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 cuda1179 wrote:
Sorry to slightly change the subject, but this reminds me of another thing that's been a little suspicious. With the Syrian refugee thing going on there seems to be a controversy over discrimination against Christians. It seems that 30% of Syrians that are applying for refugee status to the US are actually Christian, and only 0.5% of those accepted are Christian. This seems a little odd, as Christians are basically priority targets for violence in the area and arguably face harsher conditions than their Muslim neighbors.

True there's finnish anti-immigrant politician making same claims about unequality against christian refugees. While I disagree with about everything that guy is saying here he does have point if indeed christian refugees are given refugee status with different standards.

Does seem odd though why they would. For one christians would seem to be prime targets and for second one would expect positive discrimination to work to their advantage.

Still your numbers are first numbers I have seen. Does seem odd. Not sure I would believe the claim but would be interesting study. And whether that anti-christian discrimination is true or not doesn't really matter for this point as the point is there's also christian refugees(and probably some other religion members as well to some degree).

But yeah getting off topic. But simply having fingerprints from refugees isn't targeting spefici religion members so Obama's suggestion and Trump's suggestions are "bit" different.


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 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Source?

Seconded. AFAIK, our refugee system is a secular system. I'm not even sure if they record religion.

Well at least Finland they MUST be checking religion when they are "this guy is member of X islam so while he can face prosecution in place Y in Iraq he can go to place Z and live there safe" as an reason to turning down refugee status.

I mean pretty hard to claim member of X faction from religion can live safely somewhere and use this as reason to deny refugee status if you don't know is said person member of X faction or not? Maybe he's another faction that would get persecuted in Z!

 Peregrine wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

We'll just remember this next time anyone says "it's not about racism".

I'll remember it the next time someone says this is the land of the free, because a country where speaking any language other than English automatically results in



Doesn't sound very free.

Hell. I'll go to the DMV and start reciting Chinese Proverbs translated into Russia just for the hell of it. See how small the government stays when committing no crime whatsoever becomes sufficient for a state witch hunt. I for one love spending more money on a problem than the problem causes because, as a dirty liberal socialist commie, I like just wasting tax dollars.

 LordofHats wrote:
Hell. I'll go to the DMV and start reciting Chinese Proverbs translated into Russia just for the hell of it. See how small the government stays when committing no crime whatsoever becomes sufficient for a state witch hunt. I for one love spending more money on a problem than the problem causes because, as a dirty liberal socialist commie, I like just wasting tax dollars.

Haha. Hmm. I could start reciting Buddhist teachings in Japanese Doubtful they know what it means so time to start money burning in witch hunt.

Sounds fun. I already have done that stunt with phone sellers(gets them quit real fast). Why not protest stupid laws if they were passed.

tneva82 wrote:
Why not protest stupid laws if they were passed.

I like my protests sassy (it give extra Spec. Defense )

 Frazzled wrote:
That was Mussolini, and he did. He hung a bunch of railroad employees and suddenly the trains ran on time.

Actually, like Hitler the improvements in rail and other public services that came about when Mussolini came to power were the product of investments made by prior governments.

Seriously people, don't go looking to vain fascists for operating efficiency. Those guys are amazingly bad at the boring stuff like organizing and bureaucracy.


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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Romney is one of the few Trump cabinet picks I agree with. The Secretary of State needs to be someone intelligent and level-headed. Really, if there is one person in the cabinet who absolutely needs to be part of the "establishment", it's the SoS.

Yeah, one of the basic, minimum requirements for the role is that the rest of the world doesn't look at the person and laugh. Romney is one a small few options for Trump who meets that requirement

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-disruptive-career-of-trumps-national-security-adviser

Yeah... if this is true, Flynn needs to be prosecuted.

...
Flynn broke rules he thought were stupid. He once told me about a period he spent assigned to a C.I.A. station in Iraq, when he would sometimes sneak out of the compound without the “insane” required approval from C.I.A. headquarters, in Langley, Virginia. He had technicians secretly install an Internet connection in his Pentagon office, even though it was forbidden. There was also the time he gave classified information to NATO allies without approval, an incident which prompted an investigation, and a warning from superiors.
...

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!


Well, first let me explain that we have social security offices in other countries, and even the ones in this country would generate BILLIONS of requests and then....

This seems like an appropriate time to use the line from ST "Would you like to know more?"........because, like facism, yeah great for bug killing.

 d-usa wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

The government serves it's people, not the other way around. It should speak the language that the people speak, since that is where the power of the government arises.

English is the de facto language of America.


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 Peregrine wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

We'll just remember this next time anyone says "it's not about racism".

Do you have another metric that should serve as the trigger for an immigration status check?

Language seems to be a pretty decent baseline with which to trigger such a response.




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 LordofHats wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

We'll just remember this next time anyone says "it's not about racism".

I'll remember it the next time someone says this is the land of the free, because a country where speaking any language other than English automatically results in



Doesn't sound very free.

Hell. I'll go to the DMV and start reciting Chinese Proverbs translated into Russia just for the hell of it. See how small the government stays when committing no crime whatsoever becomes sufficient for a state witch hunt. I for one love spending more money on a problem than the problem causes because, as a dirty liberal socialist commie, I like just wasting tax dollars.

No one said anything about speaking another language.

Anyone who does not speak English, is incapable of speaking minimum level of English should have their immigration status checked. Because that is an indicator that they are not a citizen.


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 BaronIveagh wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!


Well, first let me explain that we have social security offices in other countries, and even the ones in this country would generate BILLIONS of requests and then....

We could have an exemption for officials located outside the US.

I should hope the SS office is confirming the citizenship status of everyone seeking assistance from their office. It would be silly of them not to.

 whembly wrote:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-disruptive-career-of-trumps-national-security-adviser

Yeah... if this is true, Flynn needs to be prosecuted.

I don't think there's much to be gained from insisting breaches like those listed need to be prosecuted. If people are reckless or big screw ups then you fire them. Jail time really needs to have some element of deliberate malice in it.

I mean, I know that frontline military service comes down hard of failures of duty, but there are reasons for that and we should stop treating every government post as if it was a frontline military posting, even when there is some government element involved.

This isn't to say I think Flynn is a good pick. The reports following his sudden departure from Defence Intelligence is that he'd been a disastrous manager, and since then all he's done is post nonsense about Islam on twitter. But we should focus on that stuff, not on whether he previously breached rules that don't sound like they had any meaningful consequences.


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Mitochondria wrote:
English is the de facto language of America.

And the de facto way of communicating that language is with your mouth, but that doesn't mean you start investigating anyone who uses sign language.

Being outside the norm is not a prompt for investigation in healthy countries. Stop arguing to make your country like the gak ones.

Mitochondria wrote:
English is the de facto language of America.

Not from any legal point of view.

Do you have another metric that should serve as the trigger for an immigration status check?

Language seems to be a pretty decent baseline with which to trigger such a response.

How about "credible evidence that this specific person is an illegal immigrant". Language is completely worthless for this purpose. There are legal immigrants/residents/tourists who don't speak English very well (if at all) and will not appreciate demands to prove their legal status with papers that people in the US are not required to carry. And there are illegal immigrants who speak English just fine and won't be caught by your test. No metric at all is better than one which effectively means "harass anyone who doesn't look white enough".

Mitochondria wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
When any government functionary interacts with a person who does not speak English an immigration status check should be performed.

The government serves it's people, not the other way around. It should speak the language that the people speak, since that is where the power of the government arises.

English is the de facto language of America.

De facto it may be, but it has zero legal basis as a reason to detain, interrogate, investigate, deport or convict someone on its own, with tons of legal structure built to reinforce that point, in largely the same way that the government can't use the color of someone's skin on its own either to detain, deport or investigate someone.

Policies like this tend to backfire and become points of abuse, or embarrassment, such as in Alabama when they ended up arresting or ticketing German and Japanese auto executives.

Do you have another metric that should serve as the trigger for an immigration status check?

Language seems to be a pretty decent baseline with which to trigger such a response.

Sure don't. Maybe it is because prompting a check on immigration status based on a social interaction is absolutely bonkers.

"Can you say "car" again, sir? This time without rolling the r?"

"Carrrrrr, how was that?"

"Perfect, sir." aside "Yeah, definitely check this guy."

Lots of native born US citizens do not use english as their primary language, places like Puerto Rico and Guam come to mind.

I don't really agree with the "papers please" response to non-English speakers. I do however support English as the official American language.

I also think it should be the law that when an illegal immigrant is arrested that notifying immigration officials is mandatory. Sanctuary cities can feth-off.

Why do you think we need an 'official language'? We get along just fine without one.

Get your big government out of my linguistics!

Mitochondria wrote:


No one said anything about speaking another language.

Anyone who does not speak English,

Seriously. Reread these two statements, and see if you can spot the ludicrousness.

Because that is an indicator that they are not a citizen.

No it's not. There are over 60,000,000 Americans who speak English poorly, or not at all.

 LordofHats wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:


No one said anything about speaking another language.

Anyone who does not speak English,

Seriously. Reread these two statements, and see if you can spot the ludicrousness.
.

You do know those two things aren't mutually inclusive, right?

 cuda1179 wrote:
I don't really agree with the "papers please" response to non-English speakers.

I don't really care that you disagree.

Over and over again, people propose absolutely bonkers ideas to halt illegals from entering the country, or to find and deport them. Many of these proposals can only result in discriminatory practices, which I might point out is why conservatives keep getting accused of racism so if you don't like the accusation, you might start by not proposing discrimination as state policy. Not being able to speak English is not against the law. It never should be, because the only reason to pass such a law is in furtherance of discrimination against anyone "not like me." Lots of Americans don't speak English. Many more speak it poorly. It's a stupid measure for investigating people. It's a policy whose only products is witch hunts, and I will happily start a protest movement to clog the system and waste tax payers dollars spent on this stupidity because it would be so god damn easy.


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 cuda1179 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:


No one said anything about speaking another language.

Anyone who does not speak English,

Seriously. Reread these two statements, and see if you can spot the ludicrousness.
.

You do know those two things aren't mutually inclusive, right?

So we're now expanding this policy to include the mute and signers?

The fail is real.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I don't really agree with the "papers please" response to non-English speakers. I do however support English as the official American language.

But what does that actually mean? Only producing laws, policies signage etc in English, not producing translated versions? Not having bilingual staff at police stations and public hospitals? Not allowing people a translator in court?

If it does mean any or all of those things, then what you're basically arguing for is shutting citizens out of government institutions. If it doesn't mean any of those things, what does it mean?

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I don't really agree with the "papers please" response to non-English speakers. I do however support English as the official American language.

But what does that actually mean? Only producing laws, policies signage etc in English, not producing translated versions? Not having bilingual staff at police stations and public hospitals? Not allowing people a translator in court?

If it does mean any or all of those things, then what you're basically arguing for is shutting citizens out of government institutions. If it doesn't mean any of those things, what does it mean?

The United States doesn't have an official language, and it should stay that way. We're free to speak whatever language we please.

I'd point out that if you were using English as the offical language, you're all using it incorrectly anyway.

Those u's exist for a reason

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
I'd point out that if you were using English as the offical language, you're all using it incorrectly anyway.

Those u's exist for a reason

Nope. We don't require any frivolous "u's." Languages evolve. Get used to it.

Colours, metre, centre, Zed!

Lazy yanks can't even pronounce a letter right.

Now you have your president elect Trump. He's still a guy who should go for his business instead of becoming US president. He's simply the wrong person. But maybe America and the world deserved him. Same goes for the Brexit and guys like Johnson and Farrage. Now the brits seem to get a big economic problem. Same goes for our chancellor and all the refugees they've let into our country. Now they want to reexam lots of Syrians who entered last year. Not good prospects these days.

 Hordini wrote:

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
I'd point out that if you were using English as the offical language, you're all using it incorrectly anyway.

Those u's exist for a reason

Nope. We don't require any frivolous "u's." Languages evolve. Get used to it.

But you can't spell USA without U

 Crazyterran wrote:
Colours, metre, centre, Zed!

Lazy yanks can't even pronounce a letter right.

Zed drives me nuts, it's a zeebra, not a zedbra.

Z = zee

It would be nice to get a ruling on the correct spelling for litre though.

litre or liter?

if we had police questioning everyone for speaking a different language, the cops in Louisiana would go nuts carding americans from every other state. I don't think they understand each other most of the time. Or those poor cops near any disney park, what's with all these people speaking chinese and japanese? they're tourists sir.

This came up a lot when I lived in san diego, and the paper there finally posted a study on the issue, most immigrants from mexico won't be fluent in english til the 3rd generation has lived here. so in the mean time yes let's offer them help in their language for generations 1 & 2.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
Colours, metre, centre, Zed!

Lazy yanks can't even pronounce a letter right.

Zed drives me nuts, it's a zeebra, not a zedbra.

Z = zee

Yeah, I hate when people say card instead of seeard, and bed instead of beeed and dead instead of deead etc.

So wait, when you brits sing the alphabet song, do you end it with "zed"? That's horrible, it throws off the rhyme with "vee", and the "wont you come and sing with me".

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So wait, when you brits sing the alphabet song, do you end it with "zed"? That's horrible, it throws off the rhyme with "vee", and the "wont you come and sing with me".

I think you mean "ved" and the "won't you come and sing with me" bit rhymes with "Now I know my A, B, C's" so the pronunciation of Z doesn't really matter there.