Erm, I think the point was even though they were against the war they were still comforted when Saddam was caught. That’s the way I read it.
And that’s the way I meant it. My other point was that people are fickle. Hillary voted to go to war, but later spoke out against it. And many others have done the same. I was not saying that there was a mass march on Washington demanding that we go to war, simply saying that the longer we remain a country at war, the more that weighs on the people. Especially when that war is overseas. Americans see the losses because they are here. The neighbor whose son was killed. The second cousin or (God forbid) brother who loses a leg. The costs of being at war - and I mean the human costs - affect everyday life in this country. The achievements of this same war, unless they make the national networks, are unknown to anyone other than the deployed soldiers who are on the ground every day.
Imagine for a moment that every day one of your coworkers asks you for a quarter. Not much, in the grand scheme of things. But after awhile it starts to bother you because all you see is the fact that you’re giving him a quarter every day with no return. And then imagine you confront him. And he says that he has been collecting a quarter per day from anyone who would voluntarily give in order to help pay the cost of medical treatment for his neighbor’s child. And then he shows you a picture of a happy, healthy child who without your quarters might not be in such good shape.
The point of all that? It’s easy to condemn an action when you can only see half of the outcome.
I’m bored and was looking through old threads, found this one which I had intended to write more in, but was in Mexico at the time so had more pressing matters to take care of *cough* all inclusive bar *cough*
crichton - 26 March 2010 11:42 AM
Tripper:
Well for a start the process is far too slow and their estimated processing times are worthless, but that’s just me grumbling from personal experience.
There are four immigrants currently in my family who have all come from Canada and received their U.S. citizenship within the past three years. All of them say that the “process is too slow” is much ado about nothing. One of them (the youngest male who’s 22) said that complaining about the “slow” process time seemed rather like nit-picking.
In my experience the time lines when I applied for my K1 visa were nowhere near what was stated on the immigration website. I recognize that when I applied (technically when my now wife, then fiancee applied on my behalf) we were in a sense asking for a favour, there is no guarantee to a K1 visa etc. but we had all of our boxes checked and what not, it was a straightforward applications. It seems like grumbling but if things hadn’t worked out in time it could have been very expensive for us.
You are supposed to apply about 6-12 months out from the date you plan to enter the country, and once granted the visa is valid for entry into the US for 6 months. (once you enter it is valid for 90 days from the date of entry). We were planning a wedding, not too grand an affair but there were enough things booked and paid for, including flights for guests that it would have been expensive if we didn’t have the paperwork in time for me to attend the actual event. We applied 9 months out, splitting the difference of what was advertised on the website, the thought being we didn’t want to leave it too late and not get the visa in time, but also didn’t want to get it too early and have the 6 months run out before our wedding date.
As it turned out, my wife ended up in almost daily contact with her congressman with a month to go and I was sending regular faxes to the UK embassy because we were months outside of the timeline when we were supposed to hear anything by. It wasn’t until about 10 days before the wedding and 4 days before my scheduled flight to the US that I actually got the visa paperwork through. That was cutting it fine. I have no way to know if the contact between myself and the embassy, and involving congressmen helped speed up the process (it was suggested on various websites that it would), or if the paperwork would have made it in the nick of time anyway, but I suspect that those actions moved things along.
Again, I’m reluctant to call this a ‘complaint’ because I’m grateful to have gotten a visa at all, but since the processing time was way outside what the USCIS estimate, you’d think that the process was ‘too long’
I know of a couple who later went through the same process, and due to my experience applied very early. Their visa arrived about 8 months before their wedding date. Again they had a reasonable sized event planned with guest travel plans made, deposits laid down and what not. He ended up coming to the US and they had a very small private ceremony to fulfill the legal requirements for the visa, before having the big wedding on the originally planned date. Everything worked out fine, but they had some worry about how a quick legal ceremony would look in the eyes of the USCIS (i.e. would it look like they were cheating the process or something)
After getting married I applied for my green card along with work authorization card. The green card could take ‘up to 2 years’ at the time, but the work authorization card should take 90 days or less, estimate was 5 weeks. If you don’t get it in 90 days you can set up an appointment with the local USCIS office to arrange for an extra temporary work authorization which would take only 15 days. After 90 days I did not have my card, I was able to set up an appointment for a week later at my local field office. Once there they told me I could indeed apply for the temporary work card, but they were also able to push my actual work authorization card through and that would be quicker. The lady I spoke too made me an appointment for the following week to have the biometrics done and within 5 days of that I had the card. Reading between the lines, it looks like I’d been approved but the bottleneck was with whomever was tasked with setting up the biometric appointments.
The work authorization is valid for 1 year, and is intended as a temporary authorization while the green card application is pending. My green card was authorized 1 day before my temp work authorization expired. I had an application pending for an extension of the work authorization card but it had not been processed yet either. At this time I had a career job, but would have had to resign if my work authorization card had expired before the green card, because otherwise I’d have been working illegally. I’d like to hope that my employer would have understood the situation and re-employed me once my green card came through but who knows. I was responsible for some semi important things at the time and would have been happy to come in while officially ‘unemployed’ to take care of them, but it’s a grey area as to how that would look to the USCIS, and I doubt my employer would want to mess with the possibility of having somebody who wasn’t legal to work providing labor for them.
FYI, it’s possible to check the status of your applications online using your case tracking number. For the entire duration of each of my applications my status both online and by phone was “in processing”
3 weeks after I received my conditional green card my status was still “in processing”
These are all anecdotal tales, and I don’t know how common my experience is. Stories on various websites would indicate I’m not alone, but then again my friend’s problem (3 years later) was that his processed faster than he expected, where in my case it was too slow. Judging from his experience and processing times I’ve seen since I believe they have made a significant investment in improving the process and speeding it up, the fees have also increased significantly, about 200%, which may well pay for additional people to do the processing.
My point is, while others may not have experienced any processing time issues, in my case it wasn’t much a do about nothing. I can see the nit picking argument though as other than processing speed everything else went very smoothly. I did mention in my original comment that it was just grumbling.
I’ve also heard that immigration from Canada is easier/quicker than from other countries. I have no idea if this is true or not, though I was first told this from a company specializing in helping folks attempting to move to other countries. If correct it might mean that your family members experience was different than what folks from other nations might deal with.
crichton - 26 March 2010 11:42 AM
And besides, we’re not talking about you. You’ve taken the legal approach. Apples and oranges…
When you ask “what are the problems with immigration, other than the lack of enforcement” you didn’t specify illegal or legal. I assumed you were talking about legal immigration or the whole immigration issue including both types. Since two of the point I can see the proposed bill addressing are issues of legal immigration I don’t think it’s a crazy leap for me to make, especially when you first asked it in response to Dio’s comment that he has no quarrel with the current US legal immigration process.
A couple of times in this thread we’ve had conservative voices stressing the need to not confuse opposition to illegal immigration with opposition to legal immigration, and I think that is right, but then also several times in this thread we’ve had conservative people bounce back to criticism of illegal immigration when other posters are addressing the legal immigration issue. I guess we all need to be more specific about our terms.
I think that legal immigration has lots to do with illegal immigration. They co-exist. One goes up and/or down, depending on the other. Taking it to the extreme there would be no illegal immigration problem if the borders were open. Leaving extremes aside, good arguments can be made that illegal immigration could go down, if legal entry was made easier. Perhaps opening Ellis Island II, could be one part of a grander solution? I would probably favor one of those inte EU as well.
But why should legal immigration be made easier? We can’t afford our current population, much less adding potentially millions more who have no history of contributing to the system. The US is one of the easier countries to immigrate to already.
Tripper, for the polls being BS, the majority of polls showed the American public overwhelmingly opposed to Obamacare at the same or worse (for Obamacare) numbers for an entire year. If the public would be in favor of it the dems would have passed it last April, not this March. Some say that this is a huge win for Obama, passing his health care bill in a year’s time while holding the White House and both the House and the Senate. Really, Reagan got his tax breaks passed within a month or two and the Dems controlled Congress. But I digress…
You can throw out terms like ‘a majority of polls’ without qualifying all you like, but there were polls showing support and polls showing people against. Much of it seemed to depend on how the poll questions were worded.
At the end of the day though, polls are not what is important, unless you think the POTUS should make decisions based on some kind of average of all the major polling companies each day. The most important ‘poll’ for the POTUS is the election results. You can’t get away from the fact that he was very up front for the entire campaign, primary and general, that he wanted to reform healthcare, and while nobody runs with a long and detailed proposed bill already written, what passed is not exactly shockingly different from what he ran saying he was going to do. In the ways that it does differ from what he was saying it would look like, it’s that it doesn’t go as far as he originally wanted it to. (and hence why some Dems, Kucinich etc. were holding out their votes, not because they thought it went too far)
If 2/3 of the American public did not want healthcare reform, why did he win convincingly in the election? and in cases where you find a poll showing 2/3 of people opposed, I wonder how many were of those who like it but just don’t think it goes far enough?
Democratic elections have consequences. Obama ran on a platform and is now doing at least some of what he said he would do. If you don’t like it you have a chance to try and vote him out of office in just over 2 years time. That’s how it works, it’s democracy and it’s very far from Tyranny.
crichton - 27 March 2010 10:17 AM
As far as the Iraq war analogy goes, lets look at that. Lefty still says that Bush “rushed us to war” even though the timeline shows a 14-month run-up to the war before Congress (dems included) went along with it. On the other hand, we have to listen to Obama say that the republicans (who can’t block a bill with their votes) dragged their feet on health care for the past 12 or 13 months. The process was going too slowly for lefty. Its just plain hypocritical.
You know there is a difference between war and a healthcare bill right? Most obvious is that a war requires a troop build up, mobilization etc. which was going on long before the actual war kicked off. I’m not arguing against that, and at the time I was somewhat in support of it, but you don’t pass a bill saying you’re going to war and then begin a troop build up.
You carefully skip my point though which was if there were a majority of the public opposed to the Iraq war before it started and the government (regardless of party) still went ahead with it, is that tyranny by your definition?
What about the surge? I certainly read some suggestion that there was a majority against it, though never really dug into where those numbers were from. However if it was true and the majority of Americans wanted to pull out, not surge troops, was it tyranny to go forward with that?
crichton - 27 March 2010 10:17 AM
A representative republic is set up in a manner in which the representatives seek the desires of his/her constituency and votes accordingly on state and national matters. They serve the populace and it is their job to listen to and act upon the wishes of the electorate. With Obamacare they clearly didn’t do that. In fact they needed to pass the bill before going back to their districts to avoid their constituency. That’s an act of tyranny. As I said, it starts somewhere and this tyranny started with Obama being elected. How else do you explain Pelosi telling people that “we have to pass the bill to know what’s in it.”? That’s an outrage. How else to you explain Obama saying that immediately all children with pre-existing conditions would be covered under the bill when that’s clearly not the case?
Just own up to it. Obama is a liar, a thug and a tyrant.
A representative republic is not set up in a manner in which the representatives are supposed to constantly monitor 3rd party opinion polls, some run by partisan organizations of both sides, before making any opinion on how to vote on an issue, regardless of what they themselves may have run and won elections on. They didn’t need to pass a bill before going back, they had already been back in the summer anyway. By that argument you could say that everything they pass whenever it happens is just an attempt to get it out of the way before the next recess because somebody in their constituency would take issue with it.
crichton - 27 March 2010 10:17 AM
As I said, it starts somewhere and this tyranny started with Obama being elected.
Brilliant. The tyranny started with the election of Obama. A guy democratically elected by the people, and his tyrannical reign begins after his election, before he’s done anything or even taken office?
[quote author="crichton" date="1269639344
It’s not an act of tyranny for an elected representative to go against the desires of 2/3 of his/her constituents. They had a choice when voting them in, they have a chance to vote them out again. It’s actually a key part of American government, not tyranny at all.
Also, I call BS on the 2/3 number. You can find polls to support it I’m sure, I can also find polls to dispute it. Do we really have time to waste looking them up and posting them tho?
If I could find a poll saying a significant amount of the population were against the Iraq war, would that make the fact that the government chose to go to war an act of tyranny? How much would the majority have to be? more than 50 or a full 2/3?
As for the Iraq war - there are plenty of people who are against it. Now. When we caught Saddam Hussein you can bet they secretly smiled and breathed a little easier. What those people do not understand is the power vacuum we would create by withdrawing all troops right now. The average American does not understand military strategy, and therefore his opinion carries very little weight when the President and Congress are face with decisions concerning troop placement and withdrawal.
Keep in mind there are plenty of people who were against the war then as well. My original question was if we had a reliable poll saying 2/3 of the American people were against the Iraq war before it started (I don’t think the number was that high btw, this is hypothetical), would it be tyranny if the US still went to war.
It seems that by crichton’s reckoning it would be, but I don’t think that will be his answer.
While I agree on the power vacuum point, and I’m not for us pulling out. The same logic could be used to say that if 2/3 favored pulling out now and we don’t, it’s still tyranny regardless of any negative impacts here or abroad of that poor choice. If we’re taking the view that going against 2/3 (or whatever percentage) of the populations views on a subject is tyranny, then even if you and I and the other 1/3 of the population believe it’s the wrong choice, it would still be right to go with the majority no?
But why should legal immigration be made easier? We can’t afford our current population, much less adding potentially millions more who have no history of contributing to the system. The US is one of the easier countries to immigrate to already.
One, it might make the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
Two, because one could argue that it is the american way.
Personally, I think that allowing people to enter the developed part of the world, is one way of allowing people to pursue happiness. I’m pragmatic enough to understand that we can’t afford to have open borders, particulary since we live in various degrees of welfare states. But I do think that it should be made easier. Sweden is said to be quite generous when it comes to immigration too, but it’s still not easy to get in. Without relations here you will have a tough time getting in. Simply saying that you want to pursue the possibilities for a better future for yourself and your family is not going to get you in. I’m just saying that I would like to see some of that Ellis Island mentality again. Come here, educate yourself, work and contribute to our respective societies.
Question is if Graham is ‘selling out his country’ because he’s secretely gay?
I tried to link to the belowed Huffington Post but that’s black listed. Go figure.
William Gheen, head of the conservative, anti-"amnesty," anti-illegal immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), spoke at a Greenville, S.C. Tea Party rally this weekend and called for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to “come out of that log cabin closet.”
According to Gheen, being gay is “a secret that Lindsey Graham has.”
Gheen told the crowd: “I hope this secret isn’t being used as leverage over Senator Graham, so today I think Senator Graham, you need to come forward and tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality.”
“Barney Frank is more honest and brave than you,” Gheen continued, referring to the openly-gay Massachusetts congressman.
ALIPAC has posted the video titled “US Senator Graham is Gay” on YouTube, where various news outlets have covered it.
At one point, the video contained the tags “queer” and “fag,” which Gheen told HuffPost were the result of a hacked YouTube account. When Gheen was informed of the keywords, he replaced them with less incendiary language.
The group defended itself Monday, and in fact doubled down on calls for Lindsay Graham to admit his homosexuality.
In a statement, ALIPAC alleged that a “brief clip of Gheen’s speech, which is out of proper context, has already gone viral on YouTube and been reported by Keith Olberman on MSNBC without proper permissions or attributions.”
“US Senator Lindsey Graham is gay and while many people in South Carolina and Washington DC know that, the general public and Graham’s constituents do not,” Gheen said in the statement. Though Gheen claimed, both in the statement and at the Tea Party rally, that he does “not care about Graham’s private life,” he again said that Graham must declare his supposed homsexuality “so the public can rest assured he is not being manipulated with his secret.”
“I need to figure out why you’re trying to sell out your own countrymen and I need to make sure you being gay isn’t it,” Gheen said over the weekend.
Anonymous rumors of Sen. Graham’s supposed homosexuality have swirled around Washington before. In the run-up to Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing, Graham asked Sotomayor to explain uncredited comments about her past behavior. A blogger reactd by asking Graham to respond to anonymous speculation that he was gay.
UPDATE:
Former CNN anchor and former ALIPAC partner Lou Dobbs is “calling for William Gheen to resign after his comments/actions on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sexuality” via Twitter.
Video to Gheens speech can be seen on youtube. Link below.
As for the Iraq war - there are plenty of people who are against it. Now. When we caught Saddam Hussein you can bet they secretly smiled and breathed a little easier. What those people do not understand is the power vacuum we would create by withdrawing all troops right now. The average American does not understand military strategy, and therefore his opinion carries very little weight when the President and Congress are face with decisions concerning troop placement and withdrawal.
Keep in mind there are plenty of people who were against the war then as well. My original question was if we had a reliable poll saying 2/3 of the American people were against the Iraq war before it started (I don’t think the number was that high btw, this is hypothetical), would it be tyranny if the US still went to war.
It seems that by crichton’s reckoning it would be, but I don’t think that will be his answer.
While I agree on the power vacuum point, and I’m not for us pulling out. The same logic could be used to say that if 2/3 favored pulling out now and we don’t, it’s still tyranny regardless of any negative impacts here or abroad of that poor choice. If we’re taking the view that going against 2/3 (or whatever percentage) of the populations views on a subject is tyranny, then even if you and I and the other 1/3 of the population believe it’s the wrong choice, it would still be right to go with the majority no?
The quick answer is that there is a huge difference between social policy and what can be argued is a Nation Security issue.
Per Constitution, the Federal government’s *main function* is National Security. Border security, intelligence, and declarations of war.
Per Constitution, the Federal government is supposed to have essentially no role in social policy. That is a sovereign state issue.
So when the country is against a war, and the majority of Congress and the White House believe there is enough evidence (that the People may or may not have) to go to war, then it is the Federal government doing its job.
When the country is against a nationalized health care bill, and a slim majority of Congress and the White House take a year to ram it through, that’s a different story altogether.
The quick answer is that there is a huge difference between social policy and what can be argued is a Nation Security issue.
Per Constitution, the Federal government’s *main function* is National Security. Border security, intelligence, and declarations of war.
Per Constitution, the Federal government is supposed to have essentially no role in social policy. That is a sovereign state issue.
So when the country is against a war, and the majority of Congress and the White House believe there is enough evidence (that the People may or may not have) to go to war, then it is the Federal government doing its job.
When the country is against a nationalized health care bill, and a slim majority of Congress and the White House take a year to ram it through, that’s a different story altogether.
OK, lets try another issue.
Bush wanted to reform social security, but if I recall correctly the public were against it, and it didn’t happen.
Hypothetically, if he’d have gotten the votes from congress for it, and pushed it through, would it have been tyranny?
One, it might make the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
The only thing that is going to make the number of illegal immigrants smaller is if the US incorporates Mexico as the 51st state of the Union. Mexico—and much of South America—has a huge under- and unemployment problem, and what jobs there are pay next to nothing. Add in a nearly illiterate population. So Mexico solves its problem by allowing and aiding its citizens to cross illegally into the US to get jobs so that the illegals can send money home to Mexico.
The US has its own near illiterates who could be working the jobs the illegals work. But the illegals work for pennies on the dollar—and think they’re being paid fortunes! Over the past few years, Omaha has been hammered time and again by storms and weather events that are hell on roofs. After one really weird sotrm a couple springs ago, nearly every roof in Omaha had to be at least partially redone. The roofers using illegal labor will show up with a whole bunch of guys who work like crazy for two days. Voila! Your roof has been reroofed—and at a cheap price. Meanwhile, the guys who use legal labor can’t get their help to show up, and when they do show up, can’t get them to work at speed. I’ve had a couple of curtomers remark to me that they’ll take a crew of illegals any day over a typical American roofing company.
No, the US needs to get control of its borders and start keeping the illegals out. We also need to be more selective in who we let in legally. We’ve got enough of our own illiterates; we don’t need to import any more of them. What we need are educated people with a dream. Asians drive the race baiters even crazier than they already are. Mom and Pop come to America, open a tiny store or restaurant, raise a flock of kids who are required to get straight A’s in school, then become doctors, lawyers, dentists, scientists—anything professional.
A lady I swim with at the Y is a naturalized US citizen from Mexico. One time she explained the Mexican school system to me. All Mexican kids are entitled to free education through 5th grade, but there’s no requirement for them to go to school. This lady complained about her own sister and brother-in-law who never sent their kids to school because the kids preferred to stay home and watch TV or play video games instead.
One, it might make the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
The only thing that is going to make the number of illegal immigrants smaller is if the US incorporates Mexico as the 51st state of the Union. Mexico—and much of South America—has a huge under- and unemployment problem, and what jobs there are pay next to nothing. Add in a nearly illiterate population. So Mexico solves its problem by allowing and aiding its citizens to cross illegally into the US to get jobs so that the illegals can send money home to Mexico.
92.8% literacy rate according to UN reports. (US and UK are at 99%)
Even if that were inflated, Mexico is still far from having a nearly illiterate population, unless you’re suggesting the whole country are barely literate. Where do you get your ideas about Mexican Literacy form?
FYI, The argument I hear is that illegal immigration is at it’s historical worst right now, but when I look at Mexico as a whole, I can’t see how they’ve solved their problem.
samsgran1948 - 23 April 2010 04:29 PM
The US has its own near illiterates who could be working the jobs the illegals work. But the illegals work for pennies on the dollar—and think they’re being paid fortunes! Over the past few years, Omaha has been hammered time and again by storms and weather events that are hell on roofs. After one really weird sotrm a couple springs ago, nearly every roof in Omaha had to be at least partially redone. The roofers using illegal labor will show up with a whole bunch of guys who work like crazy for two days. Voila! Your roof has been reroofed—and at a cheap price. Meanwhile, the guys who use legal labor can’t get their help to show up, and when they do show up, can’t get them to work at speed. I’ve had a couple of curtomers remark to me that they’ll take a crew of illegals any day over a typical American roofing company.
Sounds like you are saying that the ‘Illegals’ (who you are just assuming are all illegal by way of them being Hispanic looking, am I right?) are doing a superior job for a better price with higher reliability, both in terms of how reliable they are to show up, and I’m assuming the reliability if their work?
While I don’t condone breaking the law by crossing into the US illegally, and the crimes that stem directly from that (working illegally, etc.) I think you’re hitting on the argument being made by those in favour of a guest worker program (Part of Lindsey’s proposed bill, and was part of Bush’s as well).
Think about it from the point of view of the home owner. If you have a crew of guest workers doing your roof which for the purpose of this argument we’ll assume match your description of the ‘illegals’ above, but by virtue of their ‘guest worker’ status are now legal, you get your roof done quickly, cheaply and probably with good workmanship. Not only that, the people working on it are motivated and value the employment, because as you say they view their wages as a fortune which increases the chances that you will have a better experience with them, they won’t drop their smoked cig ends everywhere, otherwise leave a mess or leave your side gate open so your dog escapes and you have to chase her half way down the street, and mark my words, she can run a lot faster than me (whoops, I thought this was a hypothetical)
As a homeowner I can say that this is all fine by me.
If you hire the company with what we’ll call the indigenous US roofers, you are paying more, and in your description above you can reasonably expect them to show up sporadically, work much slower, and in my hypothetical experience leave a mess and let your animals run amok.
Now quickly think about it from the employer point of view, the small business owner. If you were able to employee the ‘illegal’ guy but do so legally, and he continued to provide the service as you describe above wouldn’t you want to? It would be great for your business, you could offer a faster, better and more reliable service to your customers.
As a small business owner yourself, imagine if you were in a position where you needed another staff member to help run your business. Would you prefer a good hard working ‘guest worker’ who met all your requirements (great english, knowledgeable about the product, whatever else) or somebody you were sent by the Omaha unemployment office?
It seems with the above that you are arguing for America’s roofing contractors to be forced to only hire shitty local crew (if there are no reliable crews of course).
The other argument is of course that if cheap illegal or guest worker labour didn’t exist that the roofing companies would have to pay better money to actually get people motivated to show up for work etc. but keep in mind if that happens, your roof will cost more, and thus your home insurance is going to cost more. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or that it’s wrong, but I think many Americans are unaware of the price hike in all kinds of areas that could occur if illegal employees were eliminated and were not replaced with any guest workers.
Personally I’m against the guest worker program, and of the opinion that things are artificially cheap and if illegal labour can be eliminated the temporary ‘pain’ of the raised prices would overall prove to be a good thing. Lots of others, both consumers and businesses don’t agree tho.
samsgran1948 - 23 April 2010 04:29 PM
No, the US needs to get control of its borders and start keeping the illegals out. We also need to be more selective in who we let in legally. We’ve got enough of our own illiterates; we don’t need to import any more of them. What we need are educated people with a dream. Asians drive the race baiters even crazier than they already are. Mom and Pop come to America, open a tiny store or restaurant, raise a flock of kids who are required to get straight A’s in school, then become doctors, lawyers, dentists, scientists—anything professional.
You’ve made this claim that the US needs to be more selective about who the let in before, but you’ve yet to really explain it. FYI, they are selective already. How would you change it for them to be more selective? (it’s not a trick question, I have some thoughts on the matter)
Educated people with a dream would be good though. There is a push from business interests to actually increase the number of H1B visas for indemand skills and attract the best talent from around the world to the US. There’s also a push against this, and lest I be accused of confusing opposition to illegal and legal immigration, Tom Tancredo is a strong and popular voice firmly against the former, while also advocating drastically cutting back on the latter.
The thing is though, these people are coming to be doctors, lawyers, dentists, scientists—anything professional. They’re not coming to clean hotel rooms, fix roofs, wash dishes etc. That is a need now, and it will arguably be a bigger need to service all these educated people with a dream who will be coming.
What do you mean with your blanket statement about ‘Asians drive the race baiters even crazier than they already are.”
Who are the race baiters? Do you mean actual racists who are driven even crazier by seeing people of another race succeed or even thrive? I could see it if that’s what you mean, but I could really care less if racists don’t like successful Asian immigrants and their families.
I’ve been called a race baiter around here recently, not by you of course :), but Asians don’t drive me crazy so I suppose it’s not true after all.
samsgran1948 - 23 April 2010 04:29 PM
A lady I swim with at the Y is a naturalized US citizen from Mexico. One time she explained the Mexican school system to me. All Mexican kids are entitled to free education through 5th grade, but there’s no requirement for them to go to school. This lady complained about her own sister and brother-in-law who never sent their kids to school because the kids preferred to stay home and watch TV or play video games instead.
They sound like some pretty shitty parents. I preferred to stay home and watch TV instead of going to school but my mother would kick my ass right out of the house each morning if I didn’t walk it out the door myself. Of course if she hadn’t the local social workers would have been sent around to find out the score* as in the UK (likewise with the US I believe) there is a legal requirement for kids to receive an education so if the child is not at school the social workers are going to need to find out what kind of home schooling is being substituted instead, and TV/Video games ain’t gonna cut it.
I think I agree with you on this one, if your point is that the Mexican education system sounds a bit crap from that description, and there should be laws regarding children receiving a certain ‘quality’ of education, though I’m still not totally sure about that last part, or how we could all agree on the term ‘quality’.
It is interesting to note, that certainly some self described conservatives (usually libertarian leaning in my experience) would argue not just against a public school system in general, but also against putting any legal requirements on kids receiving education at all.
*would have been awkward, my Mum was a social worker.
CM, I’m not going to address all of your tome at the moment. I’m currently going to school and working fulltime (which actually means about 50-55 hours per week). But I’ll address a couple of things that caught my attention.
First off, I don’t think immigrants realize that even citizens are having trouble getting the proper paperwork for international travel, and some for very stupid reasons. I don’t know all of the facts, but one of my co-workers who is a natural-born citizen has been trying for more than three months to get her passport. So far she’s spent nearly $500 and isn’t much farther along in the process than when she started. She needs the passport for work (aerospace travel to one of our customers in Canada). The sticking point seems to be that when she was ten she was adopted by a non-family member. She has her original birth certificate and the adoption papers, but apparently not the right adoption papers. But then again she’s only been living in this country for 58 years…
Tripper:
You know there is a difference between war and a healthcare bill right? Most obvious is that a war requires a troop build up, mobilization etc. which was going on long before the actual war kicked off. I’m not arguing against that, and at the time I was somewhat in support of it, but you don’t pass a bill saying you’re going to war and then begin a troop build up.
The run up to Obamacare is four years (not including the year or so of pushing it into law), so I fail to see the need to rush reform into law…
[...]Mom and Pop come to America, open a tiny store or restaurant, raise a flock of kids who are required to get straight A’s in school, then become doctors, lawyers, dentists, scientists—anything professional.
Fine, but how is this ever going to happen again? I understand that countries want to allow Bill Gates to enter. Or a talanted computer programmer. Or a lawyer. Those are all safe bets. The question is if we (US, EU and the developed world collectively) should offer others the opportunity to follow the path of our grand parents, going from nothing to something?
CM, I’m not going to address all of your tome at the moment. I’m currently going to school and working fulltime (which actually means about 50-55 hours per week). But I’ll address a couple of things that caught my attention.
CM, I’m not going to address all of your tome at the moment. I’m currently going to school and working fulltime (which actually means about 50-55 hours per week). But I’ll address a couple of things that caught my attention.
You must be busy :)
Congrats on landing the job.
Sorry about that. Yes, I’m busy, and tired. In fact I’ll be back on my way to work in about twenty minutes or so. But it’s good and I feel great about being off a guvment program (actually two--unemployment and TRA - ‘no worker left behind’). It will be a harder row to hoe, but I’m thankful that I was in a position to make the choice to go off the guvment rolls. It was liberating to come home last night, open the mail and find a check from a private corporation instead of one from a guvment program. Thanks for the well wishes.
Another thing I thought of is the following. I don’t think that its necessary for our legislators to read polls and base their decisions on the polls, but in a representative republic it is their responsibility to read the bills before voting on them and seeking the desires of their constituents. The idiots in Washington who voted for the bill (including the republicans whose votes allowed it to move out of committee) obviously violated the terms of that responsibility. There is no question that the public, at least those on the right to center, knew more of what was in the bill than our legislators did, yet the dopes in D.C. tried to dupe us anyway. They were hammered ad nauseum by Tea Partiers and Town Hallers who had actually read the bill and they acted as tyrants by ignoring their public and voting for something that they never read. They voted ideologically and that’s a form of tyranny.
Meanwhile, I offer this as more proof that it was the public and not the law makers and president who acted responsibly by actually reading and understanding the bill that became a horrible law:
Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concluded in a report issued Thursday that the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance—adding 34 million to the coverage rolls.
But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned.
And they haven’t factored in what happens to that 34 million number if immigration reform is passed.
Also, please note that many of said that true future goal of Obamacare is a state takeover of hospitals and insurance:
In particular, concerns about Medicare could become a major political liability in the midterm elections. The report projected that Medicare cuts could drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, “possibly jeopardizing access” to care for seniors.
So here’s another report that backs what Tea Partiers and Town Hallers were saying--it will reduce choices in healthcare providers for citizens and will cost seniors the ability to get treatment (please recall the Obama quote about giving Grandma a ‘pill’ for to ease the physical pain of her heart ailment instead of fixing the problem because of her age and it not being fiscally responsible to do so).
The report acknowledged that some of the cost-control measures in the bill—Medicare cuts, a tax on high-cost insurance and a commission to seek ongoing Medicare savings—could help reduce the rate of cost increases beyond 2020. But it held out little hope for progress in the first decade.
“During 2010-2019, however, these effects would be outweighed by the increased costs associated with the expansions of health insurance coverage,” wrote Richard S. Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary. “Also, the longer-term viability of the Medicare ... reductions is doubtful.” Foster’s office is responsible for long-range costs estimates.
Republicans said the findings validate their concerns about Obama’s 10-year, nearly $1 trillion plan to remake the nation’s health care system.
I see that earlier you brought up Bush’s social security ‘reform’ that never went anywhere because the dems demogogued it. Bush wasn’t going to touch the senior’s social security as he was only giving the option to those in a certain (younger) age bracket. And even then they didn’t have to buy into that program, they could have stayed with social security. And Bush was right about the necessity of it--social security is already spending more than it takes in, which is years ahead of when both democrats and republicans predicted.
And lest anyone think that Obama’s plan wasn’t to eventually eliminate private providers:
In addition to flagging provider cuts as potentially unsustainable, the report projected that reductions in payments to private Medicare Advantage plans would trigger an exodus from the popular alternative. Enrollment would plummet by about 50 percent. Seniors leaving the private plans would still have health insurance under traditional Medicare, but many might face higher out-of-pocket costs.
And the sustainability? Just like all universal healthcare:
In another flashing yellow light, the report warned that a new voluntary long-term care insurance program created under the law faces “a very serious risk” of insolvency.
First off, I don’t think immigrants realize that even citizens are having trouble getting the proper paperwork for international travel, and some for very stupid reasons. I don’t know all of the facts, but one of my co-workers who is a natural-born citizen has been trying for more than three months to get her passport. So far she’s spent nearly $500 and isn’t much farther along in the process than when she started. She needs the passport for work (aerospace travel to one of our customers in Canada). The sticking point seems to be that when she was ten she was adopted by a non-family member. She has her original birth certificate and the adoption papers, but apparently not the right adoption papers. But then again she’s only been living in this country for 58 years…
Sounds like the passport process is too slow as well then.
And I thought we had it slow. It takes a week to get a passport here. I think you should be able to get it over the counter. I know the technology is there for it, because I once forgot my passport at home, when I was going to London. I actually forgot that I needed a passport for that. I thought my EU identity card would work - it does in most EU countries. The EU ID is smaller and easier to carry than a passport.
Anyway, I forgot it so I had to go to the airport police to get a temporary passport. They took my picture, and printed a passport right then and there. It took 5 minutes. And the passport looked and felt the same as an original one, except for the colour indicating that it was only temporary. This made me ask; ‘Why don’t you just do ordinary passports this way?’
But why should legal immigration be made easier? We can’t afford our current population, much less adding potentially millions more who have no history of contributing to the system. The US is one of the easier countries to immigrate to already.
One, it might make the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
Well this is just silly. If you legalize murder then illegal murder rates will decrease. In other words, legalizing a crime will always have the effect of decreasing that action. But you’ve not actually accomplished anything.
Two, because one could argue that it is the american way.
Personally, I think that allowing people to enter the developed part of the world, is one way of allowing people to pursue happiness. I’m pragmatic enough to understand that we can’t afford to have open borders, particulary since we live in various degrees of welfare states. But I do think that it should be made easier. Sweden is said to be quite generous when it comes to immigration too, but it’s still not easy to get in. Without relations here you will have a tough time getting in. Simply saying that you want to pursue the possibilities for a better future for yourself and your family is not going to get you in. I’m just saying that I would like to see some of that Ellis Island mentality again. Come here, educate yourself, work and contribute to our respective societies.
My impression now, is that we are building walls.
How is it too difficult to immigrate to the US legally? How and why should it be made easier? I can’t emigrate to New Zealand. It’s next to impossible.
I have no problem with people coming here, but let’s get our own house in order before that happens. We also cannot let people in and have them take advantage of our already bloated welfare state. Let them in, track them, force them to become productive or leave, and withhold gov’t services until they’ve contributed some preset amount of time (contributed meaning lived on their own, with no assistance, while employed and paying taxes).
Legalizing immigration, or more realistically making immigration easier, would probably lead to less people entering illegaly, thus making the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
I see a problem with our (US, EU, developed nations) way of handling immigration. Generally speaking we make it more difficult for people who ‘have not’ to enter, while we make it easier for those ‘who have’. I don’t think that it would be impossible for me to emigrate to US. Or to New Zealand for that matter. All we really need to do is to find jobs in our respective fields. That, and a few years, normally leads to permanent residence. But for a nobody from Bangladesh, things aren’t as easy. Your grandparents, or theirs, left Europe. They had nothing but their willingless to work hard. Yet they were let in. Isn’t freedom supposed to be an inalienable right? Or do we just recognize that right to people within our respective nations?
The pragmatist in me recognizes that it would be difficult to have open borders. Which is why I don’t advocate such. But I also have moral issues with what’s happening now. I think that it should be made easier, somehow. Exactly how, I don’t know. Perhaps there should be limitations on access to entitlements, but I see problems with such a divide too. It’s a complicated issue, in my opinion.
Legalizing immigration, or more realistically making immigration easier, would probably lead to less people entering illegaly, thus making the problem with illegal immigration smaller.
Yes, that’s what I said. But the problem hasn’t gone away, you simply legalize formerly illegal behavior.
Your grandparents, or theirs, left Europe. They had nothing but their willingless to work hard. Yet they were let in. Isn’t freedom supposed to be an inalienable right? Or do we just recognize that right to people within our respective nations?
I do somewhat agree with you here. That really is the American way. Unfortunately, so many come here and mooch off our already overburdened system. If those people coming genuinely came with nothing and worked hard rather than suckling Uncle Sam’s teat I would be in favor of relaxed immigration laws. That’s how it used to be, people worked hard and came from nothing. They expected nothing but an opportunity. That’s not the case anymore unfortunately.
First off, I don’t think immigrants realize that even citizens are having trouble getting the proper paperwork for international travel, and some for very stupid reasons. I don’t know all of the facts, but one of my co-workers who is a natural-born citizen has been trying for more than three months to get her passport. So far she’s spent nearly $500 and isn’t much farther along in the process than when she started. She needs the passport for work (aerospace travel to one of our customers in Canada). The sticking point seems to be that when she was ten she was adopted by a non-family member. She has her original birth certificate and the adoption papers, but apparently not the right adoption papers. But then again she’s only been living in this country for 58 years…
Sounds like the passport process is too slow as well then.
After talking to her this week at work, it seems that her adoptive parents were supposed to have filed her birth certificate with some agency within the first year of adoption. They didn’t do it until the second year. This week she was told by her second state department “specialist” that she will now have to talk with another state department “specialist”.
Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans are taking the weighty step of renouncing their citizenship.
“What we have seen is a substantial change in mentality among the overseas community in the past two years,” said Jackie Bugnion, director of American Citizens Abroad, an advocacy group based in Geneva. “Before, no one would dare mention to other Americans that they were even thinking of renouncing their U.S. nationality. Now, it is an openly discussed issue.”
The Federal Register, the government publication that records such decisions, shows that 502 expatriates gave up their U.S. citizenship or permanent residency status in the last quarter of 2009. That is a tiny portion of the 5.2 million Americans estimated by the State Department to be living abroad.
Still, 502 was the largest quarterly figure in years, more than twice the total for all of 2008, and it looms larger, given how agonizing the decision can be. There were 235 renunciations in 2008 and 743 last year. Waiting periods to meet with consular officers to formalize renunciations have grown.
Anecdotally, frustrations over tax and banking questions, not political considerations, appear to be the main drivers of the surge. Expat advocates say that as it becomes more difficult for Americans to live and work abroad, it will become harder for American companies to compete.
American expats have long complained that the United States is the only industrialized country to tax citizens on income earned abroad, even when they are taxed in their country of residence, though they are allowed to exclude their first $91,400 in foreign-earned income.
One Swiss-based business executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of sensitive family issues, said she weighed the decision for 10 years. She had lived abroad for years but had pleasant memories of service in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Yet the notion of double taxation — and of future tax obligations for her children, who will receive few U.S. services — finally pushed her to renounce, she said.
“I loved my time in the Marines, and the U.S. is still a great country,” she said. “But having lived here 20 years and having to pay and file while seeing other countries’ nationals not having to do that, I just think it’s grossly unfair.”
“It’s taxation without representation,” she added.
Stringent new banking regulations — aimed both at curbing tax evasion and, under the Patriot Act, preventing money from flowing to terrorist groups — have inadvertently made it harder for some expats to keep bank accounts in the United States and in some cases abroad.
Some U.S.-based banks have closed expats’ accounts because of difficulty in certifying that the holders still maintain U.S. addresses, as required by a Patriot Act provision.
“It seems the new anti-terrorist rules are having unintended effects,” Daniel Flynn, who lives in Belgium, wrote in a letter quoted by the Americans Abroad Caucus in the U.S. Congress in correspondence with the Treasury Department.
“I was born in San Francisco in 1939, served my country as an army officer from 1961 to 1963, have been paying U.S. income taxes for 57 years, since 1952, have continually maintained federal voting residence, and hold a valid American passport.”
Mr. Flynn had held an account with a U.S. bank for 44 years. Still, he wrote, “they said that the new anti-terrorism rules required them to close our account because of our address outside the U.S.”
Kathleen Rittenhouse, who lives in Canada, wrote that until she encountered a similar problem, “I did not know that the Patriot Act placed me in the same category as terrorists, arms dealers and money launderers.”
Andy Sundberg, another director of American Citizens Abroad, said, “These banks are closing our accounts as acts of prudent self-defense.” But the result, he said, is that expats have become “toxic citizens.”
The Americans Abroad Caucus, headed by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, has made repeated entreaties to the Treasury Department.
In response, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner wrote Ms. Maloney on Feb. 24 that “nothing in U.S. financial law and regulation should make it impossible for Americans living abroad to access financial services here in the United States.”
But banks, Treasury officials note, are free to ignore that advice.
“That Americans living overseas are being denied banking services in U.S. banks, and increasingly in foreign banks, is unacceptable,” Ms. Maloney said in a letter Friday to leaders of the House Financial Services Committee, requesting a hearing on the question.
Mr. Wilson, joining her request, said that pleas from expats for relief “continue to come in at a startling rate.”
Relinquishing citizenship is relatively simple. The person must appear before a U.S. consular or diplomatic official in a foreign country and sign a renunciation oath. This does not allow a person to escape old tax bills or military obligations.
Now, expats’ representatives fear renunciations will become more common.
“It is a sad outcome,” Ms. Bugnion said, “but I personally feel that we are now seeing only the tip of the iceberg.”
