug that off as sheep-like manipulation.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
At the news of the Obama victory, Colin Powell cried.
A little old lady that I know, who I had never ever heard speak a cross word about anyone said of Obama: "Not even the antichrist could have such a great following by speaking so much without saying anything."
Blessed Martin Luther King JR. said: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
("Blessed", because the Catholic Church declared him a Martyr.)
We are a long ways from realizing that dream, I suspect, because people without character profit by the division.
I am going on vacation.... Back in a few weeks.
Posts: 83 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:A little old lady that I know, who I had never ever heard speak a cross word about anyone said of Obama: "Not even the antichrist could have such a great following by speaking so much without saying anything."
*sigh* If she compared the antichristfavorably to Obama, I'm shall we say super-extremely-doubtful that you were actually ever around her very much to hear her say cross words about people.
quote:We are a long ways from realizing that dream, I suspect, because people without character profit by the division.
There are people without character everywhere.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
ambyr, I'm glad that I checked back here. Yes, he cried from happiness, relief, a dream come true.
As for the little old lady, I know her well. As you probably know, what a person says only makes up about 7% of communication. The rest is tone of voice and body language. The little old lady did not have a bitter tone but one of perplexity and wonder at the Obama following. This was during the campaign. She simply could not understand his appeal. But then only 7% of communication is what is said. (smile)
Posts: 83 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote: I do not believe in affirmative action....this makes me a racist right?
For what it's worth, while I don't know you well enough to know whether you're a racist or not, I was 100% sure you were a white guy well before I got a couple sentences below this one where you made it explicit.
Racist? Maybe not. Incredibly protective of your position at the top of the heap? Absolutely.
I am certainly not at the top of the heap. I live pay check to pay check in a 1100 square foot house with a family of four. But being light skinned, you would assume so? Or maybe only a white, rich person could have conservative ideals. The difference is, I know I've earned what I have and I do not look to other groups for blame where I am lacking nor do I jealously covet the wealth of another man. A wealthy person gives me a job in a wonderful country where an African American can be the President of the United States. It's a great nation where the American Dream is alive and well. Achievement is there for all who work for it. The victim mind set is a means of control. Maybe the whites and blacks should band together against the greedy evil Muslim Americans and Asian Americans, they have a higher average income than whites and blacks. They must be secretly keeping us all down:)
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Oddly enough, it is rarely the top of the heap that is the most hotly contested; it is the position second to the bottom.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: I do not believe in affirmative action....this makes me a racist right?
For what it's worth, while I don't know you well enough to know whether you're a racist or not, I was 100% sure you were a white guy well before I got a couple sentences below this one where you made it explicit.
Racist? Maybe not. Incredibly protective of your position at the top of the heap? Absolutely.
I am certainly not at the top of the heap. I live pay check to pay check in a 1100 square foot house with a family of four. But being light skinned, you would assume so? Or maybe only a white, rich person could have conservative ideals. The difference is, I know I've earned what I have and I do not look to other groups for blame where I am lacking nor do I jealously covet the wealth of another man. A wealthy person gives me a job in a wonderful country where an African American can be the President of the United States. It's a great nation where the American Dream is alive and well. Achievement is there for all who work for it. The victim mind set is a means of control. Maybe the whites and blacks should band together against the greedy evil Muslim Americans and Asian Americans, they have a higher average income than whites and blacks. They must be secretly keeping us all down:)
Heap-pile. Pile of what are you inferring? Nope, I'm not at the top but I'm proud of what I have and some day I hope to be near or at the top of the heap, yes. I worked full time and was a full time college student. I paid 40k in student loans. I'm completing my MBA. I always study and complete certifications. I came from a very poor family but have worked hard to improve my situation. That's how it works, hard work pays off. I must be greedy because I see no reason to even pay for my own children's college education. Yes, I intend to help them but what is earned is valued. Wait for the government to do it for you and you'll stay exactly where you are. A useful idiot pleading for scraps from the table, angry with the guy sitting at the table. A wealthy person "hired" me for my qualifications, resort to symantics if you like. Not really getting your point.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
I assumed financial since this is the current focus. IE "build the economy from the bottom up" or on the other side "trickle down". I view economic situations, maybe his focus was race which wouldn't be suprising since he keeps going back to that. Are you suggesting Whites are the top of society? I'm the supposed racist here and I wouldn't even think of that.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Nope, I wouldn't. I sit next to many fine blacks, hispanics, women and filipino's in my office every day. They are paid as much or more than I and they have earned every penny of it. They are qualified "people". My father is a member of the Ojibwe nation and I can't even speculate what race my wife might be (she was adopted). I see a beautiful person.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Not sure, I'm in the middle somewhere. I can't see the bottom or the top but I'm trying to claw my way through it.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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