Crime is crime. Asking that current laws be enforced is not bigotry. If you're so inclined, go start your own while collar, fraud, theft crime task force. Don't condemn these people for there civic action.
Googling '"kevin barnhill" mason' is so informative that it's pointless to link to every page.
Basically, there was a fight at a bowling alley over a game of pool, and as a result a man was stabbed to death.
Jose Rodriguez Mota "was not involved in... Barnhill's death." Humberto Mota is apparently charged with conspiracy, as is Enrique Torres, 27. Apparently Enrique Torres, 36, is a fugitive (charged with conspiracy), and there's a fourth, JOSE MOTA!!!!, who is also being held.
To paraphrase Denzel Washington, we're looking for a Mexican. Any Mexican will do.
If Dad wants to stop this sort of thing from happening, he should crack down on games of pool, or bowling alleys where they don't break up fights. The allegation that undocumented aliens were the killers is COMPLETELY peripheral.
If, Barnhill was killed by illegal aliens then you are making a horrible point. You might have a point with the Minute Men but a group that has formed as a reaction to a particular murder?
"Citizens For Legal Communities", was founded by the father of Kevin Barnhill.
Barnhill was allegedly murdered by illegal immigrants outside a Mason bar."
If the law had been enforced in this case (i.e. the illegal aliens had not been allowed into the country) the guy's son would still be alive. Maybe that is why they are picking this issue? Crap man, I am all for liberalizing immigration laws (while strengthening the border) but find your argument completely illogical.
Wait...these stories keep changing. In August, the reports were that the fight started at Mason Bowl. Now, the fight started at Mason Pub, which presumably shares a parking lot.
And now, apparently the whole case is going to become an issue of immigration status.
Again, NDC, this murder didn't happen BECAUSE there were undocumented aliens present, it happened BECAUSE there was a fight.
In 1930s Germany, there were robberies that Romanis committed. They robbed people because they were robbers, not because they were Romani. Making it illegal to be Romani was therefore unjust.
NDC,
Shrinks would call it transference, I believe. In other words you transfer the emotion, here hate or anger, to another person not directly the cause of the emotion.
The Father is being used by a bunch of bigots to further their cause. Few people have the courage to confront a grieving father even when he is doing something negative.
ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, which is a cutie of a diversionary tactic--being against one thing doesn't make you FOR its opposite) links to them, and I would imagine has some relationship--contrary to the press release, I highly doubt this is grassroots.
As a father myself I really do feel for Kevin Barnhill's father, but I do think some people are using his pain and story to fuel their own agenda. Illegal Immigration is an issue that I am very torn over, because being there are things about it that I don't like such as the burden it has caused on the healthcare system and the dangers it will pose to an already shakey social security system, and then there are things about it that I understand are necessary.
It would be easy for me to join the bandwagon and say how they are doing such a horrible thing, but any reasonable person will look at the situation from a broader stance. In Mexico, these people have nothing, most of them are living in horrible conditions with large amounts of family, a lot don't even have clean running water. There is no hope for them in Mexico, no future.
We have it so good here, we have the biggest houses in the world, we make more money than everybody else, and starvation is not a reality for over 99% percent of us. With how good our lives really are, it is easy to forget about how hard the rest of the world has it, how much struggle and pain is going on right now while we sit at a computer in a heated house and take it easy.
People in other countries see and hear about our standard of living through media and word of mouth, how can we be so god damn greedy and blame them for wanting something better for themselves, when we have it so good.
It reminds me of how Congress refused to vote for a raise of minumum wage for years, but everytime a Congressional raise was brought up for themselves they voted for it. I never understood how someone making well over 100,000 a year could seriously deny someone else of making more than 5.85 an hour. It stems from greed I guess, I think we have an unnatural fear that illegal immigrants are going to take our piece of the pie, when we should be more worried about corporate America doing that.
It is easy to hate a group of people because of fear, but I refuse to hate or be swayed into tracking down illegal immigrants who just want a better life, more liberty, and to truly persue happiness.
That's just plain silly. I'm all for welcoming immigrants from around the world to our country, but legally. If we need to up the quota then we should.
But being poor doesn't justify stealing someone else's property.
I think these minimum wage hikes are just greedy. If we are going to disconnect wages from productivity and the value of the work, we should raise them to about 200 dollars an hour. That way, all the poor people would be rich.
As far as I can tell it's a case of a family's grief being exploited by political greaseballs.
As I previously wrote, this group is more a misguided attempt to cope with the loss of a loved one than a serious attempt to deal with immigration. It reveals more about the 5 stages of grief than a complex social and economic issue.
Hmmm....lets see if this works out.
I guess Cindy Sheehan is just "transferring" the death of her son onto the war and President Bush. She is also used by crazy left wing groups. She should probably just stay quiet and "grieve."
Yeah, I thought that logic would work for you
What about the child who is sexually abused by their neighbor who was a convicted sexual predator but the government failed to notify the neighborhood? If they advocated for stronger adherence to notification laws I guess their grief would be incorrectly "transferred."
hilby--Productivity is up around 1000% from the 1950s; median real wages are down from that time. I'd provide links if I weren't so hungry. Read a book.
NDC--
1. Sheehan's transferring grief from the general to the specific, whereas Barnhill is transferring from the specific to the general. Furthermore, Sheehan's cause, ending the war, would halt other children from dying the same way; Barnhill's cause would NOT keep anybody from being killed over a bar fight. The immigration status of the perpetrators in no way, shape, or form plays an integral role in the event, unless we're going to speculate that the original fight was racially motivated; I'm unwilling to cast that aspersion.
2. The movement from specific to general in the case of the the abused child is incommensurate to that of Barnhill. Barnhill was Murdered by an Immigrant, the boy was Molested by a Neighbor. You bring up an excellent point here: whereas the boy's parent is attempting to restrict the rights of Molesters, Barnhill is attempting to restrict the rights of Immigrants, when he should be restricting the rights of Murderers. Analogously, Barnhill's move would be like making it illegal to be a child's Neighbor.
3. 9/11 changed everything!
Illegal aliens are the cause of all our nations ills! Because of them we have people getting in fights over bar games like pool for the first time ever! They work really hard and thus threaten to destroy our unions! They also caused a generation of our population to have too much sex and create the baby boom generation, thus straining our entitlement programs too much. Everyone must build a thick wall around their house so we can protect our way of life!
Specific=son's death for both Sheehan and Barnhill.
General=The war or illegal immigration (i.e. letting violent offenders, etc into the country).
Barnhill's point, and I think it i s a good one, is likely that we don't know WHO is coming in the country. With legal immigration, one can (to some extent) ensure that the immigrant does not want enter the country for nefarious reasons, or wasn't a criminal/drug runner in his or her native land.
By chosing little enforcement, Barnhill and others would argue that the government is complicit in allowing more criminals into the country than were here previously, thereby at guilt in their crimes. A point which I think is somewhat valid and should not be so casually dismissed.
Brian, you neglected to put the words "Mason" and "Bigotry" in the heading. Sure, you whine about it in the body, but you need it up top to emphasize your hatred. You usually pay attention to details like this. You OK?
I find it interesting that illegals/hispanics seem to be staying far way from the city core. I would think OTR and West End would be a heaven for them. They would be greeted with open arms by all the agencies that are located there, yet they seem to stay away.
NDC, I infer "relaxation" when you say there's little enforcement. The thing is, not only is there WAY more enforcement currently, but there's never been a Mexican emigration boom (much to my surprise). If we're assuming that those who immigrate then stay, there were like 6 million in 1980, 9 million in 1990, and 12 million in 2000. (Ah, Pew Hispanic is where I get these numbers, and no commenters have merited the energy to provide a link.) There's been slight second-derivative growth by decade--off the top of my head, about 10%--but nothing to indicate that A) this is new or B) enforcement efforts have any effect.
In fact, the enforcement techniques have primarily A) killed people and B) kept people from crossing back into Mexico (which, as there's neither a geographical nor a long-standing cultural border, has, again, been going on for 17,000 years), based on various accounts--again, I don't feel like anybody's really bringing enough to the table to merit searching for this account. I think it's Pew.
Maybe you can't keep people from crossing the make-believe border. White folks have only been in Arizona and New Mexico for 50 years, and migrant farmers have been around for 17,000. Old habits die hard, especially when the new habits involve planting a bunch of fucking palm trees in the desert, wondering why crops won't grow, and acting like you're genetically superior.
Shit! I forgot to mention that 9/11 changed everything.
I'm bringing 9/11changedeverythingback.
Thats why I think you increase the number of folks that can legally immigrate (by quite a bit) and also make the border damn near impossible to cross. By doing this, one decreases the demand to cross the border many times fold. There is less of an incentive to risk one's life if you have a good chance of getting in legally.
Of course, the big question then is whether the services of "legal immigrants" would be in demand under those circumstances, especially given the raise in minimum wage.
With enforcement of existing labor laws, the effect of immigration on wages is defused.
It's illegal to pay someody less than the minimum wage, hence, y'know, the name. If you treat migrant labor the same as normal labor, there's no effect on wages--yes, you're expanding the labor pool to an extent, but it's actually a shrinking of the pool compared to current illegal payment practices.
If you create a guest worker program and thus a second class of labor, which can legally be paid a lesser wage, you'll solidify the impulse to hire guest workers. Thus, you'll have one grossly underpaid population and one enormous unemployed population.
The third "option", which you seem to prefer, is sealing the border. This isn't feasible, and efforts to do so have merely halted remigration southward.
Here's an interesting proposal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Gre...t_wall_of_china
My option is sealing (as much to the extend we can) the border and increasing legal immigration.
My only question (and it really was only a question) is the following:
If a strawberry farm in California which typically employs illegal fruit pickers at $3 an hour or legal guest workers at a higher minimum wage ($7.35-plus taxes, insurance, etc...maybe $9.00+) have we actually increased the demand for illegal labor?
If the employers still choose to employ legal guest workers, then there will be a lower demand for guest worker labor than there is currently for illegal workers (which is good or bad depending on your own personal opinions).
Luke, on your points...the math might work out but I don't think anyone knows for sure. In a perfect world, the amount of low-wage jobs in the market would certainly increase. I think it is very disputable as to the degree given the rise in minimum wage and increase in labor supply.
On an anecdotal side, some "group" would likely be left behind in this situation. Many might speculate that legal migrant workers will take a higher portion of the jobs as migrants are often hard working and very reliable. This is of course anecdotal, but comes from an uncle who employs migrants and a father who often works with them. Unfortunately, it would likely lead to more racial tension.
I totally don't follow what you're saying. When I say "guest worker" I'm refering to Bush's idea of making a minimum wage of $2-$4 for migrant labor.
That is party of his proposal? If so, paint my face red because I am unaware of it.
I wish BG would actually have to live in one of the border states overrun with Hispanics. In fact, three out of four of them whites are no longer a majority. Neither of us would last long in the Barrio but I'm taking bets that I'd last longer than BG.
Viva la Estados Unidos de Atzlan!
Aztlan. It may have been a typo, but it's important to enunciate properly the phoneme ztl--it's one of the most powerful mystical phonemes.
I didn't see any Latinos in New Mexico, although I did get a ride from Los Lupes to Albuquerque from an octogenarian from Cincinnati named Duke.
I didn't see any Latinos in Arizona, unless you count Navajos.
I saw Mormons in Utah. They were camping in ankle-length skirts; it was awkward because, in the desert heat, I'd stripped down to my underwear. Well, awkward for them.
There are latinos all over the four border states and most other urban areas. Arizona is the only border state that is still majority white (basically the border there is the desert where illegal immigrants either die crossing or know not to cross there). Arizona will be majority non-white by 2030 at the latest, more likely by 2020.
You may not see them yet from your anecdotal observations, but whites are losing US population "market share" at a rate of half a percent a year, this is going directly to latinos (blacks are preserving their representation). Your children will definitely see the aftereffects and you are likely seeing the economic effects by being paid a lower wage than you would otherwise be paid if the labor supply was lower.
Where I live I hear Spanish almost as often as English, and its a very well to do part of town.
Jorge Bush and the Demoncrats have teamed up and are both for this radical change in American demographics: Jorge and his cronies want the cheap labor so they can line their pockets and the Demoncrats want the latino vote.
Half a percent a year Luke: pretty soon even the Mormons will be having Jaime cut their grass.
Bob,
I am part Latino (vive Panamá!), so I guess I am creeping in on your culture or something.
Since I also am part old English (first ancestor came here in 1630) I guess I am creeping in on my own culture. I guess that makes me a cultural cannibal. I need to round myself up and haul my ass to a camp!
A) I have children? Guess I'd better give Laura a call to see what's up with that.
B) How long has AZ been majority white?
C) What's wrong with a changing ethnic character in the US?
D) Unless you're a boiled-cabbage fan, you really ought agree that the introduction of non-Anglo culture has, throughout American history, been a very good thing.
E) Is "cutting Mormon grass" euphemistic? Can it be from henceforth?
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