old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:I don't think you'll find 30+ thousand references to immigration on Salon.com as you said there were however.
I can't argue with complete denial of reality! You don't have to
think! You have to
CLICK THIS LINK
AND
LOOK!!!
Go there! Right now! Look at the results you get! Look at the number of results you get!
I did the Hercalean job of clicking the link and looking at the top line of the results, and read:
Web Ergebnisse 1 - 10 von ungefähr 39.300 aus www.salon.com für immigration .
Now surely you dont have to speak German to understand that this says there are about 39.300 results for "immigration" on
www.salon.com. Just being remotely intelligent will do.
Now apparently the result, as explained by Sozobe, differs depending on where you are (dynamic Google settings), and obviously, there will be a lot of duplicate results included in the tally (one for every page on which an article about immigration is linked, for example). But whether its 25.000 or 30.000 or 39.300 or just 7.000, it's clearly far more than none.
More relevantly, meanwhile (considering that Foxfyre did, eventually, after three pages or so, admit that there were more than none), the Google result for <"anchor baby" site:salon.com> from where I'm sitting is:
5.
Which means that Foxfyre was indeed also easily proven wrong on the actual point she was making in the below quote, regardless of whether she'll ever acknowledge it:
Foxfyre wrote:Was it Blatham who said that he couldn't find 'anchor baby" on Salon.com? I couldn't find "immigration" there either. Shall we therefore conclude that 'immigration' is not a term widely used or understood? See what I mean?
OCCOM BILL wrote:Nimh, while your piece did seem to fit our Foxy quite well, it was just as absurdly hyper partisan in it's separation of tendency between Democrats and Republicans.
Sure sure.. in my defense I did only call it "somewhat interesting", and explicited that "I have my qualms with it: it's certainly not balanced, and in all but ignoring the Wilson- and Truman-era Red Scares it's simply not fair. There's also some minor offensive rhetorical tricks [example mentioned]. Hence only pasting in excerpts below."
It was of limited value and had its own serious partisan flaws, but it did happen to include some points relevant to the moment.
For example..
old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Was it Blatham who said that he couldn't find 'anchor baby" on Salon.com? I couldn't find "immigration" there either.
I see that you are unable to use an internet search machine:
0 results for "anchor baby" on
www.salon.com -->
click
37.200 results for "immigration" on
www.salon.com -->
click
Why do you keep on posting statements that are just factually wrong, Foxy? I don't understand that. Do you think it helps your argument when your statements can be shown to be incorrect within 10 seconds?
I've been puzzled by this more than once. There is a seemingly visceral unwillingness to even click a bloody link unless pushed and pushed again.
I once, in a thread about some other subject, was arguing a position but while researching it found also a few links contradicting it and suggesting something more like what Fox was saying. So I brought those, too, into the thread, saying - well, if you
do want to defend the position you have, one place where you can actually find some valid / persuasive data that seems to substantiate it, is here and here and here. She never clicked the links. I pressed her again later, twice even or so, saying something like, "these are links that actually make your case! You could find some actual serious points or data to help you here!" But no, she wouldnt.
And I do think it has something to do with a particular partisan mindset, in which literally everything the "other side" presents or comes up with, has to be shunned in suspicion and warded off as if it could be harmful to even peruse it - or simply out of principle.
And - to return to O'Bill, that is the same mindset that this flawed article had a good enough lead on in its opening para, eg,
Quote:Last month National Public Radio listeners said they were shocked when former House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay explained why he wouldn't talk to Democratic lobbyists: "Why would I meet with an enemy?" But in saying that anybody "who wanted to make me the minority whip" was not just a political opponent, an American with legitimate if differing interests, but rather an enemy to be shunned, DeLay wasn't speaking some strange, new, fanatical language,
I don't know why you felt you had to explain, Nimh. I concur 100%. Did you miss
this post, or fail to realize which brilliant man I was paraphrasing in the bottom paragraph? :wink:
I just couldn't; not point out the hypocrisy in the balance, because both sides seem to enjoy the partisan blinders equally. I'm watching it right now on a Pelosi thread.
Walter Hinteler wrote:re Powell: I've seen him in England and noticed how he could fire up the masses.
And polarise.
I still wonder how he could persuade Thatcher to act against the German unification.
Well, actually I don't wonder at all.
Walter - what the late Enoch Powell might or might not have said to Mrs. Thatcher I simply don't know, but I do know I was standing about one meter away when a relative (cousin of Tante Ingeborg, remember her?!) discussed with Helmut Kohl, then Bundeskanzler, a possible deal with the Russians about Koenigsberg.
The Russians were really really broke at the time and only wanted money - land, and more land, they've always had. Kohl had no problem with either the Russians or money, he said, but it was these goddamn Poles always getting in the way - they even got to Mrs. Thatcher and cried a lot when they heard about Vereinigung. I know of no overt sympathy of Powell with Poland, but there may be some connection there - perhaps the distinguished scholar Old Europe has also heard of the proverbial Polish plumber working in France, in addition to his Latino illegals in the U.S.?
High Seas wrote:perhaps the distinguished scholar Old Europe has also heard of the proverbial Polish plumber working in France, in addition to his Latino illegals in the U.S.?
They're allowed in now, by the way - in France. Well, not plumbers, but Polish bricklayers and concrete pourers, boiler-makers and sheet-metal workers, travelling salesmen and maintenance agents - France has opened its borders to all of them and many more, after all, this year.
Quote:Eastern Europe is knocking on France's door
Bricklayers and concrete pourers, boiler-makers and sheet-metal workers, travelling salesmen and maintenance agents: there is barely anything except the much sought after plumber - no doubt a slip of the pen - that is not included in the long list of occupations open since 1 January to Romanian and Bulgarian workers, the latest to join the EU; a list drawn up by Employment Minister Gerard Larcher in his memo of 22 December.
The image of the appealing young Polish plumber, toolbag slung across his shoulders, coming to offer his services in France, sowed panic during the referendum on the European constitution in May 2005.
As of May 2006, the much feared wolf has been in the sheepfold. From the public works sector to cleaning, and including catering, commerce and the "processing industry", France is allowing members of the eight EU states that joined in 2004 (Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia) to work in 62 occupations identified as suffering from a labour shortage. This right was also granted to the Bulgarians and Romanians as soon as they joined the EU, in January, whereas the Poles, Hungarians and Czechs had to wait two years. [..]
OCCOM BILL wrote:I don't know why you felt you had to explain, Nimh. I concur 100%. Did you miss
this post, or fail to realize which brilliant man I was paraphrasing in the bottom paragraph? :wink:
I know I know.. (and thanks :wink: ) - I guess I was just explaining that I agree about the partisan nature of that article, and bringing up in my defense that I had noted it when I originally copied/pasted it in here..
ps... and when you get that room, break from your huddle for a second or two and walk over to a mirror and take a gander at your grins. Are they not the very same? There's something heaven-made here.
Hmm, I've already heard that some are in the seventh heaven ...
That's true, Walter, those planning to spend next summer at the new Club Med getting built on the shores of the Laptev Sea
http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/rularge.gif
What Does Illegal Immigration Cost?
A new study tries to nail down an answer.
By Byron York
When George W. Bush visited the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma Station Headquarters in Arizona Monday ?- for the second time in a year ?- his message on illegal immigration sounded a bit tougher than in the past. "Illegal immigration is a serious problem ?- you know it better than anybody," he told a group of border agents. "It puts pressure on the public schools and the hospitals, not only here in our border states, but states around the country. It drains the state and local budgets
Incarceration of criminals who are here illegally strains the Arizona budget. But there's a lot of other ways it strains the local and state budgets. It brings crime to our communities."
The president touted his get-tough-on-the-border policies, enacted under pressure from the then-Republican Congress, and singled out Operation Jump Start, under which National Guard troops assist border agents. But he also stressed the need for "comprehensive" reform, and when he did his message sounded like the George W. Bush of old. "Past efforts at reform failed to address the underlying economic reasons behind illegal immigration," the president said. "People are coming here to put food on the table, and they're doing jobs Americans are not doing."
With those words, the president was revisiting the great question in the debate over illegal immigration: Is the presence of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, a boon to the U.S. economy, or a drag? It's a question that has long divided Bush supporters; the Wall Street Journal editorial page tells us that a lenient immigration policy is absolutely vital for American prosperity, while enforcement-first advocates tell us a strict policy is the only thing that will ensure continued economic health.
Both have plenty of statistics to cite to make their case. But now a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, has found a new and revealing way to get at the answer.
Rector has just published a study, "The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Households to the U.S. Taxpayer," that is ostensibly not about immigration at all. He takes the most detailed look yet at the economics of the 17.7 million American households made up of people without a high-school degree. With numbers from the Census Bureau, the Congressional Research Service, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other government agencies, Rector found what they make, what they spend, and how much they receive in government services.
The reason Rector chose to look at low-skilled workers is that it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of illegal immigrants fall into that category. (By way of comparison, slightly less than ten percent of native-born Americans are in that group.) By focusing on those workers, Rector was able to make use of information on them that is more detailed and precise than information on immigrants as a whole. And any conclusions he reached would be applicable to a large majority of illegal immigrants who are already in this country as well as those who would come here under various immigration reform proposals.
Rector began by calculating the dollar value of the benefits those low-skill workers receive from the government. There are direct benefits, like Medicare and Social Security, and means-tested benefits, like food, housing and medical benefits specifically for low-income people. Then there is public education, along with population-based services like police and fire protection, parks, and roads. (Those services benefit everyone, and their cost usually increases as the population increases.) After that, there is interest on the public debts, a burden spread throughout all income groups, and the cost of what Rector calls "pure public goods" ?- national defense, scientific research, and a few other areas ?- which benefit everyone but do not necessarily rise in cost as the population rises.
Rector found that in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, low-skill households received an average of $32,138 per household ?- the great majority in the form of means-tested aid and direct benefits. (Rector excluded from that figure the cost of public goods and interest; with those included, he says, each low-skill household receives an average of $43,084.) Against that, Rector found that low-skill households paid an average of $9,689 in taxes. (The biggest chunk of that was the Social Security tax ?- $2,509 ?- followed by state and local taxes, consumption taxes, property taxes, and federal income taxes, but Rector counted everything, including highway levies and lottery purchases.) In the final calculation, he found, the average low-skill household received $22,449 more in benefits than it paid in taxes ?- the $32,138 in benefits, excluding public goods, minus the $9,689 in taxes.
Taking that $22,449, and multiplying it by the 17.7 million low-skill households, Rector found that the total deficit for such households was $397 billion in 2004. "Over the next ten years the total cost of low-skill households to the taxpayer (immediate benefits minus taxes paid) is likely to be at least $3.9 trillion," Rector writes. "This number would go up significantly if changes in immigration policy lead to substantial increases in the number of low-skill immigrants entering the country and receiving services."
From a purely money perspective, it's a powerful argument. At a cost of $22,449 per household per year ?- well, multiply that by an adult lifespan of 50 years and you have an average lifetime cost to the taxpayer of $1.1 million per unskilled worker. Increase that population with a wave of unskilled immigrants, and you're talking a lot of money.
There's probably room for argument on Rector's exact numbers. Jeffrey Passell, a senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center, questions whether some of Rector's cost estimates might be too high. For example, the arrival of new illegal immigrations will likely not raise the cost of defending the country, he says, so perhaps future immigrants will not be quite as expensive as Rector claims. (Rector tried to address that issue by excluding the cost of pure public goods in the $22,449 figure.) Still, Passell does not question the basic premise of Rector's report. "One of the purposes of our government is to provide support for people on the low end," says Passell. "Of course there is a bit more spending on households on the lower end than on the high end, and of course the low-income households don't pay as much as the high-income households. That's not surprising."
The bigger argument over Rector's approach is whether illegal immigrants bring economic benefits that outweigh their undisputed costs. Tamar Jacoby, an advocate of comprehensive reform who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, points to a study done recently of immigrants in North Carolina which estimated that in the past ten years Hispanic immigrants had cost the state $61 million in benefits while being responsible for more than $9 billion in economic growth. "Yes, the individual might cost more in services," says Jacoby, "but they are growing the pie so significantly that that cost pales in comparison."
Not so, says Rector. "The problem is, the growth to the pie that they make, they eat," he explains. The economic growth reflected in the numbers, he says, is what the immigrant workers are making. "To the extent that they make the pie grow any bit more than what they take out of the pie in wages, it is very subtle, and it would be a tiny fraction of the gross domestic product growth," Rector says.
And that means something for the immigration debate, and for George W. Bush's proposals. "Every one of these [reform] bills envisions bringing in millions and millions of additional low-skill immigrants with the right to access welfare and become citizens," says Rector. "Within ten years, you would have four million of these individuals, each of whom can bring family. You'd be looking at a cost of $80 billion per year." Perhaps Congress and the president will decide to do that. But if Robert Rector is correct, no one should underestimate the cost.
What's draining the federal budget is the war in Iraq - at two billion dollars every week. On top of all that, we lose an average of 14 GIs during that period.
By Ian de Silva
April 12, 2007
One of the first signs of anarchy is when law-enforcement officers arrest common sense while allowing political correctness to roam free. In Virginia Beach, near Norfolk, the reaction of city officials to the deaths of two beautiful teen-age girls is a case in point.
On the night of March 30, a Mexican illegal alien, driving drunk, plowed into the teen-agers' car as they waited for a light to turn green. This tragedy has attracted a lot of attention since then, even leading to a much-ballyhooed verbal slugfest between Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera on Fox News Channel.
In reaction to the media reports, the police chief posted a long statement on the city's Web site. It is worth considering his statement because his attitude is typical of the attitude of many police departments around the country on the issue of illegal aliens.
After a perfunctory expression of condolences to the two families of the teens, the chief launches his response to the critics: "I find it ironic that, had the intoxicated driver been born and raised in Virginia Beach, little notice would have been given to this senseless tragedy by either the media or the community at large." A couple of paragraphs later, he says that "most who have been outspoken about this most recent, and all too common, tragedy have lost perspective and focus on what the teaching point actually is."
And what could be the teaching point? The chief declares that the two teens died "because the other driver was driving after consuming alcohol, not because he is illegally in the country."
It is obvious that the chief has failed to grasp a very simple concept. It is bad enough that we have homegrown criminals and drunk drivers ?- we do not need the additional burden of dealing with foreign-born criminals and drunk drivers, especially those who have no right to be here in the first place. After all, if the illegal alien had not been in the country that night, the accident would not have happened in the first place. And two beautiful American teens would be alive today.
An analogy is in order. Imagine a burglar breaking into your home and helping himself to the liquor in your basement bar. Thus drunk, he destroys your furniture and defaces the walls. Now, does it make any sense to say that your property was damaged not because he broke into your home but because he drank the liquor? Of course not. He should not have trespassed on your home in the first place.
Likewise, the illegal alien's trespassing on the country is the problem here ?- it was his presence in the country that led to the death of the girls. To argue otherwise is to engage in shameless sophistry.
As an immigrant who went to a great deal of trouble to come here legally, I am a naturalized American who has very little patience for illegal aliens and their supporters. For too long, the liberal press has sugarcoated the invasion of illegals with politically correct reports ?- an attitude that has now metastasized to other organs of American life. For instance, even the Virginia Beach police chief refers to the illegal alien as an "undocumented alien." I wonder if he refers to rapists in his town as unwelcome sexual partners or to drug dealers as unlicensed pharmacists.
To immigrants like me, who respected America's laws enough to ask for permission to come aboard before coming aboard, illegal aliens are an abomination. They are the antithesis of everything that is good about immigration. They do not deserve respect.
The Virginia Beach illegal alien had been arrested and convicted several times before, but he was allowed to roam again, mainly due to the timidity of our justice system, whose officers routinely believe that asking a suspect for his immigration status is offending his rights. Had his status been investigated and him deported, two beautiful American teen-agers would be alive today.
So, here is a question for those in law enforcement who believe that checking a suspect's immigration status is violating his rights: Was the right of the two girls to live into adulthood a lesser right than the purported right of an illegal alien to be left alone? Virginia Beach is not unique in its laissez-faire attitude toward illegal aliens. Our federal government has precisely the same attitude. And the illegals know this. That is why they have come in millions. So, as Congress and President Bush get ready to discuss amnesty for illegal aliens again, we should ask them a simple question: What makes you think that people who came here trampling the law will suddenly respect the law just because you legalize them?
au, Your last post explains why illegal immigration is not ethical or legal. On the legal side, any American breaking the laws in another country will find themselves without the "legal" rights we find in the US.
Why are so many Americans ready to abondon our laws for illegal immigrants?
CI
That is a question for Brown and friends not I.
au wrote: CI
That is a question for Brown and friends not I.
Fully understood; but you're one of the few on this thread who understands where we are on this issue.
cicerone imposter wrote:au wrote: CI
That is a question for Brown and friends not I.
Fully understood; but you're one of the few on this thread who understands where we are on this issue.
Its the "compassion" that they play on. While the rest of us see law breakers who are seeking awards for saying screw you and your laws.
Baldimo wrote:cicerone imposter wrote:au wrote: CI
That is a question for Brown and friends not I.
Fully understood; but you're one of the few on this thread who understands where we are on this issue.
Its the "compassion" that they play on. While the rest of us see law breakers who are seeking awards for saying screw you and your laws.
Not only that, but many of us on the pro-enforcement side also see the long range unintended consequences of ill advised and poorly thought through policies made in the name of compassion now. Had we had the foresight to anticipate some of the negative unintended consequences of our past welfare policies, for instance, we might have done those programs much more wisely.
I think that's what all of us on the pro-enforcement side, at least in some manner and to some degree, are asking for--let's do it smarter this time. If we do the same dumb things that have been tried in the past, we can realistically look for the problem to quadruple again in the next 20 years or less and that isn't compassion. That's stupidity. Evenmoreso in this post 9/11 world we live in.
If we could get past the kneejerk, hateful accusations from the pro-illegal-immigration group, not only on A2K but throughout the country, we could probably come to agreements that would meet everybody's needs who deserve to have their needs met and do it without weakening our economy, our security, or the qualities that makes America a place so many people want to be.
_________________
--Foxfyre
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
