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Author Topic: Artists to boycott performing in Arizona until immigration law is repealed
Lisa
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Orincoro, I don't give half a s*** about how much melanin a person has in their skin. And if Jews were constantly violating a particular law, I'd expect Jews to be targeted by law enforcement.
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Chris Bridges
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Now, to argue the other side...

I do not believe it is true that any race is predisposed to crime. I do believe that people on the low end of the economic scale -- for whatever reason -- do tend to commit the most violent crimes, and in many cases -- for whatever reasons -- the local poor community is often composed of minorities.

So when you're a cop, and you spend years getting called to catch a murderer wearing a green hat, and arresting spouse-beaters who wear green hats, and green-hatted drug dealers and green-hatted rapists and green-hatted child abusers, and maybe you've been shot or knifed by someone wearing a green hat, or one of your buddies got killed by a green hatter, and you constantly patrol run-down areas rife with crime you're too understaffed to do anything about and damn near everyone is wearing a green hat and they all look at you like they're getting away with something... I can see where you'd tend to start making assumptions about anyone you saw wearing a green hat. Maybe not even deliberate assumptions, maybe just an unconscious paranoia that nonetheless affects how you deal with green-hatted people, no matter how innocent.

Because cops, for the most part, don't deal with many innocent people. And when you're outnumbered and fighting a battle you know you'll never win, it might make sense to become the aggressor.

This doesn't justify racial profiling. It doesn't excuse it. It doesn't make it right. But it does help me understand why someone would do it.

(I'm not talking about those people who consider other races to be less-than-human, mind you. I have no time at all for out-and-out bigots. And yup, plenty of white people commit violent crimes. And there is certainly plenty of crime on every level of the economic scale, but beat cops rarely investigate, say, corporate embezzlement.)

I haven't changed my mind, I still think this is a bad law.

But.

Illegal immigration is a very real problem, it is very bad in Arizona, and there is a need for some sort of relief. I can't fault them for trying something. I just think this is going to cause more trouble.

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Chris Bridges
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Having posted that, I now offer you this: some studies, including one by the FBI, seem to indicate that levels of violent crime are lower in high-immigrant cities.
quote:
The FBI numbers show that in the midst of the supposed crime wave, many other cities in the Southwest have had declines in crime similar to Phoenix. El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from a ferocious drug war in Juarez, where some 5,000 people have been murdered in recent years, saw almost no change in its own crime rate and remains one of the safest cities in the country, with only 12 murders last year. San Antonio saw violent crime drop from 9,699 incidents to 7,844; murders from 116 to 99. Compare that with a city like Detroit, which is a little bigger than El Paso and much smaller than San Antonio—and not exactly a magnet for job-seeking immigrants. Its murder rate went up from 323 in 2008 to 361 in 2009.
The point is made that making immigrants, legal and otherwise, terrified to talk to police will make the police's job that much harder. And chasing down illegals takes resources away from chasing down crooks.
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rollainm
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quote:
I don't give half a s***
Who'd want to receive one? Just sayin'...
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DarkKnight
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quote:
Meanwhile, in Canada, both foreign passports and PR cards aren't required to be on your person at all times
PR cards are not the same thing...of course Canada has different rules Mexicans in regards to immigration. Does this imply that Canada is racist towards Hispanics?
Mexican Visa
quote:
Under Canada’s immigration law, all visitors to Canada require a Temporary Resident Visa, except citizens of countries for which an exemption has been granted under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.

Canada assesses countries against several criteria when deciding whether to impose a visa requirement. Mexico no longer meets all of the criteria for visa exemption. For example, refugee claims from Mexico have almost tripled since 2005, making it the number one source country for claims. In 2008, more than 9,400 claims filed in Canada came from Mexican nationals, representing 25 per cent of all claims received. Of the claims reviewed and finalized in 2008 by the Immigration and Refugee Board, an independent administrative tribunal, only 11 per cent were accepted.

For the past three years, Canada has also seen an increase in immigration violations. This includes Mexican nationals not possessing the proper travel documents or not leaving Canada once their period of stay had expired.


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scholarette
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More analogous to the Canadian immigration laws would be to look at US immigration laws, which are quite similar with regards to treatment of Mexicans. Which is not what people are complaining about. Is Canada arresting its own citizens because they aren't carrying a birth certificate, though they are carrying a commercial driver's license (which is much harder to get than a normal one)? That's the equivalent and that is what Arizona has already done.
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
Orincoro, I don't give half a s*** about how much melanin a person has in their skin. And if Jews were constantly violating a particular law, I'd expect Jews to be targeted by law enforcement.

What if the law prohibited the observance of the faith? You'd still want people prosecuted for breaking it? When we believe a law is unjust, we do not want to see that law enforced. We want to see it repealed. Why you insist on this all or nothing approach I have no idea. I suppose you ought to be lobbying for anti-sodomy laws to be enforced more strictly in the states that still have them- clearly homosexuals are *breaking the law*.
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Mucus
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DK: Huh? Same thing as what precisely? In any case, PR cards are immigration documents.

Also, what on earth do temporary visa requirements have to do with racial profiling?

Practically all nations designate visitors from different states as requiring visas while waiving others.
In fact, if you compare, the, US and Canada they are pretty much the same on visa-free travel policy including Mexico. The differences apply mainly where Canada is more permissive toward Ukrainians, a small part of Africa, and islands around Oceania.

But as scholarette points out, this is all a tangent. We're not really discussing immigration laws as they apply to foreigners, we're discussing internal policies of regulating and enforcing immigration laws on citizens.

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DarkKnight
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quote:
Also, what on earth do temporary visa requirements have to do with racial profiling?
Because Canada specifically singles out Mexicans (and Czechs too for what that's worth) for this visa requirement.
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DarkKnight
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Toronto activists speaking out against Canadian immigration policies and abuses Canada seems to be having similar deportation issues...
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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by DarkKnight:
Because Canada specifically singles out Mexicans (and Czechs too for what that's worth) for this visa requirement.

First, no it doesn't. If you check the map, there are roughly three billion or more citizens of various countries that require visas to travel to Canada (or the US). Mexicans and Czechs aren't singled out.

Second, visa requirements are determined by citizenship, not by race.

Third, visa requirements apply to non-citizens before they arrive in Canada. The topic under discussion is racial profiling of people, citizens or non-citizens after they arrive in Arizona.

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Risuena
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quote:
Originally posted by Geraine:
My wife as been pulled over twice here in Las Vegas they ask to see her drivers license. There must be something in their system that flags her because they ask to see her green card as well. She doesn't have an issue with this at all, because she has nothing to worry about. She is here legally. [/QB]

Maybe your wife doesn't need to worry, but I would think most Puerto Ricans, being US citizens, wouldn't have to worry either. Yet a Puerto Rican man living in Chicago was recently threatened with deportation despite being a US citizen and producing state-issued identification and a birth certificate.
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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by DarkKnight:
Toronto activists speaking out against Canadian immigration policies and abuses Canada seems to be having similar deportation issues...

You seem to be jumping from topic to topic, when did we start talking about deportation issues? The new Arizona law doesn't seem to address deportation.
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Jhai
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And I'm still confused about the apparent moral here of "if Canada does something, it's okay/not bad if the US does it too". I don't really care about what Canada does or does not do - Canada, undoubtedly does a lot of things right and some things wrong. So what?

When Abhi & I travel to India, people give us different treatment because I'm white. Sometimes "different treatment" means charging a higher price, sometimes it means getting better service, sometimes it means getting (relatively) outrageous requests for bribes from corrupt police offices and other government officials. And of course, profiling on the basis of caste/skin tone/ethnicity of citizens is a huge issue throughout the country.

So, yeah, India has racial profiling issues - worse than the US, I'd say. But, again, why does that matter in a discussion about an Arizona law?

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
And I'm still confused about the apparent moral here of "if Canada does something, it's okay/not bad if the US does it too".

Oooh! Can we have Canadian health care?
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Parkour
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quote:
Originally posted by DarkKnight:
Toronto activists speaking out against Canadian immigration policies and abuses Canada seems to be having similar deportation issues...

I can answer that for you.

No, they are not.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:
Originally posted by DarkKnight:
Because Canada specifically singles out Mexicans (and Czechs too for what that's worth) for this visa requirement.

First, no it doesn't. If you check the map, there are roughly three billion or more citizens of various countries that require visas to travel to Canada (or the US). Mexicans and Czechs aren't singled out.

Second, visa requirements are determined by citizenship, not by race.

I think DK is referring to the fact that Czechs were for a time included in the visa-waiver group for Canada, just as they are currently in the US. However, they were "demoted" to requiring advance visas again because of a significant influx of Roma immigrants settling (mostly illegally) in Canada. So in the sense that the policy was changed specifically for Czechs for that specific reason, Czechs *have* been singled out for this requirement. They are not unique, but the difference is that they have now been specifically denied the access they once had.
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scifibum
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I think concerned artists would do better to perform in Arizona and donate proceeds to help fight the law (or reform immigration, or to a civil rights organization, etc.).
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Orincoro
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Why? The number of artists you can get involved in a boycott is probably larger than the number you can get to perform for free. A boycott is a more immediate action, and it can have real results if it's big enough- you put a dent in the state's income and rile up its people because they feel cut off and scorned for what their state is doing. Which is what they should feel.
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scholarette
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scifibum- losing tax revenues hurts the state. Considering how bad the state is doing, it hurts bad. In this case, denying the state the money from their visit is the most effective protest. Boycotts also worked when AZ refused to have a MLK Jr day, so there is reason to think they will work again.
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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
Boycotts also worked when AZ refused to have a MLK Jr day, so there is reason to think they will work again.
People boycotted AZ because they didn't celebrate the right holidays?

Let me tell you, that would have caused me to vote against MLK Jr. Day.

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rollainm
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Boycotts also worked when AZ refused to have a MLK Jr day, so there is reason to think they will work again.
People boycotted AZ because they didn't celebrate the right holidays?

Let me tell you, that would have caused me to vote against MLK Jr. Day.

I hadn't heard about this before. I think for me it would depend on the motivation behind the refusal to acknowledge the day.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Boycotts also worked when AZ refused to have a MLK Jr day, so there is reason to think they will work again.
People boycotted AZ because they didn't celebrate the right holidays?

Let me tell you, that would have caused me to vote against MLK Jr. Day.

Yes, the Super Bowl was moved out of Arizona in response to their refusing to observe MLK day.

People are already talking about doing it for the 2011 MLB All Star game now.

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scholarette
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The MLK JR thing was kinda confusing and weird. The legislature failed to pass the bill to authorize celebrating the holiday, so the governor passed a bill saying AZ would celebrate it. But then people said that was illegal and so there was a ballot initiative. So, the people had to vote on it. To make the vote nice and clear cut, they had a whole bunch of different initiatives on the ballot- add MLK Jr day, eliminate president's day or add MLK jr day eliminate nothing and I think combing president's day and MLK Jr day (this is from my memory- wiki's summary didn't include this info and I don't care enough to look beyond that). Which meant if you voted yes, no, no and someone else voted no, yes, no and a third voted no, no, yes then none of them got 50%-our paper said add up all the yes to one or the other and over 50% did vote for the day, but in combinations that didn't add up to any of the three passing. So, yeah, the MLK Jr day things had a lot of elements beyond race going on. My vague memory of why the legislature initially refused to pass it was financial concerns, but again, that was a long time ago.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White

Hard to find even the Gallows Humor in this story, so maybe we won’t even try. Maybe it’s time to admit that large chunks of America are in the hands of unreconstructed racists and vulgar idiots, and that the popular election of a black man as president just might’ve pushed these furious, economically doomed old white people into a final rage that is going to end very, very badly. Ready? Here you go: An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students to be changed to Caucasian skin. This is America, in 2010, and there’s a dozen more states and endless white-trash municipalities ready to Officially Adopt this same Official Racist Insanity.
From the Arizona Republic:
A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school. The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity ….
R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.
“We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars,” Wall said. “We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics).”
The children depicted on the mural, as we mentioned before but feel compelled to repeat, are little kids who go to the school — “a K-5 school with 380 students and the highest ethnic mix of any school in Prescott. Wall said thousands of town residents volunteered or donated to the project.”
And these children, for the past several months as this happy mural encouraging “green transportation” was being painted by local artists, have been treated to the city of Prescott’s finest citizens driving by and yelling “Nigger” and “Spic” at this school wall painted with pictures of the children who attend the school. And this has been encouraged by a city councilman, Steve Blair, who uses his local radio talk show to rile up these people and demand the mural be destroyed.
And now the faces are being painted white, “because of the controversy.”
Remember where you were, when you could still laugh about teabaggers and racists and Arizonans, because funny time is almost over. If the unemployment keeps up — one in five adult white males has no job and will never have a job again — and people keep walking away from their stucco heaps they can’t afford and the states and cities and counties and towns keep passing their aggressive racist laws to rile up the trash even more, shit’s going to very soon become very bad, and whether it’s the National Guard having wars in the Sunbelt Exurbs against armies of crazy old white people who are finally using their hundreds of millions of guns, or whole Latino neighborhoods burned to the ground the way the Klan used to burn down black neighborhoods a century ago, we are in for a long dark night and no light-colored paint is going to fix that.

Read more at Wonkette: " target="_blank">http://wonkette.com/415809/arizona-s...#ixzz0pv3e1wQ3[/quote]

AZ keeps hitting it out of the park these days.

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malanthrop
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It isn't racial profiling, it's equal justice.
If you're obviously an American (ie white or black), they will lock you up, print you and find out who you are before you're released. If you lied, you'll be charged with providing false identification to a law enforcement officer.

If you look like you might be illegal, you get better treatment. They don't want to waste tax payer dollars to print a report on another Juan Marinez to come up empty handed. When the print comes back positive, you're charged and fined. No ID, no print match, illegal alien,...gtg......released as an unknown. Err,... just another Juan Martinez. Will the next Juan Martinez pulled over reflect this arrest record? How many Juan Martinez's without IDs are arrested every day, in every state, and released without cause. What about the other Juan Martinez from Texas, without ID, who is a child rapist? The Juan Martinez from Oklahoma, without ID, who has beat his wife five times. What about the Juan Martinez in Nevada who works for slave wages and has never committed a crime? Names are meaningless. In this country, we have ID. I'm an American with a FL ID...if I get pulled over a thousand miles from my home, the police will know exactly who I am. You can't say that about the thousands of Juan Martinez's in this country, unlike me, they don't have ID. Apparently, demanding ID is racist (unless you're a citizen - then it's the law)

The state of Florida has 9 ICE officers. Is that enough for an entire state? Here's a van full of illegals that were let loose because there weren't enough officers:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=132980


Here's another link.
Put in a date to see who was arrested. I'm going to ask you to profile by clicking on the really long hispanic names. Nine times out of ten, they were arrested for driving without a license, charged a $250 fine and released. It's difficult to get a license in FL without proof of citizenship. I know, I moved here from WA. WA will give a license to anyone with an electric bill in hand,...and register them to vote at the same time. FL wouldn't accept my WA license until I ordered my birth certificate. FL does this to nine states,,,,states that give licenses to and register people to vote based upon an electric bill and their verbal assurance of their name.

http://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/PublicInquiry/ArrestInquiry

[ June 05, 2010, 03:23 AM: Message edited by: malanthrop ]

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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Geraine:
Achilles, One would hope that since the police are now being trained that racial profiling is frowned upon (I'll put it that way to please Jhai) some of that would stop.

And Dark Knight, it's useless to try and argue constitutionality with some people here. To them it is just some old document written by some men that had no idea how life would be for us in our day.

Riiiiight.
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fugu13
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Geraine: you're quite right, you get idiots who want to do things like pass unconstitutional laws saying children born in the US aren't citizens, or have census works unconstitutionally not count illegal immigrants.
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Destineer
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quote:
To them it is just some old document written by some men that had no idea how life would be for us in our day.
It's not just old, a document, and written by men who couldn't possibly foresee our present way of life. But it is all those things.
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FoolishTook
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I don't think we've changed so much as human beings that the Founding Fathers couldn't foresee our present way of life.

The Constitution is still relevant. Freedom of speech, religion, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not relevant today?

And unless there's been some miraculous changes over the last 70 years, a government with too much control can turn corrupt and villainous in a heartbeat, even within a nation that considers itself civilized.

Which is why giving that document power while limiting the powers of men (who are easily corrupted) was not only an act of sheer genius, but done by men who, it appears, knew us better than we know ourselves. (And I do mean "us" as in the present us.)

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Samprimary
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Nobody is saying that the constitution is irrelevant.
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Kwea
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I think that Geraine is saying that some of us DO think that. It's a strawman argument, though. I don't know anyone who actually believes that.

I also think that the ability to change that, and to adapt to modern times is part of why it is still relevant, BTW.

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Sterling
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I think the authors of the Constitution were hoping to prevent tyranny, not merely outsource it.
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malanthrop
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quote:
Originally posted by Sterling:
I think the authors of the Constitution were hoping to prevent tyranny, not merely outsource it.

Tyranny comes from government. Without government, there is no tyranny. The authors of the constitution were hoping to prevent tyranny, they wrote a constitution to limit government.

Now liberals use the cover page to bring tyranny. The government should "promote the general welfare"...unfortunately the title page isn't the law. Now we have a government that thinks it can do anything to "promote the general welfare".

Our founders would bring up arms against our current government. They brought up arms against a much less tyranical one.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
... They brought up arms against a much less tyranical one.

Please elaborate
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malanthrop
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
... They brought up arms against a much less tyranical one.

Please elaborate
The Boston Tea Party was over a tax on Tea.

There are many tyranical people in the world...it takes governments to put them in control of the masses.

Communism is great idea, if you have the right leader.

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Elmer's Glue
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The Boston Tea Party was over a tax on Tea without representation.
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Rakeesh
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Yes, because the federal government can come along and quarter troops inside my home whenever they feel like it, and make laws in which I have no say, and suppress my critical statements about the government, and...

Well, you get the idea, malanthrop. Could we skip to the part where you pretend this part of the argument never happened sooner rather than later?

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malanthrop
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Who's representing the the top 50% of tax payers in this country? We have a community organizer for a president. His constituency gets tax "credits" and pay nothing in. It only takes 51% to win an election. We're dangerously close to the the majority (51%) paying nothing. Who's the slave and who is being represented?

I work 12 hours a day...I don't have representation. In the minds of many and according to the IRS, I'm fortunate and should pay my fair share.

Taxation without representation doesn't mean the same thing it did a couple hundred years ago. We have voters who don't have an income to tax and voters who have an income but pay no taxes. People pay nothing in but get thousands for a refund. The taxation is on the payer and the representation is for the leach.

The top 10% of income earners pay 90% of the taxes. Who isn't being represented? Who's the victim of taxation without representation? 10% isn't going to win an election.

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Rakeesh
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The poorer you are, the less likely you are to vote, malanthrop. Next nonsense argument, please.
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malanthrop
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
The poorer you are, the less likely you are to vote, malanthrop. Next nonsense argument, please.

Really? The earliest I came home from work this week was 7pm. People who work and make money have their time occupied. I have less time to vote than a homeless man, picked up by ACORN or SEIU and offered a meal and a pack of smokes to vote for Obama.

Conservatives don't send out buses to pick up voters. Conservatives are too busy working.

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sinflower
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malanthrop, instead of arguing from personal experience, you'd probably do better to continue from your last statement ("The top 10% of income earners pay 90% of the taxes. Who isn't being represented? Who's the victim of taxation without representation? 10% isn't going to win an election.") I think you may have a point there with regard to the tyranny of the majority. Arguing against the facts by stating that homeless people vote more isn't helping your case though.
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malanthrop
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Thank you sinflower...you are correct. I fear that people are beginning to believe we are a democracy. We aren't a democracy, we're a constitutional republic. Unfortunately, the constitution is laughable to most elected officials. They aren't elected by the constitution.

The government cannot provide anything to people but it can tax people to pay for things. Our nation is getting to a breaking point where the tax payers are a minority and the majority expects government benefits - paid for by a minority. A government that represents the majority, not the tax payers. Taxation without representation isn't the same as it was 200 years ago.

[ June 06, 2010, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: malanthrop ]

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:


The top 10% of income earners pay 90% of the taxes.

Even if it were true, this is meaningless without knowing what percentage of the wealth this 10% have.
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malanthrop
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It doesn't really matter does it? Our president has repeatedly set the threshold of acceptable income at $250k per year.

I don't recall any part of the constitution that set a minimum or maximum wage.

The sick truth is, I'm around 100k per year and I work my ass off. People like Obama and Pelosi have millions. It's easy to make the masses hate the 100k a year guy and the multimillionaire's lifestyle isn't impacted by higher taxes. If I made 5 million a year, I wouldn't care either. They aren't attacking the truly rich, they're keeping the regular folks down. Our tax keeps people down. My company offered me 100k for a six month stint in Afghanistan, I turned them down. It wasn't worth it after taxes.

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sinflower
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quote:
Even if it were true, this is meaningless without knowing what percentage of the wealth this 10% have.
Wikipedia says 71%. But that's wikipedia so take it with grain of salt.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923085.html

Graph comparing percent income with percent taxes paid.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
... The Boston Tea Party was over a tax on Tea.

Sure, why not.

But let's cut right to it. Would you personally prefer to live under that era's British colonial government or under Obama's government*? (if we held things like technology and medicine the same)

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Paul Goldner
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"The Boston Tea Party was over a tax on Tea."

No, it really wasn't. People are taught that in third grade because its about the extent of what a third grade mind can handle, but saying the Boston Tea Party was over a tax on Tea is kinda like saying American Football is a game about kicking the ball.

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Teshi
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More Arizona Craziness and Racism

People complain about the children depicted in a school mural:

quote:
In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

Blair could not be reached for comment Thursday. In audio archives of his radio show, Blair discusses the mural. He insists the controversy isn't about racism but says the mural is intended to create racial controversy where none existed before.

"Personally, I think it's pathetic," he says. "You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that."

The children depicted attend the school in question.

To me, this ties in as there obviously being signficant racism in Arizona. The principal's willingness to go along with this is evidence that this is not a fringe thing.

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Rakeesh
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quote:
Really? The earliest I came home from work this week was 7pm. People who work and make money have their time occupied. I have less time to vote than a homeless man, picked up by ACORN or SEIU and offered a meal and a pack of smokes to vote for Obama.

Conservatives don't send out buses to pick up voters. Conservatives are too busy working.

So, your opinion on the poor voting is really founded on a bunch of tired stereotypes, yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#Socio-economic_factors That took about fifteen seconds to find, malanthrop. Do you actually dispute the figures there, or can we again skip to the part where you pretend this part of the discussion never happened?

The poorer you are, the less likely you are to vote. That's a fact, malanthrop. All of your Rush Limbaugh approved talking points won't change that.

quote:
We aren't a democracy, we're a constitutional republic.
Maybe Samprimary (was it you, Samprimary?) could re-post that post you made about how stupid it is to say something like this as self-righteously as malanthrop is saying it? Suffice to say, the United States is both a democracy and a constitutional republic. The two are not mutually exclusive.

quote:


The government cannot provide anything to people but it can tax people to pay for things. Our nation is getting to a breaking point where the tax payers are a minority and the majority expects government benefits - paid for by a minority. A government that represents the majority, not the tax payers. Taxation without representation isn't the same as it was 200 years ago.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/47-Percent-Dont-Pay-Taxes-No-Big-Deal-3230

There's another wrongheaded point of yours, malanthrop. We are nowhere even remotely close to having a majority of the population not paying taxes. Start pretending this part of the conversation (where you were completely, laughably wrong) didn't happen...right now!

quote:
I don't recall any part of the constitution that set a minimum or maximum wage.
I don't think there's anything in the US constitution about the Internet or antibiotics, either. Out with `em!
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