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Ghost in the Darkness wrote:Great yet another one of those America bashing threads. I come to the OT forum to waste time not to have to defend my country from foreigners who I doubt have even been in this country, and if they have been I doubt they saw the problems we have with illegal immigration.

Why they shouldn't have amnesty:
1. They don't pay taxes, yet use the school system and heathcare that taxes help pay for. This results in many hospitals going bankrupt when they can no longer afford to pay their bills. This also results in horible overcrowded schools, which decreases the value of the learning.
2. They don't speak ENGLISH. That is our country's language speak it or GTFO.
3. They don't have car insurance, so when they hit you you get screwed by your insurance and your rates go up.
4. They come here pregnant and have a baby, which for some reason is an american citizen so they get to stay here and continue to mooch.
5. They take plenty of jobs away from people. You might say that americans don't want them in the first place. But there is horrible competition for summer jobs for teenagers when the boss can hire people for less and work them harder.
6. The crime rate, a good portion of the jail population along the border are illegal mexican immigrants.
7. The drug problem, they smuggle in illegal drugs which cause so many problems here in the US.

Just to provide counter points:
1. Illegal immigrants do pay taxes in many cases. They buy products, which have a sales tax. Many people who illegaly employ immigrants use fake social security numbers to avoid detection, social security tax is collected that is never paid out as the people generating it cannot claim social security. So, illegal immigrants do generate money for this country. As a teacher, yes, I do see the children of illegal immigrants or illegal immigrants themselves in the system. But public schools suck for much more than that reason. As for health care, most do not have insurance, so they aren't going to hospitals to get taken care of, they go to small clinics or deal with it at home.
2. Many do try to learn English, and enroll is ESL classes that generate revenue for their respective cities/states. The reason many of them do not learn English is that they are isolated into poor, immigrant dominated communities where English is not necessary to survival. Yes, this is a product of immigration, but this happens to all immigrant groups. Italian/Irish/German/Polish/Russian communities are quite common and were quite common in history. It took time for them to assimilate and learn English. Or, those that don't learn English do not have time or can afford to take ESL classes. English is one of the hardest languages to learn, and almost impossible to learn orally in a correct manner. Yes, you can learn it only from speaking and listening, but proper written English requires school, and without proper written English, it becomes very difficult to find upwardly mobile employment.
3. Many immigrants do have car insurance. A social security number is not required by many providers. There are many uninsured drivers, immigrant and not. Yes, I'm sure it is statistically true that an illegal immigrant is more likely to not have it, but if we made it easier and less frightening, without the fear of deportation, harassment, or price gouging, then more would be insured.
4. The whole "born in America, American" thing is rather important to the history of this country. If we take that away, shouldn't we all then have to prove ourselves? And how would we do that? Not to mention, most "welfare queens" and the like are actually white americans in rural areas like Appalachia. Many illegal immigrants don't make use of social services because they are afraid of being found out.
5. Yes, I'm sure teenage americans are lining up to pick fruit, pluck chickens, dig ditches. I'm more than willing to admit that immigrants do take many entry level, manual labor positions. But why the outrage at them? People that often sacrificed much of their life to enter a country where the least well paying job is still better than work in their own country. Why isn't the outraged aimed at the people who hire immigrants to cut costs? These employers sacrifice american jobs for a higher profit, but also lower cost for consumers. If you enjoy cheap fruit, cheap carwashes, going out to dinner at most restaurants, then thank the people willing to work for less than minimum wage.
6. The majority of people in Jail in California are non-violent drug offenders. The vast majority of people in jail are working class people who are more likely to use drugs as a coping mechanism for a marginalized existence. Working 60 hours a week, for maybe a few dollars an hour at best, living away from their families (most illegal immigrants are people separated from their family), seems like a hard go of it.
7. Most illegal immigrants are not drug runners, some American citizens are drug runners. The people who traffic drugs tend to have side business trafficking people, but deporting everyone wouldn't fix that, if anything, just increase their business. Many illegal immigrants come to this country to avoid getting involved in the drug business that is so prevalent in other countries.

Anyway, to the actual post, I agree that Amnesty would probably not be a solid answer, the question is too complicated. But, mass deportation would not work either.

^Ah, a good argument. Well that saved me a lot of time.

You see, not permitting people to have asylum and be safe from dangerous governments and conditions is violating a basic human right.

And I'm not bashing America; blame your ex-president for tarnishing your image, though.

The general solution to illegal immigration is likely to entail an increase in the overall number of people admitted to the nation, and more stringent enforcement of the laws which are supposed to prevent employers from hiring illegals. In order to smooth the transition amnesty is likely to be offered, but it will come with strings attached and is unlikely to be permanent.

Of course, none of these things will fully address the issue. That will only happen when we begin to take a serious interest in developing Mexico as an economic partner.

"In fact, granting amnesty to illegal aliens is on Obama's short list of priorities. That short list includes the nationalization of America's financial systems, the nationalization of America's healthcare and energy systems, expanding the wars in the Middle East, strengthening and increasing global agreements and associations, gun control (perhaps using international treaties where congressional legislation has failed), and amnesty to illegal aliens."

The same old talking points, Nationalize, Illegals, gun control. Again Illegals are not to blame for America's woes, they do make a good scape-goat though.

Good. I guess things are turning out better now that the empty-headed country bumpkin is out of the presidency.

One thing I think should be mentioned more often in this debate:

Population growth, no matter how it occurs, is a good thing. The US is in the universally enviable position of having abundant arable land, fresh water, and mineral wealth in combination with a robust civil society. Throw in a healthy dose of immigration to keep the demographics in the right order, and the Ponzi scheme that is the Imperial project should keep rolling for some time. Especially considering that China and India are beginning to see a leveling of their population growth curve.

Cheese Elemental wrote:
I didn't say that. I said that America is intolerant of people in need. Heck, most of the western world is. It's a flaw of humanity.

Wow. I'm not going to throw a wall of info at you, since this is the internets and anything "posted in a forum" is automatically suspect. But I would encourage you to go have a look at how much money the US sinks into foriegn aid to countries that can really use it for improving the human condition. Go look at the number of times we've used our aircraft carriers as floatels for people in areas that have been bumrushed by natural disaster. Did we miss a few tricks? Yeah, we did. Did we save a few asses? No, we've saved many. Have we used ALL of our wealth to try and "save" every last person on the planet. No. Should we? Nope. To do so is to deny that it is a hard cruel fething world sometimes and while humans may care about each other a tidal wave doesn't give a rats ass. Neither do volcanos. We have done what we thought was best, we've done what we could.

Ok there's plenty of Idealism here, but lets be realistic.

Sealing the boarders and deporting all Illegal's (Those that can be found, which I'm will be bet isn't many )would in all likelihood be:

A) Time consuming.
B) Massively expensive, the manpower and equipment required would be a of a far greater cost that just allowing illegal immigrants free roam.
C) Counter productive, as you're assuming another country will take them back. Certainly in the case of somewhere like Zimbabwe this is unlikely.

Also we need to accept that fact that its IS going to happen. Unless you have machine gun towers every 100 meters at every land border and unless every cargo crate and truck is manually searched at entry, people are going to find a way in. Of course this is expensive and ineffective.

Lets look at taxes. Illegal's pay no direct tax, they also claim no benefits (before some brings that up!). Most illegal's are likely involved in low paid cash in hand work (far below minimum wage) or are committing crime. Both are detrimental to the country. It's effectively a loose/loose situation, they live off the radar in appalling poverty and tie up police time and allow unscrupulous business owners to get away with some truly abhorrent practices.

Amnesty honestly to me seems to be the logical way forward. It allows them to start paying taxes and frees up the resources that previously were used to track them down. Its better for the coffers in every way. I can't see how its in anyone's interest for Illegal immigrants to remain so.

Most of the arguments I've heard against this just seem to stem from sheer bloody mindedness.

Actually illegal immigrants commit far fewer crimes then citizens on average. If you think about it it make good sense. Many of these people risked their lives to get to America. They're not about to throw it all away if they can help it. They try to keep a low profile.

Ratbarf wrote:Build a wall along the US Mesico Border with checkpoints for crossing, then have volunteers man the walls. Put the wall ten metres into US soil and a big sign that says, "Anyone who crosses this line will be shot by a bunch of angry Texans. May god have mercy on your poor dumbass soul." I think that would work. Oh and put lots of landmines in that no man zone too, Berlin wall in Texas for the win!

Are you trying to outcrazy the Frazzled?

Ratbarf wrote:

Accept muliculturalism.

Multiculturism is a peice of gak.

That might explain why I wasn't allowed to sit in the front of the fething bus.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Good. I guess things are turning out better now that the empty-headed country bumpkin is out of the presidency.

No, there not better. Bush made some poor choices, but the Congress has more than enough blood on their hands. Khornish to some extent.

@Cheese I usually dig you man, but when you start using the "Bush is a tard hurr, hurr" argument I'm mighty tempted to ignore you. Besides I'm a country bumpkin and it's not really that bad. Ignorance is bliss I guess.

Accept muliculturalism.

Accept these words: feth Off.

if he does this then your stuck just like the UK is
no idea how many illegals are here, what they are doing or who they are.
most factory workers have lost jobs due to "illegals" working for less.
most of which will work here and send money home (meaning with the high % of them we have the country is losing money fast)

worsed idea ever (well, give it time, im sure someone can top this)

oh, i forgot to mention that illegals here have more fething rights than the people who grew up in this country
and they tend to pull the minority card to gain any advantages they will want.

Lovely stuff JD, a tad reactionary for my tastes however. Do you have any facts to back this up, or is this pure tabloid hyperbole?

An amnesty solves pretty much all of your problems Ghost.

The bottom line is, denying immigration is either based on xenophobia or good old-fashioned selfishness. It's being unwilling to slightly impact on your comforatble life to help others who have things a hell of a lot worse. Open the borders, that's what I say. Because I was born on this bit of rock I get a nice house, good education and a great standard of living. Oh, sorry, but by some random biological chance you were born on a different bit of rock. Nope, sorry, you can't have some of this. Enjoy poverty!

Surely one of the major points of an amnesty is to bring illegals inside the system and normalise them, so they WOULD pay taxes and so on.

I think the main issue at heart is that when a country becomes so multicultural it may lose it's own identity. For reference see the Roman Empire. I don't think JD has a problem with multiculturalism, I think he has a problem with someone saying, "just accept it and don't bitch about it".

@Kilkrazy: I think you're right to some extent, but what keeps Employer A from just dumping the now formally illegal alien and picking up another illegal alien to fill his/her place. Regardless of attached benefits Employer A will now have to pay to the standards of a citizen (taxes, medicare, etc...). People who use illegal immigrants ignore certain rules and regulations.

Then why don't we stop going after the Illegals, that will just be replaced, and start going after the Bastards who hire them. They just don't fear the penalties for hiring Illegals. Start mandatory 2 year sentences. America has no one identity, it's called a melting pot for a reason. Romes fall had nothing to do with losing it's Identity and more to do with bad rulers.

If there aren't any Illegals, there won't be anybody for the Bastards to hire.

Besides, it's not like an Illegal shows up with his Mexican Drivers License and Mexican Passport, asking for a job. They're not retards, you know. They get fake IDs just like any high school student.

JohnHwangDD wrote:No. They're too busy distributing wealth from young to old, and from well to sick, along with mortgaging our future by running enormous deficits.

At least, if the US budget is anything to go by.

The largest line items in the US budget cover social welfare:
- Social Security ($700B)
- Mecicare / Medicaid ($750B)
Each of these are larger than all Defense spending combined.

- national debt ($160B)

When you look at "Defense", new weapons is very small.

No idea where your figures are from, but a scan of the internet finding about 5 or 6 sources revealed to me that defense and social security are roughly equal, some give one as bigger, some give the other as bigger, whilst medicare is about 1/2 to 2/3 as much.

Ratbarf wrote:Yep, great nations are great because the people make them so. If they want to be like us let them claw their way out of the shithole they live in, you don't become great by letting a bunch of people who have no right to be in your country into your country. If we want them here we will let them know when they ask. If we don't we will tell them to GTFO.

You are aware of the history of your own country and that you are a nation of recent immigrants, right? (and I apply that to both the US and Canada)

dogma wrote:One thing I think should be mentioned more often in this debate:

Population growth, no matter how it occurs, is a good thing. The US is in the universally enviable position of having abundant arable land, fresh water, and mineral wealth in combination with a robust civil society. Throw in a healthy dose of immigration to keep the demographics in the right order, and the Ponzi scheme that is the Imperial project should keep rolling for some time. Especially considering that China and India are beginning to see a leveling of their population growth curve.

You have nowhere near as much fresh land and water as you seem to think. You do have plenty, but, for example, water use is almost laughably frivolous in the US. One of the biggest reasons for this is the amount of meat you eat, which translates to about 20x as much water use to produce the large amount of crops used to feed them as if you got your nutrition from the crops themselves, resulting in the highest water use per person in the entire world by a HUGE margin, even over European countries.

grizgrin wrote:
Wow. I'm not going to throw a wall of info at you, since this is the internets and anything "posted in a forum" is automatically suspect. But I would encourage you to go have a look at how much money the US sinks into foriegn aid to countries that can really use it for improving the human condition.

Far less as a % of GDP than most Western countries. Actual raw cash, yes, but % of GDP, no.

Go look at the number of times we've used our aircraft carriers as floatels for people in areas that have been bumrushed by natural disaster. Did we miss a few tricks? Yeah, we did. Did we save a few asses? No, we've saved many. Have we used ALL of our wealth to try and "save" every last person on the planet. No. Should we? Nope. To do so is to deny that it is a hard cruel fething world sometimes and while humans may care about each other a tidal wave doesn't give a rats ass. Neither do volcanos. We have done what we thought was best, we've done what we could.

There have been plus and minus points. Use of the American miitary machine has been mixed, though few people will admit to any good from it at all.

JD21290 wrote:

Accept muliculturalism.

Accept these words: feth Off.

if he does this then your stuck just like the UK is
no idea how many illegals are here, what they are doing or who they are.
most factory workers have lost jobs due to "illegals" working for less.
most of which will work here and send money home (meaning with the high % of them we have the country is losing money fast)

worsed idea ever (well, give it time, im sure someone can top this)

oh, i forgot to mention that illegals here have more fething rights than the people who grew up in this country
and they tend to pull the minority card to gain any advantages they will want.

Please can I drop round and borrow your Daily Mail? (And yes, I can swap you for my Guardian )

Greebynog wrote:Lovely stuff JD, a tad reactionary for my tastes however. Do you have any facts to back this up, or is this pure tabloid hyperbole?

An amnesty solves pretty much all of your problems Ghost.

The bottom line is, denying immigration is either based on xenophobia or good old-fashioned selfishness. It's being unwilling to slightly impact on your comforatble life to help others who have things a hell of a lot worse. Open the borders, that's what I say. Because I was born on this bit of rock I get a nice house, good education and a great standard of living. Oh, sorry, but by some random biological chance you were born on a different bit of rock. Nope, sorry, you can't have some of this. Enjoy poverty!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Fifty wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:No. They're too busy distributing wealth from young to old, and from well to sick, along with mortgaging our future by running enormous deficits.

At least, if the US budget is anything to go by.

The largest line items in the US budget cover social welfare:
- Social Security ($700B)
- Mecicare / Medicaid ($750B)
Each of these are larger than all Defense spending combined.

- national debt ($160B)

When you look at "Defense", new weapons is very small.

No idea where your figures are from, but a scan of the internet finding about 5 or 6 sources revealed to me that defense and social security are roughly equal, some give one as bigger, some give the other as bigger, whilst medicare is about 1/2 to 2/3 as much.

You can go to any website and it will be clear.

Defense (total = $650B) is clearly less than Social Security. Medicare and medicaid combined are about $750B, which is clearly larger.

Defense is much more than just new weapons (<$80B).

So going back...

Cheese elemetal wrote:But they don't, because they're too busy developing next-generation weapons and technology that we don't really need.

So let's go to the facts:
- $700B for Social Security
- $750B for Mecicare & Medicaid
- $160B for national debt
...
- $80B for next-gen weapons (included in $650 for "Defense"

So I said "No. They're too busy distributing wealth from young to old, and from well to sick, along with mortgaging our future by running enormous deficits.", that's what the facts above would seem to support.

So Fifty, even in that large post, I didn't hear what you think. Should we say that all the illegal immigrants get amnesty, or not?

Problem: open borders
20MM illegale immigrants, the vast majority fo which are hard working.

Solution. After background check, you can stay if you do 6 months time working to put the triple layer defense wall/moats now with gators up in Canada and Mexico (and Frazzled needs a new house with a deck). See, everyone benefits!

Once again, leave it to Frazzled to solve all problems.

It doesn't give anyone a good impression when someone that multiculturalism is having foods from different countries available

I agree with what's been said on both accounts, in favour or against the immigrants: not everyone is a shady individual who wants to sell drugs, rob houses and kill people. Saying that just because you're a mexican you're undoubtly a bad person and should be kicked out is just plain idiotic. That's prejudice of the worst kind from people who say they're "multicultural".

Heck, I've had my dad's car broken into and damn nearly stolen by two ukrainians who didn't have a dime to cover the expenses. But the fact that they were trying to steal doesn't make them bad people, nor the fact that they couldn't pay. Those two, as well as the relatively recent influx of prostitutes, doesn't mean that every single ukrainian is a hooker or a thief.

Sadly, though, that's how they're seen around here. As well as everyone with the slightest eastern-european accent, even if it was the nuclear physicist (true story) working on Porto's subway as a regular worker.

It's a tricky matter, no doubt, but as an open minded european I sincerely see the benefits of multiculturalism on a stagnant society. If they are willing to do the work no-one else wants, or they can do someone's work better, I'm all for it.

On a side-note, English is not by any means difficult to learn. Like any other language it might be difficult for a 30-or-so year old to speak without showing their origins, but have you looked at german, russian, chinese, japanese, even portuguese? Just the accentuation would drive you crazy.

oh, i forgot to mention that illegals here have more fething rights than the people who grew up in this country
and they tend to pull the minority card to gain any advantages they will want.

The story I love the most about overzealous British Political Correctness is the bloke who got arrested for having a St George's Cross Flag flying in the back of his car to cover his speakers in a polish neighbourhood in England and was pulled over due to what the police described as offensive conduct.

Not being able to fly your own bloody flag on your own bloody soil that you paid for in your own bloody blood? The BNP sure looks less crazy everyday folks.

Where on Earth do you get these stories?

I've never heard of any of these things, and I listen to Today on Radio 4 every morning.

Ratbarf wrote:

oh, i forgot to mention that illegals here have more fething rights than the people who grew up in this country
and they tend to pull the minority card to gain any advantages they will want.

The story I love the most about overzealous British Political Correctness is the bloke who got arrested for having a St George's Cross Flag flying in the back of his car to cover his speakers in a polish neighbourhood in England and was pulled over due to what the police described as offensive conduct.

Not being able to fly your own bloody flag on your own bloody soil that you paid for in your own bloody blood? The BNP sure looks less crazy everyday folks.

That never happened.

I will personally bet you whatever sum of money you fancy, that that never happened. The BNP are daft fethwit racists, make no mistake. Here's some quotes from promenant members to help you out.

“The electors of Millwall did not back a Post-Modernist Rightist Party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites' with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate.” said by Nick Griffin, BNP leader.

“Mein Kampf is my bible” (Mein Kampf is a book written by Hitler in which he set out his Nazi philosophy and practice.) said by John Tyndall, BNP founder and former leader.

“The sick minds who would have us believe that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz are completely twisted.” said by Tony Lecomber

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat…I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria.” said by Nick Griffin, BNP leader.

“Many who feel that Hitler was right do not believe it is safe yet to state such views openly. But times will change.” said by John Tyndall, BNP founder and former leader.

Nick Griffin (leader): "ON RACE “Without the White race, nothing matters. [Other right-wing parties] believe that the answer to the race question is integration and a futile attempt to create “Black Britons”, while we affirm that non-Whites have no place here at all and will not rest until every last one has left our land”"

Mark Collet (party’s director of publicity): "ON AIDS A “friendly disease because blacks, drug users and gays have it.”

If that hasn't hasn't convinced you, please explain how stating your party is in favour of an all-white Britain isn't racist.

It seems to me that this thread is just britain and austrailia vs. american stereotypes
all you brits seem to be going by american stereotypes to prove you points

That never happened.

Mcleans Magazine runs these little snippets about the weird goings-on of the world at the bottom of the page. This one appeared in the "How they do it in..." one about a year ago.


Hmm, haven't heard those quotes before.


But so what if its racist?






LOL just yanking your chain there a bit. I never did understand though why a Nazi wouldn't be proud to claim that they killed 6 million jews. I thought that was one of their magor goals/accomplishments as a regime?

PS: by major accomplishment I meant it was a rather huge undertaking, not that it was in any way positive.

Ratbarf, I in no way think you endorse those quotes, but there are many, many more, even more despicable quotes from the BNP leadership. The average BNP voter tends to be uner-educated and ignorant, not malicious. The leadership is another matter though. They disgust me.

I would probably vote BNP if I was British, but thats more because I don't really like political correctness at all.... And they don't really seem to give a crap about that so I like that about them.