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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54126: May 7th 2013 at 1:04:21 AM

I'll have to change my assessment of his point from "incorrect" to "irrelevant" as I'm not even sure why he'd bring it up given the conversation going on at the time.

I'm a legal immigrant, I'm still in danger of getting kicked out forever at the first speeding ticket. "No, sir, we cannot renew your residence card, you have legal antecedents." "It was a speeding ticket." "We don't give a fuck."

An acquaintance of mine, from my country, was arrested here once on charges of rape, and spent one night at the police post. Turns out it was a local who did it, who just looked like him a lot, and the girl was confused. The true culprit was arrested and imprisoned. Yet the mere fact that this guy spent a single night in the police station, even if he turned out to be 100% innocent, was enough grounds to deny him renewal of residence.

Also, the illegals who are already here do feel entitled to stay. They'd like to become legal, certainly, but even being illegal crap here is better than being legal crap back home.

edited 7th May '13 1:05:59 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#54127: May 7th 2013 at 6:51:58 AM

[up] Okay, that is just dumb. If he had committed theft or actually did attack the girl, sure that would be understandable, but just spending a night at the police station? Really? That's a little too strict.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#54128: May 7th 2013 at 6:55:23 AM

There's this idea that immigrants must be 100% perfect or we kick them out, and that vision of perfection includes even the taint of an accusation, no matter how factual. Never mind that we don't apply the same standards to our own citizens.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
IConfuseMe from Washington, DC Since: Jan, 2010
#54129: May 7th 2013 at 6:57:52 AM

For that matter, we damn near demand they be 100% perfect before we let them in legally. So much for Give me your tired and your poor...

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54130: May 7th 2013 at 6:58:02 AM

[up][up]That's not "a little too strict", that's beyond "unfair" and into the blatantly absurd. There's a quota of legal immigrants they want to let in every year, and a quota they want to kick out, and any excuse is valid. At least it's better than scenes like this:

“Daddy said, 'I ain't done nothing,' and he said, 'I know it, I'm gonna whip you to keep you from doing nothing,' and he hit him with that cowhide.

[up]Yup. Legal entry is for the middle classes.

edited 7th May '13 7:01:53 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#54131: May 7th 2013 at 7:18:42 AM

You've hit the nail on the head in a very fundamental way: We apply far stricter moral standards to the poor than we do to the middle class or especially the wealthy. As most immigrants are poor, the weight of this moral judgement falls very heavily on them.

edited 7th May '13 7:19:26 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54132: May 7th 2013 at 7:22:57 AM

Oh, I disagree. The poor are a lost cause; natural criminals. The rich are above the law. It's the middle classes (I'm especially thinking, MD's and the like, Lawyers and such, Architects, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Researchers, Professors and Teachers...) that are under the most scrutiny, under the tightest control. It is they who lead the blandest, most regimented lives. It is they who have the intellectual resources to trigger revolutions, and the need to do so. So let's keep them "happy", and let's keep them on leash.

Proles, on the other hand, are allowed to mouth off as much as they want, because they're seen as powerless, ignorant, and easily distracted and manipulated. So they're given enough rope to hang themselves with.

edited 7th May '13 7:26:21 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
CaptainKatsura Decoy from    Poland    Since: Jul, 2011
Decoy
#54133: May 7th 2013 at 7:26:31 AM

I wonder how high would be my chances to immigrate to USA. They would probably find my ultra high positive attitude to USA bordering on Yanderish level. 8D

I plan to immigrate to Canada though since as a legal translator I could find job easier there. I need only to master French.

My President is Funny Valentine.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54134: May 7th 2013 at 7:27:54 AM

Canada is great. The only problem is the unpleasant weather.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
CaptainKatsura Decoy from    Poland    Since: Jul, 2011
Decoy
#54135: May 7th 2013 at 7:31:29 AM

Please. I live in Poland. As the name suggests, not that far from the North Pole as well.

My President is Funny Valentine.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54136: May 7th 2013 at 7:37:00 AM

Maïnski, ooh là là...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#54137: May 7th 2013 at 9:16:35 AM

@ Handle:

Oh, I disagree. The poor are a lost cause; natural criminals. The rich are above the law. It's the middle classes (I'm especially thinking, MD's and the like, Lawyers and such, Architects, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Researchers, Professors and Teachers...) that are under the most scrutiny, under the tightest control. It is they who lead the blandest, most regimented lives. It is they who have the intellectual resources to trigger revolutions, and the need to do so. So let's keep them "happy", and let's keep them on leash.

Proles, on the other hand, are allowed to mouth off as much as they want, because they're seen as powerless, ignorant, and easily distracted and manipulated. So they're given enough rope to hang themselves with.

Side Note: I've read books where British Society is described more or less the same way — those at the top and bottom have far laxer moral codes than the Middle Classes, and often have more in common with each other than the Middle.

Keep Rolling On
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54138: May 7th 2013 at 9:20:31 AM

To be honest, I plagiarized the observation from Nineteen Eighty Four.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#54139: May 7th 2013 at 9:22:07 AM

If it were really true that moral restrictions are relaxed on the poor, then why are we so eager to throw them in prison and use their supposed lack of morality as an excuse to justify their poverty?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#54140: May 7th 2013 at 9:22:43 AM

[up][up] Well, George Orwell was British.

[up]

Because the Middle Classes make and enforce the rules? And it is less that restrictions are relaxed, more like at both ends nobody cares about the "Rules".

edited 7th May '13 9:30:49 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#54141: May 7th 2013 at 9:25:23 AM

[up]Yes, that's why I mentioned it.

[up][up]It's not to reform them, but to punish them. One still assumes they constantly break the rules, simply because they need to.

Just between you and me, there's few things I find more depressing than lower-class people who attempt to behave like middle-class and work hard on Keeping Up Appearances.

This reminds me of a particularly tear-jerking scene from Feet Of Clay

Vimes told himself he was really going to inspect the progress on the new Watch House in Chittling Street. Cockbill Street was just round the corner. And then he'd call in, informally. No sense in sparing a man when they were pushed anyway, what with these murders and Vetinari and Detritus's anti-Slab crusade. He turned the corner, and stopped. Nothing much had changed. That was the shocking thing. After . . . oh, too many years . . . things had no right not to have changed. But washing lines still criss-crossed the street between the grey, ancient buildings. Antique paint still peeled in the way cheap paint peeled when it had been painted on wood too old and rotten to take paint. Cockbill Street people were usually too penniless to afford decent paint, but always far too proud to use whitewash.

And the place was slightly smaller than he remembered. That was all.

When had he last come down here? He couldn't remember. It was beyond the Shades, and up until quite recently the Watch had tended to leave that area to its own unspeakable devices.

Unlike the Shades, though, Cockbill Street was clean, with the haunting, empty cleanliness you get when people can't afford to waste dirt. For Cockbill Street was where people lived who were worse than poor, because they didn't know how poor they were. If you asked them they would probably say something like 'mustn't grumble' or 'there's far worse off than us' or 'we've always kept uz heads above water and we don't owe nobody nowt'.

He could hear his granny speaking. 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.

What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that"?

Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.

People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless. All the laws and rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

It was oddly quiet. Normally there'd be swarms of kids, and carts heading down towards the docks, but today the place had a shut-in look.

In the middle of the road was a chalked hopscotch path.

Vimes felt his knees go weak. It was still here! When had he last seen it? Thirty-five years ago? Forty? So it must have been drawn and redrawn thousands of times.

He'd been pretty good at it. Of course, they'd played it by Ankh-Morpork rules. Instead of kicking a stone they'd kicked William Scuggins. It had been just one of the many inventive games they'd played which had involved kicking, chasing or jumping on William Scuggins until he threw one of his famous wobblers and started frothing and violently attacking himself.

Vimes had been able to drop William in the square of his choice nine times out often. The tenth time, William bit his leg. In those days, tormenting William and finding enough to eat had made for a simple, straightforward life. There weren't so many questions you didn't know the answers to, except maybe how to stop your leg festering.

Sir Samuel looked around, saw the silent street, and flicked a stone out of the gutter with his foot. Then he booted it surreptitiously along the squares, adjusted his cloak, and hopped and jumped his way up, turned, hopped¡

What was it you shouted as you hopped? 'Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper?'? No? Or was it the one that went 'William Scuggins is a bastard'? Now he'd wonder about that all day.

A door opened across the street. Vimes froze, one leg in mid-air, as two black-clothed figures came out slowly and awkwardly. This was because they were carrying a coffin.

The natural solemnity of the occasion was diminished by their having to squeeze around it and out into the street, pulling the casket after them and allowing two other pairs of bearers to edge their way into the daylight.

Vimes remembered himself in time to lower his other foot, and then remembered even more of himself and snatched his helmet off in respect.

Another coffin emerged. It was a lot smaller. It needed only two people to carry it and that was really one too many. As mourners trooped out behind them, Vimes fumbled in a pocket for the scrap of paper Detritus had given him. The scene was, in its way, funny, like the bit in a circus where the coach stops and a dozen clowns get out of it. Apartment houses round here made up for their limited number of rooms by having a large number of people occupy them.

He found the paper and unfolded it. First Floor Back, 27 Cockbill Street.

And this was it. He'd arrived in time for a funeral. Two funerals.

edited 7th May '13 10:28:54 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
terlwyth Since: Oct, 2010
#54143: May 7th 2013 at 10:29:11 AM

So basically Sanford actually won. -Face Desk-

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#54144: May 7th 2013 at 10:29:42 AM

[up][up]Why is Christie's gastric band newsworthy? The guy had to seriously start taking steps... <shrugs> He's been a stroke and a heart-attack on legs for years. <_< Good on him for biting the bullet, as the other things he's tried have obviously failed repeatedly.

And, that's about all the import there is to it. <shrugs again>

edited 7th May '13 10:30:21 AM by Euodiachloris

DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#54145: May 7th 2013 at 10:35:35 AM

[up][up]

It hasn't been decided yet.

Mark Sanford feels ‘calm’ on ‘day of judgment’

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#54146: May 7th 2013 at 11:11:36 AM

@Euo: Mainly, a fat guy loses points in a White House race. If George W. Bush wasn't better-looking than Al Gore, he wouldn't have won. Chris Christie was massively obese, and who's going to vote for a guy who looks like a Corrupt Hick?

That's what makes it relevant, even if he says it's about his health.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#54147: May 7th 2013 at 11:13:17 AM

Also as a potential 2016 candidate his health is rather important, as it's going to make people take a long look at the VP candidate if he's nominated.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#54148: May 7th 2013 at 11:13:53 AM

I'm a legal immigrant, I'm still in danger of getting kicked out forever[...]
Which is stupid and should be changed, certainly, but has nothing to do with border security, which is what was under discussion at the time of the initial comment.

Also, the illegals who are already here do feel entitled to stay
I'm sure they do, but that doesn't make it so. My point was that immigrants to the US are bound to deal with the US's immigration rules — either by following them, or run the risk of the consequences of not following them. Certainly, we should strive to make our immigration rules as reasonable as possible, but what I was objecting to was the idea that immigrants have a right to immigrate regardless of the rules. They don't. The rules are there, whether they're good rules or not, and we can't just ignore them because we don't like them. Get them changed so we do like them? Absolutely. But just toss them out? No.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Karkadinn Karkadinn from New Orleans, Louisiana Since: Jul, 2009
Karkadinn
#54149: May 7th 2013 at 11:47:24 AM

If you're talking about 'rights' in a legal sense, then that's correct. But we need to be careful not to confuse legal arguments with moral ones, which is what people often do when they start talking about whether someone has the 'right' to something or not. 'He/she has the right' often is conflated with 'he/she deserves.'

It's also worth noting that bad rules (almost?) always are changed by the impetus provided in the act of ignoring them, not by admitting they're bad and following them anyway. If 'well this sucks but it's the law so let's obey it' was a popularly followed philosophy, black people'd probably still be sitting at the back of the bus. The truth is that bad laws are instinctively and routinely ignored by the populace at large, both legal residents and illegal residents, because we know they're bad.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#54150: May 7th 2013 at 12:00:23 PM

Let me state for the record that I'm not against civil disobedience, but I also believe that a person willingly breaking a law should not act shocked if he/she gets prosecuted for doing so. That's the risk you take, and if you aren't prepared to deal with the potential consequences, you shouldn't be doing it.

I've been trying to explain this concept to my seven year old son. When I say that there will be a punishment for breaking a rule, I mean it, and saying "sorry" after the fact doesn't get you out of the punishment. That grown adults can fail to grasp it is absurd.

Of course, a law that isn't enforced might as well not exist at all, so there's a certain give-and-take in the process, and one can legitimately cry foul about selective enforcement; for example, prosecuting violations only to make a point, or put on a show.

edited 7th May '13 12:03:59 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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