Missionary arrested because illegally in US...

[Indy Coug]

As I figure I'm probably (one of) the most-sensitive person on the board about this particular issue, I have decided to not comment, because I have made my position clear other places. I will say only the following:

The rhetoric I see being thrown about is counterproductive. I often wonder what would the reaction be if we had a sudden massive Scandinavian immigration problem. All hot-blonde-chicks jokes aside, I do not believe the negativity would be the same because they look like 'us,' and we are more willing to help those who look like us. That is all.

If you had 500,000 Scandinavians streaming in each year instead of 5,000 (numbers are purely illustrative, not based on actual data), you might hear a little more complaining about them. If you don't think that we wouldn't complain about half a million Scandis suddenly illegally flooding our borders, I think you are naive.

If you don't believe me, have a talk with the Irish.

[DU Ute]

You wont hear me complain. There is a price for doing business.

Laws are laws though.

This sounds like Bronco after the Washington game. I don't understand the "rules is rules" argument when the discussion is about changing the rules. Yes laws are laws, but there are many bad laws on the books and they are changed all the time. We're not suggesting that the rules be ignored (which is the only practical and cost effective thing to do with the laws currently in place) we're saying we need new rules.

[Commando]

Never fear, guys. Even if they don't pass an amnesty, I'm hard at work every day keeping em here one at a time. You're welcome!

[JohnnyLingo]

This sounds like Bronco after the Washington game. I don't understand the "rules is rules" argument when the discussion is about changing the rules. Yes laws are laws, but there are many bad laws on the books and they are changed all the time. We're not suggesting that the rules be ignored (which is the only practical and cost effective thing to do with the laws currently in place) we're saying we need new rules.

Sure, conversation about making changes has its place, but in the meantime, what's so wrong about expecting the existing rules to be enforced? Proponents of these changes to immigration law act as though people who'd like current laws to be enforced are whack jobs.

[wuapinmon]

If you had 500,000 Scandinavians streaming in each year instead of 5,000 (numbers are purely illustrative, not based on actual data), you might hear a little more complaining about them. If you don't think that we wouldn't complain about half a million Scandis suddenly illegally flooding our borders, I think you are naive.

If you don't believe me, have a talk with the Irish.

Alright, 500,000 Londoners. I disagree with you completely. While there would be differences, the rhetoric would be vastly different.

[Indy Coug]

Alright, 500,000 Londoners. I disagree with you completely. While there would be differences, the rhetoric would be vastly different.

What rhetorical differences? Have you not familiarized yourself with the lengthy and vicious prejudices against the Irish in the late 1800s to early 1900s?

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed311/kafai/Team%204/immigration

Many Americans during this time held the view that Irish-Americans were dirty, lazy and stupid. They were credited for the economic problems and the degradation of American society.For more information and resources on the discrimination faced by the Irish-Americans, you can refer to the following websites:

The funny (not ha-ha funny) thing is in my branch the biggest source of prejudice in an Anglo-Hispanic environment is the prejudice that other Latinos have for each other (eg. Puerto Ricans vs. Dominicans).

[The_Tick]

This sounds like Bronco after the Washington game. I don't understand the "rules is rules" argument when the discussion is about changing the rules. Yes laws are laws, but there are many bad laws on the books and they are changed all the time. We're not suggesting that the rules be ignored (which is the only practical and cost effective thing to do with the laws currently in place) we're saying we need new rules.

If you don't like the law, then change it. I agree with that.

But what is wrong with wishing the current laws were enforced?

[wuapinmon]

What rhetorical differences? Have you not familiarized yourself with the lengthy and vicious prejudices against the Irish in the late 1800s to early 1900s?

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed311/kafai/Team%204/immigration

The funny (not ha-ha funny) thing is in my branch the biggest source of prejudice in an Anglo-Hispanic environment is the prejudice that other Latinos have for each other (eg. Puerto Ricans vs. Dominicans).

Obviously between criticism of Mexicans and Londoners. I find it disingenuous to compare the threadbare impoverished and emaciated colonial Irish immigrants to the Irish of today. I'm talking about 2009.

Re: PR vs Doms.......culteranism exists everywhere. If you ask a Dominican if they are 'black' they'll respond, "No, I'm not Haitian."

[Indy Coug]

Obviously between criticism of Mexicans and Londoners. I find it disingenuous to compare the threadbare impoverished and emaciated colonial Irish immigrants to the Irish of today. I'm talking about 2009.

Re: PR vs Doms.......culteranism exists everywhere. If you ask a Dominican if they are 'black' they'll respond, "No, I'm not Haitian."

I think it's intellectually disingenous to think that if any one new nationality/ethnicity started imposing itself in American society in those kinds of numbers over a significant length of time that there wouldn't be some kind of prejudicial backlash as a result.

Sure, the prejudicial labels and complaints may not be identical, but the psychological motivations would be very similar.

By the way, the motivation to immigrate comes from being in an impoverished and/or totalitarian society. That's why the Irish left in such huge numbers in the past and that's also why they got the "lazy, dirty and stupid" label, much like Mexicans et al are today.

[wuapinmon]

Sure, the prejudicial labels and complaints may not be identical, but the psychological motivations would be very similar.

I understand the reasons for immigration, which is precisely why we don't see 500,000 Scandinavians coming here each year.

My point, which you've echoed in the statement above is that the resistance to the Other varies according to the physical appearance cultural practices of said Other. We saw the same backlash in Houston when mostly black evacuees streamed in and drove the crime rate up, we saw them same thing in New Orleans when the drug dealers, most black again, started coming back to a majority white New Orleans (Bumper stickers read "Go back to Houston"). The negative reaction to the influx of the Other is psychological, but the skin tone of the Other determines our rhetorical reaction. Would you rather be told that you aren't wanted because "there's too many of you" or because "your skin is a different color."

One is rational, one is discriminatory.

Case in point. Nate, a retired black man, bought a house on my street the same week we bought ours. We had everyone over to visit. He had no one but us. My neighbors always talk about "people coming and going" at his house (his nephews and their children), while they rarely ever mention to the two white dudes selling drugs out of the house next to Nate with cars truly coming and going at all hours. I'd much rather have Nate as my neighbor than two junkies, one of whom once came up my driveway and asked me what "time is it?" I looked at my phone and told him the time. He then said, "No, what day is it?"

I'd rather have a house full of hard-working Hispanic immigrants across the street than two low-lifes, but I know that many people don't like it that way. A house down the street from where I grew up was always full of trouble-causing good ole boys. They're gone now and instead it's full of Hispanic laborers. My mom talks about the house all the time and how many people there are, and ladidah. The people living in the house now contribute a helluva lot more than the citizens living there ever did, but I guarantee the neighbors would prefer to have those redneck assholes back because they understand them.

[byu71]

I understand the reasons for immigration, which is precisely why we don't see 500,000 Scandinavians coming here each year.

My point, which you've echoed in the statement above is that the resistance to the Other varies according to the physical appearance cultural practices of said Other. We saw the same backlash in Houston when mostly black evacuees streamed in and drove the crime rate up, we saw them same thing in New Orleans when the drug dealers, most black again, started coming back to a majority white New Orleans (Bumper stickers read "Go back to Houston"). The negative reaction to the influx of the Other is psychological, but the skin tone of the Other determines our rhetorical reaction. Would you rather be told that you aren't wanted because "there's too many of you" or because "your skin is a different color."

One is rational, one is discriminatory.

Case in point. Nate, a retired black man, bought a house on my street the same week we bought ours. We had everyone over to visit. He had no one but us. My neighbors always talk about "people coming and going" at his house (his nephews and their children), while they rarely ever mention to the two white dudes selling drugs out of the house next to Nate with cars truly coming and going at all hours. I'd much rather have Nate as my neighbor than two junkies, one of whom once came up my driveway and asked me what "time is it?" I looked at my phone and told him the time. He then said, "No, what day is it?"

I'd rather have a house full of hard-working Hispanic immigrants across the street than two low-lifes, but I know that many people don't like it that way. A house down the street from where I grew up was always full of trouble-causing good ole boys. They're gone now and instead it's full of Hispanic laborers. My mom talks about the house all the time and how many people there are, and ladidah. The people living in the house now contribute a helluva lot more than the citizens living there ever did, but I guarantee the neighbors would prefer to have those redneck assholes back because they understand them.

If I am walking down an alley and I see a guy coming toward me with tons of tatoo's, a shaven head and ear rings, I might turn around and go another direction. Some prejudices have nothing to do with race.

I know though one can stir up more emotions by making it about race rather than something else. You can get more mileage calling someone a racist or bigot rather than calling them prejudice.

[wuapinmon]

If I am walking down an alley and I see a guy coming toward me with tons of tatoo's, a shaven head and ear rings, I might turn around and go another direction. Some prejudices have nothing to do with race.

I know though one can stir up more emotions by making it about race rather than something else. You can get more mileage calling someone a racist or bigot rather than calling them prejudice.

For all intents and purposes I am Hispanic. However, because I am Anglo-Saxon by blood, people say things about Hispanics in front of me that they would never say in front of actual Hispanics. So, I'm not just playing a fucking race card all the time. I'm extremely sensitive to it because I see race-baiting and discrimination happening constantly, all the time, in the halls of the church, in fucking PEC, and I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of people saying something prejudiced or bigoted or racist or whatever term they're going to try to apply to their comments, ex post facto, and then trying to excuse away their comment as something innocuous, or something that has nothing to do with the color of man's skin, which is of no more significance than the color of his eyes.

[Indy Coug]

For all intents and purposes I am Hispanic. However, because I am Anglo-Saxon by blood, people say things about Hispanics in front of me that they would never say in front of actual Hispanics. So, I'm not just playing a fucking race card all the time. I'm extremely sensitive to it because I see race-baiting and discrimination happening constantly, all the time, in the halls of the church, in fucking PEC, and I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of people saying something prejudiced or bigoted or racist or whatever term they're going to try to apply to their comments, ex post facto, and then trying to excuse away their comment as something innocuous, or something that has nothing to do with the color of man's skin, which is of no more significance than the color of his eyes.

Do you use that kind of language in fucking PEC?

[byu71]

For all intents and purposes I am Hispanic. However, because I am Anglo-Saxon by blood, people say things about Hispanics in front of me that they would never say in front of actual Hispanics. So, I'm not just playing a fucking race card all the time. I'm extremely sensitive to it because I see race-baiting and discrimination happening constantly, all the time, in the halls of the church, in fucking PEC, and I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of people saying something prejudiced or bigoted or racist or whatever term they're going to try to apply to their comments, ex post facto, and then trying to excuse away their comment as something innocuous, or something that has nothing to do with the color of man's skin, which is of no more significance than the color of his eyes.

Fine, that is one extreme and you are on the other side of the extreme. Everything someone says has to do with color. Our first encounter on this board indicated to me you shoot first and think later.

[wuapinmon]

Do you use that kind of language in fucking PEC?

That's your response? You're worried about my 'unsupervised mouth product?' Maybe I should drop the F-bomb the next time someone in PEC starts dropping jokes about blacks stealing watermelons from our Church garden and the bishopric does nothing to correct it while they all sit there and laugh and I die inside.

Sounds like a good fucking plan to me.