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TrackerNeil

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Talking Points Memo has scenes from the tokenish diversity day from the Tea Partiers' "Uni-Tea" rally in Philadelphia over the weekend. One of their speakers was... Andrew Breitbart, last seen smearing an honest USDA official as a racist with a bullshit edited video.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/scenes-from-uni-tea-and-the-multi-racial-crowd-that-never-was-videos.php?ref=fpblg

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Legally prohibiting the employment of non-registered aliens gives companies an incentive to hire them under the table. Remove that prohibition, and you remove the incentive to hire employees under the table. After all, if you have to give an employee two fifteen minute breaks and a half an hour lunch for every eight hour shift, as well as pay minimum wage, overtime, and provide medical benefits if your company is over X number of employees in order to avoid lawsuit, what is the point of paying people under the table?

Punish companies who fail to comply with regulations, rather then the people who might accept employment absent standard protection, and the problems vanish.

Companies save money by hiring and paying under the table. Look at your pay stub. What you pay into SS, Medicare, etc is just a portion of the total going to the government. The Company also must pay those costs as well. They can offer to pay minimum wage or higher cash and still come out ahead in payments per employee. The wage earner avoids some of the taxes as well. That is the incentive. Many small businesses do this.

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I mean that a large illegal immigrant population is paying payroll, medicare, social security, gas, and other taxes to the federal government, but not using really any federal services. Almost all services used by illegals are at the state level. The federal government moves closer to solvency with every illegal that gets a job. There is no motivation at all (at the federal level) to provide a path to citizenship for these people, outside of humanitarianism.

The same state-level services (Medicaid, education, transportation, etc.) that receive huge funding from the federal government?

What do you propose to make the problem "gone" away, Tormund, besides electing straight out racists?

In other news:

Plan to build a cultural center near Ground Zero is steadily moving forward:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/ground-zero-mosque-plans-move-forward-after-new-york-landmarks-panel-vote.html

Oh noes, the terrorists are winning!!! lol

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What do you propose to make the problem "gone" away, Tormund, besides electing straight out racists?

I get an easy out, by opposing government altogether I don't have to worry about borders :P

If we insist on keeping them (the borders), then I agree we need to do away with the things that draw illegal immigrants here. Government services and minimum wage laws. :D

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I get an easy out, by opposing government altogether I don't have to worry about borders :P

If we insist on keeping them (the borders), then I agree we need to do away with the things that draw illegal immigrants here. Government services and minimum wage laws. :D

How exactly does the concept of "illegal" immigrants stand up to the notion of "opposing government altogether"? People should be free to move and to live anywhere they want, right?

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Liberal blogger challenges Tea Parties to prove they're not racist: burn the Confederate flag during 9/12 rallies.

"I think that it would start a great conversation about race and about how it's being used for political gain right now," the blogger, who preferred to be identified by his online handle, "General J.C. Christian," told me Monday. "I can imagine people showing up at the tea parties, which I'll do at my local one, and the tea party backers will start explaining why [the flag] is about state's rights, not slavery, and all that and basically hang themselves."

"I think that will be one of the messages that come out of the tea party events if my idea works out and people actually embrace it," he added.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/one-progressives-natl-scheme-to-burn-confederate-flags-at-tea-party-rallies.php?ref=fpa

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How exactly does the concept of "illegal" immigrants stand up to the notion of "opposing government altogether"? People should be free to move and to live anywhere they want, right?

Precisely. Hence I don't see a problem with "illegally" immigrating. I don't need Washington's permission to live somewhere if I have the permission of the property owner, and I don't need their permission to freely contract for labor. Obviously this isn't how things work today, but an ideal. Since idealism doesn't solve the "problem" of illegal immigration, my proposed solution is to eliminate government services that illegals are so resented for consuming, and oppose minimum wage laws so that labor can compete freely.

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I really don't think this is the forum to discuss Dance Dance Revolution. Perhaps you should take your rage over to Entertainment.

Don't be a hatah. Just because you lack the Asian gene to conquer the basic level, it's no reason to badmouth the game.

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Thor,

You know just because something hasn't happened, yet, doesn't mean people who don't particularly care for the U.S. will not use a glareingly huge hole in our national security to attack us at a later date. If it's that easy for you, or anyone else to bypass border security what is to stop someone with much less benign intentions from doing the same thing?

The fence, by itself, simply isn't enough. It would need to be combined with a beefed up border patrol and high tech surviellence equipment along the border in layers at and behind the fence. That said I recognize no defense is 100%. The best we can to is not make it disgustingly easy for people to slip across the border.

As I said before the biggest argument against it is cost.

Here's the problem, you could spend the entire federal budget one this thing, and you would be lucky to get 10% coverage. Get your ass over to a map and look at the Canadian/America border, If a person wants through they could boat the great lakes, walk through one of the many forests, boat using the ocean, walk across the beach. Hell even with all this tech I could probably find a section to go through that in the middle of a flat freaking field.

You just don't get it, it is impossible to defend a border like that to any sufficient degree. Or as Paladin of Ice said stupid idea is stupid.

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If a person wants through they could boat the great lakes, walk through one of the many forests, boat using the ocean, walk across the beach.

Or they could just get a Visa to enter the country legally like most of the 9/11 hijackers did. Funny how often proponents of a pointless, wasteful fence forget this little fact.

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Or they could just get a Visa to enter the country legally like most of the 9/11 hijackers did. Funny how often proponents of a pointless, wasteful fence forget this little fact.

To be fair, I think there are 2 different strains of fear at work here.

From Mexico, the fear is for drug dealers and illegal immigrants who steal our work and exploit our social programs.

From Canada, it's nefarious anti-U.S. terrorists who seek to enter our country to do us harm.

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From Mexico, the fear is for drug dealers and illegal immigrants who steal our work and exploit our social programs.

The US Government can't outspend the drug industry on this one (without bankrupting itself), best bet, instead of a fence, is just to legalize drugs and have them come in on trucks. That would take care of a big part of the immigrant problem too, since they follow the drug channels.

From Mexico, the fear is for drug dealers and illegal immigrants who steal our work and exploit our social programs.

Lousy reasoning. Terrorists are no more likely to enter from Canada than they are from Mexico or any other country. Hell, if I was a terrorist organizer I'd just send a bunch of guys in on tourist visas, have them pick up legal guns in Vermont or Georgia or Arizona or someplace, and then shoot up a bunch of preschools. Absolute mind-numbing terror = achieved. No need for bombs, illegal immigration, or any of that crap. Total cost, about 2000.00 - 5000.00 per guy.

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The US Government can't outspend the drug industry on this one (without bankrupting itself), best bet, instead of a fence, is just to legalize drugs and have them come in on trucks. That would take care of a big part of the immigrant problem too, since they follow the drug channels.

More and more I'm coming around to this point of view.

Even though every part of my 80's childhood screams against it, (well done Nancy Reagan on your brainwashing Just Say No campaign) but it just seems like there are some drugs that should just be legalized.

On other illegal-but-lots-of-people-do-it issues... Still not sure where I stand on the whole legalized prostitution thing. While I've heard convincing arguments for it, I've also listened to some pretty convincing survivors of Amsterdam who told some pretty horrific stories about what went on even with legalized prostitution.

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Or they could just get a Visa to enter the country legally like most of the 9/11 hijackers did. Funny how often proponents of a pointless, wasteful fence forget this little fact.

I've stated that a couple of time already, it's usually just ignored. usually with some lame ass excuse like if it hasn't happened yet it will eventually. For all the people who complain about Canada's immigration policies we have a pretty good track record of not letting terrorists in.

Lousy reasoning. Terrorists are no more likely to enter from Canada than they are from Mexico or any other country. Hell, if I was a terrorist organizer I'd just send a bunch of guys in on tourist visas, have them pick up legal guns in Vermont or Georgia or Arizona or someplace, and then shoot up a bunch of preschools. Absolute mind-numbing terror = achieved. No need for bombs, illegal immigration, or any of that crap. Total cost, about 2000.00 - 5000.00 per guy.

I'm glad terrorists aren't as smart as you, and I hope they don't read these forums.

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More loony tunes from the GOP to repeal the 14th amendment, this time over the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100803/ap_on_go_co/us_republicans_birthright_citizenship

This isn't the far right wingnut anymore, but the GOP establishment that include Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; Arizona's John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee; Arizona's Jon Kyl, the Republicans' second-ranking senator; Alabama's Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a leading negotiator on immigration legislation.

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More loony tunes from the GOP to repeal the 14th amendment, this time over the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100803/ap_on_go_co/us_republicans_birthright_citizenship

This isn't the far right wingnut anymore, but the GOP establishment that include Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; Arizona's John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee; Arizona's Jon Kyl, the Republicans' second-ranking senator; Alabama's Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a leading negotiator on immigration legislation.

Buts its not bigoted. Oh no, sir.

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