Software engineer describes his experience with H1B.

X/Twitter ^ | 12/30/2024 | John Konrad

[ProgressingAmerica]

"The courts disagree"

Generally, liars agree with the lies they spew. But even then, some of them know its not true and only seek to accomplish some goal so whatever lies do it are good lies for the day. Even if they're wearing black robes.

In another reply on a different day I might have said: I don't care that the courts disagree with. The courts are wrong. We have the original documentation as proof.

"and they have the power to enforce their stupid and wrong headed ideas."

We have the power to admit that they're making it up out of thin air and that they are lying about the source of their ability. Having the power to enforce a lie, the spark at the beginning is still ultimately a lie and yes it matters.

"The tool is an ill defined blob of power, and they used it like a hammer. Had it been more refined and better written, they would not have been able to use it like a hammer to beat the law into any form they liked."

That may be true in a select category of items, but the debate notes for the 14th amendment are blindingly specific.

You are not an originalist simply because you choose not to be an originalist. There's no rule that forces a rejection of originalism here. It's all on you. You wouldn't be replying as you do if coming from an originalist position.

"I absolutely do trust them to abuse power."

Not what I said.

No wonder you trust the progressives and their machinations. You are very determined to support the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution here. Perhaps the mistake I am making is that I just don't ask directly since you appear to be trying to get out of it.

So why is it that you support this here? Why is it that when a progressive says "oh yeah man I used the 14th amendment" that you'll never distrust them. You will always categorically agree with them automatically? What makes "I used the 14th amendment" the God's honest truth to you if a progressive states it? It certainly isn't the convention/debate notes text that created the 14th amend. So what is it? And yes, I am absolutely categorizing this correctly, "used" is your terminology. "and they used it like a hammer" <------ See! See! *pointing* See, there's that sneaky progressivism trust again you're letting it leak out. There it is right there you trust them and believe what they say. How does that trust keep getting in there? Why is it there? Why is that trust of progressives so rock solid for you? I cannot understand. An originalist could let this rock-solid trust go because progressives have proven to be unfit, unworthy of being believed.

And you know I have to respond. No, they didn't use it like a hammer, that's impossible. This tool does not enable that sort of activity. Just like using a fire extinguisher like a rocket to reach the moon is equally impossible. It's. Not. Possible. You can't use a saw blade by itself to make phone calls. It's not possible. It's a cutting tool. That's what it does.

Perhaps I need to ask a completely different question altogether. Maybe my approach is wrong.

Do you consider yourself an originalist or a textualist? Because if you consider yourself a textualist, then it is no wonder that you completely trash the debate notes that created the 14th amendment, and any other documents that may shine light upon meaning.(Ala the role that the Federalist Papers play for the COTUS itself) As a 14th textualist, it makes perfect complete sense why you'd trash the 14th debate notes for the junk they are and anything else, because that's clearly all trash.

In asking if you're a textualist and not an originalist, please know that I'm doing a little self examination here. I know that getting an answer often means asking the correct question. Maybe I just haven't asked the correct question yet.

So its said, I'm pretty close to letting this go at this point. I'm not trying to beat the horse or be a pest or anything like that. I have for a long time now been unable to understand why the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution is so popular in the context we are discussing. Don't misunderstand, I hope that today or the next day I'll come to learn. The cynic/realist in me thinks I will continue to not understand. This: "I used the 14th amendment" the God's honest truth! <----- I think I will remain not knowing why. I wish it was not so. But I've not known for a long time and I have made peace with it. It'll be something I bring up again in the future because I can't help it, I genuinely want to know and I seek answers so you can expect to see it again in the future. Asking is the only way to get the answers.

[DiogenesLamp]

In another reply on a different day I might have said: I don't care that the courts disagree with. The courts are wrong. We have the original documentation as proof.

I say that all the time. Very nearly every single day.

I doubt you will find a bigger critic of the courts than myself on Free Republic.

We have the power to admit that they're making it up out of thin air and that they are lying about the source of their ability.

We have the power to say that to ourselves and the people in our small sphere of influence, but we certainly don't have the power to put it on the national airwaves and make the bulk of the American people understand it.

The media-liars control that, and they like the ridiculous and stupid court decisions.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"We have the power to say that to ourselves and the people in our small sphere of influence"

Well I do anyways. You're doing everything in your power not to say it.

"As they do in fact use the 14th to create "gay marriage", abortion on demand, "anchor babies", ban prayer in public schools, and a whole host of wrong headed destructive ideas, it is in fact possible to use the 14th to do it."

Nope. Not possible. A slavery amendment after a war not fought over gay marriages would not do and could not do that. It's literally and actually and factually not possible. Only lies by people in power with an alternate agenda could create these things. Plenty of lies coming from progressives.

Here is what really happens. Progressives use thin air and whole cloth to create "gay marriage", abortion on demand, "anchor babies", ban prayer in public schools, and a whole host of wrong headed destructive ideas since it is not possible to use the 14th to do it. They just lump a lie on top of it like a cherry on ice cream. I'm sorry to wreck your reality, but there it is.

"Pointing out that liberals are abusing the 14th amendment is not the same as believing in a "living constitution.""

Enabling is the same. People go to jail for giving loaded guns to those with a history of suicide attempts and a known desire to do it again. Even moreso people also go to jail for hiring hitmen to off their spouse. "But I personally never killed anybody!" Tell your cellmate that you personally never killed anybody.

If you're going to enable the living constitution you're a supporter of it. You can't keep saying "and they used it like a hammer" and other such similar statements deeply rooted in a faithful trust while saying you hold a deep distrust of the very same thing. It can't be both.

Just don't be surprised when you get called out for trying to have it both ways.

[BroJoeK]

Tell It Right: "The list of grievances wasn't to justify why we left England.
It was to telegraph what kind of government we were creating.
For the signers of each state to come on board they had to know what kind of government they were setting up (to make sure it was worth the risk to break away from England).
The grievances in the Declaration were statements that the new government wasn't going to have those characteristics."

Those words are 100% pure nonsense -- desperate graspings at straws by a Confederate apologist who just can't bear to look the real truth square in the face.

We know that for certain because the Declaration itself says exactly what it means to say, and it doesn't say what you impute to it.
The Declaration's dozens-long parade of horribles is a legal case supporting the Declaration's main self-evident truth:

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The Declaration's lengthy parade of horribles lists the "long train of abuses and usurpations" which make it "their right... their duty, to throw off such Government."

Your interpreting those words any other way is a matter of willful self-deception because, as Col. Jessup told Kaffee, "you can't handle the truth!"

[BroJoeK]

Thread titled: "Software engineer describes his experience with H1B."

DiogenesLamp post #43: "Time for another Civil War clarifying moment."

DiogenesLamp post #65 "The Declaration articulates a right to independence.
It does not argue for a conditional right, it argues for an absolute right to independence for any and all reasons [meaning "at pleasure"]."

ProgressingAmerica to BJK & others #78: "It is unclear to me why the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution is so popular with conservatives."

BJK #80: "It isn't."

ProgressingAmerica #101: "The only important issue at the moment is the 14th Amendment, given that the large context backing all of this is the Civil War."

Nobody here is defending a "living and breathing constitution" and your claims otherwise are pure fantasy.

Neither is anybody here defending SCOTUS' wildly imaginative interpretations of the 14 Amendment.
Those are clearly nonsense and should be reversed by the Court itself, or by Congress with clarifying laws.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "I thought you gratuitously threw in the comment about women not having the right to vote in the Confederate states because women's causes are so popular today and this, in some way, would wrong foot and retroactively disqualify the southern independence movement.
In fact, that is exactly what you are doing."

You thought wrong.
I've explained exactly what I meant -- that slavers who claimed an "unlimited right of secession" for themselves granted no such "right" to the majority of people in their states, including slaves, freedmen, women & Unionists.

My point is, those slavers, like you and DiogenesLamp today, didn't really believe in an "unlimited right of secession", only in their own "rights" to declare whatever the h*ll they wanted, whenever they wanted to and for whatever reasons, or no reasons, they thought appropriate, IOW "at pleasure".

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You cannot stand the fact that the Declaration offers you no support for your belief that people had a right to invade and kill them for their own good because their "reasons" did not meet with the approval of the people they wanted to get away from."

Now you're just babbling pure nonsense because you know as well as everyone else that your argument for an "unlimited right of secession" is a Big Lie, and always was.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Desiring for other people to *LEAVE THEM ALONE* is not dominating others nor forcing them into submission.
All they wanted was for people to *LEAVE THEM ALONE*.
Yes, quite unreasonable, and obviously necessitating the invasion of a million men to kill them for their Insolence."

All of that is pure lies and nonsense.

The truth is that Confederates from Day One were highly aggressive expansionists -- invading Union states, stealing Union property wherever and whenever they could.

Sure, they wanted to be "left alone", just as a bank robber wants to be "left alone" with his loot!

[BroJoeK]

Diogeneslamp: ""Prudence"?
"Should not"?
Do you see a command in there?
I see suggestions.
I read it as saying throwing off your government for "light and transient causes" is a bad idea, but I don't read it as saying that it is forbidden.
Not being forbidden, it is therefore within their rights if they so choose to throw off their "Government long established."
It is their right to do so if they think it necessary.
(Which they did.)"

Well, first, consider the words, "you should obey the laws, if you wish to avoid going to jail."
How optional is "should" in that case?

Second, and most important, there is nothing "should" about the following:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident:
• ...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...

• ...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

• "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

So, all you have done here is apply your own definition of "should" to everything in the Declaration that you disagree with, and therefore, you declare the document to mean something entirely different from what it actually says.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nope. Not possible. A slavery amendment after a war not fought over gay marriages would not do and could not do that.

I notice you keep dodging a point I keep making.

Do you believe the 14th amendment was ratified through a legitimate ratification process, and that southern states which ratified it actually represented the genuine will of the people of their respective states?

You keep portraying the 14th as a holy amendment sullied by evil liberal judges "lying" about it, but you never seem to address the issue of whether it was a properly "ratified" amendment.

I think you are afraid to admit the truth on this particular point.

[DiogenesLamp]

The Declaration's dozens-long parade of horribles is a legal case supporting the Declaration's main self-evident truth:

Bro, those are not the main self-evident truths.

The MAIN truth. The thesis of the entire document is that People have a right to self government."

That is the core of it's meaning condensed into a nut shell.

Everything else in the document is just supporting arguments.

[DiogenesLamp]

Neither is anybody here defending SCOTUS' wildly imaginative interpretations of the 14 Amendment. Those are clearly nonsense and should be reversed by the Court itself, or by Congress with clarifying laws.

The imaginative interpretations of the 14th would not have happened were the 14th not so badly written, and had it actually been created through a legitimate ratification process.

The subsequent problems caused by the 14th amendment are a direct consequence of the Civil War, because without it, and without subjugating the Southern states to puppet status, that 14th amendment would never have been "passed."

[DiogenesLamp]

Now you're just babbling pure nonsense because you know as well as everyone else that your argument for an "unlimited right of secession" is a Big Lie, and always was.

I know you keep saying that, but when asked for evidence, you babble about "causes" rather than self government.

[DiogenesLamp]

The truth is that Confederates from Day One were highly aggressive expansionists -- invading Union states, stealing Union property wherever and whenever they could.

What Union state did the Confederate government invade prior to the Civil War?

I think you are referring to spontaneous efforts by civilians to gain support for the Confederacy in states like Missouri and Kentucky, but i'm not sure.

If governments are supposed to be responsible for the irrational hot heads that cause problems, but who have no official backing, should we say John Brown and his wealthy Massachusetts backers started the Civil War?

[DiogenesLamp]

Well, first, consider the words, "you should obey the laws, if you wish to avoid going to jail." How optional is "should" in that case?

Your analogy would work *IF* there was some sort of *LAW* requiring people to have good reasons for wanting independence.

The Declaration only says that people have a right to it, and places no further requirements on their right to have it.

As for the rest of your comment where you refer to "abuses"... are not "abuses" in the eye of the beholder?

I think the Confederates regarded the sending of 200 million per year to the North, where the North keeps 60% of their profits, to be an "abuse."

I think the Confederates regarded the Northern states treating them as evil second class citizens (as compared to their own states) would be seen by them to be an "abuse."

I think the Confederates would have seen all the laws passed by Congress, which favored the North at the expense of the South, as an "abuse."

I think the Confederates would have seen the Northern states refusal to obey constitutional law regarding the return of "property" valued at $100,000 (in today's money) as an "abuse."

So what *THEY* saw as an "abuse", you might not agree with, but in their eyes, it was in fact an "abuse."

Like I said, "Abuse" depends on whose Ox is getting gored.

[ProgressingAmerica]

The 14th Amendment is a slavery amendment devised after a war which was not fought over prayer in schools.

14th Amendment does not end prayer in schools.

14th Amendment is not capable of ending prayer in schools.

Anybody who affirmatively believes the 14th amendment is a capable of doing this ridiculousness is a firm believer in the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution.

[ProgressingAmerica]

(Not necessarily intended for anybody, but I want it to be seen. This can be done dozens of times BTW. I'm only doing this extra one though.)

The 14th Amendment is a slavery amendment devised after a war which was not fought over abortions.

14th Amendment does not authorize/discourage abortions.

14th Amendment is not capable of authorizing/discourage abortions.

Anybody who affirmatively believes the 14th amendment is a capable of doing this ridiculousness is a firm believer in the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution.

[Tell It Right]

Those words are 100% pure nonsense -- desperate graspings at straws by a Confederate apologist who just can't bear to look the real truth square in the face.

Ummm....in the post you're replying to I pointed out that the Confederate states' declarations stated many times that slavery was their main reason for leaving. Calling me a confederate apologist is like calling me skinny. LOL

By the way, this Alabamian is a descendent of abolitionists/pro-Union Alabamians from the northern portion of the state. Look up "Free State of Winston County" and "First Alabama Calvary". After the state voted for secession, the pro-unionists met at Looney's Tavern in Double Springs to try to decide what to do. They didn't want to leave the union. And they certainly didn't want to fight a war for the plantation owners that they competed with. They never set up a Winston County state within a state, but they fought for the union. My ancestor wound up fighting for the Indiana forces after they attacked north Alabama. That was before the First Alabama Calvary was organized enough to fight as a cohesive unit (look up Company C helping Sherman march from Memphis to Atlanta).

So I have no skin in the game in taking up for the confederates. Nor have I ever voted for the party of the confederacy and segregation. But that doesn't change the simple fact that the federal govt has no right to force a state to stay within the nation. In fact, if it was right to help Texas secede from the new nation of Mexico without having to list grievances, wasn't it justified for states like Louisiana to declare in their declaration that they were seceding --- with no reasons for the WHY, just that they where? I'm not saying the confederate states were morally justified (slavery was wrong). I'm saying they were legally justified (if they want to leave the nation they can without having to explain it to anybody).

Or another way to look at it for today, if the federal govt has that kind of hold on our states today then it's hard to reform the federal govt, which needs reforming. We have better negotiating power if we don't succumb to the belief that they can force us to stay in the nation whether we want to stay or not. I'm not looking for secession. I'm still wanting to save our nation. I'm just saying it's a bargaining tactic to always remind the federal govt that we don't need them, they need us.

[Tell It Right]

Look at the quote from the Declaration that you posted:

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

That doesn't say, "Hey, England. We have to tell you why we're leaving, so here it is." It's saying why our Founding Fathers couldn't just sit on their tails and do nothing. Again, the list of grievances were mainly to the fellow Americans on why they should join in signing the Declaration and guard rails on what the new nation would look like. (Don't worry. The new nation would be like what we're fussing about England over.) As far as England is concerned, we didn't have to tell them WHY we were leaving, just that we WERE.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"I notice you keep dodging a point I keep making."

I wasn't planning on replying again but Ok. I'll bite. You seem to highlight this because it is important to you. So I can answer you directly.

"Do you believe the 14th amendment was ratified through a legitimate ratification process"

I think at this point over a century and half where we are at it is irrelevant. What I do think is that the amendment is due for changes(amendments) to protect us from dishonest judges who lie in the very first instant about even using the 14th at all, and if you wanted to be activist about it to actually get some work done, I'm open to a full repeal.

We aren't getting much work done though just sitting on a web forum complaining. Activity is required.

"I think you are afraid to admit the truth on this particular point."

Heh. These words from the guy who says he thinks thinks that a slavery amendment after a war not fought over prayer in schools would authorize ending prayer in schools. Ditto abortions, ditto gay marriage, etc etc.(the list)..... without explaining the ridiculous process of how he got there.

You're the Civil War guy here not me. I don't think I should have to explain to you that the Civil War was not fought over prayer in schools, yet here we are. Some odd reason, we are here and its your belief.