US Elections 2010

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

1. We're not against Immigrants, we're against illegal immigrants. Please get your facts straight.

Funny thing is, you guys think an illegal immigrant has to be from central america. When people think of illegals they think of Mexicans. Yes, illegal Mexicans form about 60% of all illegals in the US, but there are also illegals from eastern Europe; Polish, Ukrainian, Russian... There are even illegal Irish immigrants. There are also illegal Asians and middle easterners. But guess what, the legal status of those people is never put into question.

More over, the anti illegal movement is specifically targeted towards indigenous looking Latin Americans. The European or African Latinos don't run into those problems. Even crazier is that people in the US respect and romanticize American Indians yet there is no physical difference between an "illegal Mexican" and a native american.

Now you come out with the Arizona law that is supposed to profile anyone who looks "illegal", and yet the people who created the law claim that there is no racial profiling going on. Do you think an illegal Irish will ever be put in a position where his appearance would make police question his legal status?

Do you honestly think that if instead of Mexico we had Poland next to us we would be having this discussion now?

In any case, I don't mean to derail the subject of this thread. I just wanted to address this point.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

You guys shouldn't be too pessimistic. People learn from their mistakes :

Obama kicks off campaign with infrastructure plan

I saw his stump speech today (live) and it kinda made me laugh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb6gp5Ga5q8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQUh2XNsAQU

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Funny thing is, you guys think an illegal immigrant has to be from central america. When people think of illegals they think of Mexicans. Yes, illegal Mexicans form about 60% of all illegals in the US, but there are also illegals from eastern Europe; Polish, Ukrainian, Russian... There are even illegal Irish immigrants. There are also illegal Asians and middle easterners. But guess what, the legal status of those people is never put into question.

More over, the anti illegal movement is specifically targeted towards indigenous looking Latin Americans. The European or African Latinos don't run into those problems. Even crazier is that people in the US respect and romanticize American Indians yet there is no physical difference between an "illegal Mexican" and a native american.

Now you come out with the Arizona law that is supposed to profile anyone who looks "illegal", and yet the people who created the law claim that there is no racial profiling going on. Do you think an illegal Irish will ever be put in a position where his appearance would make police question his legal status?

Do you honestly think that if instead of Mexico we had Poland next to us we would be having this discussion now?

In any case, I don't mean to derail the subject of this thread. I just wanted to address this point.

You need to go down to Arizona and visit it. Talk to the locals, talk to the Border Patrol and Police down there. Actually talk to the people of Arizona before you think you know what's going on with the Arizona law. I am a partial owner on a house at Lake Havasu and spend a bit of time there(and have a best friend who lives in Glendale, just outside of Phoenix).

Explain this to me. Why does the majority of Hispanics in Arizona support the law? If it's so racist?

It has nothing to do with profiling some race. It has to do with defending the laws of this land. Something that the Federal Government hasn't been interested in, in about a hundred years.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

You need to go down to Arizona and visit it. Talk to the locals, talk to the Border Patrol and Police down there. Actually talk to the people of Arizona before you think you know what's going on with the Arizona law. I am a partial owner on a house at Lake Havasu and spend a bit of time there(and have a best friend who lives in Glendale, just outside of Phoenix).

Explain this to me. Why does the majority of Hispanics in Arizona support the law? If it's so racist?

Why don't you punish the businesses that employ these people? The same businesses that thrive on their cheap labor? The same businesses that give them reasons to come up north? El norte would not be the frontier if there was no opportunity for illegal immigrants. Why don't companies who hire illegals be charged with anti-competition and anti-trust laws? They are gaining an unfair advantage when they hire illegal immigrants and house them in shanti towns. It's all the immigrants fault and none of the men who gladly pay them 5-6 dollars an hour with no taxes for their employ.

Also they only dog pile the federal government when the D is in the white house, why wasn't this an issue in 2000, 2004, 2008? The cognitive dissonance is completely shocking.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

El norte would not be the frontier if there was no opportunity for illegal immigrants.

To be fair, I'm sure most of them want to escape the drug war that's going on outside Mexico city and its northern states.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

Explain this to me. Why does the majority of Hispanics in Arizona support the law? If it's so racist?

That's actually false: 81% opposes the bill, and 59% blame Republicans for its passage.

Originally Posted by justinstrife

It has nothing to do with profiling some race. It has to do with defending the laws of this land. Something that the Federal Government hasn't been interested in, in about a hundred years.

Also false: U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade. Obviously, this is partially due to the recession, but the survey does show that Federal enforcement does work, there just hasn't been an actual concerted effort to solve the problem...

---

That being said, as an aside, please stop attacking Justinstrife. Debate the ideas, not specifically Justin’s stances. Honestly, we should all be happy that an actual supporter of the Tea Party initiative is on this forum, else many would not be actively in contact with the Tea Party's ideas and ideology (instead getting the extreme bias for or against as presented by the media). Just remember, you may disagree with Justinstrife, but try to be a little more courteous about it (simple way to do that, insult the party or it's ideas, not the party members ).

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by flying ^

To be fair, I'm sure most of them want to escape the drug war that's going on outside Mexico city and its northern states.

That's not true at all. Mexico's drug war is fueled by consumption in America, it's either be rich and have a possibly truncated life running drugs, working for the cartel or making money via a 9-9 in America and send that money back home to help build your mom that house. It's all about the economics for these people or else you'd have more asylum seekers and less stats of just people sending money home back to mexico and the reset of the latin America. Also the notion that it's only northern mexicans again shows the falsity that only mexicans are coming. Actually there is a high enough population of non mexicans coming to mexico where coyotes will hold them for ransom and demand payment all the way from guatamala and other central american cities. If you cut off the money to employ illegals the amount of them willing to risk their lives just to escape the drug war will only be those desperately trying to escape the violence.

[james0246]

^I think you can place this under "Things Machete taught me" .

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by james0246

^I think you can place this under "Things Machete taught me" .

Haven't seen the movie, these are actually things I learned from Quinciera and El Norte. Both nearly 15 years old and probably are more truer than ever. Both spanish/mexican films about the plight of those making the cross over to America. Coyotes do fleece non Mexicans, and it's pretty much a viable scam that works with people who are not locals. This also has to do with their status in Mexico, usually their also not legal so it leads to no real actionable part on law enforcement. In the end the point I was making was that if you punish employers for employing latin Americans/mexicans that are here illegally and punish them for trying to employ and circumvent American Labor/immigration laws you will stimie the push of illegal immigrants. Also if you go to border towns, American corporations and businesses actually advertise and hire illegals from across the border. To not even attempt to stop big business from hiring these wage depressors shows you how much big business wants to punish illegals over actually changing our immigration policies to promote less illegals flooding our borders.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Why don't you punish the businesses that employ these people? The same businesses that thrive on their cheap labor? The same businesses that give them reasons to come up north? El norte would not be the frontier if there was no opportunity for illegal immigrants. Why don't companies who hire illegals be charged with anti-competition and anti-trust laws? They are gaining an unfair advantage when they hire illegal immigrants and house them in shanti towns. It's all the immigrants fault and none of the men who gladly pay them 5-6 dollars an hour with no taxes for their employ.

Also they only dog pile the federal government when the D is in the white house, why wasn't this an issue in 2000, 2004, 2008? The cognitive dissonance is completely shocking.

I am not against punishing businesses who knowingly hire illegals. Nowhere did I say I was against that idea. And nowhere will you find the Tea Party movement against that idea either. Nowhere. I'm all for punishing businesses for breaking the law, just as I'm all for punishing individuals for breaking the law.

Hard to believe that 81% of hispanics in Arizona are against the SB1070 bill when they make up 30% of the population, and 81% of all Arizonians support the bill.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/102025598.html

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04000.html

And thanks James for being fair with me. I do feel like the lone voice in here from the right(and I acknowledge that I pretty much am). What's funny, is it's the complete opposite from the other forum that I spend all of my time. Maybe no one here can understand why I find it funny, I just do. I almost feel like I'm on democraticunderground when I go into this area of the forum. If I was a few years younger, I'd almost say this place is scary with how different you all see things from how I see them.

[synaesthetic]

I don't understand why Arizona is trying to pass such a controversial law (that probably won't help at all), when Oklahoma already had something totally different that works much, much better--without any risk of racial profiling.

The Oklahoma anti-illegal law punishes the businesses for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, paying them under the table and paying them wages beneath the federal minimum wage.

It actually works pretty well. So if the US government really was serious about stopping the flood of illegal immigrants (of any color, mind you) they'd go after the businesses that knowingly hire the people who are illegally in the country. As it's already been mentioned, most illegal immigrants come over to this country for financial reasons... to get hired and send money back home.

I am personally rather ambivalent on the subject of illegal immigration. I don't think it's right for people to be allowed to come into the country illegally, but it's pretty impossible to totally stop it. I believe it would be better to simply maintain a country with open borders, but only if income tax was eliminated entirely (and consuption taxes raised to compensate).

I think this would be a solution to many problems we have. It would have the natural effect of scaling tax obligation based on wealth, and would prevent anyone, undocumented or not, from escaping taxes by being paid "off the books." Unless they never bought anything, which would be, of course, impossible. Hard to live without food, after all.

(Of course I do not doubt the ultra-rich with their army of lawyers would not find some way around this... the IRS would have to be very vigilant).

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

That's not true at all. Mexico's drug war is fueled by consumption in America, it's either be rich and have a possibly truncated life running drugs, working for the cartel or making money via a 9-9 in America and send that money back home to help build your mom that house. It's all about the economics for these people or else you'd have more asylum seekers and less stats of just people sending money home back to mexico and the reset of the latin America. Also the notion that it's only northern mexicans again shows the falsity that only mexicans are coming. Actually there is a high enough population of non mexicans coming to mexico where coyotes will hold them for ransom and demand payment all the way from guatamala and other central american cities. If you cut off the money to employ illegals the amount of them willing to risk their lives just to escape the drug war will only be those desperately trying to escape the violence.

That is not the reason why they come here. Immigrants regardless of status have something we don't. They value the few opportunities they are given and more importantly, a person who is willing to leave everything behind to come to join a new culture is always motived to be a better person. We on the other hand take everything for granted, an immigrant doesn't. This is why the US is a superpower, because it was forged with immigrant blood.

Now a little rant in order to explain the situation the illegals find themselves in:

Remember we are talking about indigenous people here, not white or black Hispanics:

Spoiler:

The native Americans have never truly recovered from the time their culture was ripped apart by the conquistadors. All over Latin america the poorest people in general are natives. As some of you know blacks and indians were enslaved. In some places such as Argentina they were exterminated. In the rest of the Americas they have lived a segregated life with very few options.

They were also left in the middle of two worlds to fend for themselves; in one hand you have cultures that go back over 2000 years that were completely lost to slavery and Christianity, and in the other you have these people trying to fit in into modern society, many of them still speak their original languages. Unlike Martin Luther King, they never had anyone to speak out for them.

Latin America is also racist, like any other place in the world, it is very rare to see, for example, indigenous people in Mexican tv shows or in any other place throughout Latin America. They are always discriminated against and are reduced to live in the slums.

These people have no education, no culture of their own and no future in their countries. This is why they look up north and risk their lives coming to the US thinking it is the promised land. Little do they know they are also look down upon up here as well.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

You guys shouldn't be too pessimistic. People learn from their mistakes :

Obama kicks off campaign with infrastructure plan



Whether if this plan is too late or not, history will judge. At least this is a good plan as compared to the previous US$70B going straight to those money-grubbers in Wall Street.

If the Dems can get this passed (With extra emphasis Mass Transit, as opposed to roads.) then I will forgive them for the frustration of the past year and a half. (Though personally I would prefer if there was 150 billion available with a third of that going towards the increase of pre-existing mass transit services, as in longer service hours, lower fares, and less wait between buses and trains.)

[synaesthetic]

Oh lawd.

If that will stop the stupidity with AC Transit, I will be a happy, happy woman.

A happy, happy woman who can get to class on time.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Oh lawd.

If that will stop the stupidity with AC Transit, I will be a happy, happy woman.

A happy, happy woman who can get to class on time.

Depends on what the cash for mass transit will go towards: If it's all for capital, (New Construction) then you'll be out of luck, and even if there is money for operations, (Day to Day service+maintenance) then AC transit will be competing with Dozens of other agencies for the what cash there is. Another thing to remember, here in the Bay Area, were spoiled for the quantity of service compared to other cities in the U.S. (Though the QUALITY needs some really dramatic improvement, not to mention the need for more ambitious planning that isn't BART to the fucking moon.)

[Hage-bai]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I don't understand why Arizona is trying to pass such a controversial law (that probably won't help at all), when Oklahoma already had something totally different that works much, much better--without any risk of racial profiling.

The Oklahoma anti-illegal law punishes the businesses for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, paying them under the table and paying them wages beneath the federal minimum wage.

It actually works pretty well. So if the US government really was serious about stopping the flood of illegal immigrants (of any color, mind you) they'd go after the businesses that knowingly hire the people who are illegally in the country. As it's already been mentioned, most illegal immigrants come over to this country for financial reasons... to get hired and send money back home.

Did Arizona not pass something similar in 2007?

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by james0246

(simple way to do that, insult the party or it's ideas, not the party members ).

How exactly does that work? If someone identifies with a party, it does not really matter if you insult party or person (its almost the same for the person). Justin shows all signs of deeply identifying with the (tea) party agenda and the party itself. I know, we cannot convince him with reason, because the typical arguments that he prefers to be indoctrinate by are based on hate, fear, nationalism and supremacy.
My problem is, since he is promoting the ideas of the party as his own he is in my oppinion willingly poisening these forums with the worst propaganda that I can imagine coming from a democratic country (well, I am aware we have extreme right wing facists too, and I also know debating with them leads to nowhere).

[Kyuu]

Well - for starters - I like Obama's program involving $50 billion towards infrastructure improvement projects over the next 6 years.

Yet, I will facepalm when Republicans oppose this on the basis that "OMG, Obama is spending money!!" Yet, that pricetag is far cheaper than the Iraq War and would seem like a much more sound investment.

[bayoab]

Polling nonsense time:
NBC/WSJ

Republicans leading on the generic ballot by nine points among likely voters (49%-40%) and 18 points among those expressing a high interest in the midterms (53%-35%). Among registered voters, however, the score is even (43%-43%), suggesting that Democrats can limit their losses if they turn out their voters.

I'm wondering if there is going to be an issue with LV models this year with that +9 suddenly becoming +18 with "high interest" groups. (Especially with the line between republican and independent self identification being blurred so much right now.)

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation

Here is where things get weird but I don't know why there is no note of it:

According to the poll, Republicans have a slight 3-point edge over the Democrats on taxes and a 6-point advantage on tacking the federal budget deficit.

Republicans barely having an edge on taxes? That seems like a really really bad thing for the GOP. They have always been the party of tax cuts.

This is not really shocking since the GOP always claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but that gap doesn't look promising for the GOP. However, it is even worse for the democrats since the republicans have not reduced the deficit in 30 years.

Bonus round for "Wait, what?" How does this make any sense?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by KyuuA4

Well - for starters - I like Obama's program involving $50 billion towards infrastructure improvement projects over the next 6 years.

Yet, I will facepalm when Republicans oppose this on the basis that "OMG, Obama is spending money!!" Yet, that pricetag is far cheaper than the Iraq War and would seem like a much more sound investment.

i like this too, infrastrcture improvement is long overdue in this country. However this should have been done 2 yrs ago at the start of 2008 not near the end of 2010.