ubertuber

Dunedan, I'm pretty sure Silent Jay is Canadian. Keep in mind that's just one reason his perpective on today's political climate might vary dramatically from yours.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

roachboy

the minutemen are a militia group--just have a look at their webpage.

if you looked into these groups at all during their last public heyday (late 1980s-oklahoma city bombing), you may know about them: extreme right wing, xenophobic paramilitaries that are in the main convinced that one or another version of zog (the "zionist occupation government")--which in back in the day when groups like this would actually spell out their politics was usually routed through some loopy "protocols of the elders of zion"-driven interpretation of the united nations to group the federal government, the un and some fantasy world jewish conspiracy together---was trying to invade the united states, one way or another---the central fear that drove the ideologies of many of these groups was that this phantasm was acting to deprive folk of their guns and by doing that reduce them to slavery.

in this you have the entire logic behind posts from the dunedan and dk in the various repetitions of gunthreads that have appeared of late in this forum.

from this followed the 1990s obsession with black helicopters.
[[which i used to enjoy reading or hearing about, actually, because the various attempts to "prove" the presence and by extension the activities of this phantasmatic persecuting Other usually amount to a strange american rural camo-clad repetition of the film "blow-up"]]

you have the same curious obsession with an amalgm of tidbits drawn arbitrarily from american history---the minutemen working to defend the constitution understood in the narrowest possible sense---the sense that makes a problem of jury trials for example---the sense that rationalizes a xenophobia that all too often spills over into racism---etc etc etc. so these folks present themselves as revolutionaries, their actions as a potential repeat of the american revolution, the outcome to be a repeat of a reduced and sanitized version of the outcomes of the revolution (articles of confederation anyone?)

what is annoying about these groups is not their extreme right politics--extreme in the sense that they manage, somehow, to make mainstream conservative ideology appear moderate---because generally once the actual politics are outlined, the delegitimation of them is nearly a matter of course....

what is annoying is the basic dishonesty in the presentation of their politics.

these folk act as though the possession of guns is in itself an entire politics.

the arguments that you see here on this score presuppose that there is one and only one political correlate of gun ownershp and that this political correlate is articulated by militia groups themselves.

except you erase the term "militia groups" and replace it with "citizens" or "armed citizens".

they buttress this with fantasies of directionless, politics-free armed insurrection---fantasies that outstrip the most surreal trotskyist variants in that the trotskyists at least understood that revolutionary action was political and that if a revolution was to be coherent it would be so on the basis of the political line that ordered it--not on the basis of whether the people who might participate in it were or were not armed.

revolution--insurrection---is an act that presupposes political orientation.
having a gun is not a political orientation.
the rest of milita group ideology is a political orientation, however.

if folk are going to make arguments from that position, they could at least be honest about it and make the political arguments--stop pretending that there is something magic about a gun that translates automatically into a series of political statements.

for most militia groups, gun possession is a mode of demarcating "real americans"---for militia groups, "real americans" are under assault by globalizing capitalism, by transnational institutions, by federal institutions, by immigrants, by everyone and anyone who has any degree of ambivalence about gun ownership. this is the narcissistic fantasy world of many tniy revolutionary groups, which try to generate confirmation of their politics from a sense of being-persecuted---the correlate is that their significance politically is demonstrated by the elaborate attention being paid to them or to their political line by the forces of Order. once again, this functions to bypass thinking about the actual content of the line itself, a kind of flip of anarchist direct action politics that tries to substitute the number and violence of confrontations with police for judgements about the content of their politics.

i do not see a single positive aspect of allowing this kind of group to assume (for itself) any kind of function.
they should stick to organizing paintball sessions and fantasizing about restoring an 18th century white america in the taverns friendly to boys in camo.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

And here we have proof positive that people DO look at gun owners with a stereotyped image of "extreme right wing, xenophobic paramilitaries"

Roachboy, did you really just call Dune and I 'anti-semitic'?

I have no desire to even attempt to defend myself from something so ridiculous as your pre-conceived notions of all gun owners being right wing paramilitary groups who are trying to defend themselves from 'ZOG'.

This is exactly what I was talking about in another thread, this point of view from the 'gun control' crowd that denigrated the militia movement as a bunch of radicals bent on destroying the federal government. Generalizing an entire group of people based on the actions of a few and the intentional misinformation of others is almost always protested vehemently and loudly by the 'liberal' group when done by people with an opposing viewpoint, especially when they know that their position holds no validity.

Gun ownership HAS become an entire politics because of groups like the brady campaign, the violence policy center, and anti-american political hypocrite elitists like diane feinstein. These groups and people have intentionally misinterpreted the second amendment to promote an agenda of disarming the militia groups and citizens. Most likely because they know that in promoting the rest of their unconstitutional agenda, disarmed citizens could not resist. 'militia groups' ARE armed citizens. The last that I read, nobody had repealed that act.

and yet one more 'generalization' based on ignorance or willful intent to malign something that you do not agree with. This wouldn't be any different than someone saying that liberals should stick to drinking their starbucks in their birkenstocks and talking about last nites american idol. What did that get us? absolutely nothing. So thank you for bringing absolutely nothing but misinformation, generalization, and denigration based on willful ignorance.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

samcol

Are you implying that this group should be stopped? Nothing like depriving others of freedom just because you don't agree with the message. Again, what laws have they broke? I don't agree with gay rights or pro abortion marches, but I don't advocate banning their perfectly legal protests.

The people who claim these minutemen are xenophobic sure seem to be afraid of rednecks using cell phones to report illegal activity.

roachboy

dk:

no i didnt call you anything---i did say that i thought the attempts to reduce all questions about the minutemen to that of "armed citizens" doing x or y was disengenuous.
that i did say.
that i do think.

samcol:

i am not saying anything about whether the minutemen should be stopped either--only that folk should be clear about who they are and think about what they are doing in an informed manner.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

BigBen

I will echo other's sentiments that say "With all there is to do in this world, you guys are patrolling PARTS of the LONGEST BORDER IN THE WORLD, SOMETIMES?"

It seems like an attempt for fame. I'll bake the cookies if they want to patrol the border in January.

Does this get an official entry into Wikipedia under the heading "Futile Waste of Time"?

__________________
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Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

dksuddeth

Ben, it's not about wanting to do a 'part time' gig, it's about trying to show the federal government that their job CAN be done, if done right. Last year when the minutemen worked the arizona border, they helped the border patrol nab over 1,000 extra illegal immigrants crossing the border. If the border patrol were given the budget to put more patrol out there, it would work. Thats what they are trying to show the government, if they would listen.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Poppinjay

So, again, back to the OP, why patrol the CANADIAN border?

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

ubertuber

I poked around a bit, and I'll be honest - it was not apparent to me that the minutemen are a militia group. They've appropriated a name that is militia-ish, but I don't see many signs that they consider themselves such. In fact, I looked through a bunch of their pictures and writings, and I didn't see one picture of a person with a gun. I saw lots of people with binoculars, cameras, and cell phones. I also didn't see any ZOG conspiracy writings. Here are a few things that I found - quite easily:
Minutemen Homepage
Some of the commentary on news articles is strongly written, but I just don't see these guys envisioning themselves as a militia type force. I'm sure they've got their fair share of wackjobs, but who doesn't these days?

Given all of that, I'm not sure why this thread has turned into an indictment of gun-owners or milita groups.

Poppinjay - I don't think they're concerned about Canadian citizens coming to America to take our jobs. I think they're probably pointing out that if the border between the US and Canada is unsecured and therefore essentially transparent, we've essentially outsourced our border protection (from terrorists and WMDs) to another nation.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

The_Jazz

Roachboy, while I agree with some of your sentiments, you are painting these groups with an awfully broad brush. SOME members may be all the things you accuse them of (and I'm not even sure I'll conceed that point), but I am certainly not all of them are. Is it possible that there are some anti-gun, pro-choice Democrats in this group that just happen to be concerned about border security? Absolutely. Do they have a point that it's very easy to sneak into the US illegally from Canada? Absolutely. Is it worthy of their response? Debatable.

Personally, I'm disappointed to see this discussion devolve from whether or not the Minutemen are a valid response to illegal immigration to the usual scirmish between the pro and anti gun camps. It's all been said ad infinitum, and is equivalent to written masturbation at this point.

Although I expect it will be ignored, I'm going to address the actual topic at hand. If I were a terrorist bent on doing harm within the US and thought that there was a good chance of being stopped at the airport, I would probably try to come through Canada. There are lots of spots where you can just walk across, especially if you have someone waiting on the other side to pick you up. A map, a compass, a little water and some basic navigation skills, and you can probably be ready to wreck havoc in a day or two, depending on your dropoff and pickup points. That said, it's not something that I'm particularly worried about as an American since I don't see a way to stop it. All of my border crossings, particularly since 9/11, have been much more controlled and cautious than before. Getting a visa into the US is a difficult and onerous process, and I think that the State Department needs to revamp how they do things and eliminate some of the corruption in the beaurocracy. It takes months to get an appointment with the Visa office in most non-Western European countries, and it's a gigantic pain in the ass. The Chinese actually do a fairly good job of policing this kind of thing since you typically have to show a return ticket upon entry.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

samcol

Well that's reassuring. I don't have a problem with someone arguing that the minutemen's message is wrong, but implying they should be stopped because they are doing something against the law is a stretch. If they do something wrong like shoot someone, then there are already laws against that and they should and will likely be prosecuted for it.

All this these current minutemen projects are is an attempt to draw attention to an issue that politicians won't touch. Calling reps and senators hasn't been working for some time now and this is the next step. Even if you don't agree with closing the borders as most of them advocate, the country cannot sustain accepting millions of people who use the social systems in our country, but don't pay the same as everyone else. The grey area of second class citizenship just isn't working.

Bottom line in my opinion, if this issue isn't dealt with we will see a real race/class war in the coming decades that really will involve guns and interment camps, or even succeding of some sections of the United States in the southwest. Politicians HAVE to deal with this issue very soon one way or the other or comprimise between the two extremes of total legalization or total closing of the borders and deportation.

samcol

I'm glad you pointed out the actual website (even though the link is broke i think) which is totally contrary to the picture that has been painted of them by opposition. They are pretty straightforward with their goals and try stear clear of any illegal activities or racist or seperatist groups.

roachboy

the qualification post:

first, what i wrote above was deliberately polemical. i had been wondering from time to time what the assumptions were behind the particular tactics that have started appearing alot lately in threads about guns.
second, i have been tracking the rise of american extreme right groups for a while, in a kin dof informal way that operates outside of my daygig functions but which is shaped by them nonetheless--i am interested in the development of political formations/ideologies, how they operate, how the discourses come to be fashioned, and how the discourse particular to a political formation shapes how folk make use of that formation. so the regularities that interest me would be somewhere between sociology and discourse analysis problems. that is why when i go after political arguments, i see ways to do it that do not involve personal attacks on the individuals who may invest in the discourse.

third: there is a considerable body of analytic work on the extreme right in america--on the milita movement in particular, there is an interesting sociological study by sara diamond that came out a few years ago (can't remember when exactly) that was focussed on the late 80s-mid 90s phase of milita formation. if you want a sense of the work that is out there already, look up her book and chase the footnotes. that is how anyone would gather information---from her book or from any other.

the configuration of political positions within which militias work has since changed, so some features of the main shared political assumptions have changed as well--not so much in substance as in emphasis it seems.

the minutemen website is full of very typical combinations of issues and ways of framing them---they are not explicitly presenting themselves as a militia outfit, but politically they are one.
if this is problematic, i'll lay out one of my an interpretation when i have more time to do it.

but for an example: if you look at the long string of articles that justify the patrol of the borders, notice the way in which "real americans" gets used.
who are "real americans" anyway?
who decides that?
particular groups vary in how they interpret that meme--this range of interpretations is an index of such diversity as there is within this spectrum of rightwing militias--and it exists, this spectrum. i am fully aware of that as i sit here typing this. i was when i wrote the previous post as well.

but i would argue--then, here, in future psts on this if i make any--that the openness of this central category is a problem if you take any account of the wider set of assumptions that combine into militia ideologies.

and that the whole logic of defending "real americans" from immigrants is xenophobic.
and that the minutemen is a xenphobic group.
this does nto account for the complexity of motivations that would bring folk to such a position--it simply describes the position itself.


you can see parallel logic at work in dk and dunedan's posts. that is as far as i would go in characterizing either of these personae as human beings---there is not way to go further and be coherent. the way in which gun ownership is understood--the peculiar way in which the constitution is fetishized (i use this word advisedly)---the
references in one or two posts to problems of jury trials, etc. one of the points seems to be to try to reduce gun ownership to a single political outcome---a move that is both false and disengenuous.

i do not personally like guns--but i have interacted with many folk who think otherwise and find that there is no single, coherent political factor that unifies these various people on why they favor relatively open gun circulation--just as there is no particular unifying politics that enable one to coherently groups folk who favor tighter gun control.

and i am agnostic about gun control myself.
for that i would assume that i would be one of those "hypocrite elitists" or something.
you know, dk, what's good for the goose.....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ubertuber

Fair enough roachboy. However, I think the answers to this particular set of questions are obvious. "Real Americans" are citizens and legal immigrants - so determined by the courts and immigration systems already in place. I'll admit that I haven't read every word of every article on that site, but this is the sense that I get. I suppose you could still be calling this xenophobia, but if so, I see it as a category not a pejorative term. I'm not even sure the word fits as a category label, since they aren't trying to shut down all immigration - just illegal immigration. To go even deeper, they don't seem to be pushing immigration reform half as hard as they are pushing for actual enforcement of the current policies. To me that's not really xenophobia, it's a set of people who, for whatever reason, are sticklers for one particular legal procedure. The law supports them in their views, so...

Regarding the militia thing - your understanding of this term operates on a different level from mine. I don't see these guys as militia because there doesn't seem to be a military or para-military aspect to their methods or goals. They don't even have a concerted effort to do much other than lobby government and use media tactics to highlight their pet issue. Heck, they even refer to their activities as "vigils" and not "patrols". I think of a militia as a group that attempts to (or supports an attempt to) set up or defend an independent area of sovereignty using force. The minutemen don't do that. They are attempting to force our existing system to work in the ways it says on paper that it ought to work. I'll check the Sara Diamond thing out - but it'll take a bit. If you think the militia thing is really that important, I would appreciate an executive summary - unless it's the kind of thing that would create a massive threadjack.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

dksuddeth

A real militia is not political. A real militia is there as the final security of the nation. The rest of the propaganda that you're read/heard about in the media/books is nothing more than an attempt to demonize a group that doesn't subscribe to the philosophy of the mainstream. Those that express themselves politically, or in ways to promote an agenda, are not a militia, they are just armed fanatics whose sole intent is to force others to live according to what THEY think is the right way.

We do, the people. with our laws.

Why do you continue to misrepresent this group as xenophobes? The minuteman project has NEVER been about keeping america 'all white', like a box of popeyes chicken. The minuteman project does not care about LEGAL immigration, its ILLEGAL immigration and the over burdening costs that come with it that they have a problem with.


that sounds like you saying there is no other way for you to refute the points in our argument without you referring to us with ad hominen insults.


That would depend RB, you say you are agnostic about gun control, broken down that tells me that you don't care one way or the other if it works, or don't believe one way or the other that it works. Thats fine, lots of people feel the same way and I wouldn't begrudge you that position. You say you don't like guns, thats fine also. Lots of people don't and I wouldn't begrudge you that position. When I refer to the 'hypocrite elitists', I refer to people like Sen. Feinstein, who espouses gun control and banning all private forms of firearm ownership if she could with one side of her mouth, while the other talks to the county sheriff to renew her concealed handgun permit. Rosie O'Donnel, who feels that anyone who owns a gun should go to prison yet hires armed bodyguards for her and her children. The list goes on. If you don't believe in gun control, don't like guns, and don't own one yourself, you would not be in that list.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

silent_jay

Yes I am Canadian, which is why I find it hilarious to carry a rifle and 100 rounds in a car and say it's for protecting freedom of speech. Which is also why I find it funny and pointless for these people to be patrolling a border. Why don't they watch the coast of Florida and wait to see some rafts floating in from Cuba, it has about as much point as that.

Sorry if I was insulting earlier but when people type that they'll call me a liar to my face if I say 'X', and clueless about the situation, and have a pre-formed opinion I get a little annoyed, so I wasn't denigrating anyone or their opinion earlier, merely expressing my opinion in the same manner they expressed theirs.

__________________
Absence makes the heart grow fonder

dksuddeth

Jay, do you see ANY reason why someone feels a need to have a rifle with 100 rounds?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

silent_jay

Yes a buddy of mine has 16 firearms, and well over 100 rounds for many of them, but he uses them for shooting at the outdoors club at targets which is where they should be used, or hunting during the appropriate seasons. Hell I even go to the range with him sometimes, in fact I was there about a week ago firing his SKS and the new 10/22 that he picked up.

I have no problem with guns I just have no reason to own one so I don't. But what I do have a problem with is people who try and say they have their guns to protect others liberties, it just seems funny to me to read someone say that, I don't hear Canadians with guns saying I want my rifle in my car with 100 rounds just in case someone attacks my freedom of speech, what are you going to shoot them? If the answer is yes then well jail is calling.

__________________
Absence makes the heart grow fonder

dksuddeth

So if you hear gunshots down the street and see 2 or 3 people chasing and shooting at a lone individual, you'd leave your target rifle locked in its place and dial 911?
Or, I know this probably wouldn't happen in canada, but go with it, say a mob is attacking some gay couples home breaking windows and as you look out the door, they grab one of the guys from his doorway and start kicking the crap out of him?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

ubertuber

We're getting to the point that this part should be taken to a gun control thread, unless someone is able to show that the Minutemen are a gun-toting militia. While I understand that you're reacting to silent_jay's thoughts, I can't see that it's helpful to post this argument in every single thread. THis isn't a gun control thread, it's an immigration/Minuteman/(MAYBE militia) thread.

It's worth pointing out that we're now debating something that no one said. It was NEVER claimed in this thread that the Minutemen are defending free speech. Samcol said they were USING their right of free speech to mount their vigils. It's not the same thing. And in my opinion, that's a muddled interpretation. Sitting on public property or private property (with the owner's permission) and using binoculars and cell phones to alert authorized border patrols guards of illegal crossings isn't a freedom of speech issue. It's also not a 2nd amendment issue. In fact, it's not any sort of rights-based issue until you get to their press releases that are intended to pressure elected officials into funding and providing enforcement of existing laws.

The border patrol guy in the article said it best - they treat these minutemen and their reports like any other citizen, which is all they are as long as they aren't breaking any laws. It's really nothing more than a neighborhood watch on public land with press releases.

Elphaba said it well - they get more attention than their efforts merit.

Silent_Jay - I'm glad you're back in the thread.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

james t kirk

Yeah, that's what the cops are there for.


That won't happen in Canada, and yes, call teh cops.

The fact of the matter is that more people get shot by guns accidently in the USA than ever get shot by bad guys.

Did You Know?

Every hour in America, four people are killed by firearms. (Centers for Disease Control)

A gun in your home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner (Kellerman,New England Journal of Medicine v329, n.15 1993)

Gun violence is the second-leading cause of injury-related fatalities in the US after car accidents. In Alaska, Maryland and Nevada as well as D.C., firearm death rates in 1998 exceeded those for car accidents. (CDC & Natnl. Vital Statistics Report, 1999)

One million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings since 1962. (Fatal Firearm Injuries in the United States 1962-1994. Violence Surveillance Summary Series, No. 3, 1997; Deaths: Final Data for 1995- 1997, National Vital Statistics Report)

Link:

http://www.kqed.org/w/baywindow/guns/stats.html

ubertuber

James T. Kirk -

Unless you have a way to link the two ideas, gun control and the minutemen belong in separate threads. This has been explored in the last 6-8 posts.

I'm going to quote myself here, since I brilliantly pre-emptively addressed this:

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

james t kirk

Getting back to the topic of the thread however, this pretty much sums up what kind of guy is a "minute man"

Despite protests, group works to draw attention to security


JON GAMBRELL
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MINUTEMAN MOVEMENT
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps first patrolled an otherwise unguarded stretch of the Arizona border last spring, in part to draw attention to their concerns over U.S. border security.

The Washington Minuteman Detachment has held three separate musters over the last three months in Whatcom County. Thus far, the sole arrest attributed to the group was a man who illegally crossed into Canada to call his girlfriend on a cellular phone.


What began as a month-long watch of the U.S.-Canadian border has become a monthly routine for Whatcom County's branch of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Facing protests, a legislative rebuke by the Bellingham City Council and allegations of racism when it first appeared in October, the group continues to watch the county's northern border.
They are an unusual band of brothers, most of them military veterans entering what should be their golden years. However, all of them express concern over the security of the nation's borders.
Tom Williams, a Deming resident who is the chapter leader of the Washington Minuteman Detachment, describes the movement and the U.S. Border Patrol as a similar "warrior subculture."
"The agents love us," Williams says. If you listen to the radio traffic, he says, Border Patrol agents call the Minuteman volunteers "the good guys," "Mike Mikes," or "the friendlies."

To prepare for their two-day muster this weekend, the Minuteman volunteers gather at Camp Standing Bear, which doubles as organizer Claude LeBas' front yard on Valley View Road. American, Canadian and state of Washington flags flap in the wind over the camp's operation center - a camper outfitted with a laptop computer, telephone, fax machine, radio equipment and sought-after coffee machine on a cold morning.

A volunteer taps out a list for the Border Patrol of the day's volunteers, description of their cars and whether or not they are licensed to carry concealed pistols. Vigilante, Williams' shorthaired dachshund, scurries between the legs of the eight people gathered inside the camper.
"We need to get Larry out on the road and we need to get those radios going in here," says Williams, who volunteers refer to as "Skip" or "Skipper."
With Minuteman volunteers so close to the border, their cellular phones often roam to Canadian towers, giving them weaker signals and making it difficult to call U.S. authorities when they spot suspicious activity. Now, armed with ham radios and antennas made out of soldered copper piping, they hope to get better reception.

One new volunteer, Don Jones of Everett, gives Williams his call sign - K07I. It's an acronym, he explains: "Kill Off Seven Iraqis."

http://news.bellinghamherald.com/app...WS03/512180336

tecoyah

As with all hot political topics....it is unwise to take a single example and pretend it represents a group. This individual may very well be a nutcase, and have issues that require treatment. That should not be the measurment of the entire group, or the mission.

Lets try to discuss the actual Issue...rather than take from it by sensationalizing the individual.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

dksuddeth

To keep threads on topic, i've posted my reply Here

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

tecoyah

Thank You dksuddeth

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

roachboy

dk--i am not sure i understand why you see a disconnect between defense of "real americans" and xenophobia---they seem linked---the distinction legal/illegal seems to me of little value as a function of the basic fact that if there was no labor market that routinely hired folk without proper documentation, then there would be no flows. the idea of stopping such flows as exist by arbitrarily patrolling a largely ireelvant border seems to me ludicrous. if you, or anyone else, really thinks that undocumented immigrants are a real problem, you migth consider bringing pressure to bear on industries that hire them, which are, have been and will remain the central motor of the problem, such as it is.

another way: if there is a percieved problems for working class and /or petit bourgeois folk with undocumented workers, then it seems more reasonable to advocate some kind of large-scale readjustment of the way in which the present american capitalist system is organized in order to better equip this place to djust to the changes in demand for labor that are at the source of the real problem--not the fake one of illegal immigrants--the real one that is displaced onto illegal immigrant workers. that your paranoid view of the state would prevent ay such move is not a function of the accuracy of your understanding of the situation---it simply shows the limitations your politics, insofar as i understand them from what i read of them here, impose on your definitions of problems and ways of thinking about how to solve them. behind this perhaps is a naieve assumption that capitalist infrastructure simply happens as a function of the operation of markets--this is empirically false. the main function of the state, when you think about it historically, has been the stabilization of the capitalist system, the assurance of its reproduction--the assuring of reproduction is primarily a function of infrastructure building--which extends to all kinds of things like basic power service to the ways in which educational systems are oriented toward reproduction of the labor pool. maybe you should be thinking more about a possible new deal-like operation that would address the real problems being generated by the defunctionalization of the american systems of social reproduction as a result of how globalizing capitalism is unfolding.

the fact that the entire view of undocumented workers as problem is oriented the wrong way round seems to me a demonstration of at the least the types of displacement that are involved with the bizarre decision to see in illegal immigratn workers the motor of the economic ills that groups like militias organize, at one level or another, as responses to. i say at the least because i am not at all sure but that i am gving these groups too much credit by adding extra steps--the alternate, simpler explanation is that the minutemen militia is organized around xenophobia as its primary structuring principle.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Lebell

If the foo shits...

Will do!

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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dksuddeth

Well, for one, there is not a large need for an undocumented work force. I heard on one of the radio shows yesterday that something like 4.7% of americas labor force is undocumented. Not a very large portion. Of course, I would LOVE for the government to go after the business side.....alot more than the 3 that they went after last year. Is that gonna happen?

The 'myth' that there are jobs that americans won't do is just a myth. There are jobs americans wont do for that particular wage, but it's not that they won't do the job.
Take care of the security issue first,, THEN, I have no problem looking at a guest worker program.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Charlatan

The way to stop this is stricter regulation on what companies have to pay. Many industries are in a race to the bottom to see who can pay the least wages. They hire illegals and pay them less than minimum wage in increasingly unsafe environments.

The benefit to America is cheaper goods.

Crack down on this abuse and you will have it so that those jobs could go to Americans and it would get rid opportunities for illegals.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

dksuddeth

I wouldn't agree that the solution is regulating a minimum wage, but regulating the hiring practices of the employers. Start heavily fining those that hire illegals and they will stop hiring illegals. Then let the market place work as it should. wages will go up to attract legal workers.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

The_Jazz

In theory, I actually agree with you, DK (oh the horror!). Businesses are always going to try to pay the lowest wage possible for the highest quality of worker that they can get. There needs to be more enforcement of existing laws to curtail illegal immigration. That said, there are industries like agriculture, that depend on illegal immigrants to do the work. Agricultural contract work has always been the bottom rung of the ladder (think Grapes of Wrath ), and Americans love their low food prices. The last statistic that I heard had something like 2/3rds of all harvesters being illegal. That's scary since it's the folks that we depend on to bring in the harvest. That's one of the reasons that I agree with the President (again with the horror!) on the guest worker program. It just makes sense for some industries.

By the way, there's an estimate that 60% of all homes in California are built with illegal labor. This is a systemic problem.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

djtestudo

Personally, what I think we need to do is a twofold solution.

1) We need to start investigating, prosecuting and deporting anyone who is in this country illegally to the full extant of the laws already on the books.

2) We need to make LEGAL immigration easier, so that we can still allow large numbers of people in while also being able to regulate their entry.

This way, we still gain the labor of those who wish to come into our country to work, while making sure that they follow our laws, and pay our taxes.

Can anyone see a real problem with this kind of action?

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

The_Jazz

Yeah, the anti-immigration people and paranoid-about-terrorism people don't want it to happen. The "anti" folks seem to want to stiffle immigration completely. This is a fight that's been going on for 200 years, and expect that we won't resolve it anytime soon. No one's ever going to get what they want.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Charlatan

Regarding the illegals in the food industry. Make it easier to allow migrant workers. We have a very successful migrant worker program in Canada that brings central american labour to Canada for the harvests.

If you want to solve it you really need to crack down on those who are hiring the illegals in the first place. If there are no jobs they will not come. Unfortunately, there is a *high* demand for this labour pool.

I think this is something you will not solve either easily or probably at all. Parts of your economy are too reliant on the cheap labour.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

smooth

How accurate do you think this number is?
Do you see any problems with trying to estimate a number of people comprising an undocumented (and illegal) work force?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

dksuddeth

I'm sure that it's nowhere near 'accurate', but estimates are exactly that, estimates.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

smooth

If you're sure it's "nowhere near accurate," then why would you even bother including it in your statement as support of anything meaningful?

Answering my question with a truism isn't going to foster any kind of discussion and it's also an error in logic.


If you had been thinking more critically when you read that statistic, and if you had thought about my question more in-depth instead of blowing it off, then you might have wondered how researchers could come up with a number accurately approximating people who aren't participating in the legal work/social domain.

People who aren't here legally are going to be more difficult to find, by their own desires and by the function of the market (illegal, under the table, hidden) in which they work within. They are going to be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to survey.

One might reasonably conclude that 4.7% is a lowest (non-politcally "conservative") estimate, at best. The number of undocumted workers could, and in all liklihood is, much larger than that. In so far as anyone would use such a troubled estimate to bolster a claim that undocumated laborers are "not a very large portion" of the economy is highly suspect to me.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

dksuddeth

If you'll look at what I typed again, you'll see that I said it is what I 'heard', not read from a book or article and supplied a link to it. I try very hard to qualify what are 'facts' and what are opinions and assumptions. I may not have made that very clear from my remark so I apologize for any confusion on my part.

please see above.

And until I find some other stat that is credible, i'll consider it 'suspect' as well.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."