X-Post: Like They're Not Even Human...

@AmPowerBlog @michellemalkin @Blazingcatfur @lonelycon So?

— Tania Gail (@Skye820) June 24, 2013

Sad that there are people who actually think like this...
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A Wingnuts and Moonbats x-post

In Reply: Read The Bill!!

In reply to the following comment:

oh lay- I can't speak for Marisa, but I've read the bill several times. No need for all the exclamation marks.

That said, I think the calls for everyone to "read the bill" are pretty silly.

Politicians have legislative aids to read bills and distill the information for them; to read every piece of legislation would not only be a waste of time, it just wouldn't be possible.

Furthermore, I've seen some commenters tell other blog readers that they should also "read the bill."

As Pat Young pointed out in another comment, how many supporters/opponents of the health reform package actually read that bill?

That's why we need journalists and legislative policy experts: to read, research, and distill info for the public. - longislandwins (author) - Public Support for Ariz. Immigration Law Traced to Fear-Based Advertising : Long Island Wins (blog)
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Sorry to once again be contrary, but I'm all for "reading the bill," whether one is a politician, a member of the media, or a voter.

It's true that it would be damned near impossible to have every politician read every word of every bill on which s/he is required to vote. Nevertheless, their job description makes them responsible for being aware of every word and meaning they vote for or against, and I believe every voter ought to hold their government representatives responsible for doing their jobs, so they ought to read the most salient points, and have a good staff to go through every word with a fine tooth comb and point out the most important parts for 'em. (I also support having all proposed federal legislation posted online--where our reps, the media, and we voters can read it--for a minimum of three full days (72 hours) before our Senators or House Representatives can vote on final passage.)

While I'm all for having the media go through and "dumb down" legislation for those of us who ain't lawyers and politicians, I'm certainly not opposed to our trying to read them ourselves, as well... With all respect due lawyers and media folks, I'd rather try to read primary sources and fail than simply rely on "experts" to tell me what those primary sources say, through the lens of their own biases and slants.

I'm neither naive or egotistical enough to believe that I don't need anyone's help when it comes to understanding complex proposed legislation and laws, but it strikes me as a bad idea for us to leave ourselves beholden to the mercies of "experts" when it comes to how we govern ourselves.

The last thing that reading proposed legislation is is a waste of time... The legislators that we elect--and more importantly us, because we put those legislators there--are responsible for every law "we" create and repeal, and having as many folks as possible reading 'em before enacting or repealing them is the very least we should require of "ourselves."

As far as SB 1070 in particular, the dang thing is a few pages long, and not especially complicated. Everyone discussing it, for or against, certainly ought to read it before doing so. (I'm damned embarrassed that so many folks on my side of the aisle took more time to talk about it than they took to look it over. Talk about a waste of time...)

That said, the words of 1070--which do forbid profiling and bigotry, and random stops on the street--are never going to be enforced in a vacuum. "Lawful contact" and "reasonable suspicion" are whatever an officer says they are, and I've no doubt that, should 1070 withstand judicial scrutiny, "loitering" and "reasonable suspicion based on arrestee making a 'furtive movement'" -- like "watching the sector car too closely as it drove past," or "intentionally NOT looking at the sector car as it drove past;" "shoving hands in pockets, as though hiding something," or "removing hands from pockets, as though dropping something" --will become high growth "crimes" in AZ.

In short, there's what the new law says on paper, and then there's what it means out in the real world.
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Posted 5/28/10, at 3:17 PM (No comment links)

In Reply: There's something to be said for staying in one's home country and improving conditions there...

In reply to Pat Young, at the Long Island Wins post, Dozens Arrested at Immigration Civil Disobedience in Chicago, who wrote (in response to a sliver of a previous comment I made, quoted below):

You wrote:

"I believe people born in other lands should want the rights we have, but (and?) should fight to achieve them where they live by changing their own governments, as we did.)"

I don't know about you, but my ancestors changed the government they lived under (English rule in Ireland) by moving here.
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Well sure... Leaving one's home country is one way to change the bad circumstances under which one lives, but there is also something to be said for staying and fighting those bad circumstances in one's own home country, the way some of your ancestors and mine did by fighting in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, for women's suffrage, for civil rights for blacks... ...and continue to do so today for the right of homosexuals to enter into legal unions and openly serve in the military, and on and on...

(I suspect that you did understand my intended meaning, but just in case, there it is... While leaving sometimes becomes necessary, I believe that people in other countries who want US freedoms and opportunities ought to struggle to create and maintain as many of them as they can in their own home countries... ...with US help whenever possible.)

Do you disagree?
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Posted 5/27/10, 3:03 PM (or so... No comment links...)
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In reply: There has to be a line between "American" and "not American," "legal" and "not legal"

In reply: There has to be a line between "American" and "not American," "legal" and "not legal"

In reply to: Dozens Arrested at Immigration Civil Disobedience in Chicago - Long Island Wins
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Shouting “legalization, not deportation” and hoisting signs that read “Boycott Arizona,” a crowd of about 200 protesters gathered outside the offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and refused to move despite requests from Department of Homeland Security officers.

I'm a liberal, but this is where I part company with many of my ideological peers.

I believe America is in many ways the finest place on Earth, but that to maintain that, we have to have borders denoting "America" and "not America;" clear lines showing where US rights, responsibilities, and freedoms begin and end. (I also believe there are God/nature-given HUMAN rights that apply to everyone, but not all rights granted citizens here in the US are or necessarily should be universally granted... As an American, I believe people born in other lands should want the rights we have, but (and?) should fight to achieve them where they live by changing their own governments, as we did.)

In order to protect and maintain those unique rights, responsibilities, freedoms, and benefits we've struggled to achieve and to improve here in the US, we need to have laws that define who is and is not a citizen of this country eligible to partake of all those goodies, and responsible for protecting and defending them, when necessary. Those borders are a part of that. (Yes, it is largely an accident of birth that determines who is and is not an American. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. It's as fair a system as being born handsome, or athletic, or healthy. All one can do is thank--or blame--one's parents and one's God, depending on what an individual got/didn't get out of his/her birth...)

If we let everyone in--essentially removing the borders and definitions of who and what is/isn't an American--we cease to be unique and special. The rights and benefits that Americans have nurtured and struggled for since the founding of this country become everyone's rights, as long as they can get here, and damn the fact that we have limited space and other resources to handle an unlimited influx of automatic "citizens," or whether all of them share our American values.

I believe in regulated legal immigration--in some ways easier and certainly quicker than it is now--but limited in scope and with an eye toward American values and needs. Obviously there is going to have to be some degree of amnesty + a fine for illegals who've established themselves here, but some people are going to face deportation. (And no matter what the timeframe is... 5 years, 10 years, ..., there's going to be many individuals and families who've been here one month less than they needed to be, and "heartlessly" put in line for deportation because of it--to which I again repeat that there have to be firm lines of demarkation, or "borders," between one side and the other, "American" and "not American," "legal" and "not legal," or our laws cease to mean anything...)

I still believe in Emma Lazarus's famous words about America's golden door for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but even back then, that door had latches and locks--some more stringent than much of anyone mainstream would even think of imposing on immigrants today...

(In case I haven't made it clear enough, I'm looking for some of those liberal/progressive people who disagree with me to explain why I'm wrong on this issue -- See: Mr Young's eloquent discussion about not letting folks--including ourselves--get away with bulls@@@.)
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Posted 5/27/10, 10:07 AM (no comment links)