'This is Alabama; we speak English,' governor candidate says

reply to post by Sphota


well.. gee.. my stats would be from the fbi.. and don't try that condescending "illegal is illegal" with me... first off.. big difference between someone not wearing a seatbelt, and someone entering a country ILLEGALY.. secondly i walk.. i don't own a car.. so almost half your time was wasted typing all that... **shaking head**.. third.. you'd have to ask jackson hewitt about my taxes...

reply to post by notsofast


I still disagree:

Morally wrong: killing, stealing, raping, abusing, molesting...the whole "thou shalt stuff"

Regulatorily wrong: speeding, smoking marijuana, traffic infractions.

The above depend on the person doing as well as the person receiving and as such, I don't stand on those as absolutes: You could "kill" in self defense, you could steal because you feel your taxes are going to an unjust place; likewise you could commit leathal speed and kill a person in a different car - I guess all this nuance is why we have lawyers.

At any rate, regulatory infractions are often victimless crimes and I see illegal immigration much the same.

You can no more say that all illegals are rapists and murders (or more likely to be) because of the Drug War in North Mexico - incidentally, a war that reflects our nation's policies more than anything inherent to Mexicans or Hispanics in general and also a war that affects Mexicans more than Americans - than you could say that all marijuana smokers are gang-bangers just because many gang-bangers smoke marijuana. It's that type of logic...what's that called?? Cum hoc ergo propter hoc...


Continuing...

As far as your FBI stats, I scoured their site and I cannot find demographics that are explicitly broken-down and that note specifically which crimes were committed by illegals. They do, however, show hispanics as a separate group...perhaps your source mistakenly assumed Hispanic meant Illegal. (Maybe the freerepublic site with supposed 2006 FBI info that comes up when I type in "fbi statistics illegals" into google). Maybe you could provide a link to your source that states the high statistics you posted? I'd like to review them.

Source to quote below: CNN article about crime in AZ

According to the nonpartisan Immigration Policy Institute, proponents of the bill "overlook two salient points: Crime rates have already been falling in Arizona for years despite the presence of unauthorized immigrants, and a century's worth of research has demonstrated that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born."

(Emphasis in quote is mine.) This quote supports information I had learned back before the AZ polemic. The truth is that illegals, being more or less a slice of Mexico's population taken with only the bias of poverty to separate them. As such, you would expect a similar percentage of them to be criminals or to have commited some crime as the entire population's percentage, even of the US.

What is found, however, is that illegals who come to do construction, agriculture or service-industry jobs tend to be people looking for the work, as in willing to work, as in more or less a stoic station in life, having accepted poverty as a given and looking to fix it in the best (i.e., most propagandized) way possible: working under the table in the US.

This is, of course, despite the hardship they suffer, despite the working conditions, despite the danger of crossing (the Drug War, the desert, etc.).

At any rate, I have to reiterate, while poverty inherent in the pool of potential illegal aliens is bound to create a few bag eggs looking for a quick buck by any means necessary, most poor people will take whatever means available - unless even the most difficult end up drying up.

You have to see how this is the case. Right? You can't possibly still blame the random illegal. If you don't want them here, start doing your job, exercising your American free speech, start calling out for trials against these companies for their practices of hiring illegals at below-minimum wage, take the politicians to task about things like tax breaks for companies that off-shore their labor (if you want to be an American company, than things should happen here)...

Whining about the spector of illegal crime only ends up unnecessarily demonizing people who are no different than the average American - perhaps a bit more thrifty and a touch more industrious. In the end, all this demonization has led to the feeling in their children of non-belonging, even though they're from here, and THAT is what leads to higher marginalization of minorities, such as Hispanics, and helps to provoke poverty and crime in their native-born Hispanic populations. But the illegals themselves are not criminals, they're victims.

Looks like the campaign platform of this is alabama we speak english was NOT enough for this candidate. He ended up losing.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


Thanks for the info. It was an inflated issue as a platform to run on anyway. Because, no matter your feelings on the issue, the end fact is that (speaking Spanish and knowing how the grammar is expressed correctly) they always hire some bilingual speaker at government offices and private businesses to do their Spanish literature - maybe to save money, maybe because there's a shortage of qualified translators. However, these native speakers may have fluent ability in conversation, but they tend not to write the language very well at all (exactly because of what I mentioned: lack of correct implementation of bilingual ed programs in this country).

Everytime I go to government offices (though it's been better here in Florida in recent years) and private business, I notice things spelled wrong, English-y (like using the word that most resembles the English word, even if the meaning is different in Spanish) and poor grammar.

In the end, the government probably spends no more on the translation (because they use an employee who is bilingual, thus, his or her wage is what it is independent of making the docs in Spanish). And as far as the paper...even if all the illegals spoke and read English perfectly, it would still be the same amount of specific written documents to be printed out, right? So the language is a moot point from the get go after all, huh???

The illegal issue still stands as a discussion topic, but my honest oppinion as a freelance translator and linguist: based on the quality of work, the amount of money they pay for the service of translation is absorbed in the normal pay of a bilingual employee, who would work there either way.

What about the american indians, who where there first. What is there language.

Forgive me if american indians are not there, but i think you get what i am saying about how english is a foreign language to america lol.