Citizen Border Patrols and the Law

LoneStarMadam wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

LoneStarMadam wrote:

Vigilant action has served this country well from time to time. When the gov't does not protect this country, then what? We just allow the intruders to march on? There's not just the economic hardship it brings, there's also the terrorists that it can bring. There's more than Mexicans/Canadians crossing the borders.

There are many examples of normal citizens deciding that they don't like what their government is doing (or not doing) and decided to take matters in their own hand.

One example of this waslynching. Lynch mobs told themselves that they were defending the law when the government couldn't protect them the way they wanted to be protected.

I can't think of a single example where this kind of "vigilant" activity turned out good.

The fact is we live in a democracy. For every American citizen who feels as you do that these worker constitute an invasion, there is at least one American citizen like me who feels that human beings should be treated with compassion irregardless of their status.

This is the reason that the attempt of some Republicans to pass harsh anti-illegal-immigrant legislation on the national level failed. They were unable to get the public support necessary (yes they got strong support from a very vocal minority, but many of us American citizens opposed them just as strongly.)

I am completely happy to work this out in a civilized manner-- through spirited public debate that leads to political movement through the Democratic process.

I would never suggest people taking up arms, even when conservatives have broken the law in their attempt to act against immigrants illegal or legal.

Let's at least agree to support the democratic process.

I enjoy reading your posts, you too stand for what you believe in & do it without the vitriol.
I believe that republicans & dems alike, not all of either party, are arm in arm in this lack of border control, & both for nefarious reasons, VOTES.
I welcome legal immigrants, where would we be without our ancestors. I do not support amnesty for those that sneaked across our borders, if nothing else, it isn't fair to those that have & are standing in line I am for sending them home, wherever that may be, & it isn't just Mexico.

Your implication that our ancestors were all legal immigrants is incorrect. Immigration laws started in the early 1900s and illegal immigration started then (before that there was no such thing).

Since the 1900s there have been millions of illegal immigrants from many European countries. The immigration laws through most of the 1900s had racial quotas that purposely discriminated against people from southern European Catholic contries. People who could get the limited number of visas, came legally. Those who didn't had many other options. Many were smuggled on ships (or stowed away). There was also a common practice of taking advantage of agricultural programs in Canada and then slipping accross our northen borders.

There are millions of Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, Polish Americans, Greek Americans and Chinese Americans who are descended from illegal immigrants, and probably most of them, thank to the fourteenth amendment, don't even know (or need to know).

There are millions of Americans who are only here because of amnesty.

Quote:

As for vigilantes, our forefathers could be looked at as such.

Quite the contrary. Our forfathers were law breakers (and immigrants). They broke the law with glee. Remember the Boston Tea party?

The Tories (Colonists who supported the British law and opposed the illegal revolution) were the vigilantes of the day.

Madam,

What is your opinion of Rosa Parks? She was recently honored for breaking the law?

ebrown_p wrote:

Madam,

What is your opinion of Rosa Parks? She was recently honored for breaking the law?

She was a US Citizen & should've ALWAYS been allowed to enjoy the fruits of that privelege/right, her Constitutional rights. The illegal immigrants enjoy no such rights.

LoneStarMadam wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

Madam,

What is your opinion of Rosa Parks? She was recently honored for breaking the law?

She was a US Citizen & should've ALWAYS been allowed to enjoy the fruits of that privelege/right, her Constitutional rights. The illegal immigrants enjoy no such rights.

Should have, but was not, by law. That law, like many related racist laws of the time, were injust. But they were the law.

During WW2, Japanese were rounded up and held in camps, by exisiting law. Injust, but that was the law.

And there's ebrown's example of the Boston Tea Party. Acts perpetrated there were in violation of existing law. Those individuals, now thought heroic, were lawbreakers.

Roy Moore, with his ten commandments monument, broke the law.

Laws are arbitrary tools we use to organize ourselves. Sometimes, they are injust or immoral or merely ineffective or overly restrictive and they are then, justifiably, ignored or rewritten or taken off the books.

They are breaking the law. That's the last ditch tactic argument, after they have failed to make us dislike, fear and mistrust them. When these "illegals" threads first began, there was that sort of progression of argument by the anti side. Of course, it takes less and less time to get to it just now. Fact is, most people find little or big ways to subvert the law, from running traffic lights to drinking a bit over the limit before driving. It's a matter of over reacting, selectively.

blatham wrote:

LoneStarMadam wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

Madam,

What is your opinion of Rosa Parks? She was recently honored for breaking the law?

She was a US Citizen & should've ALWAYS been allowed to enjoy the fruits of that privelege/right, her Constitutional rights. The illegal immigrants enjoy no such rights.

Should have, but was not, by law. That law, like many related racist laws of the time, were injust. But they were the law.

During WW2, Japanese were rounded up and held in camps, by exisiting law. Injust, but that was the law.

And there's ebrown's example of the Boston Tea Party. Acts perpetrated there were in violation of existing law. Those individuals, now thought heroic, were lawbreakers.

Roy Moore, with his ten commandments monument, broke the law.

Laws are arbitrary tools we use to organize ourselves. Sometimes, they are injust or immoral or merely ineffective or overly restrictive and they are then, justifiably, ignored or rewritten or taken off the books.

& unless or until the immigration laws are changed, THE ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE BREAKING THE LAWS of theis country, period!!

& unless or until the immigration laws are changed, THE ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE BREAKING THE LAWS of theis country, period!!

lonestarmadam wrote

Quote:

& unless or until the immigration laws are changed, THE ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE BREAKING THE LAWS of theis country, period!!

A true statement. Further, it would be a true statement even if it were written in the lower case and without two exclamation marks at the end.

Judge Roy Moore BROKE THE LAWS of this nation!!
Oliver North IS A LAWBREAKER!!
Uppity blacks ACTED ILLEGALLY going in those 'whites only' entrances!!
Rush Limbaugh BROKE THE LAWS OF THE US OF A!!!

What price are the invaders paying?

Oliver North broke what law? Was he ever convicted?

LoneStarMadam wrote:

Oliver North broke what law? Was he ever convicted?

North was tried in 1988 in relation to his activities while at the National Security Council. He was indicted on sixteen felony counts and on May 4, 1989, he was convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents (by his secretary, Fawn Hall, on his instructions). He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell on July 5, 1989, to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours community service.

LoneStarMadam wrote:

What price are the invaders paying?

I suppose that's up to the jury or judge to declare.

Don't confuse these people with facts, Walter. It only upsets them.

Don't confuse these people with facts, Walter. It only upsets them.

A suspended sentence for corruption and lying to Congress? Oliver North was given Amnesty.

If instead of corrupting our system of government and defying Congress he had done something serious, like crossing a border, he would have been ripped from his family, denied medical care, made homeless (as he would be unable to buy a house or rent an apartment) and forced to pay for retirement that he will never receive.

Geeesh. If you are aginst amnesty, at least be consistant.

Please, I don't need a lesson on how to post, if my upper case & exclamation way of posting offends you, sorry.

Judge Roy Moore paid the price for breaking the law.
Oliver North broke what law? Was he ever convicted?
Rush Limbaugh also paid the price.
Bill Clinton broke the law, plead out his case.
What price are the invaders paying?