Gotta see it!

[Shapley]

OT,

If you'll recall the "Nannygate" fiasco when Bill Clinton was trying to fill his cabinet, you'll realize that the problem is not just the private sector utilizing the illegals. Apparently many in D.C. see nothing wrong with violating the laws they have written when hiring illegals for their own households. For this reason, many will never want to strengthen the penalties for doing so, lest they find themselves caught (as several did).

This, I believe, was what prompted the governor I spoke to make his threat. Again, I think it was just election year grandstanding. I haven't had time to Google it to see if I can find the reference, but I think it was in the '70s or '80s, and I think it was Texas (before Ann Richards?).

V/R
Shapley

[mmichaelson]

Shap, if you go to this website, you can search all of the governors here in Texas. . .
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/modern/page3.html
That is where I found the governors for the past couple of decades to see if any of them rang a bell with you:
Dolph Brisco 73-79
William clements 79-83
Mark White 83-87
Clements again 87-91
Ann Richards 91-95
GWB 95-00
Rick Perty 00-present

[Shapley]

None of them ring a bell, but I'm not that great with names. I only recall reading the article some time ago. Not being a Texan, I don't recall the Gubernatorial history of the state.

Actually, after doing a Google search of "national guard, patrol, border", it seems that it is a common occurance. National Guard units have been stationed along the border at various times since the 1800's, and apparently are still called to do so.

What I didn't find is how many serve at the behest of the varous Governors as opposed to being sent there by the Federal Government. Perhaps when I have more time to search...

V/R
Shapley

[mmichaelson]

While I have to admit that I would want to escape the squallor of my native country for a better life (if I had such a problem with my native country), I am irritated by the government's lack of restraint when dealing with illegals. It really does gall me that they can get the same medical insurance, education, etc, as those of us who were born to this country and have paid our fair debt to society.
While I think that they have rights, those rights do not equal the rights of citizens here when it comes to the benefits of our own taxation.
Very frustrating.
You would think that being from such a border state where this problem is common, that GWB would pay more attention to this.
That's really my only problem with Bush, but it is aggravating nonetheless.

[rwcrooks]

Originally posted by RichC:
Or maybe the reason that the firearm fatality rate is higher in the US is that we're just better shots.

I know I'm gonna hear about that one.

Sheesh, just how obnoxious does a guy have to be before he gets stupid comments thrown at him? (thanks for pitching in, Selma)

[OperaTenor]

Originally posted by Saxy Buff:
Very frustrating.
You would think that being from such a border state where this problem is common, that GWB would pay more attention to this.
That's really my only problem with Bush, but it is aggravating nonetheless.

Yup, it is very frustrating. My take on the situation is that GWB's(really you could insert any president's name here, party doesn't really matter) ear is bent further by the interests who want cheap labor in our economy more than the protection of our rights as American citizens.

Hi Shap, you're right, it certainly isn't only the private sector. I'm of the ilk that our elected representatives, especially the President, should hold themselves to the highest legal and ethical standard(pardon me while I go laugh hysterically at myself for awhile..........there, much better now). If an activity so much as hints at any impropriety or illegality, I feel it's their responsibility to refrain from it at the very least. Unfortunately, being an elected representative in this government is more about chasing the almighty buck than serving the greater good.

That's why I usually go for the presidential candidate who'll never win.

<small>[ 06-08-2004, 06:48 PM: Message edited by: OperaTenor ]</small>

[piqaboo]

Originally posted by Saxy Buff:
While I have to admit that I would want to escape the squallor of my native country for a better life (if I had such a problem with my native country), I am irritated by the government's lack of restraint when dealing with illegals. It really does gall me that they can get the same medical insurance, education, etc, as those of us who were born to this country and have paid our fair debt to society.
While I think that they have rights, those rights do not equal the rights of citizens here when it comes to the benefits of our own taxation.
Very frustrating.
You would think that being from such a border state where this problem is common, that GWB would pay more attention to this.
That's really my only problem with Bush, but it is aggravating nonetheless.

Re education -
if they live here, illegal or otherwise, they contribute to the property tax pool (they pay rent,the landlords pay the tax, same as if legal immigrants were renting). Since, at least in CA, property taxes are what pays for the schools, it seems only fair that all the kids get the same shot at school.

Aside from fair, it only makes sense from a selfish point of view (mine). Either these kids are in school, or they are roaming the streets, uneducated and bored. And they grow up to be unemployable, and bored. Which one costs us more in the long run?

Plus, I'd like the folks who do the work that makes my life go round to be good at their jobs, literate, capable of rational and logical thought, etc. Education helps with that.

And as a side note - most of the illegal immigrants I've met in my lifetime came from europe, india/persia and australia. But no one seems to hassle them about their kids going to school.

<small>[ 06-08-2004, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: piqaboo ]</small>

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Another tune from the same harp; Gil is occasionally presumed to be an illegal immigrant. He was born in San Diego. His father was born in San Diego. Three of his grandparents were born in San Diego; the fourth one came from Portugal. Gil doesn't speak spanish.

I also don't mind educating the kids that live here, for however long they're here and for however long they stay. As Piqaboo pointed out, it keeps them occupied, improves their legal options for the future, and is worth doing just because kids need educating.

I've long thought the border patrol should set up card tables at the border and sell guest-worker papers for a reasonable sum, allowing the guest-workers to enter legally, giving them an established avenue for paying taxes while they're here, and depriving the coyotes of their livelihood. And if they were here legally, they would probably get paid better because they wouldn't fear deportation.

We used to offer them this deal, and they were called braceros then. I don't know which politicians killed the bracero program but the immigrant laborers didn't leave, they just stopped being legal while they're here.

[barfle]

Originally posted by OperaTenor:
That's why I usually go for the presidential candidate who'll never win.

Voting Libertarian, are we?

[OperaTenor]

Hi Barfle, yes, probably. My current feeling is less government is more better, given all the other current constants(i.e. seeing insufficient benefit for the amount of tax dollars invested/what is spent is squandered, IMNSHO).

Hi Selma, don't you get it? If braceros were still legal, as you said, they'd be paid more. The way it is now, the labor is cheaper, especially since now the taxpayers are bearing the brunt of the infrastructural load for the illegals(and that's not a negative commentary regarding the education and medical care for illegals). Gosh golly, it's almost like having a feudal system! <sarcastic smilie>

When I was a kid in Arizona, my home town(pop ~4,000) had a migrant farm worker camp set up on the then edge of town. Small, one-room huts, essentially. They were torn down when the bracero system ended. To me, they beat the heck out of living in a cardboard box lean-to under a bush in a canyon(our present-day accomodations for the now illegal migrant farm worker).

What does that inscription on the Statue of Liberty read?

Jim "oh yeah, that thing wasn't put out in the harbor just to be a good backdrop for fireworks" B.

[Ajax]

Mexico's problem is not our problem too. It is nationalism that is the glue that holds a country together. If the politicians cannot enforce existing laws for these acts, then they must be removed. All the solutions listed so far (schooling their children, providing them with higher pay, etc.) do not address the real problem at heart. America's bandaid box is emptier all the time.
Just look south of the border at look at the current conditions that exist in many (not all) places down there. They are terrible. I have traveled to several countries down there and know first hand. The whole concept of Manifest Destiny was right on the mark! It is still showing today. Unfortunately, the concept is dead today. No country will exist, in the duration, without tight borders and a common ideology. History is ripe with examples.

[Shapley]

Jim "oh yeah, that thing wasn't put out in the harbor just to be a good backdrop for fireworks" B.

OT,

Maybe their is reason it faces Europe, and wasn't placed in the Gulf of Mexico???

V/R
Shapley

[rwcrooks]

My great-grandfather was an impoverished coal miner who came over from a monarchial state (not our ideology!) to try to make life better for his family. He then spent years working menial jobs that others didn't want, sent almost all of his money back to the "old country" and finally was able to get the rest of his family here. They traveled around from town to town looking for work, and the family kept growing bigger. Many years later they became naturalized citizens. My great-grandfather finally was able to stop his nomadic existence when some of his children were able to buy homes and he could move in with them.

And, life got better.

I fear that with tight borders and a common ideology as tests for entry my family wouldn't be here. I also fear that many of the Italians, Germans, Swedish, Jewish, Chinese (thank you for the transcontinental railroad!), Eastern Europeans, and who knows how many others would have been turned away at the harbors and our shared lives and experiences would have been much poorer.

The USA has always been a magnet to the less fortunate, wherever they come from, and throughout history the prior immigrants were always resentful about the new wave of immigrants coming in, crowding them and taking their jobs. Most of us only have to go back a few generations before we find that we can share the immigrant experience.

[Ajax]

Obviously, anyone of European origin living in the United States is has racial ties to Europe.
Your example demonstrates mixing "like with like".
Differences in European ideology existed on minor levels, compared the Indians they came across when arriving here. Clearly the Indians were on a different playing level when they attempted to coexist.

Yes, America is a "magnet to the less fortunate". Let them come through in an organized and systematic process.

[rwcrooks]

I would hardly call mixing Hassidic Jews with Italians, Gypsies, Chinese, Russians and Irish mixing "like with like." I believe that was my example. Not only did these groups of people speak different languages, they had different alphabets, religious beliefs, methods of dress, legal principles and social structures.

I guess that the virtually continual war that Europe waged against itself (until the 1940's) was due to the minor ideological differences?

[piqaboo]

Selma's proposal sounds both organized and systematic.

America's strength derives in large part from its diversity of thought and approach. We bring divergent lines of information and thought together, creating entirely new concepts and ways of thinking. As a technical example: when biologists ate lunch with computer scientists, chemists and physicists, protein modeling was born. Turns out a protein's function is dictated by its 3-D structure much more than by its component sequence. The sequence dictates structure, yes, but the same structure can be maintained despite many mutations (or a single seemingly innocuous mutation can completely change function / stability /etc). This is also true with social thought, economic, educational and religous theory, etc.

Folks have to be brave enough to leave all they've known to come to America - and so we select (like in selective breeding....animal husbandry (or evolution)) for those who are willing to take risks and tackle new ideas. Adding that to our gene pool is good, IMNAAHO.

Certainly those who originally came to America did not share our current political ideology. It was born here, from the mixed views of those who formed the society that developed here of immigrants from different lands.

Of course, since we all need a common ideology, I am not actually entering this discussion, since it (was) well-understood that women are incapable of abstract thought or understanding politics. Certainly no other thought process could have entered the American thought to change that belief.


Remember, not so long ago: "No Irish Need Apply".

[Ajax]

Your example is full of races were of the minority. Was this country founded by Hassidic Jews. etc.etc.???? The majority races had coexisted long before arriving to this country. They had much more in common with each other than with the Indians. Or would you dispute this as well?

The europeans "generally" had their own towns based on racial background. And they were happy that way.

It was the political machines of their era that brought the social strife and famine. That's why people left. I will not defend Europe for a second. In the big picture, they are a lost cause.

[rwcrooks]

I'd hardly call the groups I cited minority groups. The Jewish started coming to this continent with the Roanoke settlement and were on the second boat after the pilgrims and helped to found Jamestown, down in Virginia. So they were here from the virtual beginning.

The Chinese were such a minority group that the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to try to stem the flood of Chinese immigrants.

In the 20 years between 1880 and 1900, over 400,000 Italian immigrants came to the US. Doesn't sound like a minority group to me.

Maybe you could specify what you see as the "majority races" so I'll understand your point a little better.

I would think that Englishman has as much in common with an Indian as he does with an Italian (except for the fact that the English ruled India for a while and they now have the same form of government).

As for the europeans having racially (and you seem to be defining race as the country of origin) segregated towns. Please give me some examples of this. Are you saying that in Belgium (for example), I would have been able to find whole towns of Jews, Russians, Italians, English?

[barfle]

I believe one of the greatest things about the United States of America is our wide acceptance of various cultures and ethnicities. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good - better than most other countries.

Our immigrant population by and large has done a lot of the hard work of building America. As noted, Chinese were heavily employed in putting in the transcontinental railroad (I recommend the Golden Spike National Monument if you're ever in the Salt Lake City area). Irish, Italian, German, etc. all played their parts.

I understand, however, the concerns of Americans who see immigrants showing up illegally and immediately getting welfare, food stamps, and other social welfare benefits. One of the nails in Gray Davis's coffin was his proposal to let illegal immigrants get driver's licenses. I see no reason for us to coddle foreign parasites. We have enough home-grown parasites to last us just fine. Unfortunately, they are not an endangered species.

I generally favor open borders, because I just feel it's the right thing to do. Everyone, regardless of where they were born, should be entitled to the same opportunity for success. But an "opportunity for success" isn't spelled
f-r-e-e r-i-d-e.

As far as ethnic enclaves are concerned, I have read about Jewish communities in Chinese cities, and everyone in Sandy Eggo knows where the Mexicans live. It's not difficult to find Armenian communities, Irish, Italian, French, and any other first and second generation ethnic neighborhoods in any reasonably sized city in the US.

<small>[ 06-09-2004, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: barfle ]</small>

[Ajax]

RichC, Sorry I will just agree to disagree with you on this one. I don't have time to look it up on the census bureau website (populations). I did not say these groups not in existance, just not the majority. And the time frame you referred was 2 seperate time frames. In your later example, I would wager that more German-Americans were coming into the country than Chinese-Americans. But I cannot prove this, as I could the orignal demographics starting at the days of settlement.

But Yes, Italians have been one of the major founding races of this country. I agree with you on that, and was trying to not nitpick your email.

One clarification on my part:
The Indians I am refering to in on this thread are "Native American" (whatever that is) and not native to the country India.

And about living in naturally segregated, names like "Little Italy" and "Chinatown" are common on most cities. As if you didn't know that, RichC.

For a better perspective of the topic try renting "Blazing Saddles" sometime. :p