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pendaWe're discussing INS and undocumented aliens in Employment law right now. I'll be honest, the INS thing infuriates me. You have all these jackasses screaming to lock down the borders and keep aliens out. They aren't seeing the big picture. This country depends on immigrants. Without them a large sector of our society would disappear and the US would crumble. Not to mention that US society was founded by immigrants. And, of course, there is the primary issue that nations are largely meaningless. If you're born a few miles south of the US border, what makes you deserve a life of poverty instead of the life of affluence that comes with being born a few miles to the north?
People who oppose openning the borders won't come out and admit it, but they think they're better than foreigners. They think that being part of the only remaining superpower is their birthright. It is all part of that "entitlement" sickness that infects America. You don't deserve anything based on your birth. Hell, the guy who risks his life (dealing with insane "minutemen" shooting at him, crawling over barbed wire, and running from the dogs and cops chasing him) all to get into this country and give his family a better chance at life deserves a hell of a lot more than you. What have you done? Seriously, what? Let me guess, you squeezed out of your mom in a politically sacred piece of land and received the stamp of "american." Big deal.
And the attitude of manifest destiny fits right in with the ruling classes objectives. They need undocumented workers. They need 3rd world nations to produce their sweatshop goods (so they can afford to keep their borders closed and keep the wealth of the rest of the world trapped in the US), and they need undocumented workers to provide cheap agricultural and manual labor pools. They WANT them here. However, they don't want them to have any power because then they might ascend the social strata and threaten their dynasties. Or even worse they might look to themselves and realize, much like the muslims in the French ghettos have come to realize, that they have real power and can change things.
So what do they do? They keep them illegal. They keep them living in constant fear of losing everything to the Storm Soldier-esque INS forces. They keep them disenfranchized and living in ghettos, many never learning english or learning to read. They keep them from being part of American society in any way other than as work-horses. Then they engage in a social war and keep the rest of US society hating them, to keep people from feeling any sympathy for them or from helping them. They put forth this subconscious viewpoint that they're less than human, and subtly enforce and encourage racism. They tell the working class that it isn't the ruling class that keeps american families struggling to put food on the table, they tell them that it is the fault of those damn illegal aliens taking their jobs (all while they hire them cheaply and also outsource their production facilities).
It's an illusion that most people seem to buy into. But the reality is that you aren't entitled to a damn thing, nations are meaningless since we're all human, and by believing their smoke-screen you're enabling the rich to keep doing exactly what they've been doing for centuries: Exploiting everything and everyone.
Besides, the borders dont' stop ANYONE. If you want in, you can get in. You know they don't work. Cops know they don't work. Politicians know they don't work. Why not open the borders and invite these people to become part of the system? The only reason is for fear of giving people the power to change things and shake the system up.
People who oppose openning the borders won't come out and admit it, but they think they're better than foreigners. They think that being part of the only remaining superpower is their birthright. It is all part of that "entitlement" sickness that infects America. You don't deserve anything based on your birth. Hell, the guy who risks his life (dealing with insane "minutemen" shooting at him, crawling over barbed wire, and running from the dogs and cops chasing him) all to get into this country and give his family a better chance at life deserves a hell of a lot more than you. What have you done? Seriously, what? Let me guess, you squeezed out of your mom in a politically sacred piece of land and received the stamp of "american." Big deal.
And the attitude of manifest destiny fits right in with the ruling classes objectives. They need undocumented workers. They need 3rd world nations to produce their sweatshop goods (so they can afford to keep their borders closed and keep the wealth of the rest of the world trapped in the US), and they need undocumented workers to provide cheap agricultural and manual labor pools. They WANT them here. However, they don't want them to have any power because then they might ascend the social strata and threaten their dynasties. Or even worse they might look to themselves and realize, much like the muslims in the French ghettos have come to realize, that they have real power and can change things.
So what do they do? They keep them illegal. They keep them living in constant fear of losing everything to the Storm Soldier-esque INS forces. They keep them disenfranchized and living in ghettos, many never learning english or learning to read. They keep them from being part of American society in any way other than as work-horses. Then they engage in a social war and keep the rest of US society hating them, to keep people from feeling any sympathy for them or from helping them. They put forth this subconscious viewpoint that they're less than human, and subtly enforce and encourage racism. They tell the working class that it isn't the ruling class that keeps american families struggling to put food on the table, they tell them that it is the fault of those damn illegal aliens taking their jobs (all while they hire them cheaply and also outsource their production facilities).
It's an illusion that most people seem to buy into. But the reality is that you aren't entitled to a damn thing, nations are meaningless since we're all human, and by believing their smoke-screen you're enabling the rich to keep doing exactly what they've been doing for centuries: Exploiting everything and everyone.
Besides, the borders dont' stop ANYONE. If you want in, you can get in. You know they don't work. Cops know they don't work. Politicians know they don't work. Why not open the borders and invite these people to become part of the system? The only reason is for fear of giving people the power to change things and shake the system up.
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Reposted to fix a HUGE typo (part 2)
Date: 2005-11-11 08:14 pm (UTC)Now you want to be able to have someone decide whether or not they deserve to live in the US. If that's the case, shouldn't we have someone decide whether or not current citizens should live here as well? If you really want to make the US as good as it can be, and want a group of people who decide what an "american citizen" is and isn't (and I guarantee that prejudice will play a role... it always does in these things) shouldn't the door swing both ways? I'm willing to bet you'd say no, and rightly so, but logically based on your arguments it should.
I find it very curious that you hate the idea of someone being born into power (and it can be argued that being born american essentially makes you a monarch to the rest of the world)... that you feel that being born American is your birth-right and that you deserve this life. And at the same time, by the way you described Africa and Mexico, you seem to think that the people suffering in other countries have brought it upon themselves. Reread the way you wrote it, Chris, you essentially blame the entire population of the rest of the world for its lot in life and give yourself a hearty pat on the back for yours.
Outside of graduating high school, marrying Fumie, and leaving the US... what have you done to make the US as great as you seem to think it is? Surely you must have done something pretty amazing, since you are able to take such a condescending tone when referring to the failings of the rest of the world.
Personally, if I had my way I'd axe all nations, at most giving them state-like power. I'd take the funding that we have spent on national defense, which we wouldn't need, and create a functioning police force for the entire world and use the excess for education. Then I'd institute a law that would make it only legal to pass down your weath to the next generation. So if your dad is rich, you get the money when he dies. But your son doesn't. There is a mark on your record that says how much you inherited, so you need to either spend that money or invest it and make more. The money you inherited goes to the state, and the excess can be passed down. Right now we have billions just being held as expensive cushion stuffing by a small percentage of the population and it encourages this dynastic bullshit that plagues the world. Then you take that money and you, that's right, dump it into education. We should live in a world that isn't a giant market place, rather it is a giant school. A child in the mountains of Peru should have the same chance at being a lawyer or a doctor that a Rockefeller has. And the more educated people become, it has been shown that the less likely they are to commit crime and do all other manner of horrible things. Why? Because with education comes hope for a better future.
You should try it, Chris. Dream a little. Imagine a better future rather than doing what the ruling class want you to do, which is saying "Enh, live in the real world hippy." You're just lining their pockets and acting as their work-horse.
It would also fix a major problem, which is that those who create the wealth of the world are never the ones to share in it. But that is a conversation for another time.
Re: Reposted to fix a HUGE typo (part 2)
Date: 2005-11-16 02:22 am (UTC)I don’t expect us to agree on this, because I recognize that we are coming at the issue with total different philosophies, and that to agree we would basiclly have argue down to our most basic presumptions.
What I really hoped to convince you of, is that a person wanting a reasonably secure boarder does not by default make them a racists.
The way I see it, a person uses such rhetoric when they are more interested in wining the argument, or possibly stopping the argument, than they are in actually solving the problem.
I am not a racist, I don’t have a racists past, and I will not let anyone tell me I should feel guilty, about, or worse pay restitution for, the suffering of others which I have not caused.
I am not my brothers keeper.
Re: Reposted to fix a HUGE typo (part 2)
Date: 2005-11-16 04:04 am (UTC)Re: Reposted to fix a HUGE typo (part 2)
Date: 2005-11-16 03:34 am (UTC)I hate to bring it up, it’s not something I like to brag about but there was the three years volunteering with FEMA and the Red Cross I did.
Mostly disaster relief stuff with some search and rescue and a few recovery efforts.
Is that good enough for you?
Re: Reposted to fix a HUGE typo (part 2)
Date: 2005-11-16 04:03 am (UTC)Well, if there was a bar that had to be met in order to live in this country, I'd say you probably met it. I'm proud of you, dude. I wasn't saying you're worthless, btw. I was just trying to point out that most people who congratulate themselves for living in the US have done nothing to deserve it. It was a bad gamble to guess that you hadn't done anything selfless in the name of helping the US. I've always said you're a good person who is just ideologically oppositional from me (and has a net-tone that often gets my hackles up). I'm glad to see I've been right about you. Hell, my opinion of you goes ever higher, despite our political arguments.