Illegal immigrants are planning a nationwide boycott of all goods and services on Monday, May 1, 2006.
They have marched in our streets and demanded rights as a reward for breaking our country's laws. They hope to show that they have an impact on our economy, they hope to hurt American business, they hope to emotionally and economically blackmail us into submission.
So...what can we do? ALL Americans who support LEGAL immigration but demand that all immigrants RESPECT our laws are asked to act on MAY
1st. Wear RED or BLUE that day (they will be wearing white) and go SHOPPING!
If you have to grocery shop, make it May 1st, Need gas in your car? Fill it up on May 1st. Buy Mother's Day gifts, buy summer clothes, buy whatever you need, but BUY ON THAT DAY!
AMERICAN CITIZENS OUTNUMBER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, AND WE MUST MAKE OURSELVES HEARD! STAND UP FOR YOUR COUNTRY AND SHOP ON MAY 1st!
Nah... I think I'll pass on your suggestion, unless it's expanded into a protest against corporations that violate environmental laws, politicians who violate campaign-finance and ethics regulations, courts that let big companies walk away from pension plans screwing the people who had planned their retirement based on the promises their employers made to them years ago. After all, laws are broken all the time. I don't see the need to protest against immigrants who are breaking laws when there are so many other lawbreakers getting off scott-free and they're committing much more serious offenses in my book. In fact, you might even make the point that the immigrants wouldn't be crossing the border illegally if there weren't American employers on this side of the border willing to hire them. Kind of like hoping to solve the drug problem by only arresting pushers but not doing a damned thing about drug users.
How do we know the immigrants disrespect our laws any more than your average American disrespccts our own laws? If Americans had so much respect for their own laws, we wouldn't need prisons now, would we? How come we don't have protest days to criticize Americans who break drug laws, tax laws, traffic laws?
Are you really concerned about respect for law in the United States? Or is there something about Hispanics that bothers you?
What about illegal Americans? Tax cheats, polluters, corrupt politicians, etc., not to mention the Americans who give jobs to the illegal Hispanics. Got a protest planned for them too?
Hang in there Bob. Contrary to DP and those like him/her may think you really do have some common sense and national pride.
Oh and just because DP threw in the personal insult at the end...as is always their "ultimate point"...it doesn't mean it is true. And, it doesn't mean that DP is holier, smarter or more enlightened than you either...just perhaps a bit meaner.
Interesting how DP is in this ng...wonder what DP has to hide? I mean everyone who has any money must be doing something illegal and or morally wrong...
I won't be purposely shopping because that really only helps them. If these illegals are effective then American businesses will be short handed. Why make it more difficult for them?
As for big corporations, what about little corporations or just sole proprietorships?
Violators of laws are violators of laws and they should all be punished
- not rewarded.
Poppycock! Regardless if businesses want cheap labor or not, it is a violation of law plain and simple. That's like blaming banks for being robbed because that's where they store the money!
Drugs shouldn't be illegal in the first place - a person should have the right to do with his/her body whatever they want!
Well in the case of illegal immigrants they've already violated the law! I don't know about you but in general when somebody breaks into my house and falls asleep on my couch I kick them out - not offer them a pillow!
What kind of f***ed up reasoning is that?!? What are you saying, until we reach some sort of nirvana where nobody breaks a single law allow people to invade our country and ignore our laws?!?
Ah, because such protestations would be stupid perhaps? Ah, because we don't have 12 million of those law breakers planning on going on active protest? Think man! Think!
I say let's protest all the non Hispanic illegal immigrants too. Illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants period! All of them should be punished in accordance to our *already existing* laws. Alternatively I'd say pass a law that allows the illegal to stay if they have firm roots here (children, etc.) but they must spend real time in jail for the crime they committed. No getting off scott free after violating our laws. Why is it we'd never say "well I realize he robbed a bank you're honor but we should just forgive him" but we would for this?
As for Americans who give jobs to illegal Hispanics (or any illegal immigrant for that matter), what makes you think American employers somehow have the magic qualifications to determine if this guy is legit or not? They don't! And they don't have some magic phone line or other connection to the USCIS to verify papers or whatever. That just doesn't exist! And if they suspect the guy may be illegal there's very few things that they can do - by law - to inquire further. Sure they can ask for SS#, etc. Illegals produce such faked documents all the time. Now how is the employer to verify that that is legit?
American employers should not be in the business of verifying USCIS documents, especially when they are not provided the proper means to do so. Simply put that is not their job nor their expertise! Illegals should be stopped from entering in the first place and businesses should concentrate on their business - not USCIS business.
As for tax cheats, etc. when we have 12 million of them and they are on an active campaign for amnesty (as has been given to them before about every 10 years) give me a call and I'll protest with ya dude. But that's not even close to happening!
Suffice to say the two situations are not even close to the same! IOW you do not know what the hell you are talking about!
But isn't the argument against drugs that it has negative side effects on society? Drug addicts need ever increasing amounts of money to fund their addiction - eventually they resort to theft, robbery or prostitution to obtain the money? And it has health effects too - they are more susceptible to be infected with aids (to name just one consequence) and hence place a huge burden on the state and taxpayer for medical care?
Oh, and one more thing relevant to the shopping boycott. It doesn't amount to much anyway. All those boycotting today either shopped yesterday or will shop tomorrow for the things they didn't get today.
That may be the argument though it is debatable in and of itself.
Theft and robbery are real crimes and there are already laws to deal with that. We shouldn't be arresting people because we believe they will eventually do something bad. We should arrest them when and if they do something bad - but not before!
Prostitution being a victimless crime itself should also be legalized.
Ever think that perhaps such addicts need so much money because drugs are illegal thus the price is much more than it would be if they weren't illegal?
Society should not have any such burden as I believe that free assistance to help people who make foolish decisions in their lives should not be provided. IOW, take motorcycle helmet laws. They should also be abolished. If you're stupid enough to right a motorcycle without a helmet and you have an accident better pray you have sufficient insurance to cover such risky behavior - otherwise you're gonna die! That's Darwin's law in action! Ever think that by allowing such idiots to survive we are only hurting the human race by allowing our own gene pool to become so diluted?
It's about time we allow personal responsibility to be, well, err, PERSONAL! Why should society be involved at all?
The problem with such things like social programs is that they are socialist or collectivist in nature. They get their little paws into the system then claim to have a right to tell others what to do because they now have a stake in it. The solution is to go away from socialist/collectivist nature of such systems (haven't we learned from Russia that such systems don't work!) and back to individualist systems. You want protection - buy it. You don't want it - don't. But realize what you are doing.
And I know you'll say "But what of the poor?" to which I respond - "You can help them. I promise I will not stop you!".
Did I miss something? I found nothing in the OP's post that suggested a protest against Hispanics.
What about the phrase 'illegal aliens' suggests that to you? Are you perhaps suggesting all illegal aliens are Hispanic? If so, you are dead wrong, and such bigoted thoughts are offensive.
So you suggest that if we (society) has a strong indication that something is detrimental to society as a whole, we should not eradicate it, but wait until we suffer the effects before we take action? Each citizen for himself to fortify and alarm his/her house so that the police can get there soon after the damage is done?
I have two views of prostitution. If it is "high-class" prostitution where the woman essentially works for herself with a commission payment to a madam, or the type of prostitution portrayed in "Pretty Woman", then I agree it is victimless, except it is hard to explain to inquisitive 6-year-olds why parts of the town have near naked ladies standing on the sidewalks.
OTOH, if it is sex trafficking, pimping and any one of a host of other societal ills associated with prostitution, then I'm all for banning it.
Yea, I've often wondered if a new social paradigm where we import and process drugs would not be more cost effective - we avoid the issues with low-class drugs like Methamphetamine, drop the price (and the crime) associated with the high cost of drugs, put the drug cartels out of business, save the billions we spend on the "drug war" and then instead build hospitals to treat the drug addicts through the last phases of their life. I think the Netherlands and Switzerland is currently experimenting with this and the citizens don't like the side-effects, such as town squares that are littered with addicts, drug paraphernalia and excretions, not to mention the occasional dead body.
Yea, good idea. I guess saving people from polio, mumps, small- and chickenpox also weakens our resistance and pollutes the gene pool. We should abolish the entire regime of preventative healthcare. Perhaps even the part of healthcare for age and obesity related problems should be abolished. After all obese people bring it on themselves and older people contribute nothing to the gene pool - their contribution were done earlier.
But that brings to mind why we would bother having any form of healthcare at all. After all, one catch the flu or any other type of viral or bacterial infection, heck, if you die your genes were not the ones destined for the future. Bad heart - tough - you won't have ancestors to propagate the defective gene pool.
It should be possible to create a super-race in a relatively short time and we'd also be able to do away with a lot of the overpopulation problems of the world. Bill Gates can then use his foundation to fund something worthwhile such as Internet 2 while the hordes in Africa and elsewhere die of preventable diseases. I'm sure that won't breed ill-will and antagonism towards those of us who can afford healthcare and whose genes will be in the next generation's gene pool.
I guess it is that little thing that sets us apart from other animals - compassion.
Perhaps even a healthy dose of self-interest. The downtrodden poor can continue to work for us if we have collectivist programs that keeps them at just the right level where they are fit enough to work, but not rich enough to afford preventative medicine or dental care and so on. After all, if George Washington could be president with a mouthful of rotten teeth, what is to stop today's workers from doing their daily job in a less than healthy condition?
I also believe that if we look back into history, a large number of social upheavals (the French revolution, the uprising of the Bolsheviks, etc.) were caused by being too harsh on the poor. Eventually they get fed up with being the downtrodden poor, rise up and behead the ruling class. Keeping them in a little better condition probably buys us a few years of continued eating cake while Rome burns (to mix a metaphor :) ).
Finally, I'd rather that someone take care of the poor out of sight, where I do not have to see them and be inconvenienced by their mishaps, their ailments, their dirt and abject poverty - I've seen enough of that to last me a lifetime. Not giving to the poor means you are forcing them from their houses to come into our nice neighbourhoods to beg and I can't stand beggars knocking at the door just as I'm about to sit down to my nice dinner of roast beef.
So to stop that, I'd have to erect a high wall around my house and ruin my nice, expensive green lawn and expansive views. I find it overall cheaper to just give to the poor and be done with it? I've seen walled neighborhoods and it isn't half as much fun driving down those streets as it is driving down an oak-lined street.
I did not say that all illegal aliens are Hispanic. The original poster was talking about the big protest today. Most if not all news accounts will tell you that the people involved in the protest are predominantly Hispanic. I asked him if the protest bothered him not for the "respect for the law" argument he used but because the bulk of the protesters are Hispanic.
And if you read his follow-up answer, he said outright that he was going to "start" by targeting Hispanics with his protest. Did you miss that?
I think your claims of bigotry should be aimed elsewhere on this thread.
That has to be the most lame-brained analogy I've seen in a long time. It is LEGAL for banks to store money. They are chartered by the government for that very purpose.
It is not legal for an employer to hire an illegal alien. Nor is it legal for an employer not to pay the requisite taxes, Social Security etc. for an employee. And if the employer's got an illegal alien working for it, it's unlikely that employer is going to be filing payroll taxes, etc on that worker.
And it's legal for employers to employ people. What's the difference?
How is the employer to know if the person is legal or not? Why should the employer be charged with this responsibility?
You are making an assumption that employers can tell if a person is an illegal alien and I agree, sometimes they can. Other times they can't. They are not experts on detecting forgeries and illegal present faked documents. Plus there is precious few things an employer can do to verify the immigration status of a prospective employee. Hell do you know how easy it is to obtain what looks like valid documents like birth certificates, SS cards, etc.?!?
Who says they are not?
You speak from ignorance. Many illegals supply quite legal looking documents and pay taxes using social security numbers that are not their's. They then can't file tax returns thus have no chance of getting anything back.
(Personally I don't think that businesses should be charged with the responsibility of being tax collectors either).
It clearly states OT in the title. Why are you reading it if you are not interested in the subject matter? And how much effort is it to simply skip over one topic?
I for one thought about moving follow-ups to my post somewhere else, but a suitable place didn't come to mind. It is not location-specific, so I couldn't move it to one of the area NGs, and since the event is unique, there is not a special newsgroup that I know of that is dedicated to this type of event.
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.