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Journal FortKnox's Journal: Illegal Aliens 40

Journal by FortKnox
Although some of you mistakenly take me for a Republican, I'm actually a centrist. Granted, I tend to vote conservatively, but I do have vary wild opinions.
I'm for gay marriage
I'm against the death penalty
I'm pro life
I don't really believe in the seperation of church and state that much (or, basically, I think its waaay overblown)

Everyone pretty much knows I hate zealots and extremists for their narrowmindedness...
So I'd like to open my mind up here to the other opinion. I don't see the big deal with illegal aliens. If someone has been living here for 10 years and has a wife and kids, I don't think the government can knock on the door of the individual, and deport them. I believe they should be educated in the law, get a slap on the wrist, and then get back to work.
Sure, someone can bring up the 'terrorists! OMG' point, but, to me, terrorists of this era is communism of the 60s-80s. Something for the public to fear.

So, conservatives of the world, tell me why I should want to kick every illegal alien out of the country. I'm serious. I really feel that I don't know enough about the situation to confidently have the opinion against it. If any of you liberal hippys want to jump in to solidify my opinion, you can have at it, too.

Lets just try to keep it civilized, though, k?
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Illegal Aliens More

Illegal Aliens

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  • 1. Rule of Law- the current law acutally does say that if they break the law, deport them, and that fraud is against the law. If you come here illegally, you've committed fraud.

    2. I don't think we actually need to crack down on illegal aliens. Start protecting the border (OMG! Terrorists!) NOW, and pay for it by cracking down on businesses that hire illegal aliens, and make applications for the green card (resident intending to immigrate and become a citizen) lottery virtual, online, and able to be acc
    • I agree almost 100% with number three, and mostly with number two. The real problems of immigration are essentially ignored. First is a half trillion dollars annually that leaves the US. The money that workers send back home will not be recaptured or in any way mitigated by anything. That is $500,000,000,000 pissed away into another country. Second is that it has the de facto effect of eliminating the minimum wage. No, Americans will not do certain jobs that others will. Because we expect worker's comp, rea
      • Corporate Death Penalty- I'm very much agreed on. Ecconomics has become warfare- and companies like that are traitors to America and deserve the punishment all traitors deserve.
    • Foreign trade has been enormously profitable over the last 40 years when you consider all the factors.
      • Foreign trade has been enormously profitable over the last 40 years when you consider all the factors.

        The only real factor in foreign trade that can be measured is dollar value of exports vs dollar value of imports. By that measure, we've lost money EVERY SINGLE YEAR FOR 40 YEARS, and thanks to a combination of that and our governmental debt, every American owes $156,000 to foreign governments above and beyond their own consumer debt, which is also considerable. When I'm in debt, I stop buying and selli
        • But it's not a zero sum game: you can't consider foreign trade in an isolated manner, it's only valid to consider it in the big picture of the entire economy. If the economy worked as you imagine, the United States would have gone broke 30 years ago - yet it has the world's strongest economy. It's trivial to argue you're ten times better off in the situation you're in now than you would have been had you sealed the borders against trade. The dollar has hardly been devalued - the dollar has gained strength i
          • But it's not a zero sum game: you can't consider foreign trade in an isolated manner, it's only valid to consider it in the big picture of the entire economy. If the economy worked as you imagine, the United States would have gone broke 30 years ago - yet it has the world's strongest economy.

            No, that just means that economists are spreading propaganda not based on real numbers. You can't have an average governmental + trade debt of $156,000 per citizen and call that a "strong economy"- it flies in the fa
            • Fine - close the borders, but as I said, then you'd complain about the trade deficit whatever state you live in has because if there's trade at all, someone somewhere has a deficit. The only way to do away with trade deficits at all is cease all commerce and abolish free trade and move to a command economy. Of course this has been tried before and it didn't work. Instead of a few people being poor, everyone was equally poor and had to queue up for hours for basic things like bread.

              Also, adding the PSBR (pub
              • Fine - close the borders, but as I said, then you'd complain about the trade deficit whatever state you live in has because if there's trade at all, someone somewhere has a deficit.

                Why does there have to be trade at all? We've got the internet now to send ideas, very cheaply. We've got everything we need locally to produce whatever the heck we want to. Why waste money and energy on trade? It's a stupid thing in this day and age to begin with to still be dependent upon trade.

                The only way to do away w

                • Why does there have to be trade at all? We've got the internet now to send ideas, very cheaply. We've got everything we need locally to produce whatever the heck we want to.

                  That's interesting.
                  Thought experiment: We close down all trade and localize everything.
                  How long will the Internet last when your local router goes pop, and you can't trade to get a new one? How are you going to make a new router from entirely locally sourced parts? Let's call "local" somewhere the size of Houston. You could argue that a

                  • How long will the Internet last when your local router goes pop, and you can't trade to get a new one?

                    Build a new one, there's enough local demand in my area for routers, plus we have the people right here in Oregon who invented them in the first place.

                    How are you going to make a new router from entirely locally sourced parts?

                    Local to me are chip manufacturers- all one needs to do is design the chip. There are chip manufacturers all over the United States capable of this level of work.

                    Let's call "l
            • Wealth is imaginary- it is neither created nor destroyed because it's all a myth. A very powerfull myth to be sure- but no different than the Olympian Gods.

              Funniest comment I've seen in YEARS! Wealth is not imaginary, any more than air the air we breath or the electricity that powers our computers. Wealth is measurable, fluctuates and real. Wealth is created with every productive operation done to raw materials, be they inanimate (iron, oil), living (service industries), or imaginary (real estate and fut
              • The "example" should read as follows:

                Ex: Iron ore from the ground is near worthless (~$65/ton [steelonthenet.com]). When it is mined (value added process), smelted (value added process), cast (value added process), and seasoned (value added process) that iron went from $65/ton to $21.95/7.5 lbs [castironcookware.com], an increase in wealth by %9000.

                Stupid HTML tags ;)

                -Ab
                • That cast iron cookware site is highly overpriced. I can get the same 7.5 lb pan for $5 at my local blacksmith's. Of course, he only charges his time + the amount of iron actually used, as opposed to iron used + time of casting + markup for retailer + storage costs + shipping costs. This is one example where it's cheaper at the mom&pop store.....because the labor is negligible once you have the mold.
              • Funniest comment I've seen in YEARS! Wealth is not imaginary, any more than air the air we breath or the electricity that powers our computers.

                Both of those are based in the laws of physics- as opposed to being based in the promises of a country that has been shown to lie over and over to it's citizens about the economy.

                Wealth is measurable, fluctuates and real.

                Two of those things are not like the other- if it was measurable and real, it wouldn't fluctuate, and vice versa.

                Wealth is created with ever

  • Meh (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's a matter of how you define your views on justice. Does justice come from doing what's right, or does justice come from adhering the procedures set forth by law?

    Bear in mind first of all that most of the backlash about immigration is, like the gay marriage "debate", largely fabricated by media and special interests who have a vested interest in causing unncessary friction. Most Americans have opinions on these things but by and large don't think they're terribly important or worth focusing on right now.
  • I overstayed my student visa. Deportation would have sucked.
    • Not to mention, under the suggestion of some people, you would be convicted of a felony, imprisoned, deported, and barred from ever coming back.

      I was never illegal, just legal without the ability to prove it.

      • I flew back here once from Winter break and was planning to get my visa the same day as my flight. Got up to the embassy and it was closed (is it Presiden't Day we have in January? 17 years and I still don't remember holidays). This was back when we still needed tourist visas to visit, you could sign them on the flight but they basically said you couldn't change your status once you signed. So I didn't sign and pleaded my case with the "friendly" INS people. They stuck me in a holding room with a few kids w
  • The current system of legal aliens, illegal aliens, and citizens creates a de facto class system. Illegal aliens do not have access to many essential services, for the fear that they'll be discovered and deported. Legal aliens don't have the same constitutional rights as citizens. Us citizens sit up here on top.

    Oddly enough, the system works in many ways. Minimum wage is ignored where it's economically impractical. Jobs Americans Won't Do get occupied by people who just want money.

    So codify the system.
  • In the US, immigration isn't really a right-and-left issue for the most part. It's only every ten years or so, when it turns into a high-profile issue and the people who never gave it any thought suddenly start yelling at each other, that the usual party lines appear.
  • So, conservatives of the world, tell me why I should want to kick every illegal alien out of the country.

    You shouldn't. Even if you truly believed they should all be deported, it's not feasible. It's up there with "hang'em all" for crime fighting.

    Those that use claim "rule of law mandates they be deported/they don't respect our laws" as an argument, would you be OK with changing the law then to allow then to stay? It would be a helluva lot easier to do.

    Realistically, the solution to the immigration problem
    • Justice should mean something- especially in rule of law. By not deporting illegals, we are harming the innocent to reward the guilty.

      Having said that, I'd be fine with a law that automatically naturalized everybody who had been in the pipeline for citizenship for more than 3 years, THEN gave everybody willing to renouce all ties, both family and governmental, to their homeland the chance to start on the pipeline to naturalized citizenship. All others should be deported- including those citizens who are
  • A friend of mine was pregnant with her first child and was rear-ended while driving home one day. It turns out the driver was an illegal alien and did not have car insurance. Due to her being pregnant, she was rushed to the hospital to ensure there was no damage to her baby. (There wasn't, thankfully.) She suffered back and hip problems, which were exacerbated by the extra weight she was carrying, and had to visit the doctor again to be checked out and to receive pain medication.

    Who bore all these costs? HE
    • Who bore all these costs? HER insurance company, because the driver who caused the accident was uninsured and illegal.

      Wouldn't that be true if the driver had been an uninsured redneck as well?

      Since illegal aliens also use government services without paying for them in taxes, you are also paying for them in increased taxes.

      Two solutions, we make them stop using the services, or, we make them pay for the services through taxes. Which one will yield better results?
      • Sure, but if you're an uninsured redneck, there are many more consequences. You can have your license taken away. You can face fines that ramp up to several thousand dollars, and since you are a U.S. citizen, those fines can be collected through wage garnishments. In other words, there are many things that discourage you from driving without insurance.

        With illegal immigrants, even if the government were to institute those penalties, there is no way to follow up and make sure the fine has been paid. Most ill
        • But in practice, those items are largely irrelevant when comparing apples to apples, or low wage immigrant to low wage American.

          A guy working a low income job won't really have any disposable income to garnish. In my experience, from 4 years in redneckville, half of the people I worked with doing industrial work would drive on suspended licenses anyway (Usually after a DUI). Taking it away wouldn't stop them from driving to work the next day.

          Point is, there's a good chance your friend wouldn't have gotten a
      • This is really a story about games large organizations play.

        When I worked at the Health Department, there was a case of an illegal alien run over by a truck. The hospital amputated both his legs. Normally, that would get one a hospital stay of about one week.

        The hospital billed us, the County Health Department. We denied the claim - the alien wasn't a part of any county program.

        The hospital kept that guy in for over a month, giving him different treatments, and trying to slip various bills into our syste

    • I'm not saying ignore the situation. I think something should be done and, as many had said, "deport'm all!" isn't a good solution. I'd rather said illegal alien was given some way to stay in the states, and given the ability to buy car insurance in order to be able to be responsible for this situation.
      Remember, the guy didn't (necessarily) ignore car insurance cause he thought it'd save him a few bucks... he ignored the car insurance to stay under INS's radar. It wasn't evil of him, rather, at worst, a
      • he ignored the car insurance to stay under INS's radar. It wasn't evil of him, rather, at worst, amoral.

        You must have some strange meaning of the word amoral of which I have not previously been aware. Crimes committed to cover up other crimes would be immoral in a politician, in a business person. Why not in an illegal immigrant?

        I think that's what really gets me here- behavior that would never be tolerated in a citizen (showing forged documents to get a job, driving without license or insurance, takin
  • The constitution only gives the feds authority to address naturalization, NOT immigration.

    Once you've convinced yourself of that, then look up the 10th amendment.

    • Who has the duty to protect the land? Last I looked, providing for the common defense was the responsibility of the Federal Government- and that would most certainly include protecting the borders against what is essentially an invasion (admited so by the Mexican Government, who is working very hard to export their poor to the Pacific Southwest in an attempt to reverse the Mexican-American war).
  • I think that anybody who wants to be here badly enough to sneak in and work low-wage jobs just to get by deserves to be here. Maybe I just watched El Norte [imdb.com] one time too many, but from the sounds of the Mexican border conditions...they really are risking a lot to get into this country. That has to be worth something.
    • but from the sounds of the Mexican border conditions...they really are risking a lot to get into this country. That has to be worth something.

      A bank robber also braves security systems and trigger happy rent-a-cops: should he be allowed to keep his take also because of the risk he took? What about the gang member in the shootout that kills an old woman sitting in her front living room a block away, should he get away with it because he choose to take the risk of being in a shootout? I ask because I keep
  • My wife's been here almost 5 years now and we're still fighting the CIS with their assorted screw ups and paperwork nightmares.

    So, I've bothered doing all of this legally and have probably paid at least as much in paperwork preparation, processing fees, and time as any proposed fine that these "undocumented workers" are expected to pay to get in the country and in front of the people who are trying to do things legally.

    They knew full well that they were entering the country illegally and all that that entai
    • My wife's been here almost 5 years now and we're still fighting the CIS with their assorted screw ups and paperwork nightmares.

      And this, to me, is the other half of the problem that nobody is talking about. Why the hell hasn't CIS automated their processes and done away with their fees yet? The whole bloody thing, including the "In person interviews" could go on the web- people should be able to apply for legal entry before they come, and if they intend to become citizens, should be let in on that basis
      • People DO apply for legal entry before they come into the United States. The original visas are issued in the US Embassies of foreign countries. (In my wife's case, the original K1 fiance visa.)

        In person interviews are also valuable in the case of marriage-related visa's just to make sure that the people in question aren't simply going through the motions to get someone into the US.

        No, my big problem is that the current processing system is FUBAR'd totally. We're 6+ months into waiting for a "replacement
        • People DO apply for legal entry before they come into the United States. The original visas are issued in the US Embassies of foreign countries. (In my wife's case, the original K1 fiance visa.)

          Yes- but there are many places that don't have US Embassies. India, one of the places we get many legal immigrants from, has only two- several thousand miles apart.

          In person interviews are also valuable in the case of marriage-related visa's just to make sure that the people in question aren't simply going throu

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