Cali. to repeal Undocumented Alien Driver License Law

Politics and religion
41

So you are angry that people don’t take immigration laws seriously, causing problems for everyone, but you are in favor of taking them even less seriously? Do you also try to put out fires by pouring kerosene on them? I still don’t get it, I guess. Why not argue for better enforcement? How are drivers licenses going to improve wages for illegal immigrants, anyway? Or anyone else?

That’s my point: I want serious enforcement combined with a set level of legal immigration. Since it doesn’t have the slightest chance of passing, and the current near-slavery of immigrant workers is just evil, I figure giving them licenses to improve mobility and try to get them insured is a temporary salve.

How are drivers licenses going to improve wages for illegal immigrants, anyway?

Separate point, really, but not having a driver’s license affect your wages? With the current fucked up system, it’d make life a little better for everyone. We don’t try to seriously keep them from coming here, and we don’t really try to get rid of the ones here, so whose life is made worse by it?

I have no idea how to fix things.

The GOP basically doesn’t care; they’ll occasionally run on the issue, but they pick “solutions” that basically make life worse for immigrants to please the vengeful public while improving no one else’s life. Those early 1990s reforms were all about fucking them once they’re here, not stopping them from getting here; they were remarkably compatible with widespread continued use of illegal immigrant labor.

I guess theoretically a Democrat could run on sealing the borders but leaving a reasonable size quota system of temporary wokrers in place, but it’s such an electoral minefield I see no way for it to happen. The low-wage businesses are brutal enough with the GOP on it, god only knows what they’ll do to the Democrats.

Isn’t is possible that instead of harming Mexico, we’re providing stimulus to their economy?

It’s a statistical mess of anecdotes, really.

On one side they send wages home, and any kids they have here get to be American citizens.

On the other, there’s entire rural villages without an adult male in the them. The best and brightest come here rather than improve their home country. The emigration scales back population pressures, slowing down the demographic transition in the home country. Rather than migrating to urban areas and driving the industrialization process, the rural population emigrates. Since they’re illegals, they get very little safety on the job, so a disturbing proportion end up maimed and unable to work (slaughterhouses are especially horrid about this), and living on state benefits of either their home country or the US.

I think the current setup is the worst possible one for everyone but US businesses using illegal immigration, though.

42

So ignoring laws that you don’t like is okay, but only when you do it? Man, you should be in politics.[/quote]

By no means. I don’t want anyone weakening and/or eliminating property laws. But I’m quite content with everyone weakening, or at least mitigating, the current immigration regulations. They’re a mess that end up benefitting no one except certain U.S. businesses.

Actually, I’m not sure if even those businesses benefit from the current situation in the long run. I’ve heard convincing arguments that slavery in the South actually hurt agriculture in that region, and this is a similar situation, economically speaking.

43

[quote=“Anaxagoras”]

By no means. I don’t want anyone weakening and/or eliminating property laws. But I’m quite content with everyone weakening, or at least mitigating, the current immigration regulations. [/quote]
Do you see the idiocy here? At all? I’m guessing you don’t, so let me spell it out for you: Ben says “WTF, you think it’s okay to disobey laws, but only the ones you personally don’t like,” you idignantly say “By no means!” and then immediately proceed to detail how you like property laws, so they should be obeyed, but you dislike immigration laws, so they should be flouted. I have seen some real idiots posting on this board, but you take the gold medal, Anaxagoras.

44

It’s morally inconsistent to disobey the slavery laws!

45

Hehe. Jason’s post pretty much hit it on the head what I was getting at. I thought that I being perfectly clear, but apparently some people are really thick. And then they blame the other party of “gold medal” thickness. No wonder we elect people like Bush into office in this country.

46

Right. Because we would have been better leaving slavery laws on the books, and hoping people would just disobey them, rather than fighting to have slavery outlawed.

I’m done with this conversation. Have the last word, guys.

47

You’re so cute, Rywill. We never fought a war to have slavery outlawed. We fought a war because the South wanted to secede. Nor was their seccession caused by the immenent freedom of slaves. They didn’t like the way things were going due to radically different States’ interests, so they tried to leave. Had the North and the South’s interests been more in sync, that war would have never happened, and slavery would have had to wait quite a bit longer to come off the books.

Ah yes… twisting history so you don’t have to come to grips with the fact that sometimes, there are just evil laws, and you should do whatever it takes to fight them… whether that’s half-measures like civil disobedience or quietly ignoring them, or whether it’s a satisfying full measure like repealing them.

48

I still think it was a stupid law. Have the next last word, guys.

49

Dude, I didn’t say that. I think we the laws should be disobeyed when you can get away with it until they’re changed.

50

I’m getting dizzy trying to follow your posts. Who said anything about the Civil War? I mean, other than yourself, in what has to be the most jarring non-sequitur I’ve read all week.

51

Fair enough. I was mostly responding to Anaxagoras, who did. (“I’m not going to waste my time trying to change stupid and/or evil laws. I’ll just work around them. It’s difficult to change them, and for what?”)

52

I’m getting dizzy trying to follow your posts. Who said anything about the Civil War? I mean, other than yourself, in what has to be the most jarring non-sequitur I’ve read all week.[/quote]

Rywill said “rather than fighting to have slavery outlawed.” - I thought it was a non-sequitur at first too. He’s reading way to much into what Rywill originally said, I think (should be interpreted as Fighting in open debate about a subject).

53

Hrmm…

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 — Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has called for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States to be given some sort of legal status short of citizenship, a proposal suggesting that the Bush administration might revive an ambitious legalization plan that was sidetracked after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
…
He offered no details on what sort of legal status might be offered to the immigrants, although administration officials have previously suggested that illegal immigrants might be granted work permits and provided with drivers’ licenses.

Tom Ridge, everbody!

54

I see Cheney smacking Ridge around… “Shut Up!”

55

Ry didn’t specify the nature of that fight–he just said that our country fought to abolish slavery. Which is true, unless you believe that slavery abolished itself, and nobody was opposed to the idea. Anaxagoras then launched into a patronizing straw man argument about how the Civil War was not fought over slavery, and how Ry was an idiot for claiming that it was. Which, of course, he never had.

56

Well, that’s the consensus in Alabama.[/quote]

Hey! That’s not tru…oh wait, yeah it is.

57

True… I was so incensed up to that point that I missed the boat on his “fought to abolish slavery” post. Sigh Oh well. I stand by everything before that post. Hell, I even stand by that post as well… except that it wasn’t relevant.

As for patronizing? Hell yes. You and Ry completely missed everything I was saying before that. You two actually mistook my “Every person should follow their own conscience” argument for “I can do whatever the hell I want, but I want other people to follow laws.” How that leap was made is beyond me, but after reading some of Rywill’s other posts in this forum, I’m not surprised he made that leap.

58

FWIW, after your 12 different clarifications of what you said which seemed to say 13 different things, I do not know where you stand either. Here’s what I have:

-Follow the laws you think are just and circumvent all others by any means necessary

-Do not do whatever the hell you want

Are you arguing with yourself?

59

What Ty said. To take a page out of your book, I stand by what I said in my earlier post: you can’t have “Why bother trying to change bad laws? Everyone should just ignore laws they think are bad” and “Are you insane? Property laws should be enforced no matter what” at the same time. But it was an admirable attempt.

60

Hmm… there seem to be exactly two arguments there, not 12 or 13. And what you have is pretty close to what I was saying, except that the circumvent clause should read “circumvent all unjust laws, to the best of your ability.”

Yeah, I know, it’s a real revolutionary idea… figure out what is right and wrong, then stick by it. In the case of those idiot laws in California, “sticking by it” does not mean merely “arguing against it.” That’s not a bad start, if you like, but I find it very difficult to believe that debate will change those laws for the better. So… undermining that law is the next step, if you truly believe that it’s wrong. The only way that undermining isn’t the next step is if you:

a) don’t believe the law is wrong in the first place, or
b) think that debate will produce a favorable result sometime in the near future, or
c) think this law should be preserved, even though it’s wrong.

There are arguments in favor of all of those options… but I don’t buy them. Thus, undermining the law is the position I take.