OReilly and Geraldo Shout It Out - See It Here!!

Originally posted by Jakko
Typical of Fox to make a news item about an illegal doing this.
Geraldo was right of course, whether the offender of a crime is illegal or not has nothing to do with this.

See, the point isn't that we should ignore that drunk driving is a problem. The point is that this criminal should not have been here to commit the crime in the first place, PERIOD. Even if he was my best friend, he should not be here. Every second that that criminal was in our country was another second that the law was being ignored.

Geraldo Rivera has always been full of #. I have no respect for the guy to be quite honest.

Originally posted by Johnmike

Originally posted by Jakko
Typical of Fox to make a news item about an illegal doing this.
Geraldo was right of course, whether the offender of a crime is illegal or not has nothing to do with this.

See, the point isn't that we should ignore that drunk driving is a problem. The point is that this criminal should not have been here to commit the crime in the first place, PERIOD. Even if he was my best friend, he should not be here. Every second that that criminal was in our country was another second that the law was being ignored.

Hmmm and yet I think it's mixing stuff up.
The illegal shouldn't have been there in the country period.
The guy shouldn't have stepped into a car, drunk, period.

These are two completely different things that have no connection whatsoever.

It's like when someone drives through the red light, and then causes an accident half an hour later on.

The accident has nothing to do with driving through the red light, even though if the causer of the accident wouldn't have driven through red, the accident wouldn't have happened.

The connection makes no sense, and does not deserve the attention Fox gives it.


What is the point of Fox anyways?
That the mayor could have known about the drunk driving in advance and personally kick the guy out?
That the mayor is responsible for ALL the crimes of illegal people just because the mayor let's these people stay around?
A ridiculous thing to claim obviously.

2 problems, 2 solutions.

The solution for people driving drunk is not making sure they don't enter the country if they are illegal, as drunk driving has nothing to do with being illegal.

Quit it with the straw man, Jakko. The point isn't that the accident was caused only because he was illegal. The point is that this PARTICULAR INCIDENT would have been avoided if our leaders did not commit treason and allow ILLEGAL aliens to stay here.

If an illegal robs a bank, the bank was robbed because the person was a robber, but the robbery would have been avoided altogether if the illegal was not allowed to stay in the country illegally.

Also, driving on a public road is illegal if you don't have a license.

[edit on 22-4-2007 by Johnmike]

Ok ok. Let's try and find some middle ground here, before we start throwing chairs. We all need to agree on some points of fact.

1. The person committing the crime was an illegal alien.
2. The crime committed was just one out of dozens in the state in the past year. No one made a big deal on the news about any of the others. Why?
3. Whether he was an illegal alien or not has no bearing on his conscious decision to go get drunk, and then drive afterwards.

Now, if we take all of these into account, one can see that this has the makings of a very muddled mess of a debate. We need to separate the points into bits that can be better understood on a point-by-point basis, rather than resorting to the same tactics used by the aforementioned journalists. What follows is a point-by-point breakdown of the case, imho.

1. Yes, the man in question is an illegal alien. However, that fact isn't exactly pertinent to the case since I can show statistics that prove that the majority of illegals in this country are decent, upstanding citizens, aside from their little dark secret of being illegal. Do I think that he should be deported? Yes I do, because he's breaking the law. Do I think that he should first stand trial for what he did? Yes I do, then he needs to serve his sentence in a US jail, where the US prison population will initiate him into the American Justice System, and then when he's done serving his sentence, return him to the other side of the border.

All of that being said, his legal status has no bearing on the cause of the accident. To debate all of the "what if's" of the situation serves no other purpose than to further divide the American populace against each other. "A divided house cannot stand", to use an old expression.

2. Why don't we hear about all of the other drunk driving accidents that happen nationwide everyday? I think it's because that would be too boring, and it wouldn't serve the beer manufacturer's purposes much for the news to be littered with the refuse of their own making. They directly contribute to the situation by making the stuff that gets all of these people killed everyday. Why aren't we holding them responsible for at least manslaughter in each of these cases?

What you see in this past paragraph is just one example of how this can be taken off into a case of a slippery slope. There's nothing that we can do about what's already happened. We just need to try to prevent it from happening again. I call the above paragraph cherry-picking because I've taken one select case, and overblown it to emphasize a problem that I see.

3. Now, while that's a good tactic to capture the attentions of the more emotional audience, it fails to make any valid points, such as the fact that he CHOSE to drive drunk. The beer manufacturers didn't make him do it. His being an illegal alien had no bearing on whether or not he was going to do that, because countless American citizens do it everyday. This is just one more case where someone wanted something to complain about, and they chose this one case as the one to give a lengthy diatribe on.


To close, this is just a bad deal all the way around. Could it have been prevented? Sure. Is it all because he was an illegal alien? No, that had no bearing on this at all, aside from his being the one that committed the act. Sometimes, an accident is just that, an accident.

TheBorg

I agree completely with you Borg, well explained.
To respond to John...

Originally posted by Johnmike
Quit it with the straw man, Jakko. The point isn't that the accident was caused only because he was illegal. The point is that this PARTICULAR INCIDENT would have been avoided if our leaders did not commit treason and allow ILLEGAL aliens to stay here.

As I said, leaders are not responsible for all acts of illegal just by letting them stay in the country.

If an illegal robs a bank, the bank was robbed because the person was a robber, but the robbery would have been avoided altogether if the illegal was not allowed to stay in the country illegally.

Also, driving on a public road is illegal if you don't have a license.

[edit on 22-4-2007 by Johnmike]

I really think it's a cheap point to make to be honest.
Illegals are in America, and everyone knows about it.
Illegals are not super-humans, and also commit crimes just like everyone else.

The crimes of illegals are a very very weak point against illegals in the country.

Instead there should be two discussions.

1. What can we do about illegals, why is it bad that they are in the country and how can we make it less appealing for people to come to america?

2. What can we do about drunk driving?

Only the anti-illegals movement would connect the stupidity of one individual to the current policy regarding illegals in the US.
The point is populistic and not thought out very well.

What I fail to see is what the point is of this kind of news of Fox.
Do they want Illegals out of the country? Yes.
I assume they also want illegals out of the country if they don't drive drunk?

Do they want drunk driving to stop? Yes. (I hope)
And yet they only care about drunk driving if an illegal does it?

It's weak and cheap, but I guess typical for Fox.

I really hate to say it but I think that Geraldo was right on this. If the man was not an illegal alien this would not have been such a big news story. We hear about drunk driving fatalities all the time. They usually are a 5 second clip on the morning news. But because this man was an illegal alien we made this a huge deal.

However saying that, apparently, and I don't know this for sure but apparently this man was caught before for another law he had broken and he was not deported. Now why is that? If you are here illegally, and you break the law you should be deported on the spot.

Honestly you have already broken the law by coming into this country illegally and then you break another law and get caught for it you now are guilty of breaking two laws. I know the majority of these people are just here to work and I have no objection to that but if you do break the laws of this country you should be accountable for it.

OMG! That was hilarious! I spit my coffee all over the computer screen. What a couple of asses. I thought they were supposed to be professionals?

1.) Illegal alien - should have been deported before any other criminal act took place. Hence the term "illegal". He shouldn't have been here.

2.) Drunk driving offense - My heart goes out to the families that this act effected.

3.) This DUI offense wouldn't have been any bigger a deal than any other DUI if it wasn't being made into a political point. Where's the tact?

4.) O'Reilly and Rivera should go to anger management classes.

Originally posted by Infoholic


4.) O'Reilly and Rivera should go to anger management classes.

I think that is something we can all agree on. My,God!! I thought O'Reilly was going to bust a blood vein. Control that Irish temper now, Bill.

[edit on 23-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Originally posted by Jakko
As I said, leaders are not responsible for all acts of illegal just by letting them stay in the country.

Another straw man. Come on. I said they were committing treason by not enforcing the law having illegal aliens removed from our country.

Originally posted by Jakko
I really think it's a cheap point to make to be honest.
Illegals are in America, and everyone knows about it.
Illegals are not super-humans, and also commit crimes just like everyone else.

The crimes of illegals are a very very weak point against illegals in the country.

Maybe cheap, but true, and it's what O'Reilly was trying to say. When an illegal commits a crime, it's something that could probably have been avoided by enforcement of our borders. It could also have possibly been avoided by better enforcement of (for this example) the law against driving while drunk.

Originally posted by Jakko
Instead there should be two discussions.

1. What can we do about illegals, why is it bad that they are in the country and how can we make it less appealing for people to come to america?

2. What can we do about drunk driving?

I agree.

Originally posted by Jakko
Only the anti-illegals movement would connect the stupidity of one individual to the current policy regarding illegals in the US.
The point is populistic and not thought out very well.

I am an anti-illegal. I am very strongly anti-illegal.

What's wrong with this? To be illegal in some shape or form means to be a criminal. I am anti-criminal. I support the law and our Republic.

Do I care about illegal immigrants as people? Sure I do. But allowing them to stay here is not only stupid, but is treacherous disregard for law. Not to mention that it allows potential terrorists to remain within our country without being on any sort of record whatsoever. It's dangerous, at the very least.

Originally posted by Jakko
What I fail to see is what the point is of this kind of news of Fox.
Do they want Illegals out of the country? Yes.
I assume they also want illegals out of the country if they don't drive drunk?

Do they want drunk driving to stop? Yes. (I hope)
And yet they only care about drunk driving if an illegal does it?

It's weak and cheap, but I guess typical for Fox.

O'Reilly and Rivera were trying to make two very extreme and stereotypical points as quickly as possible before the commercial. Basically, O'Reilly was saying that this crime could have been avoided if our borders were enforced. Rivera was saying that we shouldn't publicize this story just because the guy was an illegal.

Who is right? Both of them.

[edit on 23-4-2007 by Johnmike]

double post

[edit on 23-4-2007 by Johnmike]

Excuse me John Mike, you may be anti-illegal, but I have personally been witness to illegal immigrants who have come to this country, worked their way up into good managment positions, start their own business believe it or not, and even create jobs for other citizens. They pay their property taxes because they live in a home. Not every illegal got here by crossing the border or hopping a boat, some MANY have just had their paperwork screwedup in the system through a series of misfortunate circumstances. Now if you continue to judge and persecute someone who has contributed greatly to the country simply because of a technical status and not on the merits of their achievments, then that simply makes you an ass. It does not make you a patriot, hero, or geat citizen it makes you a bad human.

Frankly I hope when the North American Union forms, citizenship is not a given by birth right, it must be earned through service to our Union. All the slack asses that take everything for granted just because they were born here can stay a civilian.

Originally posted by DYepes
Excuse me John Mike, you may be anti-illegal, but I have personally been witness to illegal immigrants who have come to this country, worked their way up into good managment positions, start their own business believe it or not, and even create jobs for other citizens. They pay their property taxes because they live in a home. Not every illegal got here by crossing the border or hopping a boat, some MANY have just had their paperwork screwedup in the system through a series of misfortunate circumstances. Now if you continue to judge and persecute someone who has contributed greatly to the country simply because of a technical status and not on the merits of their achievments, then that simply makes you an ass. It does not make you a patriot, hero, or geat citizen it makes you a bad human.

Either you missed the point or are setting up a straw man (so many).

I do not have anything against these people as humans.

I have something against them as criminals.

I can be friends with them, but their presence in this country is illegal. PERIOD.

Originally posted by DYepes
Frankly I hope when the North American Union forms, citizenship is not a given by birth right, it must be earned through service to our Union. All the slack asses that take everything for granted just because they were born here can stay a civilian.

Are you a fascist? Rights are given through citizenship. Are you saying that the government can pick and choose who it gives rights to? Then they aren't rights, are they?

That's garbage.

Se that is your problem, you see someone whos paperwork was screwed up as a criminal, when they could be a sweet old lady who is jut trying to reunite with her family. Or in the example I cited, a person who actually created jobs and started a business legitmately just because their citizenship was not a birthright and their papwerwok got screwed up before anythign could be finalized. You see this person as a criminal, and that IMO is facism.

I did mnot say the non-citizen civilians would not have their rights, they are just not allowed to participate in the governmental system that serves the people unless they actually serve the nation.

Originally posted by DYepes
Se that is your problem, you see someone whos paperwork was screwed up as a criminal, when they could be a sweet old lady who is jut trying to reunite with her family. Or in the example I cited, a person who actually created jobs and started a business legitmately just because their citizenship was not a birthright and their papwerwok got screwed up before anythign could be finalized. You see this person as a criminal, and that IMO is facism.

Uh...no. They are criminals. It's not opinion, it's FACT. LAW. It has nothing to do with messed up paperwork. People jumping over our border illegally is not messed up paperwork. They are either citizens, or they're not.

And your appeal to emotion through your stupid "old lady" example is despicable.

Well lawsn canbe re-written, and thankfully they will. The steps towards a North American Union will go forward thorugh the next few years, and there is nothing you can do about it except continue to spite others over technacalities. Enjoy your bitterness as "the people from afar" continue to surround you. I know I will

Ok JohnMike and DYepes, I'm nominating both of you for a H2H debate on this very issue. Send a message to chissler to get this going. I wanna see what the judges think of this one. Plus, it would allow both of you to get these arguments more organized, and prevent all of the sidetracking that's going on.

I wanna see some action!!

TheBorg

Originally posted by DYepes
I did mnot say the non-citizen civilians would not have their rights, they are just not allowed to participate in the governmental system that serves the people unless they actually serve the nation.

wow, thats very...starship troopers....

thing is, if these peoples paperwork just 'got screwed up' they can get it fixed, no problem BOOM! greencard

but where i personally have an issue is that it IS possible to enter this country legally yet so many choose to run across the border and hope for the best. thats a crime. if we catch them, they need to go. period. those are the laws of the US and i dont think we need to rewrite them just because its inconveinient for people in mexico or anywhere else.

my family immigrated to here...we came in legally...why cant others?

Originally posted by TheBorg
Ok JohnMike and DYepes, I'm nominating both of you for a H2H debate on this very issue. Send a message to chissler to get this going. I wanna see what the judges think of this one. Plus, it would allow both of you to get these arguments more organized, and prevent all of the sidetracking that's going on.

Haha. Well, I don't know if I'd be able to write something as long as is required, since my argument is really pretty simple, but hey, what the hell. I'm down.