US Army Vet cuts down Mexican Flag flying over American Flag

reply to post by poet1b

If the US government was to do it's job, and stop illegal immigration, close our porous borders, that would also greatly cut the international drug trade. But all those money laundering profits would dry up.

As I've said before - no problem is really that simple. It's not just the drug trade:

In 1999, when Ceja was 18, he left his family’s farm in Martinez de la Torre, in northern Veracruz. His parents sold four cows and two hectares of land, and came up with enough money to get him to the border. There he found a coyote who took him across for $1,200. “I didn’t really want to leave, but I felt I had to,” he remembers. “I was afraid, but our need was so great.”

North Carolina became the number-one US destination for Veracruz’s displaced farmers. Many got jobs at Smithfield, and some, like Ortega and Ceja, helped lead the sixteen-year fight that finally brought in a union there. But they paid a high price. Asserting their rights also made them the targets of harsh immigration enforcement and a growing wave of hostility toward Mexicans in the American South.

The experience of Veracruz migrants reveals a close connection between US investment and trade deals in Mexico and the displacement and migration of its people. For nearly two decades, Smithfield has used NAFTA and the forces it unleashed to become the world’s largest packer and processor of hogs and pork. But the conditions in Veracruz that helped Smithfield make high profits plunged thousands of rural residents into poverty. Tens of thousands left Mexico, many eventually helping Smithfield’s bottom line once again by working for low wages on its US meatpacking lines. “The free trade agreement was the cause of our problems,” Ceja says.

Doesn't mean we the people should have to put up with some guy who chooses to illegally fly his countries flag over ours, in order to insult us, in one of our cities, in a commercial area.

Once you use your property to commit a crimes, you lose your property rights to that property.

And - now we return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense...

stargatetravels
reply to post by whyamIhere

 

So he says the barman was warned, do we know that?
Of course he can have his opinion, what he cant or shouldnt do is break the law of the land he claims to uphold.
I dont think being a fascist is something to be proud of but hey ho, each to their own.

From several sources he was warned (but, I have no proof. I wasn't there).

He has the right to be a fascist.

Like you said....to each their own.

Assume for the discussion the bar owner was warned.

Does it change anything in your opinion?

reply to post by poet1b

So some people need to climb down off of their high horses.

I'll agree with this much

They are here for a reason poet1b. It poses a problem for everybody - true. But how much more a problem is it when we treat them as less than they are?

It's about time we started seeing them as something other than criminals - don't you think? And start focusing on why they are really here

You want to protect them on the one hand - then dismiss them on the other?

Your history in this thread tells the whole story

High horse - indeed

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


Never mind...

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


So you support slavery and the exploitation of people trying to escape the abuses of third world nations?

No, the problem is not that simple, the other side is to go after the employers, and come down hard on those who abuse the situation.

Insert cheap shot of your choice.

reply to post by hounddoghowlie


I grew up on the border. When I was a kid, you could walk the border. You could go into the shops in Mexico, and you could enjoy the culture. There were merchants who worked here, and lived there. Many folks with families on both sides, and they moved back and forth without worry, without issue (but within the confines of some level of legality, obviously).

The Mexico we have today...it is war torn. War torn by drug cartels that we have funded. I suspect we have picked sides in the drug turf war, and actually have some cartels on CIA payroll (or something along those lines). We have sent our troops in to protect crops from federal pressure (that is what my brother in law was doing, in the most vague sense: protecting crops from federales and rival cartels).

Our "intervention" has been for the sole purpose of wreaking mayhem and destabilizing the country. If we wanted to help Mexico stabilize, in one fell swoop, we could decriminalize the cash crop of the cartels in northern Mexico, and leave them to thrive off of their southern crops. Put a few hundred miles between the crops, and the end purchaser. Then we would actually partner with Mexico to stifle production and distribution, rather than putting our paid federal employees on the ground to do the exact opposite.

whyamIhere

Assume for the discussion the bar owner was warned.

Does it change anything in your opinion?

Well there is no enforceable law regarding the flying of flags.
But I would perhaps have less sympathy for him.
Unless he was the victim of nationalistic bullying and people kept harassing him over it, then I'd say WTG for standing up for your freedoms, peacefully.
Something the vet could learn to try.

poet1b
reply to post by Spiramirabilis

 

So you support slavery and the exploitation of people trying to escape the abuses of third world nations?

No, the problem is not that simple, the other side is to go after the employers, and come down hard on those who abuse the situation.

Insert cheap shot of your choice.

Ive said it for years, if people really have a problem with illegal immigration, they should be looking at corporations, not the immigrants themselves.

When this country stops rewarding companies for hiring illegally, illegal immigrants will stop coming here to work.

reply to post by captaintyinknots


Yeah, that is about the whole problem in my opinion.

And then legalize certain agricultural products.

reply to post by captaintyinknots


Déjà vu, they switched something in the matrix, a double post.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


I don't treat anyone as less than human, and I don't like to be treated as less than human. I do believe in standing up for my rights.

The illegal immigration problem is one of exploitation. Ending illegal immigration needs to be accomplished first. Ending the war on drugs would be another step in the right direction. I think BFFT has the ideas about that issue.

Then that border could become a door that can open in both ways. Get Mexico to loosen their laws on immigration and rights to work, and workers rights.

reply to post by poet1b


This sums it up.

I am not a fan of illegal immigration, nor am I a fan of amnesty. I want due process, but I want due process that is within the ability of the immigrants to work the system.

I think if you remove the financial incentives for both governments AND their associate criminal elements, you see a dwindling in this as an issue.

Just because I am not a fan if illegal immigration does not mean that I am not a fan of immigrant workers. Mexican folks tend to outwork the others in the area. They are hungry. That kind of upward pressure is what made the US so competitive. We have no upward pressure any more.

reply to post by poet1b

The illegal immigration problem is one of exploitation.

We agree on this - kinda

Opportunity is opportunity, and I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that desperate situations result in desperate choices. In this economy, we have quite a few American citizens competing with each other and working at jobs now they never would have seen themselves doing a few short years ago. How hard is it to understand that border or no border - legal or not - there are people who want to work and will risk quite a bit just to get here. They're economic refugees more than anything else

We don't have to like it - and it does cause problems for everyone. But treating them like criminals is not a solution - no matter how righteous people feel about their disdain. It's more than just resentment. You can see it in this thread. This becomes a different sort of problem...

Ending illegal immigration needs to be accomplished first.

I think just the opposite. I think the problems that cause the masses of people to cross our borders need to be addressed first

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


I think we need to cut back the numbers of immigrants. I am not against immigration, but the levels of immigration we have been going through are even greater than they were at the turn of the last generation.

It is time to pull back, allow some time for assimilation, and a blending of cultures.

The power mad and the super rich are the ones who gain the most from this. They lower our wages, raise the price of housing, strip us of our rights, and get us fighting against each other. They don't want a stable Mexico, they want a US a lot more like Mexico. Mexico is the way it is because it has been ruled by a ruthless oligarchy of rich families who make sure the masses stay poor. They don't want us Gringos moving into their country, because they know we would end their fiefdoms.

As far as workers being hungry, there are plenty of young Americans hungry these days, who know not only how to work hard, but how to work smart.

What I have experience with third world workers is that their spirit, sense of self, sense of independence has been beaten out of them. They do what they are told, and they don't ask questions. Typically they have one guy who knows the job, and how to do it, and he directs everyone else, tells them what to do. This works fine until something different shows up, something new, or a problem. Nobody wants to tell the boss man that something went wrong, so it is covered up.

Americans, of all races, are much more independent. We will ask questions. We don't want to be told what to do, we want to be told what you want done. We form teams where individual players do their different jobs, and work together. Mostly we can do the jobs that others do, but we take roles in the team. It is a much more effective system, and it is what makes US workers the most productive in the world. We thrive on doing different things, new things, and when a problem show up, we tackle it.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


The problem is that instead of lifting them up, they are pulling us down. We experiencing the Mexicozation of the US.

I have sympathy for the people in Mexico, but not enough to sacrifice the future for my descendants.

We stop the illegal immigration. Then we open up legitimate legal immigration, but we insist on a two way street. Mexico needs to open up immigration to Mexico which is fair, which currently it is not, and the same goes for all of Latin America. We start insisting on Mexico setting up labor rights and consumer rights. We need to be able to actually buy property in Mexico, and build on that land, without having to buy off the local gentry.

Before we can do any of that, we need to get our own house back into order, and that requires that we stop illegal immigration, and cut back on immigration overall. We stop meddling in the worlds affairs, and start looking after our own backyards again, because they are a mess.

whyamIhere
The Vets name is Jim Broussard.

I have invited him to join this discussion.

Here is his website.

Jimbroussard.com

Also we have been warned by a Mod.

Take this seriously please (including myself).

Thanks...

You know what, that changes it.

He'd been asked by plenty of people to change it, and people still took offence.

If you would have made that point in the OP, I would have shut up a long time a go.

ETA:

He then goes on to act in a true American Capitalist fashion, and is selling commemorative knives like the one he used hahahah

Oh Capitalism...

reply to post by iRoyalty


To be honest I don't think I am bothered what the vet has to say. We all know his stance already.
What exactly can he add to t debate what hasn't alt been said.
Lol at the knives lol.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Blooming phone juat guess what I mean lol.

Give the Vet one thing though.
That is an epic beard!!!

reply to post by iRoyalty



Except the criminal vet is the only one saying that he was asked loads to take it down.
Should we just take his word?