Topic: Dear Illegal immigrant rights marchers

[angrykeebler]

Fuck you and your marches for clogging up traffic and making me late for work. You get your point across by filling up the streets and causing headaches for people who are on their way to their jobs?

I am so annoyed right now.

[Pugnate]

They should be glad you don't drive a tank.

[angrykeebler]

That would own so hard. SO HARD!!

[Ghandi]

I don't understand what their deal is. The come into our country illegally, don't contribute to our economy but instead send all of their money south of the border, and then they bitch about our laws. Yes, my ancestors came into the country as immigrants- but the difference is, they were legal. They paid taxes. Actually, I have a plan. We should legalize them all and then make the pay reparations for the taxes they didn't pay.

[idolminds]

Yeah, they are trying to play words. No one has any problem with immigrants. We have a problem with the fucking illegal immigrants.

This isn't an immigration march, its an illegal immigration march.

[Cobra951]

This gentleman has my wholehearted permission to speak for me.  And he's raising awareness that the nonsense is about to get worse.

[Quemaqua]

Absolutely.  I'm downright militant about this.  People at work are afraid to talk about it around me now because I'll jump down their throats at the least mention of support for the other side.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that many of them are (and you'll forgive my utter racism and the fact that I don't give a damn about it) a bunch of fucking Mexicans with more family down there than up here (and plenty on both sides).  Fuck all of them.  I don't care who you are, I don't care about your skin, I don't care about much at all... but if you pull this kind of shit, expect me to hate you and your descendants forever.

[WindAndConfusion]

I keep telling myself not to post in these threads, I keep saying it, I keep ignoring it...

I don't understand what their deal is. The come into our country illegally,

Our existing immigration service either can't or won't admit enough legal, unskilled immigrant labor to fill demand in the US.

don't contribute to our economy

...

but instead send all of their money south of the border,

"All"? (How much of your money do you send to Saudi Arabia?)

Also, your grasp of economics is painfully weak. The belief that keeping capital inside a country is inherently "good" for that country's economy is called mercantalism, and mercantalism is all kinds of stupid. Here's a syllogism:

P1: Protectionist tariffs are bad for everyone, even for the people they supposedly protect. (See Adam Smith and basically every economist ever since.)
P2: Our immigration system, as it exists, is basically a protectionist tariff on labor. (This is uncontroversial?)
C: Our immigration system is bad for everyone.

and then they bitch about our laws.

Which ones? Our broken immigration system? Our labor laws that don't get enforced? Or the racist local ordinances that get passed every now and then?

Yes, my ancestors came into the country as immigrants- but the difference is, they were legal.

You sure about that? And what meaningful difference does "legal" and "illegal" make when the law is as stupid as 19th century immigration law?

They paid taxes.

So do illegal immigrants. See my next response.

Actually, I have a plan. We should legalize them all and then make the pay reparations for the taxes they didn't pay.

They pay sales/property taxes and the like. Their employers generally don't pay their income taxes, but it hardly matters since most unskilled immigrant labor is so damn poor they don't owe any income taxes in the first place.

[Ghandi]

Please. We are far from a mercantilist state. What's our trade deficit right now? 250 billion dollars? Illegal immigrants sent over 20 billion dollars to Mexico last year. This is money not going into our economy.

C: Our immigration system is bad for everyone. 

Except for the industries that thrive on illegal labor.

Which ones? Our broken immigration system? Our labor laws that don't get enforced? Or the racist local ordinances that get passed every now and then?

Our immigration system is only broken because we have 10,000 illegals every day crossing the border. The system is broken because these immigrants broke it. Now they want us to fix it for them.

[idolminds]

The problem isn't: "Hey, we think the current immigration laws make it difficult to become a legal citizen. We need to change this to make it better for everyone."

The problem is: "DEAL WITH US, ASSHOLES! MAKE US LEGAL! FUCK YOUR TEST! GIVE US THINGS!"

Obviously thats not everyone, but these marches and shit are just making people dislike the entire movement.

[WindAndConfusion]

Please. We are far from a mercantilist state.

Irrelevant to the discussion. YOU are using faulty economic reasoning - a particular kind of reasoning that was once called "mercantilism."

What's our trade deficit right now? 250 billion dollars? Illegal immigrants sent over 20 billion dollars to Mexico last year. This is money not going into our economy.

You fundamentally misunderstand the concept of a trade deficit. (Also, if your numbers are correct, then Mexico is basically selling us labor for $20 bn per year.)

Except for the industries that thrive on illegal labor.

Those industries would benefit if they had access to the exact same labor pool, only it was legal.

Our immigration system is only broken because we have 10,000 illegals every day crossing the border. The system is broken because these immigrants broke it. Now they want us to fix it for them.

It's been broken since the end of the 18th century, when Protestants were afraid of Irish Catholics ("white niggers") taking over the country. The reason 10,000 illegals cross the border every day is that US companies have sufficient demand to hire them. At least part of that demand is because the United States collectively doesn't give a damn about working conditions for illegal immigrants, thus we don not enforce labor laws on their behalf, thus they are the cheapest source of labor around.

If you actually wanted to fix the illegal immigrant problem, you would be working to eliminate the gaps among documented, undocumented, and native workers. Everyone (in the same job market) would be paid about the same, they would get about the same benefits, and they would work under about the same conditions. This would eliminate the economic conditions that have created our current situation, but it would also raise prices for everyone who is not an illegal immigrant or competing with them for jobs - basically, anyone with a GED. (Also, I think doing this would force more of our labor overseas to China, the third world, and the unincorporated US protectorates (eg Guam), which would be much worse for our local economies.)

[WindAndConfusion]

The problem isn't: "Hey, we think the current immigration laws make it difficult to become a legal citizen. We need to change this to make it better for everyone."

It would be, except that all political debates are fought between the two most retarded representatives of each side.

The problem is: "DEAL WITH US, ASSHOLES! MAKE US LEGAL! FUCK YOUR TEST! GIVE US THINGS!"

Obviously thats not everyone, but these marches and shit are just making people dislike the entire movement.

I don't know what you saw, but all protests ever are mostly made up of stupid people. That doesn't mean they don't have a point, though.

[Quemaqua]

They have a point, it's just totally wrong.

[Ghandi]

Irrelevant to the discussion. YOU are using faulty economic reasoning - a particular kind of reasoning that was once called "mercantilism."

Your entire discussion on mercantilism is irrelevant. Capital going to Mexico does not improve our economy (insofar as this discussion is concerned).

You fundamentally misunderstand the concept of a trade deficit. (Also, if your numbers are correct, then Mexico is basically selling us labor for $20 bn per year.)

You misquoted me. I was not insinuating that the $20 billion had anything to do with the trade deficit. In fact, that seems to be the problem.

Those industries would benefit if they had access to the exact same labor pool, only it was legal.

They would in no way benefit. Wages would increase. Plus current restrictions are laughable, despite recent efforts to tighten them. These industries benefit from the current situation.

If you actually wanted to fix the illegal immigrant problem, you would be working to eliminate the gaps among documented, undocumented, and native workers. Everyone (in the same job market) would be paid about the same, they would get about the same benefits, and they would work under about the same conditions. This would eliminate the economic conditions that have created our current situation, but it would also raise prices for everyone who is not an illegal immigrant or competing with them for jobs - basically, anyone with a GED. (Also, I think doing this would force more of our labor overseas to China, the third world, and the unincorporated US protectorates (eg Guam), which would be much worse for our local economies.)

This would not force labor overseas because the sectors that would be affected are namely the agricultural and construction sectors of our economy.

[scottws]

And the Chipotle sector.

+1

[Cobra951]

You can sit there and intellectualize about it from your air-conditioned office all you want, along with a team of equally cool-headed economists.  Anyone with eyes in their head can see that they're turning the USA into a 3rd-world nation.  They're taking over an entire section of the labor market, displacing a lot of US citizens.  They are lowering the wages and benefits packages, which of course benefits corporations, but no working people.  They're jamming the streets, overwhelming the infrastructure, and sucking a lot of money out of our economy.  And they don't belong here any more than the bums down the street belong in your living room.  That's by law and common sense, in both cases.

Kevin Eubanks said that the NAACP and the NCAA are about the same thing, the other night on the Leno show.  See, he can do that.  If Leno had said it, it would be Don Imus all over again.  Well, I have an equal privilege when it comes to Mexicans, because I'm thrown into the same ethnic group, although I'm not Mexican.  Everybody dances around this issue at official levels because of the immediate charges of racism.  No one has the balls to just say it like it is:  America can't take the lowest form of people from across the border in proportions amounting to a flood while remaining the country that we grew up in.  It will become a sadder, dirtier, foreign place.  This, more than making it difficult for our kids getting jobs at MacDonald's, is what should be scaring the hell out of us.

[scottws]

I think some obvious evidence in the shift is the fact that bilingualism is starting to really take hold.  Not just in communities with high populations of certain ethnic groups, but in general.  The other day I saw a billboard that was all in Spanish.

I live in Cincinnati, a city deeply rooted in German heritage.  But people don't walk around here speaking German and you don't see menus being printed in English and German.

Mexican illegal immigrants have no stock in our country whatsoever.  Previous groups of immigrants were happy to come here and make their living and learn the language and put their stock into this country.  Hell, my ex-girlfriend lived in the Soviet Union until she was nine.  She didn't speak a lick of English when she arrived, but today you wouldn't even know she was Belorussian unless she told you.

Many of the Mexicans seem only learn what English they have to to make it in whatever job they end up doing, and they send a large portion of their incomes back to families in Mexico.  I mentioned Chipotle earlier as a joke, but I went there the other day and one of the guys serving food didn't even speak any English from what I could tell as he said nothing except when someone asked him something, and then it was only in Spanish to another of his co-workers who would then come to the person asking the question and talk to them.

[Quemaqua]

I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to wait a billion years for some Mexican guy to get his shit together at a restaurant or something because he couldn't speak English and couldn't order.  Unless, of course, the people he was ordering from were Mexican, which is increasingly common.  There isn't a single fast food joint where I work that doesn't have almost exclusively Mexicans.  The remaining portion?  Asians.  There are no white or black people.  And if you think they aren't out there looking for any job they can get, you're wrong.  Same with the whole agricultural argument.  It's a load of shit.  There are lots of farmers in my family and I know the lay of the land.  There are more than plenty hard-working legal Americans willing to grow and pick our crops.  Anyone that says we "need" any of these foreigners to do it because no one else will doesn't know anything.

And yes, you wouldn't believe the multilingual focus of the local government here.  And you wouldn't believe the amount of effort we go to to accommodate people who don't even appreciate the benefit of the office where I work and the services provided them for fucking free.  They're 100% ungrateful more often than not.

I have no problem with anybody that comes here and embraces the general culture at least to a degree.  I have no problem with people hanging onto some roots from home, either.  In fact, I think they should.  But these people don't like the way we do things and don't want to conform to the common culture in any way, shape, or form.  They want to do it their own way regardless of the fact that it's been proven to be destructive.  They do not know how to create or strengthen a country, they only know how to run it into the ground.  Just take a look at their own country for ample evidence of that.

[scottws]

Yeah, I've been to Mexico and my opinion is that it is a giant shithole.