Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Debate is one of those things that requires a thick skin, or, better yet, the humility of a saint. Yet some how I manage to get by. I am told it is because I just like to argue. Apparently, Henryk A. Kowalczyk likes to debate as well. With his comments at this post, he has been making a persuasive case for his immigration plan (see here). What Kowalczyk’s argument has come down to is this.
You see that one cannot keep the balance on the bicycle without having a foot on the ground when bicycle is standing. Consequently, you see it logical that it would be suicidal riding a bicycle without a third wheel.
You seem not seeing a difference between a free market and lawlessness. Free market means that two individuals should be able enter any contract they see suiting them. We need laws to guarantee that these contracts are executed.
We do not need regulating “free market”. When the “free market” does not work because of being abused, it simply means that someone has too much freedom, at the cost of someone else who does not have equal freedom. Socialists of all sorts, seek solution to this problem by reducing freedoms of people who are in the position of taking unfair advantage of the freedoms they have; mostly, money. It never comes to their mind that the solution is in increasing freedoms of people who are taken advantage off.
The irony of government “correcting” unfairness of the “free market” is that when it is given to politicians, by the end of the day, they will come with solutions that would suit those individuals that can make the largest contributions. This obviously, would lead to a conclusion that even more regulations are needed to “correct” shortcomings of the “free market”.
If you want to hire Mexicans, and if you can arrange work this way that it would be not essential for you whether they speak any English or not, should I have a right to prevent you from entering into a contract with these Mexicans, unless they would learn English? (from here)
What Kowalczyk appears to believe is that if a foreigner can get a job here and that foreigner does not present any security risk, then they should be allowed to immigrate. This sort of belief is not as unusual as some might think. When I was commenting on a post at Below The Beltway, I found out that Doug Mataconis believes the “free movement of people to be an individual right”.
The only restrictions on immigration that I can justify are those that prevent people with criminal records or questionable political ties from entering the country.
Since I consider to be free movement of people to be an individual right as important as freedom of speech, I don’t think the state has the right to prevent individuals from exercising their choice over where they want to live.
So, tell me, if we’re going to restrict immigration to “well-educated productive people” who do plan on getting to pick the crops in places like Florida and California ? (from here)
So does the free movement of people as an individual right override national sovereignty? Do we as a nation have the right to control immigration? I seriously doubt many of our leaders believe that we do? At least most act like they agree with Kowalczyk and Mataconis. Otherwise, how do you explain their stubborn refusal to do anything about illegal immigration? Perhaps we as a People need to consider our differences with our leadership and clearly define what we want.
Do We the People have the right to determine who crosses our borders? With respect to both Law and Morality, I think the answer is yes.
First, let us tackle the easier question, the matter of Law. The Constitution unambiguously gives Congress the power ”To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” (Article I, Section 8, Clause 4).
Now let us more clearly define the more difficult problem, the issue of morality. Is the free movement of people an individual right? Do American employers have the right to hire anyone they feel like hiring? When it comes to defining the limits on individual rights, there are no simple, straight forward answers. The closest thing I know to a rule comes from this quote.
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Mataconis says he would restricts the immigration of people who pose security concerns. For similar reasons, Kowalczyk concedes a limited role for government in the control of immigration. So both Kowalczyk and Mataconis concede some immigrants should not be allowed to cross our borders. Where they differ with many, and perhaps most people, is that they think immigration should be treated as some kind of civil rights issue.
Frankly, I tend to sympathize with Kowalczyk’s and Mataconis’ views. However, I think our national nose begins much sooner than they do. National sovereignty involves more than just immediate security concerns. In addition to protecting ourselves from the immediate threat posed by criminals and military invaders, we also have the right to protect our national identity.
Just like any other nation, the United States has a unique national identity. In spite of and because of our immigrant heritage, we share a similar language and cultural heritage. Because of the stability our shared cultural heritage gives our government, we must act in self defense to preserve that heritage. Hence we are wise to limit the “free movement” of people into our nation to those who have taken the trouble to learn to speak our language.
Consider again Kowalczyk’s analogy, the bicycle. If one chooses to go to the trouble, one can learn to ride a unicycle. However, because a unicycle is not very stable, it is not practical except as a stunt or a toy. Because the added wheel increases stability, most people prefer a bicycle or motorcycle. Serious transportation usually involves four or more wheels. When we risk something as weighty as the lives and the prosperity of our family and friends, we take whatever precautions we deem necessary.
Other Views
Grumpy Gripes worries about the Reconquista (here).
QandO had a post in 2006 that considered the civil rights angle (here).
AntiBVBL pursues the profiling issue (here).
I f you don’t control your border, you don’t control your sovereignty.
These are a bit dated, but okay.
http://americancivilization.net/articles/2006/No_Border_No_Nation.htm
http://americancivilization.net/articles/2004/Thanksgiving_Gut_Check_On_Immigration.pdf
James, thanks for stopping by. I particularly liked the history lesson in the first post.
A lot of people think it absurd to call illegal immigration an invasion, but that is literally what it is. And while the vast majority of these people have come here to work, not to dispossess us of our homes, they are forming cultural enclaves. That bodes ill.
In fact we have an example close in time and place. All we need do is consider what happened when the situation was reversed in Texas — when Texans shouted: “Remember the Alamo!”
The Texans thought of the themselves as defending their homes, but when they settled in Texas it was still part of Mexico. After their battle cry, that changed. From the perspective of the Mexicans, the Texans became successful invaders.
CT: Texas was stolen fair and square. As will our own country be if we choose to lay down and not enforce the laws we have on the books now.
James,
I beg to pardon. Texas was not stolen. Texas was
fought and died for and won by whites, blacks, native Amerinds, and Mexicans as well, in a war “stripping the tyrant king of Mexico, Santa Anna of his stranglehold on a land and people that desired to be free and independent….no more or less than people living in the known eastern part of this land living under the thumb of a similar tyrant did when “they” revolted against King George and England founding this nation we today take all too for granted. And thank God for them all that did fight and die to make this land one united nation. For if they had been lily livered like many in this nation today have become, ready to give this nation up to illegal alien invaders this nation would have never evolved into the sovereign united nation it became from coast to coast.
Secondly, only people that have been brainwashed by professional word-smiths that coined phrases now used popularly but dead wrong “illegal immigration and illegal immigrant(s)” use those terms as defense to their pitiful positions in their desires to wave the white flag of surrender and cede their right of sovereignty to illegal alien invaders.
True enough, after this nation became a sovereign nation, the citizens of this United States of America opened their arms in welcome to immigration and immigrants…”LEGAL” immigrants and “LEGAL” immigration to people from all over the globe…and there in lies the difference between people knowledgeable, and the stupid people of today.
I defy anyone period, to produce one shred of written evidence gleaned from our Constitution, or federal or state law texts such as West Law, or Blacks Law referencing Illegal Immigration or Illegal Immigrant. Good luck in finding it.
There is only one or two word phrases for people that enter the United States illegally, and they are illegal aliens and/or invaders that have no qualms about committing felony crime as their first act upon entry into this nation as they violate our borders and coast lines. And it matters not one whit which other nation they originated and are fleeing from when they violate our sovereignty, an illegal alien entrant is just that, an illegal alien entrant and the weak willy bleeding heart liberals need to adjust themselves to that fact and accept it or have the laws for immigrating to the U S A changed and just let the millions and tens of millions of people that want to come to the United States flood in at will.
If anything, what the bleeding hearts in this nation should be doing is demanding our heads of government to deal with heads of governments of nations where these millions of people are fleeing from to right their wrongs against their own people and enhance their lives in the nations where they were born. Then there would be no need for those millions upon millions people to violate our borders and shores and enter illegally.
Do keep in mind whimpering weak willy bleeding hearts, at the beginnings, had the people living in this land had been greedy, they could have just as easily taken the lands now called Canada, and Mexico entirely, making the entire Northern Hemisphere of of the continent known as North America one nation from the north pole, to the southern tip of Mexico making all those lands productive for farming and industry…in which case there wouldn’t exist the problem today of where to put, house, and feed a billion or more people.
However the peoples that became the original citizens of this nation were not greedy nor were they weak willies that laid down like beaten dogs and let illegal alien invaders walk over them like so much trash.
I fought for this nation in war and have become ashamed to live among the weak willies that haven’t the intestinal fortitude to stand up for this nation and not give it away.
Weak willies…you don’t deserve to live in this nation where millions of your fellow citizens past and present gave and are still giving their lives and limbs to ensure your right to live in the safety they have provided for you as you live today in a free independent sovereign nation.
For Citizen Tom.
I was born and raised on a small ranch in deep South Texas in 1946 and with the exception of military service during the early to late 1960′s, 39 months of that spent in Southeast Asia, and a few months living in la la California, I have lived in Texas all my life.
Ironically and only until fairly recently, many people in the other lower 48 states started recognizing the illegal alien problem that I have known about all my life.
I’m going to relate one personal experience from my childhood graphically.
When I was nine years old my dad started making me ride a horse, armed with a shotgun, from dusk to midnight with one of my older brothers.
This was every night seven nights a week from 1955 until I entered military service in 1962.
We had to ride our property at night to run illegal Mexicans that I still call “wetbacks” today off our property in order to keep them from killing and eating our livestock, sheep, goats, beef cattle, even our chickens as they traveled north.
Eventually the wetbacks killing of our livestock due to the gross monetary losses forced my dad to sell the ranch. You see we were only about 40 miles from the Tex/Mex border just north of Del Rio which was and probably still is one of the major border crossing points for illegals.
It was nothing unusual for us to lose as many as 10 to 15 head of cattle a month which included our breeding stock of cows and bulls and the consequent lost income. It was easy to find the partially fresh butchered carcasses of the dead animals during the day by watching the circling buzzards.
But the loss of our animals, bad as that was, was only a part of it all.
One night in September 1956, three days before my 10th birthday I was riding with my brother George Edward aka Buddy when we smelled smoke. We rode toward the odor until we could make out the source; a camp fire.
We dismounted and eased up to where we saw seven men and boys and the carcass of one of our cows.
What we didn’t see were the eighth and ninth men who were armed and on watch until Buddy was shot without warning through his neck from ambush. Buddy’s death wasn’t quite instant but near enough.
The shooter and that ninth wetback made the mistake of moving toward me and Buddy’s body because the light of their camp fire made them stand out clear through the sparse shrub trees.
I was plenty scared and just nine years old but I was armed too with a 12 gauge pump shotgun with magnum double O buckshot loads, one round in the chamber and four more in the magazine and I cut both those wetback bastards nearly in half when they were about 20 feet from me. I would have killed the rest if they had not fled after hearing that shotgun roar four times and their compadres screaming just before they died.
Try carrying this type of burden around for more than fifty years…seeing a brother bleed to death and die and killing two men when your not quite ten years old.
But I can say that that night on our ranch when I was almost ten steeled me eight years later when I went into combat in the SEATO in 1964…when I had to shoot and kill I didn’t even blink an eye or think about it afterward. Long before 64 life, kill or be killed, had been reduced to a less than a blink of the eye reflex and all because of a stinking bunch of illegal wetback aliens.
Now I wish someone would ask me if I have compassion for illegal Mexicans and other hispanic aliens that are compelled to flee from their homelands…because my answer would be “yes, I do have compassion and feel sorry for them”…but as well…”neither I nor anyone I know made their problems that cause them to flee to the U S A as illegal alien invaders nor is it my responsibility to resolve their problems for them.”
I feel about them the same way I feel about the weak willie liberals here; citizens that don’t have the guts to stand up for themselves and set things right even if it means going to extremes when things aren’t right.
I feel the same way millions of other U S Citizens feel about illegal aliens….deportation…but I think rather than sending them back to the same situation they left, that maybe just maybe we should arm them and teach them how to take their countries out of the hands of their oppressors and into their own hands.
I ask the question of “if this illegal alien problem continues ere long unabated, just how long does anyone think its going to take fort the positions of U S Citizens to become insupportable and untenable?”
I can assure you border fences isn’t going to do anything but slow illegal down a little bit at best.
I may not live to see it, and I pray I won’t but unless especially the Mexican government doesn’t fully cooperate AND STOP AIDING illegals to cross the U S/Mexico border, eventually sooner than later in all probability since the creek turned into a flooding river, the “problem” WILL evolve into a revolution at first, then civil war, ending in a race war, here in the U S A…OR…this nation will become so saturated with people to a population point not unlike India and China and unable to support itself becoming a third or even a fourth world nation with a starving population and our own citizens fleeing to other nations as illegal aliens.
Last said: Either we have a nation of law and equal justice under the law or we don’t…which means all people in this nation are treated equally and subject to punishment equally under the law, citizens, aliens with legal status and illegal aliens.
The keyword about illegal aliens, illegal immigrants or any other name one might wish to refer to them by is the word ILLEGAL.
So weak willies either get enough votes to change the laws or get ready to start seeing mass deportation and illegal alien imprisonment…because the pressure cooker is already at a boil and its just a matter of time before the lid blows off…and you can take this bit of information to the bank!
Tom – Thank you for your comments.
When James says “Texas was stolen fair and square,” I think that is his way of saying it was not stolen. Truth be told, from what I remember about Texas’ war with Santa Anna, they really did not have much of an alternative. On the other hand, the second war, where the USA intervened on the side of Texas, has the look and smell of a land grab. But what is done is done.
There is no easy way to verify your story of cattle rustling and murder, but we hear too many such tales these days. With the border so porous and so many people crossing it illegally, crime due to illegal immigrants is an inevitable problem.
Crime leads to more crimes. When we let people break our law to enter our country, it stands to reason that we are not giving them much reason to respect the rest of our laws. Moreover, when people come freely from lands where violence is common, they will bring their violence with them.
CT,
True enough what anyone says here on the web is hard to verify is this nation of people that have come to hold just about everything and everyone under suspicion before the fact.
However there is my brother’s grave near Ingram, Texas with the dates of birth and death, and courthouse death records citing the nature of death to be viewed if need of proof is all that paramount.
I suppose one having personal experience of one’s own is the best form of coming to agreement and conclusions.
Maybe if you do need verification of the sort you refer the thing to do is to move down close to the US/Mexico border and roll the dice for yourself.
Like yourself my name is Tom but my name doesn’t have the word “doubting” stuck in front of it when I see someone’s testament. Believe what you read or not as you wish.
Incidentally its not it’s not only crime that is coming with the illegal aliens but diseases like the new strains of tuberculosis popping up here in schools of the DFW Metroplex area where I now live; disease traced directly to the children of illegal aliens as source. If you need that verified go to the online local area TV and newspaper morgues for last year or two.
Tom the disease factor has been blown out of proportion BUT…..the fact there is any tells us we need to immunize no matter what the citizen status of the children or anyone else. This is both a humanitarian need as well as a national health and economic need. Disease is expensive and even if you are a “deport them all now” person, you can’t expect it to happen immediately. We have to protect ourselves and others from suffering. But we cannot allow the propaganda of “illegals as disease carriers” to continue. What a destructive message!
“….just about everything and everyone under suspicion before the fact.” That includes immigrants and anyone who is trying to help them and our nation at the same time.
kgothardt “the disease factor has been blown out of proportion?” Poppycock!
Tell that to the children suffering! You ought to be thankful that diseases haven’t already become epidemic here!
Most surely we have to protect ourselves as you said…but why on Earth do you think we have to be responsible for everyone else and my dear lady is “the message” destructive or the illegal aliens that carry disease into this nation that are destructive on any scale large or small.
And my dear dear lady…the people I refer to ARE NOT immigrants or even applicants for legal immigration that undergo background checks and health screening…THE PEOPLE I AM REFERRING TO ARE illegal aliens that crossed our borders as unarmed and sometimes armed invaders, plain, simple, end quote whether you like it or not.
Madam, bleed for them, take them into your home and care for them, spend your money inoculating them, feeding them, clothing them, PROTECTING them…take in all the Earth’s flotsam and jetsam you want…that is your privilege and your right as a U S Citizen but don’t you dare try to cram your weak willy soft heart save the world crapola down my throat because I stridently OBJECT to illegal aliens that commit felony crime with their first step into the nation I fought and got three times wounded for.
My humanitarian contributions are for U S Citizens period and only. Your problem, Madam, is target identification.
You very obviously can’t distinguish the difference between a legally entered immigrant that applied for immigration, and earned his/her right to be here and stay here LEGALLY, and a criminal illegal alien invader that willfully violates the law and sovereignty of our nation!
It has to be that Madam or would you call a burglar that breaks into your home merely an uninvited guest, be all forgiving and allow him/her to stay in your home permanently.
Good fences do not make good neighbors.
My proposal of the Freedom of Migration Act and my participation in this blog do not come from me liking to debate. I just did my homework on the issue and arrived with a solution better than any other known to me.
The claim that Freedom of Migration Act weakens national sovereignty is not supported by any argument brought by Citizen Tom or anyone else anywhere. It is just hollow, but sounding lofty wordiness. Immigration, as envisioned by the FMA, strengthens the Nation economically, and this is the safest foundation of national sovereignty.
Citizen Tom brings Morality as the reason behind restrictive immigration laws. Guess what, I lived under the political system built on the lofty moral ideas. They made them into laws and… killed or imprisoned all of the opponents. The superiority of the American political system over most other political systems before, is in this simple rule that one man’s morality is not legislated over other men morality. Morality was reduced to a plain rule that every man is equal and free to pursue happiness. As long as in his pursuing happiness a man does not deprive another man freedom of doing the same, there should be no law limiting this man actions. I discuss it in “Smiths vs. the Joneses”.
“National identity” is another elephant commonly brought into immigration debates. Citizen Tom writes “In spite of and because of our immigrant heritage, we share a similar language and cultural heritage. Because of the stability our shared cultural heritage gives our government, we must act in self defense to preserve that heritage. Hence we are wise to limit the “free movement” of people into our nation to those who have taken the trouble to learn to speak our language.”
Let take this statement apart. First, what our language is similar to? It is just gibberish. Second, comparing to European countries, to India and China – cultural heritage that could be called American, in reference to the common experience of people living in the USA for the last 200 years, barely exists. I was raised in Europe, and I am familiar with heritage of major European nations, therefore I can see here in the USA how those traditions transpire in traditions called “American”. What is originally American, and what is the greatest value and American contribution to the human civilization, it is that conviction that every individual have equal rights to pursue happiness. The greatest part of American heritage is in its openness to other traditions, and in its generosity in allowing everyone to have a shot in fulfilling an American Dream. However, this is exactly what Citizen Tom wants to kill.
Well, Tom, you must not know me. There is nothing weak about my heart. However, I don’t think giving immunizations to ANYONE is an evil or a threat. This, in my mind, should not even enter the immigration discussion. It is a public health concern.
Henryk says: Good fences do not make good neighbors.
I say “good neighbors” don’t drive their people to neighboring countries flooding them with their poor downtrodden either.
Kgott,
You bet its a public health concern Madam, concerning citizens and non citizens alike as long as things remain status quo.
I too don’t think giving immunizations to anyone is evil or a threat…In fact I think immunizations should and could begin at our borders as “legal” immigrants and visitors enter the country…the problem is when a person that may not even know they are carrying a disease enters this or any other nation illegally, communicable disease can spread into a citizenry like it did here in the DFW area and other areas. Fortunately the source of the TB outbreak was found out fast before it had an opportunity to become a widespread epidemic.
Madam, if this nation just must take upon itself to take in every person desirous to enter this nation it should be done with caution to ensure as much disease and crime is nipped in the bud before it can get started.
In order to do this the laws must be changed and border/coastline security strictly and fully supported.
I am a strict abider and upholder of the law and our Constitution and if your type supporters can the law and Constitution changed in favor of unlimited BUT legal immigration as you seem to prefer and the guranteed safety of our citizenry ensured…you will not hear a peep out of me.
But until the laws are changed and Constitution amended and safety is ensured I stand firm on my present ground which is: There is the right legal way to get things done and and the wrong completely illegal way things are currently being done that have millions of U S Citizens at odds with each other.
We are either a nation of laws and citizens that abide by and uphold the law or we are not anything more than an anarchy of individuals doing as they darned well please no matter what the cost.
I know I support and abide by the law. The question is Kgott do you.
Henryk – I like your attitude, but we do disagree on this issue.
Societies are sometimes more fragile than we know. For example, I suspect many of the descendents of the American Indian still wonder how it might have been if they had had an immigration policy of some sort. Just the diseases brought by Western Europeans killed untold numbers.
The Europeans that first settled in the Americas did not arrive as if from out of a vacuum. Each brought the culture of the nation from which they came. So it is that each group of settlers produced a different kind of society — each reflective of their heritage and their reasons for coming to America.
The reality is that while the United States may be a little more than 200 years old, the history that brought it into being goes much further back. The Founders drew from the ancient Greeks and Romans. They contemplated the history and the societies of Europe. But most of all they drew upon their English heritage. That heritage included the English language.
Words are not just gibberish. Languages are emblematic of how a society thinks and about the attitudes of the People. Each word is the symbol for an idea or a concept. To a large extent, education is about teaching children the idea or concept each word in their language represents.
Here is a thought for your consideration. When we say god, peace, love, war, and government in English, how do those words translate in other languages? What ideas — what attitudes — do other people have towards those words?
For anyone interested…here is the link
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001182—-000-.html
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part II > § 1182
§ 1182. Inadmissible aliens
How Current is This? Title 8 of the US Code as currently published by the US Government reflects the laws passed by Congress as of Jan. 3, 2007.
(a) Classes of aliens ineligible for visas or admission
Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, aliens who are inadmissible under the following paragraphs are ineligible to receive visas and ineligible to be admitted to the United States:
(1) Health-related grounds
(A) In general
Any alien—
(i) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance, which shall include infection with the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome,
(ii) except as provided in subparagraph (C), who seeks admission as an immigrant, or who seeks adjustment of status to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, and who has failed to present documentation of having received vaccination against vaccine-preventable diseases, which shall include at least the following diseases: mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, influenza type B and hepatitis B, and any other vaccinations against vaccine-preventable diseases recommended by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices,
(iii) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in consultation with the Attorney General)—
(I) to have a physical or mental disorder and behavior associated with the disorder that may pose, or has posed, a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others, or
(II) to have had a physical or mental disorder and a history of behavior associated with the disorder, which behavior has posed a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others and which behavior is likely to recur or to lead to other harmful behavior, or
(iv) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to be a drug abuser or addict, is inadmissible.
********************************************
There is much much more pertinent information in this document on inadmissible aliens well worth looking into.
CTom,
It always appears the folks on the pro side of the illegal alien problem seem to be of the mind that we in opposition are flatly against immigration and nothing could be further from the truth and fact.
What pains me the most is that virtually nothing is being done for those poor souls flooding into our nation to promote and enhance their lives in their own countries, and especially the haves and have nothings citizens of Mexico and its corrupt governing body.
The truth of the matter is that U S employers not only take advantage of illegals here, but due to the fairly recent agreements take advantage of Mexicans in their own country setting up factories and working them for less than one fourth the wages that a U S Citizen would be paid doing the same type jobs here in the U S.
The illegal Mexicans, and other illegal hispanic’s from further south aren’t the problem, the U S employers that dangle carrots on sticks advertising jobs to be had here in the U S A are the problem.
What we are witnessing is the winding down of the long time labor/management tug of war that’s existed and constantly in dispute here in the U S.
Labor, especially union labor want a bigger and bigger piece of the pie, and the management end would if they could keep all the pie but crust and crumbs.
The outright owner of a business should get the biggest share because he has the most to lose when losing time comes around, not to mention all the capitol investments a business owner makes up front.
However this brings me to the corporations and the boards of directors CEO’s and company presidents, and vice presidents that seem to THINK they own the whole shebang which in the majority of instances they do not.
Have you ever wondered how much holding the bag stockholders (forget the employees) get to weigh them down when one of those exiting greedy CEO’s walks out with their hundred million dollar golden parachutes?
I was a project manager for a video card manufacturing company called STB that merged with 3dfx Interactive and in seventeen months after the merger got to watch nine different CEO’s, the last a doctor of medicine, gut the assets of the company forcing it into bankruptcy and ultimately total collapse. Thirteen days after the bankruptcy announcement 3dfx stock fell from $46.00 to under one dollar and hundreds of employees that had worked at STB for decades lost everything they had right along with the other stockholders.
That CT is the root of the problem and then there are the completely unregulated speculators most of whom are former corporate CEO bailouts.
I hear a lot of conservative argument about business not being so regulated. I say what good does any regulation or law serve unless it is enforced.
I firmly believe in strict regulation of greedy cheats and gougers and I know for fact regulations do not have to be strangulating, but common sense regulation strictly enforced and violators upon being found guilty punished….which brings up our congress and their ineptness and inability to formulate viable, equitable business regulations and enforce them.
CTom, frankly it is my contention that the vast majority of all the problems that exist in the U S A today reside at the tops of the heaps in the private and public sectors and the rest of us either have to go along for the ride or walk.
Tom – I largely agree with your observations. I am afraid the problem is more involved than just improving regulations. I think the reason corporate executives mismanage companies and milk them is that the owners, the stockholders, do not do anything except buy and sell the stock. If you personally owned a business, would you hand the management over to someone and then just walk away?
A corporation is a legal entity that exists for the purpose of raising capital. If only a few people own the stock in a corporation, the stockholders will take an active role in company management. It is worth their time and effort. If hundreds or thousands own stock in a company, it becomes much more difficult for the stockholders to exercise any real control. That, of course, is probably the way most CEOs prefer matters.
As citizens, we must take an active role in seeing where such problems exist and altering matters so that there exist proper accountability. We must select leaders willing to overhaul the system. We must adapt or perish.
Could you focus on one issue, how reasonable immigration policy, as the FMA, could harm National sovereignty, as you claim?
Tom, I will repeat what I said on Anti.
It is not immoral to control immigration. It IS immoral to treat the people who are already here like second class citizens, like dirt, and like animals which is what is happening. This is what I personally want stopped.
The U.S. certainly does not have an unlimited supply of cash and most people want immigration controlled in some aspect. Indeed, if we accept too many people (i.e. more people than there are jobs which right now is not the case), then we put our country in jeopardy. We will not be able to accomplish the mission of being generous and prosperous. There must be balance.
There are security risks to open borders. I don’t endorse security risks. However, I don’t endorse enforcement only or violence or the misuse of what some people call justice. I cannot and will not tolerate violation of human rights and outright cruelty.
As a country, since our government chose to break its own laws, we owe it to the people here to rectify the situation fairly. That means, yes, serious criminals must go (real “felons” that is). But at the very least, we must work with those whose visas have expired and who have come here to work. We cannot divide and persecute families. We cannot refuse basic healthcare to our workers. That is as bad as denying people insurance….all people.
Major groups such as the Mayors’ Conference, the League of Women Voters and more are proposing such remedies. They are not advocating a “free ride” by any stretch. They ARE advocating a path to sanity without divisive partisan rhetoric. I think sanity will win out in the end. People, all of us, need peace and security. We can have it, but only if we treat others with respect. There is no such thing as “sending them back with love” as we call them “invaders” and “vermin” and persecute them. That isn’t love. That is using love profanely.
CTom,
Of the responses made yours made the most sense.
There is more than one issue involved tying everything together yet I was asked by one person that missed everything I wrote to concentrate on one issue and given the same standard answer from the left point of view by another.
But here we go.
I never claimed “reasonable immigration policy” could or would harm national sovereignty or even alluded to it.
What I did say and will continue to say is that the continued influx of illegal alien entering has already done harm and will continue to do harm to not just national sovereignty but have negative affects and effects growing in direct proportion exponentially on individual U S Citizens as the illegal alien population in this nation grows.
Currently the reported federal and state government unemployment figures state that there are almost as many U S Citizens out of work as there are illegal aliens in this country.
Therefore many jobs now held by illegal aliens could be afforded to U S Citizens that would now be more than willing to take one or even two of the eight to ten dollar an hour jobs to keep their families noses just above water.
I can’t and won’t try to speak about everywhere in America but I can speak with authority about the city I live in, Arlington, Texas and the DFW Metroplex which has become a haven for illegal aliens from just about any nation one can name.
Here in Arlington the economy has forced dozens if not hundreds of employers to lay off their illegal alien work staff and slum lords are having to stack them like cord wood into small rent mobile homes and apartments. I can say this with authority because I unfortunately live close to one mobile home park owned by a man from California that rents almost exclusively to illegal aliens. That man, according to city officials, owns over one hundred large mobile home parks in twelve states and is making profits hand over fist off these poor people and has allowed as many as 15 adults not including children to occupy and live in two and three bedroom mobile homes and this alone creates a healh hazard.
So along with U S employers that take advantage of these poor illegals add slum lords that rent property to them.
Now and for almost two decades after the republican party took control of Texas our public health and welfare system, and I only speak for Texas in general and specifically this North Texas area, has been overburdened with lower working class and indigent U S Citizens that just flat can’t find a job that pays enough to afford them to pay their bills house payment, rents, electricity, gas water, mandatory auto insurance, eat, and gasoline to get back and forth to job interviews .
My own wife who has a BS degree in Finance recently lost her job as Trust Fund Administrator due to her job being consolidated due to her employer, a nation wide health care company downsizing.
Last week she went to an interview with a company that had one job opening and was told straight out by the lady that interviewed her that there were over ten thousand applicants that had applied. That message should scream oodles and gobs of information about Texas economy.
In 1999 good paying jobs went begging because there weren’t enough people out of work to fill them.
Cisco Systems, during their process to set up their corporate headquarters in Dallas in seven new buildings, rented two floors of 3dfx where I worked until they could occupy their new facility. However until we all know who became president and the economy began to immediately go in the dumper, Cisco built only three of the seven buildings and began to lay off workers and continued to until its presently reduced size and all Cisco’s hardware is manufactured in Taiwan and Malaysia.
CTom I’m probably jumping in your nest but I will say it anyway…george walker bush is the biggest mistake the voters in this country ever made,,not once but twice. All I have to do is say check g w’s record. He was a flop in the private business oil sector, and a disaster as governor of Texas. Had it not been for g w bush’s father, the Saudi Bin Laden Group, specifically Bandar Bin Laden and others of the bush family’s Arab associates sliding him into a 2% position as a owner/stockholder in the Texas Ranger baseball organization, ole g w bush would be mucking out horse stalls somewhere.
I think I can say I know a bit more about g w bush than the average blogger due to the fact that I first met him when I was home on military leave in 1967 and bush was a college student.
I’m one of the few people that can say that they actually witnessed with their own eyes g w bush indulging in illegal drugs, marijuana in Kerrville, Texas with two other local area young men, cousins and his college chums named Prior, pronounced Pre Oh. The Prior family owned several large sheep and Angora goat ranches just a few miles south of Kerrville on State Highway 16. The Texas Hill Country area including Kerr County was once called the wool and mohair capitol of the world. Now all but a skosh of the sheep and goat industry resides Australia and most of those Kerr County ranches were cut up into small acreages and sold off to all comers as ranchettes.
I bumped into bush more than a few times over our younger decades mostly at our mutually favorite watering holes in San Antonio, Austin, Llano, Dripping Springs, a lil berg named London, at the Dome Shadows nightclub in Houston. I even ran into to bush once in Midland while on a business trip and I can say with enthusiasm I didn’t like bush when he was a smart-aleck punk college student, or any point in time afterward as a person or (loosely termed) as a business man. As governor bush’s maniacal urge tosign off on prisoners execution without review like he was ordering pizza was enough to turn any decent human being’s stomach. I didn’t like many of the crowd he ran with either but I did like Ann Richards one of the few in that crowd that actually cared about Texas even if she was against legally carrying concealed guns.
For anyone that wants verification just google Kerr County Texas History.
And HenrK, sorry fellow American I can’t focus on just one issue on any one subject when it concerns this state and this nation. And I don’t have the time to write a book detailing every single issue and my stance on it.
Obviously you HK and Kgott view things differently than I do and I don’t hold it against you.
I see harmful end results where illegal aliens are concerned and you don’t. I see this nation for more than a few causes sliding down into a third world sewer situation whether either of you agree on this I haven’t a clue.
I think you may agree that sooner than later one of us will be proven right and the other wrong.
I will not agree about supporting or respecting a people, illegal aliens, that show disrespect for this nation with their first steps into it and then compound their crimes by lying and purchasing forged identity documents like SS and Green cards in order to further lie using forged documents to gain drivers licenses.
I know people that I went to school with that were put in prison by a “hang em high” Kerr County judge for as long as three years for being found in possession of one marijuana cigarette, one person was a girl I almost married Sandy Wright, and another a boy named Wayne Krueger that was sentenced to ten years for a matchbox of marijuana…all of which I think is less a criminal offense than breaking into another nation and lying through your teeth and entering into the buyers end of forged documents.
Let me ask you people a question and see if you answer it on one issue.
“At what point would either of you personally propose illegal alien entry into the U S A to stop, when there’s 30 million which is closer to the accruate figure now, 40, 50, 60, 100 million?”
I fully believe the primary reason you folks are so “pro” is because where you live (probably up north somewhere or laisse faire California) hasn’t yet been over run by illegals or you just don’t see them because you aren’t looking past your gated community security fences and the real world outside.
All I can say to you so so sympathetic pro illegal alien folks is say again…get enough votes and change the law…and good luck having it done without getting your hands bloody in a revolution.
I think illegal immigration needs to stop NOW. I don’t know anyone who is “pro-illegal alien.”
“I see harmful end results where illegal aliens are concerned and you don’t.” So do I.
Where we differ is how to resolve it. I think we need to deal fairly with the people here. Sticking them in trailers isn’t fair in the least. Neither is mass deportation IMHO.
Henryk, we have huge number of people predominantly entering this nation from Latin America. Like immigrants before them, they too will make their mark upon this nation. I would like them to make a positive mark, but the situation does not look good.
Right now, their employers are taking advantage of them. Contributing to this situation is the fact many of them do not know how to speak English. So they are a disadvantage in understanding the local laws and customs and in getting a decent job. When they have children, as people generally do, they put a strain on public services that the taxes they pay are unable to compensate. So their presence here tends create resentment. When they concentrate in enclaves, that just adds to the problem.
Most Americans do not have a good understanding of their political system. Relatively few participate actively, and that is why our political leadership too often behaves as if they represented people from another planet instead of this one. Waves of uneducated people entering this country cannot improve the situation. Instead, if new immigrants do not learn English and try to understand the country in which they have settled — as you have done — they will simply change it, little appreciating it for what it once was.
At the beginnings of the U.S., besides Englishmen, large number of Germans settled here. For decades, German language was practically an official language in many small communities from Pennsylvania to Dakotas and from Minnesota to Texas. It is over.
In some neighborhoods in Chicago, I know people who where born there, attended Polish schools and Polish churches and never learned to speak English.
The same, I made an extra effort to make sure that my children maintain knowledge of the language of their ancestors; with very weak results.
I have Mexican immigrants in my close circle of friends. On social gatherings, I meet many Mexican immigrants that do not speak English. However, even their small children are perfectly bilingual.
People immigrate here to work, often more than one job, not to learn the new language. However, most of them realize soon that when knowing the language, they can make more money.
Can we agree on keeping government away form this language business, and let money play its role?
By the way, in how many languages can you communicate efficiently?
The whole world is learning English as today it is the language of business, and mass culture. Intellectuals all over the world are complaining that English pushes away many other national languages.
At the same time, many Americans make a big issue that some Hispanics pick up tomatoes, wash dishes or mow grass without learning English first. So pity. So out of touch with reality.
CTom,
Are HenryK and Kgott and their demonstrated stupidity worth wasting anymore of your time.
Common sense reasoning just flat pass these poor liberal souls completely and debating with a fool is about as productive as arguing with a fence post.
I used to think that the ultra conservatives were in the blogs to disrupt and distract from the main themes of debate..but these weenie liberals are just as bad or worse now that their do nothing weenie squad is in small majority of congress.
CT, what would you like to bet that they believe Obama wears a blue and red suit with a cape that has a big “S” on it and will fly back and forth across the land and instantly save them IF and I mean IF he is elected president….LOL.
Wow, Tom. You’ve really reduced the quality of this conversation again. That’s disappointing.
But as I said before….se la vie.
Madam,
The conversation on immigration hit the rock bottom of driveled banality LONG before I ever wrote a word in the blog; your pro illegal alien arguments lame and tangental.
But your choice to have your tubes tied (your own very off topic brag) gives me a bit of encouragement in the fact you may never produce another person similar to yourself.
This already over populated planet IS IN bad need of fewer bleeding hearts in this that opine to save the entire world and extend an invitation to all comers as if our homeland was your personal private property.
And like I said before…move a million of them into your house…you deserve them. If fact open your doors and deed over your property to them and I’ll personally deliver about fifty of them that will gladly take it and dump them on your doorstep and they’ll even tell you gracias as they pack your bags. But I expect like the majority of ultra liberals you’re all talk the talk and not a bit walk the walk.
OOOOooooooooooooookay, Tom. When I make a zillion dollars and open up my own Green Card Processing Center, completely endorsed by Congress and the United Nations, I will make sure I post some pictures here to prove I am what I say I am. In the meantime, you have my fallopian tubes to amuse you.
You were the one that’s “advertising” lady and a hell of a lot more information than anyone really needed to know…but alas you are a liberal and believe everything is open to “disposal” shall we say. So you can keep your floppy tubes where they belong…you gotta be a virago from California.
Tom – Have you considered what it is you are trying to accomplish? Unless your goal is to pointlessly vent your rage, it is not apparent that you have.
What you are doing is simply meanspirited and juvenile. Instead of making your case for your position, what you are doing is demonstrating an inability to keep a civil tongue. If that is the best you can do, please take it some where else.
CT, I appreciate the intervention and return to intelligent conversation. In Tom’s defense, though, he probably thinks I’m being offensive and off track (i.e. discussing reproductive organs) because he doesn’t know the history of Marshall’s reproductive rights policies(which we started to discuss on another thread with Bruce). So the context is missing. In any event, I will spare you all more of my particular brand of humor that supports, “If we have to talk about reproduction and biology in Chambers, then we might as well do it on a political blog as well.”
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