The Glade 4.0

Then we need to fix it, but not at the expense of those who have followed the rules. Those who have broken the law shouldn't get to stay while those who have done right are still waiting.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This is not true, especially for Mexicans. Mexico is not a poor country; it only appears that way because of the proximity of the U.S. and Canada. You are wildly exaggerating the expense of getting permission to come to this country.

Most of these people don't really want to come here permanently at all anyhow; they just want some work for a few years to send money home and then to go back whenever they get tired of it, or at the holidays, and so forth. They're illegal immigrants under the law because anyone here without documentation as a nonimmigrant is considered to be an immigrant, but their intention is not to stay here permanently. It's to come here, have some anchor babies, and make some money to send back to ****.

Our legal immigration process is cumbersome and expensive, but let's not make the mistake of thinking these are just poor, hardworking people that want to be Americans. Very few do. They want money and benefits, and they care about staying here only in terms of having a kid that's a USC in the hope that when the kid grows up they can petition for the parent to be allowed to come here legally, which they can do if the parent isn't already a criminal or deported too many times.

The people that are following the law are the ones that actually want to be Americans.. well, some of them, because quite a few just want to be LAPRs. The ones here illegally know perfectly well they can get deported. This meme of "America is all I know!" is really just playing to the political situation in the U.S. Once they get here, it's not hard at all for them to hop on the political bandwagon.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm not an open-borders type by any stretch, but I really don't get the vitriol towards illegal immigrants. Sneaking in from a comparatively poor and ridiculously dangerous country so you can work and improve the lives of you and your family doesn't strike me as a particularly awful thing to do and certainly not the kind of thing that would lead me to feel any kind of anger/hatred toward those who do it. The over-the-top "kill 'em all!" reaction on display in this and other threads reminds me of Javert from Les Mis and his utter disdain for any criminal who would steal bread rather than starve.

And hell, even stealing bread is worse than sneaking across a border because there's a direct victim of the theft. Illegal immigration, on the other hand, is basically a victimless crime at the individual level and only has negative impacts in the aggregate (and even that's arguable). If you've ever downloaded a pirated song or video, watched a movie or tv show from an unlicensed stream, unlocked a cell phone, used a software crack, worked under the table, called in sick when you really weren't, etc., etc., you've "stolen" money from my pocket and the pocket of every other honest, law-abiding person (via the higher prices/taxes we pay as a result) in the same sense that illegal immigrants "steal" jobs and benefits. So unless you think the RIAA should start launching drone strikes on illegal downloaders, I call hypocrisy.

C'mon Dave, you aren't that naive (I hope).

You know damn good and well what they are stealing.

I really don't, Midgen. Other than the indirect "theft" of jobs and benefits that I mentioned (which, again, is itself debatable), what are they stealing?

I don't, apparently I'm naive, why don't you explain what they are stealing.

If someone is in your house, and shouldn't be, are you a victim or not?

Look it should be really simply easy to do it the right way, register so we can keep track of you. I'm a citizen and I was born here, and I have to provide information of who I am and where I can be located in order to work. Again we need to fix that, but not at the expense of those who are doing right.

I don't hate them and I certainly don't advocate killing them. I just don't think we as a government and society should be condoning their criminal misbehavior.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'd actually go a step further. Just like software, video and music piracy has been shown to have positive effects to the supposed victims (to the extent that Microsoft has directly stated that they'd rather people pirate their software than pay for somebody else's), illegal immigration has positive effects, too. The jobs those people are taking, are jobs americans do not want. They're not putting americans out of work, they're filling a hole in the American labor force. There is a cheap labor shortage, where companies can't find people to work for wages that are low enough to be reasonable. Worse yet, there's a minimum wage that prevents them from even offering wages that are reasonably low enough for the work being requested. So suddenly, a bunch of mexicans are willing to step in and work for peanuts.

This is good for EVERYONE.

It's good for the Mexican, who is getting more money than he could get at home.
It's good for the employer, who gets to stay profitable.
It's good for the employer's customers, who get to continue purchasing their goods or services at prices they can afford.


Now, if you want to remove this cheap source of underground labor from the economy, you have 1 choice: Abolish minimum wage laws and welfare, forcing Americans to take jobs that they previously wouldn't take. I know a lot of people like that option, but I suspect it would never pass. Because it won't pass, you are back to the other option - illegal labor.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So if I steal money out of your law firm's bank account to help pay for my sick kid's operation, it's ok? You and yours certainly don't need all that money, you greedy bastard. And I'm doing a good thing by helping my kid get better. So, no one will turn me in right? I shouldn't have to pay it back or go to jail correct?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I really should point out that he didn't say it was just OK to let them in and look the other way, he said he doesn't hate them for trying. I would certainly try to stop someone that tried to steal money from me to pay for their sick child's operation, but that doesn't mean I have to hate them for it.

Just like people on welfare, there's no need to completely demonize illegal immigrants as a group. If we're going to go strengthen the border, accept that we're doing it for our own benefit, instead of being arrogant assholes and pretending that we're just giving lazy, thieving, useless people what they "deserve."

Those are direct harms to a specific person/company, though, whereas an immigration violation is, at most, an indirect harm to some unidentified person via systemic effects or "but for" reasoning (e.g., "but for" the presence of the illegal immigrant, I might have gotten the job he has).

On a side note, I would also say that the guy who steals money to pay for his kid's operation is considerably less reprehensible than someone who does it because they want to get rich and don't want to work, so although he'd still have to be held accountable, I think the circumstances warrant some sympathy and perhaps even a mitigated sentence. Similarly, even if we posit that illegal immigrants are criminals in the same sense as actual thieves, I have quite a bit of sympathy for their circumstances and would advocate a compassionate approach to dealing with them rather than the venomous antipathy many people often display.

And like Xeq pointed out, I don't advocate open borders. I'm just mystified by the intense anger and disdain many people seem to feel towards illegal immigrants, which seems inappropriate to me given the nature of the crime, the circumstances of the perpetrator, and the lack of such a reaction to other crimes that cause similar indirect harms.

There isn't a theft of jobs, not practically speaking in economic terms. The jobs are usually low skill jobs for which Americans don't or won't satisfy the demand in the markets in which those jobs exist.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

If an illegal immigrant came into my house and stole money from me to pay for his family's medical needs, I'm sure we would all have a problem with that.

So, instead of just stealing money from me, they just walk into the ER and get treated, never paying a dime.

Illegal immigrants are a burden on infrastructure,social systems, law enforcement, etc..., and yet generally are not contributing anything towards paying for those things.

In the mean time, my taxes are going through the roof (my paycheck is notiecable smaller after the first of the year), the State is going broke and is doing anything and everything they can to squeeze more money out of me; yet we are paying for free education and medical for anyone who walks over the border and asks for it?

So it is OK to create a permanent underclass, so long as they are willing members and no one talks about it?

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The alternative is to impoverish the middle class and bring them down to that level.

There will always be an underclass.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This is almost all tongue in cheek in the first place, but aprt of it has to do with the sense that these people come in here and then act as if it's some sort of wrong against them if they get caught. As for ridiculously dangerous, that's really not the case on a world scale. More dangerous than here, certainly, but not more dangerous than lots of other places.



Except that it's not arguable that it has negative impacts in the aggregate, and simply being "victimless at the individual level" does not make a crime less bad. It only makes it have less impact.

Second, your entire piracy argument is A) likely to be a total thread derail and B) not relevant. There is a legitimate argument to be made over the entire concept of intellectual property and what its limits and fair use ought to be.

There is no argument whatsoever that as a basic element of national soveriengty, we have a right to decide who comes into this country. Every nation has the right to decide that. No hypocrisy is involved. The hypocrisy is of those that whine about U.S. treatment of other "sovereign" nations who then turn around and pretend illegal aliens have some sort of right to stay here because they've been here a long time.

Finally, I'd say that the left's enthusiasm for more immigrants to come here so they can start voting for the left is rather self-serving and politically convenient. Nothing like importing more votes!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Abolishing the minimum wage would remove a lot of this problem, but the fact is they are NOT taking jobs Americans don't want. Americans do want these jobs, but they can't take them because they don't pay enough, and the reason they don't pay enough is because illegal immigrants take them for well under minimum wage.

A great many guys I work with grew up as migrant workers, who used to be able to follow the farm work around seasonally. They didn't grow up rich, but they always had the basic necessities, and they grew up to be productive citizens.

That can't be done anymore because illegal immigration has utterly destroyed the farm labor market. It's starting to impose on construction now too. Construction, carpentry, mechanics, etc. are all jobs that Americans have traditionally made a decent living at, but they're threatened by endless unskilled labor.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You don't live in the Southwest, where its a HUGE problem.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I'm at the most Southwestern point of the continental US and I'm not convinced that it's really a problem at all.

Do you know what the impact would be if they suddenly had to pay even minimum wage for those jobs?

Generally, the companies in question would either (A) Go out of business, or (B) raise prices for consumers. In the case of (A), the company's competitors would now raise prices for consumers. In the end, the effect would disperse throughout the economy, effectively lowering the wages of everyone by increasing inflation.

Abolishing the minimum wage, and removing welfare so people will take lower paying jobs, is the only way to remove this problem.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You got my vote. I've been against minimum wage since I was 16, got a 50 cent raise and ended up poorer (when from making above minimum to minimum).

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Directness of consequences has no relation to the severity of consequences.

This really, to me, isn't about jobs. Or minimum wage. Or theft (although I dislike that they often receive services without paying taxes).

It's about the rule of law. Failing to address illegal immigration, blanket amnesty, or wink-wink acknowledgement of the problem undermines the rule of law. Doing so is a severe risk to the social fabric of society.

Personally, I think we need open borders with basic safety protocols (notwithstanding financial impacts, just in terms of freedom of movement). Until then, while we have laws, we need to enforce them and should consider any organized groups functioning to undermine these laws (such as the Coyotes that work the border) the same way we consider any other organized crime group.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yes, that's the idea. I was agreeing with you about the minimum wage. However the fact remains that Americans "not wanting the jobs" is not the case.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There is room to question the source, I am sure, but here's what I was able to find without much search:

http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-u-s-taxpayers



So, if this is accurate, it's $1,000 per American household.

So wait, Illegal Immigration cost more than what the Sequester "cost"?

I mean, that's kinda a no brainer. Maybe we should do more to prevent illegals.

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Holy shitsnacks!