Immigration

[tw]

Originally Posted by NoBoxes

Actually, I used my own security clearance to demonstrate why people may believe that there is often more to important issues than your open source information can accurately represent.

You have hyped a theoretical security clearance only to complain. If you have facts, then post them. If you have no facts, then stop whining. It's like listening to a child crying - not one useful fact posted.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Bullshit, it isn't our responsibility to solve everyone else's problems.

They did not make these problems. We did. And then some would be so myopic as to blame the victims. We created (in part) this illegal immigration problem. Its our problem - not theirs. Rather than fix the problem, we do as Westmoreland proclaimed - solve the problem with body counts - the Big Wall and Big Guns solution. Attacking symptoms with a frontal assault will not be any more effective than a Great Wall in China. Why? To fix a problem, one must first identify reasons for problems. And so many of the reasons are simply US.

[9th Engineer]

I rather doubt we are as unilateraly to blame as you suggest tw. I'm not saying we had no impact on the Mexican business market, but to suggest that these people are here because we have single-handedly destroyed their ability to survive in Mexico is not true. I also question whether illegal aliens really cannot support themselves at all in Mexico. The issue of wage is always better wages, not wages period. As long as we offer better working conditions and wages people will still cross the border illegally, and I don't think that's going to change. The real question is whether we will enforce our laws and make it impossible for illegals to be hired here.

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

I rather doubt we are as unilateraly to blame as you suggest tw.

Notice that I never said we are 'unilaterally' to blame. We have a major part in creating the problem. If we want to address the problem, we should start with what we have done to create the problem- not solve its symptoms. History is ripe with proof about how big walls don't solve the problem. Even worse, big walls historicallyimply a wall builder has created his own problem rather than addressing reasons for the problem. Did we forget the Maginot line or the Berlin Wall as previous historical examples?

We did enforce laws to make it impossible for illegals to be hired. It only so destroyed that Nebraska regional economy that the feds were asked to leave. The illegals are not a problem. Only problem is that they must come here illegally.

[Ibby]

Attacking symptoms with a frontal assault will not be any more effective than a Great Wall in China.

Yeah, the wall only kept the mongols out for a few hundred years, not very successful at all huh?

Just sayin'...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Something tw is not yet aware of is that nothing done north of the Rio Grande is actually striking at the root of the problem: that Mexico's economy less resembles that of the United States than it does that of medieval Spain, whose own economic development was stunted by the Reconquista's centuries of warfare which absorbed energies that might otherwise have gone to developing and creating wealth, and whose development after 1492 was poisoned by such a flood of New World gold as to cause gold itself to suffer inflation, especially on the Iberian peninsula. Latin America's economies were all built on the Spanish model of great estates owned by the wealthy few and leaving practically the entire remainder of the population as landless tenant farmers and workers, poverty-stricken, with little stake in the economy and next to no incentive to improve or develop it, because their property rights such as they were were not secure, and they got no profit nor benefit from devising improvement. It is difficult to see how the Spanish colonists could have come up with a better economic model than the one they implemented, it being the only one these landholding, noble hidalgos had any experience of. It didn't help at all that the great majority of the Spanish colonists were either petty nobility or not so petty, would-be nobility and younger sons, and all trying to set themselves up as estateholders, all the while having very few people trying to get from Spain to the New World for the purpose of bettering themselves, such as the English-language colonies further north had.

Want our immigration problems to go away? Make a Mexican middle class you can see without a microscope. This is at least 99% of the problem. We ourselves have very little "part in creating the problem." It grew naturally from Mexico's five-century-long screwup.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

You would not even mention your security clearance which is necessary if that clearance was of a level that actually provided special information. . . Citing a security clearance to proclaim yourself more knowledgeable is a 'blow hard' effort to sound smart. The fact that you are even talking about your security clearance suggests how low that clearance really is.

Here is an example of tw's acute emotional immaturity, and I've slapped tw around on that before. This sort of belittlement tactic isn't too out of line for a fourteen-year-old, tw -- but it is altogether grotesque in a man of fifty. It's one of a fistful of reasons why you aren't respected. In fundamental ways, you have never become an adult. If your thinking's actually good enough, you need not bolster it with abusive language. Nor need you indulge in hysterics.

I agree with NoBoxes, though, in the effect on one's thinking that having held a clearance has, from my own experience in holding a very high-level clearance and some very close-held accesses. You have some notion of what may be happening behind the scenes, and it restrains any tendency to blow off.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

They did not make these problems. We did. And then some would be so myopic as to blame the victims. We created (in part) this illegal immigration problem. Its our problem - not theirs. Rather than fix the problem, we do as Westmoreland proclaimed - solve the problem with body counts - the Big Wall and Big Guns solution. Attacking symptoms with a frontal assault will not be any more effective than a Great Wall in China. Why? To fix a problem, one must first identify reasons for problems. And so many of the reasons are simply US.

I got a flat tire from picking up a nail that dropped off a truck that was carting away a house that was torn down because a company moved out of the community causing a local depression and slums which let to the house deteriorating to the point it had to be torn down.
Should I rail against the runaway company?
NO, I should change the fucking tire.

Yeah, Bruce, change the tire. Make US employers accountable for the employees they hire. How hard is it? "Your work permit, please?" How difficult is this for ANY employer to say? The words are all two syllables or less. Granted, there are forged documents going around, but the typical wetback can't afford them.

The courts and law enforcement would be much less overwhelmed if they went after the law breakers in THIS country - all those flag waving Americans who KNOWINGLY hire illegals.

Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
Here is an example of tw's acute emotional immaturity, and I've slapped tw around on that before. This sort of belittlement tactic isn't too out of line for a fourteen-year-old, tw -- but it is altogether grotesque in a man of fifty ...

I agree with NoBoxes, though, in the effect on one's thinking that having held a clearance has ... You have some notion of what may be happening behind the scenes, and it restrains any tendency to blow off.

Sound reasoning Urbane Guerrilla. Not only can you recognize propaganda embedded in a deluge of benign facts, you have also acquired useful character assessment skills. tw could pass as an intellectual high school or college student due to that apparent "emotional immaturity." (and tw's profile is skeletonized). This begs the question: is it immaturity; or, something else?

tw is not unlike many second worlders that I've met (I've met quite a few in my time, including the President of one Central American country). They have second world ethics. Among these ethics is that whenever one group has a problem, they instinctively look for another group to blame it on. Another second world ethic is that other groups alway owe your group something. Note tw's virtual motto: ask not what the Mexicans can do for themselves, ask what you can do for the Mexicans. I also found it interesting that in a thread about immigration, tw's focus is on Mexicans. tw isn't campaigning for other nationalities; or, the improvement of their homelands. This reflects yet another second world ethic: common ethnicity, nationality, religion ... etc. trumps common situation (like the American Revolutionaries had). This analogy could go on and on ...

Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
Something tw is not yet aware of is that nothing done north of the Rio Grande is actually striking at the root of the problem ... Latin America's economies were all built on the Spanish model of great estates owned by the wealthy few and leaving practically the entire remainder of the population as landless tenant farmers and workers, poverty-stricken, with little stake in the economy and next to no incentive to improve or develop it ...

Your analysis is roughly in line with Tonchi's. Besides working in Central America, I've written an area study on one Central American country and read US Government area study handbooks on others; also, Mexico. All of these sources support the conclusion that there is little to be gained by pouring resources into such countries until they achieve more significant internal reform.

Amusingly, tw still hasn't quite figured out that I never intended to engage in the immigration debate. I recognized early on that tw is a fanatic on this subject who is simply proselytizing in the Cellar. My only purpose was to moderate tw's definitiveness so that other Cellarites would be aware of tw's use of propaganda technique.

Well, thank you for your insight Urbane Guerrilla. While I haven't been here long enough to make a definitive diagnosis of tw, I'm hoping that rehabilitation will be somewhere in the treatment plan. The prognosis is guarded.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
I've slapped tw around on that before.

No, the only thing you've slapped is your keyboard. Sitting there basking in your own witty repartee doesn't make you any more credible to the reader.

Originally posted by NoBoxes
Besides working in Central America, I've written an area study on one Central American country and read US Government area study handbooks on others; also, Mexico. All of these sources support the conclusion that there is little to be gained by pouring resources into such countries until they achieve more significant internal reform.

You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions. We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion and the government experts on Latin America have been, historically, obscenely wrong.

TW, long winded and abrasive, at least cites his sources and gives the reasoning behind his views, beyond opinion. I don't believe he was advocating dumping resources into Latin America, only leveling the playing field so they can compete with us(US). I don't agree we have the responsibility to help them compete against us but that's just my opinion.
I do respect the fact that he never claims, Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't.

[Ibby]

Also, UG... I personally find it pretty immature to assume that everyone under the age of what, twenty? twenty-five? is immature and incapable of engaging in a reasonable debate. I know freshmen who are better at debating than many here, and smarter than... some people here. I'm not much over fourteen, UG, and here I am, holding my own, for the most part, with a bunch of people twice my age. I don't presume to have near the experience or knowledge some of you have, but I know what I know. tw is a lot more mature than a lot of people I know, just somewhat long-winded and entrenched in his views.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions. We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion and the government experts on Latin America have been, historically, obscenely wrong...

I do respect the fact that he never claims, Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't.

xoxoxoBruce, did you miss this part of my previous post?

Amusingly, tw still hasn't quite figured out that I never intended to engage in the immigration debate. I recognized early on that tw is a fanatic on this subject who is simply proselytizing in the Cellar. My only purpose was to moderate tw's definitiveness so that other Cellarites would be aware of tw's use of propaganda technique.

Your statement, "You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions.", was completely irresponsible. An area study resource that I've used [one of many resources], previously adopted for use and distributed by the US government, was prepared by Foreign Area Studies, The American University, under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program (note the paragraphs titled Academics and School of International Service (SIS).

In one C.A. country area study handbook, with only a few hundred pages, the bibliography is 18 pages long and cites many in-country sources (civilian and government) in addition to both kinds of US sources. There is even a disclaimer to the effect that it should not be construed as an official government position, policy, or decision. Might the US government ultimately somehow exercise editorial control? Possibly, just as tw selects what information he presents to you.

Keep in mind that area studies are only base documents. They can; however, be useful in putting todays events into perspective. There are continuing area assessments to be researched which are used to revise the published area studies every decade or two. All of this may not even include classified information not available to the authors. If you want to scrutinize a basic foreign country study prepared by a "government" agency, you can order your own from Uncle Sam. They are currently prepared by Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under their Country Studies/Area Handbook Program. They contain enough information (especially historical) to expand one's perspective on contemporary issues just as having access to classified information expands one's perspective. tw has presented neither of these concepts. tw selects and presents only chronological bites which support his agenda.

xoxoxoBruce, I realize that you are just trying to do what's right (fair and equitable) from your perspective. I'm not convinced that tw is just trying to do the same. tw gives the me the impression that to him, the end always justifies the means. When perspectives differ, methodologies take on increasing importance. We have to avoid falling into the same trap that tw has (i.e. presenting our own conclusions as infallible).

BTW, first you say "We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion ..."; then, turn right around say "Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't." Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?

[xoxoxoBruce]

No. I didn't miss your speech about not wanting to enter the immigration debate but couldn't pass up a chance to dump on TW.

BTW, first you say "We the readers, have no basis to judge your opinion ..."; then, turn right around say "Well, trust me, because I know shit you don't." Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?

That's very funny when you edit out

and the government experts on Latin America have been, historically, obscenely wrong.

TW, long winded and abrasive, at least cites his sources and gives the reasoning behind his views, beyond opinion. I don't believe he was advocating dumping resources into Latin America, only leveling the playing field so they can compete with us(US). I don't agree we have the responsibility to help them compete against us but that's just my opinion.
I do respect the fact that he never claims,

and replace it with;

then, turn right around say

Your statement, "You draw on your opinion and the opinion of US government experts on Latin America for your conclusions.", was completely irresponsible. An area study resource that I've used [one of many resources], previously adopted for use and distributed by the US government, was prepared by Foreign Area Studies, The American University, under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program (note the paragraphs titled Academics and School of International Service (SIS).

Oh, I see. I'm irresponsible for pointing out you were using government information that has been historically, obscenely wrong, but you're not irresponsible for using it. Well OK, at least you cited some sources.

xoB,

I knew you would enjoy the humor and the paradox; because, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT (I've made no secret about that being what I'm here for). Sometimes, I may even do the entertaining! Turnabout is fair play.

NB