"There is no longer a rule of law"

Political discussion here. Any reasonable opinion is welcome, but due to the sensitive nature of the topic area, please be nice and respectful to others. No flaming or trolling, please. And please keep political commentary out of the other board areas and confine it to this area. Thanks!
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Indy
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Indy »

PS, I am not saying that about you, Dan. I haven't seen anything in +10 years here that would lead me to believe that about you. I am generalizing a bit, and also sharing specific examples of what I have experienced.

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Nodack
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

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I am torn on this subject. On one hand I don't think you should be rewarded with citizenship after sneaking into a country illegally.

On the other hand I believe we stole the land from Mexico to begin with, so complaining about Mexicans sneaking into the land that we stole from them is whacked. OK, so it was 180 years ago and ancient history, so many will say irrelevant now. I get my own opinion and I say it is relevant.

Anyway I have lived in AZ for a long time and I see politics played over and over with immigration. Bush was President. Janet Nepolitano was the AZ governor. Nepolitano constantly complained that Bush wasn't doing enough about illegal immigration. Standard politics between the two party's. Then Obama is elected President and picks Nepolitano to head Homeland Security and be in charge of the border. Right away Republicans complain that they aren't doing enough about illegal immigration.

I ask myself which President and or Congress has stopped illegal immigration in our history and the answer is none of them and yet we play this political game with immigration year after year blaming whoever is in charge and we never ever really address it.

Is what Obama doing legal? I have no real idea. At this point I am so sick of the partisan politics that I don't really care anymore. IMO it's all just part of the game both sides are playing and the real prize is elections and nobody really cares that much about illegal immigration aside from using it for political gain.

If one were to actually throw politics aside and just do the right thing then we can have that conversation. I am a moderate which means to me that meeting in the middle is almost always the best policy. What Obama is proposing from what I gather is that they won't all just automatically be citizens, but get green cards and pay taxes and have a shot at getting citizenship in the future allowing families to stay together. Part of me says they came here illegally so they should just be deported and end of story, but it is more complicated than that.

Do I agree with what Obama did? I haven't decided yet. He is forcing the issue along and getting a lot of heat from Republicans over it, but then again they are going to be against everything he does no matter what out of spite anyway and themselves have not done anything about it either aside from complaining about Obama not doing enough until he does, then he is overstepping his authority.

Politics.

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Dan H
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Dan H »

On the other hand I believe we stole the land from Mexico to begin with, so complaining about Mexicans sneaking into the land that we stole from them is whacked. OK, so it was 180 years ago and ancient history, so many will say irrelevant now. I get my own opinion and I say it is relevant.

Treaty = stolen? Hmm, okay. We controlled Mexico all the way down to Mexico City after the war, seems to me they did all right under the terms, considering.

Anyway I have lived in AZ for a long time and I see politics played over and over with immigration. Bush was President. Janet Nepolitano was the AZ governor. Nepolitano constantly complained that Bush wasn't doing enough about illegal immigration. Standard politics between the two party's. Then Obama is elected President and picks Nepolitano to head Homeland Security and be in charge of the border. Right away Republicans complain that they aren't doing enough about illegal immigration.

I agree with you. In a sense average working-class folk are pitted against both parties with this situation. The Republican establishment wants a source of cheap labor for business, whereas the Democrats want a reliable voting bloc. The fact that this runs contrary to established interests in both parties (Labor unions, for one, in the case of the Democrats, small-business owners and working types in the case of the Republicans) is mind-boggling. When Bush threw the trial balloon when he was President about amnesty, there was a huge backlash from within his own party so this very much isn't a partisan issue.

Do I agree with what Obama did? I haven't decided yet. He is forcing the issue along and getting a lot of heat from Republicans over it, but then again they are going to be against everything he does no matter what out of spite anyway and themselves have not done anything about it either aside from complaining about Obama not doing enough until he does, then he is overstepping his authority.

The problem is the Republicans have passed legislation in the House of Representatives but Harry Reid hasn't brought hardly any of it to a vote in the Senate. It's not so much Obama being obstructionist as it is the outgoing Majority Leader. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/rig ... paralysis/

In this case I have to give Obama a pass in a sense because it's not like he's vetoing bills left and right, he's not getting any to sign. Which in a sense gives him an excuse to do this, but a big root cause of that is Harry Reid.

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Dan H
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Dan H »

Indy wrote:PS, I am not saying that about you, Dan. I haven't seen anything in +10 years here that would lead me to believe that about you. I am generalizing a bit, and also sharing specific examples of what I have experienced.
Thanks, I appreciate that.

The funny thing is the automatic assumption is that illegal immigrants are Hispanic; not sure of the veracity and I can't find it now but I saw something the other day that indicated most illegals in the past five years or so have actually been from Asian countries. So it's not (or shouldn't) necessarily be a nationality issue, it's a law-breaking issue.

I think we can all agree that this, if accurate, is a problem: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... charges-s/

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Mori Chu
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Mori Chu »

Good post, 'Dack. I like reading your thoughts on these complex issues. I totally agree that the immigration issue mostly just becomes a political sledgehammer and nobody really ever does anything about it other than point fingers. Living in Tucson for 20 years gave me mixed feelings about immigration. We all want to stop those evil Messicans from stealing our jobs, but we also want cheap food and shoes and yard work and other goods and services. And most of us don't want the labor jobs that these guys are taking in the first place. And it seems like the worst state of all is to have them here, illegally, but not paying any taxes or contributing into the system. Bleh.

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Indy
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Indy »

Mori Chu wrote:Good post, 'Dack. I like reading your thoughts on these complex issues. I totally agree that the immigration issue mostly just becomes a political sledgehammer and nobody really ever does anything about it other than point fingers. Living in Tucson for 20 years gave me mixed feelings about immigration. We all want to stop those evil Messicans from stealing our jobs, but we also want cheap food and shoes and yard work and other goods and services. And most of us don't want the labor jobs that these guys are taking in the first place. And it seems like the worst state of all is to have them here, illegally, but not paying any taxes or contributing into the system. Bleh.
If they are working for a business that isn't lying, they pay income taxes already, likely much more than they should since they don't file for returns. And they obviously pay the sales taxes we all do. I think the only way we miss out on taxes is if they work strictly for cash and never buy something from a store.


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Nodack
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

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Treaty = stolen? Hmm, okay. We controlled Mexico all the way down to Mexico City after the war, seems to me they did all right under the terms, considering.
Here is my take on that one. There was a group of Americans that decided that they were sick of America and paying taxes and decided to start their own country and call it Texas. They moved into Mexico and set up shop. Mexico being as lenient as they were about illegal immigration told them that it was ok to live there, but it is Mexico and they would have to pay taxes like everybody else does. The "Texans" said hell no, we left the USA to get away from paying taxes and we aren't about to start paying you didily squat. Mexico decided a show of force was needed and brought in the army to enforce their laws.

The Texans fearing for their lives sent a message to the USA asking for help from the Mexican army. The US said screw you Texans, you left the country to start your own country and aren't Americans anymore to us so good luck, but you are on your own. The Mexican army and the Texans met at the Alamo. The Texans refused to surrender. The Texans fought bravely before all dying at the hands of the Mexican army.

The US after that decided that OMG the Mexicans just slaughtered our fellow Americans and now we will avenge their deaths. The USA sent their superior military after the Mexican Army and grabbed their leader Santa Anna and said sign over all the land that we now call Texas, New Mecico, AZ and California over to us or we will kill you. He agreed and our nations "Manifest Destiny" was realized and we have been trying to kick out Mexicans trying to illegally enter our country ever since.

They did sign it so it was legal I guess. Germany killed millions and we won and didn't take part of their country. We beat the Japanese with an unconditional surrender and didn't take any of their land from them. We stuck a gun up to Santa Anna's head and said we are taking a huge chunck of your country because we can.

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Dan H
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Dan H »

They did sign it so it was legal I guess. Germany killed millions and we won and didn't take part of their country. We beat the Japanese with an unconditional surrender and didn't take any of their land from them. We stuck a gun up to Santa Anna's head and said we are taking a huge chunck of your country because we can.

We technically still occupy parts of Japan and Germany to this day.

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Nodack
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Nodack »

Technically I guess. We have US Military bases there, but we didn't carve the country in two and say this half is now part of the US forever like we did in Mexico and start building walls to keep the illegal alien Germans and Japanese from entering while we build new American cities populated with only Americans.

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Indy
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Re: "There is no longer a rule of law"

Post by Indy »

Nodack wrote:
Treaty = stolen? Hmm, okay. We controlled Mexico all the way down to Mexico City after the war, seems to me they did all right under the terms, considering.
Here is my take on that one. There was a group of Americans that decided that they were sick of America and paying taxes and decided to start their own country and call it Texas. They moved into Mexico and set up shop. Mexico being as lenient as they were about illegal immigration told them that it was ok to live there, but it is Mexico and they would have to pay taxes like everybody else does. The "Texans" said hell no, we left the USA to get away from paying taxes and we aren't about to start paying you didily squat. Mexico decided a show of force was needed and brought in the army to enforce their laws.

The Texans fearing for their lives sent a message to the USA asking for help from the Mexican army. The US said screw you Texans, you left the country to start your own country and aren't Americans anymore to us so good luck, but you are on your own. The Mexican army and the Texans met at the Alamo. The Texans refused to surrender. The Texans fought bravely before all dying at the hands of the Mexican army.

The US after that decided that OMG the Mexicans just slaughtered our fellow Americans and now we will avenge their deaths. The USA sent their superior military after the Mexican Army and grabbed their leader Santa Anna and said sign over all the land that we now call Texas, New Mecico, AZ and California over to us or we will kill you. He agreed and our nations "Manifest Destiny" was realized and we have been trying to kick out Mexicans trying to illegally enter our country ever since.

They did sign it so it was legal I guess. Germany killed millions and we won and didn't take part of their country. We beat the Japanese with an unconditional surrender and didn't take any of their land from them. We stuck a gun up to Santa Anna's head and said we are taking a huge chunck of your country because we can.
Great summary Dack.


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