<p>It is all in how the argument in presented. And the OP knows his mother. </p>
<p>He knows EXACTLY what she meant, by saying it the way she did.
I agree that we need to fix the system, it is broken, but I would never denegrate a group of people coming here and doing the kind of work they do. Its often backbreaking, they are seperated from families, and it is hard. </p>
<p>I never use the word Illegals, that sounds like they aren’t livng breathing human beings with families, trying to work in a system that hurts everybody</p>
<p>The issues related to illegal immigration are often misunderstood and often mired in ignorance and hypocrisy. One such issue is that all liberals are supportive of the plights of immigrants or that all conservatives are heartless dinosaurs. One can be conservative and still consider the actions of our “finest” men who wear a Border Patrol uniform or prefer the ridiculous version of the Minutemen to be entirely despicable. As far as where hypocrisy resides, that is for you to decide.</p>
<p>I think no matter how smart and factual you are on immigration the problem is virtually impossible to solve. It goes well beyond rhetoric and politics. Unions dislike it for one reason, conservatives for another, and even middle of the road types know we can’t handle all the people that might want to come in if we had open immigration.</p>
<p>“One such issue is that all liberals are supportive of the plights of immigrants or that all conservatives are heartless dinosaurs.”</p>
<p>This was evident yesterday on the CBS Sunday Morning show. They quite often show opinion pieces and two of their regulars are Nancy Giles on the left and Ben Stein on the right. What was interesting was that their opinions on the illegal immigration issue was totally flipped from the stereotype that one might have about conservatives versus liberals. The conservative Stein was fully supportive of giving the illegals permission to stay and earn their right to eventual citizenship. He was impressed with their willingness to work hard and said that they should not be demonized. However, the liberal Giles took the position that these people were taking jobs away from the lower class of American citizens and they needed to be stopped (of course along with this was her demand for higher pay for the jobs so that the American poor would actually have an incentive to take the jobs.)</p>
<p>THis is one of those issues that is bigger than what is going on here in the States…it is not really a conservative or liberal issue, it is so complex, so intrenched, so divisive, with no easy solution</p>
<p>In this issue, liberal and conservative mesh in a very weird way</p>
<p>But to the OP, for him it was HOW the mom talked about the people involved, in ahateful way, regardless of the side she picked</p>
<p>In my experience those of student age can be a bit doctrinaire in their thoughts and are used to a pretty one-sided lockstep argument. I’d like to hear the exact quotes. The items mentioned are essentially facts althought the crime stats might be overstated.</p>
<p>I hope you’re not traveling through airports. Fox News has some kind of deal worked out where they are providing 'round the clock Fox News broadcasts from t.v.s placed in airports. The i-pod seems to be the easiest solution.</p>
<p>The cost of health care and the fact that young guys are seen jumping fences are just facts. I don’t need Fox to know that.<br>
And yes,many people of that age hear anything they don’t agree with as “hate speech” it’s the way of life on most campuses. I was pretty much that way at 18. Most people were. You think you know it all.</p>
For it to be that funny, the bogus facts from Fox should be quite plentiful. Care to share with us some of the whoppers? Anything on the order of using phony documents to undermine a presidential election - and then stubbornly claiming that they were legit? Or, anything like purposefully participating in Saddam’s propaganda machine to be allowed to continue broadcasting from Iraq? Or, perhaps making bogus claims that the US military was intentionally targeting reporters? There must be something like this to warrant all of the guffawing. Please share it with us.</p>
<p>“I think no matter how smart and factual you are on immigration the problem is virtually impossible to solve. It goes well beyond rhetoric and politics. Unions dislike it for one reason, conservatives for another, and even middle of the road types know we can’t handle all the people that might want to come in if we had open immigration.”</p>
<p>Barrons, the issue is indeed very complex, but is it really true that it is impossible to solve? In the same vein, is it really true that we could not handle an open door immigration? Inasmuch as I am not suggesting a free-for-all entrance to the United States, I see little evidence that relying on tough-as-nails policy and allowing the former INS to operate in a manner that would have made the National Socialist German Workers Party proud IS working at all. The mere fact that we are facing the need to legalize millions of families every decade should be sufficent of an indictment of our effectiveness to “handle” the problem. Another reality is that our country has become dependent on illegal workers to address our most menial jobs or shore up our social security deficits. Would there be illegal workers if there weren’t any illegal bosses and illegal jobs? Or do we believe that there is a magical underground economy for foreigners? </p>
<p>Do we know what happened to Europe when most of the political and legal barriers came tumbling down? What happened to the fear of Belgium or the Netherlands to be overran by hordes of Spaniards or Italians? What happened to Spain’s fear to be thrown in an economic nightmare if the majority of its workers would depart for less sunny skies but better wages? </p>
<p>Freer movements of goods and people are not synonymous with bottlenecks; often, the results are found in better and more efficient systems. Freer entrance also means that the doors swing open … both ways. Many people stay illegally in the United States because it is so hard to attempt to make round-trips. Many of us assume that our southern neighboors view the US as a contemporary Shangri-La. The reality is that there is no paradise on earth. Their economic situation might be -marginally- better, but their social conditions are often worse. For many, embarking on the risky adventure to cross the Rio Grande results in a life of sacrifices and absolute loss of self-esteem. Yet, they come and will continue to come! On the other hand, we will never how many would gladly return to a better social environment if allowed to earn a decent wage in the US or Mexico.</p>
<p>I think you would see millions from all of countries to the south of the US coming here if the gates were just opened. Now eventually jobs would run out and some would go home but I’d see rampant social and criminal problems arising out of that before a balance was struck. Even at minimum wage they can send $1000’s home each year as they live frugally. while here. That can’t be matched in most of Mexico or points south for the vast majority.
The differences between the US and the rest of the hemisphere to the south are far greater than the EU countries. Now if you said Canada and the US I’d agree.</p>
<p>U.S. POPClock Projection
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 04/03/06 at 21:44 GMT (EST+5) is</p>
<p>298,438,172</p>
<p>COMPONENT SETTINGS FOR APRIL 2006
One birth every… 8 seconds
One death every… 13 seconds
One international migrant (net) every… 30 seconds
Net gain of one person every… 12 seconds</p>
<p>To return to the OP - the funny thing is, it’s not necessarily the political belief that’s the problem - it’s the attitude. A few years ago I had a neighbor who was a bona fide, gun-totin’, cigar smokin’, red state redneck - and proud of it. Thing is, we got along great (we still miss the family.) He and my wife would get into raging arguments, which usually ended with him stomping off home - and a few nights later we’d be chatting in the front yard as usual. We still don’t see eye to eye on politics, but I never saw that as a reason to disparage him as a person - or him, me, for that matter (although I did get the obligatory “Anyone who shoots a lawyer is OK with me” message from him after the Cheney incident.) </p>
<p>What I’ve seen recently, though, is that the level of bile being brewed on talk radio shows (which is predominantly right wing DJ’s trying to outdo each other with their appeal to gut level emotion) and also the rise of the blogs, is the dehumanization of opposing viewpoints. I remember the same thing happening with fringe lefties back in the 60’s, but it never seemed to extend beyond a small, geographically and socially limited group. Now you have people who might otherwise cut some slack towards people with opposing viewpoints primed to go from zero to outrage in 2 seconds. </p>
<p>If you listen to Rush you will note certain recurrent themes - and the most constant drumbeat is that “they” - the exact cast changes, but is always associated with those strange beasts “liberals” - “want to” do something that is outrageously unjust, and threatens regular, upstanding Americans. My favorite was listening to Rush explain to his listeners how “You see, liberals, they want to divide people. Yes, liberals divide people into two groups to weaken them and make them afraid, so they’ll go along with their program…” [I’ve paraphrased Limbaugh - the comment stuck with me, but I can’t vouch that it’s verbatim.) A steady diet of how “those people” are trying to lie, cheat, and victimize honest hard working Americans understandably makes people angry. And angry people are no fun to be around. If you have a family member who has fallen victim to the hate filled ideology of the Coulters and Limbaughs of the world to the point that they can’t relax and come up for air I honestly don’t know what you can do about it.</p>
<p>“I think you would see millions from all of countries to the south of the US coming here if the gates were just opened. Now eventually jobs would run out and some would go home but I’d see rampant social and criminal problems arising out of that before a balance was struck.”</p>
<p>Barrons, is that much different from the current situation, except for the number the Border Patrol manages to catch? Are you sure that the social and criminal problems would ARISE? Aren’t we now trying to create 6 to 10,000,000 felons overnight? </p>
<p>Do the words "He will not go behind his father’s saying/And he likes having thought of it so well/He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.” really mean that we should build higher -or electrified fences? The problems with walls is that, viewed from the inside, there is little difference between the wall of a fortress and that of a prison.</p>
<p>BRUSSELS - The European Commission is warning that dramatic demographic changes will have serious consequences for the European social and economic model. </p>
<p>Better health, increased life expectancy and lower fertility rates will lead to dramatic demographic changes within the bloc, the European Union (EU) executive warned in its 'Green Paper on Demographic Change.</p>
<p>The new report is designed to kick start a Europe-wide debate over how to cope with the dramatic fallout from the bloc’s ageing and dwindling population. </p>
<p>In 2003 the EU fertility rate fell to 1.48 children per woman, well below the 2.1 children per woman level needed to maintain the population. </p>
<p>The paper predicts that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. It says that the EU population will fall from 469.5 million in 2025 to 468.7 million in 2030. </p>
<p>By contrast, the U.S. population is set to increase by 25.6 percent between 2000 and 2025. </p>
<p>The Commission blames the impending crisis on changes in society which are constraining family choices - late access to employment, job instability, expensive housing and lack of child-rearing incentives through family benefits, parental leave, childcare and equal pay. </p>
<p>Modern Europe has never had economic growth without births, the Commission said in a statement Thursday. Incentives of this kind can have a positive impact on the birth rate and increase employment, especially female employment, as certain countries have shown. </p>
<p>It adds that the changes have major implications for prosperity, living standards and relations between the generations.</p>
</p>