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delalluvia:
--- Quote ---Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children. I mean, that's what other people do. If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?
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--- Quote ---del, that makes perfect sense, and i totally agree with it, but things don't always work out that way. some people get married, buy a house, have kids, and then lose their jobs. or run themselves up with debt and file for bankruptcy. or one of the parents goes crazy and kills someone. or one of the parents gets eaten by a shark. i mean we can plan as much as possible, and most people probably don't plan, things just happen and they work with what they have.
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Hiya little,
I wasn't exactly talking about those people in particular. I have relatives in Mexico. I saw dirt dirt dirt poor people and I wondered - even as a kid - why the frick did they have so many chlldren? Unfortunately that ties into Catholicism and the 'be fruitful and multiply' thing. The church leaders have a lot to answer for for all the children living in poverty and parents forced to do illegal things to keep them fed.
However, the parents aren't idiots. They know how babies are made. If they're living in dire straits, perhaps a little foresight might have done them better than jumping in the sack, you know?
--- Quote ---people should not be punished for things that happen that are out of their control.
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Don't know what to say to this little. Almost all life is out of our control. Are we to do whatever we want whenever we feel that life has treated us badly? Life is shit sometimes. No one escapes that.
--- Quote ---as far as illegal immigrants being, well, illegal, if we enforced every law, this country would not be in the state it is now.
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Sure, but is that to be rewarded?
--- Quote ---but instead CEOs run companies to the ground and make out like bandits, corporations outsource illegally do avoid paying taxes, there's fraud, embezzelment, you name it corporate america has done it. but thanks to lobbyists and no-bid contracts and so on it usually ends up going under the radar, unless you're a woman (see: martha stewart).
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Yep, and are they to be rewarded and everyone say, 'Well since you've gotten away with it for so long and you DO contribute to the economy, that makes it OK." ?
--- Quote ---and we are talking billions up here. BILLIONS. but people don't care about that.
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Don't know where you live little, but me and my firends and co-workers cared a great deal about this. We wrote our representatives and sent scathing editorials to news agencies, making sure they were aware that we - as Jane Q. Public - were not going to let them weasel out of paying for it.
--- Quote ---there are SO many issues with this that will take forever to correct. we just have to remember that we are all human, and as long as we ain't hurtin' nobody, there's no reason to hate eachother.
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It's not about hate, it's about the law. I certainly don't hate immigrants, legal or illegal. I resent the hell out of some of them, but not all of them. There's a difference and it's pretty big.
--- Quote ---the land doesn't belong to any one person more than the next, regardless of where they're from.
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Umm, I think you'll have some people disagree vehemently about this. Many people from Israel for example, Afrikaaners, Native Americans, etc...
sparkle_motion:
--- Quote from: littledarlin on May 02, 2006, 10:39:12 pm ---
--- Quote from: JennyC on May 02, 2006, 10:01:34 pm ---Is it just me or it’s really hot here? :)
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lol! so much to respond to, i don't know where to begin.
--- Quote ---Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children. I mean, that's what other people do. If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?
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del, that makes perfect sense, and i totally agree with it, but things don't always work out that way. some people get married, buy a house, have kids, and then lose their jobs. or run themselves up with debt and file for bankruptcy. or one of the parents goes crazy and kills someone. or one of the parents gets eaten by a shark. i mean we can plan as much as possible, and most people probably don't plan, things just happen and they work with what they have. people should not be punished for things that happen that are out of their control.
as far as illegal immigrants being, well, illegal, if we enforced every law, this country would not be in the state it is now. but instead CEOs run companies to the ground and make out like bandits, corporations outsource illegally do avoid paying taxes, there's fraud, embezzelment, you name it corporate america has done it. but thanks to lobbyists and no-bid contracts and so on it usually ends up going under the radar, unless you're a woman (see: martha stewart).
and we are talking billions up here. BILLIONS. but people don't care about that. they care about the mothers on welfare, and the immigrants getting healthcare on their dime. if we had any say of where out tax dollars went, then maybe an argument about taxpayers money would hold up, but we don't. i'd rather have my tax dollars going to schools, immigrants, and welfare than war-mongering, churches, and paying right-wingers paychecks. but what do i do? quit my job? live on the street? as a form of protest? props to anyone who can do that, but i can't.
nipith got everything right. i used to wonder the same thing myself when i was younger, why not just come legally. but when you've been around enough immigrants, you begin to see how hard it is.
i don't even want to TRAVEL to a non-english speaking country before knowing at least the basics of the language. but that's just me, and some countries do require you to speak the fluent language, but we can not force people to learn english. that's what translators are for. if someone doesn't want to learn, or have the resources to learn english, they should have a say in the matter. would learning the national language enhance your experience? yes. we have to remember that most illegal immigrants come here without high school education, let alone college education. again, we don't know WHY, every person is different. i dropped out of high school because i hated it. i couldn't afford to go to college, and i was born here!
anyway, back to the argument of "just don't do it". if i had a dollar for every pregnant teenage american i've met i'd be rich. so few people plan families, they just happen. it's the middle class american way. someone brought up native americans, i mean come on! by these standards we should all be speaking the dialects for our regions. and the vietnamese immigrants! my second family immigrated from vietnam illegally, it took them years, but they finally became legal. but shit! if we lived in vietnam after what we did to that country, getting papers would be the last thing on my mind.
there are SO many issues with this that will take forever to correct. we just have to remember that we are all human, and as long as we ain't hurtin' nobody, there's no reason to hate eachother. the land doesn't belong to any one person more than the next, regardless of where they're from.
sorry, i feel bad. you all articulate responses, i rant >:(
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Thanks for this. I wish I could be as articulate as you.
juneaux:
I didn't stay home from work yesterday but I did take a few hours of leave to join the march at the Capitol.
littledarlin:
thanks for the responses del! i don't think illegals should be rewarded necessarily, but they shouldn't be punished either. but they should be guided, helped, to become legal. instead of being shipped back to where they came from like freight. there are millions of illegal immigrants in this country! that is no small feat. is it their fault for coming here, or is it the governments fault for letting them? for not keeping the borders secured? for not keeping immigration under control, even with legals? it's not that it isn't an issue, i think we can all agree it is, it's how it's going to be handled. it has just now come to the forefront of public view because the administration thought they could use it to their advantage, it's political. as most problems are, and that's why they never get solved.
as far as my comment on land, all political and religious ideals aside, it's just there. the government grants itself control over the land, and deals out the property to those who can afford it. but what it comes down to is it belongs to no one and everyone. i know this is not the case in reality, but just for perspective.
and on "breaking the law" or calling an illegal immigrant a criminal, i mean let's be honest here. the law is relative. whoever is enforcing the law chooses whether or not to do so. anywhere from corporate scandals to speeding tickets. it's luck. it's coincidence. people can even get away with murder if they have enough money to spend. it's sad, but it's true. i know it's orwellian, but some laws or more "breakable" than others. i think it's unfair to criminalize illegal immigrants who are civil, decent people just trying to make a living. but if someone breaks the law beyond that, then by all means punish them. but it's such a double-standard. i mean our own government is breaking the law every day. wire-tapping, spying, outing cia agents, torture, fraud, stealing elections.
i don't disagree with you, it's just not a situation that can be taken at face value. it's much deeper and complex than "they're breaking the law".
starboardlight:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 02, 2006, 09:29:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: starboardlight on May 02, 2006, 12:35:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 02, 2006, 08:43:51 am ---To cross a border illegally to better one's life? Um, if they wanted to better their lives, why don't they come here legally? To come to a nation to better one's self and start this experience by breaking the laws of said country, not paying taxes and using up social services isn't the way to do it and is a slap in the face to this country.
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because it takes money to do it legally, money that they simply don't have. much less the understanding of the US bureaucracy to even comprehend the complex process. Have you looked into what it takes to get a work visa for the US?
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Bingo! Exactly. Guess what. Sometimes you don't get what you want in life because it's out of your price range. Is it therefore justifiable to obtain it illegally?
Ends justifying the means?
That's a can of worms you don't want to open otherwise there's quite a bit in life that I would like but the price range is out of my league. By this standard, it's OK for me to pursue this desire by any means available, legal or illegal.
I was watching the news and listening to a comment one woman said about keeping her children home so she could show her support and prove to her children that their mother wasn't a 'criminal'.
Then the news went on to comment that the woman had gotten here illegally.
Um, what part of 'breaking the law' concept did she fail to grasp? This flexibility in ethics/morals is what gets my family bashed by uninsured motorists who happened to be illegal aliens because obeying laws of traffic and getting insurance is something they can take or leave when it suits their purpose.
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You're right, del. the ends don't justify the means. I'm saying, as i said in my first post, the reforms being talked about don't address the heart of the issue. The legal routes aren't accessible to these people who are in very desperate situations. How do we hold that regal route in their face, when they have no way to reach it? If you look at it from their point of view, what do laws matter if you can't feed your children? To make it matter to them, we have to have a law that recognize their plight. Tighter borders won't change their situations. Punishing employers won't change the situation for them either. It's too easy to just say they're criminals breaking the law, but that won't solve the situation. The real solution has to come from compassion and humanity. That's not what I'm seeing from our leaders, at all. There has a be joint effort on both sides of the border. Perhaps a deal where, in exchange for a guess worker program, Mexico has to do more to stem the tide of immigration, such as offer assistance to their poor in find jobs, housing, etc. That would be a start maybe, but still a long way from solving the situation. I just don't see the debate really addressing the cause. We're just looking at the symptoms.
--- Quote ---Perhaps, and this is just a thought, if they're lving in such terrible conditions, maybe they shouldn't have had children. I mean, that's what other people do. If I can hardly feed myself, why would I want to reproduce and have even MORE mouths to feed?
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that just gets into a whole other can of worms. Remember Mexico has a large Catholic population, whose spiritual leaders tell them they can't use any kind of contraception. This is where my resentment of the Church rears its head. For the largely under-educated, there isn't much alternative. Using condoms and pills means eternal damnation, but no one tells them what are the alternatives. We know that the sexual urges is primal and essential to human existence. To ask people to deny that is just plain stupid. In countries where children are born everyday into poverty, the church must take responsibility in controlling that situation.
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