May 16 2006
This Is NOT America
*** Addendum: I want to be clear that I am all for debate. But when debate is over and an idea has or is being rejected (like the deportment and detainment schemes) those who are serious join back together and move on. I am for strong laws, background checks, the fence/wall and one strike your out (never to get a second chance). Which doesn’t make me ‘moderate’ or ‘pro amnesty’. People need to ask themselves a question about who they want on their side. Someone like me are someone like young Adolph here***
For all those flaming the anti-immigrant flames, let me show you a glimpse into an ugly future:
And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: “Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it’s just not going to work.”
Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.
There are bridges too far. There is a place anger can take some but most will not follow. In fact there are places that will cause people to rise up and fight. The deranged, emotional basket case that wrote this missed one fact: The Germans didn’t deport or lock up the Jews. They exterminated them. That is how it took so little time to ‘rid’ themselves of their fears and satiate their hate.
The immigration debate has gotten ugly, and it is because some on the right have forgotten they too are responsible for their self control. A lot of good people are signalling to people like this it is time to take matters out of the hands of government. Well, good people go bad. Will America end its days succumbing to the rot of spirit that fell other ‘modern’ and ‘enlightened’ societies? This is un-American, and all the flag waving and patriotic noise will not hide the stench of this.
Why is it that there are those who consider anything but amnesty (and yes, allowing those who broke the law to continue breaking the law is amnesty from the law) to be judged as far right loons who hate Mexicans?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I do not agree with Bush’s guest worker program. And I do not agree that illegals take only those jobs that American workers won’t do when I know, for a fact, that they do jobs that are paying more than $10.00 an hour (carpenters, plumbers, sheetrockers, concrete workers). I want just one of you to tell me that there are no Americans who will work for $10.00 a hour.
The bottom line is that these people are lawbreakers. And if you think they should not be punished for breaking a law, then tell that to the IRS the next time you lie on your tax return. Demand amnesty from prosecution for falsifying your return. See how much sympathy you garner and how far it gets you. Are we now going to determine which laws it is OK to break and which ones it is not OK to break?
This is how I feel:
prosecute all employers who hire illegals to the fullest extent of the law
Take Barbara Jordan’s suggestion and deny illegals all social welfare benefits except those that deal with emergency medical care or medical care that threatens the safety of American citizens
When there are no jobs and no welfare, they will return back to their nation on their own. It is that simple.
If you leave the store doors unlock, you can expect to be robbed. Our doors are unlocked.
If you think that you cannot move 12 million people out of a nation, think again. Mexico did it.
AJ, check this out!
Darnit, should have closed the blockquote after the “Barrie Hartman said.” line. The last paragraph is my commentary.
CNN Poll [John Podhoretz] David Frum, the smartest man I know, got it wrong. CNN has a poll just up, and the results are staggeringly in the president’s favor. 79 percent of those who watched had a very favorable or favorable view of the speech, and those who support the president’s policies rose in number from 42 to 67 percent. Posted at 1:02 PM http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmY4Y2MxOGM1OWY2Njk1ZWM2NGNlN2ViNjhmMzU2OTQ=
Retire:
Maybe you should give Bush’s plan a chance before you just dismiss it out of hand.
I support a guest worker progrma for certain jobs. I fail to understand why people think that a future guest worker program will not have any limits or conditions.
hehe..Harold you don’t know me well enough to imagine me as a victim. I don’t play the victim well. The fact of the matter is Vox got a lot of hits for his piece and people like you running around with your panties in a bunch about it are only giving him even more hits.
What y’all are trying to do is silence debate by smearing the opposition. By doing so you hope that people won’t notice that while the President claims that it is impossible to deport 12 million people in any sort of time frame just last year we deported 6 million by his own accounting. By doing so your side hopes to avoid the problem of explaining why it is ok for Dry Wall contractors to be put out of business trying to compete with illegals doing the work Americans won’t do. Hint Americans won’t do it because it is against the law to pay Americans below minimum wage and even more against the law to not provide them with Workmans comp.
Pierre
What A Mess…
The media calls this Bush seeking the middle ground on the immigration debate. The far right calls it a sellout or worse. The Left thinks that this is yet another move towards fascism – though many are bemused by all the infighting among the right. I…..
Pierre, stop dodging.
Or are you afraid to give an honest answer about Mr. Day’s filth?
I don’t think anyone is trying to smear anyone. What AJ has done here is shine a bright light on an idiotic blogger who suggest using the German solution for “getting rid of illegals”. I don’t see anyone trying to stifle debate either. Usually when I see someone complain about being stifled, it has generally more to do with people not agreeing with their point of view. If everyone doesn’t agree, then they complain that debate is stifled. There is plenty of debate. That doesn’t mean people are going to agree with your position.
I happen to agree that the best way to prevent uncontrolled migration is to provide a path of controlled migration. You aren’t going to stop the migration itself and we really don’t want to anyway. Our economy is growing at more than a 3% annual rate. If workers are here legally, it also makes it easier for them to leave when the economy goes into a down cycle because they will be able to get back in when the economy turns back up again. As it stands now, they would have less incentive to return home because it is so hard getting back in. We need the workers. There isn’t an unemployment problem and as the boomers retire we will need them even more. And we need them legal because we will need their tax dollars.
What I would most love to see is a SERIOUS crackdown on “under the table” employment period. I don’t care if you are hiring legals or illegals. If you aren’t withholding taxes and paying Social Security tax on your workers, you should go to prison. Hiring “under the table” workers should be a felony. Take that step coupled with a way for people to migrate to jobs legally, and I will be over 85% if the illegal worker problems will be solved.
Actually, the author of that nonsense got more wrong than just the fact that the Jews were killed rather than deported.
Anyone who cares to google “holocaust statistics by country” will be able to come up with a graph similar to the one below, which demonstrates that the holocaust–far from being an instance of communal warfare or rage comparable to opposition to illegal immigration–was in fact an unprecedented continent wide search and destroy mission:
___________________________________________________________________________
Country Jewish Population Number of Jews Percentage of
September, 1939 Murdered Jews Murdered
—————————————————————————
1. Poland 3,300,000 2,800,000 85.0
2. USSR (occupied
territories) 2,100.000 1,500,000 71.4
3. Romania 850,000 425,000 50.0
4. Hungary 404,000 200,000 49.5
5. Czechoslovakia 315,000 260,000 82.5
6. France 300,000 90,000 30.0
7. Germany 210,000 171,000 81.0
8. Lithuania 150,000 135,000 90.0
9. Holland 150,000 90,000 60.0
10. Latvia 95,000 85,000 89.5
11. Belgium 90,000 40,000 44.4
12. Greece 75,000 65,000 80.0
13. Yugoslavia 75,000 55,000 73.3
14. Austria 60,000 40,000 66.6
15. Italy 57,000 15,000 26.3
16. Bulgaria 50,000 7,000 14.0
17. Others 20,000 6,000 30.0
_________ _________ ____
Totals 8,301,000 5,978,000 72.0
___________________________________________________________________________
Source: Cited in Landau, The Nazi Holocaust, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994.
These data originally appeared in Poliakov and Wulf (eds), Das Dritte Reich
und die Juden: Documente und Aufsatze (Arani Verlag, GmbH, Berlin, 1955).
Note that German Jews were only about 3% of the total victims. In order to kill so many Jews the Germans had to go where the Jews were–outside Germany.
Why would the knucklehead author invoke such easily verifiable falsehoods? The best explanation is Godwin’s Law or Rule of Nazi Analogies, which is explained thusly by Wikipedia:
Godwin’s Law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Godwin’s Law (also Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies) is, in Internet culture, an adage originated in 1990 by Mike Godwin that states:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.[1]
There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made the thread in which the comment was posted is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.
It is considered poor form to arbitrarily raise such a comparison with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized codicil that any such deliberate invocation of Godwin’s Law will be unsuccessful.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet discussions[2], the law can be applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and so on.
Debate and controversy
One common objection to the invocation of Godwin’s Law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is an apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, “He’s a good leader, look at the way he’s improved the economy,” one could reply, “Just because he improved the economy doesn’t make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy.” Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison, because this example uses Hitler as a well-known example of an extreme case that requires no explanation to prove that a generalization is not universally true.
Some would argue, however, that Godwin’s Law applies especially to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotion as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared, both of which are fallacious in irrelevant contexts. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a valid comparison to anything but other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin’s Law holds even when making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be reasonable comparisons.
Godwin’s standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin’s Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate impact.
To Terrye:
Do you teach your children that they are to obey the rules of the house, or do you teach them that there are certain rules that can be broken and when they do you will reward them for their bad behavior? Illegals broke the laws of our nation. So for that we are going to reward them. Call it amnesty, don’t call it amnesty, what ever term floats your boat. But if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, you can be pretty sure, it is a duck. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make that pig Madonna.
To Crosspatch: I agree. We need to go after the employers. But do we need these illegal workers? The answer is no. And let’s say that we make all of them here legally with the President’s non-amnesty. What happens when the economy takes a downturn and jobs start disappearing. Do you really think they will then go back to where they come from? Or will they, as legal residents, be entitled to unemployment benefits, food stamps, WIC, and public housing, not to mention the drain that is already taking it’s toll on our health care providers.
So we give a pass to 12 million illegals. What happens when they want to bring their familes, mom and dad, wife/husband and three children here? Now we have 12 million illegals. Within one year after amnesty, we have the potential to have an additional 36-48 million, all on the bottom of the food chain, wage wise.
Are you ready for our population to grow 10% in one year?
Terrye says I should give Bush’s plan a chance. Why? I gave Reagan’s plan a chance. We were assured by the talking heads that we would be able to get a handle on the illegal situation by giving 2-3 million amnesty.
I don’t want rhetoric. I want action. I want the border CLOSED. I want employers held to account. I want an end to welfare benefits, instate tuition and all the other things that have been given to lawbreakers in the name of political correctness.
Then we agree to disagree. Pull those 12 million workers out of the economy and see how much trouble it creates! In fact, in 5 years the boomers start retiring. Over the following 15 years or so, 1/3 of the American workforce will retire and go on benefits. I believe people still have no concept of the scale of the boomer generation retirement and the challenges it is going to present. Our economy is nothing like it was in the 60’s and 70’s when the boomers were entering the workforce and unemployment was an issue. In fact, we are going to face just the opposite problem in about 15 years time. We are going to have a shortage of workers because birthrates are not keeping up with retirements. In fact, the generation that is to replace the boomers in the workforce is already born and in school and smaller than the boomer generation.
To say we don’t need those workers is to have one’s head firmly planted in the sand or still be living in a 1980’s reality. The babies born in 1946 actually started retiring in 20o1 for the ones retiring at 55. In 2011 they will be 65 and then the retirement boom will start.
The generation that strained the economy attempting to place them all in jobs will be going on benefits creating a strain of a different sort.
Ignoring the illegals won’t make them go away and we can’t send police through apartment buildings checking everyones “papers”. At least I don’t want MY police going though the neigborhood going “papers, please”. They are already here and they are already working, all we need to do is get them legal and paying taxes. I find your aguments about benefits to be somehow bigoted. Most of the hispanics around here are hard working people. They go to work day in and day out, they aren’t lazy. You make it sound like once they are legal they will quit working and go on welfare. What leads you to jump to that conclusion? What evidence do you have?
A guest worker is going to have a WORK PERMIT, not a Green Card. They will not be allowed to bring their folks over. In fact, there would be less incentive to want to. Living is cheaper in Mexico or El Salvador or Honduras or Columbia. They will be able to come up here when there is work and send their money home. Then when work slows down they can go home and not have to worry about being able to come back when the jobs come back. It makes it more likely that more of them will stay home. If crossing the border is a one-shot deal because it is so hard, they are more likely to stay here and try to bring their folks up.
We have a choice: uncontrolled migration or controlled migration. I choose controlled migration. You aren’t going to stop migration when there are jobs here and people there. One will find a way to meet the other even if they have to build boats to do it.
Crosspatch, please forgive me, but you are living in a feel-good fog.
As for me, I live here down here in ground zero.
Basically, your argument is the same one made by cotton farmers when it came to slavery. They argued that they could not get the cotton picked if it wasn’t for slaves. But lo and behold, along came to combine. Cheaper, more efficient, and faster than slaves. The same argument was made about the tomatoe industry. What happened there?
You say we need these workers to replace the baby boomers. Let me give you some cold, hard facts. Most illegals work under the table. Now given a choice between minimum wage and taxes and being paid $4.50 under the table, which would you take? When we start paying them fair wages, which they are not receiving now, what have we gained? Bottom line: they cannot replace the funds into the Social Security coffers that will be taken out by the boomers. And how many low paid illegals will it take to replace the salary deductions of a higher paid boomer. And how much in taxes do you think they will pay when they claim 10 dependents? I know. I did payroll for a minority contractor and everyone of his “Mexicans” claimed 10 dependents because they do not have Social Security numbers for children in Mexico.
No, ignoring illegals won’t make them go away any more than ignoring drug dealers will make them go away. But the fact of the matter is THEY HAVE BROKEN THE LAW. Do you have such little regard for the laws of our nation that you can pick and chose which ones will be obeyed and which ones will be ignored because LaRaza is marching in the streets demanding amnesty?
No, most of them are not lazy. But comparatively speaking, they have a higher rate of incarceration than any segment of our society. If they are only 5% of our society, it stands to reason that the prison population should reflect that. It doesn’t.
And don’t try to twist what I said. I didn’t say that after they were legal they would quit their jobs and go on welfare. I said that when there is an economic downturn (which you mentioned in the first place) they will not go back to their countries of origin. They will remain and collect unemployment benefits and welfare.
You are putting a lot of faith into people who, by their very action of coming here breaks the law, and continues to break the law by staying, not to mention that using fradulent Social Security cards is also against the law. If they have no problem breaking those laws, you really think they will honor other laws?
Take a little trip down my way. Visit a DHS office and tell me what you see. You will see the waiting room filled with illegals trying to gain social benefits (welfare). You will see illegal women telling the DHS worker how her husband has left her and she needs WIC, a Lone Star card, and has no place to live. A friend, who is a DHS supervisor, has told me how she has visited homes of illegals who claims their husbands abandoned them only to sit outside and watch how the woman moves her husbands clothes back into the house from the next apartment after she thinks the DHS supervisor has left. This is not an uncommon thing. They are told IN MEXICO how to collect benefits.
So you give a WORK PERMIT to an illegal so that they can earn a living. How long before the bleating hearts like the ACLU demand that we allow them to bring their families into the U.S. because it is inhumane not to. And if they are here legally and can’t bring their families, do you think they will honor that law when they haven’t honored our other laws?
What you have done basically is to make excuses for law breakers.
I understand that you have sympathy for these people. But why are they not protesting in their country for better working conditions? Why are they not petitioning for regress in their nations? If they don’t like our laws, they have two choices. Leave or don’t come in the first place. In 1776, did Americans go to England in droves and demand that England change their laws to accomodate us or did we change our own nation?
Are you ready for 40 million more poverty level citizens in the next few years? Are your ready to have your Social Security benefits depreciate greatly due to the US-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement? Talk about a rip off of the American people.
I know that it is politically correct to decry the fact that our nation is lead by white Christians. I know that there are factors that would change that because they want a “rainbow” society. But to force that change before it’s time, is wrong.
Come to my state. $4.7 BILLION last year alone for social services for illegals. That would build the wall.
Harold, I am dodging? Are you accusing me of being a Nazi? Is that the only solution you RHINO’s have when someone disagree’s with your positions? Namecalling? Tell you what if it makes you feel better and allows you to avoid dealing with the fact that your President doesnt want to control the border and that people like you are being used as dupes to allow him to create a North American Super State have at it. For me this President is becoming more and more alarming. Course this is tinfoil hat territory so I fully expect that you will have a field day making fun of this. Again if you mattered then I would be upset…heh.
From the “Building a North American Community”
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.
To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and
opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that “our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary.” Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly, and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.
Boy do I feel good about President Bush now….warm and fuzzy all over my body.
Lets try a different tack retire05, what would you suggest we do?
Personally that both the far right and the far left don’t like what is being proposed tells me that it is probably just about right. I also admit that I don’t have faith in your numbers. Things like “Are you ready for 40 million more poverty level citizens in the next few years?” seem to be numbers pulled out of thin air. But actually, just about every single wave of first generation immigrants to this country were poor and every single one of them made it out of poverty, most in one generation. What you are saying about the current immigrants are exactly the same thing that was said when we had waves of Irish, Italian, and German immigrants to this country arriving at docks without any papers.
The truth is they are already here. It would cost more to get rid of them than to legalize them. If we, as the President is going to do, combine a work permit program with increasing border security, then I don’t have a problem with it. If they have a work permit system, you are likely to see more of the migrants go home in the winter when construction and agricultural jobs are scarce. With the current system, they are forced to stay all year. The president is ending “catch and release”, he is going to build barriers, he is going to increase surveillance, he is going to use troops in support functions until more Border Patrol types can be hired and trained. I just don’t see what the problem is besides some need to punish. When did your family come here? Chances are pretty good the people here felt the same way about them too.
This is what I am talking about:
Think about that. Retired population doubles with a workforce growing only 13%. That is huge. Who is going to fund those benefits? We are going to need immigrants because we aren’t reproducing fast enough and it is already too late because it takes about 25 years to get from conception to college educated worker. The kids that will be replacing the boomers are already alive and there isn’t enough of them to support that many retirees. Our economy is getting ready to take a dramatic change. Think for a moment about all those people whose primary investment is their home. What happens when more people are selling that investment to get their retirement nest egg than there are people entering the housing market? Who is going to buy all those assets in 401K and IRAs when all those accounts go from net accumulation to net liquidation? A realtor will tell you “they aren’t making any more land!” but what if they started making fewer people?
All the paradigms we have based our understanding of the world on are getting ready to change. We are going to have severe problems finding enough workers rather than problems finding enough jobs. I say we either find ways to bring immigrants into the system or else make cigarettes free for everyone over 50.
Our current immigration laws were created during a time when we were struggling to employ a huge generation. Times are getting ready to change, starting about now. The strength of our system is that it can be modified so as to adapt to changing conditions. What we are experiancing is the laying of the groundwork needed to support an aging population with supplimental migrant labor that can be “turned off” at a later date once they are no longer needed by changing the laws again to adapt to that reality when it comes. This is the beauty of our system of laws and gives us the potential to survive as a system for a very long time if we are thoughtful rather than reactionary in how we use the tools the founders gave us.
Oh, that quote above was from this.
Yeah, Pierre, you are dodging. And tossing out tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories to boot.
Crosspatch, you refer to the Irish, Italians and Germans. There is one major difference. They assimilated. The left behind their Irish, Italian and German ways. They learned English, they became Americans. They did not demand that Americans learn their language or adapt to their ways. Care to compare how many first generation Irish, Italians and Germans did not speak English compared to how many first generation Mexicans do not speak English? Those other nationalities also came here legally. They waited in lines at Ellis Island, they went through medical exams for diseases like TB. At one time, an Irish family could not enter the U.S. unless they had at least $200.00 which was a lot of money in the 1800’s. So , this current wave of immigrants has little in common with the immigrants of Ellis Island.
You say with the Work Permit they will go home. Do you even know what is being proposed? Perhaps you should read a little more to find out what you are arguing for.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1076.cfm
As to Social Security, you are not allowing for the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement. And while it has not passed the House or the Senate yet, is on the table. This would not only destroy your theory completely, it will destroy Social Security completely. You are not taking into account that lower paid workers (the immigrants) take from Social Security more than they pay into the program. At the current rates, I would have to live to age 97 in order to regain all that I have paid into the system, and that is simple payments, no interest. Higher paid employees never gain back what they have paid in. It is income redistribution is it’s purest form. But then, perhaps you do not have a problem paying into a system for 45 years to gain your monthly benefits when others will only have to pay into that same system for as little as five years. Tell me, how will that help the Social Security coffers?
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/back904.html
I have no problem with LEGAL immigration. It is those that would break our laws that I have a problem with. And no, not all people who have come to this country have assimilated. When has it become correct to pick and chose which laws will be obeyed and which ones will be thwarted to cater to a special interest group?
You seem to be under the impression that all those protesting want citizenship. That is not the case. The Atzlan movement has been around since the 60’s but mainly only those of us in the southwest part of the nation has been aware of it. Tell me, Cross, if you wanted to become British, would you protest British laws and march down the street with an American flag?
You worry about the cost of returning illegals to their country of origin. How much is it costing state and federal governments now? $4.7 BILLION for Texas in just 2005. Multiply that number by the cost to every other state. And yes, the contributions to the tax base by illegals was calculated into that $4.7 billion. So after their contribution to the tax base, Texas alone, spent enough money to build the wall that our politicians claim is too expensive to build.
I listen to the knee-jerk reactionaries talk about how we, who believe in the rule of law, want to ship them all south in cattle cars. No one is proposing such a thing. But we know that if you eliminate the under the table jobs, if you create a system whereby employers can verify Social Security numbers, if you take Barbara Jordan’s advise and do not give welfare benefits to illegals, they will return on their own. No cattle cars, no rounding up, no mid-night raids of apartment complexes. There are those who say “how will they get back?” The same way they got here. Go to any construction site in Houston at Christmas time and tell me how many illegals you find there? The sites are empty, as most of them go home for the holidays. When it is no longer lucrative to be here, they willl return. And when we find the cajones to tell Mexico to stop interferring with our government by giving it’s citizens instructions on how to collect welfare and how to sneak into our nation, avoiding detection, maybe those that are coming to be Americans will have a chance. Those who are coming only to use us, will stay where they are. You seem eager to believe that those illegals who had no regard for our laws in the first place will become law abiding citizens once they are here. You do not take into account the enviornment the come from; corrupt, lawless and crime ridden. These are not MBA and Ph.D.’s sneaking across the border. These are uneducated people who know no other form of society except the corrupt one they just left.
“We believe legal immigration is in the national interest, but see illegal immigration as a threat both to our long tradition of immigration and to our committment to the rule of law”.
Barbara Jordan in her testimony to the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, March 29, 1995
http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/uscir/032995.html