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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99351: Aug 25th 2015 at 11:38:40 AM

I was thinking about that myself. Trump's demographic is also Fox News' demographic. If Fox breaks with Trump, will that split its viewers? Will there be a ratings revolt?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#99352: Aug 25th 2015 at 11:44:14 AM

majority of Asian Americans come from the 1 percent of Asia. Not just in terms of brains but also money money money.

It's one of the theories why Asian Americans is model minority.

USA is getting not just our brightest but also our richest. At the very least, USA is getting a good chunk of that portion who knows to go where the cheese is.

Our governments tend to mishandle money so much that we instinctively have to take advantage of legal loopholes everywhere, including outright fraud of social services for the poor.

I would not particularly blame the U.S government, or anyone, who wants to attract possible personnel and investments. Everyone does it. The U.S is just better at it than anyone else.

There is a whole philosophy and jingoistic marketing strategy based on this. It is the "American Dream". Partially because of historical reasons and partially because no other nation is narcissistic enough, the U.S remains the most well known place in the world for a better living to people who feel repressed, or who are seeking better opportunities for something.

If the United States did not do it, heck, the people would get paid by anyone else if they could afford them, trust me.

Think of it in terms that are simpler yet relatable: sports. Look at your favorite sports team for the famous sportsball cup and tell me how many of them are actually your neighbors, and not some person of other nationality or ethnicity or whatever playing there because they are getting paid more, or one of these citizenship laws?

That wealthy citizens choose to take advantage of U.S stuff rather than stay in their own countries does not say much about the U.S. It says more about the country they come from.

[up][up] Oh Trump. When will your mysoginistic, angry party ever stop amusing me? I hope never, you magnificent clown.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99353: Aug 25th 2015 at 11:44:40 AM

Our governments tend to mishandle money so much
[citation needed]

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#99354: Aug 25th 2015 at 11:49:03 AM

I was thinking of Congress's dances with the budgets but I don't think this is what is meant here.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
probablyinsane Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: I LOVE THIS DOCTOR!
#99355: Aug 25th 2015 at 11:56:30 AM

[up][up] imho , you are very ignorant of Asian affairs if you need that to be cited. Just look at China.

As for anchor babies, if you wanna help the poor more in your communities via social service, supporting this is like supporting legal loopholes for the rich.

To which, I shouldn't actually be complaining because I would qualify as "rich" but I'm stupid and think that resources for the poor shouldn't be raided by the rich .

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#99356: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:00:47 PM

probablyinsane is right, corruption is huge in East Asia.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#99357: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:03:44 PM

Don't get me into poor use of public funds and corruption in South America. I am every pissed off with the scale and length of the corruption schemes running here.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99358: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:03:45 PM

Okay, if we're talking about East Asia (or South America), sure, I'll grant all the corruption you want, but I'm not sure how that forms any sort of cogent argument against migration to the United States, legal or otherwise. Hell, the "weighty hand of government in your pocket, running your affairs" is pretty darn light over here, all things considered.

edited 25th Aug '15 12:04:28 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#99359: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:06:10 PM

The US isn't as corrupt as most Americans believe it is, anchor babies and immigrants getting into for the welfare argument doesn't make sense when most immigrants are scared shitless of the US immigration service to even apply for the benefits.

Inter arma enim silent leges
probablyinsane Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: I LOVE THIS DOCTOR!
#99360: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:12:41 PM

Poor immigrants are scared shitless. Not the well-off immigrants, especially those wealthy enough to afford birth tourism packages.

I'd have to agree with bush that anchor babies have more to do with Asians rather than Latinos. Unless we're talking about the rich Latinos who can afford the 21 year wait.

But anyway, if you're OK with already wealthy immigrants who know how to game the system and find legal loopholes wherever, including doing what rich white Americans do, then so be it - let the most money-savvy hash it out in the USA.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99361: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:28:48 PM

[up] I am not as concerned with the "wealthy immigrants" for the simple reason that people with money will find ways to get what they want in any society; it is not necessary to take any special legislative action to aid them. It is the poor ones that Trump wants to mobilize our entire society to evict, and any actions that try to hinder "anchor babies" from wealthy immigrants will inevitably hurt the poor worse.

edited 25th Aug '15 12:30:08 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#99362: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:40:19 PM

I am not from the United States

But I am not sure the problem with its social security system (health and otherwise) is in trouble because of a few rich people from other countries taking advantage of it, but rather, because the rich people in their own country are refusing to spend more on it or modernize it in some ways

Maybe someone from the country itself could confirm or that. The impact that these wealthy asians could have on those services seems negligible, but granted, annoying.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99363: Aug 25th 2015 at 12:51:18 PM

All systems have cheats. People who want to tear those systems down will try to inflate the significance of anecdotal (and often apocryphal) examples of cheating in an attempt to poison the well.

The indisputable fact is that the United States' various social insurance systems (Medicare, Medicaid, SSDI, unemployment insurance, TANF, SNAP) have impressively low total amounts of fraud compared to their outlays.

Should we continue our efforts to keep the systems clean? Absolutely? Should we dwell on that as a reason not to extend benefits to more who need them? Absolutely not.

edited 25th Aug '15 12:51:48 PM 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
#99364: Aug 25th 2015 at 1:05:02 PM

I'm in the process of gaining dual Spanish citizenry. My family are the wealthy kind. But we make a point of never asking for government help in any capacity whatsoever, and paying for everything privately and without subsidies. Partly because we're scared the migration agency might count it against us, partly because, what the hell, we can afford it, and partly because the country's going through a nasty crisis and horrible austerity nonsense and it would be, we think, immoral to take even what's legally our right, stretching the community's resources when there are people who need it much more than us.

I don't know if this makes us cowardly and stupid, or prudent and honest, but there ya go. And I think we're not alone in this.

edited 25th Aug '15 1:05:35 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#99365: Aug 25th 2015 at 1:13:51 PM

I think part of the problem is that people judge the overall government by their interactions with the state/local systems and agencies, which do tend to be more corrupt overall (mainly because people pay much less attention to those elections).

Not too hard to jump to the assumption that this corruption you just dealt with is intrinsic to the whole system. It also doesn't help that the "power corrupts" doctrine sometimes gets tossed around, making it look like the national government is even more corrupt, because of the difference in degrees of exercised power. (So tempting to make a "power levels" joke here.)

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99366: Aug 25th 2015 at 1:55:20 PM

There's also the observed fact (in American politics if not elsewhere) that the party with a vested interest in tearing down social support systems will deliberately weaken the oversight provisions and/or administrative funding of those systems while they have executive or legislative power over them. They then use the inevitable negative consequences to proclaim, "See, I told you we can't trust our government!"

The term for this is "starving the beast", which was coined during the Reagan era but evokes the image of deliberately withholding food from a predatory animal so that it will attack people and be declared a menace. note 

The archetypal example is the execrable disaster relief response by FEMA to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which became a rallying cry for the right against the ability of the government to perform its purported function. What nobody on the right mentioned was that George W. Bush had replaced the head of FEMA with a political crony early in his administration and reduced its funding, guaranteeing that it would be less competent when the time came.

edited 25th Aug '15 2:24:09 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#99367: Aug 25th 2015 at 2:40:41 PM

In more amusing news: Obama gets trolled on the golf course by former MLB player Derek Jeter.

The sad part being that someone's probably going to try to spin this against him. Still, funny. [lol]

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#99368: Aug 25th 2015 at 3:00:06 PM

Rick Perry, whose presidential campaign is struggling to raise money and is no longer paying its staff, lost his Iowa campaign chairman on Monday.

Sam Clovis, one of Iowa’s most prominent conservatives who had been leading Perry’s campaign in the state, confirmed in an interview that he had left the Perry campaign in part because he was no longer being compensated. He said he is in conversations to sign up with another Republican candidate.

Maybe This Time Really Is Different (Why Trump might be different and how the Republican base has been in a pressure cooker since Goldwater)

(Matthew Yglesias at Vox) If you want to understand Donald Trump, look to the success of the European far-right

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#99369: Aug 25th 2015 at 3:14:16 PM

[up][up][up] I've always heard the phrase starving the beast meant starving it to death, not starving it into incompetence so as to make people want to cut it, as in the minds of the people wanting to starve the thing it is already incompetent. Do you have a source for your claim?

[up] Oh joy we are becoming more like Europe isn't this grand[lol]sad

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#99370: Aug 25th 2015 at 3:40:04 PM

[up] You are correct about the original usage, but it it has evolved a bit over the years.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#99371: Aug 25th 2015 at 3:41:11 PM

[up][up] Haven't you listened to Ann Coulter?! Becoming like Europe IS BAD! We're introducing soccer and the metric system, and that's just like goddamn European socialism!

edited 25th Aug '15 3:41:43 PM by SciFiSlasher

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#99372: Aug 25th 2015 at 4:13:16 PM

[up] But becoming just like Europe would make all our problems go away. We'd be awash in immigrants, who we would be incapable of assimilating, have unemployment rates that make the current ones look good, have a job youth job market that makes the current one look like it's in an economic boom, be slaves to austerity, be incapable of defending ourselves, and be unable to control our own currency.tongue

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#99374: Aug 25th 2015 at 4:22:22 PM

[up]You can get that by becoming just Canada. grin

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#99375: Aug 25th 2015 at 4:29:50 PM

[up][up] But we just got public health care sweetie. Why don't you go play with that[lol]

edited 25th Aug '15 4:30:30 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

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