Couple of quick points. Why are we so hot and heavy to use force to solve the issue? I understand that there is a violent situation to deal with, but is there no other solution? Our argument is we have more guns, lets use them. When my liberal bleeding heart (as some of you would call me) way of thinking says, why don't we figure out WHY these things are going on and deal with those issues. With great power come great responsibility, we are by a factor 3 (compared to our closest rival), the richest most powerful nation on the planet. Why is it, we chose force first to solve the issues.
There are reasons people are flowing into our country illegally. We pay them to do it.
There are reasons people are pumping drugs into our country. We pay them to do it.
People love to rant about how the government is not doing anything. Yet deportations are UP, arrests are UP, enforcement is UP. But it's not stopping the flow, it's just upping the ante, the desperate are getting more desperate and thus more violent. Why? Because we are not addressing the real issues we are just blaming the poor for being poor. Passing laws against them, and then calling them criminals.
I am no pacifist, I have no problem putting boot to ass to those who chose violence against our country. But I get very upset when we lump people who pick lettuce to feed their families together with those who chose violence against us to feed theirs. Instead of looking to inflict harm, we should see our neighbors as people in need of help, and reach out in kindness, bringing our great wealth and blessings to bare, to what we can all plainly see is a desperate population of people.
I'm not saying we pay our way out of the problem. What I am saying is we need to think our way out of the problem. Saying it's not our fault, is one th
I am no pacifist, I have no problem putting boot to ass to those who chose violence against our country. But I get very upset when we lump people who pick lettuce to feed their families together with those who chose violence against us to feed theirs. Instead of looking to inflict harm, we should see our neighbors as people in need of help, and reach out in kindness, bringing our great wealth and blessings to bare, to what we can all plainly see is a desperate population of people.
I'm not saying we pay our way out of the problem. What I am saying is we need to think our way out of the problem. Saying it's not our fault, is one th
As to why are we so hot and heavy to use force to control the border issue, A few thoughts:
ReplyDeleteThese people that are running drugs and people through this area are heavily armed and have shown a willingness, even eagerness to kill people that have just looked at them funny, let alone for wearing a badge. Holding a sit in around the park to protest these people and bring more non violet measures to bear will not be respected by this type of person. You might as well just set up a shooting gallery and hand out big whit T-shirts with bullseye painted on it to make it easier. Use of superior fire power and a show of force is what they respect and understand. One of my favorite Quotes from Orson Scott card, granted this came from fiction is, "The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you." a little jaded perhaps but it definitely applies to these people.
As far as the drug issue is concerned, I agree, we are paying these people to bring it into our country this way. My personal opinion is legalize all drugs...let the people that want to use them do so safely and legally. give them an area to use them and offer them help and council for those who need it.
Labor issue and illegal immigration, I think we should allow people to come into this country to work and build businesses. Apply all of the minimum wage laws and allow them to join labor organizations. If however they want to just come here and sit on their asses they can go home...we already have plenty of american citizens willing to do that. On a side yet I feel connected note. If our country doesn't start producing more physical commodities and at lower prices we will never be able to compete...This country was a great producer once and could be again if it makes sense to companies to open production and produce in the states. This sense of entitlement in America from above and below in corporate and blue collar america, must end. The logic of person or persons that says; I, we fought for this amount of pay and we are never giving it up even if it means that this whole line of business must fail because of our unwillingness to change. The opposite extreme of White collar america that says I,We can make an extra million and put it in my pocket and Labor can go pound salt. They then ride the golden goose until it is no longer viable take all of their loot and go do it to another line of business leaving wreckage in their wake, is crap as well.
As usual Lance, we agree. I understand the need for force, and that some people in this world only respect one thing. That was not what I was driving at, on the larger picture we need to remove the underlying causes, not just throw weapons at the issue. Not sure about legalizing all drugs, but willing to look at that.
ReplyDeleteOn the immigration issue, I think that is a big part of what we need. We issue about 5000 work visas for the 12 million jobs the undocumented people do (source is an NPR interview). So there is no line to stand in for these people, yet there is work they can get if they can get over here. Given those options, I think most of us would probably do the same thing.
I'm not condoning illegal behavior, I'm saying the law doesn't work for the circumstances. These people are criminals because we moved the target. We changed the law to make them criminals. All because some politician wanted to get elected, and found a way to frame up the Mexican day worker as the cause of all our woes. (decades ago, they would go back and forth to work legally).
Agreed on us needing to bring back the manufacturing base in this country. The people at the top have been fleecing the nation for decades. Eventually, all that will be left is revolution. History has shown us that, time and time again.
So we once again we come back to the laws that are enacted and the people that are elected. The only reason term limits are even a conversation in our country is because it seems that most of the American populace are lemmings. They pick either the Democratic or Republican party and punch their card in a direct party ticket. These people never do the work necessary to look at what these individual people stand for, they don't want to think for themselves they would rather be told what to think. I would like to think if they did the optimal term limit would come into effect and they would be voted out of office. I feel that this is because of the tendency of most people to go to the polls and vote the incumbent back in automatically either by choice or more likely because they have heard the incumbents name and it sounds familiar and people like things that are familiar and they feel they know. Its beginning to look more and more like the story "The Marching Morons" it is a fiction story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, about how A man was put into suspended animation and woke up in the future. Due to the combination of intelligent people not having children and excessive breeding by less intelligent people, the world is now full of morons, with the exception of an elite few who work continuously trying to keep order. This was obviously seen as a problem in 1951 when it was written. So a trend similar to this was seen as a problem back then as well, or it could be this is the future he was warning us about.
ReplyDeleteI love that your opening salvo sounds like a political ad for a Democratic candidate, "Why are we so hot and heavy to use force to solve the issue?".
ReplyDeleteI think that one reason that you wind up with groups like the Minutemen is because, as citizens, we cannot make the necessary policies to hold companies and individual responsible for only hiring citizens or legal workers to do jobs around the country. And the people that we have elected do not seem to find enough of a benefit(financial or power based)to enact such legislation and enforce it. So, you have citizen who have no choice but to revert to what we can control, and that is the barrel of a gun pointed at the border.
I agree completely that we should have a "guest worker" program to allow people to come here temporarily to perform the manual labor tasks that are apparently below our own throngs of unemployed. I do not think that if somebody is here to pick lettuce for a couple of months and drops a baby, that the baby should be a US citizen. I think that apart of the "millions of jobs" that the illegals do number is that because they are being taken advantage of by corporate america and home-owners(think landscaping) alike there are more people employed at a lower wage. Instead of having to pay a living wage(well above minimum wage) and pay taxes, employers instead chose to hire twice as many illegals and pay them half as much while not having to contribute to
social security, income tax, and the like.
Unfortunately, we have too many jellyfish in Washington who think they are biting the hand that feeds by regulating business, instead of taking the longview of "Change we can believe in"!