Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, btw.

You really don't read the news, do you?

We do fight for individual liberty, actually. You won't ever allow that to be acknowledged, of course. You've repeatedly claimed knowledge of what I personally do and say based on my support for Ron Paul, knowledge which is explicitly false, and nothing I can say or do will convince you of otherwise.

I'm sorry you don't understand, but given our past interactions, I suspect you don't actually care and are just looking to waste my time. This conversation is considered resolved.

"It must be tiring being so outraged all the time."

Probably less tiring than thinking the world is going to implode in a massive war any day now.

"They're not about liberty, they're about property. That's the point I've been making. You haven't provided a single counterargument other than "you're wrong". If they cared about individual liberty they would be fighting for them, instead of sitting on their ass and watching as the government represses others. Or worse, trying empower state governments to gut them completely.

Provide a counterargument or shut up. "

Here are some counter-arguments:

http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-paramilitary-police-raids-america
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v30n3/cpr30n3-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye
http://reason.com/archives/2012/02/20/gag-order
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/08/csi-mississippi/singlepage
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/02/18/libertarian-party-resolution-on-iraq/

Libertarians are anti-war, anti-police state, and pro-civil liberties. They're also pro-property rights. These are not mutually exclusive.

Perhaps consider moving this discussion on libertarians to my shiny libertarian thread!

Or don't if you're going to be ugly and say things like "provide a counterargument or shut up." My goodness. Lol.

All countries benefit from immigration for basic economic reason. Immigrants represent adult workers, and the country those adults immigrated to didn't bear the tremendous expense of raising them to adulthood.

I agree with the OP, we have the same kind of restrictive immigration policies in the UK. The only thing I would say is that immigration doesn't exist in a vacuum, a host country has to get it's welfare system right first in order to allow for unregulated immigration. I do not believe that immigrants come to the UK to claim benefits, but when an immigrant comes from poland to pick strawberries it means that a UK person on benefits is denied a job, and his/her welfare paymnents cost the country dearly.

Once the Supreme Court upholds the majority of the Arizona immigration law the results will cost Brewer her seat as governor and get the law repealed within the next presidential term. Those immigrants are vital not just to the economy of the United States, but it is among the immigrant class that the true core values of America reside, "the belief that in America the individual can find the freedom to rise as far as their character allows them to."

The absence of Mexican and Central American immigration to the United States over the last twelve months should be ominous to individuals interested in economics.
It does not speak well of the Obama administration's economic policies at all, and shows beyond a doubt that immigrants don't come here for social services.
Social services exploded under Obama, but xenophobia and lack of jobs did also which is what drove immigrants out.

TC is... making sense?

yeah for once.

I agree with Tettleton's Chew almost entirely. There is one thing though that I don't think many people are addressing here.

If the Mexicans are going back to Mexico, that means they probably never really wanted to become Americans. We need immigrants for economic reasons and should welcome them, but at the same time we need to make sure that these people assimilate into our wider national culture.

Okay, I will chime in on this a little bit. We have immigration laws for a reason. Not only for employment, but also for disease control, and cultural conflicts if large amounts of one people push into another, there is going to be friction.

Why did early European immigrants become absorbed so easily? Because, the cultures there are not so different, usually no Faith conflicts (even if they existed in Europe, they did not here..much).

And, finally, they wanted to be Americans. Many mexicans carenothing about being an American (sure, some do) they care about a better life (cant blame them, but dont make what they are doing 'right') and getting 'treasures'.

Our immigration law says that we allow immigration based on a 'need'. I dont think most of these illegals are filling a need, other than making Corporations richer. Are you telling any high schoool kid cant be a dishwasher, cut grass? Telling me we cant pick our own food (We did it for 100s of year before, so why not now)?

the only 'need' right now is for more funny by the fatcats,. who have already done a wonderful job of FUBARing our country.

Mexicans came to this country, for the most part, because they wanted to earn money for their families. That was their primary motivation and very real. This idea of becoming Americans seems a bit superfluous when measured against watching your children grow up in poverty. Often they get demonized for having motivations that we all would have under similar circumstances. That being said the massive influx has hurt the American worker terribly. My brother is probably one of the highest skilled carpenters around, and he told me that illegal immigration has destroyed american carpentry. To his credit he doesn't have hard feelings against Mexicans but he is desperate and he knows illegal immigration has played a very large part in the decline of his financial well being. Something needs to be done but we don't have to hate them to do it. (not that everybody has spewed hate at Mexicans on this thread but it is important to keep our perspective.) And yes, the biggest winners in this are corporations who have benefited from all the low cost labor.

There is much more than American workers are being hurt greysoni. Small towns have their economies wrecked, illegals kill (either interntionally or from accidents ) more than 2200 americans a YEAR. Their lack of insurance, Drivers license, emergency room visits for everything, all come back to American taxpayers, one way or another. Big fatcats wont pay that bill.


They have also learned how to cheat the welfare system and other government systems quite well Not all, sure, but they have paid nothing into it (or not anything comparable to waht they are draining out of it).

Anyone who says they are a 'net plus' to the economy is smoking some good $hit. I have seen some research, saying they do, but they do not include all the expenses either.

We did not 'need' carpenters, fast food workers, etc...Big Corporations 'needed' cheaper labor.

I also refuse to add to the problem. I own real estate, and build the houses myself except for the roofing. One thing I demand on the roof, is that EVERYONE on the crew and on my roperty speak fleunt English. Race is unimportant, but if you are onmy property, putting up my roof, I want to be 100% sure you understand WTH I am asking, and also, that the person getting the money is an American.

I know, some people will whine, but, it is 1) my money, not federal 2) it is not a business (my business buys the house after it is built, so i avoid that little problem) and 3) I help the local economy by giving it to people who will spend ALL of it in that economy, and not send 30% of it home.

I admire their work ethic, and their dedication to family, but my parents were immigrants also, and they had to earn it. These people have not earned it in my eyes.

"illegals kill (either interntionally or from accidents ) more than 2200 americans a YEAR." these kind of statistics can be kinda misleading. I am not saying that your wrong but to be meaningful you would have to differentiate between fatalities from accidents and those from crime then find the total number of accident and criminal deaths per year. Find the percentage of illegals of the total population and see if the deaths caused by illegals is statistically higher then the remaining population. I'm not trying to argue with you per se, I have just seen SO many of these facts tossed around without putting them in their proper context that it makes me very suspicious every time I see them.
And it is not about whether or not we need carpenters or whatever....it is whether or not our own people can find jobs with a decent income.

Greysoni, my point is this, that if they were not here (they are ILLEGAL, which is a FEDERAL crime)that number would be...zero. I am not going to debate if they were accidents or not.

Most have no grasp of English, and so can not read our street signs, do not have a DL, insurance, etc.

I pulled this off one report:

"While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745"

another:

In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.

(the above does not mean it was an illegal however, but they very often do not have valid DL for a reason).

King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day – a total of 2,920 annually.

While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators


There is a lot of innocent people who are dead or hamred by illegals because we are unwilling to enofrce our immigration laws.

Like I said....my point wasn't to argue with you. I was just making a point about statistics like the one you gave....they can be misleading, that's all.

what is misleading about it? I put a disclaimer in there, about how many are just trying ti improve their lives, but the fact is, they are not here legally, and we put that immigration in place to protectioon ourselves.

just the statistic about the number of accidents or, really statistics in general....jeeze. I'm not questioning the rest of what you wrote....

its okay Greysoni. My parents areimmigrants (Italy and Germany). They had to work REALLY hard to get over here. They did it the right way. I have a certain amount of resentment towards the ones who cheat to do it.

My parents wanted to be Americans, they wanted to be part of the whole thing. Did we speak German? Sure, but only in the house with each other. We never did in public, as we thought it was RUDE.

My family (and millions of others lke them) easily found their way into our society and culture. This latest wave is NOT like that. It causes friction.

I've seen evidence that first-generation immigrants tend to commit violent crimes at a lower rate than do native-born whites of the same age. Here is one lengthy discussion about it: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2010/mar/01/00022/

Key paragraph: "The evidence presented here powerfully refutes the widespread popular belief that America’s Hispanics have high crime rates. Instead, their criminality seems to fall near the center of the white national distribution, being somewhat higher than white New Englanders but somewhat lower than white Southerners. Taken as a whole, the mass of statistical evidence constitutes strong support for the “null hypothesis,” namely that Hispanics have approximately the same crime rates as whites of the same age."

In case you don't trust AmCon, here's a PDF from a non-partisan research group that argues that at least in California immigrants are less likely to engage in criminal activity. http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/cacounts/CC_208KBCC.pdf

Also, regarding this statement: "They had to work REALLY hard to get over here. They did it the right way. I have a certain amount of resentment towards the ones who cheat to do it."

May I ask when your parents entered the country, and what their professions/family connections are? Specifically I want to know how they got in to the USA.

I ask because it is almost impossible for unskilled immigrants without family members in the US to move legally to the USA. Here is a handy chart: http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf

I was not really comapring races. There are many Mexican-Americans here who were born here, that I have no issue with. I was speaking about the crime of being an illegal.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/01/illegal-immigrant-gangs-commit-most-u-s-crime/

You went to something different. The above article said illegal gangs commit the MOST crime in the country, and they 100% do not make up even close to a majority of the population.

So that really is making your above article hard to believe, when the government itself has hispanic gangs as the #1 crime group, some, like MS 13 almost 100% illegal.

Oh I get that fine, not a problem with it. The fact is they would prefer to be in Mexico, at least many that I have spoken with. I just wish it wasn't so screwed up there that they feel being here is the only way out of their misery. NAFTA may have helped Mexican businesses but it hurt the poor there (as well as here) Mexican farmers in particular. A lot of there small family farms got gobbled by big business and when corn prices shot up ( because of speculation in the commodities market, among other things) these people couldn't afford to feed themselves. Now this is not an argument to let them flood into the U.S. its just a fact that paints a more complete picture of the situation. They had a chance to change their situation in 2006 but Felipe Calderón won under some very suspicious circumstances. But who knows how it would have really turned out. Anybody who seriously threatens the establishment there is probably going to end up dead...just a damn shame. Cutting off immigration would bring a lot of those frustrations to a boil which you could argue is a good thing as it would be incentive to finally change things there but those things tend to get out of control. It usually takes a good deal of death and drek for things really to change and you never know if they are going to change for the better or worse. The world is littered with unintended consequences.

M13 is just downright evil.

Well, then my grandparents, right? One of my grandfathers was an Engineer, the other did some type of Fuel Conversion research in Ohio (for Ford I think), but both left after some time here, back to Europe. My father was still not a citizen, but had a green card, and ended up in vietnam in order to get his citizenship, my mother was 5 when she was brought here, and also stayed (they obviously got married). There was no such thing as 'anchor babies' in that respect back then, so when I was born, it was not that big a deal. I was American by birth, but when my dad went to Vietnam, we (my brother and I) went back to Germany to stay with family, as it was difficult here.

I think the better phrase woudl have been "they worked really hard to stay here' My father has a dialect (even today) my mother does not any longer. They got here via THEIR parents, but stayed thru their own work/sacrifice.

That article is not very convincing. Gangs (and it's not clear to what extent this is referring to gangs made up of illegal immigrants) commit 80% of crime? That's fearmongering. Even if you confine this to violent crimes and have the loosest definition of "gang," I still wouldn't believe it.

Also, it's not necessarily a crime to be an "illegal immigrant." It's not against criminal law to overstay a visa, for example. And I am pretty sure (but someone could check if they wanted) that illegal entry into the country is a misdemeanor, like public intoxication or trespassing.

and, by the way, you never came across racist....if somehow I accidentally implied that...