Posted by 3Dee on February 21, 2011, 11:02 pm, in reply to "Re: Joe vs Jose"
Yeah, I'm bored with Illegal immigration. I see it on a legalistic end and I see it based on people I know. The people I know do not in any way fit the description of people who are leeches to the system. I bet they would be more than happy to contribute their income tax.
I could get into how shallow some of these arguments are, no doubt taken from right wing think tanks based solely on peoples' fears. Shallow, and inaccurate and do not at all tell the story - only put to the forefront the worst of the situation.
The first myth is that these people take more than they give or don't contribute to the economy. The only area in which that is correct is in income tax. How can they pay income tax if they are doing work that is not reported?
But I expect the convenient oversight of people who are benefitting society for the least gain, and still paying sales taxes and any other fees to benefit the economy.
Some say that citizenship rewards illegal behavior. I believe that should it be granted, it would reward work that someone did for less pay than they deserve and in sub-par conditions.
My A game is no better than anyone else's though -- Scour the internet for this...scour the internet for that. And if someone doesn't like that, they scour the internet for some goofy picture or youtube video.
So hell with the A game - I'm not scouring the internet. I know what I know - and individuals who are doing right by their families. They have actually found ways to remain here legally, thorough good and respected legal channels. I am please to see it.
I don't propose we make life any harder for these people. And if you do, get to know them.
At least the ones that I know personally, are not the slouches that people make them out to be. ----
---What's below this probably deserves its own topic..----
I can't quantify, and I'm not going to my think tank on that one. But I believe if you go to too many of these places, they will cater to your fears all day long.
Everyone from hate radio hosts to 'Community Reverends' play for the hearts and minds of men and women. They address their fears using far-fetched worst case scenario rhetoric.
We have to re-learn how to stand on our own again, and what it means. The next Tom, Dick or Harry - or Sean or Jesse - will be playing off what makes us angry, what scares us, and there might even be a Glenn trying to pry beneath our psyche. The Politicians have hired polished professionals to get us to their camp and the result has been a severely divided nation.
The next snake oil salesman is going to try to mold us to what he wants us to believe or what he has been hired to persuade us to believe.
That's where even scouring the internet for 'facts' does an injustice. Somehow data makes us more 'right', so we think.
But my perspective on this issue has no numbers. It has grandparents taking care of kids, while Mom is in Mexico, trying to bring back that one relation that cannot be replaced - mother and child. There is no substitute for that.
That is not in your numbers, that is not what the pundits are mindlessly spinning about.
Grandma loves the kids and can hold them...Dad tries but works 2-3 jobs because he actually is a citizen...and is the only one that can provide for the kids.
We have a broken system and it's not only quantified by numbers - but it's quantified by how many days before the kids wait for mom to come home. Having been educated in schools that dad paid taxes upon - do they stay in these schools with their English education - or do they go to Mexico and start all over again in Spanish - in a culture that really is foreign to them - as they were born here.
Statistics cannot illustrate those realities. Pundits don't have to comfort their kids when dad is out working and mom is not around. Pundits sure aren't helping grandma - neither are statistics.
So no - I don't have my 'A' game on for this conversation - nor are my debating skills sharpened for this conversation. My views are shaped on something wholly other - and wholly different than the worldview of pundits, statistics, etc.
on February 21, 2011, 11:02 pm, in reply to "