NEWS: Minutemen Are Using a New Tactic In their Fight On Illegal Immigration

DerekJR321, there is a difference in the courts between:

Setting out to harass people and see if they commit a crime.
Witnessing a crime by chance.

As for the paparazzi, many cases they have been found guilty in a civil courts and forced to pay compensation.

Odium,
Where is the harassment in the news report?

# Harrassment is a malicious act of annoying and threatening someone through various means, ie via emails, via letters with personal motives and reasons. Harrassment is usually done by someone close to the victim or could be by someone unknown to the victim.
Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. When the term is used in a legal sense it refers to behaviours that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society. In societies which support free speech, only the more repetitive, persistent and untruthful types of speech qualify legally as harassment. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrassment

There is none. Sorry,

Harassment in those standards rarely holds up. Where I can understand where you are coming from.. I don't think what they are doing is along the same lines. Its not like (as far as I understand it) they are following these immigrants to and from their homes, monitoring everything they do. I assume they are watching them where they congregate. In my previous post I said they all hang out at a local 7-11. So can they sue the 7-11 for having a surveilance camera outside the store? How is it any different?

By The Associated Press
By The Associated Press
07.24.05
PHILADELPHIA — A man twice arrested for harassment while videotaping state police troopers as they conducted truck-safety inspections was awarded $41,000 in damages by a federal judge.

Truck driver Allen E. Robinson filed the civil rights lawsuit after he was arrested nearly three years ago at a checkpoint on Route 41 in Chester County that he believed was a danger to passing motorists.

Troopers Patrick V. Fetterman, John Rigney and Gregg Riek seized his camera and charged Robinson with harassment in October 2002. A local magistrate convicted him, but he appealed, and a county judge later dismissed the charges.

A federal judge in Philadelphia ruled on July 19 that there was no justification for the troopers’ conduct and ordered them to pay damages.

“Videotaping is a legitimate means of gathering information for public dissemination and can often provide cogent evidence, as it did in this case,” wrote U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III in his ruling in Robinson v. Fetterman. “In sum, there can be no doubt that the free speech clause of the Constitution protected Robinson as he videotaped the defendants.”

The state police will pay the damages if the decision is upheld, a department spokesman told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Robinson also had been convicted of harassment in 2000 for videotaping truck inspections. He never appealed that conviction.

For full text of decision:
www.paed.uscourts.gov...

I believe this current discussion all started with a couple of quotes about "racial profiling" and "stalking".

"Racial profiling" is used as a negative term, yet it is used continuously (successfully, I might add) in law enforcement to find and incarcerate guilty (and occasionally innocent) individuals. It is a tool. We could also say that the Minutemen are socially, culturally, dialectically, or any of a billion "-ly"s profiling these individuals. If the shoe fits...

If we're going to use the example that causing mental stress, repeatedly or otherwise, can be construed as stalking, then I do believe that we are all being stalked. The U.S. has an extremely high level of mental disorders, most brought on by repetetive stress. Considering that this was the case long before the illegals became a popular issue, and considering that this issue is just adding more stress to each of us (as can be seen in many of the posts here), an argument could be made that they are indeed stalking us, and we have just begun reciprocating.

The fact is, Odium, that if you look back through your posts, you'll find that you have, time after time, brought up new and often irrelevant issues to avoid kenshiro's rebuttals. Sometimes, as in your falling back on the examination of corporate documents by tax officials, you circle back to topics that may not have been refuted completely.

Perhaps there are Minutemen assisting in this way. Have you done the research to prove they aren't? Perhaps they've tried, but aren't qualified enough to attain the clearance to be allowed to legally audit private corporate files.

I find it ridiculous that because a group of individuals find a LEGAL means of providing information to authorities about ILLEGAL activities, people have to fall back on myriad reasons why they shouldn't, just to dissent. Sure, dissention is your right, it's even encouraged at many levels, but shouldn't it be done over topics that require it?

The moral issue: These illegals need money, but to get it they are effectively stealing it from those to whom it belongs, who are also in need of it. It's not right, at any level. And, oh yes, the employers are to blame as much as the illegals.

The legal issue: Illegals are, by definition, not legal. Constitutional rights do not apply to them. However, many statutory or even federal laws may. The Constitution does not restrict the helping of immigrants, illegal or otherwise. It also does not condone the taking of a citizen's rights to provide for those of an illegals, so any statutory or federal laws that do, are unconstitutional.

In addition, if a CITIZEN'S rights are imposed upon by the Minutemen, then they should be charged AT THE TIME THEY COMMIT THE CRIME, and not dealt a verdict before they've even been accused. Let's not get hasty in accusing our own citizens, when all that's been shown is that they're trying to defend OUR rights and privileges.

Also, I don't believe in most cases that the domestic law enforcement community has to be federally trained or take an oath upon our federal or state constitutions, so I'm pretty sure that ANY citizen, as long as they observe the law, can provide domestic protection and service to their communities. PROTECT and SERVE. If the law enforcement "officials" aren't doing it, should we not do it for ourselves?

Not that I need to add anything, but kudos to you, Vagabond. I enjoyed reading your response to ShakyaHeir.

ShakyaHeir, you should know that by overlaying the original issue with one of race, and even posting as though blacks are somehow being persecuted, you succeed only in playing a tired, old, overused card and making any legitimate claims you might have had sound hollow. But, I think Vagabond already summed that up nicely...

Odium, why make a play for the race card too? Were members of your family shot for being "native" American? Shucks. Members of my family were shot defending the South Koreans, defending French and Jewish, cut down fighting the Moors, the Mongols, the Vandals, blahblahblah. Let's cry about the injustices already...

The "native" Americans more than likely migrated north from South America after the last ice age (not crossing the Berring strait as previously thought). They all fought each other repeatedly, taking honor in their conquests, expanding their territories, making and breaking tribal deals in underhanded ways, so forth and blahblah. Then early U.S.ers come in, push them back, and take land by conquest. The difference? Both the U.S., and the un-united tribes used dirty tricks, torture, and other forms of underhanded war. However, the U.S. won. So I guess, let's just piss all over the U.S. and have a big flag burning because of it. WTH!!!

You were not tortured, plagued, or anything else. You have your own set of adversities to contend with. Why fall back on getting recognition for the conflicts of another? If you truly take pride in your heritage, why don't you deal with their memory honorably instead of using it as a crutch? They didn't...

Originally posted by Byrd
Exactly. In fact, in areas where there are centers for day workers, everyone who shows up has been checked for green cards or proof of residency.

I haven't got much time so I'm only replying to this for now- i'll catch up with the rest of the discussion this evening. Anyway...
Could you perhaps define which "areas where there are centers for day workers" we are talking about? I have quite a bit of experience with this and can assure you that there is absolutely no regulation whatsoever on day labor pickup points in Cathedral City, Ca, and Corona, Ca.

I'm also aware that a major sunkist provider in the Coachella Valley has never enforced these rules- they changed their company truck color away from sea green because workers fled everytime the boss drove up. My grandpa worked for them, and I've seen it.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
I'd love to live where you come from buddy. Where I come from the police hardly touch Mexicans. I remember being jumped and having the snot kicked out of me by six guys- all mexicans- when I was in school. I knew who they were, I fingered them, I had the bruises to prove it, and one of them had my bike in his garage. Nothing happened to them.

A few years later my younger brother mixed it up with a pair of Mexicans. They started it, they threatened to stab him, they threw the first blow. He clocked the pair of them. He got probation, they didn't get anything.

I can see where your hate comes from.

Yeah blacks statistically commit (are convicted of) more crime than whites in America,

You had it right the first time. They commit more crime than whites in America. And yes, they are inherently more criminal. Not genetically, if that's what you mean, but the "gangsta" culture to which many of them choose to belong glorifies violence, glorifies drug dealing, glorifies abuse of women, etc etc etc.

No, I threw (are convicted of) in there to prove a point. Just because the police are arresting more blacks doesn't necessarily mean they're commiting more crimes than white people, just that they are getting caught more. It could potentially reflect that they are commiting more crimes, or it could reflect the inherent bias in the police.

Furthermore, affirmative action does not rectify discriminatory admissions practices. It placates minorities who ought to be getting up and voting and demanding better funding for education so that they can have equal preparation to enter institutions of higher learning BASED ON MERIT.

I don't know how you would rectify discriminatory admissions practices through anything other than affirmative action. If schools are rejecting black people based on the fact that they are black (and many of them were before affirmative action) I don't know how they're supposed to get in BASED ON MERIT other than transplanting their brain into a white body.

Affirmative action ought to be a slap in the face to any self respecting minority person. "Here boy, let good ol' Lyndon Johnson just lower that bar for ya a bit- we got it set on white standards right now. There ya go, now go over the bar.... Good job- you're a credit to your race."
I mean WTF! If somebody treated the Irish that way I'd be honor bound to find them and kick the hell out of them. My answer would be "You just get the hell out of my way and leave me the hell alone- I'm as good as you can ever be and I don't need your friggin handouts, I just need a fair chance."

Your ancestors who lived in a time when there was a lot of racism towards irish people would probably feel differently.

Profiling is wrong when it is the sole basis for judgement.

But when there's evidence that they actually commited a crime, on top of the fact that they are black or latino, then it's ok.

Brilliant work Watson- A+. Do you mean to tell me that if your mother was killed, and a witness told the cops that he saw a Chinese guy leaving the scene of the crime, that you'd be opposed to the police putting a composite sketch of the suspect up in Chinatown? If race can be used as a starting point for narrowing down suspects, it should be. If a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes and a thick Irish accent is suspected of doing something, Kobe Bryant aint exactly the first person you should be interrogating. Simple common sense.

I'm not talking about profiling after the fact when you have a witness sketch of the perpetrator, I'm talking about police pulling over black people for the sake of them being black and then if they happen to be doing something wrong, nail them with it. If witnesses can identify the perpetrator of a crime as being of a certain ethnic build, great, we should narrow down the search. But it is completely unjust to go looking for black people trying to catch them in the act of a crime. Just like it's unjust to search all arab people at the airport simply because the terrorists on 9/11 were arab. I don't mind being searched, I just think it's unfair to be searched exclusively. If they're going to search me, then search everybody in line.

We're talking illegal immigration, so blacks are mostly a tangent.

I thought we (you) were talking about racial profiling. Blacks are racially profiled the most, so I don't think it's a tangent, I think it strikes at the heart of the issue.

That's because the laws are different now.

The laws and conditions are better than they've ever been. There was a fairly strong 3rd party that had virtually no other purpose than to oppress Catholic immigrants from Europe, especially the Irish. There didn't even used to be a minimum wage. In the earliest days, before the constitution, people were selling themselves into temporary servitude to earn their way over here.

I was specifically referring to immigration laws. Before the twentieth century there were no laws restricting immigration. When the Irish came, whoever wanted to become an American citizen could do so and would enjoy the full amount of rights and protections that came with being an American citizen. Now we have a limited immigration quota, and if your application for immigration into the US doesn't make the cut (the VAST majority don't) then the only way for you to try and make a new life for yourself in America is as an illegal alien.

There aren't nativist gangs or even any meaningful nativist political movements oppressing Mexicans,

I consider the minutemen to be a nativist gang.

if they enter legally they are entitled to a higher wage than any other minority has ever been assured of starting out, and the organization of their advocacy groups is better than any other race has ever had. So why in the hell is it that even while they are well on their way to becoming a majority they are having such a hard time crawling out of the basement? Why are they talking 'reconquista', contemplating destroying the very place which they have sought refuge in? Why are they so hell-bent on getting handouts that nobody else has ever recieved even though they have arrived at one of the most prosperous eras in American history?

That's the problem is that so few are allowed to enter America legally. The only group that should categorically be denied immigration to America are people who are convicted of felonies in their home country. Everyone else should be given the same opportunity as the immigrants who came before our restrictive immigration laws were passed.

Unless your ancestors came to America within the last century there were no laws against them coming here.

OF COURSE THEY DIDN'T CRY FOR EXEMPTION FROM THE LAW, THERE WASN'T A LAW TO BE EXEMPT FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

Nice try slick, but there is more than one law on the books, you are aware of that right? Hispanics don't just claim exemption from immigration law. They seek exemption from virtually every law. They don't want to be profiled, they don't want to have to get drivers licenses, they don't want to pay their taxes, they want academic standards lowered for their children, they expect government forms provided in their mother language rather than being expected to learn English, etc etc etc. Now I'm open to the possibility that my history professor might have left something out, but I don't recall hearing anything about government forms printed in German or Gaelic.

I'm not aware of any hispanics trying to claim that they're exempt from all laws, if they were to seriously believe that one would speculate that they would end up either in prison or deported back to Mexico. If we granted legal immigrant status to every (non-felon) Mexican who wanted to come here you think they would complain about taxes and having to get a drivers license? Hell no! They would be happy that they'd finally be able to earn minimum wage, be able to vote, and have the same protections and freedoms as every other citizen of America.

I don't recall the government showing the Irish any lienency in their civic duty; some did riot against the draft I grant you, but many of them did go and fight for this country in the Civil War, and the government certainly was never expected by any reasonable person to give in to those who expected exemption from the draft- that's not racism, that's earning your keep in your new nation, which The Irish Brigade certainly did. What do you think the odds would be of Mexican immigrants being forced to shoulder their share of the nation's load if a draft were started for the war in Iraq? Be honest.

Honestly?

If all the Mexican immigrants that lived in America were granted legal status the minute they stepped foot into America, a much higher percentage of our standing army would be Mexican. The army is one of the few ways that poor people can afford to go to college, right now the impoverished are fighting the Iraq war.

As far as a draft goes, if there were a draft right now for the war in Iraq I as a second generation American would refuse to fight and would move to a different country. It's one thing to protect your homeland or even protect someone else's homeland when they've been attacked by another country, and a completely different thing to fight in George W Bush's attempt to play cowboy with world politics. I refuse to fight in any pre-emptive war. If I lived here during WWI and WWII, yes I would fight just like some of my ancestors did under Great Britain. If China decided to invade Japan, or North Korea started another war with South Korea, then yes I would fight. If Israel were to be invaded by it's neighbors, I would fight. Hell, if Iraq had invaded Kuwait or any of it's other neighbors I'd be willing to go and fight. But in this war, WE are the aggressors, and invading someone under the guise of spreading your brand of government (when really it's for war profiteering) is not something that I am willing to risk my life for. I love my country and would die protecting it, but I refuse to fight in an unjust war.

[edit on 4-11-2005 by ShakyaHeir]

Originally posted by ShakyaHeir
I can see where your hate comes from.

You take me entirely wrong. I believe I have made it clear that I do not have a bone to pick with anyone because of their race. My friends Rigo, Manuel, Luis, and Nick, just to name a few, never did anything to me and I didn't hate them. They were of the same race as the people I've quarreled with, but did not subscribe to the same culture or fall into the same pattern of conduct as those I've had problems with. I have noted lamentable malfunctions in the way that they and many others of their national origin have dealt with integrating (or not) into American society, but I don't hate them for it. I can't condone everything that I have seen through them and others, but I don't see any use in hating people. I simply oppose the notion that we should allow destructive patterns, such as illegal immigration and the welcoming of illegal immigrants with open arms, among other things, simply because we don't want to be seen as having a negative attitude towards a certain race.

Odium has gone to some lengths to point out that illegal immigrants are not strictly defined along racial lines. This is obviously true, and is opposed in proportion to the part of the problem which it constitutes, which belies the notion that securing our borders is somehow racist. We must however not make the illogical inference that concentrating on a certain group of law breakers is racist simply because many of the offenders share a common racial background, because it is simple common sense that efforts must be targeted in the most efficient manner, and this often means targeting demographics which offend heavily. There is ample legal precedent for this. Laws against drunk driving are more stringent, and more stringently enforced against minors, because that demographic is both more prone to violation and concievably more dangerous when under the influence.

Also efforts are targeted to the place of greatest criminal activity. You won't find many police sting operations going on in country clubs; most of that is going on in the ghettos. This is not because ghettos are frequently dominated by one race or another, but because that's where the drug dealing is going on. Similarly, the Mexican border is where more than half of our immigration problem is coming from and therefore it is only logical to crack down on that border. Most of the people crossing that border are... you guessed- Mexican.

No, I threw (are convicted of) in there to prove a point. Just because the police are arresting more blacks doesn't necessarily mean they're commiting more crimes than white people, just that they are getting caught more. It could potentially reflect that they are commiting more crimes, or it could reflect the inherent bias in the police.

This is exactly the problem with your line of reasoning. You take an uncertain premise on faith, extrapolate from it that the problem is not the law breakers, but the law enforcers, and then attempt to argue against the enforcement of law on those grounds.

First we apply Ockham's Razor: Is it most likely that autonomous police forces around the country are all working under a unified policy of only targeting minority offenders, yet the voters are not kicking them out of office for allowing the majority of crimes to go unpunished simply because the offenders were white, thus sustaining the pattern. Does that remain likely in light of the fact that to actually convict them would require a massive conspiracy between DAs, Judges, and a constantly changing selection of jurors? Keep in mind that all of the above conspiring agencies have minorities in their ranks. Or is it more likely that sociology and probability can explain the fact that minorities are convicted more: Sociology in that minorities do not tend to be as wealthy, as a combined effect 1. Of having a much briefer history of equal opportunity during which to have acquired wealth, and 2. Being more prone to subscribing to self-destructive cultural influences which glorify drugs, violence, etc, and probability in that if the odds of being caught are equal for all, then the race that commits the most crimes will likely be represented proportionately in the prison system?
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.- Isaac Newton

I don't know how you would rectify discriminatory admissions practices through anything other than affirmative action.

The only way to cure discrimination is through reverse discrimination? In other words, supposing that it was within our ability to bring a murder victim back to life (as it is within our ability to equip minorities to compete equally in higher education) you would prefer rather than to bring the victim back to life, to just shoot the murderer and leave the victim dead as well?
An eye for an eye never more truly left the whole world blind. Instead of improving public educations so that minorities will be prepared to gain admission on merit and be successful, affirmative action suggests that we simply set quotas which require more unprepared minority students who have been failed by public education to be sent on anyway to universities for which they are not prepared.
Lyndon Johnson analogized it well, although his answer was ultimately incorrect. "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."
I do not wish to stray too far from the topic because bringing African Americans into a discussion of illegal immigration along the Mexican border is something of a red-herring, but I will indulge it a little because I wish both to refute any attempt at painting me as a racist, and to make some conncetion between this tangent and the subject.
The problem does not begin with standards and laws. The problem begins with failure to meet the requirements of standards and laws. When such failure is disproportionately seen by a certain demographic, we should ask ourselves why. It is not the enforcement; if there were no violation there would be no enforcement; you can't make a cause out of a consequence no matter how hard you try. The true cause in education, where affirmative action is concerned, is that not all schools are equal. Minorities, be they immigrants or freed slaves, either 150 years ago or at present, start with less, live in poorer areas which have poorer schools, and thus are not equipped as well as those whose families have had a greater number of generations over the course of which to make steady progress. The answer then is not to leave them in underfunded, malfunctioning schools, and simply set quotas or even scholarship handouts. The answer is to fix the elementary, junior high, and higschools that are responsible for preparing the poor just as well as the rich to make something of themselves.
As far as Mexico is concerned, there is a similar answer. The government (that is, the Mexican government, unless they should petition for annexation by the United States and have enough to offer that it be accepted) needs to come up with a plan for healing the problem at the root. They cannot turn to America for a handout. We may, however, give them a hand up if they can come up with a real plan for fixing the underlying problems in their nation which are causing people to flee to America illegally; afterall Mexico is a strategically important neighbor and America does have an interest in their prosperity, although not one which warrants allowing their population continue to act in a fashion analogous to the disgusting New River, which flows from Mexico into the Salton Sea, not far from my hometown, causing that once popular destination to now smell of human waste.

If schools are rejecting black people based on the fact that they are black (and many of them were before affirmative action) I don't know how they're supposed to get in BASED ON MERIT other than transplanting their brain into a white body.

Emphasis added. You've assumed a causal relationship which you have failed to demonstrate. Our laws have for some time now made it illegal to use race in consideration of admissions. That is what stopped the discriminatory admissions practices. Ironically, those laws have been overruled in part now not by whites, but by minorities and their liberal handlers, who have instituted discrimination all over again in reverse for political and economic gain-.it's an 1860s tune with 1990s lyrics; minorities, be they African Americans or Mexican immigrants, are being played against other races for nominal gain to themselves, but tremendous gain to those who grant these tokens. When rich white politicians play poor white folks against poor black folks it's called racism, but when rich white politicians with a few token blacks in their midst play poor black folks against poor white folks, it's called affirmative action. I don't really see the difference.

Affirmative action ought to be a slap in the face to any self respecting minority person. "Here boy, let good ol' Lyndon Johnson just lower that bar for ya a bit- we got it set on white standards right now. There ya go, now go over the bar.... Good job- you're a credit to your race."
I mean WTF! If somebody treated the Irish that way I'd be honor bound to find them and kick the hell out of them.

Your ancestors who lived in a time when there was a lot of racism towards irish people would probably feel differently.

Are you seriously suggesting that anyone in any time with so much as half a spine would tollerate such treatment if he had the intellectual capacity to realize that the meaning of it is as I have expressed?
My Irish ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without a red cent from Uncle Sam. One of my great grandfathers was first generation Irish-American. He saved money, learned a trade, and went into business for himself. Two generations later the first Connors got a college education. The generation after that the first of our family set his eyes on a Ph.D and a career in politics (that would be me). In just 4 generations, about 80 years, give or take, my family has gone from Chicago slums to political ambition- we've had our hard knocks- a bankruptcy here, a drug addict there, an unexpected child somewhere else, but for all intents and purposes we've made it. Current debt to Uncle Sam: $75 (I got a speeding ticket).

I'm not talking about profiling after the fact when you have a witness sketch of the perpetrator, I'm talking about police pulling over black people for the sake of them being black and then if they happen to be doing something wrong, nail them with it.

OMFG- you mean that the police are actually catching criminals!? How dare they! Again you work under the premise that they were pulled over just for being a minority (or for purpose of immigration- have their immigration status checked because their Mexican). Yet by some vagary of the odds and the gods, so many of these unjustified investigations happen to catch people commiting crimes. I mean gee, if I didn't know any better I'd think that maybe their was something to the idea that targeting demographics which offend more will yield more catches. Riddle me this, Batman: Suppose that we were going to go out and select one person to do a drug test on, or to check the immigration status on, and the person turned out to be an offender, I was going to pay you. Would you go to a country club or a ghetto to pick your suspect?

If witnesses can identify the perpetrator of a crime as being of a certain ethnic build, great, we should narrow down the search.

Then we agree. Odium's witnesses at the link we were shown have informed us that more than half of illegal aliens are Mexicans. That is one of several areas to which we should narrow the search. The witnesses also point out that Polish offenders are still a substantial problem, though this is declining, and so we should of course target them as well, although if we were of limited means, like the minute men are, then it would make sense to go after the group which offered us the highest success rate- that would be Mexicans.

Just like it's unjust to search all arab people at the airport simply because the terrorists on 9/11 were arab.

That's not unjust either. Where do militant Islamic people who are likely to commit acts of terrorism come from? They come from North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Southern Asia, and Indonesia mostly. Many of them have Islamic names too. Obviously we have learned from Richard Reid that racial profiling is not a stand-alone system, but it is an effective part of our potential defenses. Quick, spot the Islamist terrorist: Derek Jeter, Pete Wilson, Mohamed Atta.
A little common sense goes a long way. When an Islamist terror organization has declared war on your nation, it pays to take a second look at people named after Islam's prophet. If he's traveling with 2 or 3 burly friends and is acting kind of nervous, you look even closer. If his luggage is ticking, or if him and all of his companions had to surrender weapons at the metal detector, it might be a really good idea to keep him off the plane and call the FBI. If you let Abu Muhammed Bin Jihad on the plane without a frisk, then double check John McCain, just because you want your checks to be completely random, all you are doing is creating a statistically creater risk of failing to avert a terrorist act.

I just think it's unfair to be searched exclusively. If they're going to search me, then search everybody in line.

It would be best to check everybody, but if that is not deemed possible or practical, (ignoring the fact that it is possible and concentrating on the moral aspect) then there is nothing immoral about concentrating your search against the demographic which is most likely to commit a given crime.

I thought we (you) were talking about racial profiling. Blacks are racially profiled the most

1. Prove it. 2. Refute the statistical evidence that it has been successful. 3. Refute the logical proposition that it is more immoral to knowingly take actions which increase the probability of a crime than to cause a minor inconvenience to somebody who fits the demographic of the most common offender; remember being pulled over, run through the metal detector a second time, or having to show somebody a green card is a relatively minor inconvenience for somebody who has nothing to hide. I have never held a single job for which I was not required to present a valid social security card as evidence of my citizenship. It is a minor inconvenience and I am glad of it. Now I want the people to skirt that requirement by working as day laborers to be brought into complaince with the same law that I obey.

I was specifically referring to immigration laws.

But you were responding to my charge that they seek exemption from the laws, so by referring specifically to immigration laws all you were doing was attempting to circumvent the issue.

Now we have a limited immigration quota, and if your application for immigration into the US doesn't make the cut (the VAST majority don't) then the only way for you to try and make a new life for yourself in America is as an illegal alien.

You still have no argument unless you can dispute the right of a sovreign nation to protect its borders. You are aware that Mexico attempts to stop South Americans from traveling through Mexico to reach America, correct?

I consider the minutemen to be a nativist gang.

What you consider is an exceedingly weak response. Are the minute men seeking to break the law, or to enforce it? Are they violent? Have they taken a stand against LEGAL immigrants? Oh well, there goes any merit of your "consideration" (if infact you considered it at any distinctive length), as far as the historical context of the term "nativist gang" is concerned.

That's the problem is that so few are allowed to enter America legally.

How exactly is it problematic? I contend that it wouldn't be problematic if Mexico and other nations from which a substantial number of people illegally emigrate bound for America would get their act together and make their nations decent places to live. There is nothing wrong with us controlling access to our nation.
By your logic, the problem with theft is that it's illegal to steal, rather than that some people don't have the grit to earn for themselves.

I'm not aware of any hispanics trying to claim that they're exempt from all laws,

Meet Gill Sedillo, of the California State Senate. His SB60 gave illegal immigrants the right to obtain drivers licenses in California. It was repealed in 2003, and he has fought had to bring it back, although this has clashed with the Real ID Act. After Real ID he had the bright idea of creating a separate class of non-recognized drivers licenses for illegals. If this doesn't fly he has proposed stopping police from impounding the vehicles of "undocumented workers" (read illegal aliens: a lot of them work, but not all of them) if they are pulled over for driving without license, registration, or insurance. We're not talking about one lone nut either. Meet some of his friends:

That's "One Bill Gill", a member of MEChA, with SB60 in hand, right after Gray Davis signed it. In the background you may be able to make out the face of Los Angeles' semi-new mayor: Antonio VivaLaRaza.. um, i mean Villaraigossa.

If we granted legal immigrant status to every (non-felon) Mexican who wanted to come here you think they would complain about taxes and having to get a drivers license? Hell no!

Again you are claiming that the only way to stop theft is to just give it to them willingly. Our immigration laws aren't in place as a matter of racism. It's a matter of social stability and economic growth. We can only employ so many people, we can only have so many new people being integrated into our culture at once, etc etc. This isn't the 1850s. We aren't just another nation of factory workers and dirt farmers- we're standing head and shoulders above 90% of the governments on this planet. Our currency is valuable, our standard of living is high, our country is not under significant foreign or domestic threat by comparisson to most other nations: there'd be 3 Billion people in this country within a decade if we just opened the gates, and this country would fall apart.

They would be happy that they'd finally be able to earn minimum wage, be able to vote, and have the same protections and freedoms as every other citizen of America.

If all the Mexican immigrants that lived in America were granted legal status the minute they stepped foot into America, a much higher percentage of our standing army would be Mexican.

Bait

As far as a draft goes, if there were a draft right now for the war in Iraq I as a second generation American would refuse to fight and would move to a different country.

Switch.
First of all, I applaud the fact that you'd leave if you found yourself unable to obey the law. That's fair. Socrates would like you.
That being said, you're changing the subject. My ancestors (aside from Grandpa Karl's side, who were still in Ireland) obeyed the law, right wrong or indifferent, during the civil war. There was a catch to enjoying what this country had to offer, and they stepped up to the plate for their respective nations (some were confederates), most of them by their own choice, but a couple because they were drafted. Same thing in WWII.


OK, I know this has been a long post. There's a lot of hot stuff flying around and I wanted to present my case on as much of it as I could. I'll try to be brief from here on out now that all that is said.

Originally posted by kenshiro2012
Odium,
Where is the harassment in the news report?

# Harrassment is a malicious act of annoying and threatening someone through various means, ie via emails, via letters with personal motives and reasons. Harrassment is usually done by someone close to the victim or could be by someone unknown to the victim.
Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. When the term is used in a legal sense it refers to behaviours that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society. In societies which support free speech, only the more repetitive, persistent and untruthful types of speech qualify legally as harassment. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrassment

There is none. Sorry,

Read your own statement and think about it for a moment.

Judge Fitzsimmons should retire. She exhibits a great deal of unresolved anger which affects her impartiality. The manner in which her courtroom is conducted is appaling.

B.

and this has been going on for 5 years with the Minuteman
and I have not seen 1 article in the news where
anybody got deported from all this work.
Can anybody show an article where
this has paid off ???

reply to post by groingrinder

Hooray!!!! This is something the government should be doing, but all the fat cat politicians don't want to lose their cheap gardners and maids.

Yeah like the Minute Men are totally going to catch Ronald McDonald, that pedophile Burgerking King dude and the Carls Jr. superstar driving up to a corner and telling a bunch of Mexicans to jump in.

all this does is stop a bunch of white middle class people from getting their roof fixed.

I do respect the Minutemen tho at least they are trying to do something rather then just bitch about how Mexico needs to fix it's country.

Soon they will have the numbers to attack US military installations while all the professional soldiers are engaged overseas.

what?

Hate to brake it to you bud but Mexicans have all ready infiltrated the US military and are the ones fighting overseas now.

Do you really want to tell a bunch of Mexicans who just spent years in Iraq and Afghan that they have to shoot their mother. Do you think that's a good idea.

Immigrants in the US Armed Forces