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I don't know but this quote from Gandhi left me thinking.
If someone has seen Gandhi's movie, with Ben Kingsley representing him, I recommend it, what would have Gandhi done if he was an illegal immigrant?
What are your thoughts?
Gandhi was advocating civil disobedience as an avenue of social reform. Illegal immigrants are not breaking the law for a higher social purpose, they are seeking to improve their way of life. The only way it would be civil disobedience would be if the immigrant were to cross the border, then to turn himself into authorities. Which would be pointless because they would simply deport him. If you could get 10,000 illegal immigrants to march together to a state capital, with the intention of being arrested and deported, you could create sufficient press interest that that would be an act of civil disobedience. Gandhi stressed that the person committing the act of civil disobedience must be fully accepting of the consequences of the act, must not resist, must be willing to die in the process. Civil disobedience is a form of protest against unfair laws, and it is intended to emphasize just how unfair the law is. Any sovereign nation has a right and even an obligation to maintain its borders and control immigration. So I think proving the laws are unfair to the majority of lawful citizens would be very difficult.
if everybody makes the law for himself, then we will be swimming in a pool of alligators right? i mean everybody dresses up like "blade" on tv and runs out and does his own thing. that was not ghandi.
ghandi was a passive protestor non violence. martin luther king tried
too but that did not last
we dont do non violent, civil disobediance here. we lie cheat and steal, then we say we are asserting our rights and say it we did it because after all we are a victim. we are all bout anger and violence. gotta rethink that one.
we got too many law breakers now, i dont wana water that weed thanks for the post.
Dear Andreabeth: I've also thought on them coming back and helping us arrange the house, but I like to ponder all the posibilities.
Now tell me, do the current laws really benefit America? because I have the impression they don't, but I might be wrong.
I'd also like to kindly ask you? all this you tell me about welfare, foodstamps, etc is something you know that happens based on your personal experience? or it is just what you read in the news?
And if it is true couldn't it be that the welfare system is wrong? what about welcome to America swim or sink, work hard and leave a positive mark here, and you are set for the American dream.
Finally, how can be so sure that it is a recipe for disaster? if you haven't experienced life in such a system
imho Immigration laws in the world are just plain wrong, they do more harm than good and I can say that based on my personal experience, they are unfair and aother world could be possible, I have the strong belief that we'll get there somehow, but it can be the hard way by painful experience, or the easy way using our wisdom and common sense, I might be wrong though, but that's what intuition and personal experience tell me.
Peace, Love, Light and Harmony!
I have to smile to myself at your optimism, I hope you are right. At this point in mankind's existence, I think open borders would cause far more problems than it would solve. Economist Milton Freidman understood this.
These excerpts are taken from an article by Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation. People may criticize the writer or the foundation, try to focus on the basic message.
Quote:
June 20, 2007
Look to Milton
Open borders and the welfare state.
By Robert Rector
A decade ago, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street Journal for its idée fixe on open-border immigration policy. “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” he warned. This remark adds insight to the current debate over immigration in the U.S. Senate.
To be fully understood, Friedman’s comment should be viewed as applying not merely to means-tested welfare programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, and public housing, but to the entire redistributive transfer state. In the “transfer state,” government taxes the upper middle class and shifts some $1.5 trillion in economic resources to lower-income groups through a vast variety benefits and subsidies. Across the globe, this sort of economic redistribution is the largest, if not the predominant, function of government in advanced societies.
The transfer state redistributes funds from those with high-skill and high-income levels to those with lower skill levels. Low-skill immigrants become natural recipients in this process. On average, low-skill immigrant families receive $30,160 per year in government benefits and services while paying $10,573 in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of $19,587 that has to be paid by higher-income taxpayers.
There is a rough one-to-one fiscal balance between low-skill immigrant families and upper-middle-class families. It takes the entire net tax payments (taxes paid minus benefits received) of one college-educated family to pay for the net benefits received by one low-skill immigrant family. Even Julian Simon, the godfather of open-border advocates, acknowledged that imposing such a burden on taxpayers was unreasonable, stating, “immigrants who would be a direct economic burden upon citizens through the public coffers should have no claim to be admitted” into the nation.
The basic premise, which I think is correct, is that low skilled illegal immigrant families, or low skilled American families, are going to collect more in benefits than they pay into the system. I think this is a reasonable setup. Most advanced countries have something similar. The poor in the US may have it very dificult but they are not reduced to the level of total abject poverty seen in places like Zimbabwe or Calcutta. If we were to adopt an open borders policy or even grant amnesty to the millions already here, the US will experience a sudden increase in millions of low skilled families requiring a net transfer of benefits to them. At the same time, we will NOT have a sudden increase in the number of high skilled individuals necessary to offset this if the system is to remain in balance. This is not a tenable long term situation in my opinion. It is simply not realisitic to think that we can absorb millions of unskilled people from Third world countries without eventually collapsing ourselves. And frankly, I consider a world in which the US, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy and all other First World countries have been destroyed by unchecked immigration to be a far more frightening prospect than a world with borders.
At issue is the discrepancy between state and federal laws. Since 1996, California has permitted the use of marijuana for prescribed medical purposes. Federal law forbids any possession or dispensing of marijuana.
I could agree with the proposition that unfair laws can be broken every now and then.
I just don't understand the "right" to break ANOTHER COUNTRY'S laws that NON-voting and NON-taxpaying foreigners deem "unfair!"
Cause if you don't LIKE the law, you don't have to visit or live in that country! Like how laws in Middle Eastern countries keep me from wanting to live or visit there.
Now tell me, do the current laws really benefit America? because I have the impression they don't, but I might be wrong.
Whether current immigration law benefits America is completely irrelevant. It is our right, as a sovereign nation, to implement any law we choose. This is the meaning of sovereignty. As a free democratic people, if we decide to harm the country through immigration law, so be it. Our national sovereignty is no different than your personal sovereignty. If you decide to harm your body by smoking and drinking, that's your business; no one else's. The same holds true with controlling the borders. The borders are ours to control. It doesn't matter what foreign nationals/governments feel about our decisions.
I don't know but this quote from Gandhi left me thinking.
If someone has seen Gandhi's movie, with Ben Kingsley representing him, I recommend it, what would have Gandhi done if he was an illegal immigrant?
What are your thoughts?
Laws regarding illegals are too lax as it is. It would be unfair to our own poor countrymen not enforce them.
I could agree with the proposition that unfair laws can be broken every now and then.
I just don't understand the "right" to break ANOTHER COUNTRY'S laws that NON-voting and NON-taxpaying foreigners deem "unfair!"
Cause if you don't LIKE the law, you don't have to visit or live in that country! Like how laws in Middle Eastern countries keep me from wanting to live or visit there.
Good point - I can just see what would happen if several planeloads of American women landed in Saudi illegally and started driving convertibles with flowing hair, makeup and sunglasses.
I agree, law and order come from our higher selves, basic instincts are more animal in nature.
But common sense is also needed to separate right from wrong, Primae Noctis was a law during the middle ages, and that didn't made it right, Apartheid was a law in more recent times, and that didn't made it right either.
But I agree, people shouldn't feel over the law, what to do?
Something tells me that if illegal immigrants had the chance to come legally, they would be more willing to assimilate and respect laws, people who burn flags or go to marches and those things do it out of despair and angst, because they feel that the world has turned it's back on them, they feel rejected, isolated and don't know better because the light in their minds is covered by the dark coat of ignorance.
People who is involved in the illegal immigration system (politicians, coorporations, corrupt border patrol officers, ice officers and illegal immigrants) create a dysfunctional relation because their actions make these people believe they have a right to be here and demand things, at the same time society rejects them and hypocrite politicians say one thing to them and other to the citizens creating a serious lack of communication and understanding.
At least, we had a chance to study, we were born in a loving family that raised us to be good humans and citizens, we can do better! We can create a better world! isn't this ideal what made america what it is? a beautiful democratic, equalitarian society who is generous, concerned and has always felt that has the moral obligation to be the world's big brother?
We are our brother's keeper aren't we? I want to kindly ask you, my brothers, my dear brothers to reflect on this with the heart.
Yours truly
An imperfect and flawed human being just like the rest of you.
As being your brothers keeper, the Bible clearly teaches to abide by the laws as stated. If you don't like the laws, you should work to get them changed, but there is no stipulation to ignore them. Right is right and wrong is wrong and being in the United States illegally is wrong. I did not make up that rule, but I live by it. I think the United States plays "big brother" more than it should and does not spend as much time and money taking care of its own citizens. These Mexican citizens do not respect us, they are using us and it should stop and I believe it will stop because our citizens will demand that it stop.
Last edited by NCN; 11-09-2007 at 01:14 PM..
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