Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

Fair enough but what we're talking about are the millions of illegals (and their children) who are ALREADY here - not the new immigrants who might come. Blame Mexico if you like, but the fact is there are many illegal immigrants living and working in our cities and towns. Their kids go to school with our kids.

This is a practical issue. Rounding up all these millions of illegals and sending them back to wherever they came from would be inefficient, costly, and probably harmful to segments of our own economy. So a guy like McCain has the guts to try and find a workable compromise solution to this very complex problem - and everyone just yells "amnesty!" as if it's the most horrible thing they could imagine.

I don't think most democrats or republicans would object to better control of our borders. If only legal immigrants came to the US from now on, that would be fine with me. I am not a fan of illegal immigration. But it seems counterproductive (not to mention mean) to insist on rounding up and deporting millions of people who are already here because their own country was horrible, and we couldn't control our borders to stop them.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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What percentage of this issue is just racism, do you think? (I heard the words "assimilate" and "be a part our culture" a lot from the candidates, which sounds a heck of a lot like code to me.)

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I think 90% of the issue is culture, not racism. Have you been to a fast food restaurant or retail store lately? No one working in those places speaks English anymore. As long as the majority of the workforce that people interact with on a daily basis have 0 language skills, people will be pissed of about illegal immigration, regardless of whether those people are illegal immigrants. That and its nice to be able to go to Home Depot without being swarmed by illegal immigrants asking you if you need help.

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In return, stuff is cheaper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Compared to less illegal immigration, a broken legal immigration system and a broken welfare system, yes.

Compared to less illegal immmigration, an effective legal immigration/guest worker program and a welfare system that puts people to work instead of feeding them life support, no.

[/ QUOTE ]

How is limiting immigration ever going to drive prices down? I mean, if you lump in "removing welfare" with your limiting of immigration I'm sure you are going to get a NET decrease in costs, but its in SPITE of your legal immigration system and not because of it.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

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Fact.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon*

[/ QUOTE ]

The guy was offered an out-of-sequence release by the North Vietnamese because his father was a relatively-famous commander in the Navy and he turned it down because he didn't think it was fair to get sent home before other less-well-connected POWs who had been imprisoned for longer were forced to stay; he was then mercilessly tortured because of the refusal to leave.

I suppose we can debate what it means to be a "hero" and the nobility of purpose of flying jets in Vietnam, but you jumping into the Grand Canyon != McCain being offered the chance to escape imprisonment and torture but refusing to do so because it violated a dearly held principle. Not that I would expect your typical ACist to actually understand any of this kind of nuance, or why someone would do something like experience terrible physical trauma because of fidelity to dearly held principles (I know, I know -- you and Nielsio and other ACtards have experienced the terrible pain and suffering that the jackbooted thuggery of state authority and their taxation, which has wrought terribly wretched and painful lives upon you, which can only be remedied by sacrificing enormous time and energy...by posting about it on an the intraweb and YouTube. That is umm, a little similar, but not exactly the same).

Anyway, I thought it important to point this out, just in case there were other people like gobbomom out there who thought you were funny but hadn't quite considered why your analogy was retarded.

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Hmm... jumping into the Grand Canyon = tremendously stupid decision

Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision

Seems like a good analogy to me!

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

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They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

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The VAST MAJORITY pay taxes. All the ones working at burger king, mcdonalds, wendys, whatever....they all get cut paychecks and have taxes deducted.

The house cleaners don't, and I think my sister, who cleans one house every 2 weeks for some pocket money.... I would be willing to bet that she does not report that on her and her husbands annual income taxes.

I don't know how the people who pick fruit are paid but the people working in regular stores are paid by check with SSA, FICA, Fed, state railroad, whatever the hell.... deducted right out of it before it gets to them. The 1099's are then all filed by the employers to the government and none of the immigrants file tax returns.

For the past 15 years the IRS has been getting 1099's from dozens of meat packing plants across the midwest with 100 employee's all with the same SSN. LOL

I don't understand it. People come on her biotching about people who cross a the desert to get a job at McDonald's but keep their trap shut about the government standing around handing out welfare, et al, to able bodied citizens.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision


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The ability to do tremendously stupid things is, along with the ability to do tremendously intelligent things, the greatest of human traits.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

All this focus on illegal immigration takes away attention on how ridiculous the process for legal immigration is.

I have a friend from Tanzania, who went to a private highschool here on full paid scholarship, graduated public highschool here and gained acceptance to a private College on full scholarship, graduated, then completed his MBA. he's been here for over a decade and now either has to get sponsorship from a company, go back to school, or get deported.

he faced idiotic stipulations for getting a job, making sponsorship near impossible (he has two degrees, business and japanese). Don't know if things changed, but there was a period a year or so ago where he couldn't find a sponored position because any place he wanted to work at was required to turn down a specific number of citizens or have a specific ammount of time where no citizens applied before they could consider him.

yeah, lets go ahead and call these [censored] xenophobes, when they're not outright racists.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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People come on her biotching about people who cross a the desert to get a job at McDonald's but keep their trap shut about the government standing around handing out welfare, et al, to able bodied citizens.


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Complaints about the welfare state = 95% of posts in this forum, what are you talking about?

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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People come on her biotching about people who cross a the desert to get a job at McDonald's but keep their trap shut about the government standing around handing out welfare, et al, to able bodied citizens.


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Complaints about the welfare state = 95% of posts in this forum, what are you talking about?

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And it would be 105% if the government wasn't so inefficient...

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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What percentage of this issue is just racism, do you think? (I heard the words "assimilate" and "be a part our culture" a lot from the candidates, which sounds a heck of a lot like code to me.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I think 90% of the issue is culture, not racism. Have you been to a fast food restaurant or retail store lately? No one working in those places speaks English anymore. As long as the majority of the workforce that people interact with on a daily basis have 0 language skills, people will be pissed of about illegal immigration, regardless of whether those people are illegal immigrants. That and its nice to be able to go to Home Depot without being swarmed by illegal immigrants asking you if you need help.

[/ QUOTE ]
In return, stuff is cheaper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Compared to less illegal immigration, a broken legal immigration system and a broken welfare system, yes.

Compared to less illegal immmigration, an effective legal immigration/guest worker program and a welfare system that puts people to work instead of feeding them life support, no.

[/ QUOTE ]

How is limiting immigration ever going to drive prices down? I mean, if you lump in "removing welfare" with your limiting of immigration I'm sure you are going to get a NET decrease in costs, but its in SPITE of your legal immigration system and not because of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not in spite of nor because of, its a package of rational policies that would result in whatever the necessary levels of immigration/guest workers are and reduce welfare costs at the same time. the net result is the same or lower prices and lower taxes/smaller deficits

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Fair enough but what we're talking about are the millions of illegals (and their children) who are ALREADY here - not the new immigrants who might come. Blame Mexico if you like, but the fact is there are many illegal immigrants living and working in our cities and towns. Their kids go to school with our kids.

This is a practical issue. Rounding up all these millions of illegals and sending them back to wherever they came from would be inefficient, costly, and probably harmful to segments of our own economy. So a guy like McCain has the guts to try and find a workable compromise solution to this very complex problem - and everyone just yells "amnesty!" as if it's the most horrible thing they could imagine.

I don't think most democrats or republicans would object to better control of our borders. If only legal immigrants came to the US from now on, that would be fine with me. I am not a fan of illegal immigration. But it seems counterproductive (not to mention mean) to insist on rounding up and deporting millions of people who are already here because their own country was horrible, and we couldn't control our borders to stop them.

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Ok and I'm not opposed to lenience as a general principle in most kinds of enforcement (including lenience even in criminal matters unrelated to immigration).

I think a big part of the opposing argument, though, is not how bad a current amnesty would be, but what it would do for the future: it would send a clear signal that amnesty is what to expect and thereby encourage even more illegal immigration. I've read that's what the last actual amnesty did (under Clinton or was it Reagan? I forget).

I do think the USA has been getting more illegal immigrants than can effectively be assimilated for the given time span and I suspect that problem would become more exacerbated.

I don't think balkanization (non-assimilated pockets, cities or perhaps even later, regions) within a country is a good thing.

So that's what I see as the opposing argument. I don't think there are any clear or easily workable solutions on either side of this debate. Perhaps removing all welfare would greatly disincentivize most illegal immigration; I don't know, but that's the only relatively "easy" and likely fairly effective solution I can see at this point. I'm leery of a fence because I suspect it could be used in the future to keep people IN as well as OUT.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

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They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about real estate taxes? School taxes, etc? And any idea how many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes?

[/ QUOTE ]

Out of the 100+ that I have met and know, I would say about 90% pay regular taxes just like the taxes that come out of citizens checks. Seriously. The odd one that cleans houses doesn't. And a few have a small portion of their total income in cash. But almost all are paid by payroll check with a SSN attached and federal, state, etc taken out.

I don't know how it is where they are all picking fruit, but in the cities, where there are stores and businesses, the immigrants working there are not paid cash...they all get checks and have all the same taxes taken out. The only difference is they don't file returns, so all of the one's who only have 1 job don't get the $700 tax return for being a working poor. The one's that have 2 crappy jobs and work 70 hours a week to put then in the next tax bracket don't file either, but they are not in an envious position either.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon*

[/ QUOTE ]

The guy was offered an out-of-sequence release by the North Vietnamese because his father was a relatively-famous commander in the Navy and he turned it down because he didn't think it was fair to get sent home before other less-well-connected POWs who had been imprisoned for longer were forced to stay; he was then mercilessly tortured because of the refusal to leave.

I suppose we can debate what it means to be a "hero" and the nobility of purpose of flying jets in Vietnam, but you jumping into the Grand Canyon != McCain being offered the chance to escape imprisonment and torture but refusing to do so because it violated a dearly held principle. Not that I would expect your typical ACist to actually understand any of this kind of nuance, or why someone would do something like experience terrible physical trauma because of fidelity to dearly held principles (I know, I know -- you and Nielsio and other ACtards have experienced the terrible pain and suffering that the jackbooted thuggery of state authority and their taxation, which has wrought terribly wretched and painful lives upon you, which can only be remedied by sacrificing enormous time and energy...by posting about it on an the intraweb and YouTube. That is umm, a little similar, but not exactly the same).

Anyway, I thought it important to point this out, just in case there were other people like gobbomom out there who thought you were funny but hadn't quite considered why your analogy was retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... jumping into the Grand Canyon = tremendously stupid decision

Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision

Seems like a good analogy to me!

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this a joke? Standing on principle with a consequence of personal harm is heroic by most standards, and in no way analogous to nonsensical self-mutilation.

Re-reading both posts, I'm going to just assume you are serious. So lets just go right to a pictogram.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4...ynguyengb6.jpg

GG, Dvault.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm... jumping into the Grand Canyon = tremendously stupid decision

Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision

Seems like a good analogy to me!

[/ QUOTE ]

this may be the most unintentionally ironic post of all time

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision


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The ability to do tremendously stupid things is, along with the ability to do tremendously intelligent things, the greatest of human traits.

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Value-less greatest or value-laden greatest?

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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What percentage of this issue is just racism, do you think? (I heard the words "assimilate" and "be a part our culture" a lot from the candidates, which sounds a heck of a lot like code to me.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I think 90% of the issue is culture, not racism. Have you been to a fast food restaurant or retail store lately? No one working in those places speaks English anymore. As long as the majority of the workforce that people interact with on a daily basis have 0 language skills, people will be pissed of about illegal immigration, regardless of whether those people are illegal immigrants. That and its nice to be able to go to Home Depot without being swarmed by illegal immigrants asking you if you need help.

[/ QUOTE ]
In return, stuff is cheaper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Compared to less illegal immigration, a broken legal immigration system and a broken welfare system, yes.

Compared to less illegal immmigration, an effective legal immigration/guest worker program and a welfare system that puts people to work instead of feeding them life support, no.

[/ QUOTE ]

How is limiting immigration ever going to drive prices down? I mean, if you lump in "removing welfare" with your limiting of immigration I'm sure you are going to get a NET decrease in costs, but its in SPITE of your legal immigration system and not because of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not in spite of nor because of, its a package of rational policies that would result in whatever the necessary levels of immigration/guest workers are and reduce welfare costs at the same time. the net result is the same or lower prices and lower taxes/smaller deficits

[/ QUOTE ]

Right but you are talking about an optimization considering BOTH variables, I'm talking about maximizing one of the variables. I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion that, in todays America or the near future, your plan is the best way to reduce costs of goods. I'm just saying it isnt the best way, and by limiting immigration you ARE driving up prices. You are driving down costs for welfare, sure, but since I dont support welfare that isnt an argument that holds much water with me. If I put on my reality hat, I can understand that welfare isnt going anywhere soon though.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

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Yes they do. That is why they get false SS cards. So they can get jobs.

It has been all over the news about employers getting letters from the SSA every month advising them that the ss number they gave does not match the name of the person.

There are states that passed laws requiring employers to resolve the issue and the ALCU and AFL-CIO sued them.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

Okay, I didn't mean just income taxes.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Okay, I didn't mean just income taxes.

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Well they obviously pay sales tax. And if they rent or buy houses, they pay tax on that too.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

So what's everyone bitching about then? I always assumed illegals didn't pay taxes.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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So what's everyone bitching about then?

[/ QUOTE ]

Some combination of "smell brown people, I don't like them, they're probably going to rob me" and "THEY TOOK ARRR JERBS"?

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

is there any discussion of reforming the path for legal citizenship?

Also, aside from security issues, is there truely any justifiable reason to dislike immigration? I ask people "Why should I want a random american whom i've never met have better opportunities than a random foreigner living in america whom i've never met?" I'm usually met with blank stares.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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So what's everyone bitching about then? I always assumed illegals didn't pay taxes.

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Exactly. And of course its convenient to preted like they dont pay taxes so that we can kick them all out for other reasons.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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So what's everyone bitching about then?

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Some combination of "smell brown people, I don't like them, they're probably going to rob me" and "THEY TOOK ARRR JERBS"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the problem is, at least some of the time, this last complaint is entirely true. So I get to suffer because some douchebag is (legitimately) afraid of being outcompeted. Sucks for me.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon*

[/ QUOTE ]

The guy was offered an out-of-sequence release by the North Vietnamese because his father was a relatively-famous commander in the Navy and he turned it down because he didn't think it was fair to get sent home before other less-well-connected POWs who had been imprisoned for longer were forced to stay; he was then mercilessly tortured because of the refusal to leave.

I suppose we can debate what it means to be a "hero" and the nobility of purpose of flying jets in Vietnam, but you jumping into the Grand Canyon != McCain being offered the chance to escape imprisonment and torture but refusing to do so because it violated a dearly held principle. Not that I would expect your typical ACist to actually understand any of this kind of nuance, or why someone would do something like experience terrible physical trauma because of fidelity to dearly held principles (I know, I know -- you and Nielsio and other ACtards have experienced the terrible pain and suffering that the jackbooted thuggery of state authority and their taxation, which has wrought terribly wretched and painful lives upon you, which can only be remedied by sacrificing enormous time and energy...by posting about it on an the intraweb and YouTube. That is umm, a little similar, but not exactly the same).

Anyway, I thought it important to point this out, just in case there were other people like gobbomom out there who thought you were funny but hadn't quite considered why your analogy was retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you really want to read the truth about McCain rather than the BS that the MSM has put forth about him:

Be Afraid of President McCain

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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If you really want to read the truth about McCain rather than the BS that the MSM has put forth about him:

Be Afraid of President McCain

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I don't really understand what you're attempting to prove here; McCain's personal philosophy about the proper role of government isn't what's at question here. It's about the [censored] he endured in Vietnam and why he endured it and the way AlexM characterized it.

Recall what AlexM said, which gobbomom found just "hilarious":

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"McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon"

[/ QUOTE ]

So does the following really = "jumping into the Grand Canyon"? From the article you linked to:

"So after being shot out of the sky during a risky raid over Hanoi in 1967, then pummeled by a mob of local Vietnamese and detained at the notorious prison nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, McCain comported himself heroically despite two broken arms, a mangled knee, and innards wracked by dysentery and other maladies. Every morning for two years a guard the prisoners called The Prick would demand that McCain bow to him. Every morning McCain would refuse, then brace for his beating. Herded into a made-for-propaganda Christmas Eve service in the prison yard, McCain punctured the enforced silence with repeated shouts of “[censored] you!” while raising his middle finger to the camera. Beat senseless for days on end for refusing to divulge information or accept early release (which would have given the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory and violated the Navy’s honor code), he would reveal only the names of every player he could remember from the Green Bay Packers."


The guy had a dearly-held principle, and then got beat senseless and tortured for adhering to it. This is like jumping into the Grand Canyon how, exactly?

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

I found it hilarious because heroism is completely subjective, as Alex so astutely pointed out. It's just as easy to consider McCain stupid as heroic in that example, because sometimes "dearly held principles" are just the ego's folly.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon*

[/ QUOTE ]

The guy was offered an out-of-sequence release by the North Vietnamese because his father was a relatively-famous commander in the Navy and he turned it down because he didn't think it was fair to get sent home before other less-well-connected POWs who had been imprisoned for longer were forced to stay; he was then mercilessly tortured because of the refusal to leave.

I suppose we can debate what it means to be a "hero" and the nobility of purpose of flying jets in Vietnam, but you jumping into the Grand Canyon != McCain being offered the chance to escape imprisonment and torture but refusing to do so because it violated a dearly held principle. Not that I would expect your typical ACist to actually understand any of this kind of nuance, or why someone would do something like experience terrible physical trauma because of fidelity to dearly held principles (I know, I know -- you and Nielsio and other ACtards have experienced the terrible pain and suffering that the jackbooted thuggery of state authority and their taxation, which has wrought terribly wretched and painful lives upon you, which can only be remedied by sacrificing enormous time and energy...by posting about it on an the intraweb and YouTube. That is umm, a little similar, but not exactly the same).

Anyway, I thought it important to point this out, just in case there were other people like gobbomom out there who thought you were funny but hadn't quite considered why your analogy was retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... jumping into the Grand Canyon = tremendously stupid decision

Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision

Seems like a good analogy to me!

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this a joke? Standing on principle with a consequence of personal harm is heroic by most standards, and in no way analogous to nonsensical self-mutilation.


[/ QUOTE ]

If the "principle" is dumb and pointless, then yes it's entirely analogous to nonsensical self-mutilation. If the Vietnamese were releasing people on some set schedule and him getting released early bumped everyone else back a slot, then him making this sacrifice would indeed be heroic, but how did what he did actually help anyone? It did't! Thus, it was just dumb. It's not standing on principle that's heroic, it's standing on heroic principles. This wasn't anything but dumb. And you know what? I really don't want a president who would willingly sacrifice our entire country a ridiculous code of "honor." That's what the Japanese did at the end of WWII and it was dumb then too, not heroic.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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The guy had a dearly-held principle, and then got beat senseless and tortured for adhering to it. This is like jumping into the Grand Canyon how, exactly?

[/ QUOTE ]

Kamikaze!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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is there any discussion of reforming the path for legal citizenship?

Also, aside from security issues, is there truely any justifiable reason to dislike immigration? I ask people "Why should I want a random american whom i've never met have better opportunities than a random foreigner living in america whom i've never met?" I'm usually met with blank stares.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're just not genetically wired like most. For instance, most humans believe in a God, while those wired differently do not.
You probably do not have a "love for country" and deep appreciation of what our soldiers who died in WWII sacrificed.

There are many people like you. They do not see the U.S.A. as a country they love, but merely an opportunity. Their primary goal in life is to be a successful capitalist and giving to charity without self-benefit is looked upon by them with scorn.

Others are wired differently.

Your type of philosophy is what was needed in generals in the military during WWII....it was easier for them to send a bunch of random Americans into a battle knowing half of them would not come out alive.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

[/ QUOTE ]

They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about real estate taxes? School taxes, etc? And any idea how many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not really correct. A large percentage of illegals are paying payroll taxes on perfectly legitimate SSNs. Unfortunately, they are using the SSNs of their "anchor babies". It is not unusual at all for an 18 month old child to be making several hundred grand a year and paying taxes on all of it because his father and several of his uncles are working on his social security card. These kids will have their Social Security and unemployment benefits maxed before they ever work a day. Of course, taxes are taxes, and no politician or bureaucrat is going to get real excited about ending the practice. It's really just part of the way illegals have learned to game the system.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

[/ QUOTE ]

They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about real estate taxes? School taxes, etc? And any idea how many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not really correct. A large percentage of illegals are paying payroll taxes on perfectly legitimate SSNs. Unfortunately, they are using the SSNs of their "anchor babies". It is not unusual at all for an 18 month old child to be making several hundred grand a year and paying taxes on all of it because his father and several of his uncles are working on his social security card. These kids will have their Social Security and unemployment benefits maxed before they ever work a day. Of course, taxes are taxes, and no politician or bureaucrat is going to get real excited about ending the practice. It's really just part of the way illegals have learned to game the system.

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It doesnt really matter though...they are still paying in order to receive the benefits. Who cares who gets them? They arent "gaming" anything, at least not in any negative way or way that negatively impacts us.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

[/ QUOTE ]

They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about real estate taxes? School taxes, etc? And any idea how many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes?

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This is not really correct. A large percentage of illegals are paying payroll taxes on perfectly legitimate SSNs. Unfortunately, they are using the SSNs of their "anchor babies". It is not unusual at all for an 18 month old child to be making several hundred grand a year and paying taxes on all of it because his father and several of his uncles are working on his social security card. These kids will have their Social Security and unemployment benefits maxed before they ever work a day. Of course, taxes are taxes, and no politician or bureaucrat is going to get real excited about ending the practice. It's really just part of the way illegals have learned to game the system.

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It doesnt really matter though...they are still paying in order to receive the benefits. Who cares who gets them? They arent "gaming" anything, at least not in any negative way or way that negatively impacts us.

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I didn't really mean it in a negative way. They didn't create the system or the incentives.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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Just to confirm: illegal (excuse me dennis kucinich, undocumented) immigrants pay taxes? Is that a fact, jack?

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They certainly pay sales taxes when they buy things. Illegal immigrants who are assigned fake SS #s by their employers are also paying payroll taxes and aren't be eligible to collect any of the benefits.

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What about real estate taxes? School taxes, etc? And any idea how many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes?

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This is not really correct. A large percentage of illegals are paying payroll taxes on perfectly legitimate SSNs. Unfortunately, they are using the SSNs of their "anchor babies". It is not unusual at all for an 18 month old child to be making several hundred grand a year and paying taxes on all of it because his father and several of his uncles are working on his social security card. These kids will have their Social Security and unemployment benefits maxed before they ever work a day. Of course, taxes are taxes, and no politician or bureaucrat is going to get real excited about ending the practice. It's really just part of the way illegals have learned to game the system.

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Then they must be pretty dumb at games:

Furrner 1: Lets all use baby Furrner's SSN and pay taxes on $1 million a year.

Furrner 2: Yeah, we'll max out baby Furrner's benefits in a year.

Baby Furrner, when he gets to age 70: Dear SSA, What do you mean my benefit is $36k a year, Ive been paying taxes of $120,000 a year since I was 3?

SSA: Dear Baby Furrner, you are entitled to a refund of excess Social Security taxes withheld by multiple employers. Please refile your Federal Income taxes for the last 7 years to claim a refund.

Baby Furrner: What do you mean 7 years? Ive been paying too much for 63 years.

SSA: Statute of limitations, FTW.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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is there any discussion of reforming the path for legal citizenship?

Also, aside from security issues, is there truely any justifiable reason to dislike immigration? I ask people "Why should I want a random american whom i've never met have better opportunities than a random foreigner living in america whom i've never met?" I'm usually met with blank stares.

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No kidding. I think it is basically 'patriotic' (whatever that is- and this is coming from soneone who used to have 'it' at least to some degree) brainwashing. It is a vague concept that is I think hard to articulate, and most people who 'have it' have never even reasoned why they should have it and why it is better than other ways of looking at the world and the human population of the world, let alone actively debated why it is superior. I think it will all come down to rhetoric if they tried.

When I asked my father a similar question a while back during a discussion about immigration (mine was why should I care about a random person born in locatioin A more than a random person born in location B?) His acutal response was: "I don't even know what that means." LOL

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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I found it hilarious because heroism is completely subjective, as Alex so astutely pointed out. It's just as easy to consider McCain stupid as heroic in that example, because sometimes "dearly held principles" are just the ego's folly.

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So then that would also be true of AlexM's principles of property rights and natural rights, that they are ego's folly, yes?

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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McCain is a national hero?

Oh wait, I forgot that for some reason people consider bad things happening to you to be heroic. Nevermind, carry on.

*goes and heroicly jumps into the Grand Canyon*

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The guy was offered an out-of-sequence release by the North Vietnamese because his father was a relatively-famous commander in the Navy and he turned it down because he didn't think it was fair to get sent home before other less-well-connected POWs who had been imprisoned for longer were forced to stay; he was then mercilessly tortured because of the refusal to leave.

I suppose we can debate what it means to be a "hero" and the nobility of purpose of flying jets in Vietnam, but you jumping into the Grand Canyon != McCain being offered the chance to escape imprisonment and torture but refusing to do so because it violated a dearly held principle. Not that I would expect your typical ACist to actually understand any of this kind of nuance, or why someone would do something like experience terrible physical trauma because of fidelity to dearly held principles (I know, I know -- you and Nielsio and other ACtards have experienced the terrible pain and suffering that the jackbooted thuggery of state authority and their taxation, which has wrought terribly wretched and painful lives upon you, which can only be remedied by sacrificing enormous time and energy...by posting about it on an the intraweb and YouTube. That is umm, a little similar, but not exactly the same).

Anyway, I thought it important to point this out, just in case there were other people like gobbomom out there who thought you were funny but hadn't quite considered why your analogy was retarded.

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Hmm... jumping into the Grand Canyon = tremendously stupid decision

Willingly choosing to be stay imprisoned and be tortured = tremendously stupid decision

Seems like a good analogy to me!

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Is this a joke? Standing on principle with a consequence of personal harm is heroic by most standards, and in no way analogous to nonsensical self-mutilation.


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If the "principle" is dumb and pointless, then yes it's entirely analogous to nonsensical self-mutilation. If the Vietnamese were releasing people on some set schedule and him getting released early bumped everyone else back a slot, then him making this sacrifice would indeed be heroic, but how did what he did actually help anyone? It did't! Thus, it was just dumb. It's not standing on principle that's heroic, it's standing on heroic principles. This wasn't anything but dumb. And you know what? I really don't want a president who would willingly sacrifice our entire country a ridiculous code of "honor." That's what the Japanese did at the end of WWII and it was dumb then too, not heroic.

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If you were forced to make a pact with someone when going into a dangerous situation, all other things being equal, who would you rather make a pact with, Mcain or some random stranger, and why?

I don't know anything more of Mcain's history than I have read here, but to me he sounds like someone who has a strong character and can be counted on for his loyalty. I happen to value loyalty a great deal.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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So what's everyone bitching about then? I always assumed illegals didn't pay taxes.

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Exactly. And of course its convenient to preted like they dont pay taxes so that we can kick them all out for other reasons.

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I always assumed they didn't either, but that was before I actually knew any. Up until 5 years or so ago I always assumed that almost everyone I saw of brown skin was here legally, and that it might be temporary and it might be permanent, but that if it was temporary or permanent they had some kind of permission from the government to work if they were working. I assumed that if anyone who did not have the proper permission to work here (SS Card or whatever the government gives out to visitors) that they MUST BE working under the table if in fact they were working. Because, after all, every job I went to asked for my SS Card and other ID's and everyon I knew had SS Cards and ID's. So I always assumed it was very hard to get a permanent job without one.

I knew it was possible, but usually intermittently working as an extra on a construction crew or something like that. Like an on call person when they are short a guy.

Now I know many, many illegal immigrants and they all (save a few in the minority) get paid by check and have all the taxes taken out just like everyone else. Really. I didn't really think that was possible (based on my prior experience) until I met them and became friends with them and learned first hand. I have dozens of friends who are illegal immigrants now. All work or have a spouse that works (mostly all both work 40+ hrs a week), and almost all pay taxes. None file tax returns. The govt keeps the SS money for their kitty, and doesn't have to pay back any fed or state returns to them. That is the common reality.

If they could get some job under the table for the same or similar wages most probably would, but then so would I. The reality is that there are not many permanent jobs out there that pay cash under the table.

There are, however, many jobs that are quite lax with the paperwork requirements prior to hiring. I never knew this prior to befrending illegal immigrants.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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I found it hilarious because heroism is completely subjective, as Alex so astutely pointed out. It's just as easy to consider McCain stupid as heroic in that example, because sometimes "dearly held principles" are just the ego's folly.

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So then that would also be true of AlexM's principles of property rights and natural rights, that they are ego's folly, yes?

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um, surely you see that one thing does not lead to the other? IDK if you have some vendetta against Alex, which I've no interest in getting into, but I think it's easy to point out that one can't maintain "principles" of property rights and natural rights, merely ideas and opinions.

Re: The immigration issue (YouTube Republican debate)
 

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I found it hilarious because heroism is completely subjective, as Alex so astutely pointed out. It's just as easy to consider McCain stupid as heroic in that example, because sometimes "dearly held principles" are just the ego's folly.

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So then that would also be true of AlexM's principles of property rights and natural rights, that they are ego's folly, yes?

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um, surely you see that one thing does not lead to the other? IDK if you have some vendetta against Alex, which I've no interest in getting into, but I think it's easy to point out that one can't maintain "principles" of property rights and natural rights, merely ideas and opinions.

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I have nothing against Alex, and am in fact an ACist. What is the difference between a "dearly held principle" and an "idea/opinion"?