How will he vote for Obama?

We cannot wait any longer to enforce our immigration laws. We must ensure that predatory employers have no loopholes, to attract illegal workers.
Our economy can no longer afford to support millions of illegal immigrants with free health care, education and law enforcement. Unless we achieve enforcement of THE PEOPLE'S laws we be unable to stop bogus documentation, November voter fraud, fraudulent immigration entry.

This includes the millions of people who smuggle themselves past the undermanned border agents. Democrats have gutted the border fence funding, and now are trying to undermine the voluntary business e-verify system. The new SAVE ACT (H.R.4088) is enforcement only and would be instrumental in making the E-very process mandatory. Free faxing at NUMBERSUSA. to force this law through Congress.

man that commenter is a real dumb@ss. You wont find nobs like that at www.thedrunkcanuck.com . Keep up the awesome site, you have some great insight

I have great respect for Filipinos. They saved my uncle's life in WWII after he barely escaped being burned to death in a Japanese prison camp. (The Palawan Massacre was depicted in the first scenes of The Great Raid.)

As long as he was physically and financially able, he and his wife returned to visit "his Filipino family" every year. Through him, I think my family had a greater knowledge and appreciation of the Philippines than, say, the "average" caucasian American.

A truly fascinating country. I've since had the pleasure of getting to know the Filipino family my oldest daughter married into. Her father-in-law is trying (so far, unsuccessfully) to teach me Tagalog.

I hit submit before getting to the point, which is: this nation's immigrants have always and still do contribute mightily to its greatness.

What else would he or she have to say to get banned? Maybe use the c- and/or f-words?

What the hell?

This has ZIP to do with legal or illegal immigration.

This assmonkey of a commenter chose to racially stereotype this man's wife based on ZERO evidence that she was a sex slave. He assumed she was based on her race. That alone makes him an outright bigot; at best, a thinly veiled racist. There's no excuse for his comment in any context.

To steal from Jay Tea's recent post, he's "lower than whale shit."

Some Americans do not know the real difference between legal immigration and the undocumented. There is a tendency among the ignorant to treat both alike.

I agree most Americans are good people. They are educated, progressive, competitive and do well in life. Those that whine are mostly the lazy and the losers. They are not well educated either and hence name calling and foul words are part of their upbringing.

Having said that, I support strict border controls, law enforcement, mandatory E-verify program, and tamper proof photo IDs to eliminate fraud documentation and illegal workforce. I also support a speedier and better legal immigration laws because the current process is very slow and traumatizing.

I hadn't gotten around to reading that thread because I thought, what do I have to add to the discussion other than agreement.

My neighbors, who have lived next door for for the 11 years we've been here are a Navy retiree, Randy, and his Filipino wife, Shirley, (I always tease her about her name, it just doesn't fit). They are two of the finest people I know. They've been married for 25 years. Shirley is such a delightful woman I can't imagine some government bureaucrat processing her deportation papers if she had been so unfortunate as to lose her husband early in their marriage.

But this idiot you've highlighted is just beyond the pale. He's an absolutely clueless, wrong-headed xenophobic racist. (Can you be xenophobic AND racist?)

Can you NOT be xenophobic AND racist?

So ban his sorry ass--there wouldn't be ANY hesitation on my part doing exactly that.

I would buy a pair of Isotoners, put a roll of quarters in each glove, and use them to slap the author of that quote in the teeth, challenging him to a dual... that would commence as soon as he got back from the dentist.

Becoming the melting pot of the world made this country great. Those who came here legally from every nation in the world bacame Americans. The destruction will come when the Illegals/criminals who refuse to 'melt' into society demand, and get, everything free that others have earned the hard way.

Bill, there is no doubt that TcP or whomever has gone overboard, and he does hint at a homogeneity that never existed here. However, one can just as easily go too far the other way.

1) Cultural institutions can and have been attacked by mass immigration - intentionally. The policy really has been advocated by Marxists as a way of breaking down societal bonds (as well as wage depression reasons from the right).

2) The United States no longer has an expanding political territory. Several geographically large states didn't join the Union until the 1900s, and Cowboys and Indians still existed out during the same time frame. To some extent, people were colonizing as opposed to integrating.

3) The size and scope of government was significantly smaller during periods of high immigration, and civil society - and its ability to foster understanding and integration - were proportionately stronger.

4) The proposals coming from power have been for MASSIVE levels of immigration. Far higher proportionately than have ever been absorbed before by a lasting state on its original territory (ie, some have absorbed more, but it was by taking over territory). Furthermore, the actions of the Federal Government on this issue have been intentional negligent neglect.

5) Past immigration waves have been from lands PHYSICALLY unconnected to the United States. In those situations, the immigrant is pretty much forced to integrate, as dual loyalty or loyalty to the motherland is untenable and has no benefit. That is not the case with Mexican immigrants.

6) TcP has gone too far. That does not mean everyone worried about immigration is a Racist in disguise, which is what you are suggesting. Traditional america is defined as towns and cities that are allowed to have their own cultural apparatus, which, while traditionally welcoming, should have a reasonable expectation of not being completely overwhelmed by illegal immigrants. Immigration policy has traditionally placed immigrants in varied locations for a reason. We don't want enclaves of Albanians that aren't dedicated to our system of liberty.

7) I believe our system of liberty is the best in the world. Some would say the Rule of Law, but I think Justice, is the most important product of that system. I understand that you feel compassion for separated relatives, some not yet naturalized. I agree with you that they are not receiving justice. However, that issue - as I have pointed out to you in the past - has Specifically been used by John McCain as a way of advocating for massive illegal immigration forgiveness. And I think THAT policy will undermine the very system of justice under which you stake your claim. I'm sorry, but reality dictates that the upholding of a high quality SYSTEM of justice outweighs the occasion instance of injustice. It has to, because none of them are perfect.

So I will back you up on this topic after YOU stop carrying water for the crazy ass immigration policy being advocated by Obama and McCain. After YOU make a post about how McCain is using YOUR issue to drive a wedge between us.

A sergeant in my battalion died in a traffic accident in the 1980's when I was stationed at Ft. Knox. His new wife was a German woman he had married while on deployment when the Rooskies were the Big Enemy, and I think he had been married less than one year as well. Even back then it took an act of Congress to create an exception which allowed her and her 1 year old to stay in the US. (The kid was his without a doubt, and he was named the father.)

Why this goes on, I have no idea, but it has been going on for a long time. It is a stupid exercise in bureaucratic legalism to do this kind of crap.

Here was my comment to TcP on the other thread....
_________________________________________

TcP says

In simpler terms, people are different.

You have made that abundantly clear, TcP. Your monument to ignorance is summed up thus:

Caucasians, with Judeo-Christian and British traditions created and built this country.

They may have built the country that lives in your head, but not the one I live in. Here's a question for you, from one white man to another: Which ethnic group in the United States would be most infuriated by your comment above?

34. Posted by HughS | July 29, 2008 6:43 PM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast

___________________________________________

The answer is that no Scots-Irish worth his salt would dare allow someone to call them British.

Oh Hugh, you are observant!

Dunno what all those Dutchmen and Germans in Pennsylvania would've thought about that either, Hugh.

Live Free Or Die, some of your points are fair and others not so much.

1) Which Marxists are you referring to? How is it in the interests of Marxists to break down societal bonds, when socialist government requires far stronger bonds than the opposite philosophy (anarchism/libertarianism)? Furthermore, why are you talking about Marxists?

3) Do you really think civil society was better able to "foster understanding and integration" during previous waves of immigration than it is today? Do you think Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, or Indian immigrants were welcomed with open arms, and treated with respect by their new countrymen? Or do you only mean understanding on the part of immigrants, and not the people who were already there?

6) Bill never said that all people who wish to restrict immigration is a racist. He implied that those who wish to restrict legal immigration to maintain an ethnic status quo, e.g. this TcP asshole and Pat Buchanan, most certainly are. And he's right.

I just came to say I love the label (tag, whatever it's called), Bill.

Thanks for the reply, hyperbolist.

1) Italian Gramsci Marxism, though the thinking has popped up other places, IIRC.

I'm Lockean, so take it for what you think its worth if you're not. I would say two things.

A) Socialism requires stronger bonds than humans are capable of.

The strongest bonds in most cultures are between blood relatives and marriage relatives. This is then extended to the tribe, if you wish. The local community, say town or village, in the founding understanding, is supposed to be equivalent to a kind of neutered tribe. Then Higher political entities. Other bonds are religious, political, national, business associate, etc.

Regardless, bonds generally decrease as they are delocalized. It can appear that in socialist system, the bonds are localized, but the local entity has no power. Instead, people in those systems appeat to me to be stuck in a prisoner's delimma nash equilibrium. Stealling always wins in that system. Anyway, it seems to me that when trying to architect a system, that one wants to take advantage of, rather than work against, things like familial bonding.

Sorry if I'm not clear enough, I've thought and read about this a lot, but I haven't put it down on paper.

I'm talking about Marxists because if a nasty philosophy comes up with a policy for implementation, at the very least one might want to evaluate why.

More in a minute

Bill, that kind of sock-puppetry has long been grounds for banning. Say the word, and his ass is toast. He hassled you, you busted him, the choice is yours. Just say so and his IP is gone.

J.

No, I understand you. I figured you were a Lockean, though most Lockeans don't ever use the word. Ditto for Kantians. :)

I don't see what immigration has to do with Marxism, though. I don't have a very good understanding of Maoism or Stalinism--there's only so much one needs to know about those regimes to form a sound opinion of them--but I think that while the two issues (left vs. right and immigration) might dovetail, people of either political stripe can put forth decent arguments both for and against mass immigration. I think a libertarian political philosophy (Locke, Nozick, etc.) would face the same practical challenges of immigration as something grounded in Kantian deontology (Rawls, Kymlicka, etc.).

Uh... I mentioned Stalinism and Maoism and didn't finish that thought: Switzerland and Canada would be two countries that are more Marxist than the U.S., with radically different immigration policies. Neither are communist, though.

Oh, now I get the numbering. Duh. Sorry, too confusing to count as I went out of order.

3)
A) If the understanding is primarily in one direction, it should certainly be the immigrant adapting. Otherwise, it's nothing but cultural imperialism.
B) I view a cultural apparatus as a "Solution space" to the problem of people living together. I think there will always be some oppression. I might want to minimize that oppression, but how I go about doing that is key. Anyway, the incoming cultural heritage may have stuff to add, but it very well may, and probably does, have stuff that is incompatible with the native culture. Assuming the culture in place is basically working, I think it imprudent to expect major adoption of incoming habits. Instead, the DIFFERENT perspectives of the incoming culture can and should be analyzed by the native culture, which helps keep it vigorous. It creates an internal discourse, so to speak.
C) I think civil society is better at creating and maintaining high quality cultural apparatus in a way that the state is not. I don't actually care if the incoming culture is preserved. In fact, I think trying to preserve it is a mistake. However, I am NOT saying the incoming culture shouldn't modify the existing culture, but much more in the sense of adding a new spice to the pot, as opposed to making an entirely different dish.

Also, I think todays incredible material wealth makes it look like todays system is better at integrating. However, assuming one can achieve that wealth in a system with more civil society, I think the civil society would out perform.

more in a minute.

I'm pretty disappointed in Buchanan. Feel a bit let down, actually.

Anyway, my beef with Bill: We had an email conversation a year back, where I showed him an actual example of McCain using the - spouse of a soldier - type thing to drive his comprehensive immigration plan. You can disagree, but I don't think that plan will work (or rather, will do damage), and I assure you I argued myself into that position. Anyway, to my view, McCain (and the Bush administration) have intentionally held stuff that virtually everyone agrees with hostage in an effort to jam through the comprehensive bill. I think Bill should say that, and embarrass these Washington jerks into doing the right thing on these common cause issues, and leave the immigration debate separate. It's too important to do otherwise.

My point on the gramsci cultural marxism is only that serious marxist philosophers thought that mass immigration from a disparate culture WOULD decrease social bonds, and the data I've seen points to that being true. And I don't think that's something we want if it can be avoided.

Vis a vis Kant. You can see both Kant and Locke in our constitutional order. I agree, the practical problems exist under both philosophies. However, I am Lockean, and I will attempt to persuade you right here of why.

1) Rational does not equal cooperative unless the system is configured properly.
2) If I had to choose ONE philosophical item from all of our constitutional thought, it is that you NEVER trust high power, because the only correction to bad policy is through revolution. I think Kantian thinking tends to lead to an elite class espousing their superior rationality over the yahoos.

Lockean STRUCTURES counter that.

For example, a town of small landholders. You don't need to stick a grand philosophy on top. Instead, Kantian rationality emerges from it. And cooperative behavior. You get it for free.

Good talking to you. Thanks.

I basically agree with everything you said @24. Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship draws similar conclusions, except he uses the word 'nation' in such a way that allows for several nations to exist within the boundaries of a single country. These nations, while subjecting themselves to their own laws, ultimately must answer to federal law. They also may not make laws within their own culture that are contrary to the laws of the country--so, in the Western world, no Sharia, no faux-Mormon polygamists, etc.. The obvious questions is who decides what cultural traits are innocuous and which are not, but courts are pretty good at preventing illiberal societal regression. (Using the word 'liberal' in the sense Karl Popper would, not Michael Moore.) Sharia law is banned in Ontario by the provincial courts, for instance. It can be used within a culture to justify severe violations of human rights, so it's not to be practiced. Under any conception of polyethnic society, cultural freedom obviously has its limits, and cannot be taken as fundamental. The best Kantian, Rawls, always seemed to me to be arguing simply that the only thing that ought to remain fundamental about our society is that it exist in a state of perpetually reflective equilibrium.

*That is, Rawks was the best Kantian political philosopher. McDowell produced sharper conceptual analysis, just in an incredibly impractical (re: pointless) genre of philosophy.

That's perhaps the most persuasive Lockean argument I've read. #1 is absolutely correct, but as for #2, I think that is an excellent illumination of a fundamental difference between American and European/Canadian political outlooks. I have great faith in rationality, because I know that when people are rational, things tend to work pretty well. But our nations were founded very differently. It's doubtful mine would have been born of rationality had yours not first been born of blood.

Nice talking to you, too. G'night.

"Rawls, always seemed to me to be arguing simply that the only thing that ought to remain fundamental about our society is that it exist in a state of perpetually reflective equilibrium."

I like that.

Ok, so I can see some serious overlap in the thinking from Mulitcultural Citizenship.

But I find also find serious flaws.
1) The subnations must have some form of physical territorial autonomy. It has to be physical. Try to take any of top five amendments and implement them without property. They are very hard to implement without physical property.

Now, in the same sense, think about the different cultures of the wold.

There a couple that are nomadic, but where that is the case the tribe travels as a group.
The vast majority of cultures require physical proximity with neighbors sharing that culture. I mean, thats what the culture is, right? Modes of thinking that are passed back and forth. Forms of art that are passed back forth. Language. Technology implementation. Forms of dispute resolution. These things are formed by the interactions of people living in some kind of proximity to one another. Trading with one another.

If, in a multicultural society, the cultural entities overlap too much, they will just merge into one cultural apparatus. And all you end up with is monoculture.

If, on the other hand, they do not interact, they lose the reflective equilibrium.

If we think of tribes in a natural state, say, hunter-gatherer, we can see them kind of bouncing back and forth off of each other, and with each collision exchanging information. To simulate that in a closed space, you add property rights - so now the tribe is in a fixed place - and then have individuals move and trade by going back and forth between tribes. NOTE that TRADE must occur between these entities.

In that way we can emulate the tribal situation, still have reflective equilibrium, and still have a multicultural society and avoid monoculture. I can think of no way to do the same thing without the tribes (towns) have there own jurisdictional power, and without some amount of locally controlled business.

Locke describes how to accomplish that at the lowest level.

Night

Bill,

As a former sailor married to a Filipina I understand your position.
I did not respond to betway because it would have been a profanity riddled and a blatant racist you are going to change that mind.

As a naturalized American I most laugh at most of the the immigration experts. As anyone knows immigrants esp legal immigrants are not one monolithic group. Sure you have scammers and creeps and idiots just like you have those in any culture. You also have decent hard working people.

Some of the staunchness anti illegal immigration folks are legal immigrants because we know what it is to earn the right to be here. Many of us want reform because it takes 10-20 years to sponsor a relative.

The questions that US consular officers ask a petitioner and wife at times goes beyond rude.

I have know excellent immigrants in all branches of the military and at all levels of corporate IT (Goldman Sachs, Merill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, etc) I also know a large number of doctors nurses and lawyers. To think that no legal immigrant contributes to American Society is pure and utter stupidity. To believe that none have been apart of what makes America a great country is willful ignorance.

I am a hard core conservative because I believe that limited government provides more freedom. Talk with legal immigrants who have seen what happens when governments get too big and the level of corruption increase and people freedoms decrease.

When I was stationed in Pensacola Florida, I met a vet of Korea and WWII through some sanfu at the VA he lost his Va benefits. He was working on getting the issue resolved while that was doing so he was living in trailer park and at 70 he was doing road work to pay his bills.
One day I got call in the barracks at 20:00 he needed a lift home. he had been working for about 12 hours. His hands were bloodied and he was drenched in sweat. When I took him home a white guy saw him and mocked him saying "Frank, dude look at me I home drinking beer, and f**king my girl having babies collecting the welfare" That what you need to do why work? It's America get on the the Welfare.

So while this vet is busting his ass everyday and paying taxes this piece of whale sh*t is benefiting from it.

That attitude, the something for nothing, the desire to not work and dependance on government is what will bring this country down. We have a government people who want to stay in office by giving away the store so that more people are dependent on it and will vote them into office.

It not the Legal immigrants, it is lazy people of all stripes
The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves.