Topic: ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE UNITED STATES CULTURE (Read 6678 times)

Yankee · « **on:** April 23, 2006, 11:49:13 PM »

ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE UNITED STATES

There are between 10 and 20 million illegal aliens in this country. Forget the "immigrant euphemism: this is not an immigration, it is an invasion by a horde.

We are being brainwashed to welcome and assimilate these people. We are constantly told that this is a country of immigrants, and that we should greet any and all comers with friendship and acceptance. We are told that these are "good" people who only want jobs. (If they are so good, why does 29% of our prison population consist of illegals?) We are expected to be tolerant to the point of tolerating ourselves as Americans right out of existence.

When the first colonists came, they were a master and servant culture. It took 150 years, from 1620 to 1770, for them to become Americans, to embrace equality, and to form a democratic government. It was an evolutionary process, and the catalyst was land. There was plenty of land for each man to have his own property. Owning land leveled the playing field so that we all became equal. There were some who had pretensions to grandeur and power, but they were not looked on with awe by the rest of the population. The American attitude was, "If you can't walk on water, and you have to go to the bathroom like the rest of us, then we aren't impressed". Our culture of individual independence was unique in the history of mankind; never before had a nation achieved it. The Greeks almost did a few thousand years ago, but it was short lived. The illegal aliens cannot be assimilated into our culture because their numbers are too great, and the land necessary to evolve them into individually independent people is not available. They will become citizens, but they will never become Americans because of this. The urbanization of America, the welfare society which we have created, and the influx of aliens who have become voters in the last generation, have caused our democracy to become very fragile. There is a move on to stifle any independent spirit that is left in us, and the illegals will impact us more than we will impact them. Once the American spirit is extinguished, our democracy will disappear. The Supreme Court has set the scene for that process by decreeing that we no longer have a right to own land if someone with more clout wants to take our title away from us.

The invaders coming in are not from countries with level playing fields. Equality is not part of their culture. Their dream is not of a level playing field, but a ladder, and their definition of success is to get to the top of that ladder over everyone else. When someone is strong enough to achieve this, he is almost always a dictator, and those below him must not incur his wrath, so they endeavor to be allowed to live by following orders and keeping a low profile, while hoping for their own chance to climb the ladder. Equality cannot develop in such a setting. The gangs formed by the aliens in this country are the product of this mindset, with violent dictatorial leaders and obedient followers; obedient even to the point of committing murder. American children were encouraged to be a part of society by joining service clubs and social groups, but they were almost never gang members. There are thousands of gangs of illegals in this country already, and one has been estimated to consist of 50,000 members. Fifty thousand is not a gang; it is an army, and our legislators, who are supposed to represent our well-being, are allowing it to maraud without hindrance! Our cities are no longer American, and they are dangerous! How long, with their birthrate estimated at 7 times ours, before we are completely overwhelmed, and even our small towns made dangerous by these thugs? There are groups of them already on the fringes.

Countries prosper where the citizens have learned the relationship between birthrate and hunger. Third World countries don't seem to be able to comprehend this. The prosperous countries are under no obligation to take in the overflow population from countries where the people have no clue that their uncontrolled reproduction affects their standard of living, and where they have not ever had a democratic government. Indeed, if one were handed to any of the Third World countries it would be destroyed in 3 months as they are doing in Iraq, because in that type of culture, people want power not equality. The proponents of uncontrolled immigration in this country think the invaders will become instant Americans once over the border, but nothing could be further from the truth.

This country is broke! We have a 9 Trillion Dollar debt, most of it to China, who hates us. To buy their friendship, we have built up China's economy at the cost of our own. What was left of our manufacturing industry has been further sacrificed to attempt to build up the economic structures in Third World countries. It doesn't work, because their biggest crop is babies, and we can't pour money in fast enough to keep them fed, much less create jobs them. We don't have the money to allow their overflow to come here and take advantage of our educational and medical systems without contributing to them, and they do not, despite the claims of the people who tout open borders. Further is what it cost us to pay for endlessly increasing police forces because of the criminals they bring with them, the cost of taking their felons to court, and maintaining the penal system.

How many people are aware that the illegals are entitled to the Earned Income Credit? I don't know what the limit is that low income workers can receive, but I believe that it is over $5,000.00. Since we are constantly bombarded with the litany, "they take jobs that Americans won't do", then one must assume that they almost all fit the low income criterion. That is money taken directly from our taxes and handed to law breakers who have no right to be here! The $2,000.00 Congress is talking about "fining" them to pay for amnesty will be paid by Americans, not the illegals. Directly! Straight out of our tax money before it ever gets into the general fund!

We have been sent on a guilt trip by people all over the world chanting the mantra, "feed me, clothe me, house me, and create a job for me". What are we responsible for doing for the people in Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East that they are not responsible for doing for themselves? Why shouldn't they be responsible for their own welfare? The prevailing sentiment seems to be that they are intellectually incapable of providing for themselves, so we have to do it for them, but why on earth should we put them in a position of having even more babies? That's where the poverty comes from in the first place.

When people have babies faster than they can grow the food to feed them, poverty prevails. We are seeing the result of this in the invading horde streaming across our borders and landing on our shores. They will find food here, but, again, their birthrate and continually growing needs will outstrip food production and job expansion so that they will put our country in as bad a state as theirs. Don't think their lifestyle will change simply because they are here. They think the government is going to continue taking care of them, but we are looking at a financial collapse in the not too distant future. There are more people taking money from the government than are putting money into it. To the tune of 9 Trillion Dollars, actually, and we cannot afford the burden these people are putting on us.

Do I feel sorry for the people south of our borders? Yes, I do.
Do I feel sorry for the people of Africa? Yes, I do.
Do I feel sorry for the people of India and Asia? Yes, I do.
But until they start taking responsibility for their own burgeoning population growth, I owe them nothing. It is their own fault that they are overcrowding their own countries, not ours. I do not owe them my country so that they will have a place to send all the extra babies they keep producing. I do not owe them the privilege of making our cities unsafe to walk in. I do not owe them the disappearance of our language. And I do not owe them the destruction of our culture so that they can spread the instability they brought with theirs. What we accomplished in building this country will never happen again in this world. There is not enough land left. It would be stupid to let it be destroyed for the sake of allowing irresponsible cultures the privilege of producing unlimited babies while making us feel that we are responsible for the welfare of those babies, both as babies and adults.

The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans with over 500,000 poor, read that as welfare, people we support, surging out into the rest of the country, is a forewarning of what will happen when, not if, other cities are unable to care for their poor because of drought, famine, or other disaster. The disgorging numbers will be in the millions, and we will not be able to care for our own, much less the "poor" who have been carried so long that they no longer know how to walk, never mind provide for themselves. The illegals, if given amnesty, will be part of that multitude. When food is not provided for them, they will feel entitled to take ours, and total anarchy will ensue. Global warming is a disaster that has already started, not a fear for the distant future. Our grandchildren, if not our children, will watch land masses disappear along with many species, and the production of food will most certainly be adversely affected. If we are to survive, we must not turn our democracy over to people who think they can defy nature and survive. And nature decrees that any species not produce more offspring than there is food to sustain it. Most of the invading horde head for the cities, and are, more or less, hidden there, but we will learn their true numbers when they emerge to forage in our towns at a time when we are struggling to feed our own children.

The amnesty given to illegals in 1986 let the camel put his head inside the tent. Those people are now voters, and they are demonstrating all over the country to let the rest of the body force itself in. Keep in mind that they are voters, but they are of a different culture, and it is not American.

I would welcome debates on this issue. But keep it civil. The "intolerant, racist, and prejudiced" mantras will cut no ice.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #1 on:** April 27, 2006, 09:38:36 PM »

What an astonishingly arrogant post.

These immigrants (who you variously label 'thugs', 'a horde', 'invaders', 'aliens' and culturally incapable of understanding equality) are people, just like you and me, who want the same things we want - education, a decent job, somewhere safe for their kids to grow up. Their own countries often do not offer them those opportunities. When that is the case, the reason is likely to be because of the actions of countries like yours and mine, which have an interest in seeing that the poor nations of the world stay poor so that their citizens will continue stitching Pocohontas t-shirts for us at a wage of 11 cents a day. To that end we sponsor and support their dictators (which you manage to attribute to a lamentable cultural defect rather than to our own governments' selfishly motivated actions) because they tend to stamp down hard on unions, human rights activists and anyone else trying to improve working conditions in those countries (and incidentally eat into the profit margins of the multinational corporations who want to exploit them). Yes, and they do have so many babies don't they - foolish foolish natives. It's no responsibility of ours if western missionaries have been wandering the world preaching the evils of birth control for as long as it has been available, or that we contribute to making those annoyingly fertile people so grindingly poor that having children is a way of supplementing a family income - once they pass a certain age you can send them out to work y'know. Plus, aparently they dont get ESPN much in Africa, so what else are they supposed to do in the evenings?

So, people born into this pitiful state of affairs hear about a marvelous land of opportunity called America, described in much the way that you just have - a land of prosperity and equality built on democratic principles. Who wouldn't to go and live there? Who wouldn't want that for their children (the ones not currently out working, i mean)? Unfortunately the accounts tend to neglect, as you did, some of the realities of the American Dream, founded on the slaughter of an indiginous people and heavily weighted so that the poor stay poor and the rich get richer. So the immigrants are inevitably disappointed, but it's hard to blame them for their mistake when the PR is so very very convincing.

What do they do? They manage as best they can. Young men with no other obvious prospects may well turn to crime or join a gang, because it is the only avenue they see to make some money. Their motives for doing so are no more or less pure than yours or mine would be were we thrust into the same situation. Why are 29% of your prison population illegals? Gosh, i don't know, is there any chance they get harsher sentences than frat-boys?

You seem to allow no prospect or possibility of people entering the country now to ever become 'American', even the ones who are now voters. Given that you were all immigrants at some stage, where do you draw the line between those that came looking for opportunity and a better life and contributed to the wonderful multi-cultural melting-pot that is the USA and those who came looking for opportunity and a better life and who apparently endanger its existence by their mere presence?

Very confusing.

Perhaps this response will be considered uncivil and 'cut no ice' with you. Maybe we're doomed to disagree on this issue anyway, who knows. *shrug*

More than anything else, i was reminded of a line from 'Shame on you' by the Indigo Girls:

We go road-block tripping in the middle of the night up in Gainsville town,
There'll be blue lights flashing down the long dirt road and they ask me to step out,
they say "we've been looking for illegal immigrants, can we check your car?",
i say "Y'know it's funny, i think we were on the same boat back in 1694"

That's what i think.

Yankee · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2006, 02:46:33 AM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

What an astonishingly arrogant post.

There is a trend in this country to break up ethnic neighborhoods in order to force them to "assimilate" the minorities. I watched it happen in New York City in 1964. Something you are not taking into consideration is that when a culture has successfully established a peaceful existence that it doesn't take long for the influx of outsiders with a totally different mindset to destroy it. One could walk through any of the ethnic neighborhoods in NY in the early 60s without feeling fear. Not so now that there has been "assimilation". It was not the so-called minorities who were assimilated into the peaceful neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work, and there are now no peaceful neighborhoods.

We were the only country who attained equality among citizens. As I stated before, it was an evolutionary process, and the availability of land made it possible. We are now an urban society, and the people coming here from other countries are heading for the cities. Their numbers are so great that they cannot shed the culture they came from and become part of us. Rather, we will become part of them, and every vestige of equality in this country will disappear.

So we were all immigrants? Considering the few places in the world where early man developed, pretty much every country, except maybe around the Olduvai Gorge, was settled by immigrants. They all developed their own cultures, a way of life that they were comfortable with. We did that here, too. We are not comfortable with what we are having thrown at us now. You make excuses for kids forming gangs. Whatever the excuse, they are gangs, they are thugs, and they are dangerous. Would you walk down a street by yourself after dark in one of the new "immigrant" neighborhoods? Not unless you're one of them. And belong in that neighborhood. In the early 50s, A friend and I would go to the movies, and walk to our boarding house on North Main St. in Waterbury, Ct. Two young women unescorted. It would never have occured to us to be afraid. That would not be possible now.

So the justice system picks on the aliens? Do you think it might possibly be because they commit more crimes? Do you think it might be because when they look at someone else, they are not seeing an equal but a potential target?

Sure, there are illegals who are looking for jobs and who will not be law breakers. But these people are also used to being at the bottom of the ladder, and they are not geared to oppose the predators among them for whom they make easy victims. That is not the American spirit. We fight back. When those predators gain citizenship, how long do you think it will before we have to fight back in our own neighborhoods?

You justify their having all those babies. Why do you think they are leaving their own countries? Because they have overpopulated them, comes to mind. How long do you think our economy can survive when there are more people taking money from it then there are putting money into it? Do the math. How many generations will it take with Americans having one or two children and the illegals having seven or eight, before our ecomomy totally collapses? Oh; they pay taxes. Yeah, right.

It's ludicrous blame the high birth rate on missionaries. That is part of their culture. What we did wrong was to interfere with nature in providing food and medical care to countries who didn't understand that when nature is subverted by giving people longer lives, that it must be balanced by a lower birth rate.

What? I'm not allowed to have an opinion that is not yours without being subjected to a personal attack? Is that the best argument you have, destroy the opposition? My reasons don't come from arrogance, they come from an instinct for self-preservation and, possibly, an understanding of human nature. We are expected to allow others to retain their cultures when they move in on us, but are expected to surrender our own, the existence of which made them want to come here in the first place. That's a contradiction, Pal.

Yankee · « **Reply #3 on:** April 28, 2006, 03:06:38 AM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

What an astonishingly arrogant post.

.

P.S. You described Third World governments correctly, but like the rest of American apologists, you managed to make our government responsible for everything that's wrong about them. We had an impact on a large part of the world by playing a very major role in getting rid of the Axis in WWII. We also were responsible for helping break up the USSR. But we sure as sin are not responsible for the Third World being poor. We made it possible for most of those small countries to have a vote in the UN, which in their gratefulness, they use against us every chance they get. Stop believing everything your liberal professors are brainwashing you with that makes you hate your own country.

Yankee · « **Reply #4 on:** April 28, 2006, 03:07:33 AM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

What an astonishingly arrogant post.

.

P.S. You described Third World governments correctly, but like the rest of American apologists, you managed to make our government responsible for everything that's wrong with them. We had an impact on a large part of the world by playing a very major role in getting rid of the Axis in WWII. We also were responsible for helping break up the USSR. But we sure as sin are not responsible for the Third World being poor. We made it possible for most of those small countries to have a vote in the UN, which in their gratefulness, they use against us every chance they get. Stop believing everything your liberal professors are brainwashing you with that makes you hate your own country.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #5 on:** April 28, 2006, 07:09:39 AM »

Just FYI, Dannyboy is a Brit. Those Europeans think they've 'grown out' of all of these anachronistic attitudes because of... well lot's of reasons. Anyway, keep that in mind.

Dannyboy · « **Reply #6 on:** April 28, 2006, 09:28:47 AM »

Yankee,

You are giving strong signals of having some very negative base assumptions about immigrants (that should be recent immigrants) to the United States. In no particular order, you have either outright stated or strongly implied that they are inherently violent, lazy and unable to grasp the concept of equality. i find that an offensive generalisation, as well as being unhelpful in tackling the (very real) problems that immigration brings.

i also get a little tired (and all Americans on the board please feel free to join in the fun new game of 'Kick the Brit') of idealistic utopian delusions about the initial European migration to what would eventually become the USA. i wholeheartedly agree that good things eventually came of it, but from the outset it was a catalogue of the subjugation and slaughter of the natives who had indeed 'successfully established a peaceful existence', although it really didn't 'take long for the influx of outsiders with a totally different mindset to destroy it' - but literally on that occasion, not just figuratively. Forgive me for seeing the irony.

i don't particularly get why the 'invading hordes' wont be able to understand or accept the concepts of equality or democracy. Surely that must be one of the main things they have come to America to achieve. You seem to be relying there on an assumption of both stupidity and inherent barbarism on the part of the immigrants, and i'm afraid that would qualify as a racist position. Please explain further if i have misunderstood you on this.

You make excuses for kids forming gangs. Whatever the excuse, they are gangs, they are thugs, and they are dangerous.

Well, 'make excuses' sounds like i am condoning or absolving them of responsibility for their actions, neither of which is true. i gave explanations of why they will often end up in gangs. The low expectations which society has of them (and which you have demonstrated here) are also a significant factor.

So the justice system picks on the aliens? Do you think it might possibly be because they commit more crimes? Do you think it might be because when they look at someone else, they are not seeing an equal but a potential target?

As i said, immigrants may well be more likely to turn to crime because of the limited opportunities they have to earn money (again, not condoning, explaining). So yes, it may well be true that immigrants proportionally commit more crimes. What you fail to see is that it is possible to hold individual perpetrators responsible AND try to remedy the social injustices which made their crimes more likely. Also, i've got to say, the notion that American criminals look at their fellow citizens and see 'equals' rather than 'targets' is so delightfully silly that it made me giggle for about five minutes.

But these people are also used to being at the bottom of the ladder, and they are not geared to oppose the predators among them for whom they make easy victims. That is not the American spirit. We fight back.

Yeah. Hang on, where did i put my flag?

It's ludicrous blame the high birth rate on missionaries. That is part of their culture. What we did wrong was to interfere with nature in providing food and medical care to countries who didn't understand that when nature is subverted by giving people longer lives, that it must be balanced by a lower birth rate.

Missionaries are a factor. Yes, there are also cultural issues, but how you can imply that the correct way to deal with the problems of over-population in the Thrid World is to withold aid so that, presumably, nature can take its course is beyond me. i thought you said you felt sorry for these people, and now you're advocating starving them to thin out the herd. That's compassionate.

I'm not allowed to have an opinion that is not yours without being subjected to a personal attack? Is that the best argument you have, destroy the opposition?

Hey you're welcome to have whatever opinions you want, but don't post them on a discussion forum if you dont want them to be challenged. It's a free country - yours and mine both, and immigration will continue no matter what you or i or politicians say or do. At the end of the day, people born into poverty (i.e. most of the rest of the world) don't see why they shouldn't have some of the privelige that we were born into, and if they can, they'll try to get some of it for themselves and their families. i personally have a hard time arguing that they are any less entitled to it than i am.

We are expected to allow others to retain their cultures when they move in on us, but are expected to surrender our own, the existence of which made them want to come here in the first place. That's a contradiction, Pal.

It's a problem, sure. You can try to tackle it constructively or you can get into the reactionary rant about the maurauding hordes of immigrants come to destroy the American way of life, which at the end of the day just alienates people all the more.

You described Third World governments correctly, but like the rest of American apologists, you managed to make our government responsible for everything that's wrong with them.

Not everything.

We had an impact on a large part of the world by playing a very major role in getting rid of the Axis in WWII. We also were responsible for helping break up the USSR. But we sure as sin are not responsible for the Third World being poor.

Oh right, sorry i forgot my mantra. USA good, never does bad. USA good, never does bad. Aaaaaahhhhhhh..... better.

Stop believing everything your liberal professors are brainwashing you with that makes you hate your own country.

Hurrah, my liberal professors make an appearance at last! They were starting to complain about the lack of credit they were getting for my brainwashed state.

On a momentarily serious note, it is actually possible to disapprove of, dislike or even hate some of the things your country does without doing anything as unproductive as hating the country itself. Honestly.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #7 on:** April 28, 2006, 09:33:45 AM »

heh we're going to have fun, aren't we, DB?

Dannyboy · « **Reply #8 on:** April 28, 2006, 10:26:29 AM »

Yeah buddy, for as long as my internet connection lasts...

TheAtheistHeratic · « **Reply #9 on:** April 28, 2006, 02:18:30 PM »

I totally agree with you Yankee. Just before posting a post as controversial as this one don't want make writing mistakes such as

Quote

29% of our prison population consist of illegals

I would hope that 100% of our prison population consisted of illegals. We all make errors, I am just trying to help correct yours.

JustLiz · « **Reply #10 on:** April 28, 2006, 05:13:21 PM »

Yankee.

I am not taking sides here. I just did a little research of my own and found some slightly different numbers than you state in your post.

According to the Dept of Justice, as of mid-2004 prison population is distributed as shown:

44.4% white (75.1% of total population of US. This group has the largest increase since 2000, up from 41.9%)
38.6% black (12.3% of population. Down from 41.3% in 2000)
15.2% Hispanic (12.5% of population. Up from 15.1% in 2000)
1.8% Other (Impossible to determine % of population. Could be mixed races, etc. Needless to say,

Yankee · « **Reply #11 on:** April 28, 2006, 10:56:19 PM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

Yankee,

You are giving strong signals of having some very negative base assumptions about immigrants (that should be recent immigrants) to the United States. In no particular order, you have either outright stated or strongly implied that they are inherently violent, lazy and unable to grasp the concept of equality. i find that an offensive generalisation, as well as being unhelpful in tackling the (very real) problems that immigration brings. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Being truly equal is something only Americans understand. We are the only ones who ever achieved it. The British may be close now that royalty has lost its mystique. By the time the throne is abolished, however, there will be total chaos in England, not equality. Brought about by your Third World immigrants, by the way.

i also get a little tired (and all Americans on the board please feel free to join in the fun new game of 'Kick the Brit') of idealistic utopian delusions about the initial European migration to what would eventually become the USA. i wholeheartedly agree that good things eventually came of it, but from the outset it was a catalogue of the subjugation and slaughter of the natives who had indeed 'successfully established a peaceful existence', although it really didn't 'take long for the influx of outsiders with a totally different mindset to destroy it' - but literally on that occasion, not just figuratively. Forgive me for seeing the irony. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

The Pilgrims, my ancestors, did not come to subjugate and slaughter the Native Americans. They were friendly as per the first Thanksgiving. One of my great, great grandmothers was a Native American. The enmity was fostered in the French & Indian War. The French and British made pawns of the Native Americans to turn them against each other's enemies. It was downhill from then on.

i don't particularly get why the 'invading hordes' wont be able to understand or accept the concepts of equality or democracy. Surely that must be one of the main things they have come to America to achieve. You seem to be relying there on an assumption of both stupidity and inherent barbarism on the part of the immigrants, and i'm afraid that would qualify as a racist position. Please explain further if i have misunderstood you on this.[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Because it is a concept that they are completely unfamiliar with. They are looking for freedom. Freedom to get to the top of the ladder, not achieve equality. You didn't answer my question as to whether you would walk down a street alone, after dark, in one of the minority neighborhoods. If you were afraid to, would that be racism or a sense of self-preservation?

You make excuses for kids forming gangs. Whatever the excuse, they are gangs, they are thugs, and they are dangerous[QUOTE:YANKEE]

Well, 'make excuses' sounds like i am condoning or absolving them of responsibility for their actions, neither of which is true. i gave explanations of why they will often end up in gangs. The low expectations which society has of them (and which you have demonstrated here) are also a significant factor. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Whatever the reasons, they do form gangs. The gangs are violent and dangerous, and the members are thugs. If society had low expectations of me, I would do everything I could to show it that I was a proud, honorable, responsible person. If we can't expect the same from our Third World INVADING HORDE, then they are what you are accusing me of accusing them of being. You said it, I didn't.

So the justice system picks on the aliens? Do you think it might possibly be because they commit more crimes? Do you think it might be because when they look at someone else, they are not seeing an equal but a potential target? [QUOTE;YANKEE]

As i said, immigrants may well be more likely to turn to crime because of the limited opportunities they have to earn money (again, not condoning, explaining). So yes, it may well be true that immigrants proportionally commit more crimes. What you fail to see is that it is possible to hold individual perpetrators responsible AND try to remedy the social injustices which made their crimes more likely. Also, i've got to say, the notion that American criminals look at their fellow citizens and see 'equals' rather than 'targets' is so delightfully silly that it made me giggle for about five minutes. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Whatever causes criminals to be criminals, they are still criminals, and the peaceful public deserves to be protected from them. I am not disputing their reasons, but I am not going to deliberately allow myself to be a victim because they have a pitiful background. When in Rome do as the Romans do. The same goes for the USA. If they can't live by our laws then they should go back to their own countries or to to prison. And by coming here illegally, they have already broken our laws.

But these people are also used to being at the bottom of the ladder, and they are not geared to oppose the predators among them for whom they make easy victims. That is not the American spirit. We fight back.[QUOTE:YANKEE]

Yeah. Hang on, where did i put my flag?[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Gee, if I heard Johnny correctly, your flag is the Union Jack. Why do you want to wave mine around?

It's ludicrous blame the high birth rate on missionaries. That is part of their culture. What we did wrong was to interfere with nature in providing food and medical care to countries who didn't understand that when nature is subverted by giving people longer lives, that it must be balanced by a lower birth rate.[QUOTE YANKEE]

Missionaries are a factor. Yes, there are also cultural issues, but how you can imply that the correct way to deal with the problems of over-population in the Thrid World is to withold aid so that, presumably, nature can take its course is beyond me. i thought you said you felt sorry for these people, and now you're advocating starving them to thin out the herd. That's compassionate.[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Which would you rather do, stop the pendulum in its path towards destruction or wait until the situation is so severe that there is no solution except to watch millions die of starvation or genocide? If the Third World countries are as mature as you like to think, why are they on this earth-destroying cycle? Let me quote from Charley Reese's article in the local paper: "The three things that should concern us and every other human being are potable water, breathable air, and topsoil. Lose any one of them and we'll see mass destruction that far exceeds the effects of any of our technological devices. Growing population plus loss of topsoil equals a trainwreck about to happen in the not-too-distant future. Our civilization is a lot more fragile than people suppose. We ignore agriculture because the supermarkets are full of food, but instead of that food being grown on nearby farms, it is all transported long distances. What will happen to the price of that food when the cost of oil, which is a diminishing resource, breaks the $100 barrier? You really wouldn't want to be in New York City two weeks after food shipments had been halted."

I'm not allowed to have an opinion that is not yours without being subjected to a personal attack? Is that the best argument you have, destroy the opposition?[QUOTE:YANKEE]

Hey you're welcome to have whatever opinions you want, but don't post them on a discussion forum if you dont want them to be challenged. It's a free country - yours and mine both, and immigration will continue no matter what you or i or politicians say or do. At the end of the day, people born into poverty (i.e. most of the rest of the world) don't see why they shouldn't have some of the privelige that we were born into, and if they can, they'll try to get some of it for themselves and their families. i personally have a hard time arguing that they are any less entitled to it than i am. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

There is a difference between a challenge and a debate/discussion. A challenge is saying, "Do it my way or there will be war". A debate/discussion is when both sides present their arguments and let the listeners decide which one presents the most reasonable one. Americans earn their entitlements. (Some may have inherited them, so you won't call me on it.) The aliens are not entitled to anything that THEY don't earn, but, they have already been GIVEN medical care, education, and the Earned Income Credit. Americans are paying for those people to have them, what more do you want? I darn well don't owe them my house and furnishings, or my job. (Not really MY job, because I'm retired.)

We are expected to allow others to retain their cultures when they move in on us, but are expected to surrender our own, the existence of which made them want to come here in the first place. That's a contradiction, Pal. [QUOTE:YANKEE]

It's a problem, sure. You can try to tackle it constructively or you can get into the reactionary rant about the maurauding hordes of immigrants come to destroy the American way of life, which at the end of the day just alienates people all the more. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

50,000 members in ONE gang aren't a marauding horde??? Americans are angry about being invaded. From whom are they being alienated if not the aliens?? (And the naturalized horde who were given amnesty in 1986, who now want all their relatives to join them here.) (Down with the gringoes; viva Mexico north of the border!)

You described Third World governments correctly, but like the rest of American apologists, you managed to make our government responsible for everything that's wrong with them. [QUOTE:YANKEE]

Not everything. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

I thought I was talking to another American until Johnny informed me that you are a Brit. You are still sore after over 200 years that we told you to take a hike, aren't you?

We had an impact on a large part of the world by playing a very major role in getting rid of the Axis in WWII. We also were responsible for helping break up the USSR. But we sure as sin are not responsible for the Third World being poor. [QUOTE:YANKEE]

Oh right, sorry i forgot my mantra. USA good, never does bad. USA good, never does bad. Aaaaaahhhhhhh..... better. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Your mantra wasn't the only thing you forgot. We saved your posteriors in WWII, too, along with all of Western Europe.

Stop believing everything your liberal professors are brainwashing you with that makes you hate your own country.[QUOTE:YANKEE]

Hurrah, my liberal professors make an appearance at last! They were starting to complain about the lack of credit they were getting for my brainwashed state. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

What do they teach you in English schools, anyway? Do we come across as traitorous colonists?

On a momentarily serious note, it is actually possible to disapprove of, dislike or even hate some of the things your country does without doing anything as unproductive as hating the country itself. Honestly.

Even though hating Yankees is a popular pasttime around the world, we are still #1. If we don't protect ourselves from outsiders, our civilization will disappear in short order. I would like my grandchildren to be able to enjoy some of the satisfaction that came from being an American and not have to sing a VERSION of our American Anthem in Spanish. The Spanish didn't colonize one country in this hemisphere that has liberty and equality. Let's face it; we are an endangered species.

Yankee · « **Reply #12 on:** April 28, 2006, 11:07:13 PM »

Quote from: sntjohnny

heh we're going to have fun, aren't we, DB?

Yeah, things were getting to the point around here where you were digging really deep to come up with something of interest to debate.

Wait until I get started on our welfare system!!!

Yankee · « **Reply #13 on:** April 28, 2006, 11:15:17 PM »

Quote from: TheAtheistHeratic

I totally agree with you Yankee. Just before posting a post as controversial as this one don't want make writing mistakes such as
Quote
29% of our prison population consist of illegals
I would hope that 100% of our prison population consisted of illegals. We all make errors, I am just trying to help correct yours.

Sorry about that. I was quoting a newspaper article. I suppose it has been proved to everyone's satisfaction that newspaper articles are not too trustworthy nowadays.

The fact that there is any percentage of Illegals in our prisons shows that criminals are coming across the border. What about the ones who flee back to Mexico to avoid prosecution? That will raise the percentage several points. What about the ones who don't get caught? Up it goes another 5 or 10 percent.

I would agree with you that it would be nice if all our criminals were aliens. As it is, we are hard put to deal with our own. We don't need someone else's

Yankee · « **Reply #14 on:** April 28, 2006, 11:24:05 PM »

Quote from: JustLiz

Yankee.

I am not taking sides here. I just did a little research of my own and found some slightly different numbers than you state in your post.

According to the Dept of Justice, as of mid-2004 prison population is distributed as shown:

44.4% white (75.1% of total population of US. This group has the largest increase since 2000, up from 41.9%)
38.6% black (12.3% of population. Down from 41.3% in 2000)
15.2% Hispanic (12.5% of population. Up from 15.1% in 2000)
1.8% Other (Impossible to determine % of population. Could be mixed races, etc. Needless to say,

Dannyboy · « **Reply #15 on:** April 29, 2006, 04:09:13 PM »

Yankee,

Being truly equal is something only Americans understand.

Oh please, enough of this pitiful self-deluding nationalistic narcissism. What do you take the rest of us for? Morons? Equality is something very easily understood and bitterly wished and struggled for right across the globe (and often repressed by forces representing or supported by the USA, incidentally). To suggest that only Americans truly understand it as a concept is offensive to the rest of the world and also frighteningly naive when you look at the American system of government. See any poor-kids-made-good in the Bush administration? Sure you're all equal - just some are more equal than others.

The Pilgrims, my ancestors, did not come to subjugate and slaughter the Native Americans. They were friendly as per the first Thanksgiving.

Hmm, well that all depends on which accounts you read. 'Bury my heart at Wounded Knee' by Dee Brown is an informative book. Have you read it?

They are looking for freedom. Freedom to get to the top of the ladder, not achieve equality.

And how does that make them different from Americans? Serious question. i don't honestly believe that you are telling me that most Americans would give up the opportunity (and salary) of being the Managing Director of their company in order to stay 'equal' with their colleagues.

You didn't answer my question as to whether you would walk down a street alone, after dark, in one of the minority neighborhoods. If you were afraid to, would that be racism or a sense of self-preservation?

Apologies for not answering. As it happens, i live in one of those ethnic minority areas - Southall in West London - and i work in the local ER department. Honestly, i walk the streets with as much caution as i would use in any city, and when we get drunks, fighters and drug-takers brought into the department, i see no significant ethnic divisions - they're just as likely to be white as they are to be black/brown/whatever.

i would not consider it racist to be afraid when walking through a run-down urban area, especially as an unaccompanied female. What i would say is that you have to be careful what conclusions you draw from the area about its occupants. The fact that these economically depressed areas are likely to house mostly ethnic minorities is simple cause and effect, but don't mix them up. It's not a scary place because they're there, they're there because it's a scary place (and they can't afford anywhere better).

If society had low expectations of me, I would do everything I could to show it that I was a proud, honorable, responsible person. If we can't expect the same from our Third World INVADING HORDE, then they are what you are accusing me of accusing them of being. You said it, I didn't.

Sorry to correct you, but you've said it lots of times, i'm just paraphrasing you. Ok, so that's how you think you'd behave in their situation, great. What i would like to suggest is that you cannot know how you would feel, think or react in their situation, because you aren't in it.

Whatever causes criminals to be criminals, they are still criminals, and the peaceful public deserves to be protected from them. I am not disputing their reasons, but I am not going to deliberately allow myself to be a victim because they have a pitiful background.

i wasn't suggesting that you should. And yes, the public should be protected from criminals, but a sensible strategy would be to make sure that the means of protecting them (us) does not just exacerbate the problem. These people are in our country whether we like it or not, and perhaps a sensible way to prevent them from turning to crime would be to follow a course which made them feel accepted as citizens, and to encourage them to accept the responsibilities as well as the priveliges of that citizenship.

Gee, if I heard Johnny correctly, your flag is the Union Jack. Why do you want to wave mine around?

i was being deeply sarcastic. It's a very bad habit of mine. i'm not, in fact, a flag-waving kind of guy no matter what is printed on it. The British generally aren't. Cultural differences etc.

If the Third World countries are as mature as you like to think, why are they on this earth-destroying cycle?

i don't recall suggesting that they were any more mature than America or Britain, and look what a great job we're doing of screwing up the world. Their governments may be in a position to know that their birth rates are spiralling out of control, but they see no reason why they should do anything about it (after all, do our governments strain themselves to tackle 'earth-destroying' problems caused by their own citizens if it isn't particularly in their interests to do so? i'm thinking primarily of Kyoto here, but there are plenty of British examples too). The individual citizens generally do not have a wide enough perspective or education to realise the problem and their contribution to it, but that (again) aint limited to the Third World. Humvee, anyone?

Americans earn their entitlements. (Some may have inherited them, so you won't call me on it.)

Mostly they inherit them. i mean, what did you do to deserve being born into a country where you don't have to be afraid of the Police (y'know, most of the time)? What entitled you to state-funded education? Most people in the world don't have this, but not because they dont deserve it, right?

I darn well don't owe them my house and furnishings, or my job.

Not suggesting you do.

(Not really MY job, because I'm retired.)

Good for you. i hope to be retired one day.

You are still sore after over 200 years that we told you to take a hike, aren't you?

Oh yeah, it keeps me up at nights. Seriously, do you think anyone still cares about that?

We saved your posteriors in WWII, too, along with all of Western Europe.

And again with the cultural god-complex. Look, i'm glad that the US eventually decided to get its finger out and help fight Facism in the nineteen-forties, i'm just not clear what relevance it has to a discussion about illegal immigrants in 2006.

What do they teach you in English schools, anyway? Do we come across as traitorous colonists?

Actually no. Like most of the history teaching worldwide (i imagine) my school lessons focussed very little on the less glorious aspects of the history of the country whose government approved them. America was portrayed as the galant allies in WW2, and apart from that all we got was some Great Depression/Roosevelt/New Deal stuff. It wasn't until i started debating Johnny that i got into properly reading about the history of the United States and Britains' role in the world.

Even though hating Yankees is a popular pasttime around the world, we are still #1.

Uh-huh.

Do you realise that immediately post-9/11 support and sympathy for America world-wide was at an all-time high? It is the actions of your country since then which have led to the negative feelings which individual Americans (very unfairly) might experience from others when travelling abroad.

The Spanish didn't colonize one country in this hemisphere that has liberty and equality.

Funny thing, the reason for that is that the US has stamped on any attempt to establish such a state of affairs in Latin America in the guise of fighting Communism, which makes your point a bit less meaningful. You may dismiss or mitigate this depending on your particular ideological standpoint, but i'm afraid its true. Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko (quoting someone whose name escapes me).

Let's face it; we are an endangered species.

Oh yeah, next to the newborn Third World baby who you're in favour of starving to death by witholding aid in order to make your neighbourhood a little less frikkin' ethnic, you have my profound sympathy. [/sarcasm]

That's just pitiful.

Yankee · « **Reply #16 on:** April 29, 2006, 11:18:24 PM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

Yankee,

Being truly equal is something only Americans understand.

Oh please, enough of this pitiful self-deluding nationalistic narcissism. What do you take the rest of us for? Morons? Equality is something very easily understood and bitterly wished and struggled for right across the globe (and often repressed by forces representing or supported by the USA, incidentally). To suggest that only Americans truly understand it as a concept is offensive to the rest of the world and also frighteningly naive when you look at the American system of government. See any poor-kids-made-good in the Bush administration? Sure you're all equal - just some are more equal than others. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Peel the glaze off your brain and listen to what I am saying. However they got here, and whatever happened along the way, the colonists did not come with subjugation and slaughter in mind. It took 150 years for them to evolve into a country who could put our Constitution into effect. They made it work. What you don't understand about equality is that it is individual people who can look on the rest of the world and feel satisfied that there is no one anywhere who is better than they, and they are not better than anyone else. Not everyone achieved this, but there were more of them than there had ever been anywhere in the world at one time and most of them were in New England. The South did not for the most part, they kept slavery. The North went to war with them to free the slaves.

Being equal means that everyone has the right to get what he can out of this life, but it does not mean that we are responsible for curing the ills in the rest of the world. Is it so difficult for you to comprehend that the poor have a responsibility, too? I lived through the Great Depression, and I saw poverty. The children and grandchildren of the people I knew then are more affluent than I would ever have imagined, and it was not handed to them. They earned every penny of it. There was not welfare then other than being "on the town", and for a proud people that was unacceptable, unlike the welfare people today who are into the fourth generation and have no intention of making any changes. If people want a better life, it is their responsibility to limit their birthrate to the number of children they can support by themselves, not feel that those with more income owe them something.

Get off this kick of pointing out everything that was wrong in the United States. I seem to remember that we took in the Irish because you were deliberately trying to annihilate them, watching them starve to death being one of the English amusements. You made laws that were so designed to keep them in thrall, that they were not allowed to own a horse worth more than one pound. You deliberately pushed them onto the barren west coast of Ireland where you knew crops would not grow. Look at the mote in your own eye. WE are aware of the things that were wrong in the past. Why don't you do the same and give Northern Ireland back to the Irish?

Would you offer to shake hands with the queen, or would you bow or curtsey to her? Do you think your life is as important as hers? It takes a level playing field to attain equality. You still have your ladder, so don't try to tell me that you understand equality.

They are looking for freedom. Freedom to get to the top of the ladder, not achieve equality.

And how does that make them different from Americans? Serious question. i don't honestly believe that you are telling me that most Americans would give up the opportunity (and salary) of being the Managing Director of their company in order to stay 'equal' with their colleagues. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Unless one belongs to a communistic society like Oneida, being equal doesn't have anything to do with everyone having the same salary. It is a state of mind that makes the physical person as important as all other people. Since you bow to royalty, you haven't achieved that. Tell me, is there a part of the realm where men still tug their forelocks?

You didn't answer my question as to whether you would walk down a street alone, after dark, in one of the minority neighborhoods. If you were afraid to, would that be racism or a sense of self-preservation?

Apologies for not answering. As it happens, i live in one of those ethnic minority areas - Southall in West London - and i work in the local ER department. Honestly, i walk the streets with as much caution as i would use in any city, and when we get drunks, fighters and drug-takers brought into the department, i see no significant ethnic divisions - they're just as likely to be white as they are to be black/brown/whatever.[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

I didn't have drunks, junkies, and belligerents in mind. I was talking about gangs where a candidate is expected to kill someone to gain membership. I was talking about kids with no sense of responsibility packing "Saturday Night Specials" and shooting people as they drive by just for fun. I was talking about thugs and bullies who would attack anyone who comes into their territory. That's what we have in our cities.

I would not consider it racist to be afraid when walking through a run-down urban area, especially as an unaccompanied female. What i would say is that you have to be careful what conclusions you draw from the area about its occupants. The fact that these economically depressed areas are likely to house mostly ethnic minorities is simple cause and effect, but don't mix them up. It's not a scary place because they're there, they're there because it's a scary place (and they can't afford anywhere better).[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Yo: What world do you live in? They make the place scary! A neighborhood is a reflection of the people who live in it. A proud, responsible people would start cleaning up a neighborhood if it were run-down when they moved in. Who do you think ran it down? I remember a welfare recipient on TV whining because there were rats and small bunniesroaches in her apartment. If I had rats or small bunniesroaches in my apartment, I would know where to get rat and roach poison. I wouldn't leave it to someone else. Oh! They came from other apartments? What's wrong with all the tenants getting together and working as a team to get rid of them? Oh! Because they are poor and pathetic? Give me a break!

If society had low expectations of me, I would do everything I could to show it that I was a proud, honorable, responsible person. If we can't expect the same from our Third World INVADING HORDE, then they are what you are accusing me of accusing them of being. You said it, I didn't.

Sorry to correct you, but you've said it lots of times, i'm just paraphrasing you. Ok, so that's how you think you'd behave in their situation, great. What i would like to suggest is that you cannot know how you would feel, think or react in their situation, because you aren't in it.[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Neither are you, but you certainly talk like you have the solution to all the world's ills, which is: You Americans take care of the world's poor. How about you getting into the act? We are 9 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt, so, actually, you are richer than we are. We'll be happy to hand over the burden to you.

Whatever causes criminals to be criminals, they are still criminals, and the peaceful public deserves to be protected from them. I am not disputing their reasons, but I am not going to deliberately allow myself to be a victim because they have a pitiful background.

i wasn't suggesting that you should. And yes, the public should be protected from criminals, but a sensible strategy would be to make sure that the means of protecting them (us) does not just exacerbate the problem. These people are in our country whether we like it or not, and perhaps a sensible way to prevent them from turning to crime would be to follow a course which made them feel accepted as citizens, and to encourage them to accept the responsibilities as well as the priveliges of that citizenship. {QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Don't you get it??? They are here ILLEGALLY. They have no right to citizenship. If you woke up one morning and found half of France in your country, what would your reaction be? Oh, the poor things are just looking for a job? Job, schmob, they'd want the whole enchilada, and they would be glad to help you re-write history, change your language, and have you sing "God Save the Queen" in French.

Gee, if I heard Johnny correctly, your flag is the Union Jack. Why do you want to wave mine around?

i was being deeply sarcastic. It's a very bad habit of mine. i'm not, in fact, a flag-waving kind of guy no matter what is printed on it. The British generally aren't. Cultural differences etc. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

I try to be fair, so it takes me a while to get around to it, but I can employ sarcasm, too, but I don't initiate it.

If the Third World countries are as mature as you like to think, why are they on this earth-destroying cycle?

i don't recall suggesting that they were any more mature than America or Britain, and look what a great job we're doing of screwing up the world. Their governments may be in a position to know that their birth rates are spiralling out of control, but they see no reason why they should do anything about it (after all, do our governments strain themselves to tackle 'earth-destroying' problems caused by their own citizens if it isn't particularly in their interests to do so? i'm thinking primarily of Kyoto here, but there are plenty of British examples too). The individual citizens generally do not have a wide enough perspective or education to realise the problem and their contribution to it, but that (again) aint limited to the Third World. Humvee, anyone?[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

How about a little native intelligence, called common sense? I can't control what the idiots do who are supposed to be in congress representing us and defending our Constitution, but I have watched the size of families go from up to 5 in the fifties to 2 today. That was a conscious choice made by each individual couple. Made through common sense. Why is it so far fetched that people in Third World countries can't do the same? Individuals would vote for cars to be manufactured to run on ethanol, but our congressmen are so busy filling their pockets with oil money that they have made sure that this won't be done until every gallon of gasoline has been sold to their profit.

Americans earn their entitlements. (Some may have inherited them, so you won't call me on it.)

Mostly they inherit them. i mean, what did you do to deserve being born into a country where you don't have to be afraid of the Police (y'know, most of the time)? What entitled you to state-funded education? Most people in the world don't have this, but not because they dont deserve it, right?{QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Because we made the country. We made it so that its citizens would have entitlements. What gives the rest of the world the right to think those entitlements should be extended to them? Let them do it for themselves. They have the same physical and mental accoutrements that we do.

You are still sore after over 200 years that we told you to take a hike, aren't you?

Oh yeah, it keeps me up at nights. Seriously, do you think anyone still cares about that?[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Well, you are determined to make us remember our past. It would follow that you haven't forgotten yours.

We saved your posteriors in WWII, too, along with all of Western Europe.

And again with the cultural god-complex. Look, i'm glad that the US eventually decided to get its finger out and help fight Facism in the nineteen-forties, i'm just not clear what relevance it has to a discussion about illegal immigrants in 2006.[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Oh! We didn't do enough for you? The relevance is that you are pointing out all the things that we did wrong. You don't want to acknowledge what we did right? That's okay. Thanks aren't necessary.

Uh-huh. Do you realise that immediately post-9/11 support and sympathy for America world-wide was at an all-time high? It is the actions of your country since then which have led to the negative feelings which individual Americans (very unfairly) might experience from others when travelling abroad. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

I'll tell you what; Let's get reps from all the countries together and compare notes to see who has done the most to make their citizens, and the citizens of any country they impacted, lead happy lives. And we'll let those who have unblemsihed pasts and presents cast the first stone.

The Spanish didn't colonize one country in this hemisphere that has liberty and equality.

Funny thing, the reason for that is that the US has stamped on any attempt to establish such a state of affairs in Latin America in the guise of fighting Communism, which makes your point a bit less meaningful. You may dismiss or mitigate this depending on your particular ideological standpoint, but i'm afraid its true. Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko (quoting someone whose name escapes me).[QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

Who says I'm uninformed? How much impact do you think a few Anericans had below the border? With all the infighting down there, how do you think we could control any government? If we did manage to put a puppet in place, how long do you think he would last? There is room for only one dictator at the top of the ladder, and the scramble is constant to be that one. There is no way we could physically protect someone if he were our choice. The behavior of the people in any culture can be predicted because that is why they formed into a culture. We are trying to introduce a democracy in Iraq. I give it 3 months tops. Culture will tell.

Let's face it; we are an endangered species.

Oh yeah, next to the newborn Third World baby who you're in favour of starving to death by witholding aid in order to make your neighbourhood a little less frikkin' ethnic, you have my profound sympathy. [/sarcasm][QUOTE:DANNYBOY}

I am not advocating anyone starving to death. I am saying that unless the people in Third World countries face up to the fact that if they don't stop having more babies than they can produce food to nourish, then there WILL be starvation. If the Unites States takes in the overflow population from South America, Asia, India, and The Middle East for the next 20 years, we won't be able to grow the food here to feed them. And it won't alleviate the problem in their own countries, for everyone they send here, they will have another baby to replace them. We should help people to help themselves, but that is not helping them, it is carrying them. Within 45 years, we are going to see lower lands starting to disappear as the polar caps melt. This is not a threat, it's a promise. You think 500,000 poor coming out of New Orleans is a problem? Wait until there are millions upon millions looking for a place to land.

That's just pitiful.

dannyboy

Isn't it ever! How much are YOU going to give up for them?

Dannyboy · « **Reply #17 on:** April 30, 2006, 06:49:16 AM »

Yankee,

What you don't understand about equality is that it is individual people who can look on the rest of the world and feel satisfied that there is no one anywhere who is better than they, and they are not better than anyone else.

i understand that you believe that this sense is something only shared by Americans, i just completely disagree with you. By their actions, time and time again, Western governments give the clear message that they firmly believe they and their citizens d--n well are better than anyone else. Most of our foreign policies are based around that simple premise. Not only is the principle of 'equality' not particularly strongly espoused by the American government (except for cheap propaganda purposes), but on an individual level non-americans all around the world both understand and want it. You disbelieve that, so i guess we're stuck.

Being equal means that everyone has the right to get what he can out of this life, but it does not mean that we are responsible for curing the ills in the rest of the world. Is it so difficult for you to comprehend that the poor have a responsibility, too?

Not at all, i just don't hold it against them that they were born that way, which is effectively what you are doing.

Ok ok, you're going to object to that, so let me try to lay out really clearly what i mean. This is what i mean: It's pure luck what country you get born into. You bear no more credit for the fact that you grew up in a prosperous country than others bear blame for growing up in a poverty-stricken one. The ideal thing would be to work towards all countries being able to provide similar levels of health, safety and opportunity for their citizens, but we dont do that, because each individual government is in competition to keep its citizens as happy as possible, so they can stay in power (the democratic ones anyway - the dictatorial ones tend to be less concerned about 'happiness' and more about 'productivity', but either way, they don't put much effort into levelling the status quo). So, rich governments exploit poor ones. They do their best to keep them poor, because that way they can export their manufacturing industries into low-tax cheap-labour environments, maximising the profits and increasing the relative wealth of their own citizens. Look beyond all the moral posturing and speech-making - this is what happens. So, our successive governments (and, therefore, since we live in democratic countries, we) bear some responsibility for the poverty of Third World countries. We make them bad places to live. That makes people who are born there (through no fault of their own, as we have agreed) want to find somewhere better.

Now, when i've had similar discussions to this with Johnny, this is the point when we hit a stumbling block. If we can both agree to the above, which is by no means certain, then we have two choices as to how to deal with the problems of immigration that it causes. a) We could just close our borders, build increasingly higher and higher fences and walls, and hide from the problem, or b) we could try to address the roots of the immigrations, namely the worldwide social injustices (many of them our fault) which make our countries so attractive and other people's countries so desolate.

With Sntjohnny i've usually been talking about terrorism here, and so the debate has been a) just kill all the terrorists and when more come kill them too, or b) to also examine why people become terrorists (without excusing it, by the way) and to try to rectify any genuine grievances that these people have against the western world.

Johnny is an option (a) man, which i consider a little like choosing to just keep on pouring more water into a bucket in order to keep it full, rather than fixing the holes in the bottom.

The end of that long (but hopefully explanatory) ramble is, yes, i do expect the poor to take responsibility for what is wrong in their lives, but so should we.

I seem to remember that we took in the Irish because you were deliberately trying to annihilate them, watching them starve to death being one of the English amusements. You made laws that were so designed to keep them in thrall, that they were not allowed to own a horse worth more than one pound. You deliberately pushed them onto the barren west coast of Ireland where you knew crops would not grow. Look at the mote in your own eye. WE are aware of the things that were wrong in the past. Why don't you do the same and give Northern Ireland back to the Irish?

i'm not trying to pin personal responsibility on you for the past misdemeanors of your country, i'm just trying to get you to admit that they exist. i am quite happy to agree that the UK behaved extremely badly towards the Irish, but i wasn't around at the time, so i don't feel it has any relevance to me (unlike the way you seem to take personal credit for the actions of your founding fathers). Giving Northern Ireland back now is tricky, because the majority of people who actually live there are Republican - that is, they want to stay part of Britain. Whatever the injustices of the past, i'm happy for them to sort it out however they choose to (preferrably without violence, but what are the odds?), and wont lose any sleep about it if NI stops being part of Great Britain.

Would you offer to shake hands with the queen, or would you bow or curtsey to her?

Interesting question. i think the answer is that i would probably bow, but before you leap on that as proving your point about my inherent slavishness and unegalitarian attitudes, i should mention that it would be purely a cultural politeness. If i met the Dali Lhama i would greet him with whatever action was considered appropriate (unless i felt it was demeaning to me). If i meet a Thai then i also bow and press my palms together below my chin. That does not indicate that i consider them superior to me.

Do you think your life is as important as hers?

Absolutely.

It takes a level playing field to attain equality. You still have your ladder, so don't try to tell me that you understand equality.

No point talking to someone who doesnt want to listen. You mentioned a definition of discussion/debate earlier. Is this really how it works - you decide what i understand or dont understand no matter how much i demonstrate otherwise? Ok then.

Tell me, is there a part of the realm where men still tug their forelocks?

Not that i'm aware of. Remind me what proportion of Congress is black (or female)?

We could just keep taking these cheap culturally stereotyped shots at each other i guess - it's kind of fun, after all - but i dont think it's actually advancing the discussion.

I was talking about gangs where a candidate is expected to kill someone to gain membership. I was talking about kids with no sense of responsibility packing "Saturday Night Specials" and shooting people as they drive by just for fun. I was talking about thugs and bullies who would attack anyone who comes into their territory. That's what we have in our cities.

Yeah, that sucks. We have very little gun crime here i'm glad to say (although any suggestion of some of the reasons why that is would probably lead to a whole different argument), but there are lots of teenage gangs who require their members to 'cut' someone for their initiation - it can be anyone. These days they're using two short blades strapped together but separated by a matchstick, which produce deep parallel lacerations that cant be stitched. That means much worse scarring. Little f***ers.

Anyway, wandering from the point. Yes, these things are bad and scary and the people who do them should be locked away. Does that necessarily mean that we cant look at the causes of these acts - i.e. the social situations which led to them? You have made a decision that it is because these people are different to you somehow, because that conveniently explains the situation without any introspection being needed into why. In very much the same way, after WW2 people wanted to say that the Germans were just different, because that saved any troublesome speculation about how otherwise quite ordinary people could do such horrific things. Milgram's experiments in the 60s demonstrated that ordinary Americans could be very quickly and easily induced into (as they thought) torturing another human being with increasing electric shocks to the point of unconsciousness or death. In the end, the simplest and/or least disturbing answer isnt always the correct one.

A neighborhood is a reflection of the people who live in it. A proud, responsible people would start cleaning up a neighborhood if it were run-down when they moved in. Who do you think ran it down? I remember a welfare recipient on TV whining because there were rats and small bunniesroaches in her apartment. If I had rats or small bunniesroaches in my apartment, I would know where to get rat and roach poison. I wouldn't leave it to someone else. Oh! They came from other apartments? What's wrong with all the tenants getting together and working as a team to get rid of them? Oh! Because they are poor and pathetic? Give me a break!

People in what appears to them to be a helpless situation will start behaving helplessly. This does not make it excusable but it makes it understandable.

...you certainly talk like you have the solution to all the world's ills, which is: You Americans take care of the world's poor. How about you getting into the act? We are 9 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt, so, actually, you are richer than we are. We'll be happy to hand over the burden to you.

i fully support greater aid and the undoing of damaging trade agreements by the UK, and my voting and political campaigning and protest reflects that. However, you are the one upset about all these people who want to live in your country. i am telling you that you can either address the root causes or just build a wall around yourself and hide, because as long as these international imbalances remain they're gonna keep coming.

If you woke up one morning and found half of France in your country, what would your reaction be? Oh, the poor things are just looking for a job? Job, schmob, they'd want the whole enchilada, and they would be glad to help you re-write history, change your language, and have you sing "God Save the Queen" in French.

Cultures change. i am less concerned than you are about my culture being altered by immigrants, because i recognise that it is the way it has happened again and again down the ages, and i find more productive things to do with my time than fighting the inevitable. So who cares if Chicken Tikka Masala is now our national dish? i love that stuff!

How about a little native intelligence, called common sense? ...I have watched the size of families go from up to 5 in the fifties to 2 today. That was a conscious choice made by each individual couple. Made through common sense. Why is it so far fetched that people in Third World countries can't do the same?

Sorry, that's kind of simplistic. There are many factors as to why the birth rate in the western world is falling - the emancipation of women being a major one, better eductaion being another. To suggest that it was a simultaneous 'conscious choice' by the great American public in order to prevent over-crowding is just...loopy. You're saying in effect that pre-1950s Americans had no common sense?

Third world countries are massively culturally different to Western ones, and in many places it is a mark of strength or potency if a man has many children, especially in Africa. Now that is unfortunate, just as it is unfortunate that in the Western world men get similar kudos for how big (and therefore how toxic) a car they drive. In both cases, the sensible course would be re-education, not blanket condemnation.

Individuals would vote for cars to be manufactured to run on ethanol, but our congressmen are so busy filling their pockets with oil money that they have made sure that this won't be done until every gallon of gasoline has been sold to their profit.

Jeez Yankee, don't be so anti-American! Heheh

Because we made the country. We made it so that its citizens would have entitlements. What gives the rest of the world the right to think those entitlements should be extended to them? Let them do it for themselves. They have the same physical and mental accoutrements that we do.

You see, this is what i mean. You didn't make America, any more than some woman in Kenya made it, but you think that you have more of a right to it than her just because you were born in it. Ok, not completely fair - you've paid your taxes and contributed through your life to what America is today, but what i'm saying is that you haven't done anything which made it democratic (for instance), because it was that way long before you were born - so how can you take credit for that?

And again, America often represses other countries' grassroots efforts to achieve democracy, equality, etc because it affects their vested corporate interests. Sorry if i appear to be getting back into America-bashing, but as long as you keep evading that responsibility i'm gonna keep on bringing it up.

Well, you are determined to make us remember our past.

You acknowledge it, i'll shut up. The only reason i'm harping on it slightly is that you talk like you dont know it.

The relevance is that you are pointing out all the things that we did wrong. You don't want to acknowledge what we did right? That's okay. Thanks aren't necessary.

i'm not denying that America has done many good and valuable things, but as a counterpoint to your lack of apparent awareness of anything that America might have done wrong, i felt it was more useful to stick to the bad stuff. It was a good thing that the US came into WW2 (although i'm confused why i should personally be thanking you - i wasnt alive then).

I'll tell you what; Let's get reps from all the countries together and compare notes to see who has done the most to make their citizens, and the citizens of any country they impacted, lead happy lives. And we'll let those who have unblemsihed pasts and presents cast the first stone.

Hey, no one is unblemished - that's the point really, you are so focussed on the good things about America and Americans that you dont seem to notice the truly terrible things America has done, and since some of them directly affect what we're talking about, i feel i have to keep bringing them up. i don't think i have ever implied that Britain is any less guilty of responsibility-dodging, Trade-agreement-bullying or good old fashioned state terrorism than the US. It's just that we're a bit less powerful, so we have slightly less impact.

How much impact do you think a few Anericans had below the border? With all the infighting down there, how do you think we could control any government? If we did manage to put a puppet in place, how long do you think he would last?

Well that's something that has been tested on many occasions. The Nicaraguan Somoza government lasted quite a long time before a popular uprising overthrew it, so Reagan declared the first 'War on Terror' and, via the Contras, smashed the country to bits using nothing less than the very terrorism he claimed he was fighting. The CIA-installed Shah in Iran tortured and maimed his subjects for years before he got his, so is it any wonder they're still pissed? Haiti - Aristide came back after years of US-supported bloodshed and then was removed by Washington (again), Guatamala, Cuba, the list could go on and on. Bottom line, democracy is only ok in Latin America (and many other parts of the world) so long as the people freely and democratically elect the candidate the US tells them to. Otherwise they get an American-friendly dictator.

We are trying to introduce a democracy in Iraq. I give it 3 months tops. Culture will tell.

Huh, i feel i've heard that line before. The natives are just too backward to be given much freedom to decide what they want for themselves. The fact that Iraq has been being either bombed or starved by the US and Britain for the last fifteen years couldnt have anything to do with the state it's in could it? Nah, let's put it down to 'culture', that'll get us off the hook.

I am not advocating anyone starving to death.

Interesting. i'll quote you exactly.

"What we did wrong was to interfere with nature in providing food and medical care to countries who didn't understand that when nature is subverted by giving people longer lives, that it must be balanced by a lower birth rate." [Posted Friday April 28, 2006 3:46am]

What did you expect the result of witholding food and medicine from a poverty and famine-striken country would be? The 'interfering with nature' line quite clearly indicates to me that you were suggesting letting natural selection take its course and kill of the weakest members of the herd. Letting people die of malnutrition who you could help would constitute starving them to death wouldn't it.

I am saying that unless the people in Third World countries face up to the fact that if they don't stop having more babies than they can produce food to nourish, then there WILL be starvation.

You're dodging your country's (and mine too) responsibility for the conditions these people experience. Not only is that intellectually dishonest, but it means that you will never be able to solve the problem which you started this thread about. You're just gonna keep filling up that leaky bucket until there's no water left.

How much are YOU going to give up for them?

i'll do what i can. Political pressure on my own government, charity work here and then overseas with Medicines Sans Frontiers (because those are the skills that i have) in a few years. i don't live as ethically as i should, and i'm working on that, but the important thing is to take responsibility. Not shift it to others.

Yankee · « **Reply #18 on:** May 01, 2006, 04:30:41 AM »

Quote from: Dannyboy

Yankee,

Western governments give the clear message that they firmly believe they and their citizens d--n well are better than anyone else. Most of our foreign policies are based around that simple premise. Not only is the principle of 'equality' not particularly strongly espoused by the American government (except for cheap propaganda purposes), but on an individual level non-americans all around the world both understand and want it. [QUOTE:DANNYBOY]

I'll make one last attempt to explain equality: The ability to admire what others have without feeling envious or covetous. Concentrating on one's own life and working towards achieving progress without manipulating or taking from others in the process. Waking up each morning with the full assurance that one can hold one's own without being afraid, and not being awed by the presence of anyone else.

If this comes across as a superior attitude, then the people who see it that way have not achieved equality because if they had, then they would not see it as a superior attitude but the way all equal people would behave. Of course people want it, but they have to know what it is before they can acquire it. It is a state of mind, not something tangible, that very few people other than Americans have achieved. We are not arrogant, we are just sure of ourselves. We don't look down on other people. We most certainly have helped the Third World countries, but there is only so much that can be done until they start to help themselves. And don't give me that old song and dance about them being so downtrodden that they can't help themselves. Whatever we are born to, we still have choices. Who suffered any more than the Jews in the holocaust? The survivors came out of the concentration camps with nothing, the Nazis had stolen every single thing they owned, no country felt sorry enough for them to want to take them in, most of their family members had been brutally murdered, their bodies had been starved and abused, but they still recovered, and it couldn't have been easy. They went on to make a whole nation, at this time, the strongest, most cohesive country in the world. And they did it with almost no seed money.

Christ said that the poor would be with us always. We can't save them all. My original post on the matter stands.

It's pure luck what country you get born into. You bear no more credit for the fact that you grew up in a prosperous country than others bear blame for growing up in a poverty-stricken one. The ideal thing would be to work towards all countries being able to provide similar levels of health, safety and opportunity for their citizens, but we dont do that, because each individual government is in competition to keep its citizens as happy as possible, so they can stay in power (the democratic ones anyway - the dictatorial ones tend to be less concerned about 'happiness' and more about 'productivity', but either way, they don't put much effort into levelling the status quo). So, rich governments exploit poor ones. They do their best to keep them poor, because that way they can export their manufacturing industries into low-tax cheap-labour environments, maximising the profits and increasing the relative wealth of their own citizens. Look beyond all the moral posturing and speech-making - this is what happens. So, our successive governments (and, therefore, since we live in democratic countries, we) bear some responsibility for the poverty of Third World countries. We make them bad places to live. That makes people who are born there (through no fault of their own, as we have agreed) want to find somewhere better.[Quote:Dannyboy]

Luck had nothing to do with any of it. Genes are responsible for us being here. We get more than our physical characteristics in our genes. There is a memory, which in lower forms of life is called instinct. Our ancestors made this country, and with their genes as our inheritance it was inevitable that we would carry on the way of life they developed. Are you familiar with the Bible passage that says that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons unto the seventh generation? That doesn't mean that seven generations will be punished for the father's sins, it means that for seven generations that the culture that was developed in the first one will hold. As Americans, we are about in our seventh generation from the Revolution, and I see the culture they developed starting to dissipate. But there are some of us still around, like the Minute Men who are watching on our southern border.

You are so full of it when you attribute sending our manufacturing companies to Third World countries to a desire to exploit the people in subversive ways. Certainly, it is cheap labor, but what they make on it gives them an income they wouldn't have otherwise. And it would go further if they didn't have so many babies to feed. I don't see how outsourcing enriches the people here who lost their jobs because of it. We have become a country of services, and we produce very little. And the Illegals are taking the service jobs, never mind the jobs that "American won't do". I have to demand someone who speaks English when I call anyone from the IRS (yes, them, too) the Social Security Administration (also) on down, not to mention all the Credit Card companies; the list goes on.

I tootled through Wal-Mart the other evening in one of the little electric carts, picking up items at random to see where they were made. Every last single one of them was made in China. We are giving this country away so fast that there is no way we aren't going to have a total financial collapse, in spite of the government's right to print money. We have a 2 Billion annual trade deficit with China, and a trade deficit is paid in gold, or at least it was the last time I heard. So as more money is printed, we have less gold to back it. It is estimated that if we grant amnesty to the Illegals that in 10 years there will be 30 Million of them here. WE CANNOT AFFORD THEM!!!!!!

Now, when i've had similar discussions to this with Johnny, this is the point when we hit a stumbling block. If we can both agree to the above, which is by no means certain, then we have two choices as to how to deal with the problems of immigration that it causes. a) We could just close our borders, build increasingly higher and higher fences and walls, and hide from the problem, or b) we could try to address the roots of the immigrations, namely the worldwide social injustices (many of them our fault) which make our countries so attractive and other people's countries so desolate.[Quote:Dannyboy]

The root of the problem is that they make their own d--n countries desolate! Why should we feel guilty if we were able to make ours attractive? Why can't you recognize that the problem is overpopulation!!!

With Sntjohnny i've usually been talking about terrorism here, and so the debate has been a) just kill all the terrorists and when more come kill them too, or b) to also examine why people become terrorists (without excusing it, by the way) and to try to rectify any genuine grievances that these people have against the western world.[Quote:Dannyboy]

You can examine all you want, but it won't change facts. I don't give a rat's patootie what grievances they have managed to manufacture for hating us. Very few of them are "genuine". No nation has been more giving to others than ours. If they hate us, it's from envy. They see us at the top of their #$%#^ ladders, and they want to haul us down so that they can get to the top. The Illegals aren't coming here to become one of us. They want to replace us. How would you rectify "grievances"? Give each one a trust fund that is added to every time they produce another offspring?

Johnny is an option (a) man, which i consider a little like choosing to just keep on pouring more water into a bucket in order to keep it full, rather than fixing the holes in the bottom.[Quote:Dannyboy]

We are trying to "fix the hole in the bottom of the bucket" in Iraq by setting them up with a government like ours. It ain't gonna happen. Their culture cannot encompass such a change overnight, it would take at least 150 years. The same with the Illegals in this country. Their cultures will prevent them from becoming Americans. They'll become citizens, but they will not be Americans. Too many cultural differences.

The end of that long (but hopefully explanatory) ramble is, yes, i do expect the poor to take responsibility for what is wrong in their lives, but so should we. [Quote:Dannyboy]

Dear God in Heaven, protect us from Bleeding Heart Liberals who will not be happy until we have all donned sackcloth and ashes, and have given everything we own, from the country down to our last pair of shoes, to people who will do nothing in their own behalf.

I seem to remember that we took in the Irish because you were deliberately trying to annihilate them, watching them starve to death being one of the English amusements. You made laws that were so designed to keep them in thrall, that they were not allowed to own a horse worth more than one pound. You deliberately pushed them onto the barren west coast of Ireland where you knew crops would not grow. Look at the mote in your own eye. WE are aware of the things that were wrong in the past. Why don't you do the same and give Northern Ireland back to the Irish?

i'm not trying to pin personal responsibility on you for the past misdemeanors of your country, i'm just trying to get you to admit that they exist. i am quite happy to agree that the UK behaved extremely badly towards the Irish, but i wasn't around at the time, so i don't feel it has any relevance to me (unlike the way you seem to take personal credit for the actions of your founding fathers). Giving Northern Ireland back now is tricky, because the majority of people who actually live there are Republican - that is, they want to stay part of Britain. Whatever the injustices of the past, i'm happy for them to sort it out however they choose to (preferrably without violence, but what are the odds?), and wont lose any sleep about it if NI stops being part of Great Britain.[Quote:Dannyboy]

If it's tricky, it's because the English deliberately settled the land they kicked the Irish off with people from England and Scotland. Of course, that's why they don't want it given to the Irish, who, though it's their country, have no say in it. (I warned you that Americans fight back1)

Would you offer to shake hands with the queen, or would you bow or curtsey to her?

Interesting question. i think the answer is that i would probably bow, but before you leap on that as proving your point about my inherent slavishness and unegalitarian attitudes, i should mention that it would be purely a cultural politeness. If i met the Dali Lhama i would greet him with whatever action was considered appropriate (unless i felt it was demeaning to me). If i meet a Thai then i also bow and press my palms together below my chin. That does not indicate that i consider them superior to me.[Quote:Dannyboy]

It's cultural, but it's not just politeness.

It takes a level playing field to attain equality. You still have your ladder, so don't try to tell me that you understand equality.

No point talking to someone who doesnt want to listen. You mentioned a definition of discussion/debate earlier. Is this really how it works - you decide what i understand or dont understand no matter how much i demonstrate otherwise? Ok then.[Quote:Dannyboy]

You skull is every bit as inpenetrable as mine. I was more than happy with pure debate until you made a point of being sarcastic. I decided to give it right back to you. When the occasion demands, I can out-sarcasm anyone.

Remind me what proportion of Congress is black (or female)?

Why is it when someone can't think of a good argument that they try to stir things up by accusing us of being racist. I sort of recall that our Secretary of State might be a little dark. If she runs for President, she's got my vote.

We could just keep taking these cheap culturally stereotyped shots at each other i guess - it's kind of fun, after all - but i dont think it's actually advancing the discussion.[Quote:Dannyboy]

Yeah, I'm having fun, too. (But I'm also airing my point, even though you've got that glaze over your brain.)

Anyway, wandering from the point. Yes, these things are bad and scary and the people who do them should be locked away. Does that necessarily mean that we cant look at the causes of these acts - i.e. the social situations which led to them? You have made a decision that it is because these people are different to you somehow, because that conveniently explains the situation without any introspection being needed into why. In very much the same way, after WW2 people wanted to say that the Germans were just different, because that saved any troublesome speculation about how otherwise quite ordinary people could do such horrific things. Milgram's experiments in the 60s demonstrated that ordinary Americans could be very quickly and easily induced into (as they thought) torturing another human being with increasing electric shocks to the point of unconsciousness or death. In the end, the simplest and/or least disturbing answer isnt always the correct one.[Quote:Dannyboy]

I alway keep in mind the "why" as well as the "what", but I am not going to deliberately impoverish my life to atone for someone else's sins. When we are young, we have privilege with obedience. When we are adult, we have privilege with responsibility. To have privilege with neither obedience nor responsibility creates chaos. By making people believe that they are victims of circumstance we are giving them that kind of privilege. We have choices. Even poor people have choices. I am not responsible for people making poor or stupid choices.

A neighborhood is a reflection of the people who live in it. A proud, responsible people would start cleaning up a neighborhood if it were run-down when they moved in. Who do you think ran it down? I remember a welfare recipient on TV whining because there were rats and small bunniesroaches in her apartment. If I had rats or small bunniesroaches in my apartment, I would know where to get rat and roach poison. I wouldn't leave it to someone else. Oh! They came from other apartments? What's wrong with all the tenants getting together and working as a team to get rid of them? Oh! Because they are poor and pathetic? Give me a break!

People in what appears to them to be a helpless situation will start behaving helplessly. This does not make it excusable but it makes it understandable.[Quote:Dannyboy]

When my grandson was born in Calif., I went there to care for him. My daughter was in the military and we lived in a tiny apartment in the High Desert in a largely Hispanic area. There wasn't a square foot of the desert in that area that was clear of trash. Whenever I took my grandson out in his carriage, I carried a trash bag, and I picked up a bag full with every trip. I don't care how poor people are, they don't have to foul their own nests!

...you certainly talk like you have the solution to all the world's ills, which is: You Americans take care of the world's poor. How about you getting into the act? We are 9 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt, so, actually, you are richer than we are. We'll be happy to hand over the burden to you.

Cultures change. i am less concerned than you are about my culture being altered by immigrants, because i recognise that it is the way it has happened again and again down the ages, and i find more productive things to do with my time than fighting the inevitable. [Quote:Dannyboy]

Of course, cultures change. It's called evolution. We all accept that. Then there is the cataclysmic change. It isn't a gradual rearrangement that takes place without anyone really noticing. It's a sudden, total upheaval. That's what we are experiencing, and it is putting us in a position of losing everything we have accomplished in one fast punch.

How about a little native intelligence, called common sense? ...I have watched the size of families go from up to 5 in the fifties to 2 today. That was a conscious choice made by each individual couple. Made through common sense. Why is it so far fetched that people in Third World countries can't do the same?

Sorry, that's kind of simplistic. There are many factors as to why the birth rate in the western world is falling - the emancipation of women being a major one, better eductaion being another. To suggest that it was a simultaneous 'conscious choice' by the great American public in order to prevent over-crowding is just...loopy. You're saying in effect that pre-1950s Americans had no common sense?[Quote:Dannyboy]

No. Until after WWII, land was easily available. Then developers started paving over everything in sight. Arable land started disappearing. We decided that we'd better not have more children than the land could support.

You see, this is what i mean. You didn't make America, any more than some woman in Kenya made it, but you think that you have more of a right to it than her just because you were born in it. Ok, not completely fair - you've paid your taxes and contributed through your life to what America is today, but what i'm saying is that you haven't done anything which made it democratic (for instance), because it was that way long before you were born - so how can you take credit for that?

Because I have inherited the genes that made it. I am the offspring of my ancestors who were a strong far-sighted people. I have enough of their memory in my genes to understand what kind of people they were and to want to carry on the tradition they started. Unto the seventh generation.

And again, America often represses other countries' grassroots efforts to achieve democracy, equality, etc because it affects their vested corporate interests. Sorry if i appear to be getting back into America-bashing, but as long as you keep evading that responsibility i'm gonna keep on bringing it up.[Quote:Dannyboy]

You are out of your cotton-picking mind! If they are repressed, they were that way a long time before we ever showed up. We are not perfect, but we are not as guilty as any other country of repressing any grassroots efforts. Sheesh!!!

Well, you are determined to make us remember our past.

You acknowledge it, i'll shut up. The only reason i'm harping on it slightly is that you talk like you dont know it.[Quote:Dannyboy]

You sound like the Chinese Communists who forced people to acknowledge sins they didn't even know they had. Should I beat my head on the floor, too??

b]I'll tell you what; Let's get reps from all the countries together and compare notes to see who has done the most to make their citizens, and the citizens of any country they impacted, lead happy lives. And we'll let those who have unblemsihed pasts and presents cast the first stone.[/b]

Hey, no one is unblemished - that's the point really, you are so focussed on the good things about America and Americans that you dont seem to notice the truly terrible things America has done, and since some of them directly affect what we're talking about, i feel i have to keep bringing them up. i don't think i have ever implied that Britain is any less guilty of responsibility-dodging, Trade-agreement-bullying or good old fashioned state terrorism than the US. It's just that we're a bit less powerful, so we have slightly less impact.[Quote:Dannyboy]

You want me to remember every sin we committed in our sinful past, but you slough yours off with the excuse that you are less powerful. I seem to remember that there was a time that the sun never set on the British Empire. How many countries did you RULE? You want us to humble oursellves before the world, too, and give reparation for every wrong that we may have done. Sorry, I will help my fellow man in ways that help him help himself, but humble, I'm not. By the way, give me a few specific examples of what we have done that was so horrible (other than Wounded Knee). I'll bet I can name more than you can that the British did. Like keel hauling. How about getting the Chinese addicted to opium?

I have to go to bed. I'll finish polishing you off later. Promise.
[/b]

TheAtheistHeratic · « **Reply #19 on:** May 01, 2006, 03:09:52 PM »

Quote from: JustLiz

Yankee.

I am not taking sides here. I just did a little research of my own and found some slightly different numbers than you state in your post.

According to the Dept of Justice, as of mid-2004 prison population is distributed as shown:

44.4% white (75.1% of total population of US. This group has the largest increase since 2000, up from 41.9%)
38.6% black (12.3% of population. Down from 41.3% in 2000)
15.2% Hispanic (12.5% of population. Up from 15.1% in 2000)
1.8% Other (Impossible to determine % of population. Could be mixed races, etc. Needless to say,

Author Topic: ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE UNITED STATES CULTURE (Read 6678 times)