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opinionista:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 05, 2006, 02:43:16 pm ---Hi opinionista,
Not sure why you would feel sorry for her. If you missed it, she admitted she had no intention of ever MARRYING anyone. What she wanted - and got - was a free trip to the U.S. so she could be with her boyfriend.
In case you also missed it, she took my relative's money under false pretenses and when he tried to right the wrong by sending her home, she also took that money as well and jumped ship.
Then she called to make fun of him.
This relative of mine - misguided or not - was in love with her. So you also got his feelings wrapped up in this.
And you tell me you feel sorry for her.
OK, to each their own. :-\
, um, yeah.
--- End quote ---
First of all, there was no need to be so nasty. I didn't mean to offend you. But it seemed to me that you brought up that relative of your's story to demonize immigrants in general.
You know, I'm sorry about your relative's feelings and i honestly think she didn't have a right to do what she did. But your story has nothing to do with the immigration issue. It is just a love story gone awry in which one of the parts happened to be an immigrant. He could've had the same experience with an american woman.
And yes, I feel sorry for her because a person who does that kind of things is someone who didn't have healthy/happy upbringing. But that doesn't mean I condone her acts, but I do try to understand the situation she might be in and why she behaves the way she does. Maybe she's a bad person because bad people do exist, but she could also be a very troubled young woman.
There's too much hatred in the world already and we cannot come and think all immigrants are bad people because of stories like this one.
sparkle_motion:
I think it comes down to whether you see immigrants as equals. It seems that some think that because they were born on american soil they should be allowed sole access to a better life. All people should be given the opportunity, no matter on which land you were born, to have a better life. Period.
starboardlight:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 05, 2006, 02:56:45 pm ---This is very interesting I'm not sure it would work well. Many companies outsource in order to cut overhead. There is a lot of abuse in 3rd world countries - sweat shops, Kathy Gifford, Union Carbide etc - when this kind of thing happens. Those companies do business in certain areas because the worker protection laws are lax or non-existent. This is how they save money. If companies that outsourced overseas or in south of the border countries were held to the same stringent standards of safety, pay scale, benefits etc., as here in the U.S. it would no longer be cost-effective to outsource.
Also, companies are very hesitant to invest in Mexico after the last nationalization of everything seized American investments in that country.
--- End quote ---
you're right it wouldn't work, because this country has absolutely no interesting solving the issue, only to express anger and scape-goating immigrants. like i keep saying the issue is deeper than criminalizing immigrants and boarder control. Sweat shops offend American sensibilities, and yet those same people who would have been in sweat shops risking life and limbs to cross the boarder don't get any compassion. There are tough choices to make, but most Americans are not willing to even consider them. Like I keep saying, this country is only interested in getting angry, and our leaders exploit that for political purposes.
Sheyne:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 05, 2006, 02:43:16 pm ---Hi opinionista,
Not sure why you would feel sorry for her. If you missed it, she admitted she had no intention of ever MARRYING anyone. What she wanted - and got - was a free trip to the U.S. so she could be with her boyfriend.
In case you also missed it, she took my relative's money under false pretenses and when he tried to right the wrong by sending her home, she also took that money as well and jumped ship.
Then she called to make fun of him.
This relative of mine - misguided or not - was in love with her. So you also got his feelings wrapped up in this.
And you tell me you feel sorry for her.
--- End quote ---
Well actually, Del, I kinda felt sorry for her too. I don't see the world as black and white. There is always grey area. I think that our ability to be compassionate and our ability to forgive is one of few things that separate us from animals. People who live their lives without these things often live LIKE animals.
I'm not a religious person, by the way. But I believe in Karma, as I have seen - firsthand - that it is a very real thing. You cannot afford to be so hardass about the people that wrong you. Pity them for goodness sake, but don't condemn them. If people wrong you, they WILL be dealt with. You may not see it for yourself but it happens. I know of a girl who was raped by her grandfather - within 10 years of it happening, the man had arthritis in both hands so badly he couldn't hold a coffee cup. His eyesight deteriorated to the point he was legally blind. He was also impotent. Not a bad turnaround from a man who was otherwise very healthy, huh? And he died 15 years after that, very slowly and painfully. And do you know what? She not only visited his deathbed - twice - but she forgave him for he did to her, cause she could see that he needed it.
So you can be bitter and vindictive about immigrants because of one that you knew - albeit in a roundabout way - but why not take a broader view? My friend didn't hate her grandfather for what he did to her - in fact, she pondered what on earth could have happened to this man that he would DO such a thing to her.
And Sparkle - we should ALL see immigrants as equals. In fact, I cannot conceive of the person who'd dare look down their noses at those who've had a less fortunate life. What an arsehole they'd have to be! We definitely agree on that. Its like the bullshit social class hierarchy that I battle with everyday as a school teacher. You see it in 6 and 7 year olds these days - no kid is going to walk around with their eyes downcast in my classroom cause they come from a poor background. The fact that its their instinct to do so pisses me off beyond the telling of it.
You wanna get a fire in your belly about something, Del? Get it about HELPING these people, not keeping your boot on top of their heads.
delalluvia:
rtprod,
I think you're really missing the boat. You refuse to acknowledge that poor people have and continue to, turn around things in their own countries whether violently or not
You refuse to acknowledge the facts of all the revolutions I've mentioned.
I'm beginning to think you're avoiding discussing these because they will ruin your argument about how people are just too poor to make any changes in their countries.
And honestly, it's beginning to smack of insulting to those people who actually did stand up and fight for change in their own countries.
"Wait! You can't stand up and try to change your country! You have to remain poor and downtrodden and oppressed so you can be rescued!"
Do I have a connection to this in anyway?
I grew up in a neighborhood full of illegal immigrants. 1/2 mile from the projects (govt housing) they call 'Little Mexico'. They were my next door neighbors, the people across the street, my customers, some were my relatives. My mother still lives there and she has illegal immigrants as neighbors.
And one of my ex-uncles by marriage used to be of those lovely purveyors of human misery - a coyote. One of those who takes money from Mexican Nationals to smuggle them across the border. So yes, my connection is pretty close. Try nearly 3 decades close of living this.
Sheyne suggested I'm keeping my boot on top of their heads by not wanting to help them.
How about the poor people in this country?
We have poor here you know. Quite a few of them. The poor people in the South who were living on welfare and displaced by the hurricanes? The dirt poor of the Appalachia regions? Or finally, my own relatives, one branch of which was so poor, they couldn't afford to bury their loved one and the hat got passed around to the entire family to try to collect enough money. Our public education system is a shambles, etc.. I get a fire in my belly, Sheyne, about helping all of them.
Apparently my compassion for them doesn't count?
I might suggest the opposite. That you're keeping your boot on top of illegal immigrants heads by implying that they're too poor to do anything and really need to go into a sort of patronage system with all the 'rich' people in the U.S. because they're really helpless.
Do you understand how condescending and insulting that sounds?
star,
'Solving the issue'...you mean solving the problem of illegal immigration? To fix the problem, instead of allowing illegal immigration and making those here citizens, that won't stop anything. You're right. That's only treating the symptoms and not the cause. Which is, in this part of the country, the Mexican government/economy.
Now an earlier poster just lambasted the U.S. by our habit of going into countries who didn't ask for any help or want any changes in their way of doing things and forcing democracy on them.
Now, short of doing that since the U.S. is 'bad' for doing that, what do you suggest the U.S. do with the Mexican economy that doesn't require making them like us so that the Mexican nationals do not feel they have to cross the border?
opinionista and sheyne,
I wasn't mad, just confused. I don't feel sorry for thieves who steal from hardworking people. I didn't feel sorry for her because what she was doing was running a scam. She was forming e-mail relationships with more than one man in the U.S. and whoever coughed up the money and airline ticket was the one she was going to 'marry'. So she came here with no intention of following through, no sincerity, no honesty. And when she wanted to meet her friend at the airport, she wanted to take my in-law's car. Alone.
Would she have come back? Or would he have been out a car as well?
Karma did catch up with her. It put her boyfriend in jail, left her penniless and pregnant.
I consider it an immigration issue because she probably did prey on the sympathies of my in-law, but it was dishonest from the get-go. Yes, he could have been bilked by some woman here, but not to become a citizen.
sparkle
--- Quote ---It seems that some think that because they were born on american soil they should be allowed sole access to a better life.
--- End quote ---
Do people think that in the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, Australia, etc? Those are nice places to live too, I'm sure.
--- Quote ---All people should be given the opportunity, no matter on which land you were born, to have a better life. Period.
--- End quote ---
Agreed. And you have to work for it. Make your country a better place to live if it is not. Hard to do, but it's done by people with great vision and great determination. That's why they're venerated, because they fought to make a difference.
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