Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Politics and Other Controversies
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 10-15-2016, 10:25 PM
 
1,650 posts, read 1,109,557 times
Reputation: 1666

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD View Post
^^^^I agree 100%!

Our citizens come first and foremost. Period.

The OP obviously was never unemployed in his life. If he were, he would understand just how difficult it is for anyone who isn't independently wealthy to have to go through. Someone like the OP would have to learn the hard way what it is like.

When someone is out of work, they aren't going to sit around thinking how wonderful it is that someone else in another country has taken their job due to NAFTA or TPP. Instead, the unemployed American is going to worry about paying his/her bills. Maybe they worry about losing their home to foreclosure or getting evicted because they can't pay the rent.

ETA: The OP said the following:


Relative to the situations many people in other countries are experiencing, losing a job in America is certainly a moderate harm. They are almost certainly not going to starve to death, they can walk into any emergency room and get medical treatment, and their kids have free public school. That isn't comparable to the alternative faced by many people elsewhere.

-------------------------------

Just how naive are you, OP? They "can walk into any emergency room and get medical treatment"? Are you aware that if they are unemployed, they will still be expected to pay the medical bills? How are they going to do that when they lost their medical coverage when they lost their job? When they lose their home and don't have family to take them in, where will they live? Answer: Many end up living in their cars. And you think this is okay because it's better than being in a third world country? OP, how about you go up to a family who is living in their car and tell them that they are lucky? Then come back here and tell us how you were received by them.
X2. I live in a 200 sq ft trailer and work temp jobs to get by and have no health insurance. OP wants to bring in more needy people from other countries to take the little jobs we have left when we already have so many at home who could use a helping hand. I'm not talking about myself, I feel luck to have a roof over my head, enough food, and a loving family. But many of my friends live in their cars and live a homeless lifestyle.

He ask why he should care about our own homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks instead of people in foreign countries that have little in common with us other than a pulse. A friend told me one time, you gotta wipe your own ass first.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-15-2016, 10:30 PM
 
5,683 posts, read 4,113,587 times
Reputation: 7403
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiverMeTimber View Post
Sounds like you already have your mind made up. You can ignore American culture and national pride, but the majority of us care about Americans first and foremost. It's not about color or religion, it's about culture and values. The fact that you find this hard to understand makes me question your particular background and upbringing. Have you ever eaten a hotdog on the 4th of july or worn a costume at a halloween party? These are just a very small fraction of the culture we all share. You can care about whoever you want. I choose to care about people more similar to myself than I do foreign nationals.
Of course I have taken part in all sorts of American traditions and felt a sense of national pride. I just don't know how that implies I should care more about the plight of Americans than people abroad, particularly if we are talking about greater levels of suffering abroad.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD View Post
Our citizens come first and foremost. Period.
But why? You have yet to answer that question. You keep restating your position, but you haven't said why this should be the case.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD View Post
The OP obviously was never unemployed in his life. If he were, he would understand just how difficult it is for anyone who isn't independently wealthy to have to go through. Someone like the OP would have to learn the hard way what it is like.

When someone is out of work, they aren't going to sit around thinking how wonderful it is that someone else in another country has taken their job due to NAFTA or TPP. Instead, the unemployed American is going to worry about paying his/her bills. Maybe they worry about losing their home to foreclosure or getting evicted because they can't pay the rent.
Do you think the majority of people who lose a job in the US are suffering on the level of people who are unemployed in third-world countries? Surely the answer is no.

If the answer is in fact no, then my point stands: people who lose their job in the US are not harmed to the same extent that people are when they go unemployed in third-world countries.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD View Post
Just how naive are you, OP? They "can walk into any emergency room and get medical treatment"? Are you aware that if they are unemployed, they will still be expected to pay the medical bills? How are they going to do that when they lost their medical coverage when they lost their job? When they lose their home and don't have family to take them in, where will they live? Answer: Many end up living in their cars. And you think this is okay because it's better than being in a third world country? OP, how about you go up to a family who is living in their car and tell them that they are lucky? Then come back here and tell us how you were received by them.
Of course they will be expected to pay medical bills, and they may get sued if they can't. But guess what? They still received medical treatment. You are missing the point here. Being poor in the US is a lot better than being poor in a third-world country.

Of course many people who are poor in the US don't consider themselves lucky, but that doesn't mean that they aren't better off than people who are poor in third-world countries. I'll turn the tables on you: go up to someone who is in genuine poverty abroad, not knowing where their next meal is coming from, having no access to basic medical care and unable to provide any education for their kids and tell them that a person in the US who is receiving an unemployment check and living in a car -- they literally own a car -- is worse off than they are. Tell us how you are received by them.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 10:31 PM
 
5,683 posts, read 4,113,587 times
Reputation: 7403
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiverMeTimber View Post
X2. I live in a 200 sq ft trailer and work temp jobs to get by and have no health insurance. OP wants to bring in more needy people from other countries to take the little jobs we have left when we already have so many at home who could use a helping hand. I'm not talking about myself, I feel luck to have a roof over my head, enough food, and a loving family. But many of my friends live in their cars and live a homeless lifestyle.

He ask why he should care about our own homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks instead of people in foreign countries that have little in common with us other than a pulse. A friend told me one time, you gotta wipe your own ass first.

Like the other posters, you aren't actually saying why this should be so. You are simply stating that it should be so.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 10:50 PM
 
Location: Japan
15,292 posts, read 7,723,596 times
Reputation: 10006
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost View Post
For example, let's imagine that it is actually true that a very small percentage of Syrian refugees are terrorists, and if we let in 400,000 refugees, 25 additional Americans will die from terrorism. However, let's also imagine that, if we do not let in those 400,000 refugees, 400 of them will die from famine, disease, violence, etc. The America First ideology says that we should not let in the refugees because it will cause 25 Americans to die, but that inherently values the life of an American as being 16 times more important (in the scenario I've concocted) than the life of a Syrian. This seems inherently immoral.
OK, that's reasonable as far as it goes, but maybe your analysis is incomplete. What is the true cost of admitting very large numbers of refugees, migrants and immigrants generally to America? It isn't just about death rates. And there are a lot more than 400,000 people in the world living in places where the death rate far exceeds that of the United States. How many do you plan to save in this way? Should people continue to be added until society deteriorates to the point that America is no safer than countries they are leaving?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 10:51 PM
 
22,329 posts, read 11,853,913 times
Reputation: 20148
OP, you ask "but why"? Seriously. The answer is in one sentence:

Charity starts at home.

How much clearer can it be made for you? My concerns are with the millions of suffering underemployed and unemployed Americans because...you guessed it...charity starts at home.

/Thread
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 11:10 PM
 
1,650 posts, read 1,109,557 times
Reputation: 1666
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost View Post
Like the other posters, you aren't actually saying why this should be so. You are simply stating that it should be so.
Ive told you multiple times already. Maybe if you have a loved one personally killed by an illegal immigrant or victim of a terror attack by foreign national you will understand. Most people like myself look at say a family who lost a parent or son in the world trade center attack and say to themselves, that could have been my loved one working there. That could have been my family devastated by that. It's close to home. Now when we see foreign people in muslim nations savagly beheading eachother and stoning women to death, drowning people in cages, burning alive, publically thrown off a tall building, etc, they don't think to the selves that could be me or a loved one. It's been explained to you multiple times, I don't understand why it's so hard for you to underand. There are proabably 4 billion people in the world suffering or living in squaller. Roughly 12x the amount of people living in America. So you think we should just open the door for all these people to come here and fly them in?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 11:47 PM
 
5,683 posts, read 4,113,587 times
Reputation: 7403
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD View Post
OP, you ask "but why"? Seriously. The answer is in one sentence:

Charity starts at home.

How much clearer can it be made for you? My concerns are with the millions of suffering underemployed and unemployed Americans because...you guessed it...charity starts at home.

/Thread
1. You are again just stating your position: charity starts at home. That isn't an explanation for why charity should start at home. You aren't being unclear -- you simply aren't giving justification for your view.

2. You do realize that typing "/Thread" doesn't actually end the thread, right?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dark Enlightenment View Post
OK, that's reasonable as far as it goes, but maybe your analysis is incomplete. What is the true cost of admitting very large numbers of refugees, migrants and immigrants generally to America? It isn't just about death rates. And there are a lot more than 400,000 people in the world living in places where the death rate far exceeds that of the United States. How many do you plan to save in this way? Should people continue to be added until society deteriorates to the point that America is no safer than countries they are leaving?
There may be some additional considerations, and it's totally possible that in practice this sort of analysis would lead us to not take certain actions that may on their surface appear to be preferable from a cosmopolitanism standpoint. In this thread, I'm more concerned with the general idea of how we should think about these sorts of tradeoffs than what our response should be to specific scenarios.

Your last question is a good one. I suspect that, in practice, there aren't enough people who want to come into this country to make this a problem we actually have to face. Most people in third-world countries don't have the resources to move to America, so we are probably more realistically confronted with questions about economic globalism than actual migration. However, I have to say that, from a philosophical standpoint, I'm not sure what my answer to your last question is.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-15-2016, 11:49 PM
 
5,683 posts, read 4,113,587 times
Reputation: 7403
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiverMeTimber View Post
Ive told you multiple times already. Maybe if you have a loved one personally killed by an illegal immigrant or victim of a terror attack by foreign national you will understand. Most people like myself look at say a family who lost a parent or son in the world trade center attack and say to themselves, that could have been my loved one working there. That could have been my family devastated by that. It's close to home. Now when we see foreign people in muslim nations savagly beheading eachother and stoning women to death, drowning people in cages, burning alive, publically thrown off a tall building, etc, they don't think to the selves that could be me or a loved one. It's been explained to you multiple times, I don't understand why it's so hard for you to underand.
You have certainly explained that most people view things this way. That doesn't answer the question of why we should view things this way. I'm not sure where the disconnect is here. You have repeatedly stated that you feel a certain connection with other people in our own country that you don't feel to people in other countries. You've also stated that a lot of other people feel the same things. That doesn't explain why we should care more about the lives of random Americans than we do random Italians or Iranians. I don't see how illegal immigration crime or 9/11 would imply that we should have certain beliefs about non-Americans in general.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiverMeTimber View Post
There are proabably 4 billion people in the world suffering or living in squaller. Roughly 12x the amount of people living in America. So you think we should just open the door for all these people to come here and fly them in?
Nope, I never said any such thing.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-16-2016, 12:07 AM
 
Location: San Francisco, CA
15,088 posts, read 13,412,423 times
Reputation: 14266
"America first" is a very typical nationalist rhetoric of a demagogue who comes along and whips up economically disadvantaged people...similar to how a guy with a funny mustache whipped up a bunch of Germans by saying "Deutschland uber alles." Go look up what that one means. Nationalist rhetoric usually quickly devolves into racist, restrictive, and even violent policies.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-16-2016, 12:16 AM
 
22,329 posts, read 11,853,913 times
Reputation: 20148
Quote:
Originally Posted by ambient View Post
"America first" is a very typical nationalist rhetoric of a demagogue who comes along and whips up economically disadvantaged people...similar to how a guy with a funny mustache whipped up a bunch of Germans by saying "Deutschland uber alles." Go look up what that one means. Nationalist rhetoric usually quickly devolves into racist, restrictive, and even violent policies.
So...how many people from the third world have you invited to live in your home so that you could feed, clothe, shelter and pay for their medical care? Do you put them ahead of your own family?

BTW, you invoked Godwin's Law. You lose.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Politics and Other Controversies
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top