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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I think a depressingly large part of the "Immigration Problem" is just racism. There are a lot of white people out there who hate brown-skinned mexicans, and they make up rationalizations like "taking our jobs" to cover up for their real motivations :(
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

James Paige wrote:I think a depressingly large part of the "Immigration Problem" is just racism. There are a lot of white people out there who hate brown-skinned mexicans, and they make up rationalizations like "taking our jobs" to cover up for their real motivations :(
I was about to make a post saying that I didn't like the fact that illegal immigrants were looked down upon, almost to the point of racism, but I didn't have any backing for my statement. I trust James to have more insight, though, and I agree with him.
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Post by Uncommon »

Oh I know a lot of people who want stricter immigration policies, and I can tell you for a fact that a lot of it's racism.
S'one of the reasons I can't stand being a northerner down in the South.
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Post by JSH357 »

Rock & Roll Sentai wrote:Oh I know a lot of people who want stricter immigration policies, and I can tell you for a fact that a lot of it's racism.
S'one of the reasons I can't stand being a northerner down in the South.
I like how people try to call us racists by generalizing our beliefs by region. :)

For the record, I think the "Immigrant Problem" is 100% racism and 100% unamerican for that matter.
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Post by Mazin »

I think immigration is a good thing in general, but I don't like the idea of just giving amnesty to anyone who hops the border cause it's kind of a big "slime you" to all the people who've been trying to get here legally, and it just doesn't make sense. Either change the laws or follow them, don't keep the laws and then just let everyone who breaks them off the hook.

Anyway, I think what's most important is that we make legal immigration easier, and remove some of the incentives for illegal immigration. But illegal immigration will probably always be around to some degree.

Giuliani dropped out. :D
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Post by Mogri »

Mazin wrote:I think immigration is a good thing in general, but I don't like the idea of just giving amnesty to anyone who hops the border cause it's kind of a big "slime you" to all the people who've been trying to get here legally, and it just doesn't make sense. Either change the laws or follow them, don't keep the laws and then just let everyone who breaks them off the hook.

Anyway, I think what's most important is that we make legal immigration easier, and remove some of the incentives for illegal immigration. But illegal immigration will probably always be around to some degree.
This is exactly my view. Well put.
Giuliani dropped out. :D
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Post by msw188 »

Some thoughts with a general theme:

IMMIGRATION - First of all, I agree that if we are to have anything approacing fairness here, we can't go about letting some illegal immigrants go unpunished just because we perceive them as "just trying to improve there lives and [not] really hurting anyone in the process." It's easy to forget that if we make that call, we must also be making the decision on who is hurting people in the process, and I don't think there is a fair way to do that. As Iblis said, the real goal should be to fix the law to reflect what we want, and stick to it.

The problem, though, is that I'm not sure we know what we want, let alone how to make it happen. Does anyone really know what would be the long-term effect of stricter immigrations laws, or more lax ones? How do you really enforce this kind of thing, anyway? You can't go about patrolling the entire border without some very serious spending (I mean, REALLY serious). How do you make it 'easier' for 'honest' people to obtain citizenship, while at the same time making it 'harder' for 'dishonest' people to sneak by?

IRAQ/WAR/FOREIGN POLICY - Agreeing with a few other posters, I don't see this one changing much regardless of who gets elected. Getting out in a hurry does not work (at least, it never has), but that's the only thing I feel certain about. I don't think anyone can even say what is for the better in the long-term right now. As far as I can tell, the over-arching goal for the government for some time has been to isolate Iran. Is that a good or bad idea? Hell if I know. They haven't seemed that interested in talking since that fateful time in 1979 (I think). I really can't blame them much for disliking us, either. How do you resolve something like that? "Hey, we kind of dicked you over a bit back there, being really worried about the whole area, and the communism thing was real scary to us back then too, you know. Then when you finally came into your own, we weren't exactly happy. But hey, let's be friends now! Except that you have to do things we say, like dismantling nukes, even though we're still allowed to have enough power to smash you to bits if you ever displease us again..."

HEALTH CARE - I don't know what to do with this. As long as all the pieces of the medical machine expect the kind of money they currently do, I don't think there is any solution to this problem for a scale as large as that of the US. I call it a machine, because that is how it operates. None of the pieces (doctors, manufacturers, researchers) operate based on caring about patients. But they all need to operate properly, or else the entire machine fails. Right now, all of the parts to the machine are expensive and yet still in a high demand that cannot be compromised by those in need of the machine.

It comes down to a fundamental contradiction in the concept of capitalistic medicine. Capitalism is based on intelligent consumers who have some control over the 'Demand', because they can choose NOT to purchase items. However, in medicine, the consumer cannot choose NOT to need medicine. Further complicating matter, he CAN choose to need medicine, sometimes dishonestly. How can such a thing be regulated, then? By the government?

The government does regulate other services that break down under capitalism. Things like transportation, mail, etc. The problem is, however, that most of the things that the government takes care of in this way involve mostly unskilled labor, and can be scheduled on a grand scale bureaucratically. Medicine doesn't work this way. All parts of the machine require an enormous education, and it (the machine) needs to be able to make decisions on a case-by-case and emergency basis. The amount of money needed to support such a thing is enormous. I'm not convinced that having the government handle it via federal health insurance would really help.

-Well, that was long. The general theme was supposed to be "I don't know what to do about 'x'."
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

IMMIGRATION:

I would like to see something along the lines of:
* come into country
* fill out a little paperwork
* start paying taxes
And that is it.

Honestly, all I had to do to become a citizen was to be born.

What we *don't* need is that slime-sliming fence they are building along the border. sliming dumbest idea I ever heard of.
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Post by msw188 »

What's the rationale behind a fence, anyway? Are they trying to prevent unchecked immigration in general, or are they trying to prevent specific things?

I think the reason people get worked up about illegal immigrants, besides racism, is that they are afraid. The concept of allowing unlimited amounts of people into the country who may, in fact, have spent the last five years of their lives learning how to build small bombs, is unappealing to a lot of people who see the "War on Terror" very literally. In their eyes, people born here have a natural allegiance to the country, their families, some aspects of the culture, etc. An immigrant could potentially find all of this irrelevant.

(note - that last paragraph was devil's advocate; I like to think that I do not take the "War on Terror" literally enough to buy into all that, but I'm guessing that it is at least in the back of a lot of people's minds)
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Post by the drizzle »

The problem, though, is that I'm not sure we know what we want, let alone how to make it happen. Does anyone really know what would be the long-term effect of stricter immigrations laws, or more lax ones? How do you really enforce this kind of thing, anyway? You can't go about patrolling the entire border without some very serious spending (I mean, REALLY serious). How do you make it 'easier' for 'honest' people to obtain citizenship, while at the same time making it 'harder' for 'dishonest' people to sneak by?
I didn't mean to imply some kind of honest/dishonest duality with immigrants. I meant that we should be making it easier for immigrants to to get citizenship but harder for people to get in, in general (obvious terrorism concerns). I also don't advocate amnesty, like "you've been here for seven years, here's your citizenship." Just because you snuck in here a while ago, you should be granted citizenship? No thanks. But if they've been living here for 20 years, it doesn't make much sense to deport someone back to a country they haven't been to in 20 years. Why not give them a path to citizenship? That's my opinion. So to sum it up, I meant people that have established themselves here should be given a path to citizenship while people who are sneaking in more recently should not.

Also, while I agree that there is a racial motivation for the illegal immigration issue, I do think that a lot of it has to do with border security against terrorism. At least that 's my real concern regarding illegal immigration. Am I gonna hoot and holler over the dishwashing job a mexican just "took" from an American? Nope. Illegal immigration has always been an issue, just never a major one until 9/11. Terrorism is a very real threat, in my opinion. Fairly frequently in the news some kind of terror attack is stop here or abroad. And anyone who's ever walked across the border knows how easy it is to cross. I've gone to Tijuana plenty of times and it ain't hard to get across, partner. I look pretty darn Mexican too. A couple of years ago they didn't even require ID, all you had to do was say you were from the United States. It was like the honor system. It's not something I think that is worth overlooking. We might regret that one as much as we now regret having bad airline security before 9/11. We didn't see it as a big deal back then, but hindsight is 20/20.
I would like to see something along the lines of:
* come into country
* fill out a little paperwork
* start paying taxes
And that is it.
This seems a little too easy to me. Shouldn't we have back-ground checks at the very least? Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to allow people to start benefiting from taxes before they've paid a cent of taxes. I think a work program to earn citizenship is important, or some kind of earned citizenship in general.
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Post by camdog »

Also, while I agree that there is a racial motivation for the illegal immigration issue, I do think that a lot of it has to do with border security against terrorism. At least that 's my real concern regarding illegal immigration. Am I gonna hoot and holler over the dishwashing job a mexican just "took" from an American? Nope. Illegal immigration has always been an issue, just never a major one until 9/11. Terrorism is a very real threat, in my opinion.
Actually, I don't think terrorism is the threat the media makes it out to be. In fact, a US citizen is about as likely to be killed in a terrorist attack as they are to be killed by lightning or to drown in their own bathtub. (This includes deaths in the WTC attacks)

The main issue for me regarding immigration is that I believe effectively preventing illegal immigration is simply untenable. We already have government officers and volunteer citizen groups patrolling the border, to little effect. The Mexican border is huge after all, and the amount of resources we'd need to spend to cover it all would be insane.

I guess I'm with James on this. Want to be a citizen? Come on over, fill out some paperwork, and start paying taxes and contributing to our society. What exactly is the downside of this? Besides, I have a hard time saying it should be illegal for some folks to live here just because of where they were born.
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Post by Mogri »

camdog wrote:Actually, I don't think terrorism is the threat the media makes it out to be. In fact, a US citizen is about as likely to be killed in a terrorist attack as they are to be killed by lightning or to drown in their own bathtub. (This includes deaths in the WTC attacks)
If I were the government, I'd chalk this up to me doing a good job.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

msw188 wrote:What's the rationale behind a fence, anyway? Are they trying to prevent unchecked immigration in general, or are they trying to prevent specific things?
I think the fence is mostly about stopping drug smugglers, which won't work anyway, and is a whole different issue.

Also, a BIG part of the fence is about giving LOTS of money to contractors to build it, and thereby stimulating the economy in the congressional districts near the border. Not to mention giving lots of taxpayer money to banks to pay the interest on the huge loans they will have to take out to pay the aforementioned contractors.
the drizzle wrote:
I would like to see something along the lines of:
* come into country
* fill out a little paperwork
* start paying taxes
And that is it.
This seems a little too easy to me. Shouldn't we have back-ground checks at the very least? Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to allow people to start benefiting from taxes before they've paid a cent of taxes. I think a work program to earn citizenship is important, or some kind of earned citizenship in general.
1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Citizenship!

Okay, I was over-exaggerating the desired simplicity. I guess I meant that the back-ground-checks and such would go in the "fill out a little paperwork" phase. Also, I guess step 3 should have been "Continue paying taxes" :)
camdog wrote:Actually, I don't think terrorism is the threat the media makes it out to be. In fact, a US citizen is about as likely to be killed in a terrorist attack as they are to be killed by lightning or to drown in their own bathtub. (This includes deaths in the WTC attacks)
Number of nightmares James has had about being killed by terrorists: 0
Number of nightmares James has had about being killed by a shark while swimming: >1
Mogri wrote:If I were the government, I'd chalk this up to me doing a good job.
This magic stone keeps away tigers. Prove that it works? Sure! you don't see any tigers around, do you? ;)
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Post by msw188 »

Yes, I doubt that a fence will do much to stop any kind of smuggling. Those people are very smart, and when you've got that kind of money on the line, you find ways to get things done. Once again, the only way to cut down on drugs is to spend a LOT more money and resources on it in terms of a true DEA (I'm not saying that the current one doesn't do its job, but if they had all the funding and manpower that they wanted, they could do more). Probably not worth the amount it would cost.

Speaking of costs and the fence, I've been saying for a long time that the concept of 'interest' is the most evil thing ever created in economic terms. But again, I don't see any viable way of changing the system now.

It is true that the only terrorist attacks we know about for certain are the ones that succeed, and it's difficult for the general public to get much of a read on what exactly the government has actively prevented. My initial thought is that the threat is probably not really that high, and that we would do better cost-wise concentrating on having a working FEMA for things like New Orleans. Unfortunately, only the government itself can have any inkling on how much they've succeeded in the terror-prevention department, and by the very nature of the work they cannot very well go about giving details.

Also, I've seen at least one person mention a decrease in the bureacracy in the government, and certain candidates' possibilities of achieving this. What do you mean exactly? Do you mean less people involved, or a different distribution of power? Or perhaps a more strict system involving voting, riders, interest groups and lobbying, etc, etc. I don't know too much about the details of government, but I am interested in what decreasing bureaucracy and 'getting things done' means.
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Post by camdog »

Mogri wrote:If I were the government, I'd chalk this up to me doing a good job.
I'm not sure I understand what point you're making.

[edit]

Er, by that I mean, do you think the government was doing a fine job before 9/11, or that the changes we've seen since are working?
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