Ruben Navarrette Jr., a CNN contributor offers a reasonable response for fixing our immigration system.
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) — In a recent commentary, I spelled out what bothers many Hispanics about the immigration debate. In response, many readers demanded to know — for all my criticisms — how I would go about fixing our broken immigration system. I thought they’d never ask.
First, let’s keep it real. Congress doesn’t have the appetite to reform the immigration system — no matter which party is running the show. It’s always the same story. After all the huffing and puffing, any workable solution needs to have two components: employer sanctions with teeth and a tamper-proof identification card for all U.S. workers to tell employers who is eligible to work. Republicans won’t allow the first; Democrats won’t allow the second. Game over.
But, if it were so inclined, here’s what Congress should do:
1) By way of enforcement — stiffen penalties against employers with a “three strikes” law (first offense, a warning; second, $10,000 fine; third, 10 days in jail); revise the 1996 Immigration Reform and Control Act by removing the word “knowingly,” as in employers only face punishment if they knowingly hire an illegal immigrant; create an identification card; instead of adding more border patrol agents (the agency can’t meet hiring goals as it is), give the agents already on the line better tools, including tunnel detection equipment; extend the deployment of the National Guard on the border, now set to expire on July 15; continue workplace raids but, for heaven’s sake, arrest an employer every once in a while; and speed up deportations.
2) By way of legalizing the undocumented — make it contingent on meeting enforcement goals, or “triggers”; establish a cutoff so that only those who can prove that they’ve been in the country for five years or more are eligible to apply for legal status and deport more recent arrivals; require applicants to learn English, pay a $5,000 fine, undergo criminal background checks, return to their home country to be processed, and take their place in the back of the line behind all those who are trying to enter the country legally; and, for those who are eventually given legal status, institute a lifetime ban on receiving welfare, Medicaid or food stamps but allow them to collect what they’ve contributed to Social Security.
3) By way of reforming the system for those who immigrate legally — increase the allotment of green cards and work visas, including H1B visas for highly skilled workers; triple the number of legal immigrants currently admitted from 1 million to 3 million, or 1 percent of the total U.S. population; abandon the current system of using family reunification as the main criteria for admitting new immigrants but don’t adopt the silly and offensive idea of a point system that rewards education and skills; instead, let the market drive the process by making labor demands the major criteria so (how’s this for radical?) we always have jobs for those who come here instead of admitting engineers and doctors if what we really need are teachers and nurses.
This isn’t brain surgery. But some of this will take courage and common sense. The bad news is, those can be scarce commodities in Washington.
is someone saying the blog owners are needing jenny craig? maybe I’m missing something
maybe we should stamp all immigrants with numbers on their foreheads…easier to identify then.
Most parents don’t have the skills to educate their kids k-12.
MH,
With all due respect…
Some sure think they do. đ
I don’t care if we speak more than one language, Mackie. That is not my point. But you seem to be against any kind of assimilation at all–to each his own language, his own barrio, press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish, 3 for French, 4 for………
How can you have understanding among people without even a thread of common language? How do you expect people to “get along” who can’t even talk to one another? How can ensure that everyone’s freedoms and rights are being protected when you can’t even talk to them? That would indeed be chaos. I suspect the real issue with you is that you despise white people in general, the “dominant group” you keep euphemistically referring to, and in the comfort of your suburban home, behind your high-speed internet connection, you are somehow feeling oppressed. How sad for you.
How can you possibly have any semblance of a nation with your “separate but equal” scenario? All of your distinct “tribes” will suffer for the lack of understanding with one another, and there will have even more hatred and distrust of what people do not know or understand than you think exists now.
My grandparents retained their language and traditions, but they were proud to come here and be Americans, and they learned English, assimilated to an extent and had happy, productive lives here. No one “forced” them to learn English, just as no on “forced” them to come here in the first place.
Maybe you should leave the country for awhile, unless you think that spending your day sitting on your butt thinking up and typing such anarchic nonsense contributes to global harmony and understanding. Do you even bother to vote? I sense that you do not, all the while complaining about how stupid our elected leaders are.
Wow! Emma is on fire!
It’s not about language. It’s about freedom and equal rights. Violation of these are what lead to conflict:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7zZkGAvGT0&feature=related
Bigotry against foreigners was much more openly practiced in the past. Many immigrants responded out of fear by changing their last names, refraining from encouraging their children to speak their mother tongue, etc. It’s unfortunate that you lost the language of your grandparents.
Mackie,
I have to say , that I agree with Emma, to the extent that I believe language facilitates communication, which then fosters understanding of one another. I don’t necessarily see first generation immigrants as needing to be proficient, but to have some command of the English is important from my perspective. I wish my Bubbi were still alive to teach me words in Yiddish, I feel like I have lost a piece of my heritage. I think in promoting English proficiency, we should be sure to emphasize the importance of passing on the “native” language to subsequent generations.
Who would pay for all the various forms to be printed in some obscure dialect?
I am with Emma on this one. No one is forcing anyone to abandon their own language. However, business in the United States is generally conducted in English. Just is.
Because we are so isolated from countries other than Spanish speaking countries, it really hasn’t been necessary for Americans to learn other languages. Contrast our geography to that of Europe. Most Europeans are fairly well versed in several languages. They need to be unless they never leave their own country. In many cases, that equates to us never leaving our own state.
Yeah, baby, I’m burnin’ up! You keep changing your story here. Now it’s not about language at all. O-kaay. We’ll just pretend you didn’t say, “Because the âdominantâ group WILL violate the rights of the minorities by forcing them to assimilate. And the minorities will resist, and then the âdominantâ group will say it was because we spoke a different language, not because we were stepping on their necks.”
Res ipsa loquitur, Mackie.
And what stereotypical assumptions have you made to lead you to believe that this white-chick fireball has lost the language of her grandparents? Siete pazzo?
Mama mia! Emma! How did you get italics to show up?
Elena,
You’re making the utility argument and I understand that but something is lost in the process. Our right to be whoever we choose to be. You owe me nothing so long as you do not infringe upon my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Whatever language develops in our country will develop naturally. Just as English developed as a combination of other languages, and we no longer speak the same english they spoke in the days of Shakespeare, so too generations from now, Americans may speak a language that has become a hybrid of english and spanish. It will happen naturally, without one group deciding (because they’re numerically superior) to ram their language down our throats.
It is as wrong for me to force you to speak spanish as it is wrong for you to force me to speak english.
Majority rules, Mackie, like or not. But you are right, the language constantly evolves, and it is a natural process. The words for the things I am using to communicate with you right now did not exist when I was a child.
You get italics just like you get blockquotes–insert the letter i between the carats, then /i after the word or phrase.
Buona notte.
Mackie,
I understand what you are saying, but at some point, America established that it’s language was English. You could be talking centuries for a new language to emerge. What happens in the meantime? Miscommunication and chaos! Nothing positive comes from misunderstandings. I think you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one. A common language is an important component to this country. We are unique in our genesis, we are a nation of immigrants, from all over the world, and if you lose that common bond of language, I think we lose some of that commonality that bonds us together as a nation.
Emma,
Will you run that by again. when you say carats, do you mean those arrowy looking things that I can’t make on here?
I might ask you to email me how to do this por favor.
[email protected]
If you would just send me the basic text in email to show me.
buona notte
I got it Emma. Thanks for the lesson!
Emma,
Majority rules in a democracy…but we are a republic. Capisci?
Elena,
Yes, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. For me, the price of freedom is pain. I think this cultural pain will work itself out in a generation. But the freedom we surrender to lessen the pain may cost us more in the long run.
Tee hee…and then you can use the letter “b” (minus the quotes) and get bold. We’ll see.
I don’t think requiring someone to have a degree of functionality in English to become legalized is “forcing” them to speak English. There is the element of choice. The options may not be all that great, but they chose to come, they need to deal with it. The USA is a sovereign nation and has complete right to use the Power of the State to require people to learn the majority language. Speaking of conformity, it sounds like you have the self centered desire to force a nation to conform to you and yours. Would you be so eager to promote Spanish if you spoke Mandarin? I like the salad bowl concept that was mentioned before, that leaves everyone free to speak their native tongue while leaving the expectation of English intact.
Mackie, homeschooling is perfect for someone like you. Most Spanish speaking children here never learn the written language and lose a lot when they start school. I’m not sure, but I think that most of them end up preferring English. You have so much more control over what your children are taught when you homeschool. You can teach them Spanish grammar and vocabulary and Latinamerican literature and History and whatever else you want.
Con piacere, Moon-howler.
I can tell you the cost – in the school district I work in, we have to translate documents (all documents handed out to parents) in: Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Korean and Urdu. We have to have translators available to parents in all of these languages, including Japanese and Tagalog/Filipino. Not to mention, in Latin America, there are different dialects of Spanish (much like in the US, where certain phrases from the South don’t have the same meaning in other areas of the US) so the school district tries to have translators from different areas of Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc).
Some of these documents can be up to 50 pages long. The additional cost is outrageous – money that can be spent actually educating the students is having to be used to have numerous documents translated into 7 different languages. Translators have to be paid to be retained on staff for parent meetings as needed.
Now, do you think that if you went to another county, the same thing would happen? Would the government and schools in El Salvador be as accommodating?
Dignidad:
Actually the United States Constitution is the law of the land. And it doesn’t give the government the right to force us to speak any language. You can change the Constitution by adding an amendment. If there is enough support in the country to add the amendment, then that is the path you should take as it is the path that was laid out for us by the founding fathers.
It always amazes me how a dialog will twist and turn in a blog thread to justify the previous comments as truthful, when challenged as false or “destructive” at a higher or lower order of abstraction. In the twists and turns of intellectual “sparing” it is hard to focus on the path of greatest good and least destruction. For those with knowledge of physics this is equivalent to find the “Hamiltonian” of an energy system, or path of least energy conversion.
Being a physics guy (but no means an expert), I remind myself to go back to first principles in any argument as the most likely path to the “right” and most “just” concept.
In the above debate of “English” and the thread theme of “how to fix immigration”, I really think most people are stuck on 2nd and third order “effects”, because of their emotions, and not clearly understanding how their emotions are violating first principals in this discussion, preventing them from understand the best course of action to solving the “illegal” problem for ALL concerned.
This is a very complex, convoluted issue with its root debate causes in the very core of human thinking processes and pre-disposition toward “liberal” thinking, and “conservative” thinking mechanisms in the human brain.
I can only go back to a concept of what is most important to “America’s” future.
1. We want our concept of “Democracy” to survive another 100 years.
2. We all want our “individual” freedoms protected and to take precedance over the desires of the “State”. We do this by voting and empowering “representatives” to represent us to the “government” which really consists of “individual” powerful people and ALL of their specific beliefs, prejudices, desires for more power and concerns primarily for mostly themselves and their own general welfare.
3. We all want to live under a common and just law, applied equally to us as “individuals” held accountable to the state or to “others” only by individual trail in a court of law that uses the same standard of law against us.
4. WE ALL want this concept of Freedom to endure another 100 years, which really means the freedom to “choose” as “individuals”, where we want to live, what job we want to have, demand a right to protect ourselves and our family from others that would do us harm (all enemies foreign and domestic) and to preserve our existing way of life and personal wealth, if necessary by call to arms, if it should be threatened by others who would wish to take it away from us.
5. WE ALL want to be treated fairly and equitably by the law.
So let me try to translate what I think is our fundamental problem in being unable to achieve the above if we demand and follow some of the ideas and “ideoligies” expressed on this blog, which can ultimately destroy us and bring us to a life similar to the life lived by so many others in some many countries that have lost or never had the above concepts and protections.
1. Most of the world is POOR, it lives in poverty. Liberals feel sorry for those who live in poverty, and want to take the wealth of those who are not in poverty and re-distrubute it to all who are in poverty. These liberals want a “socialist” government, where everyone makes the same identical wage (identically measured in numbers by groups). This concept is not ever achievable, except as an abstract feel good concept of “equality” and in reality only through complete mechanical automation of all labor, and the outlawing or obsolescense of all labor. “Equality” can only come in fair and equal application of the labor law, not numeircal balancing. Even lacking a need to expend labor, greed will cause humanity to seek more wealth personally, at the expense of the wealth of others (money is diffusive, but not conserved, it is always taken from one and given to another, but creating it can reduce its value, destroying it can increase its value). Every “socialist government” experiment in history has led to poverty of the people, because the equal distribution of wealth and receiving money without requiring work, creates laziness and removes competitive incentive. Socialism is an ultimate faulure to removing poverty from the world as it is only a very temporary and non-sustainable “feel good” fix to poverty. Conservatives feel sorry for those in poverty, but want to create more wealth for those not in poverty by creating so much wealth, there is an excess left over to literally give to the poor, without putting those who created that wealth in poverty themselves. Creating wealth in this way has always been shown by history to take a nation out of poverty and make it the wealthiest nation per capita in the world, although it cannot completely remove the “perception” of poverty, which is really in the eyes of a liberal, a situation where everyone does not make the same and equal wage, no-one is rich. Conservatives create wealth by removing government excess, incentivizing individuals to start profit producing businesses and incentivizing the wealthy to get wealthier, by special “tax” laws that apply only to them as a result of their wealth status. This is an unequal application of the law, based on wealth, but does not discrimminate under current “tax law” based on race, gender, ethnic or religious group, except in the case of “protected 8A classes” who are given un-equal application of the law as “privilege and advantage”: based on race, gender, religion or ethnic group, only recently and yet unchallenged by supreme court ruling. These current laws are designed to create racial, gender, religious and ethnic group racial balancing “numerical” concepts and take the form of business phrases such as “promoting diversity”, while penalizing the “majority” as they are not based on skill, apptitude, IQ, ability or performance, but on racial balancing quotas or “one of each” concepts which clearly advantage only minority “numbers”. These recent concepts are taking a stable, democratic, peaceful, market economy concept based on equal application of the law, to a state of class and race separatism based on un-equal application of the law. This concept is destroying a democracy and creating “socialism, which has historically been a faulire in the rest of the world, resulting in less freedom, less democracy, forced social status, no market economy and taking/seizing of personal property to redistribute in a “socialist” state, where the interests of the state take precedence of the interests of the individual. This is why this process is a threat to Item 1. above that will not allow Democracy to last another 100 years if the new “ideology” of American socialism is achieved. Socialism has always been initiated by the “poor” and liberal elements of a society, against the concept of market capitalism or wealth. Revolutions have always been initiated by the “poor” and liberal elements of a society. Revolutions have always destroyed Monarchies and Democracies in history. Post revolution is always anarchy and extreme poverty.
Item 2 in a new thread:
“indivudual: freedom is a right protected by the bill of rights, championed by Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. This concept came from the Greeks, was continued by the Romans under a concept of “common law” applied to each “individual” based on how that individual “regardless of race of conquered country in the “Republic” lived by or broke Greek or Roman law. The Romans respected law, as did the Greeks and placed the law under a common umbrella called a SENATE. The senate represented citizens. Citizenship was a birthright, and could be earned by joining the military or with supreme service to the “republic” granted as a gift, even to slaves and foreigners, but only after proving loyalty to the Greek republic, or to Rome.
Individual rights are not group rights. Groups are not entitled to individual freedoms, especially they are not entitle to special law and “privilege” based on their ethnicity, gender, religion or race. It is the concept of law applied to “individuals” only and not to groups. It is the core foundation of common law of the Greeks and Romans, the secret of national stability and prosperity under a stable and just law appplied to everyone the same and applied only as an individual brought before a formal court and judge, as the Greeks and Romans did. They did not apply laws to groups, nor bring groups to court based on their religion, gender, ethnic group or race, only based on thier indiovidual breaking of the law. It was common law that held the republic intact, allowed the armies to absorb leaders of all nationalities into a united nation, a united army sworn to protect the citizens of Greece and Rome from all enemies foreign and domestic that would threaten the way of life of a Roman citizen, regardless of the nation a Roman citizen (invited to be a citizen through long service and loyalty) came from. Only recently has the US been applying common law to groups (protected classes and 8A minorities), threatening equal applcation of the law to the good of all equally, because the citizens of the US have divided in seperate political groups to advocate for such laws to favor their personal group special interest, apply the law un-equally to give an advantage based on race, gender, religion or ethnic group, severly threatening the concept of “integration”, “political integration”, common law, a unified Replublic of citi-states and conquered regions under a common law senate of equal representation, into a sentate of competing “factions”, so feared by John Adams, aligned in the US Senate along racial, gender, religious and ethnic group lines of power. This is a threat to peaceful Democracy and a path to state and federal “separatism”, community seperatism and self-segregation so common in the nations of the world who have “divided law”, divided groups and divided ethnic classes, living within and controlling the politics of regional citi-states, within a fragile Republic,monarchy or Democratic political umbrella. These nations are not “integrated”, unified, “politically united, stable, peaceful or wealthy. They remain poor and politically at war, seperated by hostile ethnic boundaries and different application of law. Law is based on “class entitlement”, tribal associations and never on individual accountability, as the group protects the individual through “blood money” and corruption, or criminal organization. The leaders of these nations are above the law, avert the law, subvert the individual, oppress the individual and make the interest of the state and the interest of the “crime organization” controlling the state above the interests of the individual. They do this ensuring ethnic, gender, religious and racial seperatism, the power is not given to the people as individuals but only by what group they belong to, or what class they are a member of, or crime ring they are a member of. They encourage ethnic diversity, seperatism, speaking of different languages to promote diffrences and hatred, discourage integration, and commit legal and physical oppression of all others not belonging to their, race, gender, ethnic, or religious group. In diverse and seperated racial, ethnic, gender and religious communities, individualism is suppressed, democracy is illegal, and un-equal application of the law rampant. They retain power by race, gender, ethnic and religious association and alliances. Indivual freedom is not protected and the power of the state controlled by one ethnic group, gender, religion or race is the means to prevent “power to the people”. John ADAMS was dead on this “fear” of “faction” control of the government along ethnic, gender, racial and religious group lines of power, when he wrote “we the people, in order to form a more perfect union”. He did not write “we the white people, we the black people, we the muslims, we the females, we the christians, etc” for a damned good reason, a reason that is now being ignored in today’s US Senate and Congress and political action groups aligned along these racial, gender, ethnic anf religious group lines of political power.
#3 in a new thread.
Good grief, Michael. I think I just diagnosed myself with ADD.
Civil rights violations of the 60’s and civil rights violations of the rest of the world are a result of “un-equal” application of law, and regional class separation into racial, gender, ethnic and religious class political factions, in control of the government and in control of the law making process, in such a way as to manipulate the law to favor the group aligned along ethnic, gender, racial, and religious lines of political power by placing members of those “factions”, with loyalties to those “factions” in the congress and senate to vote not as “individuals to protect all indoividuals the same, but as a member of an ethnic, gender, religious or racial group dedicated to promoting the general welfare of that group by manilulating the law on that group’s behalf. The current US congress and Senate represent and elected a body of representatives put into power by those ethnically, racially, gender and religious aligned groups. We have returned to the civil rights violatins of the 60s by the un-equal application of this law to all indiividuals the same, the growing desire to manipulate or ignore the law to favor some minority, ethnic, gender, racial or religious group numerically and with prejudice in the favorable or un-favorable application of the law.
Because of this we cannot now see that “illegal” really means just “illegal” applied to all nations and all nationalities, genders, religious, racial and ethnic groups the same, an that deportation does not discrimminate, except for those who have broken the law. We cannot see that the law idsreally designed to protect the rest (an all) of the citizens of a nation from the adverse effects of law-breaking, illegal behavior, change in ETHICS, change in social behavior, change in sense of entitlement, change in financial impact that affects everyone equally regardless of race, gender, ethnic or religios group. We can now in the US think only in terms of the impact of law, regardless of wether it is fair and impartial, on the impact to a social advocates sense of racial, gender, ethnic and religious group entitlement, advantage or disadvantage to personally achieve wealth at the espense of all other citizens and all other “indivuduals” in a nation, in such a manner as to threaten the very peace and stability of the “individuals” existing way of life, prosperity and legal entitlement to equal application of the law. This is why people who support ethnic, racial, gender and religious seperatism and group entitlement want to think that “illegal” is really “legal” because it benefits their minority class in some preferential way. This concept will destroy Democracy and promote socialism and anarchy “freedom from the law”. We no longer care if we hold individuals accountable to a court of law, only that the group or class we belong to has a legal and political advantage over others. We elect those same people to represent us, who believe in the same class separation and privilege, thus returning us to the civil rights violations of the 60’s with a new twist.
#4 in a new thread:
Sorry Emma, this is important, so many do not understand why they are doing what they are doing. It has a cost, so bear with me, even if you do not agree.
Michael, that was pretty long but I did read most of it. I think you had a great point in your first sentence “civil rights violations of the rest of the world are a result of âun-equalâ application of law”.
Freedom to “choose” is a core constitutional concept. It does not include freedom from the law. As long as you do not break the law, you are entitled to live wherever you want. As long as your actions in breaking the law, harm another individual protected under the law, you will be held accountable to that law as an individual in a court of law to pay restitution for breaking that law and harming the well being of another protected equally under the law. Immigration law is just such an impartial law. As a legal immigrant you are entitled to live wherever you want, take any job you want and have the skill to obtain, as long as you do not break the law, and in breaking the law harm another individual protected undet that same ilaw from the harmful effects of your breaking of law. As an “illegal” immigrant, you are not entitled to un-equal application of the law, entitled to ignore the law, entitled to harm others protected under that law, just so you can live better than those protected from your illegal actions, which protections may include protection from fraud, theft, financial loss, loss of social entitlement, loss of resource entitlement, and loss of a community way of life as a result of “illegal” behavior. Any indiviudal harmed by your breaking of the law who is protected under that same law, may drag you as an inddividual before a court of law, state the greviance and damage you placed upon them as an individual as a result of you breaking a law and may claim legal and financial restitution, whether it be for a loss of property, wealth, loss of peace and stability, endangerment to live and limb, and loss of an entitlement under the constitution quaranteeing equal protection under the law. The military of the nation may even regard you as an enemy foreign and domestic and bear arms against you, should you threaten by terrorism, subversion, traitorship, coercion, coup or political militism to destroy the estabished peace, prosperity and freedoms of the citizens it is sworn to protect from all those enemies foreign or domestic who would seek by force or political subversion to destroy its laws and ideology of “democracy” and “freedom”. This law protects 360 million Americans from the adverse effects of “illegal” lawbreakers. This law is blind to race, religion, gender or ethnic group and is imposed only on individuals, specifically those who break the law.
Those of you how advocate for privilege for your special interest “ethnic” group are breaking other laws and destroying the concept of “common law” so essential to preservation of a democracy. When you promote lawlessness, you promote anarchy and turn democracy into “socialism” where the rights and laws of the state or ethnic group take precedence over the rights of the individual.
#5 in a new thread
#5, Speaks for itself, so I’ll keep it short. No individual(s) can tolerate a government or ethnic, gender, racial, religious group faction in control of a government for very long that cannot treat every “individual” the same under a common law. When ANY faction in control of the government oppresses the individual and creates laws that favor one racial, gender, ethnic or religious group over another, the oppressed individuals (achieving a military force superiority) eventually make a moral decision and with great personal cost (often to life and liberty), start a war to replace the un-equal application of law with a fair and just law applied the same to all. Countries that change leadership based on what ethnic, gender, religious, or racial group is in power politically (So freakin many of them in the world now!), are still at war and in complete poverty. They will remain in this state as long as ethnic, gender, religious and ethnic group aligned political factions remain in control of the government and creation of un-equal law in the Senates and Chambers of that government.
I’m telling you this is happening more and more in the “group advocacy” political votes cast in our US Congress and Senate today. If we do not stop it, and go back to equal appllication of the law only to individuals and not for the benefit of racial, gender, ethnic and religious groups, it will create a dire political and national consequence undermining our very Democracy and freedom from “group faction” oppression, we all cherish.
Michael, I definitely agree with you on the “group advocacy” concept. Too much money is thrown around to influence policy that benefits very narrow interests and perpetuates divisions that benefit those interests. It gets far beyond just the issues of gender, race and religion. Tobacco growers receive federal subsidies from the same government that ccndemns the evils of smoking; Americans pay more for prescription drugs than almost any other country in the world thanks to the muscle of pharmaceutical PAC’s; the ACLU is ready to swoop down the moment a child tries to utter a prayer out loud in school or a teacher expects children to stand respectfully for the Pledge of Allegiance. Since the average citizen doesn’t have large amounts of cash to throw his/her influence around, or some pricey, ambitious lawyer to threaten a lawsuit, he/she can only sit back and watch it all happen.
Michael,
Haha, I just glanced over your post as it was a little long for me. You seem to be railing once more against group advocacy. Once more I think you’re setting up a straw man argument.
There is nothing wrong with people who are under attack because they share a common characteristic (religion, ethnicity, age group, gender, take your pick) grouping together and fighting to protect themselves from abuse by the majority.
This is group advocacy. Our government has always been the government of group advocacy. The white group. Now for the first time, they can see on the horizon that this dominant group will have to trust its happiness and freedom to be secure in the hands of other groups.
No, Michael. It has always been happening. But you haven’t felt the sting because you’re probably part of the dominant group. Have you ever found yourself in the back of a squad car Michael for no other reason than the color of your skin? I have. The dominant group that has practiced group advocacy throughout our nation’s history will finally have to have group advocacy practiced upon it. Now you are saying that the sky is falling. Haha. Welcome to reality. Now you are beginning to feel what minorities have felt throughout our nation’s history.
This is nothing new. The only thing new is that its happening to you.
This process will be painful as white people try to reassert their dominance. Eventually, they will fail and their children will grow up in a multiracial society no matter how hard they try to stop it. And their children will wonder what all the fuss was about.
The whole anti-immigrant movement is an example of group advocacy. I mean who wrote the laws that say these people are ‘illegal’? White people. But I guess it’s ok when white people write the laws. That’s called Law and Order. When minorities begin to change the laws, in your myopic world, that is an evil danger called ‘group advocacy’. We ARE moving towards the day when people are judged by their character, not by their skin color. The fact that minorities can fight for their rights is a step in that direction.
Mackie, I see you say “anit-immigrant” allot here. I think that your way off when it comes to most of the subjects here. I’m somewhat in the middle on the whole subject and I really do think that your confusing “anti-immigrant” with “anit-ILLEGAL-immigrant”. Please don’t confuse the two… (which you seem to do allot). Just because some people (like myself) are against illegal-immigration doesn’t mean that they are somehow against immigrants!!
So, Mackie, in your perfect little anarchic world, will there be no taxes? If anyone can walk into the country anytime and put down roots without any accountability, then who pays for the roads, the schools and the public works? Will the people who have been paying them all along get to opt out, too? I guess if nobody’s paying for that stuff, we can look forward to all of our physical infrastructure crumbling into a Third World mess.
Can I continue to drive my car without ever having to renew my driver’s license–or even get a license at all,for that matter? Come to think of it, why should I EVER have to prove my identity at all? It will give me endless opportunities to defraud my fellow citizens.
Oh, wait, I forgot that I’m white. I’m supposed to allow my wallet to be picked clean because, according to you, my chickens are coming home to roost now. I won’t like it, but my children will glory in their chaotic and impoverished Third World nation, and they will wonder what the heck I was fussing about all this time.
Emma,
Please stop overreacting. The sky is not falling. This is progress.
Taxes:
Gasoline taxes pay for the roads. Property taxes pay for the schools. Income Tax pays off the Federal Reserve which is a cartel of private bankers. The Federal Reserve is no more Federal than Federal Express. That’s correct. For 3-4 months out of the year, you are working to put money in the pockets of private bankers. Wake up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpOhWvOoraw
Drivers License:
We don’t need it. I learned to drive in about an hour of practice. They tell you it’s for safety. It’s really about control. If you drive without a license, they can arrest you and throw you in jail, even if you’re the best driver in the world. It’s about control.
hello,
If the anti-immigrant forces could go after the legal immigrants, many of them would. The documented immigrants have rights. They can fight back. They are harder to target. Is there anything more anti-immigrant than English-only laws? What about a moratorium on immigration that invariably follows calls for enforcement against illegal immigration?
The undocumented are easy to target. They’re easy to blame and abuse. They are blamed for every ill even though they are the most powerless group in our society. They are illegal because WE dropped the ball and didn’t give them papers when they got here. Do you know how long it took for italians to be processed at ellis island? As long as they were healthy and non-criminals, 15 minutes. 15 minutes and then it was ‘Welcome to America’. Why don’t we do this with the new wave of immigrants? Answer me that one hello…
Mackie, actually, as a sovereign nation we do have the right to set the requirements for the entry of immigrants and the legalization of illegals.
Emma, Mackie’s “please stop overreacting” comment cracked me up! That is so funny!
Dignidad, I cannot imagine commuting with people who have had no more than one hour of driver training and no accountability when they screw up. They’re bad enough now as it is.
Quite the “Road Warrior” scenario.
But I could be overreacting…..
Dont forget that raids are not the solution.
1. People are unjustly being detained:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-24-Immigration-raids_N.htm?csp=34
2. People are dying due to lack of appropriate health care that is supposed to be give to “Administrative Arrestees”
3. Many children, including US citizen children, are being left without parents. There exists a case in this area where a young man, 17 has been left behind without both parents. He has his rent paid by school officials and visits a local food bank weekly in order to eat. Who knows if he will ever have the chance to finish high school. The odds are stacked against him at such a critical time in his education/life.
I agree with quite a bit of what Ruben has stated in the past however, increased enforcement….terrorism…. is not part of the solution.
Maybe Ruben thinks it will help mobilize the immigrant community more, even then such a thing should not still be sought.
Dignidad,
I’m glad you got a laugh out of my post.
Although we can set requirements for immigrants I hardly think we should welcome to new immigrants to our country by violating their right to free speech and practicing a government mandated cultural monopoly upon them. This seems pretty inconsistent with the vision of the founding fathers.
EG – I disagree with your statement “raids are not the solution”. I’ve got buddies in the construction business and trust me, raids make a difference. The only problem is that they aren’t done often enough. The place that got raided in Manassas shook some feathers, some in the construction business took note of that raid and are now looking for more documentation when hiring new workers. However, if nothing is done for another year or two then it will just got back to business as usual.
hello,
These raids are an abomination. They might make a difference because we are practicing terrorism against civilians, documented and undocumented. The documented know that they could just as easily end up forcibly drugged and possibly deported so they are frightened as well.
No, the problem is that those Americans who support these measures do so because they have very little love for the Constitution and because deep down inside they know that their loved ones will not be targeted…at least for now. They applauding this precedent…they keep applauding us moving closer to a police state…until one day when Blackwater will be breaking down their neighbor’s door and hauling them off to prison for speaking out against the State.
hello, I’ve got a question for you. If Blackwater is deployed in our streets one day to impose martial law, will you resist? If so, you should know that by that time, it will be very bloody to resist and you will probably die in the process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m68lUe40nXI
Mackie, we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I don’t think raiding a business who has a majority of their workforce comprised of illegal immigrants is an “abomination”. What else are the feds to do if immigration law is a “federal” issue? These raids are nothing new by the way, they have been going on for years but now they are happening a little closer to home and it’s all of the sudden causing all of the issues (which is it’s own subject all together)? They do deter surrounding companies from hiring illegal labor.
hello,
I noticed you avoided my question. Could you please answer my question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m68lUe40nXI
Mackie, I didn’t answer your question because it’s just absurd and out of touch with reality. Come down and join us here back on earth Mackie.
Mackie,
YIKES on the video you posted. It makes me think of Mayor Fenty (sp) and the gun ban in DC to the traffic stops in DC. ( just as an example- NOT to use GUNS as the point) it covers just about everything really. I would have to say that was a good video.
Hi Red Dawn,
Yes Michael Badnarik makes some great speeches regarding the Constitution. He was the Libertarian Presidential Candidate in 2004.
Mackie,
Your comments about group advocacy being OK, and commonly justified in todays legal climate, indicate the very issue ignorance of the legal issue I”ve been addressing.
If ethnic, racial, gender and religious groups are legally allowed to continue to gather along those political lines of power, what are they going to advocate for? The desire for special priviliges? To be treated with some special consideration because of their color? to balance their numbers in areas of numerical privilege advantage over majority numbers using discrimination to gain financial, political and legal advantage until they have the majority number?
They can’t advocate anymore that the law is unfair, because it no longer is. All the laws of this land are now race, gender, religious and ethnic group blind, except the ones in divorce court and 8A protected class laws, that will not last much longer without a legal challenge and uproar over their unfairness, discrimmination and in-equality.
Or are they going to advocate to change the law?
Now here is where you don’t understand the illegality of advocating by gender, race, religion or ethnic group to change the law.
YOU CAN ONLY DO IT WHEN THE LAW IS APPLIED DIFFERENTY, AND ADVOCATE TO CHANGE IT TO BE APPLIED THE SAME FOR ALL.
Once this law is changed to be a fair standard blind to race, gender, religion, or ethnic group (as the current laws are!), then ANY advocacy by these groups beyond asking for impartial LAW is ILLEGAL according to the supreme court.
If you do not understand this, then you are actually advocating that white people ahould AGAIN group together and advocate as a group to change the law to benefit only them. Shoes on the other foot alright! Minorities are now the new race discrimminators, facists and hate groups.
This current situation, like the civil rights violations of the 60s is no different than black people, or brown people, or red people, or yellow people, or christians or muslims, or jews, or women or men, each advocating to have the law passed in their favor, to apply only to them and to be applied differently based on the color of thier skin, the gender they have or the religion they belong to.
This is why people like you seem to think it is perfectly ok for minorities to band together to fix some percieved im-balance in the law, when in fact there is none in the current law, and in reality all of you are really advocating to have the law changed in your “favor”, based on your “racial” balancing numbers and mis-perception of in-equality just becuase you have fewer numbers. This is illegal according to the Supreme Court.
So keep laughing now if you really WANT the”majority” to band together and start advocating for special laws and priviliges just for their own race, gender or religion, and keep thinking like you are thinking, only you will lose because the majority has larger “numbers”. Truth is the “majority” just thinks more fairly than you do right now and is recognizing the need to be fair and just with common law. You keep advocating for group advocacy to change laws in favor of a particular ethnic, gender, religion or racial group and you will soon see how quickly the concept you advocate for and feel so smug about turns against you.
I’m asking you to change your thinking, because a significant number of the majority are seeing how you and people like you are no longer advocating for “equality” in the law, but now “superiority” and “numbers” balancing, based on your own race, gender, religion and ethnic group attempting to balance and achieve numerical superiority or achieve political power way beyond your “numbers”. I’m telling you that you better take the common law and a “fair” law now, or it will soon turn into class and ethnic group conflict, and likely a war you will not win, just as it has turned into “class” and tribal “wars” in the rest of the world over the same issue.
I’m telling you people who think that group advocacy is still OK are being incredibly stupid, arrogant and naive, in addition to being unjust and discriminatory.
I’m curious Mackie, why were you “in the back of a squad car” because of your race? Were you released? Were you charged with something?