A coveted "Gold Post" award for ya...
Ahem, I'm a wee bit color blind, so if it's more yellow/orange/purple than gold; well....
FGS
Posted on 08/20/2005 10:52:05 PM PDT by joanie-f
BTTT...thanks for the ping...Great article...
Inconsequential compared to the $800 Billion that illegal immigrants contribute to the GDP according to last month's Business Week, or for example $16 Billion to Southern Nevada alone.
Sometimes, no. That is why I asked the question.
political or legal authority in the Americas
There was a primitive form of military authority.
The other part of your garbled point appears to be that it was "immoral" to "waltz in here and divide up the land as we pleased."
That's how we ended up being the great nation we are, doing exactly that. I can't decide why that was so right in retrospect, not that I haven't benefitted from their having done so. Sorry if it seemed garbled to you. My strengths seem to lie in math and pattern recognition and not written communication skills. Now that I am getting older, I do tend to garble things more than I did when younger.
Is that not what the Indians did?
Probably, just as our ancestors migrated and conquered native populations in old Europe, as in Norman conquest, etc.
You talk of the Indians as if they were a monolithic group or duly constituted nation, notwithstanding the fact that as you acknowledge, they "didn't have a legal system or property rights." In fact, they were disparate and linguistically and culturally diverse tribes of hunter-gatherers and subsistence agriculturists that fought and massacred each other for centuries before the white man came. They didn't occupy the whole land and they certainly weren't making the use of it that European immigrants later did.
I know all that. They didn't produce smog (well they did have camp fires and smoke signals) either and Pittsburg used to stink for an hour driving through that place. We have had to clean up our act to a great extent. Is that a bad thing?
I think you mean "North and South America," not "whole Northern and Southern Hemispheres."
I did. My bad. Sorry.
Two points. One, don't you think the settlement of North America by Europeans (and Asians and Africans), made the "New World" more "diverse," and isn't that a "good thing"?
Overall at this point in time, it has been positive, but there have been some negative consequences as well. The jury is still out on that and history, if there is any, will revise whatever the actual situation was to fit the agenda of whomever of the time; i.e., winners write history.
Two, if you posit that the Indians were right to defend their territory, would you deny that same right to the remote descendants of European (and African and Asian) settlers in North America?
Certainly not. It's about self-preservation, ethnically and nationally, in which I admittedly contradict myself to some extent because I can't resolve the matter entirely in my own mind knowing much of the history of my early American ancestors, pro and con.
Even if it wasn't "right," what does that have to do with enforcing current immigration laws? Does the fact that you think we "stole" the Western Hemisphere from the Indians make our residence here "illegal" and "immoral," and serve as an absolute impediment to enforcement of our laws and our borders? I think your proposition is too absurd to be entertained.
I'm not the final judge, and maybe there isn't one. We do have laws, and if they are just laws, we have a right to enforce them now. It would make sense to me that laws designed to control immigration are just for both the immigrants and native populations alike. It isn't realistic to suppose that we can take in the whole world, even though the State of Texas would currently hold it (if that "calculation" was correct) as the world population numbers stand now.
It wasn't a proposition, and I don't see it as being that absurd. It was a rhetorical question that I can't answer to myself entirely to my COMPLETE satisfaction at all times in our nation's history because I don't KNOW. I can only try to look at in hindsight from different points of view.
I was discussing it with an Aztec/Hispanic lady the other night. It was mostly a one-sided discussion, as she didn't offer any input because I don't think she has thought it through or maybe was afraid to say anything. She is an alcoholic and was aking me why Indians were so prone to the "firewater" demon (my words not hers). I thought it had something to do with genetic makeup and conditioning. We both agree it involves personal responsibility in overcoming the problem. She is here legally BTW.
There are many other things I could have said pro and con, such as are the Indians today better or worse off because of our presence here and many of them being confined to reservations in North America. Arguments could probably be made both ways. They seem to like some of our technology, and we never succeeded in completely destroying their culture or way of life for those who survived. They are part of the equation of diversity you came back with.
And that pesky word "illegal" doesn't matter to you? And is it all about economics? Might there also just be lots of "dangerous" non-Mexicans crossing our southern border?
Nor would it stop the ones who enter from the Northern border. Nor would it stop the ones who enter vis boats along the 97,000 miles of shoreline and inland waterways. Nor would it stop the drug traffickers who fly small planes into the hundreds of dirt landing strips in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.
And even if your wall worked for the 2,000 mile Mexican border, it would have no impact whatsoever on the entry of the majority of illegals.
But your wall would not work. See next post.
Joanie, as of now- only half a day after it was posted- your thread has 1,045+ views. Way to get the word out!
Rather than argue further with you, I'm going to agree with you---at least the portion of your reply I've reposted. And I've highlighted the bit about protecting native populations, because, as you may know, Indians or native Americans or whatever you want to call them also suffer from illegal immigration. For example, the Papago Indians (who apparently prefer the name "Tohono O’Odham" or "Desert People") have their ancestral home and reservation right on the border, and they suffer just as much as immigrant descendant Americans from the tide of illegal immigration through Arizona. Even if you have doubts about the justice of other Americans complaining about illegal immigration, one can surely sympathize with the Papagos and the costs illegal immigrant trespassers cause them.
I heard on Fox News last night that it is estimated that almost a million have come across that border from Jan to July of this year alone. Wouldn't you say that makes it the most necessary route to close off?
A figure given by Open Borders and ethnic apologist Raul Hinojosa, with absolutely no back-up. I'd take the word of this shameless partisan for illegal immigration as seriously as I would the assurances of CAIR about Islamicist intentions towards America.
But what else should we expect from a GOP Hispandering Big Tent RINO/Liberal/Moderate.
It fits you like a glove.
I didn't mean to start an argument. I have been trying to sort things out for myself and appreciate polite input, even if I am taken to task for it. It's just nice to expect some reasonable discussion about deeper aspects of things once in awhile.
I guess by now I know that I hadn't ought to post anything that is "different" here and also fully understand that posting it on some leftist forum (fora for those in the mensa category) I would have caught flak, too.
No matter what I have ever thought or said, somebody is going to take issue with it.
If immigration is stopped dead in its tracks today, they will still breed to the point that my "ethnic group" will probably be in the minority. I can't help wondering how that is going to affect politics and how I or mine will be treated as minority status. I don't think they will have respect for hate speech laws and other forms of retribution when they achieve majority.
Or as seriously as we would the assurances of bayourod about the many benefits of the illegal alien invasion.
bayourod: Inconsequential compared to the $800 Billion that illegal immigrants contribute to the GDP according to last month's Business Week, or for example $16 Billion to Southern Nevada alone.
You're trying to compare Gross Domestic Product to Net Taxpayer Dollars spent on providing services to illegal alien lawbreakers? What are you going to do next, compare an apple to a fire truck simply because they're both red?
Gross Domestic Product = Consumer Spending + Business and Residential Investment + Government Spending - Trade Deficit.
I guess by now I know that I hadn't ought to post anything that is "different" here and also fully understand that posting it on some leftist forum (fora for those in the mensa category) I would have caught flak, too.
No matter what I have ever thought or said, somebody is going to take issue with it.
If immigration is stopped dead in its tracks today, they will still breed to the point that my "ethnic group" will probably be in the minority. I can't help wondering how that is going to affect politics and how I or mine will be treated as minority status. I don't think they will have respect for hate speech laws and other forms of retribution when they achieve majority.
Sorry if I took your post the wrong way. I didn't mean to be impolite, and with further discussion I find that there is indeed common ground between us. The bottom line for me is that I don't know how or why descendants of European immigrants (or African or Asian immigrants) to America should be held accountable for what was done to the Indians in terms of current immigration law, policy, or enforcement. It just doesn't have any relevance IMHO. Sorry if I made that point too strongly or discourteously.
The Europeans invaded, it was a war the Native Americans lost, end of story. I feel no more guilt over what took place 400 years ago in the Americans than a feel guilt for the Romans taking over Celtic territories. The fact is the Europeans treated the Native Tribes no worse than they treated each other in the various wars Europe had at the same time.
This event is an absolute travest IMHO. I don't care if the illegals were "meek and mild" about how they broke our law. These landowners have every right to try and prevent that illegality and tresspass on their property, and to defend said property.
For those same illegals to be able to sue in American court and come away with the landowner's land is an outrage. It will encourage more to do the same and to in fact precipitate such events in the future.
The smugness of the SPLC lawyers and others in this horrible precedent will only fuel more of the same and a corresponding increase in resistance from people who will refuse to be driven from their land by this wave of illegal immigration and the socio-globalist/marxist who abett it.
I say this to their smugness...be careful, you know not what seeds you sow. Honest, hard-working, land-owning Americans will only be pushed so far...as is evidencd through our long history. Life, liberty and land ownership were the original three unalienable rights enumerated in the original Declaration of Indpendence...and along with those comes the right to defend them...with our very lives if necessary.
Continue to push this...smug lawyers, ACLU, politicians, etc. at your own eventual peril. That is not a personal threat to any person or place...it is simply a statment of the real, abject lessons of history. Lessons if one does not learn from, they are very apt to repeat.
Sam Adams...great beer(that's what most Americans would say)
All kidding aside Id fear that soon there is going to an act so brutal perpatrated by an illegal that the citizen response is going to be violent and ugly. The government will then, finally, step in. To stop the American citizens and help the illegals.
Folks, this is eventually going to lead to either closed borders or open rebellion. Wether that rebellion takes the form of political rebellion(throw the bums out) or a shoot first and bury 'em in the desert rebellion....is really up to the people currently in charge of this fiasco. But if it comes down to it, how many have the "stones?"
Any Sam Adams' out there?
Yes you are SOOOOO right, we are evil wrong and racist for having the unmitigated gall to want our nations borders protected. How dare we even consider such a thing? I for one feel so guilty I am go to give my house to the next illegal I see.
NOOOOOOOTTT!
You are right that the Europeans did basically settle the land that was already inhabited and displaced those living here. There's no way anyone can honestly dispute that fact. But an interesting take regarding the history of the continent was made recently by an American Indian. He said in effect he respected the fact the Europeans had conquered the territory and how they were a worthy opponent while doing so.
This man was vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, which was the point of the article precisely because the land in his opinion was being taken all over again but this time they were not able to at least fight back.
His way of defining the opposition to what's going on tells me that if there's one issue where just about everyone in the country agrees now it's on illegal immigration.
A coveted "Gold Post" award for ya...
Ahem, I'm a wee bit color blind, so if it's more yellow/orange/purple than gold; well....
FGS
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