And most of those first generation people could stay in that tiny block and live their whole lives not learning English.
Yep, I figure in a generation or so none of this will be relevant.
Greg, I never had the displeasure of experiencing something quite so extreme, and I went to a pretty... er... ghetto middle school, where I was by FAR the minority of the population. Did the Mexico chants mostly happen in high school? We definitely had the immigrant marches at my high school, but then again, my high school was full of liberal nuts who liked marching for anything
I should not have to listen to everything in two languages, pay for their 7 kids to go to public school while they pay no taxes, have 3 families live in a home for one and thus crowd the ever loving hell out of every school I attended.
What's wrong with families living together? What's wrong with people deciding not to overspend their money and learning to live communally and frugally? Would you rather they take out a subprime mortgage like a REAL AMERICAN and default on it like the rest of us?
And you live in a major city. Every school's going to be crowded, genius. Don't like it, go to a smaller city.
What's wrong with having a second language written where you go? That's just the nature of business. Businesses can serve more people if they can communicate in more languages. That's capitalism in its finest. That's what America is all about. If you don't support capitalism, then clearly you are a socialist. Boo ya.
I should not go to school and see Mexican flags everywhere every single day instead of American flags, rubbing the fact that they should not be in America and are instead in our schools, while I PAY FOR IT.
I could talk about wanting to retain your individual culture when you go to live abroad. I could talk about how this is what America really is about, how we are a melting pot of the best elements of different cultures from around the world. I could also talk about how they are showing their flags because they want to share their culture with you as you are sharing it with them, and most certainly not to 'rub it in'.
Instaed, I'll take a different approach. This is what it means to have a hard life. Your life is not inconvenienced in the least by letting other people show their flags. Get over it.
Hit and runs occur every week in my neighborhood by some illegal or another, half the time drunk and the other half have been by people who never took a drivers test and have no insurance. We pay so much for these people to be here in public schooling, health care, welfare, etc. And in return they take jobs that could go to Americans and send the money to another country.
Really. Every week you say. So your neighborhood has had 27 hit and runs so far this year? And every single one of them is by an illegal?
Yes, they do TAKE jobs. It is not that an American would not do it, or that they would not do it for the wage an illegal does. The "tax" issue keeps their wages higher because they are not paying 15-20% of each paycheck to the government, everything they make is pure profit. If an American took home that much after taxes hell yes they would clean up. Employers also keep their costs down because they do not have to match the person's taxes, thus actually rewarding them for hiring illegals. (Unless they get caught that is)
This is my favorite. I was waiting to get here. To put it bluntly, youareverywrong. Many illegals VOLUNTARILY pay their taxes using a Tax Identification Number. They do this to show compliance with US laws, because they honest to god love our country and want to be a part of it.
And before you say "well, then they should just become citizens if they want to show compliance with law", you should educate yourself and learn that it isn't that easy. It's okay, you can click this link. It has pictures, should be easy to follow. The absolute fastest way to become a citizen is to marry a US citizen. That takes at BEST six to seven years. Other less eficient avenues can take up to fifteen years or more until citizenship is awarded.
And yet millions of illegals endure, and they pay their taxes voluntarily while they wait.
They are breaking the bank, Arizona finally had enough and I applaud them. California would be much better off if they did the same, alot of their deficit would disappear into thin air. Make no mistake, the south is under siege. The north tries to cry foul every time we try to protect ourselves, but they are hundreds of miles away from the issue and thus void their say. If the federal government would throw us a bone and enforce their own law then none of this would be an issue.
No. The bank has been broken for years under an inefficient system that encourages governments and departments to spend as much money as they can under penalty of receiving less money the following year. The US economy and subsequently the economies of most other world powers were broken by red-white-and-blue Americans. You people are too damn illiterate to understand that you yourselves have created the financial mess you are in right now, and you're trying to hide it all under the rug by saying it's all because of the brown people.
To wrap up. I wholly understand that there are legitimate concerns about illegal immigrants in our country and the problems they can present. However, xenophobia and us-vs-them mentality is not a solution.
Families living together causes a school that was meant for 500 to have 1500 kids instead. My elementary was at 300% capacity, middle school 250%, and high school 275%. I have been to the north and the problem is nowhere near as bad, schools are still over crowded but it is not the torrent and flood it is here.
And as for a second language WRITTEN, I don't give a crap. That is all fine and dandy. I don't have to read it, just go for the English version. Oddly enough alot of the phone menu's down here have SPANISH first, then English. Yes, it is being picky and impatient as fuck (I admit >_>), but I should be able to listen to my own language first in my own country.
And as for the flags thing, again. They chant AMERICA SUCKS and MEXICO, MEXICO while waving their flags every Cinco de Mayo. Maybe it is my area or something, but that one scene has made me jaded to the whole scenario.
And yes, at least once a week there is a hit and run in my neighborhood. Every time we hear a crash in the morning or night about 10 people come running out of their homes to see if it was their car again. Every time one has been caught save once or twice, it was an illegal.
And as for the taxes, all I see is many, some, or alot when quoting their taxes. Many may pay, but looking at the numbers in your articles and then considering how many illegals there are boggles the mind. And yes, I KNOW that MANY do not pay as well. Living down here I see it every day, accepting cash only, personal checks, under the rug deals. Usually it is the employer that keeps it off the records because of the tax situation, but in the end the taxes STILL DON'T GET PAID.
Also, going off the articles you gave they make up about 3.15% of taxes paid while taking up about 5% of the population. Sounds off to me, but hey what do I know.
Citizenship. Why should they be entitled to it simply because their own government is corrupt and their country is sub par? Why should we reward them for breaking OUR laws? Sure Mr Dude, you came into our country by jumping that huge fence that makes it seem like you should stay on the other side. Here are your party favors? Call me a bigot, call me prejudiced, whatever. I live in this crap and I know what goes on.
Finally, the bank. Yes, America has always done spending over saving. However, in the articles you gave me (The second one in fact) it states that the border communities are being broken by the tide of illegals. Here, let me get that for you.
Yes, many illegal migrants impose a strain on border communities on whose doorstep they first arrive, broke and unemployed.
Well... Hmm... Dunno. Seems to me like the border states get kinda shafted here and they are the ones who typically are having the worst financial troubles, so what do I know? I mean really, what can a few billion do for any of these states budgets? Oh well.
Also: It doesn't help that many in the south feel abandoned by Washington because they refuse to really do anything on the issue besides say they will do something about it every six months.
Also part 2:
http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
Summary: Brings wages down, send billions a year to Mexico out of America, loses 1.5 million jobs a year to illegals, the drug cartels, etc.
But hey, that is only one article, what does it know?
Families living together causes a school that was meant for 500 to have 1500 kids instead. My elementary was at 300% capacity, middle school 250%, and high school 275%. I have been to the north and the problem is nowhere near as bad, schools are still over crowded but it is not the torrent and flood it is here.
And as for a second language WRITTEN, I don't give a crap. That is all fine and dandy. I don't have to read it, just go for the English version. Oddly enough alot of the phone menu's down here have SPANISH first, then English. Yes, it is being picky and impatient as fuck (I admit >_>), but I should be able to listen to my own language first in my own country.
When someone is disturbed by the extra half second it takes out of his day to look one more line below the wacky foreign text to find his own language, then I have to realize that I'm not going to win any arguments on this point. So let's move on.
And as for the flags thing, again. They chant AMERICA SUCKS and MEXICO, MEXICO while waving their flags every Cinco de Mayo. Maybe it is my area or something, but that one scene has made me jaded to the whole scenario.
This is rude, I admit. But you cannot assume that the millions of Mexican nationals in the US, both illegal and legal both, also share this same opinion. In fact, I'm pretty certain that most people who have decided to spend their entire lives in a different country must love it a whole goddamn lot.
And yes, at least once a week there is a hit and run in my neighborhood. Every time we hear a crash in the morning or night about 10 people come running out of their homes to see if it was their car again. Every time one has been caught save once or twice, it was an illegal.
I couldn't find statistics on Austin hit and run data on Google, or at least on Google's first page, so we'll let this point go. Either way, my previous point I just made above also applies here: you can't assume that all Mexicans are this way. There are segments of America where plenty of Americans act the exact same way.
And as for the taxes, all I see is many, some, or alot when quoting their taxes. Many may pay, but looking at the numbers in your articles and then considering how many illegals there are boggles the mind. And yes, I KNOW that MANY do not pay as well. Living down here I see it every day, accepting cash only, personal checks, under the rug deals. Usually it is the employer that keeps it off the records because of the tax situation, but in the end the taxes STILL DON'T GET PAID.
AGAIN THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ILLEGALS. I used to work construction as a summer job back in college up in Iowa. Our company's manager often talked to me about the problems he had competing, because his competitors just hired people and paid them under the table to keep his costs down. But they weren't hiring illegals, because we don't have that many. They were hiring Americans to get paid under the table. Same goes in the farming industry.
In jobs that allow for wiggle room in getting out of paying taxes, then employers are going to take advantage of it. Illegals taking the jobs are a symptom of a problem. NOT a cause.
Also, going off the articles you gave they make up about 3.15% of taxes paid while taking up about 5% of the population. Sounds off to me, but hey what do I know.
Citizenship. Why should they be entitled to it simply because their own government is corrupt and their country is sub par? Why should we reward them for breaking OUR laws? Sure Mr Dude, you came into our country by jumping that huge fence that makes it seem like you should stay on the other side. Here are your party favors? Call me a bigot, call me prejudiced, whatever. I live in this crap and I know what goes on.
So that's how we should regard the less privileged? 'Sure sucks to be you, you should have had the foresight to be born American!'. Seems fairly coldhearted to me.
You don't live in this crap. You live in a small segmented community that is in absolutely no way in any shape or form representative of the millions and millions of legal and illegal Mexicans living all along the four states that share the 2000 mile long border with Mexico.
It sounds like you have not had a pleasant experience with them. I am sorry to hear that, but that is unfortunately how the world is: lots of douchebags. Every country has them in full supply, trust me on this.
Finally, the bank. Yes, America has always done spending over saving. However, in the articles you gave me (The second one in fact) it states that the border communities are being broken by the tide of illegals. Here, let me get that for you.
Well... Hmm... Dunno. Seems to me like the border states get kinda shafted here and they are the ones who typically are having the worst financial troubles, so what do I know? I mean really, what can a few billion do for any of these states budgets? Oh well.
Immovable objects on both sides I guess. I realize I am jaded about the entire thing, but it might just be where I grew up. A huge part is that when I was a kid my neighborhood had almost none of the problems existed, and as the cheap apartments got built around us and the illegals moved in it got worse and worse @_@
Mind clouded by anger and all that I guess that we had to spend a couple K to fix one of the family cars. Twice >_>
The main problem is perspective. If one is in a city during an enormous protest it might seem like a big deal, but enormous protests are particularly common and almost never particularly significant. The large scale effects of the protest are minimal, the opinion of the protesters generally obscure, and even the issue brought forth by the protesters generally stupid if not totally unimportant. In the heat of the moment though everything is a big deal. Fact is that very few people have to deal with immigration problems like GreatMagnus, in the area it is most certainly a big deal, but clearly the problems he faces are fairly isolated, or many more people here would have similar experiences.
I live in Idaho. When immigrants really want to evade suspicion they move here, an unpopulated area away from the problem. No one here has had the same problems GM has, and even though the area is very conservative the people feel illegal immigration is justified.
I empathize with you GM, but you have to realize, many problems which you experience as locally caused by immigrants are caused by natural born citizens in other places. Most young Americans like America, but will be totally fine with the chant "America Sucks!" because in many ways it really does. Spanish is spoken by around 20% of Americans, which means those 5% of immigrants aren't the problem, and even if you consider it a problem it can't be fixed. America has never had a national language because it is understood that such a policy can be an economically limiting factor. Accept that and move on.
And everyone else, yes the problem is not uncommon, but it is an issue to him, be more respectful of his situation and don't use the cop-out of "this is the real hard life" because this IS America, not China, not India, the local problems are on an incomparable scale because the standards of living are higher. Smaller problems seem bigger here, and they are isolated to a single country which controls itself totally; this means that the local significance of these problems is only lost on outsiders.
Understand he has a different perspective than you, literally, GM is somewhere else. You SHOULD inform him that his perspective is skewed, but any issue like this is bound to be sensitive, many of you can stand to be more tactful.
I completely agree with you NoLonger, but we should also be considerate to the immigrants whom we are discussing. It really bothers me when people talk about Hispanics like they are some plague that has descended upon this great shining conglomeration of all that is good and perfect that is the United States of America. They aren’t wastes of air who’s only purpose in coming to our neighborhoods is to run into our cars and eat the piece of cake we had saved and clearly labeled with “MINE! Do not eat!” They are people with their own problems and reasons for coming here, legally or illegally. It really bugs me when people use illegal immigrants as a blame for all of our problems, when it is really a failure of our system to adapt to new challenges.
So let’s just extend the same consideration to immigrants that we do to those who are dealing with changes in their area, shall we?
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Maybe we should move her to the Rio Grande?
Although in all seriousness I overreacted, sorry >_> Touchy subject for me <_<
About that whole perspective thing. In NY, we have entire towns where everything is in Spanish. We used tax money to build bus stop style shelters so that the illegal day-laborers would be more comfortable while waiting for work in the mornings (they take up the sidewalk for a good half mile or so). And when I was in construction, they were directly competing against me for that work. I'm certainly not insulated from the problem.
It's cool GM, I was a bit antagonistic in my original post myself.
To change gears for a bit, what is the solution that you would actually propose? I'm looking for actual details, not just vagueries like "protect our border".
Basically there does need to be a stricter policing of the border if for nothing else then to keep the criminal organizations out. There is no real easy solution to this, but the past couple generations had a massive chance to fix quite a bit wrong with immigration and Mexico and instead let it degenerate to something where there is no answer that will actually help besides "wait it out, too late now".
We have alot of factories all around the world in poor nations, it would help if we sent alot of those factories south of the border. Sure they are low wage jobs, but they are jobs and the factories are more to get the ball rolling then as a fix. Mexico's economy needs SOMETHING to happen, and sending a few outsourced jobs there is sure to help. Maybe lax the green card laws a bit to include the most basic stuff (basic understanding of English, road laws) and get them to pay taxes instead of a blanket citizenship for everyone.
Finally, there needs to be some National Guard troops sent to the communities where drugs and violence are a major problem. Send a few tanks and attack choppers that way and lets see how much they still want to cause trouble.
Well, I have to concede, those are actually good ideas. I was expecting more of a "arm our borders and round up the illegals" solution that is so prevalent among others I've heard from before.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in a country helps provide people with more jobs. They can in turn save their money earned and invest it in their children's future, training them in skills instead of just labor jobs. It's happened here in China over the last 30 years, as FDI is responsible for helping bring an estimated 400,000,000 people out of poverty.
I'm not so sure that sending in tanks is a good idea, as throughout America's history with other countries, sending our tanks in can send a very different message. But I believe we currently are already invested in battling drug cartels in Mexico, since their activity there affects their activity here.
Relaxing green card laws may be good too. I can't say for certain at the moment, as I haven't done the legwork yet and looked up why they're so strict right now. But at face value, it should remove large scores of illegals by reclassifying them as 'legals'.
I keep reading you people's comments complaining about immigrants and taxes. The way I see it, immigrants DO pay taxes: besides the voluntary paying that Ryan mentions, they still pay sales taxes and similar taxes.
Second, the issue as you put it is that Americans are not taking low-wage jobs solely because they have to give x% of their paycheck to the Government (and then immigrants come in and take them). It seems to me the solution is not to blame immigrants, but your own Government that obligates you by force to hand over part of your money, therefore dissuading Americans from taking said jobs.
The whole language thing also seems like nonsense to me. As I'm sure Andrew would agree, language is a social phenomenon: it's constantly evolving and you can't force people to speak one or another, it's something voluntary and spontaneous. Hence, no person has a "right" to be spoken to in any specific language, since no person has the right to force another one to act against their will. All you can do is speak in the language you prefer, and that's that. As a sidenote, I don't think you realize how HUGE English influence is around the world. Using the "it's my country, my language" argument, every country in the world would be justifiably pissed off at the US for bombarding them with English media and merchandise.
Second, the issue as you put it is that Americans are not taking low-wage jobs solely because they have to give x% of their paycheck to the Government (and then immigrants come in and take them). It seems to me the solution is not to blame immigrants, but your own Government that obligates you by force to hand over part of your money, therefore dissuading Americans from taking said jobs.
I'd say less 'stop making people pay tax' and more 'work on establishing a decent minimum wage'.
A few years ago I was working a just-above minimum wage job over here (stacking shelves at the local farmers market). Apparently, at a direct conversion I was getting per-hour what you'd expect for a semi-decent office type job.
Even with differing costs of living and exchange rates, I'd say there would be a noticeable gap there.
A job at the minimum income comes out to about 15000 a year, before taxes. At 10 an hour, about 20,800 a year. Again, before taxes. Also factor in that it was 40 hours a week, EVERY week, and taxes actually start to matter quite a bit. The amount taken out is enough to make it near impossible to pay rent at that pay wage.
Chrystal Johnson didn't think there was anything unhealthy about her all-consuming fixation with "The Twilight Saga" — until she discovered it was sucking the life out of her marriage.
"I found poems my husband had written in his journal about how I had fallen for a 'golden-eyed vampire,' " says Johnson, a 31-year-old accountant from Mesa, Ariz., who became so enthralled by the blockbuster series of young adult novels and movies that she found herself staying up all night, re-reading juicy chapters and chatting about casting news and the are-they-or-aren't-they romance between the stars of the films, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
" 'Twilight' was always on my mind, to the point where I couldn't function," Johnson says.
Anyone who has ever peeked inside a comic-book convention or gone to a late-night screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" knows that some pop-culture fans aren't exactly known for their moderation. But there are some key differences distinguishing "Twilight" groupies and their seemingly bottomless obsession from that of other entertainment junkies.
"A lot of fans engage in obsessive behavior, but to the extent that it's damaging to their offline relationships, that's pretty uncommon," says Nancy Baym, associate professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas and author of "Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom and Online Community." "When you talk about someone getting up at 4 a.m. and sacrificing marriage, that sounds like addictive behavior."
Like its immortal vampires, "Twilight," with its archetypal allure of brooding bad boys and forbidden romance, has been able to transcend age, creating devotees (largely women) ranging from tweens to AARP members. Add in the instant access of the Internet, offering 24/7 escape into a "Twilight"-saturated universe, full of tantalizing info-nuggets and a community of like-minded souls, and the result is a growing number of people whose love for the franchise seems to have crossed over from casual to compulsive.
For the latest illustration of "Twilight" mania, look no further than the hundreds of fans who pitched tents and slept outside for days in front of the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles in hopes of catching a glimpse of one of the stars at Thursday's red-carpet premiere for "Eclipse," the latest installment of the franchise, which opens nationwide June 30. "This is the first time I've been this passionate about anything," says Kelli Chavez, a 39-year-old mom who drove in from Sylmar. "I've read each of the books at least eight or nine times and I've watched each of the movies over 300 times apiece."
Chavez doesn't hesitate when asked whether anyone in her life resents her passion for "Twilight." "My 6-year-old son," she says soberly. "I definitely need to go to Twilighters Anonymous about it."
There is a Twilighters Anonymous, but it's not a 12-step group. Rather, it's a website for fans who want to feed their habit, not kick it. But an increasing number of confessionals have been popping up on community forums from women concerned about their tendency to neglect important aspects of their daily lives to dip into the fantasy that is Stephenie Meyer's operatic saga about Bella (Stewart, in the films), a small-town everygirl whose je ne sais quoi mojo attracts the warring affections of a pair of metaphysical hunks: a vampire, Edward (Pattinson), and a werewolf, Jacob ( Taylor Lautner).
Advice portals such as Yahoo Answers have been teeming with desperate-sounding pleas such as, "How to calm my Twilight addiction, help me please!?" Some sites' chat forums have become makeshift support groups, full of panicked testimonials. "It's like a drug," writes one concerned fan with the username Ally. "I have to read it or I break down crying. It's awful. I don't want to tell anyone about it. But I fear it's unhealthy."
Though it may be characteristically melodramatic of "Twilight" junkies to connect late-night reading jags to a future stint in the Betty Ford Clinic, there's no doubt that the franchise does not lend itself to casual interest. To know "Twilight" is to love it or to loathe it, with not much room in between. No series of book-to-film adaptations, with the notable exceptions of "The Lord of the Rings" and " Harry Potter" franchises, has captured the popular imagination with such enduring intensity. Worldwide, "The Twilight Saga" has sold around 100 million books, and the first two movies alone have grossed more than $1.1 billion.
Though "Twilight's" success is often attributed to giddy teenage girls who show up in packs for repeat viewings of each film, the franchise has benefited from being the rare pop-culture juggernaut to tap into the passions of middle-age women.
"I check the Internet all day long for 'Twilight' news, from the minute I wake up until I go to bed at midnight," says Joyce Swiokla, 50, a former engineer who runs the website CullenBoysAnonymous.com. "If there is a chemical that's released when you're falling in love, your brain has it when you're reading or watching 'Twilight.' You get that utopic feeling of first love and you want to experience it over and over again."
"My husband finally came to me and said, 'I think you love "Twilight" more than you love me,' " says Johnson, who had become especially attached to the community she'd found online. "I ended up moving out of the house and fought for my marriage for six weeks. I had to take a step back and detox myself from 'Twilight.' I was really angry that I had allowed it to suck me in. Now I meet women every single day where 'Twilight' has become a major issue in their marriage."
By going cold turkey, Johnson managed to kick her habit. And, with some work, her relationship later rebounded. But for some people, the romance, intrigue and celebrity gossip that's always just a mouse click away is too hard to resist.
"What you're seeing with 'Twilight' has to do with the ramifications of our infinite access to pop culture," says Kimberly Young, a professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York and psychologist who specializes in treating patients with Internet addiction. "Any addiction is about escape, and some of these women are using it to fill a void. This is their way of connecting. Instead of watching soap operas all day, they're online following 'Twilight.' And now they can chat and it becomes an opportunity to have a connection with other fans."
The Internet's role in pop culture has always had the paradoxical effect of making people feel both connected and alienated at the same time. So it's not surprising that people spending a lot of time glued to their computer screens would seek solace in the company of fellow online lonely-hearts. "I loved finding this community of women who were giddy and excited about the same thing as me," says Johnson. "I had this whole new group of friends. And, as a mom who spends most of my days at work, the appreciation from the other fans was a big deal."
But of all the romantic novels and movies to cycle through bookstores and theaters, why have Meyer's works and not those of say, Jane Austen or Nicholas Sparks, caught fire with the masses? There's no shortage of theories out there. "Some people have suggested a 9/11 context to 'Twilight,' " says UCLA sociologist David Halle. "The vampires represent a danger from people living right in the midst of us who you wouldn't expect to be dangerous."
However, there may be a much simpler explanation as to why women spend so much time obsessing over Edward and Bella (whose saga will culminate with "Breaking Dawn," which has been split into two films, due out in the fall of 2011 and 2012).
"If you take away 'Twilight' and put in a football team, this doesn't look so much different from what guys have been doing for decades," says Baym. "They stay up late at night looking at statistics and playing fantasy football. You could just as easily say they've lost touch with reality or that they're addicted. 'Twilight' is just a story women are engaging with passionately, so people say it's dysfunctional. On the other hand, maybe men's relationship with football is dysfunctional as well."
Unless there's some type of steamy vampire sex action most Twilight fans probably won't be too terribly interested outside of its cross-promotional novelty value. How many of that set can you see at their desk littered with Red Bull getting upset when a Level 80 Incubus keeps killing all the NPCs in the Team Edward noob area (Jr. High zone)?
Comments
OH MY GOD I HAVE TO SEE THOSE FLAGS EVERYWHERE WHILE THE KIDS SCREAM "MEXICO, MEXICO, MEXICO" OVER AND OVER AND YELL "AMERICA SUCKS"
Yes, I am being totally serious. The flags are one thing, the jeers another. If they love Mexico so much more then the US they can go back.
Yep, I figure in a generation or so none of this will be relevant.
Greg, I never had the displeasure of experiencing something quite so extreme, and I went to a pretty... er... ghetto middle school, where I was by FAR the minority of the population. Did the Mexico chants mostly happen in high school? We definitely had the immigrant marches at my high school, but then again, my high school was full of liberal nuts who liked marching for anything
What's wrong with families living together? What's wrong with people deciding not to overspend their money and learning to live communally and frugally? Would you rather they take out a subprime mortgage like a REAL AMERICAN and default on it like the rest of us?
And you live in a major city. Every school's going to be crowded, genius. Don't like it, go to a smaller city.
What's wrong with having a second language written where you go? That's just the nature of business. Businesses can serve more people if they can communicate in more languages. That's capitalism in its finest. That's what America is all about. If you don't support capitalism, then clearly you are a socialist. Boo ya.
I could talk about wanting to retain your individual culture when you go to live abroad. I could talk about how this is what America really is about, how we are a melting pot of the best elements of different cultures from around the world. I could also talk about how they are showing their flags because they want to share their culture with you as you are sharing it with them, and most certainly not to 'rub it in'.
Instaed, I'll take a different approach. This is what it means to have a hard life. Your life is not inconvenienced in the least by letting other people show their flags. Get over it.
Really. Every week you say. So your neighborhood has had 27 hit and runs so far this year? And every single one of them is by an illegal?
This is my favorite. I was waiting to get here. To put it bluntly, you are very wrong. Many illegals VOLUNTARILY pay their taxes using a Tax Identification Number. They do this to show compliance with US laws, because they honest to god love our country and want to be a part of it.
And before you say "well, then they should just become citizens if they want to show compliance with law", you should educate yourself and learn that it isn't that easy. It's okay, you can click this link. It has pictures, should be easy to follow. The absolute fastest way to become a citizen is to marry a US citizen. That takes at BEST six to seven years. Other less eficient avenues can take up to fifteen years or more until citizenship is awarded.
And yet millions of illegals endure, and they pay their taxes voluntarily while they wait.
No. The bank has been broken for years under an inefficient system that encourages governments and departments to spend as much money as they can under penalty of receiving less money the following year. The US economy and subsequently the economies of most other world powers were broken by red-white-and-blue Americans. You people are too damn illiterate to understand that you yourselves have created the financial mess you are in right now, and you're trying to hide it all under the rug by saying it's all because of the brown people.
To wrap up. I wholly understand that there are legitimate concerns about illegal immigrants in our country and the problems they can present. However, xenophobia and us-vs-them mentality is not a solution.
And as for a second language WRITTEN, I don't give a crap. That is all fine and dandy. I don't have to read it, just go for the English version. Oddly enough alot of the phone menu's down here have SPANISH first, then English. Yes, it is being picky and impatient as fuck (I admit >_>), but I should be able to listen to my own language first in my own country.
And as for the flags thing, again. They chant AMERICA SUCKS and MEXICO, MEXICO while waving their flags every Cinco de Mayo. Maybe it is my area or something, but that one scene has made me jaded to the whole scenario.
And yes, at least once a week there is a hit and run in my neighborhood. Every time we hear a crash in the morning or night about 10 people come running out of their homes to see if it was their car again. Every time one has been caught save once or twice, it was an illegal.
And as for the taxes, all I see is many, some, or alot when quoting their taxes. Many may pay, but looking at the numbers in your articles and then considering how many illegals there are boggles the mind. And yes, I KNOW that MANY do not pay as well. Living down here I see it every day, accepting cash only, personal checks, under the rug deals. Usually it is the employer that keeps it off the records because of the tax situation, but in the end the taxes STILL DON'T GET PAID.
Also, going off the articles you gave they make up about 3.15% of taxes paid while taking up about 5% of the population. Sounds off to me, but hey what do I know.
Citizenship. Why should they be entitled to it simply because their own government is corrupt and their country is sub par? Why should we reward them for breaking OUR laws? Sure Mr Dude, you came into our country by jumping that huge fence that makes it seem like you should stay on the other side. Here are your party favors? Call me a bigot, call me prejudiced, whatever. I live in this crap and I know what goes on.
Finally, the bank. Yes, America has always done spending over saving. However, in the articles you gave me (The second one in fact) it states that the border communities are being broken by the tide of illegals. Here, let me get that for you.
Well... Hmm... Dunno. Seems to me like the border states get kinda shafted here and they are the ones who typically are having the worst financial troubles, so what do I know? I mean really, what can a few billion do for any of these states budgets? Oh well.
Also part 2:
http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
Summary: Brings wages down, send billions a year to Mexico out of America, loses 1.5 million jobs a year to illegals, the drug cartels, etc.
But hey, that is only one article, what does it know?
States under siege
Arizona just over 2 billion annually.
States under siege
Costs California 10 billion annually.
And the coup de gras, Behold.
They pay about 13 billion annually. Not bad. Too bad they also take up 33 billion annually. WHELP.
This is not because of illegal immigrants. Schools nationwide have been facing huge budget cuts for years now, and class sizes are increased to save costs. This is happening nationwide, as the US spends more per student on education than almost any other developed nation.
When someone is disturbed by the extra half second it takes out of his day to look one more line below the wacky foreign text to find his own language, then I have to realize that I'm not going to win any arguments on this point. So let's move on.
This is rude, I admit. But you cannot assume that the millions of Mexican nationals in the US, both illegal and legal both, also share this same opinion. In fact, I'm pretty certain that most people who have decided to spend their entire lives in a different country must love it a whole goddamn lot.
I couldn't find statistics on Austin hit and run data on Google, or at least on Google's first page, so we'll let this point go. Either way, my previous point I just made above also applies here: you can't assume that all Mexicans are this way. There are segments of America where plenty of Americans act the exact same way.
AGAIN THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ILLEGALS. I used to work construction as a summer job back in college up in Iowa. Our company's manager often talked to me about the problems he had competing, because his competitors just hired people and paid them under the table to keep his costs down. But they weren't hiring illegals, because we don't have that many. They were hiring Americans to get paid under the table. Same goes in the farming industry.
In jobs that allow for wiggle room in getting out of paying taxes, then employers are going to take advantage of it. Illegals taking the jobs are a symptom of a problem. NOT a cause.
Given the millions of Americans that lie, cheat, and evade our own taxes, I'm not sure we as a people have a right to moral authority on this issue.
So that's how we should regard the less privileged? 'Sure sucks to be you, you should have had the foresight to be born American!'. Seems fairly coldhearted to me.
You don't live in this crap. You live in a small segmented community that is in absolutely no way in any shape or form representative of the millions and millions of legal and illegal Mexicans living all along the four states that share the 2000 mile long border with Mexico.
It sounds like you have not had a pleasant experience with them. I am sorry to hear that, but that is unfortunately how the world is: lots of douchebags. Every country has them in full supply, trust me on this.
No. The entire country is suffering, and it is not limited to the southwest.
Mind clouded by anger and all that I guess that we had to spend a couple K to fix one of the family cars. Twice >_>
I live in Idaho. When immigrants really want to evade suspicion they move here, an unpopulated area away from the problem. No one here has had the same problems GM has, and even though the area is very conservative the people feel illegal immigration is justified.
I empathize with you GM, but you have to realize, many problems which you experience as locally caused by immigrants are caused by natural born citizens in other places. Most young Americans like America, but will be totally fine with the chant "America Sucks!" because in many ways it really does. Spanish is spoken by around 20% of Americans, which means those 5% of immigrants aren't the problem, and even if you consider it a problem it can't be fixed. America has never had a national language because it is understood that such a policy can be an economically limiting factor. Accept that and move on.
And everyone else, yes the problem is not uncommon, but it is an issue to him, be more respectful of his situation and don't use the cop-out of "this is the real hard life" because this IS America, not China, not India, the local problems are on an incomparable scale because the standards of living are higher. Smaller problems seem bigger here, and they are isolated to a single country which controls itself totally; this means that the local significance of these problems is only lost on outsiders.
Understand he has a different perspective than you, literally, GM is somewhere else. You SHOULD inform him that his perspective is skewed, but any issue like this is bound to be sensitive, many of you can stand to be more tactful.
So let’s just extend the same consideration to immigrants that we do to those who are dealing with changes in their area, shall we?
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Maybe we should move her to the Rio Grande?
Although in all seriousness I overreacted, sorry >_> Touchy subject for me <_<
To change gears for a bit, what is the solution that you would actually propose? I'm looking for actual details, not just vagueries like "protect our border".
We have alot of factories all around the world in poor nations, it would help if we sent alot of those factories south of the border. Sure they are low wage jobs, but they are jobs and the factories are more to get the ball rolling then as a fix. Mexico's economy needs SOMETHING to happen, and sending a few outsourced jobs there is sure to help. Maybe lax the green card laws a bit to include the most basic stuff (basic understanding of English, road laws) and get them to pay taxes instead of a blanket citizenship for everyone.
Finally, there needs to be some National Guard troops sent to the communities where drugs and violence are a major problem. Send a few tanks and attack choppers that way and lets see how much they still want to cause trouble.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in a country helps provide people with more jobs. They can in turn save their money earned and invest it in their children's future, training them in skills instead of just labor jobs. It's happened here in China over the last 30 years, as FDI is responsible for helping bring an estimated 400,000,000 people out of poverty.
I'm not so sure that sending in tanks is a good idea, as throughout America's history with other countries, sending our tanks in can send a very different message. But I believe we currently are already invested in battling drug cartels in Mexico, since their activity there affects their activity here.
Relaxing green card laws may be good too. I can't say for certain at the moment, as I haven't done the legwork yet and looked up why they're so strict right now. But at face value, it should remove large scores of illegals by reclassifying them as 'legals'.
Second, the issue as you put it is that Americans are not taking low-wage jobs solely because they have to give x% of their paycheck to the Government (and then immigrants come in and take them). It seems to me the solution is not to blame immigrants, but your own Government that obligates you by force to hand over part of your money, therefore dissuading Americans from taking said jobs.
The whole language thing also seems like nonsense to me. As I'm sure Andrew would agree, language is a social phenomenon: it's constantly evolving and you can't force people to speak one or another, it's something voluntary and spontaneous. Hence, no person has a "right" to be spoken to in any specific language, since no person has the right to force another one to act against their will. All you can do is speak in the language you prefer, and that's that. As a sidenote, I don't think you realize how HUGE English influence is around the world. Using the "it's my country, my language" argument, every country in the world would be justifiably pissed off at the US for bombarding them with English media and merchandise.
I'd say less 'stop making people pay tax' and more 'work on establishing a decent minimum wage'.
A few years ago I was working a just-above minimum wage job over here (stacking shelves at the local farmers market). Apparently, at a direct conversion I was getting per-hour what you'd expect for a semi-decent office type job.
Even with differing costs of living and exchange rates, I'd say there would be a noticeable gap there.
But instead of Vampires, we'll have Twihards.
But there's hope!
Kinda odd phrasing...
Indeed, let us hope this project never sees the light of day, lest it sparkle at us.
The addictiveness of an MMO...plus whatever property you want to give to Twilight...that's some dangerous stuff there.