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Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Immigration -- what's the big deal? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Back at the start of this country there was virtually unregulated immigration, Don't you think that things are different today than they were at the start of the country?
and I don't see any moral justification for more regulation or barriers to immigration. If we get too full or cannot afford to immigrate more people, then that would justify more regulations/barriers, no?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
The aboriginal people tried that approach. Did they? In what way?
Their barriers didn't work. What barriers? In any event, they weren't strong enough - we were stronger.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Back at the start of this country there was virtually unregulated immigration,
Don't you think that things are different today than they were at the start of the country? What I meant was: the country today is nothing like it was in the beginning, so the immigration laws that worked back then probably are not going to work today.
If we get too full or cannot afford to immigrate more people, then that would justify more regulations/barriers, no? What is "too full" -- and by who's standard? Does New York City have too many immigrants? Oh, I don't know the particulars. You said that you didn't see any moral justification for more regulation or barriers to immigration. I was offering being too full or having too little money as possible justifications for you to consider. They would justify it, no?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I was offering being too full or having too little money as possible justifications for you to consider. They would justify it, no? I don't see why. Well, if you run out of money then your whole country collapses. And then you can't help anybody. Its too full when you're having trouble keeping a healthy environment for the immigrants. Out of curiosity, have you ever played a civilization simulator?
So it will just be a feeling? It was a thought. To your question...
It's a matter of being unabashedly committed to the basic founding principles of this country, that all people are created equal, entitled to freedom, liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness, and the inalienable rights of ALL people ... The founding principles? No, those were for white people. Mostly white male land-owners. But yes, we have expanded on it quite a bit since then.
... that means that the people who just happen to live in the US are no more special than other people ... there is no citizenship test for people born here ... Well, that's not what that meant, but I get what you're saying.
But those laws did not change because something dreadful happened or because we ran out of room, How do you know? I now have reason to read your links, so I will, but I don't have the time at the moment. I'll get to it tomorrow. I can just reply to that post again, if you want to wait, or I can throw it in to a reply to your reply to this if you can't.
they changed because of xenophobia and fear. What do you mean by xenophobia? The definitions I see include qualifiers like unreasonable and irrational. If there's good reasons for the laws, then I don't they should be called xenophobic.
But those laws did not change because something dreadful happened or because we ran out of room, they changed because of xenophobia and fear. Anyways, that's quite a case to build. Do you have anything else to support it besides links to those laws? ABE:
The first laws were fairly simple:
quote: The ""free white persons"" is fairly consistent with the Constitution restrictions on voting rights. Okay, so "in the beginning", citizenship was only for white people. And, you had to apply; They didn't have to give it to you if they didn't want to. If they didn't think you had a good enough moral character, then that was reason enough to deny you citizenship. So, as I said, that's not really going to work today.
The first restrictive\exclusive immigration laws were ~ 1900:
quote: If you look into the background of that act, you'll find stuff like:
quote: So they thought they were running out of money. Not that that rules out xenophobia too. I thought it was interesting that the people who pushed for allowing the Chinese to immigrate did so not because they were unabashedly committed to the inalienable rights of ALL people, but instead because of the money they could make off these people:
quote: For this one:
quote: I do see the whole "fear" thing, but if it is warranted fear, and the Bolshevik Revolution was something they didn't want happening here, then I'm not so sure that fear is unreasonable or irrational and, thus, I don't think it should be called xenophobic. In hind sight, it may appear unwarranted, but the people living in those times don't have that luxury. I don't think its fair to just assume that they were "hating others". Perhaps they did have good reasons for wanting to preserve that "American homogeneity". I don't know, I'll have to look into it more. Edited by Cat Sci, : see ABE
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Tomahawks. Uh, yeah, our "barriers" have had significant technological improvements since then. You think that might have something to do with whether or not they will work?
And who's to say that the new wave of immigrants won't be stronger than us? Got anyone in mind?
I wish a muthafucka would
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You've totally lost me.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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We're probably not going to send the army after them with either tomahawks or Tomahawk missiles. When was the last time you were a brown guy wandering around southern Arizona without your papers?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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How's that working out in Arizona. I dunno, I was in Scottsdale a little while ago, it was really nice. Its kinda funny down there though. You see, there's a whole lot of Mexicans that live by me, two towns down (its where my parents grew up and I've spent a lot of time there, I'm friends with a lot of Mexicans - some of them are the real Vato types), I took four years of Spanish in high-school and I can get by speaking it, but I'm not fluent or anything. Anyways, I'm down in Arizona working with a customer and we go to a bar and the bartender is hispanic and I can tell by his accent that he's Mexican. So I order my drink in Spanish - and the customer was kinda offended and was all: "Why are you speaking spanish to that guy?" And I'm like, well, he's Mexican, he speaks Spanish and its no big deal. Then he was all: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't call them Mexicans down here - they're hispanics" He was implying that I was an ignorant hick, or something. So I call the bartender over and ask him where he's originally from. He tells us that he's from Mexico. And then I go: "See, he's Mexican." Then I proceed to explain that 'Mexican' is a nationality, not an ethnicity, and I was referring to the guys nation of origin and that it was actually okay for me to speak Spanish to the guy because I was not being offensive. The bartender actually appreciated it. Anyways, it was a bit of a culture shock for me in that people were so afraid of being politically correct that I couldn't even describe the nation that a guy came from for fear of offending some kind of cultural sensitivity or something. In the end, it was the guy from Arizona that was the ignorant hick and took offense to something completely innocuous and then tried to correct my behavior on it. I'm not sure why I'm telling this story, other than it was a weird situation for me that I was reminded of when you mentioned how Arizona was doing. I guess they're doing okay, but they do seem to be a bit sensitive with the whole Mexican thing going on down there.
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