Bad Idea or Good Idea?

[Guard Dog]

Theslug, Dark Raven and Guard Dog, you're on the wrong forum.

I was making a joke Pop, I thought that was obvious.

[Dark_Raven]

 

Keeping my comments to myself.

[Fionavar]

/gets out the timer of thread derailment and moving from the Roost ...

[samm]

There clearly are swiss tendencies on this board, which saddens me. I thought some of Sands posts on the previous page quite agreeable, mostly these:

I am all for changes to the immigration laws that makes it equally easy for the poor mexican farmer or the swedish doctor to come into our country legally.

and

I want to make them easier to cross legally but harsher penalties for those who do cross illegally.

The idea with the military service however would exclude any elderly or young people from taking that route, so I voted for "bad idea" in this poll, even if I'm not amercian, and don't hold any of this so very hyped grudge against immigrants. Hyped by people like the slug, writing something over the oh so horrible expenses because of the evil immigrants, which in the sum over ten years seems to be as big as the military budget for 2008... The USA have about 300 million inhabitants iirc, so oh HELL YOU'RE BEING FLOODED WITH ILLEGALS (according to the slug the case with 0.2%)... sheesh, really, cut that destructive hype and cool down.

I'm glad people like Sand are looking for solutions to something percieved as a problem. Changes in the law affecting the whole USA could possibly relax the discourse somewhat, because part of the heat is to blame on the inconsitencies in various states / cities, if I'm informed correctly. If immigrants really have to be divided into legal and illegal ones (which they shouldn't in my old fashioned opinion), it should also be clearly defined what to do with illegal ones, and how they can become legal. Military service is one idea, more ideas are needed

Edited December 31, 2007 by samm

[Tigranes]

samm, its just that most of us had already agreed with him in a previous thread on those points you quoted, so we're just skippin'. The question of illegal immigrants is a pertinent one even when you are the greatest friend of immigrants (you know, I am an Asian immigrant). It's got nothing to do with being 'swiss' or whatnot, unless you were talking to Dark Raven. In which case, ten foot pole and a glass of something strong for me. The fact is that a country's ability to regulate who enters its borders is fairly crucial to its integrity, and our society is in no way ready to ditch that system altogether just yet.

 

I'm not particularly enamored of the armed forces myself, but the risk of being in the army is often exaggerated. These days, even in times of conflict, the chances that you'll die in the service are relatively small. A big part of that is due to medical tech, of course. Many more amputees than there used to be. I'd expect them to fix Veteran's Affairs first before making any sort of big push to fill out enrollment lists.

 

I'm sure there are numerous things associated with military, such as being crippled or traumatised, other than outright death in service.

[samm]

Tigranes: It wasn't directed at you While we are not exactly of the same opinion, this is key, until we're all ready to live in a completely culturally mixed environment, which will be in a thousand years or so...:

(...)wouldn't it benefit the US most to end up with integrated immigrants who can actually speak/write English to a decent level, understand to a reasonable degree the US culture, and have enough skills to support themselves and their family?

[theslug]

Immigration is destructive on the local level. Maybe you aren't familiar but the United States isn't set up like a huge pool of money where each state and county can just take from that pool as they want. No, each state is given a budget of money which it then dolls out to each county, which then divides it further up into cities and so forth. Those millions of dollars is quite separate and significant from the entirety of America. So you're comment on how insignificant these expenses are is quite wrong. Think about it from a small border city perspective. They naturally come in contact with plenty of illegals who have suffered the elements from crossing the 25-50 mile trek through the border. Their hospitals take in these illegals, they obviously have no money and no insurance so the hospital takes in that expense which gets passed on to the city. They aren't just treating things like dehydration, they are doing child births and surgeries which can quickly add up. Soon this city which was given only a measly (and completely hypothetical) 15 million dollars has taken a hit of 1 million dollars which they will never see again. That's 1 million dollars that isn't going to the needed state institutions for that city. That's text books in a group of bright eyed young children who could become the next generation of leaders of our country. I say you sir, are a child hating communist. It's shameful, really.

Edited December 31, 2007 by theslug

[Fionavar]

I am simply watching ... as people reflect, I would offer that ANY stereotype - rural or urban - serves only to polarise ...

 

Other than that - at this point - I would encourage sharing, as opposed to pontificating ...

 

F

[Walsingham]

Someone mention Rome which is a very good comparison. Look what happen to Rome when they became the melting pot of civilization. Same thing that is happening to America.

 

I'm no expert, but I DO read clasical history now and then. I've \lso read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Strikes me that the melting pot period was the one when the Empire was strongest. It fell apart when the nobles stopped paying taxes and sending sons to the military. In fact in the earliest most vigorous part of the Empire going into the Army was a privilege mainly for the wealthy!

[CoM_Solaufein]

The Roman Empire was its strongest, from a military point, when it was just Romans in it. They took in another culture's idea of fighting skill, weapons but for the longest time they did not take them into their legions. To a Roman male there was no greater honor than being in the military. They had a strong belief in duty and loyalty. Only when the empire grew and their society started to decay, only then did they take in outsiders. I believe the military stopped being all it could be once corruption in the government and society started to fall apart, not because they allowed outsiders in their ranks.

 

Information taken from watching documentaries and reading a lot of history.

 

As for the question, illegals have no business being in our armed forces whatsoever. If you are a legal citizen who was born and raised in another country, knock yourself out and join.

[Tigranes]

On the Roman Empire comparison, well, it's not a very good comparison to illegal immigrants issue at all, but to extend on Lucian: the reason the influx of foreigners coincided with the degeneration of the Roman Army is because the traditions of local representation, pride/prestige, and the climbing of the political ladder through military service, all began to seriously die out by that time. The fact is that once Rome after the Punic Wars became so large citizen conscripts commanded by generals who only had an yearly tenure could not manage the business, and the influx of wealth into Rome, and later the great changes to the Roman political system and ideas of prestige through the conversion into a Principate/Empire, destroyed that system by which one wanted to serve in the Army. The foreign mercenaries were a sign not a cause.

 

But let's not get too off topic; as I said, it's not a very good comparison to begin with. theslug brings up a point which is probably fair enough (I am not informed enough to say); but I struggle to think of any better way to fight the negative effects of illegal immigrants, than to try and integrate them and make them legal and deserving of legal as much as possible. It's certainly not going to work if you try and deport them one by one.

[~Di]

We are a country of immigrants. *Legal* immigrants. Unless we can track our roots back to Native Americans, we are all born of immigrants. Now fair enough, legal immigration used to be simply arriving, announcing that we were here, then going about the business of making a living in our new home. However, there's a huge difference between legal and illegal immigration, and only those who have seen the immense local problems wrought by a massive influx of illegals (of any racial group) seem able to fully grasp the difference.

 

Every nation has immigration rules and regulations for the very simple reason that it's in every nation's best interest to know who is in the country and where they are. It's simply a proven fact that the US economy cannot absorb anyone and everyone who wishes to be here at any given time. No country can. I don't understand why the US, which has always been a beacon to immigration from all over the world, is suddenly dissed because it cannot support up to 20 million (and growing at over a million a year) in illegals who in order to survive must steal social security numbers, identities, and undercut wages with unscrupulous employers... who, by the way, are not being punished as the law says they must be punished for knowingly hiring illegals... when it is the citizens and legal immigrants who bear the brunt of misery caused by the theft and sale of their personal information to illegals.

 

As for allowing illegals to serve in the military, no way. Anyone here legally should have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. Illegals, however, do not even have the right to be here, and I certainly take a dim view of using poor and desperate people as cannon fodder by dangling the carrot of legalization in front of them. It's not only immoral, but it seems unconstitutional to me... "we'll ignore our federal laws as long as you are the right age and able bodied enough to die for us. If you're too young, too old or too weak, it's deportion for you!" I mean, come on.

 

I want the borders to be secured... really secured... and I want legal immigration quotas for Mexico and Central America to be massively increased. Only when our borders are controlled and we know who is in our country and why they are here will we be able to control our own security and economy.

[Gorgon]

And yet we are quite happy to recieve those who could have the resources to actually improve their own country, India exports both computer geniouses and cab drivers, it's known as the 'brain drain'.

 

If this were about sustainability that would be as big a crime as running across the border. Or do we only care what immigration does to the wealthy western reciever countries.

Edited January 1, 2008 by Gorgon

[Tigranes]

Well, yes, but that's as hard to regulate as it is to stop illegal immigration. If you could just make laws and regulations saying "please dont' illegally immigrate", and "please, some of you smart and skilled people, stay and improve your own country", we'd all be fine and dandy.

 

I can talk about a minor brain drain that's been going on the last decade or so in New Zealand - in some occupations people can work the same job in UK or Australia, and even with higher living costs, make at least double they do here, and that's led to a culture where people who achieve at the highest levels in education or junior stages of their careers expect to make it overseas. The fact is that this will only stop when the original motivation for their leaving is gone - i.e. by making working in NZ more viable than it is now, either by paying them more, better working conditions, or whatnot.

[WITHTEETH]

When Rome started to put foreign soldiers in there army, it was one of the many things that started the fall of Rome.

[Sand]

So, what is the solution, folks? Amnesty is not an option. The moment we give amnesty to criminals is the moment we simply give up on trying to solve the problem.

[Gorgon]

We already have a term for what they are; illegal immigrants, calling them crimminals is just pointless posing.

Edited January 1, 2008 by Gorgon

[Sand]

We already have a term for what they are; illegal immigrants, calling them crimminals is just pointless posing.

 

I prefer to use the term criminal because that is what they are, criminals. Using the word "immigrant" gives them a level of legitimacy since we do allow immigration. If people actually called them for what the are this wouldn't be such a grey issue.

[Walsingham]

Out of interest, how many of you anti immigrant types actually know any immigrants?

[Tale]

I have native blood in me. Cherokee and Choctaw. We don't want you here. Shoo

[Tale]

What I find ironic is how a man can condemn some people as criminals, while himself stating in other threads he would readily commit a crime if the opportunity showed itself. The irony stems because he doesn't actually care about the particular crime for the people he's condemning, he's condemning because they do a crime at all.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Tale

[thepixiesrock]

We already have a term for what they are; illegal immigrants, calling them crimminals is just pointless posing.

 

I prefer to use the term criminal because that is what they are, criminals. Using the word "immigrant" gives them a level of legitimacy since we do allow immigration. If people actually called them for what the are this wouldn't be such a grey issue.

 

 

They are called "illegal immigrants" for the same reason we reffer to murderers as murderers, and rapists as rapists, and bank robbers as bank robbers. Rather than just grouping them all into one catagory, and only reffering to them in such a way, we reffer to them by what crime they have committed. Using the word illegal immigrants IS what they are, because they are immigrants here illegally. Calling them illegal immigrants isn't mucking up the issue, it's doing the opposite.

[Sand]

Out of interest, how many of you anti immigrant types actually know any immigrants?

 

I am not anti-immigrant. I am anti- ILLEGAL immigrant. Big world of difference, Walsh.

[Sand]

What I find ironic is how a man can condemn some people as criminals, while himself stating in other threads he would readily commit a crime if the opportunity showed itself. The irony stems because he doesn't actually care about the particular crime for the people he's condemning, he's condemning because they do a crime at all.

Readily commit a crime? Name one.

[Sand]

I have native blood in me. Cherokee and Choctaw. We don't want you here. Shoo

 

Then, when the native american people were in power in this land they should have united themselves to make governing laws that regulated immigration in their territory. 200 to 300 years later is a tad bit late for that.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Sand